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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
This article assesses the political economy risk of the return of Japan's nuclear village. The December 16 general election campaign and its aftermath may see the nuclear village and its allies seize even greater momentum in key central-government agencies. With a welter of parties and their confusing positions on energy policy, an election seems hardly likely to lead to coherence. The general political and policymaking chaos of the present indeed invites comparison with Japan's early postwar years. The upshot could lead to a gradual return to the concentration on nuclear power that was written into the June 2010 basic energy policy and remains the de jure energy policy, notwithstanding the March 11, 2011 Fukushima Shock and all that has happened since.
1 Jeff Kingston “Power Politics: Japan's Resilient Nuclear Village,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10 Issue 43 No 1, October 29, 2012.
2 The November 14 Asahi newspaper quotes METI Minister Edano Yukio in his recent claim that it is impossible to specify the level of reliance on nuclear power. He argues that “the cabinet has no idea of how many nuclear reactors will be working by any given year. The new nuclear regulatory agency will determine how many reactor restarts to authorize or not authorize, deciding this independently of the cabinet, and therefore we can't specify how many reactors will be running after how many years.” See “Not Possible to Specify the Level of Nuclear in Basic Energy Plan: METI's Edano” (in Japanese) Asahi Shinbun, November 14.
3 The eight major challenge are 1. Japan's declining population; 2. its aging population; 3. the slowness of the capacity to shift the industrial base; 4. the continuing deflation from the mid-1990s; 5. the damage from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Northeast region; 6. the nuclear crisis that ensued from the meltdown of reactors in Fukushima; 7. the high exchange value of the yen and the pain that it inflicts on Japan's export competitiveness; 8. the continuing instability of international markets due to the global financial crisis. On the challenges, see (in Japanese) p. 12 of the February 16, 2012 Ministry of Lands, Infrastructure and Transport “Recent Environmental and Energy policy Directions” briefing note.
4 On this see, Tsuyoshi Inajima “Japan Utilities Fuel Costs Set to Double Since Fukushima Crisis,” Bloomberg, October 24, 2012.
5 Indeed, the company's nationalization on July 31 of 2012, Japan's largest non-bank nationalization ever, was premised on restarts. See “TEPCO says it will see no profit without nuke plant restarts,” The Asahi Shimbun, November 10, 2012.
6 For a timely account of these ties and the risks Keidanren is willing to overlook, see Roger Pulvers, “So, fat cats and a blue caterpillar will save Japan from nuclear hell. OK.” Japan Times, October 21, 2012.
7 Roger Cheng, “The Era of Japanese Consumer Electronics Giants is Dead,” CNET, November 9, 2012.
8 As with any assessment, this one has its problems. One is the large role of CEOs’ subjective appraisals. But the report also relies heavily on a number of reasonably objective measures, and therefore has relevance for the debate on policy options. In addition, it will have an influence simply because it will help shape the perceptions of people making investment decisions. The report is available here.
9 The Energy Watch Group undertook a 2010 analysis of global fuel and electricity costs, and determined them to be somewhere between USD 5.5 trillion and 7.5 trillion in 2008. See Energy Watch Group, “Worldwide Estimated Yearly Energy Costs,” March 24, 2008.
10 The Worldwatch Institute summarizes the health costs in its “Fossil Fuel and Renewable Energy Subsidies on the Rise.”
11 This figure is calculated for Annex 1 countries in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (link). See p. 18 of IEA “CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion: Highlights,” 2011 edition. Carbon Dioxide emission alone totaled 31.78 billion megatons in 2010, see here.
12 See the report's section on electricity here.
13 On prices, see the IEA's 2011 publication “Key World Energy Statistics.”
14 Though disasters are always tragedies, it is fortunate that the shock was delivered to the megacity that is yet the centre of the global economy and whose Mayor Michael Bloomberg's leadership on climate change via chairmanship of the C40 Cities (link) has been one of the inspirations of recent years. On the impact of Sandy on the US economy and climate-change debate, see Dorsi Diaz, “President Obama addresses climate change in acceptance speech,” Examiner, November 7, 2012.
15 See Richard Heinberg “Soaring Oil and Food Prices Threaten Affordable Food Supply,” Post Carbon Institute, December 14, 2011.
16 See the book's first chapter.
17 See, Wendy Wilson, Travis Leipzig and Bevan Griffiths-Sattenspiel, Burning Our Rivers: The Water Footprint of Electricity, A River Network Report, April 2012. See also United States Geological Survey, “Summary of Estimated Water Use in the United States in 2005,” October 2009 Fact Sheet.
18 Natalie Obiko Pearson “Asia Risks Water Scarcity Amid Coal-Fired Power Embrace,” Bloomberg, September 11, 2012.
19 On these matters, see Joe Eaton “Record Heat, Drought Pose Problems for US Electric Power,” National Geographic, August 17, 2012.
20 See “ACEEE: United Kingdom Tops in Energy Efficiency, US Lags in 9th Place”
21 On this, see the date table on p 12 the Ministry of Environment Building working group paper of March 23, 2012.
22 A summary and downloand link for the report, “Lighting the Way: Perspectives on the Global Lighting Market (Second Edition, 2012),” is available here.
23 The opportunities are so obvious that even the US military is emphasizing them. On this see, Michael Douroux “4,700 Military Homes to Receive Solar Energy Systems,” Business Insider, November 14, 2012.
24 See Global Energy Assessment: Towards a Sustainable Future. Cambridge: 2012, p. 1155.
25 On this, see for example Scott Victor Valentine, “A STEP toward understanding wind power development policy barriers in advanced economies,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 14 (2010).
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