Felicity Bradstock
Felicity Bradstock is a freelance writer specialising in Energy and Finance. She has a Master’s in International Development from the University of Birmingham, UK.
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By Felicity Bradstock – Mar 02, 2025, 2:00 PM CST
- Japan’s government has revised its energy plan to increase reliance on nuclear power, aiming for 20% nuclear energy production by 2040.
- The decision reverses a previous policy to reduce dependence on nuclear power following the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
- Concerns about safety, aging reactors, and the potential for accidents have been raised by both the public and environmental groups.
Around 14 years after the Fukushima disaster, Japan is preparing to increase its nuclear power capacity once again, to a mainly negative public reaction. Japan’s government has developed a revision of the country’s basic energy plan, removing the statement that said it planned to decrease its dependence on nuclear power. This signals the government’s intention to continue using nuclear energy to power the country.
The 2011 Fukushima accident is seen as the second-worst nuclear disaster after the Chornobyl disaster of 1986. On 11th March 2022, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake hit the north of Japan, with the shock from the quake provoking a tsunami, the waves of which damaged the backup generators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Although all three of the operating reactors were successfully shut down, the loss of power caused cooling systems to fail in each of them. Rising residual heat within each reactor’s core caused the fuel rods in reactors 1, 2, and 3 to overheat and partially melt down, leading to the release of radiation. Three explosions resulted from the buildup of pressurised hydrogen gas in the following days, leading to fears of leaked radiation and the evacuation of tens of thousands of people within a 30 km radius of the plant.
The accident prompted a widespread distrust for nuclear power in Japan that encouraged the government to halt nuclear energy development and introduce targets to reduce the country’s dependence on nuclear power. However, at the beginning of February, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry released a draft revision of the national basic energy plan, removing the statement on plans to move away from nuclear power. Later in the month, the Cabinet approved the revised Seventh Strategic Energy Plan.
The new plan states that Japan should use as much renewable energy and nuclear power as possible to decarbonise the economy. It also says that nuclear energy should contribute around 20 percent of power production by 2040. Before 2011, Japan’s 54 reactors provided around 30 percent of the country’s electricity. However, following the incident, this figure dropped significantly, as the government halted production. Activities have since been renewed at 14 reactors, with nuclear energy now providing less than 10 precent of Japan’s electricity.
The plan states, “Nuclear power has an overwhelmingly large energy output relative to the amount of fuel input,