On the windy Sea of Japan coast, in a region known for heavy snowfall and sake brewing, the world’s largest nuclear plant sits idle.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, a sprawling 4.2-million square meter complex by the sea, was once the crown jewel in Japan’s strategy to boost atomic power to 50% of the country’s energy mix by 2030. Inside, a framed certificate from Guinness World Records acknowledges the facility’s potential output of 8.2 gigawatts as the most globally.
Right now that output — which would be enough to power more than 13 million households — is zero. The seven reactors at KK, as the facility is known, were shuttered after the 2011 tsunami and meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 plant in the Tohoku region that prompted the government to rethink its dependence on nuclear energy.
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