POWER UP

Japan Restarts Nuclear Reactor

Despite continuing safety concerns.

Japan’s flipping the switch Sunday on its first nuclear reactor to go back online after a prolonged series of safety checks. Public opinion on the risks involved with nuclear power remains divided, however, and protests Friday drew tens of thousands of people who chanted “No to nuclear restarts”—an unusually public display of discontent in Japan. The country’s 50 nuclear reactors were powered down after the Fukushima disaster, but government officials have since said that nuclear power is necessary to meet the energy needs of modern Japan. “It is a lie that nuclear energy is clean,” one protester said. “After experiencing the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how can Japan possibly want nuclear power?”