Nuclear or not? The complex and uncertain politics of Japan’s post-Fukushima energy policy

Abstract

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced that Japan should meet its energy needs without nuclear power plants. But his statement may have little relevance in the next administration. There is a complex power struggle underway over the future of nuclear energy in Japan involving political, governmental, industry, and union groups. Despite the seriousness of the Fukushima crisis, Japan’s historical commitment to nuclear power—and a fuel cycle that includes reprocessing and breeder reactors—still has powerful supporters. Even with a scale-down of nuclear power, there is a possibility that the policy of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel will continue as a matter of political inertia.

The wisdom of Japan’s long-standing plans to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and develop fast breeder reactors has begun to be questioned inside the country in the post-Fukushima context. In a televised statement in July, Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced a radically new goal for his country: a Japan that meets its energy needs without nuclear power plants. ¹

But the prime minister’s precarious political situation makes it difficult to predict whether his professed interest in phasing out nuclear power is anything like the course the nation will eventually follow. Ever since Kan suggested in June that he would step down once reconstruction from the March 11 disaster is on a stable track, a major focus of political discussion in Japan has been how long he will stay in office. As a result, whatever Kan says about nuclear power is often interpreted as an attempt to remain prime minister for as long as possible.

And even if Kan is sincere in his desire to set Japan on a new energy path, there are reasons to believe that his statement may not have much relevance in the next administration. There is a complex power struggle underway over the future of nuclear energy in Japan. It involves political, governmental, industry, and union groups, and despite the seriousness of the Fukushima crisis, Japan’s historical commitment to nuclear power—and a fuel cycle that includes reprocessing and breeder reactors—still has powerful supporters.

Although it is being discussed in Japan and taken as a given in some Western press accounts, a non-nuclear Japanese future is anything but a sure bet. Furthermore, even with a scale-down of nuclear power, there is a possibility that the policy of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel will continue as a matter of political inertia.

The nuclear policy situation in Japan

In June 2010, Japan’s cabinet approved the Basic Energy Plan put forward by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI). That plan would add at least 14 commercial nuclear power reactors to the existing fleet, giving Japan at least 67 power reactors by 2030. ² Nuclear power was to rise from about 30 percent to more than 50 percent of the total amount of electricity generated in the country. This plan was criticized as unrealistically ambitious, even before the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Fukushima changed the calculus entirely. Following the disaster, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) decided to decommission Fukushima Daiichi’s Units 1–4 and to cancel plans to build Unit 7 and Unit 8. As of early May, 33 of Japan’s 54 reactors were out of operation—14 owing to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the others because of seismic upgrades required after a pair of major earthquakes in 2007, other safety issues, and previously planned inspections (Mainichi Shimbun, 2011). Subsequently, in response to Prime Minister Kan’s request, Chubu Electric Power Company shut down Hamaoka Units 4 and 5 for earthquake- and tsunami-related upgrades. ³ Ten more power reactors were scheduled to go into periodic inspection by the end of 2011 (Mainichi Shimbun, 2011). If no startup is allowed, there will be no reactors operating by May 2012.

The governors of several prefectures have said they will not allow power reactors that are out of operation to restart until clear guidance on revised safety requirements is provided by the central government. The guidance has been anything but clear.

On July 10, the government announced a two-stage safety review. The first stage applies to the plants waiting to be restarted and the second to all plants, including those that have remained in operation. On July 21, the test procedures developed by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which is part of METI, were approved by the Nuclear Safety Commission, which is part of the Cabinet Office. But confusion regarding these tests—created by the difference between the positions of Kan, who is cautious about restarting reactors, and the METI minister Banri Kaieda, who wants to restart them as soon as possible—is far from over. It’s not clear when these tests will begin and whether they will be considered trustworthy by local governments. And that’s not to mention the even more confusing situation surrounding Japan’s plans for reprocessing nuclear fuel and building fast breeder reactors.

Rokkasho and Monju

Located at the northern tip of Honshu, Japan’s main island, is the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, which is not yet in operation. The plan is to use the plant to separate plutonium from the spent fuel produced by Japanese nuclear power stations; once plutonium and uranium are stripped from it, the highly radioactive waste is vitrified in canisters, which are then to be stored at Rokkasho pending the availability of a 300-meter-deep geological disposal site. The only commercial-scale reprocessing plant in a non-nuclear weapon state, Rokkasho is capable of separating eight metric tons of plutonium per year, enough for about 1,000 weapons.

Japan has been trying to put the Rokkasho plant into operation for years, despite concern about its effects on international efforts to control nuclear proliferation. But a series of technical problems has delayed its start-up. In March 2006, the operator of the Rokkasho plant, Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd (JNFL), started active testing, using spent fuel from commercial power plants. But the furnace used for immobilizing high-level radioactive reprocessing waste in glass experienced a series of problems. A little more than four years later, JNFL changed the scheduled completion date for the Rokkasho plant from 2010 to 2012. This was the 18th postponement of a construction schedule since 1993, when start-up was scheduled for 1997. The plant is now 15 years behind schedule. ⁴

The nine regional monopoly power companies and the Japan Atomic Power Company, in which the power companies have a controlling interest, own most of JNFL. These power companies are, therefore, both owners and customers of the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant. They cannot, however, decide not to reprocess spent fuel without a change of national policy.

Originally, Japan intended to use separated plutonium to fuel fast breeder reactors, which produce more plutonium than they consume. Japan’s fast breeder reactor program stalled following a serious sodium leak and fire at the Monju prototype breeder in December 1995. Monju was finally restarted in May 2010, only to undergo another accident in August of that year, when a three-ton fuel-loading device dropped into the reactor, leaving no hope for an early restart. It was not until June that the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the operator of the plant, managed to retrieve the device. Under current plans, the fast breeder reactor commercialization is not expected to occur until around 2050.

In the meantime, Japan has already accumulated about 46 tons of separated plutonium, the bulk of which is stored at reprocessing plants in Europe. With breeder reactors decades away, the current plan for disposing of Japan’s plutonium stockpile and the additional plutonium to be separated at Rokkasho involves mixing it with depleted uranium to make what is called MOX, or mixed-oxide fuel, which can be used in light water reactors. This plan, too, has experienced a series of delays. In 1997, Japan’s Federation of Electric Power Companies and the government announced plans for using MOX fuel in 16–18 reactors by 2010 (Federation of Electric Power Companies, 1997). ⁵ In June 2009, the federation pushed back this goal to 2015.

Nevertheless, plans for full-scale reprocessing at Rokkasho are going forward. The major reason appears to involve the need to find a destination for spent fuel accumulating in nuclear power plant cooling pools around the country. The pools are becoming full. In the past, the reprocessing plants in the United Kingdom and France functioned effectively as virtual interim storage facilities for Japan, but this “storage method” is no longer available because Japan’s contracts with the European reprocessors have been completed. ⁶ Now the principal options for dealing with the problem are to send the spent fuel to the cooling pool at Rokkasho or to send it to interim storage facilities yet to be built, either on site or elsewhere in Japan.

But only one off-site intermediate storage facility is under construction. So to make room for spent fuel now at the country’s reactors in the Rokkasho cooling pool—now itself almost full—the reprocessing plant must operate. This has nothing to do with demand for plutonium; it’s a matter of creating storage space for spent fuel.

It should be natural to have a debate about these fuel-cycle programs in the process of reviewing Japanese nuclear power policy post-Fukushima. If the country were to eschew nuclear power, after all, there would be little need for a reprocessing plant or for continued development of breeder reactors. There has not been much of this kind of discussion, however.

The lack of focus on this issue is partly a matter of the urgency of Fukushima: The most attention has been paid to stabilizing the damaged Fukushima reactors and then to compensation payments for damages caused by the disaster. Thereafter, public discussion has centered on power shortages in general, with a particular focus on the timing of a restart of reactors shut down for periodic inspections. The political atmosphere of the country, mentioned above, has also loomed large on the public stage, leaving little space for a more overarching nuclear discussion. The discussion that has occurred has been contradictory and confused, to say the least.

Review of the Rokkasho project?

Since March 11, reprocessing and breeder reactor projects have been discussed mainly in the context of Fukushima Daiichi compensation. That is, the money intended for the Rokkasho project should be used, instead, to compensate for Fukushima-related damages.

Some have argued that the 2.4 trillion yen ($30 billion) deposited by utilities into a fund managed by the Radioactive Waste Management and Funding and Research Center for reprocessing costs at Rokkasho should be used. Others suggest that, at the very least, Tepco’s share of the fund—about 40 percent—should be used for such a purpose. A report published by the Japan Center for Economic Research (JCER) on April 25 concluded, “[F]reezing research on development of a fast breeder reactor and the nuclear fuel cycle would make available some 200 billion (yen) annually. Freezing operation (scheduled to continue for forty years) of the reprocessing facility in Aomori Prefecture would make it possible to use a portion of the ¥12 trillion… to be reserved by the electric power industry as reserves for reprocessing. This would be possible merely by overhauling the existing nuclear policy structure” (JCER, 2011).

The compensation discussion has been necessary because insurance coverage required by law is far too small to begin paying for the consequences of the Fukushima events. The Law on Compensation for Nuclear Damage, modeled partly after the US Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act and enacted originally in 1961, requires operators of nuclear facilities to buy private liability insurance that covers 120 billion yen (about $1.5 billion) per operating site. It also mandates that operators must have a contract with the government to cover the same amount should the kind of natural disaster not generally covered by private insurers—an earthquake or a volcano, for example—cause nuclear damage.

Since the Fukushima Daiichi case was caused by an earthquake, the government, not the private insurance policy, will provide 120 billion yen. But the compensation payments for the Fukushima disaster are expected to reach at least several trillion yen, hence the call, by some, for use of funds originally intended for reprocessing. There also is talk about going through court-led bankruptcy to dismantle Tepco.

But since mid-summer, the discussion of changes in Japan’s approach to nuclear energy has gone far beyond the mere payment of compensation to the victims of Fukushima.

Review of the Monju project and the nuclear fuel cycle?

At a press conference after a cabinet meeting in mid-July, Yoshiaki Takaki, the minister of education, culture, sports, science, and technology (MEXT), which is responsible for the Monju fast breeder reactor, said the direction of the breeder reactor program “will be formed through the process reviewing the nuclear policy/energy policy.” Asked whether both continuation and cancellation of the breeder reactor would be considered, he replied affirmatively (MEXT, 2011). Media reports on the White Paper on Science and Technology 2011, approved by the cabinet a few days earlier, suggested the entire breeder program might be under review, although the document said the Monju program itself should proceed. And on July 13, in a televised statement to the nation, Prime Minister Kan announced the goal to “phase out the dependence on nuclear power plants and achieve a society that can work without nuclear power plants” (Asahi Shimbun, 2011).

Coming almost simultaneously, these events have given weight to a view that the government might discontinue the Monju breeder project, an action that would have implications for the future of fuel reprocessing as well. Faced with questions from ministers in an informal session after the above-mentioned cabinet meeting, however, Kan admitted that the nuclear power phase-out idea was his own personal view, not the policy of the cabinet. Later the same day, after media reports on Takaki’s suggestion that Monju might be cancelled had caused turmoil, MEXT and Takaki himself denied that he mentioned cancellation at all.

Several days later, on July 20, these flip-flops flipped and flopped again when Kan told the House of Representatives Budget Committee that in an energy policy review process, the government will discuss, without prejudgment, whether it should proceed with the nuclear fuel cycle project in accordance with past plans. The same day, METI minister Kaieda expressed his opposition to this idea in a different committee.

So will there be a serious review of the nuclear fuel cycle policy? Clearly, a complex political battle on this point is underway.

The energy policy review Kan mentioned is to be conducted by the Energy and Environment Council. This council, chaired by Koichiro Genba, the minister in charge of national policy, was established in June as a working group of the Council on the Realization of the New Growth Strategy, which is chaired by Prime Minister Kan. Discussion at the Energy and Environment Council’s first meeting, held late in June, was based on reports from the National Policy Unit (NPU) of the Cabinet Office.

It has been reported that there is a power struggle going on between two groups of NPU staffers: Team A includes about 30 people, mostly bureaucrats from METI, the Ministry of Finance, and other government agencies; Team B consists of about 20 people from the private sector, many working at think tanks. Kan is said to be favoring Team B. There is a separate team under Goshi Hosono, the minister in charge of nuclear accidents (a position created within the Cabinet Office in June), consisting of some 30 people. Hosono and his team work closely with Kan (Oshika, 2011; Nikkei Shimbun, 2011).

The Energy and Environment Council’s interim report, released late in July, says the government should lead a nationwide dialogue under the theme of “concretization of a scenario of reducing the level of reliance on nuclear power.” The theme suggests a compromise between a force supporting Kan’s idea for a nuclear phase-out and a force supporting continued use of nuclear power. The report marks the first time the cabinet has showed clear support for scaling down nuclear power.

The report also recommended a review of the possibility of separating the generation and the transmission of electricity. The nine regional electric power companies operating nuclear reactors now have a monopoly over electricity distribution in each region. ⁷ A separation would foster competition, allowing other providers of electric power, including renewable energy sources, easier access to consumers. And that is why attempts to force the power companies to divest themselves of the transmission lines they own would no doubt face strong resistance. Such drastic changes in energy policy, however, are far from certain.

The Energy and Environment Council’s interim report is to be the basis for deliberations involving two more entities: a subcommittee of the Resources and Energy Advisory Committee of the METI and the Council for Planning a New Framework for Nuclear Energy Policy, which has been arranged by the Atomic Energy Commission. ⁸ In the past, these entities and many of the people connected to them have been highly supportive of expanding the Japanese nuclear program and a fuel cycle that includes reprocessing and fast breeder reactors.

One has to wonder whether a truly innovative energy and environmental strategy could be formed through such a complex process, which is complicated even further by the possibility that Kan will resign before this process ends, leading to a reshuffling of the whole cabinet.

Other factors in Japan’s energy future

Labor, of course, plays a significant role in Japanese energy politics. In the past, it has been largely supportive of an expansive nuclear policy. The current policy direction for labor on the nuclear issue is unclear. In July, Nobuaki Koga, the president of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, or Rengo, which is the largest entity supporting the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, announced that it will start a review of its energy policy. But until the Fukushima events, Rengo had promoted nuclear power. And the Rengo secretary-general, Hiroyuki Nagumo, springs from Tepco’s trade union and has made statements supporting reprocessing.

Coalition politics is also at work post-Fukushima. The New Komei Party (NKP) has started a review process of fast breeder reactor policy that could affect the stances of both the governing Democratic Party and the Liberal Democratic Party, which was almost continuously in power from its founding in 1955 until 2009 and which supported reprocessing. A junior member of the coalition government in power for about 10 years until 2009, when the Democratic Party came to power, NKP is expected to finish its new energy policy by the end of August. A call by Japan’s third-largest political party for fundamental change in the country’s nuclear policy will not be ignored. But change is always difficult to make, even after a catastrophe.

The crisis over the spent fuel pools at Fukushima Daiichi has dramatized the need to tackle the task of storing spent fuel safely. Fukushima Daiichi has one of the two on-site dry-cask storage facilities in the country. The facility has nine casks containing 408 assemblies in all. ⁹ Although internal sources say the structure of the dry-cask storage facility was damaged, there have been no reports of any safety concern with regard to the spent fuel stored in the casks.

In a rational world, the apparent success of the casks might lead to more interest in a sufficient dry-cask storage program. After all, even if a decision is made today to shut down all the nuclear power plants, the question of where to store the spent fuel for a long period of time will remain.

The trauma from the Fukushima Daiichi accident might, however, lead to opposition to building anything new related to nuclear power in Japan—including interim storage facilities for dry casks—without a clear and sincere explanation about a policy change by the central government and power companies. If new storage facilities are not built, something would have to be done with the spent fuel accumulating at power stations across Japan. Even if only a small number of nuclear reactors are allowed to operate, they will still intensify the pool storage capacity problem. It would be ironic if the Fukushima events simply reinforced the status quo and led to a continuation of Japan’s reprocessing policy.