May 27, 2015

Nuclear power crucial as renewable energy too costly, ministry says

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201505270040

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The high cost of renewable energy means Japan has no choice but to rely on nuclear power to provide between 20 and 22 percent of its energy by 2030, according to an industry ministry report.

That would be a small drop in the reliance on nuclear power from the levels before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The shift away from nuclear energy to renewables, including solar power, will generate “pressure for drastic rise in energy cost,” stated the report released May 26. The ministry, a staunch supporter of nuclear energy, concluded it is the least expensive method of power generation.

While nuclear energy should provide between 20 and 22 percent of Japan's electricity, renewable energy should account for 22 to 24 percent in fiscal 2030.

About 27 percent of Japan’s electricity was provided by nuclear power on a yearly average in the decade up to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The proposal also said that nuclear power was required to keep power costs at a manageable level for corporations and households and also to enable Japan to reduce greenhouse gases to levels set by advanced economies in the West.

The draft report was released by an expert committee at the Natural Resources and Energy Agency headed by Masahiro Sakane, a senior adviser at Komatsu Ltd. It will be finalized at a meeting of the committee in early June and adopted as the government’s official energy-mix plan in July at the earliest after going through a public-comment phase.

All the nation’s reactors were shut down after the disaster, and hurdles remain high for the government to restart many of them due to strong public opposition and safety concerns of local governments.

In its Strategic Energy Plan released in April 2014, the government underscored its intention to push for reactor restarts but said “dependency on nuclear power generation will be lowered to the extent possible.”

At a news conference April 26, the industry minister Yoichi Miyazawa said that high energy costs and other concerns "will be all solved by increasing the ratio of nuclear power.”

The minister emphasized that the 20-22 percentage scenario was the minimum possible reliance on nuclear energy.

While the Strategic Energy Plan projected that renewable energy must account for far more than 20 percent of Japan’s future plan, the draft report pointed out that solar and wind power output are particularly unstable.

The proposal states that Japan should rely on just 7 percent of energy from solar power and 1.7 percent from wind power.

During the committee sessions, Yukari Takamura, a professor of international law at Nagoya University, and two other members submitted opinion papers that asserted the discussions at the committee do not fully address the need to reduce nuclear energy and increase dependency on renewable energy.

But the figures in the draft proposal are likely to be approved in the committee’s next meeting in early June.

(This article was written by Tomoyoshi Otsu and Kenichiro Shino.)

See : http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201504280045