nuclear-news

Japan’s richest man pushes for move away from nuclear energy

Masayoshi Son, the founder of Softbank and Japan’s richest man, said last month that he would donate about $12 million to start a research foundation for renewable energy. Continued reliance on atomic energy, he told a news conference, “would be a sin against our children, grandchildren and future generations.”

Japan’s Nuclear Future in the Balance, New York Times, by ANDREW POLLACK,  May 9, 2011 TOKYO — The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant has done more than spew radiation into the air and sea and force tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. It has blown a big hole in Japan’s energy policy, which had assumed that nuclear power would supply a growing part of the country’s needs…..

Many experts say it will now be difficult for Japan to realize a policy goal that predates the Fukushima disaster: building at least 14 new reactors by 2030, to go with the 54 that exist now. If completed, those plants would raise nuclear power’s share of Japanese electricity generation to about 50 percent, from nearly 30 percent now.

Advocates for renewable energy argue that the March earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident have given the nation a reason to rebuild its economy as a world leader in clean, renewable energy — even though solar, wind andgeothermal combined now account for only 1 percent of Japan’s electricity. An additional 8 percent or so comes from hydroelectric power.

“It is a battle between the future and the past,” said Tetsunari Iida, executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, a nonprofit policy research organization here.

Some members of Parliament recently held a forum, called Energy Shift Japan, to promote a move toward renewable sources.

And Masayoshi Son, the founder of Softbank and Japan’s richest man, said last month that he would donate about $12 million to start a research foundation for renewable energy. Continued reliance on atomic energy, he told a news conference, “would be a sin against our children, grandchildren and future generations.”…. the future of the envisioned 14 reactors being planned is now unclear, with the public and local officials becoming more wary about living near such facilities. Already, the Tokyo Electric Power Company has been forced to drop plans to build two new reactors on the site of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant.

And just last Friday, the government requested that another utility, Chubu Electric Power, shut down a nuclear power plant 120 miles southwest of Tokyo until the company can fortify its earthquake and tsunami defenses.

…… The advent of a so-called smart grid that would handle power supplied by numerous small producers could threaten the utilities’ dominance. “What they want to do as much as possible is to keep distributed power off the agenda,” said Andrew DeWit, an expert on Japan’s energy policy at Rikkyo University……. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/business/energy-environment/10yen.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

May 10, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, opposition to nuclear