Amid political and cost uncertainties, Japan to continue building some nuclear reactors

uncertainties about the future cost of operating nuclear plants in Japan weaken the economic case for more atomic power. “There will be more costs for safety upgrades, and no one knows what kind of insurance system is going to be put in place. These things will make a big difference to generating costs.”….

Japanese plan to complete reactors raises doubts about nuclear phase-out WP, By Jonathan Soble | Financial Times, October 23 TOKYO — It has been only a month since Japan declared that it would close down its nuclear industry by the end of the 2030s, but already a contentious plan to complete several partially built reactors is sowing doubts about the government’s commitment to the radical policy shift…..
In the weeks since the nuclear phase-out was announced, Yukio Edano, industry minister, has said three approved but unfinished reactors are exempt from a central provision of the phase-out policy, under which no new plants will be built.

Electric Power Development, the utility
that owns one of the facilities, responded by saying it plans to
resume work this year, with an eye to beginning electricity production
some time after 2014.

Iida Tetsunari, a leading anti-nuclear activist, called the decision
“insincere politics” that was “clearly against the principle” of
ending nuclear power. The Mainichi newspaper, a national daily, said:
“Many people must surely feel as though they’ve been tricked by a
fox.”…..
It remains unclear exactly how many new reactors might be completed in
practice. One of the three approved units, at Higashidori nuclear
station, on the remote northern tip of Japan’s main island, is owned
by Tokyo Electric Power, the disgraced and financially crippled
operator of the Fukushima plant.

Construction is only about 10 percent complete, and Tepco’s problems
make prospects for a resumption dim, according to government officials
and analysts….
Kenichi Oshima, a nuclear policy expert at Ritsumeikan University, says uncertainties about the future cost of operating nuclear plants in Japan weaken the economic case for more atomic power. “There will be more costs for safety upgrades, and no one knows what kind of insurance system is going to be put in place. These things will make a big difference to generating costs.”….
The phase-out plan could recede even further if Noda’s Democratic
party of Japan is ousted in an election early next year, which polls
suggest is likely. The opposition Liberal Democrats nurtured the
nuclear industry for decades when they were in power, and are more
skeptical toward renewable energy.

The main roadblock to building could come from other local
governments. Towns and villages that host nuclear plants receive
generous state subsidies and tend to support the industry, even after
Fukushima, but their unsubsidized neighbors are often less keen.

In northern Japan, the mayor of Hakodate city, which is across a
narrow strait from Oma on the island of Hokkaido, has threatened to
sue to prevent construction from resuming. On a visit to Tokyo to
complain to the government this week, he told reporters: “The decision
to permit construction is based on a pre-Fukushima safety myth.”
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