EDITORIAL: New draft energy plan ignores Fukushima disaster lesson

Asahi
December 18, 2024

Water storage tanks fill the premises of TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Jan. 19. (Shigetaka Kodama photo

The industry ministry on Dec. 17 released a draft for the next edition of the Strategic Energy Plan.

A policy to minimize Japan’s dependency on nuclear power, which has been spelled out in earlier editions of the document following the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, has been dropped from the draft.

Instead, the draft plan included a statement that Japan should work to develop and install “next-generation advanced reactors.”

We strongly oppose the change, which is tantamount to scrapping the lessons learned from the serious disaster that struck the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co.

The policy to reduce Japan’s dependency on atomic power was first included in the fourth Strategic Energy Plan, worked out in 2014 under the administration of then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in the name of the “starting point for Japan’s energy policy.”

That statement has since been maintained down to the current, sixth energy plan, and has served as putting the brakes on moves to seek a return to nuclear power, even though that wording has been exposed to pressure for emasculation.

The latest industry ministry draft, however, dropped that statement and said expressly that “it is extremely important to use both renewables and nuclear power to their maximum potential.”

That is the equivalent of an about-face in policy.

We are only less than 14 years away from the nuclear disaster, which, at one point, made devastation of the entire eastern Japan seem a real possibility.

No end is yet in sight for the decommissioning of the crippled reactors. The rebuilding process for affected communities is only halfway through.

Nothing has changed in the fundamental drawbacks to the use of nuclear energy, including the natural conditions of Japan’s landmass that is prone to severe disasters and the unresolved question of what to do with nuclear waste.

A basic stance that has been maintained by successive government administrations on the basis of a “deep remorse” over the nuclear disaster should not be overturned solely through discussions in an advisory council, where proponents of the use of atomic energy account for a great majority.

The government should take into account more diverse views and give careful consideration to what the energy plan should be like.

What the draft plan envisages is also at odds with the current realities.

Even plans to restart existing nuclear reactors have failed to proceed as expected by the industry ministry, partly due to scandals in power utilities that operate them and partly due to concerns among the residents of hosting communities.

The draft plan projects that nuclear energy will account for 20 percent of Japan’s total power generation mix in fiscal 2040, which is almost unchanged from the goal of 20 to 22 percent in fiscal 2030 that is spelled out in the current energy plan.

In the meantime, the draft plan says a utility will be allowed to replace a nuclear reactor with a new one to be built on the grounds of another nuclear plant operated by the same utility.

When the previous administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida worked out a plan two years ago to have nuclear energy used to its “maximal potential,” it still said a replacement reactor may only be built on the grounds of the same nuclear plant where a decision has been made to decommission an existing reactor.

That limitation has already been relaxed, which is practically no different from allowing new, additional nuclear reactors to be built.

The industry ministry had recently released simulation results saying that it would be economically advantageous to build a new nuclear reactor, as of fiscal 2040, in terms of the cost of power generation.

The draft energy plan, however, still emphasizes a need to “develop business and market environments” for carbon-free energy sources.

We cannot, therefore, help but suspect that the government is thinking about imposing a financial burden on the public to ensure the profitability of nuclear power generation.

On a different front, the draft plan also faces a test of consistency with global reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

The document puts thermal power at 30 to 40 percent of Japan’s energy mix in fiscal 2040.

In doing so, the draft plan stops short of saying that coal-fired power generation should be ended, and it anticipates the use of more hydrogen and underground storage of carbon dioxide.

The latter technologies are expensive, and their spread is premised on technological innovations and the availability of suitable land plots.

Previous editions of the Strategic Energy Plan have delayed the conversion of Japan’s energy structure because of their optimistic views of nuclear and thermal power.

That same mistake should never be repeated.