Japan Strives to Go Nuclear-Free
Published: August 29, 2012
Kyodo News, via Associated PressThe Hamaoka nuclear power plant, owned by Chubu Electric, was ordered closed because of fears that it lies on a tsunami-prone coastline. Seawater that has entered the reactor is thought to be corroding its core.
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: August 29, 2012
TOKYO — As Japan moves to cut back on nuclear power after last year’s disaster in Fukushima, it is running into a harsh economic reality: the cost of immediately abandoning its nuclear reactors may be too high for some big utilities to shoulder.
If the country’s 50 nuclear reactors were permanently closed this year, power companies would be hit with losses totaling 4.4 trillion yen ($55.9 billion), rendering at least four of them insolvent, according to calculations this summer by the government’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.
The extraordinary costs of an immediate shutdown have emerged as a major concern for the Japanese government, which has struggled to balance the desire for improved nuclear safety with the bottom-line realities of the big utilities. Nuclear plants generated about one-third of Japan’s electricity before the Fukushima accident, but most remain at least temporarily offline.
“People talk easily about shutting down Japan’s nuclear power plants, but the economic and financial consequences are severe,” said Reiji Takeishi, professor in environmental economics at Tokyo International University.
The government is now considering at least three options to reduce the country’s dependence on nuclear power — and all of them would give the power companies until 2030 to shut their reactors permanently, allowing them to largely recoup their plant investments. By 2030 the majority of reactors would be older than 40 years and would face decommissioning anyway under Japanese guidelines.
But a series of fresh safety concerns, including possibly active fault lines beneath nuclear sites, have raised doubts about whether the nuclear reactors should be restarted at all. And the proposed 18-year timetable has angered the country’s growing antinuclear movement, which complained that the government had its priorities wrong.
“How can you put the economy above safety, above human life?” Masanori Oda, a contemporary artist and a representative of the movement, said after a meeting with Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda last week.
One option being considered by the government would reduce the country’s dependence on nuclear power to 20 to 25 percent of electrical needs by 2030. A second option would cut the segment to 15 percent, and a third would eliminate nuclear power entirely.
Though the 15 percent proposal initially gained traction, public hearings and opinion polls have shown overwhelming support for a complete phaseout. All of the proposals could involve progressively restarting the country’s reactors.
In recent days, a string of governing party lawmakers and government ministers have also expressed support for the so-called zero option, with an eye on nationwide elections that could be called within months. The fate of the nuclear reactors is part of a larger and highly charged discussion over the costs and benefits of nuclear energy and its alternatives.
Much of the argument has tended to focus on the wider economic costs of turning away from nuclear power.
Japan’s biggest and most influential business lobby, the Keidanren, warns of disaster. Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost, the group says, and energy alternatives would be hampered by problems.
Already Japan’s fuel imports have surged since the Fukushima disaster, driving the country’s trade deficit to record highs. Though Japan has so far avoided blackouts this summer, power shortages are weighing on businesses. Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions are also surging, and renewable energies such as wind and solar power remain small-scale, expensive and unreliable, the lobbying group says.
“If we do not have a stable supply of energy at economically viable prices, Japan’s economy cannot grow,” the group said earlier this month.
The economic stakes for the utilities could be even higher in the shorter term.
A government-appointed panel of experts warned this year that there is a possibly active fault line under the Shika Nuclear Power Plant, 170 miles north of Kyoto, raising the possibility that the location could be declared unfit for a nuclear facility. The plant’s operator, the Hokuriku Electric Power Company, would be pushed to near-insolvency with losses of at least 313 billion yen ($3.97 billion) if it were forced to shut the two reactors, the government calculations show.
The losses would stem from extra costs of early decommissioning, write-downs on other nuclear assets, as well as the costs of offloading the plant’s nuclear waste and fuel, according to those calculations.
Another troubled utility is Chubu Electric, which is desperate to save the No. 5 reactor at its Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant, the newest unit at the site and the country’s largest. The unit opened in 2005 but has been offline since last May, when Naoto Kan, then prime minister, effectively ordered it closed on fears that it lies on a particularly tsunami-prone coastline.
Kyodo News, via Associated Press
Yoshihiko Noda, right, Japan’s prime minister, talked last week with the leaders of the antinuclear protest.
Multimedia
During the shutdown, however, about 1,300 gallons of seawater entered the reactor because of a burst pipe, and it is thought to be corroding the reactor core.
Two smaller utilities, Hokkaido Electric and Tohoku Electric, would fare even worse: the cost of writing off their reactors would drive them into insolvency, the government estimates. Both utilities face concerns that their reactors also face bigger quake risks than previously thought.
And Tokyo Electric — Japan’s largest utility, and the operator of the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi plant — would be forced to take additional write-downs of 1.15 trillion yen ($14.6 billion) if it were unable to reopen its 13 remaining reactors, including two at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Daiichi site, and four more at a sister site just 10 miles away.
The local Fukushima government is calling for all of the utility’s reactors to remain permanently closed. But that would be disastrous for a company effectively nationalized last month because of the exorbitant costs of the accident and compensation payments.
“I really don’t see a scenario that the power companies will be made to go to zero in the near term,” said Penn Bowers, a research analyst who covers Japan’s power companies at CLSA Japanese Equities. “You would go into negative equity for some of those companies,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a choice, because there are not alternative suppliers. You need these companies to remain going concerns.”
Those who favor phasing out nuclear power argue that the costs of another disaster would easily outweigh other considerations. They are optimistic about developing renewable energy, especially with heavy public investment, and say new technologies in that field could cut down on emissions and create new jobs.
“The assumptions underlying the economics of nuclear power no longer hold up,” said Terumitsu Honma, a professor in economics and insurance at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. “The biggest assumption was that accidents don’t happen.”
The utility companies have a strong incentive to push the government for permission to restart their reactors, even with the risks. Because the cost of another disaster would most likely be greater than the value of the companies, private insurers have been unwilling to insure the utilities — putting the government on the hook for any damages.
As such, the risks of restarting Japan’s reactors, both financially and in terms of safety, would be borne by the Japanese taxpayers, while any benefits would go to the utilities and their shareholders, said J. Mark Ramseyer, a professor at Harvard Law School who wrote an article about the Japanese nuclear industry this month in an academic journal, Theoretical Inquiries in Law.
“They capture all the returns, but bear less than all of the costs,” he said in an e-mail
http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNASGM2901S_Z20C12A8EB2000/
米電力大手、原発新設計画を撤回 ガス価格下落で 2012/8/29 9:56
【ニューヨーク＝小川義也】米電力大手のエクセロンは28日、南部テキサス州の原子力発電所の新設計画を撤回すると発表した。米国で新型天然ガス「シェールガス」の増産によりガス価格が下落。米経済の低迷で電力需要も伸び悩み、原発新設は相対的に高コストで「経済性が合わない」と判断した。
エクセロンは米原子力規制委員会（ＮＲＣ）に、2010年に提出した予備的な認可申請の取り下げを通知した。
同社は米国内で合計10カ所（17基）の原発を運営する。テキサス州南部のビクトリア市近郊に、原発２基を新設する方向で検討していた。原子炉のメーカーは決まっていなかった。
米国では国内の天然ガス埋蔵量を約100年分に増やした「シェールガス革命」の影響で、ガス価格が約10年ぶりの水準に下落。今後も低位安定するとの見方から、ガス火力発電の優位性が高まっている。
一方、原発の建設コストはガス火力発電所の約５倍とされ、福島第１原子力発電所事故を踏まえた安全対策の強化で一段の上昇が見込まれる。エクセロンは声明で「原発の新設は今も近い将来も経済性が合わない」と説明した。
米国は今年、1979年のスリーマイル島原発事故以来34年ぶりに原発の新設計画２件を相次ぎ認可した。ただＮＲＣは今月中旬、原発から出る使用済み核燃料の取り扱いに関する新たな指針を策定するまで、新設や既存原発の運転延長の認可を凍結する方針を発表。電力業界の動向が注目されていた。
米国では別の電力大手ＮＲＧエナジーも昨年４月、福島第１原発事故の影響で「規制動向など先行きが不透明になった」として、東芝とテキサス州で進めていた原発２基の新設計画への投資を打ち切った。同計画の認可申請は取り下げられていないが、事実上計画は宙に浮いている。
Multimedia
The Hamaoka nuclear power plant, owned by Chubu Electric, was ordered closed because of fears that it lies on a tsunami-prone coastline. Seawater that has entered the reactor is thought to be corroding its core.
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: August 29, 2012
TOKYO — As Japan moves to cut back on nuclear power after last year’s disaster in Fukushima, it is running into a harsh economic reality: the cost of immediately abandoning its nuclear reactors may be too high for some big utilities to shoulder.
If the country’s 50 nuclear reactors were permanently closed this year, power companies would be hit with losses totaling 4.4 trillion yen ($55.9 billion), rendering at least four of them insolvent, according to calculations this summer by the government’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.
The extraordinary costs of an immediate shutdown have emerged as a major concern for the Japanese government, which has struggled to balance the desire for improved nuclear safety with the bottom-line realities of the big utilities. Nuclear plants generated about one-third of Japan’s electricity before the Fukushima accident, but most remain at least temporarily offline.
“People talk easily about shutting down Japan’s nuclear power plants, but the economic and financial consequences are severe,” said Reiji Takeishi, professor in environmental economics at Tokyo International University.
The government is now considering at least three options to reduce the country’s dependence on nuclear power — and all of them would give the power companies until 2030 to shut their reactors permanently, allowing them to largely recoup their plant investments. By 2030 the majority of reactors would be older than 40 years and would face decommissioning anyway under Japanese guidelines.
But a series of fresh safety concerns, including possibly active fault lines beneath nuclear sites, have raised doubts about whether the nuclear reactors should be restarted at all. And the proposed 18-year timetable has angered the country’s growing antinuclear movement, which complained that the government had its priorities wrong.
“How can you put the economy above safety, above human life?” Masanori Oda, a contemporary artist and a representative of the movement, said after a meeting with Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda last week.
One option being considered by the government would reduce the country’s dependence on nuclear power to 20 to 25 percent of electrical needs by 2030. A second option would cut the segment to 15 percent, and a third would eliminate nuclear power entirely.
Though the 15 percent proposal initially gained traction, public hearings and opinion polls have shown overwhelming support for a complete phaseout. All of the proposals could involve progressively restarting the country’s reactors.
In recent days, a string of governing party lawmakers and government ministers have also expressed support for the so-called zero option, with an eye on nationwide elections that could be called within months. The fate of the nuclear reactors is part of a larger and highly charged discussion over the costs and benefits of nuclear energy and its alternatives.
Much of the argument has tended to focus on the wider economic costs of turning away from nuclear power.
Japan’s biggest and most influential business lobby, the Keidanren, warns of disaster. Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost, the group says, and energy alternatives would be hampered by problems.
Already Japan’s fuel imports have surged since the Fukushima disaster, driving the country’s trade deficit to record highs. Though Japan has so far avoided blackouts this summer, power shortages are weighing on businesses. Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions are also surging, and renewable energies such as wind and solar power remain small-scale, expensive and unreliable, the lobbying group says.
“If we do not have a stable supply of energy at economically viable prices, Japan’s economy cannot grow,” the group said earlier this month.
The economic stakes for the utilities could be even higher in the shorter term.
A government-appointed panel of experts warned this year that there is a possibly active fault line under the Shika Nuclear Power Plant, 170 miles north of Kyoto, raising the possibility that the location could be declared unfit for a nuclear facility. The plant’s operator, the Hokuriku Electric Power Company, would be pushed to near-insolvency with losses of at least 313 billion yen ($3.97 billion) if it were forced to shut the two reactors, the government calculations show.
The losses would stem from extra costs of early decommissioning, write-downs on other nuclear assets, as well as the costs of offloading the plant’s nuclear waste and fuel, according to those calculations.
Another troubled utility is Chubu Electric, which is desperate to save the No. 5 reactor at its Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant, the newest unit at the site and the country’s largest. The unit opened in 2005 but has been offline since last May, when Naoto Kan, then prime minister, effectively ordered it closed on fears that it lies on a particularly tsunami-prone coastline.
Kyodo News, via Associated Press
Yoshihiko Noda, right, Japan’s prime minister, talked last week with the leaders of the antinuclear protest.
Multimedia
During the shutdown, however, about 1,300 gallons of seawater entered the reactor because of a burst pipe, and it is thought to be corroding the reactor core.
Two smaller utilities, Hokkaido Electric and Tohoku Electric, would fare even worse: the cost of writing off their reactors would drive them into insolvency, the government estimates. Both utilities face concerns that their reactors also face bigger quake risks than previously thought.
And Tokyo Electric — Japan’s largest utility, and the operator of the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi plant — would be forced to take additional write-downs of 1.15 trillion yen ($14.6 billion) if it were unable to reopen its 13 remaining reactors, including two at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Daiichi site, and four more at a sister site just 10 miles away.
The local Fukushima government is calling for all of the utility’s reactors to remain permanently closed. But that would be disastrous for a company effectively nationalized last month because of the exorbitant costs of the accident and compensation payments.
“I really don’t see a scenario that the power companies will be made to go to zero in the near term,” said Penn Bowers, a research analyst who covers Japan’s power companies at CLSA Japanese Equities. “You would go into negative equity for some of those companies,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a choice, because there are not alternative suppliers. You need these companies to remain going concerns.”
Those who favor phasing out nuclear power argue that the costs of another disaster would easily outweigh other considerations. They are optimistic about developing renewable energy, especially with heavy public investment, and say new technologies in that field could cut down on emissions and create new jobs.
“The assumptions underlying the economics of nuclear power no longer hold up,” said Terumitsu Honma, a professor in economics and insurance at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. “The biggest assumption was that accidents don’t happen.”
The utility companies have a strong incentive to push the government for permission to restart their reactors, even with the risks. Because the cost of another disaster would most likely be greater than the value of the companies, private insurers have been unwilling to insure the utilities — putting the government on the hook for any damages.
As such, the risks of restarting Japan’s reactors, both financially and in terms of safety, would be borne by the Japanese taxpayers, while any benefits would go to the utilities and their shareholders, said J. Mark Ramseyer, a professor at Harvard Law School who wrote an article about the Japanese nuclear industry this month in an academic journal, Theoretical Inquiries in Law.
“They capture all the returns, but bear less than all of the costs,” he said in an e-mail
http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNASGM2901S_Z20C12A8EB2000/
米電力大手、原発新設計画を撤回 ガス価格下落で 2012/8/29 9:56
【ニューヨーク＝小川義也】米電力大手のエクセロンは28日、南部テキサス州の原子力発電所の新設計画を撤回すると発表した。米国で新型天然ガス「シェールガス」の増産によりガス価格が下落。米経済の低迷で電力需要も伸び悩み、原発新設は相対的に高コストで「経済性が合わない」と判断した。
エクセロンは米原子力規制委員会（ＮＲＣ）に、2010年に提出した予備的な認可申請の取り下げを通知した。
同社は米国内で合計10カ所（17基）の原発を運営する。テキサス州南部のビクトリア市近郊に、原発２基を新設する方向で検討していた。原子炉のメーカーは決まっていなかった。
米国では国内の天然ガス埋蔵量を約100年分に増やした「シェールガス革命」の影響で、ガス価格が約10年ぶりの水準に下落。今後も低位安定するとの見方から、ガス火力発電の優位性が高まっている。
一方、原発の建設コストはガス火力発電所の約５倍とされ、福島第１原子力発電所事故を踏まえた安全対策の強化で一段の上昇が見込まれる。エクセロンは声明で「原発の新設は今も近い将来も経済性が合わない」と説明した。
米国は今年、1979年のスリーマイル島原発事故以来34年ぶりに原発の新設計画２件を相次ぎ認可した。ただＮＲＣは今月中旬、原発から出る使用済み核燃料の取り扱いに関する新たな指針を策定するまで、新設や既存原発の運転延長の認可を凍結する方針を発表。電力業界の動向が注目されていた。
米国では別の電力大手ＮＲＧエナジーも昨年４月、福島第１原発事故の影響で「規制動向など先行きが不透明になった」として、東芝とテキサス州で進めていた原発２基の新設計画への投資を打ち切った。同計画の認可申請は取り下げられていないが、事実上計画は宙に浮いている。
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