japan backs nuclear time since fukushima

In a 2015 poll by the pro-nuclear Japan Atomic Energy Relations Organization, 47.9 percent of respondents said that nuclear energy should be abolished gradually and 14.8 percent said that it should be abolished immediately. The most serious challenge that policymakers and the nuclear industry face in Japan is a loss of public trust, which remains low six years after the meltdowns. Japan’s Basic Energy Law requires the government to release a strategic energy plan every three years, so debate over the new plan is expected to start sometime this year. In 2012 then-Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s government announced that it would try to phase out all nuclear power by 2040, after existing plants reached the end of their 40-year licensed operating lives. After the meltdowns at Fukushima, Japanese utilities shut down their 50 intact reactors one by one. When the earthquake and tsunami struck in 2011, Japan had 54 operating nuclear reactors which produced about one-third of its electricity supply. To move forward, Japan needs to find a new way of making decisions about its energy future. However, Japan’s current energy policy assumes nuclear power will play a role. The Japanese public has lost faith in nuclear safety regulation, and a majority favors phasing out nuclear power.

The government is developing a plan under which consumers and citizens will bear some of those costs through higher electric rates, taxes or both. In late 2016 the government estimated total costs from the nuclear accident at about 22 trillion yen, or about US$188 billion – approximately twice as high as its previous estimate. More than 100,000 people were evacuated but only about 13 percent have returned home, although the government has announced that it is safe to return to some evacuation zones. Decommissioning the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant poses unprecedented technical challenges. Six years have passed since the Fukushima nuclear disaster on March 11, 2011, but Japan is still dealing with its impacts.

Japan backs nuclear time since fukushima