Nuclear security

Why was the Sendai nuclear power plant restarted?

Two of Japan’s reactors—Units 1 and 2 of the Kyushu Electric Power Company’s Sendai nuclear power plant—have just restarted, and Unit 1 should begin generating electricity on August 14. Like all other Japanese nuclear power plants, Sendai was shut down after the events at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011, in which an earthquake, a tsunami, egregious design mistakes, and a poor safety culture combined to form “a cascade of stupid errors” that led to a triple meltdown.