nuclear-news

Japanese election result is no guarantee of nuclear power restart

“People who voted for the LDP are supporting their economic-stimulus measures, not nuclear power policy,”

“Even for the LDP it will be difficult to gain support from residents living near nuclear stations for restarting them, as the tragedy in Fukushima is not over,”  

Nuclear Stock Rally in Japan Ignores Public Opposition, Bloomberg News By Yuriy Humber, Anna Kitanaka and Aya Takada  December 17, 2012 Japanese power-company stocks that rallied after the pro-nuclear energy Liberal Democratic Party was elected may struggle to sustain gains because of public opposition to restarting atomic plants……

“Just because politicians say they want to restart reactors doesn’t mean they will actually be able to do it,” said Ayako Sera, a market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank Ltd. in Tokyo, which has about $400 billion in assets. ….

Any plans to restart reactors will need approval from the Nuclear Regulation Authority, which is investigating six atomic plants on concern they were built on active fault lines. Japanese law states reactors cannot be built on active faults, indicating the plants may need to be decommissioned.

“Proving safety is going to be really hard,” Sera said.
The meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power reactors and ensuing radioactive
contamination led nations from China to France and Switzerland to
review atomic policies, including the phase-out ordered by German
Chancellor Angela Merkel…..
The likelihood of backpedaling in central Europe is even slimmer than
in Japan, “for the simple reason that Japan’s energy crunch without
nuclear is far greater than in countries like Germany or Switzerland,”
said Mark Hibbs, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment nuclear
policy program in Berlin.

Andreas Loeschel, an adviser to Germany’s government on monitoring its
energy transformation, said in a telephone interview that there’s
unlikely to be an impact on his country.

“The energy shift in Germany has such a momentum that it is not
influenced by a change of government in Japan,” said Loeschel, a
professor who heads environmental and resource economics at the Centre
for European Economic Research ZEW in Mannheim……
LDP Voters
“People who voted for the LDP are supporting their economic-stimulus measures, not nuclear power policy,” said Toshihiro Inoue, a member of
the “Goodbye Nuclear: the Action of 10 Million” civil movement, whose
online petition to stop atomic reactors in Japan has so far received
about 8.2 million signatures….. The Metropolitan Coalition Against
Nukes, another civil movement, said on its website it will protest the
restart of nuclear reactors outside the prime minister’s official
residence on Dec. 21.

“Even for the LDP it will be difficult to gain support from residents living near nuclear stations for restarting them, as the tragedy in Fukushima is not over,” Inoue at Goodbye Nuclear said.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-12-16/tepco-leads-power-utilities-rally-as-abe-seen-restarting-nuclear

December 18, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general