Unit 6 of Japan’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant is providing power once again. Besides a return to cheap, reliable energy, this event is cause for celebrating the population’s release from the nameless, unreasoning fear that had gripped them since the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami: Unreasoning, because, in spite of damage to the four units of the plant, no acute (or even mild) radiation sickness has afflicted the workers or the public.
Although this is not the first unit of a Japanese nuclear plant brought back online, bringing Kashiwazaki-Kariwa back, with its 8 GW potential, the biggest in the world, is a return to rationality, not to mention cheap, safe and reliable energy.
