Failure of world's 1st offshore floating wind farm in Fukushima disappoints 3.11 survivors
March 6, 2021 (Mainichi Japan)
This Oct. 4, 2013 file photo shows a wind power generation facility floating off Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture. (Mainichi/Takashi Morita)
FUKUSHIMA -- About seven years after the world's first floating wind turbine was installed off the eastern Japan prefecture of Fukushima, the Japanese government announced its withdrawal from the offshore wind farm, disappointing survivors of the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
The turbine, dubbed "Fukushima Mirai (future)," was placed in the Pacific Ocean some 20 kilometers off the town of Naraha in Fukushima Prefecture, and unveiled to media in October 2013, about 2 1/2 years after the quake and tsunami that triggered the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (now Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.) It was the first installation of an offshore wind farm that the central government and others were building. As its name indicated, it was seen as a harbinger of Fukushima's "future" with the introduction of natural, wind-generated energy.