Qualla: Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant

Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant: Introduction

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Japan_location_map_with_side_map_of_the_Ryukyu_Islands.svg: Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) File:Japan (orthographic projection).svg: (Connormah) derivative work: W.Rebel (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Everyone remembers Fukushima Daiichi. Almost nobody remembers what happened 12 kilometers to the south. On the afternoon of March 11, 2011, the same magnitude 9.0 earthquake shook Fukushima Daini, and the same 14-meter tsunami -- more than twice the plant's 5.2-meter design basis -- slammed into its four boiling water reactors. Every unit scrammed automatically. Power lines fell. Seawater pumps drowned. The suppression pools began heating toward catastrophe. But Daini had one thing Daiichi did not: a single surviving external high-voltage power line. That fragile thread of electricity, and the 2,000 workers who refused to let go of it, made all the difference.

Image: Japan_location_map_with_side_map_of_the_Ryukyu_Islands.svg: Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) File:Japan (orthographic projection).svg: (Connormah) derivative work: W.Rebel (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant: Nine Kilometers of Cable, One Ton at a Time

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FukushimaRadiationPlot-Log-Mar19.png: Xerxes314 derivative work: Blogbreather (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. With the central control room still lit by that one remaining power line, operators could see the numbers that mattered: reactor temperatures and water levels. They knew exactly how much time they had. While the steam-powered reactor core isolation cooling systems bought hours of...

Image: FukushimaRadiationPlot-Log-Mar19.png: Xerxes314 derivative work: Blogbreather (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant: Four Days to Cold Shutdown

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Japan_location_map_with_side_map_of_the_Ryukyu_Islands.svg: Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) File:Japan (orthographic projection).svg: (Connormah) derivative work: W.Rebel (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. By March 13, repair crews had restored the seawater pumps for Units 1, 2, and 4. The Residual Heat Removal systems came back online, first cooling the superheated suppression pools below 100 degrees Celsius, then drawing heat from the reactor cores themselves. Unit 2 reached cold...

Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant: The Evacuation and the Return

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MartinGugino, CC BY 3.0. Residents within a 10-kilometer radius were ordered to leave on March 12, and a no-fly zone was imposed around the plant. But unlike the area around Daiichi, the land surrounding Daini did not become seriously contaminated. By August 2012, some evacuees from the nearby town of Na...

Image: MartinGugino | CC BY 3.0

Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant: Decommissioning a Plant That Survived

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geralt de Riv, CC BY-SA 4.0. Fukushima Daini never generated another watt of electricity after March 11, 2011. For eight years, the four BWR-5 reactors -- each rated at 1,100 megawatts -- sat idle while the local community demanded a final decision. On July 31, 2019, TEPCO's board of directors voted to decom...

Image: Geralt de Riv | CC BY-SA 4.0