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Japan Will Try to Halt Nuclear Power by the End of the 2030s Japan Sets Policy to Phase Out Nuclear Power Plants by 2040
(about 9 hours later)
TOKYO — In its first comprehensive energy review since the Fukushima disaster, Japan said on Friday that it would seek to phase out nuclear power by the end of the 2030s — but only after a longer-than-expected transition that would give power companies decades to recoup their investments and brace for a nonnuclear future. TOKYO — Japan said Friday that it would seek to phase out nuclear power by 2040 — a historic shift for a country that has long staked its future on such energy, but one that falls far short of the decisive steps the government had promised in the wake of the world’s second-largest nuclear plant disaster last year.
The energy strategy, which would call for a 40-year life span for reactors and limit the construction of nuclear plants, reflects a historic shift away from nuclear power since the accident last year. Although the long-awaited energy policy was named the “Revolutionary Energy and Environment Strategy” by its authors, it extended the expected transition away from nuclear power by at least a decade and includes caveats that appear to allow some plants to operate for decades past even the new deadline.
In announcing the plan, however, Motohisa Furukawa, the minister of state for national policy, seemed to suggest that the measures were loose guidelines open to revision and discussion. For example, he said the government would leave to future discussion whether five reactors that would be younger than 40 years by the end of the 2030s would be forced to close — leaving open the possibility that some reactors will remain running into the 2040s and beyond. The government had been considering several options: whether to close all the plants over time or to maintain enough reactors to provide a smaller but still substantial percentage of the country’s electricity needs. Before the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan depended on its reactors for about 30 percent of its electricity and had planned to raise that share to more than 50 percent by 2030.
Mr. Furukawa also cast doubt on the ability of the central government to enforce the strategy’s terms. He said that while it represented the government’s position on Japan’s energy future, the authorities would bow to decisions on specific policies made by a newly appointed panel of experts overseeing nuclear power. The government also has little legal recourse to force a nuclear plant to close. The announcement comes after months of increasing anxiety and intense political pressure from those on both sides of the debate who believe Japan’s future is at stake. Many political and business leaders argue that shutting nuclear plants would doom the resource-poor country to high energy costs and a deeper economic malaise. But many Japanese, while acknowledging the economic upheaval it could cause, have expressed hope that the country will phase out nuclear energy within two decades and a nascent, but increasingly vocal antinuclear movement has pressed for even faster action.
And he said there was no change to the government’s quest to restart reactors for now, most of which remain idle following the Fukushima accident, despite nationwide rallies protesting those restarts. “We have set the general direction of policy,” Mr. Furukawa said. “But we must also remain flexible, because this is a long-term policy.” While important for setting a tone, the announced strategy is subject to vast change, not only because of the long lead time, but also because the unpopular prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, and his governing Democratic Party are likely to lose the next national election, which could be called within the next several months.
On top of the vagueness of its terms, the new policy is fraught with uncertainties. The unpopular prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, and his governing Democratic Party are likely to lose the next national election, calling into question whether any long-term policy he sets will stick. Analysts have suggested the Democrats timed the announcement to give them a political lift, but it is unlikely to appease either the antinuclear movement or powerful business interests.
Critics blasted the strategy as too vague and long term to have meaning. Those who favor a phaseout blasted the strategy announced Friday as too vague and drawn out.
“It’s trickery with words and numbers,” said Tetsunari Iida, director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, a research group based in Tokyo. “The zero number might be symbolic politically, but in reality, it holds little meaning.”“It’s trickery with words and numbers,” said Tetsunari Iida, director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, a research group based in Tokyo. “The zero number might be symbolic politically, but in reality, it holds little meaning.”
“How is the government going to push through reactor restarts when there’s still so much opposition? It has no clue what to do next month, never mind by the 2030s,” he said. And an influential business federation, Keidanren, this week made clear that eliminating nuclear power was “unrealistic and unreachable,” according to its chairman, Hiromasa Yonekura.
The vagueness of the plan, as well as the drawn-out time frame, is seen as an effort to strike a compromise with Japan’s big business lobby, which has vehemently opposed the zero-nuclear goal as one that will wreck the economy with higher energy costs and an unreliable power supply. With the long-term energy plan set, the political battle is set to refocus on the struggle by the government to build consensus for reopening the vast majority of the country’s reactors, which were idled after the nuclear catastrophe, amid public opposition to restarts until better safety regulations were in place.
The plan is unlikely to alleviate those concerns, however. The lobby has backed options that would shrink the nuclear program but not eliminate it. The government has sought repeatedly to regain the public’s trust, most recently by scrapping its former nuclear regulatory agency and creating a new one. But that plan has already come under fire, with criticism focusing on Shunichi Tanaka, the head of a committee that would set nuclear policy and retain oversight over the new agency and its leadership. Mr. Tanaka is considered suspect by those who favor tighter regulation because he helped lead a former government commission tasked with building a strong nuclear industry — raising fears that the new regulator will be as lax as the old.
Nor is the new strategy likely to appease the burgeoning antinuclear movement, which calls for an immediate end to nuclear power in Japan. The government had been discussing energy policy to the year 2030, and there was anger and confusion at antinuclear rallies Friday night over why the time frame had been pushed back. In announcing the energy plan, Motohisa Furukawa, the minister of state for national policy, said there was no change to the government’s quest to restart those reactors. And although the long-term plan stipulates that no new reactors will be built, it leaves open the possibility that seven reactors at varying stages of construction could be activated. That decision would be left up to the new nuclear committee headed by Mr. Tanaka.
“They’re ignoring the terror that many of us feel toward nuclear power,” said Kumi Tomiyasu, an employee at a Tokyo-based printing company who attended a rally in front of Mr. Noda’s office on Friday. “By sticking with nuclear for so long, the government has put the interests of power companies and big business above those of the Japanese people.” And although the government said reactors would be closed after life spans of 40 years, it also said that exemptions could be granted, suggesting that the 2040 deadline was flexible. (By comparison, Germany, which in 2010 relied on reactors for 26 percent of its electricity, was rattled enough by the Fukushima disaster to announce a move away from nuclear power by 2022.)
The Friday announcement ends — for now — weeks of wrangling over the first comprehensive energy plan revision since the accident last year at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Multiple meltdowns at the plant caused large-scale radiation leaks, prompted the government to order mass evacuations and rendered swaths of land in the region uninhabitable for decades. At an unusually lively news conference, seemingly exasperated reporters pressed for whether any firm decisions had been made. One reporter for a Japanese newspaper suggested that if reactors under construction are allowed to come on line and get exemptions for operating more than 40 years, “then we could still have reactors running in the 2070s.”
Before the accident, Japan depended on its reactors for about 30 percent of its electricity needs. It had planned to raise that share to more than 50 percent by 2030. Mr. Furukawa did not dispute that possibility.
Mr. Noda’s predecessor, Naoto Kan, ended that policy last year, saying Japan should eventually phase out nuclear power. Mr. Noda, who took office last September, had appeared to back away from that commitment and pushed to restart the reactors. The energy plan underscores the challenges Japan faces in extricating itself from nuclear power.
Mr. Noda was forced to reconsider, however, after public hearings suggested strong support for ending nuclear power. If idled reactors were permanently closed this year, power companies would be hit with losses totaling $55.9 billion, making at least four of the utilities insolvent, according to the government’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. Because the industry is tightly regulated, allowing almost no competition, the country relies on those power companies and can ill afford to have them go bankrupt.
The protesters, who stage weekly mass rallies in front of the prime minister’s office, vehemently oppose any moves to restart the 50 remaining reactors, all but two of which remain idle. But the new policy would allow reactors to restart, pending checks by a new nuclear regulatory body. The 2040 time frame would allow most of the existing reactors to live out their 40-year life span, heading off costly losses for their operators. Japanese utilities have already been saddled with the huge costs of buying oil and natural gas to meet the nuclear shortfall since the reactors were taken offline, a burden that would be alleviated once their reactors are restarted.
Whether the government can actually push through the restarts remains highly uncertain. Opinion polls show that the public remains wary of nuclear safety and the government’s ability to oversee the operators of the nuclear plants. With only two reactors operating, Japan struggled through a sweltering summer after parts of the country were asked to conserve electricity use by as much as 15 percent, the second year such requests were made. Power companies fired up old gas- and oil-powered stations and scrambled to secure imported fossil fuels.
The government has sought to regain the public’s trust by scrapping its former nuclear regulator and appointing a new one. But that regulator is overseen by a committee headed by Shunichi Tanaka, who helped lead a former government commission tasked with crafting the country’s nuclear policy — raising accusations that the new regulator will be much like the old. Despite fears of widespread blackouts, however, none materialized, strengthening nuclear critics’ argument that Japan could do without nuclear energy.
The plan also postpones any decisions on the country’s troubled fuel cycle project, a contentious undertaking that seeks to reprocess spent uranium-based fuel and make Japan self-sufficient in nuclear energy. By some measures, Japan has already poured $127.8 billion into a series of facilities to store and reprocess nuclear fuel, as well as into an experimental “fast breeder” reactor able to create ever more of the reprocessed uranium and plutonium on which it will run.Adopting a plan to phase out nuclear power would seemingly make the entire recycling program defunct. But the government faces strong opposition to abandoning the program, particularly from communities that host the fuel recycling facilities and Britain and France, which reprocess spent nuclear fuel on contract from Japanese power companies. But the Keidanren business federation and others have insisted that the higher energy costs are crippling the country’s economy. Tokyo Electric, Japan’s largest utility and the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, has increased rates for both homes (an average of more than 8 percent) and businesses (an average of about 15 percent).
The village of Rokkasho, which hosts a reprocessing facility and has already accepted about 3,000 tons of spent fuel for eventual reprocessing, has reacted angrily to any signs that the reprocessing project would be abandoned. If the government indeed decided to decommission the reprocessing facility, Rokkasho has warned that it will return the spent fuel it now stocks to nuclear power plants across the country — a move that could overwhelm the plants’ storage capacities and make reopening them impossible. Businesss leaders warn that such costs will prompt more companies to move their operations overseas. And costly fuel imports already contributed last year to Japan’s first annual trade deficit in more than 30 years and made the nation more dependent on oil and natural gas from the volatile Middle East and Russia.
And Japan’s sole fast-breeder reactor, the Monju reactor in western Japan, has been mostly closed since 1995, after a fire. A vast nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in Rokkasho, in northern Japan, has yet to open 19 years after construction began because of a series of accidents and leaks. Whatever its choices, Japan is set to significantly increase its investment in clean energy sources, in part to avoid enlarging its carbon footprint.
The energy plan also underscores the challenges Japan faces in extricating itself from nuclear energy. The balancing act that the government is attempting with its new energy policy made little impression on the antinuclear protesters who now gather every Friday night in Tokyo.
The government is unlikely to agree to any swift shutdown of the 50 remaining reactors. If those reactors were permanently closed this year, power companies would be hit with losses totaling $55.9 billion, rendering at least four of them insolvent, according to calculations this summer by the government’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. Many had expected the government to at least phase out the reactors by 2030, a date that had initially been discussed, and some were angry that the time frame was at least a decade longer.
The 2039 time frame, on the other hand, would allow most of those reactors to live out their 40-year life span, heading off costly losses for their operators. Japanese utilities are also saddled with the huge costs of buying oil and natural gas to meet the nuclear shortfall, a burden that would be alleviated once their reactors are restarted. “They’re ignoring the terror that many of us feel toward nuclear power,” said Kumi Tomiyasu, an employee at a Tokyo-based printing company who attended a rally in front of the prime minister’s office on Friday. “By sticking with nuclear for so long, the government has put the interests of power companies and big business above those of the Japanese people.”
The Keidenren, a lobby that represents big businesses in Japan, has also warned of higher energy costs and energy shortages if Japan moves away from nuclear power, whether in the short term or longer.

Melissa Eddy contributed reporting from Berlin.

With almost no reactors online, Japan struggled through a sweltering summer after parts of the country were asked to reduce electricity use by as much as 15 percent, the second year such requests have been made. Power companies fired up old gas- and oil-powered stations, imported expensive emergency generators and scrambled to secure imported fossil fuels.
Despite fears of widespread blackouts, however, none materialized, strengthening the argument of nuclear critics that Japan could do without nuclear energy.
But the Keidanren and others have insisted that the higher energy cost of coping with no nuclear power is crippling the country’s economy. Tokyo Electric, Japan’s largest utility and the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, has increased rates for both homes and businesses.
The higher costs will prompt more companies to move their operations overseas, businesses warn. And the costly fossil fuel imports have already weighed heavily on Japan’s terms of trade and made the nation dangerously dependent on Middle Eastern oil, as well as natural gas from its volatile neighbor Russia.
The United States, meanwhile, is wary of the weapons-grade plutonium stockpiles Japan has built up. Stopping the nuclear fuel cycle would leave Japan sitting atop 40 tons of plutonium — enough to make 5,000 nuclear warheads.
Whatever its choices, Japan is set to significantly increase its investment in clean energy sources. In previous government estimates through 2030, eliminating nuclear power would require investment of $548 billion in solar, wind and other types of renewable energy and $66 billion on power grid technology.
As Japan redrafts its energy policy, it also risks enlarging its carbon footprint. In its policy document, the government said Japan would need to lower its target for greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 5 percentage points over the three decades through 2020, to 20 percent. Under the new goal, Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 would be 5 percent to 9 percent less than levels in 1990, the documents said.
Environmentalists say a more aggressive push to develop clean energy can further reduce Japanese emissions.
“The government must use its new energy strategy as a starting point for a far more ambitious renewable policy, greater energy efficiency measures, and increasingly bold strides toward the sustainable green economy that will secure Japan’s future prosperity,” Greenpeace said in a statement. “A nuclear-free future is not a choice, it’s an inevitability.”