EnergyJapan to restart nuclear power plants
Japan’s fifty nuclear power plants were taken off-line in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, but the government Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which took office in December, said it was planning to restart Japan’s nuclear power generation program.
Japan is determined to restart their nuclear power plants // Source: ashui.com
Japan’s fifty nuclear power plants were taken off-line in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, but the government Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which took office in December, said it was planning to restart Japan’s nuclear power generation program. The Guardian reports that the Abe government is thus reversing the policy of his predecessor, Yoshihiko Noda, which two years ago announced that Japan would stop building new plants, stop extending the licenses of existing plants, and move to phase out nuclear power.
The Huffington Post notes that earlier this week the operators of four nuclear power plants filed for plant inspection with the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) so that they could to restart ten reactors at five plants. The NRA on Tuesday has already approved the operation of two units at Kansai Electric’s Ohi Nuclear Power Plant.
In order to for the plants to be reopened, the plants will need to go through safety tests and upgrades to ensure they can hold up during earthquakes and tsunamis. Some say the measure will not be enough.
“The NRA has taken the lead in ignoring compliance with its nuclear regulatory rules which have been created to apply the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident, thus setting a dangerous precedent for ‘bending the rules’ and repeating the Fukushima accident,” Aileen Mioko Smith, the executive director of Green Action, told the Post.
Prentice Woo of Greenpeace says Japan can abandon its nuclear program completely.
“Japan could easily end its reliance on the nuclear energy and become a renewable energy leader, given the abundance of renewable energy resources. In fact, it could outdo these modest goals.”
Two years ago Greenpeace teamed up with the European Renewable Energy Council to publish the second edition of a report called Advanced Energy Revolution: A Sustainable Energy Outlook for Japan.
The report discusses three possible scenarios for Japan’s energy future: Business as usual, a nuclear phase-out and a switch to renewable energy, and keeping nuclear reactors closed while transitioning to renewable energy.
“If Japan takes the third outlined pathway, it could generate up to 43 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020,” Jan Beranek of Greenpeace International told the Post.
