No to nuclear: Japan wants reactors phased out, post-Fukushima – By Kelly Olsen (Al Jazeera) / Dec 19 2019
Japan is less reliant on atomic energy, but concerns are growing about its return to climate-damaging fossil fuels.
Tokyo, Japan – At the end of a decade in which northeastern Japan was devastated by a tsunami that triggered a nuclear disaster at Fukushima, atomic energy looks unlikely to make a comeback.
In the nearly nine years following the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the country’s reliance on atomic power for electricity generation has plummeted to between 3 and 5 percent from about 30 percent before the disaster, according to the Tokyo-based Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center.
And despite a period of uncertainty in the immediate aftermath of the meltdowns triggered when Fukushima’s cooling systems were overwhelmed by the tsunami created by the magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake, the world’s third-largest economy has shown it can function with radically less nuclear power.
The public mood turned dramatically after Fukushima and the national trauma that ensued and combined with the increasing costs from aligning ageing plants with stringent post-disaster safety requirements, it is unlikely the nuclear industry will return to previous levels, according to experts, even as the government envisions nuclear power accounting for about 20-22 percent of electricity generation in 2030.
“It is obvious that it is very difficult to meet this target,” said Hajime Matsukubo, secretary-general of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center.
And while experts say while the anti-nuclear movement may seem to have quietened down, anti-nuclear feeling is firmly entrenched.
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