Voters send mixed signals on the value of cheap power.
The New YorkTimes International Weekly.
By Martin
Fackler
Several industrialized countries have turned their backs on
nuclear power as a result if the Fukushima nuclear disaster, including one that
has already begun permanently shutting functioning plants.
“Germany chose to get of nuclear power because of Fukushima,
while the United States is still in favor, but what about Japan, where the
accident took place”, said Jun Tateno, who has written several books about the
fundamental question: Do we want nuclear power’s low-cost electricity for growth,
or do we want a safer, nuclear-free society?”
Many analysts had hoped that a recent vote to choose the
next governor of Tokyo would provide just such a forum. But the results of the
contest – which included unsuccessful by two antinuclear candidates - were
unclear.
The current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, appeared emboldened,
saying a day after the election that he would soon release a “realistic and
balanced” energy strategy, which analysts took as meaning one that would call
for restarting at least some idled nuclear plants. But some analysts warned
that Mr. Abe could still face a public backlash if he is seen as rushing to
return Japan to its pre-accident status quo.
The election appears to encapsulate the indecisiveness that
has kept Japan paralyzed for nearly three years, since the triple meltdowns. After
decades of marching forward in the belief that the cheap nuclear power to compete
economically, Japan is no longer able to muster a new national consensus on it.
Voters continue to send mixed signals, electing Mr. Abe, who
has called nuclear power a vital part of his popular Abenomics strategy to revive growth even as polls
continue to show an ambivalence about atomic energy. Voters have chosen Mr. Abe’s
pro-nuclear governing party in national elections, but then opposed a restart
of the plants in opinion polls. That has left this consensus-driven country
without a way forward, even as its trade surplus has turned to a deficit, with
soaring bills for fossil fuels to make up for the lost nuclear power.
“People cannot feel the economic damage now because of the
overall lift from Abenomics,” said Koji Nomura, an economics professor at Keio
University in Tokyo. “But this is a bill that will come due.”
The prime minister and his allies in the business community have
argued as much, saying that the idling of nation’s 48 operable reactors
threatens Abenomics by forcing Japan to import an extra $36 billion worth of
fuel every year. But even Mr. Abe has been unwilling to force the point by
turning the plants on.
While the candidate from the governing pro-nuclear power
party prevailed, analysts say he did so in part by distancing himself from its
stance with vague expressions of support for gradual phaseout if nuclear
energy. The two candidates who called for immediate scrapping all atomic power
plants also fared better that the result seemed to suggest, winning a combined
1.9 million votes, just 200,000 shy of the victor’s tally. And the only
avowedly pro-nuclear candidate of any stature placed a distant fourth. At the
same time, analysts said, Tokyo’s voters proved unconvinced by the lofty vision
articulated by the high-profile antinuclear candidate, former Prime Minister
Morihiro Hosokawa.
Some analysts say that in the end, they expect Japan to go
back to the compromise position of a previous government that Mr. Abe scrapped
when he took power: allowing the restart of the newest plants in exchange for
promise that Japan will eventually shed nuclear power as realistic alternatives
are developed.
“Neither Abe nor Hosokawa is at the center of public
opinion,” said Takeo Kikkawa, an expert on the energy industry at Tokyo’s
Hitotsubashi University. “A gradual phaseout remains the best answer for
solving the nuclear problem while preserving growth.”
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