Japan earthquake casts cloud over push to restart nuclear plants

Nuclear power plants dot the coast of mountainous Japan, which is prone to earthquakes and tsunamis due to its location on the seismically active "Ring of Fire" around the Pacific Ocean. Monday's magnitude 7.6 earthquake, which has killed more than 80 people in the Hokuriku region, destroyed infrastructure and left homes without power, struck days after regulators lifted an operational ban on Tokyo Electric's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. "The Japanese public is still generally less positive toward nuclear power now than they were before the Fukushima disaster," analysts at Rystad Energy wrote in a client note. After the Jan. 1 quake Tepco reported water had spilled from nuclear fuel pools at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant - the world's largest - but said radiation levels were normal. While prolonged power plant outages, like in 2022, could trigger purchases of the super-chilled fuel, spot power prices indicated business as usual, Rystad said.