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Noda’s confused nuclear policy

Reading Time: 5 mins
  • Richard Katz

    Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

In Brief

When it comes to the Democratic Party of Japan’s nuclear policy, only one explanation makes sense: Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is determined to prove that his party is the bunch of bungling amateurs that the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) claims it is.

How else to explain the reversals, and then the reversals of the reversals, of the ‘no nukes’ policy?

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On 7 September, a heavyweight DPJ panel endorsed phasing out all nuclear power by 2030. The policy was approved with an extension to the late 2030s by a subcommittee of the Cabinet on 14 September, and endorsed by Noda himself on the same day. Suddenly, five days later, the policy was replaced with complete obfuscation.

This rollercoaster of reversals makes no sense. Substantively, it leaves energy policy in a state of confusion, making it hard for energy-using companies to decide whether to expand — or even stay — in Japan. It also alienates the majority of voters who no longer trust nuclear power.

Some say the final reversal came from huge pressure from Japan’s business community, as well as governments in the US, Britain and France. But that suggests Noda did not test the waters before accepting the ‘no nukes’ stance, hardly the mark of a serious leader. Some say that, because 40 per cent of the DPJ Diet delegation wanted the zero option, Noda only accepted the ‘no nukes’ goal until he was sure of winning re-election as DPJ president. Then he revealed his true colours.

Prior to 7 September, most observers had expected Noda to choose the middle option among three being discussed for 2030: zero nukes, nuclear power to provide 15 per cent of electricity, or nukes to provide 20–25 per cent. Fifteen per cent was Noda’s own personal preference, and it was the preference of another DPJ bigwig, Yoshito Sengoku. Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear power provided around 30 per cent of electricity, and the Naoto Kan administration had proposed raising it to 50 per cent. In the aftermath of Fukushima, Kan called for nuclear’s complete elimination.

So, when the DPJ panel led by policy chief Seiji Maehara and Sengoku came out in favour of the zero option, most observers chalked it up to a desperate election gambit. Now, Noda’s reversal has more than offset any electoral gain the DPJ might have made with the ‘no nukes’ announcement.

The purported objective would clearly not have been realised. The plan is threefold: first, no new nuclear plants will be built; second, no nuclear plants will be extended beyond the 40-year age limit specified by a law put into place after the Fukushima disaster (although the law does allow one 20-year extension if plants are deemed safe enough); third, no shut-down plants will be restarted unless the new Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) can certify their safety.

The reality is, if existing plants are re-started and are all shut down after reaching age 40, nuclear power would still supply 15 per cent of the country’s electricity as of 2030. That inertia is one reason politicians found 15 per cent an attractive compromise, as it would allow until the 2050s to reach zero nuclear.

The plan also presumes that renewables will generate 20 per cent of electricity within 10 years, and then 30–35 per cent by 2035, a completely unrealistic target. Noda proposes to achieve it by force-feeding solar, wind, etc. through ¥50 trillion in subsidies, more than all the extra revenue coming from the politically-deadly hike in the consumption tax, to be financed via much higher electricity rates. And the plan requires a much smaller reduction in carbon emissions.

The plan was, in short, a campaign commercial. And so, in the end, Noda muddied the waters. In a paragon of vagueness even by the standards of Japanese politicians, the 19 September cabinet policy statement declared, ‘The government will promote energy and environment policy under constant examination and review, in dialogue with affected local governments and the global community, as well as seeking understanding from the general public’. The entire report that had called for ‘zero nuclear power plants operating in the 2030s’ was relegated to being ‘reference material’, as were the measures supposed to achieve it. So, the DPJ is simultaneously parading the goal of ‘no nukes’ (or perhaps ‘very few nukes’) while not committing itself or future governments to actually achieving it.

It might be tempting to dismiss the DPJ’s stance as irrelevant since it will soon be out of power and the LDP has a more pro-nuclear stance. But that would be inaccurate. For one thing, if the LDP and its New Komeito Party ally fail to get enough seats in the next Lower House election, the LDP will have to align with either the DPJ or the fervently anti-nuclear new Japan Restoration Party.

Secondly, any government will have to deal with the fact that the majority of the country no longer trusts either nuclear power or the people in charge of it. In a 25 August Asahi Shimbun poll, 58 per cent of respondents wanted Japan to abolish nuclear power within a decade, not even willing to wait until 2030. Only 8 per cent of respondents favoured retaining nuclear power indefinitely. In an August 27 Reuters poll of 400 top companies, 20 per cent favoured the zero option.

As even TEPCO has finally admitted — and a Carnegie Endowment report detailed — the nuclear disaster would never have occurred if the government and the utilities had not consciously refused to keep up with global best practice. Rather than abandoning nuclear energy, Japan needs to make the regulatory, utility and other institutional changes required to make nuclear safe for Japan and to make Japan safe for nuclear.

Richard Katz is Editor at The Oriental Economist. A version of this article first appeared in the October 2012 edition of ‘The Oriental Economist Report’.

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