Arab News Japan

TOKYO: The Japan-based Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center has protested the decision by the Cabinet of Prime Minister ISHIBA Shigeru to approve the Seventh Strategic Energy Plan, which will see nuclear power generate 20 percent of Japan’s energy needs.

In a statement published on Wednesday, the CNIC said the decision has “removed the invaluable lesson learned from the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, which was to reduce dependency on nuclear power as far as possible.”

CNIC said it is protesting the decision for sustained use of nuclear power “with anger and sorrow.”

The government’s energy plan is aiming to reduce greenhouse gases by 73 percent by 2040 – compared to 2013 levels – with a power supply mix of 40-50 percent renewables, 20 percent from nuclear power and 30-40 percent from thermal generation.

However, according to CNIC’s estimates, if all the nuclear reactors, including those under construction, are operated with lifetime extension, nuclear power will barely reach 20 percent. This goal, it says, is unrealistic and its targets go against the trends and aims in the rest of the world. It also accuses the government of underestimating the cost of providing nuclear power and says its decarbonization target “cannot be achieved.”

“The Seventh Strategic Energy Plan holds many more problems,” the CNIC’s statement says. “Those problems arise because the energy policy is determined intuitively by de facto collusion among stakeholders.” It says there was “hardly any discussion” on how the power generation and supply mix should be determined.