Don’t look to Japan to resuscitate the nuclear industry

environmentalists say even if they lost that battle they are winning the war. And now that they have their foot on the throat of the nuclear industry, which damaged itself with its arrogantdisregard for safety, they say they won’t let up until Japan is nuclear-free…..

Mayday for Japan’s nuclear industry BY: RICK WALLACE, TOKYO CORRESPONDENT The Australian April 21, “…… Japan will awake on the morning of May 6 a nation powered entirely by non-nuclear sources of energy.

This week, Industry Minister Yukio Edano admitted the government had lost its battle to find a municipality willing to restart reactors in time for the scheduled shutdown of the last plant to remain online, at Tomari in the northern island of Hokkaido.

Since the 1970s, nuclear energy has underpinned heavily industrialised
Japan’s power-generation system. Before last year’s tsunami and
Fukushima nuclear disaster, it accounted for almost 30 per cent of the
nation’s energy needs.

But after the March 11 catastrophe 11 the country’s 54 reactors were
closed on government advice amid safety fears in the event of new
quakes or tsunamis. Gradually, over the course of more than a year,
the rest of the nation’s reactors, all of which are on the coast, have
been mothballed as their inspection intervals have fallen due.
Despite increasing pressure from industry and the cabinet, local
authorities have been resisting pleas to allow the restart of reactors
amid a nationwide backlash against nuclear energy……
Industry, which has maintained its output despite the shortage of
nuclear power, has warned of major productivity falls if the plants
are not restarted……. Anti-nuclear activists say such dire
predictions are exaggerated and point to the lower-than-expected
impact of Fukushima on industrial output so far…..
Whatever is the case, the maximum number of reactors to be operating
over the hot summer months, when airconditioning demand soars, will be
very small.

As of now, the decision on the restart nominally rests with Oi town’s
8000 inhabitants, whom local authorities say they will consult before
approving a restart.

As the town is on the less tsunami-prone Sea of Japan side of the
country, and almost all of the town’s population work in the nuclear
industry, there is a good chance they will back a restart.

But the government will need to avoid the kind of farce that ensued
when it lined up Kyushu Electric Power’s Genkai reactors for a restart
in July last year. The plan was abandoned after it emerged the company
had been stacking questions at a televised public forum, with its
employees posing as citizens.

Although resistance to nuclear energy is growing in Japan, according
to opinion polls, some Japanese put their immediate livelihoods first.
The town of Hamaoka, where a nuclear plant sits on the junction of two
tectonic plates, recently elected a mayor in favour of restarting the
plant despite predictions this section of coast could be hit by a 21m
tsunami….. environmentalists say even if they lost that battle they are winning the war. And now that they have their foot on the throat of the nuclear industry, which damaged itself with its arrogantdisregard for safety, they say they won’t let up until Japan is
nuclear-free…..
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/mayday-for-japans-nuclear-industry/story-e6frg6so-1226334685674