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by charlesju 2736 days ago
I was interested in your statement, and a brief search on wikipedia says that Japan has slowly been restarting their nuclear power plants and is planning on growing nuclear power as a total percentage of power over the next several decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan

I don't think the sentiment on nuclear power, even after Fukushima, is as clear cut as you're presenting.

2 comments

It's very clear cut. The sentiment is the same. I don't know where you got it that it's not clear cut. The only thing which is not clear from your article is how will Abe and his corny friends shove their nuclear-friendly world-of-view down the Japanese people's throat.

And your claim that Japan is planning on growing might mislead some readers to think that they are expanding the nuclear capacity in Japan. Which is not the case at all. They signed the Paris agreement and unlike the US they try to keep their promise. But they are not expanding any capacity to do this. They simply restart their reactors (which by the way if they might be able to do so is to be seen).

What actually happened is that they started to decommission the Genkai 1, Mihama 1 and 2, Shimane 1 and Tsuruga 1 reactors while they completely abandoned the plan to build Fukushima Daiichi Unit 7 & 8 for obvious reasons among others.

So if anything than the exact opposite can be said that you implied: Japan is slowly but surely phasing nuclear energy out.

Can you pick out a particular section?

I'm about as pro-nuclear as they get, but the Wikipedia articles seem to support a story of the Japanese government shutting down nuclear and being very tentative restarting the existing reactors [0].

It is difficult to guess what is going on in a country that doesn't report in English, but the info in Wikipedia (mostly a little dated) seems to support a rollback of nuclear. Reduced generation, limited new developments. Either they are using less energy or something else is filling the void left by nuclear plant shutdowns.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan#Nuclear...

"In June 2015, the Japanese government released an energy proposal that includes the revival of nuclear power to account for Japan's energy needs. The proposal calls for an increase of about 20% in nuclear energy by 2030.[2] This reverses a decision by the previous Democratic Party, the government will re-open nuclear plants, aiming for "a realistic and balanced energy structure"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan