nuclear-news

With Japan’s new government, nuclear energy may be back
http://www.startribune.com/business/184510891.html?refer=y
 December 23, 2012
Liberal Democratic Party’s big win may give nuclear industry a
reprieve.In the two days after the election the shares of Tokyo
Electric (TEPCO), the owner of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power
plant, surged by 56 percent. Investors bet that the new government
would allow Japan’s reactors, almost all of which have been idle since
being struck by an earthquake in 2011, to restart.

That may be wishful thinking. Abe may want to steer clear of the
sensitive nuclear issue until upper-house elections in mid-2013. If
so, a time frame agreed with TEPCO’s 77 banks for restarting the first
of its seven Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactors in Niigata prefecture may be
missed.
TEPCO says each stalled reactor costs it $1.2 billion in lost profit each year.
Furthermore, the nuclear industry now has an independent watchdog, the
Nuclear Regulation Authority, which is showing teeth. Its
investigators have so far issued seismic warnings against two nuclear
power plants, which may lead to their permanent mothballing.

By law, even an LDP government should be unable to boss the watchdog around.

Yet a share-price rally may still be warranted. TEPCO’s share price is
barely a tenth of what it was before the disaster.

That reflects a genuine fear that the company may go bust. Surely,
investors mutter, the LDP remains chummy enough with Japan’s nuclear
utilities not to let any of them collapse into bankruptcy?

December 26, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, politics