Twelve years after Fukushima, Japan’s nuclear dreams are about to end

“The dream that failed” – “the failed dream.” So headlined the British magazine Economist in 2012 after an earthquake measuring 9 on the Richter scale in eastern Japan melted down several reactors at Fukushima. But afterwards the country stuck to its nuclear strategy – while Germany decided to phase out nuclear power,

nuclear force on the plate

Japan is hit by several earthquakes every year. The region around the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, where the Pacific Plate meets other tectonic plates, is particularly known for seismic activity such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. There are safer places to build a nuclear power plant.

Nevertheless, a large nuclear power industry has developed in the East Asian country. There are mutliple reasons for this:

• dependency: Despite seismic activity, Japan is a resource-poor country and has no fossil fuel reserves of its own.
• Imported: Instead, the country relies on importing oil and coal, particularly from the OPEC countries, Russia or Australia.
• Independence: The national nuclear industry should strengthen energy independence.

For a long time, the energy mix in Japan relied primarily on oil imports from the Middle East. The country was hit particularly hard by the oil crisis of the 1970s. Because of this experience, the Ministry of Commerce, with government support, began to massively promote the peaceful uses of nuclear power.

Nuclear meltdown in Fukushima – but nuclear power stayed

When the tsunami’s waves, some of which were up to 30 meters high, thundered down on the east coast of Japan and broke over the reactor blocks in Fukushima, nobody could have guessed what the consequences would be. Core meltdowns occurred in three out of six blocks of the power plant. Due to the large-scale destruction by the devastating earthquake, errors in the construction of the power plant and also because the Japanese government acted too slowlycore meltdowns occurred in three of the six reactor blocks.

But the nuclear phase-out was largely absent. “There was actually only a short window of time during which an orderly, complete exit was seriously considered,” says Steffen Heinrich, Professor of Politics and Economics in Japan at the Free University of Berlin, to FOCUS online Earth. “That was immediately after the disaster, when the then Prime Minister Kan, who was also in office during the triple catastrophe, formulated corresponding ambitions.” But contradiction developed even within Kan’s own party. With the next election, the government led by Abe Shinzô – a strong supporter of nuclear power – came into power.

Forced by climate goals

Currently only ten of 33 reactors are in operation – for safety reasons. Japanese nuclear power plants currently generate only a fraction of the energy generated before Fukushima. But why is Japan still sticking to nuclear power? According to Heinrich, this is mainly due to three factors:

• Export: Not only in Japan itself, but also abroad, nuclear power plants are designed according to Japanese blueprints. industrial groups such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries also sell corresponding components in countries such as the USA, France or South Korea. This important branch of industry would collapse with a nuclear phase-out.
• CO2 emissions: Like many other countries, Japan is under pressure to reduce emissions. However, due to the lack of renewable energies, this is hardly possible for Japan without nuclear power.
• Cost: In addition, a large part of the energy requirement is covered by expensive imports. A phase-out of nuclear power would therefore drive up the costs even further.

In Japan, therefore, the government would like to see more electricity generated from nuclear power. But that is unlikely to happen: Many reactors no longer meet the latest safety regulations, according to Heinrichs. Besides that In the affected communities, many citizens’ initiatives are suing successfully against a reopeningas an analysis by the Technical University (TU) Munich shows.

What about the energy transition?

But it cannot be argued away either: in Japan only a third of the reactors are still connected to the grid. “In fact, Japan has largely phased out nuclear energy,” says Heinrich. But an energy turnaround like the one in Germany is not in sight.

That is the share of renewable energies has increased significantly and, at 8.8 percent, is well above the share of nuclear power. However, the lion’s share, 84.8 percent, is still consumed by fossil fuels. Included Japan would actually have the optimal conditions to cover a large part of its energy requirements through geothermal energy. The same applies to wind power. According to Heinrichs, however, things are changing: “You see more and more golf courses, for example, that are being partially or completely converted into solar parks,” says the Japan researcher. “Since there is so much potential here and the pressure to save CO2 is likely to continue to increase, it can be expected that a lot will happen here in the next few years.”

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