NIIGATA, Japan — Japan took the final step to allow the restart of the world’s largest nuclear power plant on Monday as the region of Niigata voted to resume operations, a watershed moment in the country’s return to nuclear energy nearly 15 years after the Fukushima disaster.

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, located about 220 kilometers (km) (136 miles) northwest of Tokyo, was among 54 reactors shut after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Since then, Japan has restarted 14 of the 33 that remain operable, as it tries to wean itself off imported fossil fuels. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa will be the first operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which ran the doomed Fukushima plant.

On Monday, Niigata prefecture’s assembly passed a vote of confidence on Niigata Governor Hideyo Hanazumi, who backed the restart last month, effectively allowing the plant to begin operations again.

Ahead of the vote, around 300 protesters, mostly older people, holding banners reading “No Nukes,” “We oppose the restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa” and “Support Fukushima” gathered in front of the Niigata prefecture assembly in temperatures of 6 degrees Celsius (42.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

As the rally started, the mostly older crowd sang “Furusato” — a national song about connection to a birthplace, meaning “homeland” in Japanese.

“Is TEPCO qualified to run Kashiwazaki-Kariwa?” a protester asked into the microphone, with the crowd yelling: “No!”

TEPCO is considering reactivating the first of seven reactors at the plant on Jan. 20, public broadcaster NHK reported.

“We remain firmly committed to never repeating such an accident and ensuring Niigata residents never experience anything similar,” said TEPCO spokesperson Masakatsu Takata. Mr. Takata declined to comment on timing.

RELUCTANT RESIDENTS WARY OF RESTART
TEPCO earlier this year pledged to inject 100 billion yen ($641 million) into the prefecture over the next 10 years as it sought to win the support of Niigata residents.

But many locals remain wary.

A survey published by the prefecture in October found 60% of residents did not think conditions for the restart had been met. Nearly 70% were worried about TEPCO operating the plant.

Ayako Oga, 52, settled in Niigata after fleeing the area around the Fukushima plant in 2011 with 160,000 other evacuees. Her old home was inside the 20-km irradiated exclusion zone.

The farmer and anti-nuclear activist has now joined protests against what she sees as a new threat on her doorstep.

“We know firsthand the risk of a nuclear accident and cannot dismiss it,” said Ms. Oga, adding that she still struggles with post-traumatic stress-like symptoms from what happened at Fukushima.

Even Mr. Hanazumi hopes that Japan will eventually be able to reduce its reliance on nuclear power. “I want to see an era where we don’t have to rely on energy sources that cause anxiety,” he said.

STRENGTHENING ENERGY SECURITY
The Monday vote was seen as the final hurdle before TEPCO restarts the first reactor, which alone could boost electricity supply to the Tokyo area by 2%, Japan’s trade ministry has estimated.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who took office two months ago, has backed nuclear restarts to strengthen energy security and to counter the cost of imported fossil fuels, which account for 60% to 70% of Japan’s electricity generation.

Japan spent 10.7 trillion yen ($68 billion) last year on imported liquefied natural gas and coal, a tenth of its total import costs.

Despite its shrinking population, Japan expects energy demand to rise over the coming decade due to a boom in power-hungry artificial intelligence data centers.

To meet those needs, and its decarbonization commitments, it has set a target of doubling the share of nuclear power in its electricity mix to 20% by 2040.

Joshua Ngu, vice chairman for Asia Pacific at consultancy Wood Mackenzie, said public acceptance of the restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, would represent “a critical milestone” towards reaching those goals.

In July, Kansai Electric Power, Japan’s top nuclear power operator, said it would begin conducting surveys for a reactor in western Japan, the first new unit since the Fukushima disaster.

But for Ms. Oga, who also joined Monday’s protests outside the assembly chanting “Never forget Fukushima’s lessons!” together with others, the nuclear revival is a terrifying reminder of the potential risks.

“As a victim of the Fukushima nuclear accident, I wish that no one, whether in Japan or anywhere in the world, ever again suffers the damage of a nuclear accident,” she said. ($1 = 155.9200 yen). — Reuters

SEOUL — South Korea’s parliament passed a bill on Monday to launch an independent probe into the Jeju Air plane crash in December 2024 that killed 179 people in the deadliest air disaster on the country’s soil.

A panel made up of 18 members of parliament will investigate the possible causes of the crash, including whether enough was done against the risk of a bird strike, any engine or mechanical failures and an embankment that the plane struck at the end of the runway.

The inquiry will also investigate whether government agencies tried to cover up or downplay anything that was found during the official investigation, according to the bill.

A Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 made a belly-landing at Muan airport without its landing gear down after an aborted landing, overshot the runway and slammed into an embankment, killing all but two of the 181 people on board as it erupted in a fireball.

An investigation by the government-led Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board had yet to produce a final report. It said in an interim report in January that the aircraft’s two engines sustained bird strikes.

In an update seen by Reuters in July, the board found the left engine had been shut down even though it sustained less damage than the right and could have kept the aircraft flying.

The embankment at the end of the runway that supported airport navigation equipment was found to be not in line with global standards that call for such a structure to be set up in a way that would easily give way in case of impact, experts say.

Most air accidents are caused by multiple factors and experts caution against putting too much weight on incomplete evidence. — Reuters

BEIJING — A revamp of China’s electricity market is boosting the economics of storing power just as international demand surges, sparking a boom for the Chinese energy storage manufacturers that already dominate globally.

Chinese firms are on track for a 75% jump this year in global shipments of lithium-ion battery cells for energy storage, according to one estimate.

They have exported more than $65 billion worth of storage and electric vehicle (EV) batteries this year, cementing their dominance in a sector vital to backing up wind and solar and keeping power coursing through artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.

The surge in sales is driven by data centers and renewables domestically, as well as by Chinese reforms and subsidies that are boosting general demand for energy storage. International demand is rising in tandem with the surging growth in data centers, a need to back up Europe’s ageing grid and China’s burgeoning renewable energy business in the Middle East, analysts say.

GOING GLOBAL
“These leading energy storage cell makers, they have full orders. Many of them are basically working double shifts now to try and meet demand,” said analyst Cosimo Ries at policy research firm Trivium China. The boom “is one of the biggest surprises of the year, I think, in China’s energy space.”

UBS last month raised its 2026 forecast for global battery energy storage installations by 25%.

The International Energy Agency forecasts global investment in battery storage facilities will rise 16% this year to $66 billion. Much of that is set to be captured by Chinese firms because while Tesla is number one in energy storage systems, China dominates production of the tiny cells inside them.

All of the six top global cell suppliers — Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL), HiTHIUM, EVE Energy, BYD, CALB and REPT BATTERO — are Chinese, according to a January-to-September ranking by consultancy Infolink. Of the top 10, only Japan’s AESC is not from China.

EVE’s energy storage sales volume rose 35.51% in the first three quarters from the same period last year. REPT BATTERO’s third-quarter shipments of all batteries set a record high. Top EV players CATL and BYD did not break out energy storage shipments through the third quarter. Storage has historically made up less of their revenue than automotive batteries and EVs, although the proportion is growing.

“Pairing solar with storage has effectively become the only solution for meeting US AI data center power needs,” UBS analyst Yishu Yan told a media briefing. “US AI data center power demand is very robust, but power is the biggest bottleneck, and US baseload power — gas, nuclear, thermal — they won’t grow much in the next five years.”

However, Ms. Yan said, Chinese manufacturers face risks from US restrictions on projects receiving investment tax credits that involve designated “foreign entities of concern,” which include China.

POWER MARKET SHAKE-UP
China’s battery exports, including for EVs and energy storage, hit a record $66.761 billion in the first 10 months of the year, according to data from energy think tank Ember. Batteries have been China’s most lucrative clean-technology export since 2022, surpassing solar photovoltaics.

That is likely to grow again next year, as Infolink anticipates global energy storage cell shipments could rise to 800 gigawatt-hours, a 33% to 43% increase from this year’s forecasts.

China’s exports of energy storage and other non-automotive batteries rose 51.4% in the first 11 months from the same period last year, faster than the 40.6% growth in EV battery exports, according to the China Electric Vehicle Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance.

China already has the world’s largest battery energy storage fleet — some 40% of the global total — driven in part by local government mandates for developers to add storage to wind and solar projects. China’s battery storage this year overtook its capacity of conventional pumped hydro, a geographically more limited technology that uses water stored behind dams to generate electricity when needed.

However, much of that battery storage capacity has sat idle because it was not profitable to operate.

That model is changing with reforms in June that required newly built projects to sell their power through market-based auctions, instead of at a fixed rate. As a result, it has become more profitable to run a storage plant that profits by recharging when prices are low and discharging when prices are high.

Energy storage plants ran longer in the third quarter, after the reforms passed, hitting an average 3.08 hours per day, up 0.78 hours from a year earlier and up 0.23 hours from the previous three months, according to the China Electricity Council.

This is happening against the backdrop of a new $35-billion government plan to nearly double battery storage by 2027 as well as new provincial-level subsidies. Since late 2024, 10 Chinese provinces have rolled out capacity tariffs — special payments for providers to keep capacity on standby — in addition to other subsidies, according to Jefferies.

It is “the most decisive policy shift for energy storage in over a decade,” Jefferies analyst Johnson Wan wrote in a note. — Reuters