00:00Japan is moving closer to restarting the world's largest nuclear power plant,
00:05marking a major shift in its energy policy nearly 15 years after the Fukushima disaster.
00:12Lawmakers in Niigata Prefecture have backed the governor in a confidence vote,
00:17clearing the final political hurdle for the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant to resume operations.
00:23The plant was among 54 reactors shut down after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami
00:31triggered the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
00:36It would be the first nuclear restart by Tokyo Electric Power Company,
00:41the operator of the doomed Fukushima plant.
00:44Japan has already restarted 14 reactors as it looks to reduce its heavy dependence on imported fossil fuels,
00:50which still supply up to 70 percent of its electricity.
00:54The government says rising demand, driven by power-hungry AI data centers, is forcing a rethink.
01:00Tokyo now plans to double nuclear energy's share of the power mix to 20 percent by 2040.
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