Antinuclear

Local governments are making progress on their goal of generating all of the prefecture’s power from renewable sources by 2040

Cattle farmer Minoru Kobayashi has built solar arrays on land that can’t be used for farming

IITATE, Japan—Many residents of Fukushima prefecture are still angry about the nuclear disaster five years ago that contaminated towns, farm fields and forests. But as the cleanup continues, local governments and some business owners here are channeling their frustration into something positive: clean-energy development.

Fukushima prefecture, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo and roughly the size of Connecticut, was the site of the devastating meltdown of the Daiichi nuclear-power plant following an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. Since then, most of Japan’s 50-plus nuclear plants, which were shut down after the accident for a safety review, have remained off line.

Determined to move away from nuclear energy permanently, local governments in…