Nuclear Crisis in Japan: Old Ideas Hold Back Sector from Aiding Net-Zero

January 14, 2025|OPINION | Nuclear Power

This is as opinion piece by Nobuo Tanaka, the former executive director of the International Energy Agency and former chair of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. He is CEO of Tanaka Global, Inc.

In October, “Nippon Hidankyo” – the organization that represents survivors of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 – received the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. This decision reflects a sense of urgency among the global community about the rising risk of nuclear war as international tensions accelerate.

Yuval Noah Harari, author of The Sapiens, has said that nuclear war is the first of the three key challenges that humans face in the 21st century. The other two being a climate crisis and disruptions from Artificial Intelligence. And so, as nuclear war is once again discussed as a potential outcome, can humanity step away from the abyss? Japanese people, more than anyone, understand the consequences.

But this essay isn’t about nuclear war. What I worry about is that Japan is losing its nuclear capability for peaceful purposes.

In the post-war era, Japan harnessed the atom to power industries, ranking among the top five nuclear energy producers globally before 2011. At that time, the nation had 54 reactors that could supply about 30% of its electricity. Today, just 14 reactors are online and they cover only 8% of the total. Even that is a small grace compared to a period of zero nuclear power generation, which Japan experienced in the aftermath of the March 2011 Fukushima disaster.

This nuclear energy ‘winter’ shut down more than plants. The number of Japanese students enrolling in advanced nuclear studies at universities dropped from a high of over 500 in the mid 1990s to 185 in 2022.

With no new reactors slated for construction, the industry’s supply chain has atrophied. METI promotes a so-called Advanced Light Water Reactor (LWR), a safer model of the current reactor type to replace older units. But unless it is rolled out at scale and completed on time, costs will invariably balloon, as has been the case in Finland, France and the U.S.

Unlike the Soviet Union’s post-Chernobyl program to sell its nuclear power plants abroad, Japan has had no overseas contracts to sustain its nuclear supply chains. We offered our LWR reactors to Vietnam, Turkey, UAE and the UK, but lost out to competitors each time. Though very safe, large Japanese LWRs are not price competitive in the global market and would lead to higher electricity prices. 

In this context, it’s not surprising that the Japanese government decided to extend the operation period for existing domestic reactors from 40 years to more than 60, and focus its nuclear energy policy on restarting the existing units. But while Japan has focused on reviving the past, the global nuclear sector has moved on.

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