Japan resumes building of a new nuclear plant

OMA, Japan - At the remote northwestern tip of a snowy peninsula, beyond a small road of fishing shacks and empty one-story homes, 600 construction workers and engineers are building a brand-new nuclear plant for a country still recovering from the most severe atomic accident since Chernobyl.

The main reactor building is already at its full height, though draped in heavy fabric to protect it from the wind and freezing temperatures. A 500-foot crane swivels overhead. A completed power line stretches along a nearby ridge, where it might one day carry electricity down the peninsula and back toward the Japanese mainland.

In the aftermath of March 2011 meltdowns in Fukushima that contaminated 700 square miles with radiation and forced 150,000 to flee their homes, Japan's utility companies paused nearly all nuclear-related projects. The accident sparked a global debate about nuclear power, but it was especially fierce in Japan, where all 50 operable reactors were taken off-line and work was halted on three new plants where building had been under way.

But two of the existing reactors are back in action, and the resumption of construction at the Oma Nuclear Power Plant - a project that broke ground in 2008 and was halted by the operator, J-Power, after the accident - marks the clearest sign yet that the stalemate is breaking.

The green light for the new plan was, at its root, a bet by the energy company that Japan will come to again support and rely on nuclear power, which provided about one-third of Japan's electricity before the Fukushima crisis.

Analysts say that predicting the direction of Japan's atomic future is difficult and that J-Power's decision is a risky one because a majority opposes long-term nuclear dependence.