nuclear-news

Prime Minister Abe in a hurry to restart nuclear power, fearing that Japan might manage well without it

 A survey conducted by the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, just before the
elections last month, showed that more than 60 per cent wanted to
phase out nuclear energy completely

If the government allows nuclear plants to remain switched off, it
would be admitting that nuclear power is not critical to economic
recovery

the Abe administration cannot afford to have
the public realise that Japan can get along just fine without nuclear
power

Japan prepares for nuclear U-turn.Ft.com By Michiyo Nakamoto in Tokyo 3 Jan 13, 
Japan’s plan for a nuclear-free society, which gathered momentum after
the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima nearly two years ago, looks set to
be shortlived.
Since its electoral landslide in December, the Liberal Democratic
party has wasted no time in setting the stage for a return to Japan’s
former policy of promoting nuclear power as a major source of energy
generation.

Shinzo Abe, who took over as prime minister last month, has given a
clear indication that the government is looking to build new nuclear
power plants, despite widespread public reservations in the wake of
the 2011 Fukushima accident, the world’s worst nuclear disaster in a
quarter of a century.
“The new nuclear power plants we will build will be completely
different from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant which caused
the accident, and those that were built 40 years ago,” Mr Abe said in
a television appearance this week.
“We are likely to build new nuclear power plants on winning the
public’s understanding,” he said…..
A survey conducted by the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, just before the
elections last month, showed that more than 60 per cent wanted to
phase out nuclear energy completely…..

By promising to pour resources into promoting alternative energy
development and to develop an optimal energy mix over the next decade
“the LDP kept their position on nuclear energy ambiguous before the
elections”, says Norimichi Hattori of the Tokyo-based Metropolitan
Coalition Against Nukes.
But “since the Abe administration was formed, their rhetoric on
nuclear power has changed quite rapidly”, says Koichi Nakano,
professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo.
“It now looks like the LDP feels it is their duty to promote nuclear
energy,” Mr Nakano says.
In the short term, Japan’s new government may want to avoid taking
concrete steps, such as restarting more reactors, which could prove
controversial in the run-up to upper-house elections this July…..

If the government allows nuclear plants to remain switched off, it
would be admitting that nuclear power is not critical to economic
recovery, says Mr Nakano, who believes there is a chance the Abe
administration will give Oi the go-ahead regardless of the NRA’s
decision.
Given the LDP’s close ties to the nuclear industry and its history of
promoting nuclear power, the Abe administration cannot afford to have
the public realise that Japan can get along just fine without nuclear
power, Mr Nakano says.
“I think that is what they are most afraid of,” he adds.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d85d6624-5588-11e2-bbd1-00144feab49a.html#axzz2H2oR06pR

January 4, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, politics