Photo/Illutration The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant on the coast of Niigata Prefecture (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

It was last spring while covering the aftermath of the Noto Peninsula’s New Year’s Day earthquake that a local resident shared a sentiment I have found impossible to forget.

Standing amid the wreckage, a man from a mountain community—cut off for a time after landslides blocked the roads and severed utility lines—spoke with a sense of jarring realization.

“It really brought it home to me: when the electricity is gone, we are rendered completely powerless.”

To keep warm, to access information, to eat, to drink—no, it goes far deeper than that. To summon help, to tell the time, to maintain sanitation, to treat the sick—electricity is the invisible thread tied to everything, underpinning every convenience of modern life.

Yet, this total reliance comes with a stark trade-off. The moment the power vanishes, convenience instantly collapses into survival. The very depth of our dependence is what makes our society so fragile.

The governor of Niigata Prefecture is now poised to approve the restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, a facility in the northern Japanese prefecture that has sat dormant since March 2012.

While the plan is expected to clear the prefectural assembly, the implication is profound.

It means that Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility responsible for the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, will resume nuclear operations for the first time, even as the road map for decommissioning its ruined reactors remains fraught with uncertainty.

Public opinion in the prefecture is cleaved nearly down the middle: 50 percent support the restart, 47 percent oppose it.

Yet, despite the loss of so much in Fukushima that was irreplaceable, and while countless people remain deeply torn, the country is taking another major, consequential step down the path toward a “return to nuclear power.”

If we question the rationale or the righteousness of this policy, we are told that it is necessary for our daily lives, that we need a stable power supply. But I wonder if that is really true.

In a Japan marked by demographic decline, rural depopulation and recurring disasters, is it truly realistic to continue prioritizing energy expansion and allowing our society to grow ever more dependent on electricity?

I am reminded of Yukiko Mihara, the Fukushima poet, who wrote, “We were taught/ to take pride/ in producing electricity for Tokyo.”

Reading her words again, I feel their weight.

Another one of her poems goes: “When the subject of nuclear power comes up/ it becomes easy to see/ who a person really is.”

—The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 21

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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