nuclear-news

The policy set out in September by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s Cabinet seeking to phase out nuclear power generation in Japan by the end of the 2030s — in response to strong anti-nuclear sentiments in the country following the triple meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011 — is not viable given Japan’s vast economic needs, said John Hamre, president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Hamre, a former deputy U.S. defense secretary, and his CSIS colleague Michael Green were speaking at a seminar organized by the Keizai Koho Center on Oct. 25 to discuss American policy on East Asia ahead of the U.S. presidential election as well as the imminent change in leadership in China.

Nuclear power generation in Japan over the past four decades has been an important part of Japan’s economic success that provided “a strong, reliable supply of base energy” for the historically energy-poor country, Hamre said.

While he said he understood that the Fukushima crisis shook people’s confidence in nuclear power — just as the 1979 Three Mile Island incident did for Americans — he noted there is “too much of a romantic idea about alternative energy in this country as a substitute for nuclear power.”

The Democratic Party of Japan-led government’s policy does not include a specific road map to achieve the goal, but assumes that renewable sources like wind and solar power will account for a greater portion of the nation’s energy mix in coming decades.

Citing U.S. experience in wind and solar power generation, Hamre said the low efficiency and output of these sources that rely on natural conditions will not “replace the base capacity of nuclear power generation.”……

Hamre said. “There can’t be any romanticism about alternative energy. If you’re going to be a modern, sophisticated economy, you have to address this question of making nuclear power a legitimate source of energy.”

Hamre also said the policy poses a security concern from the viewpoint of international control for nonproliferation of nuclear materials…..

If Japan is to give up nuclear energy — and if nuclear power is to wither in the U.S. due to competition with cheap natural gas and in Europe as in the case of Germany — “the countries that have given us the security system are going to diminish, and who’s going to replace them?” he said. “Americans cannot afford from a security standpoint to have Japan abandon nuclear power. It’s too important to us.”.….. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nb20121103d1.html