TOKYO — Hoping to avert potentially devastating summer power shortages, Prime MinisterYoshihiko Noda said Friday that his government would seek to restart two nuclear reactors, in what would be a first step toward ending an almost complete shutdown of the nation’s nuclear power industry.
Mr. Noda declared units No. 3 and No. 4 at the Ohi Nuclear Power Plant in western Japan to be safe based on the results of computer simulations designed to check the reactors’ tolerance of a large earthquake and tsunami like those last year that knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The resulting meltdowns and explosions spewed radiation across a wide area of northeastern Japan and the Pacific Ocean in the worst nuclear accident since the one at Chernobyl a quarter century earlier.
Mr. Noda now faces the tricky task of convincing skeptical local leaders and voters in Fukui prefecture, where the Ohi plant is located, that it is safe to turn the reactors back on. Public concerns about safety after the Fukushima accident have prevented Japan from restarting any of its nuclear reactors as they have been gradually taken offline for legally mandated maintenance checks.
Currently, only one of the nation’s 54 commercial reactors remains in operation, and it is due to be shut down for maintenance in early May.
The shutdowns, which have cut the nation’s electricity supply by up to a third, have raised cries of alarm from business groups about higher energy prices and the risk of power cutoffs.
The minister of industry, Yukio Edano, warned on Friday that the power shortages are likely to be felt most acutely during the summer, when people turn on their air-conditioners. He said that unless Ohi and other plants were turned back on, the plant’s operator, Kansai Electric Power, might be able to generate only 80 percent of the amount of electricity used during past summers.
“I have to say we are facing the risk of a very severe electricity shortage,” Mr. Edano told reporters.
Mr. Edano said he would travel to Fukui over the weekend to persuade local leaders to accept the restart of the Ohi plant. He will meet with Fukui’s governor and also with the mayor of the town of Ohi, both of whom have called for new safety standards that reflect the lessons of the Fukushima accident.
Last week, Mr. Noda’s government adopted those new standards, and asked plant operators to submit plans for improving defenses against tsunamis and for other safety measures.Faced with complaints that the upgrades could be dragged out over several years, the government forced some operators to introduce the new measures more quickly.
Election Watch: Hashimoto Blasts Noda Cabinet on Nuke Restarts
By Mitsuru Obe
The hottest politician in Japan these days — and one of the biggest threats to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda — isOsaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto. As Mr. Noda appears to be moving closer to trying to restart idled nuclear reactors, Mr. Hashimoto is becoming more vocal in opposition. That could complicate Mr. Noda’s nuclear policy, and possibly frame the next general election.
With most top politicians in Nagatacho dancing around the delicate question of whether to endorse restarting nuclear energy, Mr. Hashimoto openly opposes the idea — and has increasingly tied it to a broader criticism of the Noda administration.
“The government is ignoring due process for reactor restarts,” he told reporters Thursday. “This government cannot last long.”
He also called for more detailed debate on safety guidelines. “If all the government does is rubber-stamp the guidelines hastily crafted by NISA, they must be incapable of running the country at all,” he added, referring to the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency, the main nuclear regulator.
That’s just Mr. Hashimoto’s latest effort to link himself with the country’s increasingly large antinuclear constituency, while he ramps up formation of a new political party, schooling candidates who can contest the next parliamentary elections. In a late March poll conducted by the Nikkei daily, 55% of those surveyed said they opposed restarting nuclear power plants — even after the government’s new stress tests — compared with just 32% supporting restarts.
Many antinuclear activists, in turn, see Mr. Hashimoto as a potentially convenient ally, a rallying point for various antinuclear movements, as neither of the two main parties—Mr. Noda’s ruling Democratic Party of Japan nor the Liberal Democratic Party—are strongly committed to abolishing nuclear power. Activists are aware that they have to go beyond rallies to winning elections to bring about change.
Under Mr. Hashimoto, Osaka City and Osaka prefecture jointly set up an energy strategy council in February with the goal of crafting a new economic growth model based on alternative energy. The council is examining power demand/supply projections in western Japan for this summer, whether reactors need to be restarted, and the potential for renewable energy to fill the gap.
On April 1, the council decided that the city should file a motion at a June shareholders meeting of Kansai Electric Power Co. calling on the company to exit from nuclear power. Kansai Electric runs the two reactors in Oi, Fukui Prefecture that are the first test cases for whether reactors should be allow to resume operation.
The city of Osaka is the largest shareholder in Kansai Electric, with a stake of 9%. It is calling for other cities — Kobe with 3%, Kyoto with 0.5% — to join in the motion.
Mr. Hashimoto appears to be doing all that while mindful of the possibility of imminent elections. No vote actually needs to be held until next year. But politicians have been preparing for the prospect that Mr. Noda may choose to call an election — or be forced to do so — as soon as this summer, if parliament fails to pass his sales tax hike.While most lawmakers expect such a contest to be fought over the tax issue,Mr. Hashimoto may try to turn it into a referendum on nuclear energy instead.
