The governor of Niigata Prefecture will visit the site of the Fukushima disaster on Tuesday, a key trip before he decides on whether to approve the restart of a separate nuclear plant in his own region.
Niigata Gov. Hideyo Hanazumi is expected to soon make a decision on Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings' (Tepco) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa facility, the world’s largest nuclear power facility. The governor had said that he wanted to see Tepco’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant beforehand, which an official with the Niigata Prefectural Government said will happen on Tuesday.
Local government approval is the last step before the No. 6 reactor at the power plant, which was taken offline in the wake of the 2011 disaster, can restart. The trip follows the governor’s visit to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant on Friday, where he stopped short of endorsing restart.
Restarting the facility would be a shot in the arm for the central government, which wants to restore more of the nation’s idled fleet of reactors to reduce dependence on fossil fuel imports.
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