information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
19 Décembre 2012
December 19, 2012
With next summer's House of Councillors election in mind, the incoming Liberal Democratic Party administration is certain to carefully work out an energy strategy that could lead to the restart of nuclear power plants.
Without nuclear power generation there is a great possibility of a power shortage in summer.
LDP President Shinzo Abe constantly criticized the Democratic Party of Japan as irresponsible for pledging to end nuclear power generation.
The LDP, which leaves open the possibility of nuclear power plant use, scored an overwhelming victory in Sunday's election. Parties that argued for abandoning nuclear power, such as the DPJ and Nippon Mirai no To (Tomorrow Party of Japan), suffered major defeats.
However, the LDP's coalition partner New Komeito also included an election campaign pledge to abandon nuclear power generation as soon as possible.
Makoto Yagi, chairman of the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, released a statement Monday saying the DPJ's strategy to halt use of nuclear power left utilities with problems that are extremely difficult to resolve.
Yagi, also president of Kansai Electric Power Co., said the federation hoped the new administration would review this policy.
A senior official of a government economic organization said, "The new administration will probably take considerable time to come up with a new energy policy" to avoid confusion within the administration over nuclear power policy, due to considerations related to the upper house election.
A subcommittee of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry's Advisory Committee for Energy and Natural Resources, which has been discussing the country's energy policy, will replace all of its members and make a fresh start, according to LDP sources.
Separately from medium- and long-term energy policies, the new administration has to consider whether to reactivate idled reactors.
Abe said political judgments would be made on whether to reactivate reactors after their safety has been confirmed.
But he needs to come up with concrete rules to allow suspended reactors to be reactivated--including the range of the government's responsibility and how to persuade local governments to understand that restarting reactors is necessary--by the end of this fiscal year.
If Abe fails to do this by then, when the Nuclear Regulation Authority will have completed an outline of safety standards for reactors, a power shortage next summer will likely become a reality.
Appointments of NRA staff members, including Chairman Shunichi Tanaka, were held up in the Diet due to opposition from some DPJ lawmakers. But this problem probably will be solved when the new administration takes over.
The LDP has not made clear its stance on electric power system reform.
METI's Expert Panel on Future Energy Policy is scheduled to compile measures for electricity system reform as early as next month, with complete liberalization of electric power retailing and separation of power producers and power transmitting and distributing companies as the main pillars.
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