

Japan’s nuclear future

Don’t look now

A series of mishaps comes at an awkward time for the government

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Readers' comments



This ship has sailed. Abenomics is here and there is no turning back now. Return to nuclear power was an embedded assumption in the loose money calculation to reinflate the economy.


The nuclear power industry is a hopeless inept incompetent public money seeking mess. That is what happens when it is run by political connections. It can not stand on its own feet economically, and that is the whole problem. Best just kill it as another stupid political mess.


It's good that Japan is taking precautions and seriously considering all its options. That is something they should be commended for; I don't think this article highlighted that very well. No doubt if Britain was on a tectonic plate we would also be having the same discussions.

However, inevitably nuclear must come back to Japan. But Shinzo Abe needs to put a long-term plan in place first showing how he will phase it out realistically, or otherwise what safeguards he will put in place. It seems as if he is doing that already. More public clarity would not go amiss here. There seems to be a lack of strategy and therefore it is just interpreted as weakness.


As a resource poor nation Japan has eventually little choice to restart its nuclear reactors. At some point importing LNG and/or coal is too damaging to its current account and its terms of trade. Why should the Japanese bankroll big oil & gas and nations such as Australia and Qatar ? France is an interesting case in point, it only spends one to two billion Euros p.a. on imports of uranium, but nuclear power generates approx. 80% of the electricity consumed by its industries and its 62 million inhabitants. Such is the power of nuclear energy. I think Japan should double down on nuclear energy and invest in safer and more advanced generation IV nuclear reactors. Another option would be to develop methane hydrates, which can be found in the seas and ocean around Japan.

Michael Dunne

Japan probably has to get the reactors up and running at least in the near term, to lower the trade deficit and keep energy costs under control for business.


So, Japan's huge, self-inflicted wound continues..... Voluntarily choosing to use fossil fuels instead of existing (already built) nuclear stations, despite the fact that the fossil fueled generation is hugely more expensive as well as having public health risks and environmental consequences (including global warming) that are orders of magnitude larger (worse) than nuclear.

The result, electricity that is much more expensive AND much more damaging/risky to public health. Also, significantly increased CO2 emissions, and a balance of trade that has gone from large surpluses to large defecits. Let's hope the govt. steps up and does what's in the best interests of the nation and it's people, despite the people's misguided perceptions.

GRLCowan in reply to JimHopf

"The people's misguided perceptions"?

In an Asahi Shimbun opinion poll conducted on Feb. 16 and 17, "Respondents were asked to pick their preferred scenario from among five choices on the future of nuclear energy in this country. Nuclear power generation should be: “stopped immediately,” “stopped before 2030,” “stopped in the 2030s,” “stopped after the 2030s,” and “continued without being stopped.”

At that time, as now, only two of Japan's nuclear power plants were being allowed to run. And yet, the public, in their answers to the poll, showed absolutely *zero* support for an increase in nuclear power generation.

How could that happen?!


For two decades I have been wondering when Japan might finally digest their big bubble and re-emerge to dominate industries that they had pioneered, e.g. electronics, robotics, cars and machine tools. But it seems the two decades were aptly called lost decades because the much heralded Japanese quality management has gone softer. Various goofy acts have happened for me to be very puzzled. TEPCO was found to have involved Yakuza as the contractor to hire workers to risk going into the Fukushima Nuclear Station. A quarter of the money ear-marked for Tsunami reconstruction were siphoned off to totally unrelated projects such as highway in Okinawa, to fight the anti-whaling NGOs, and a stadium in Tokyo. Such blatant behaviour means a lot of pork that we cannot even fathom.


On April 2, 2012 the English edition of The Mainichi relayed the following acknowledgment by the Japanese Finance Ministry:
"Japan's Feb. tax receipts up 4.8% on LNG consumption
It's too bad there isn't an international paper with an interest in financial matters. Such a paper could dig into the Japanese government's continuing conflict of interest in this matter.
Certainly, anything that can be spun as the Fukushima wrecks "not being over" is the very opposite of awkward for Japanese public servants. When the least antinuclear party won the election, now, that *was* awkward.


...plant’s operator had installed a jerry-rigged system of plastic sheeting, which sprang leaks.

The proper term is: Jury-rigged.

Bird.Cosmo.Tuxedo in reply to wintpu

Please see the supporting documentation:

The proper term is Jury rig



The phrase "jury rigged" has been in use since at least 1788.[2] However, the adjectival use of "jury" in the sense of makeshift or temporary dates from at least 1616, when it appeared in John Smith's A Description of New England.[2] It appeared again, in a similar passage, in Smith's more extensive The General History of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles published in 1624.[3][4]

There are several theories about the origin of this usage of "jury":

From the Latin adjutare ("to aid") via Old French ajurie ("help or relief").[5]
A corruption of joury mast—i.e. a mast for the day, a temporary mast, being a spare used for the nonce when the mast has been carried away. (From French jour ("a day").)[6]
Contraction in the nautical tradition for injury

The phrase "jerry-built" has a separate origin and implies shoddy workmanship not necessarily of a temporary nature.[8][1][9]

Anjin-San in reply to Bird.Cosmo.Tuxedo

Attacking this issue from a different front, isn't the term "Jerry-rigged" against the Economist Style guide, since it includes the term 'Jerry' which is derogatory to Germans, on a level equal to 'J*p' or 'Ch*nk' to Japanese and Chinese respectively?


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