Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivers a speech at his official residence on July 14, 2022 in Tokyo, Japan. Xinhua/Zhang Xiaoyu/Pool via Portal/File Photo
Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Portal.com
To
TOKYO, Aug. 24 (Portal) – Japan will restart more decommissioned nuclear power plants and consider developing next-generation reactors, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Wednesday, setting the stage for major policy change a decade after the Fukushima disaster of nuclear energy.
Kishida’s comments – who also said the government will extend the life of existing reactors – highlight how the Ukraine crisis and rising energy costs have forced both a shift in public opinion and a rethink of nuclear power.
Japan has shut down most of its nuclear power plants in the decade since a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011. Seismic Japan also said it would not build new reactors, so changing that policy would be a stark about-face.
Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Portal.com
To
Kishida told reporters he has directed officials to come up with concrete measures by the end of the year, including “gaining the public’s understanding of sustainable energy and nuclear power.”
Government officials met Wednesday to draft a plan for the so-called “green transformation,” which aims to retool the world’s third-largest economy to meet environmental goals. Nuclear energy, which was strongly opposed by the public after the Fukushima crisis, is now being considered by some officials as a component of such a green transformation.
Public opinion has also changed as fuel prices have risen and an early and hot summer has fueled calls for energy savings.
“This is the first step in normalizing Japan’s energy policy,” said Jun Arima, project professor at Tokyo University’s Graduate School of Public Policy.
Japan needs nuclear energy because its grid is neither connected to neighboring countries nor able to increase domestic fossil fuel production, he said.
Last month the government said it hoped to restart more nuclear reactors in time to avert a power shortage over the winter.
At the end of July, seven reactors were operating in Japan, and three others were out of service for maintenance. Many others are still going through a relicensing process under more stringent safety standards imposed after Fukushima.
Kishida also said the government will try to extend the life of existing reactors. Local media previously reported that this could be achieved by disregarding the time reactors have been offline – years in some cases – when calculating their uptime.
Under current regulations, plants in Japan are decommissioned after a set period, which in many cases is 60 years.
Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Portal.com
To
Reporting by Mayuko Sakoda and Yoshifumi Takemoto; additional reporting by Mariko Katsumura, David Dolan and Yuka Obayashi; Edited by Tom Hogue, Shri Navaratnam and Nick Macfie
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.