Fast Facts About Japan's Nuclear Power Industry
Date: 19-Jul-07
Country: JAPAN
Here is an overview of nuclear power in Japan:
INDUSTRY PROFILE
-- More than three decades after Japan's first nuclear power plant started operating in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1966, nine Japanese utilities and a wholesaler run 55 commercial nuclear power generators that are dotted across the four main islands.
-- With a total generating capacity of 49,470 megawatts, the plants supply approximately one-third of the country's total electric power output.
WHY NUCLEAR?
-- Japan is dependent on foreign imports of oil, coal and natural gas for about 80 percent of its energy resources. The island nation says it cannot tap energy from neighbours via power transmission lines or pipelines. The government has made nuclear a cornerstone of the diversified mix of thermal, hydroelectric and renewables it says will help guarantee energy security by countering its reliance for oil from the volatile Middle East.
-- Unlike coal and oil-fired generators, nuclear plants do not emit harmful greenhouse gases. Seen as key in meeting Japan's Kyoto Protocol target of reducing greenhouse gases, nuclear is also touted as a more secure energy source than the world's finite reserves of oil, coal and natural gas.
SAFETY CONCERNS
-- Lying on the Pacific Ocean's volcanic Ring of Fire, earthquake-prone Japan has passed building regulations to try to ensure nuclear plants can withstand strong quakes. These include building on solid bedrock and putting up anti-tsunami walls at coastal plants.
-- Since the 1980s, Japan has transported spent nuclear fuel to processing plants in France, Belgium and Britain. The transport ships take about two months to reach their destinations.
-- Japan says such transportation is totally safe, but it is moving towards creating a "closed" domestic nuclear fuel cycle where it recycles its own spent fuel and then burns recovered uranium and plutonium as mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. However, MOX plutonium-uranium enriched fuel is controversial because critics fear it could be used to build nuclear weapons.
ACCIDENTS AND SCANDALS
-- Japan's deadliest accident at a nuclear plant occurred in August 2004. At least four workers were killed when a burst pipe blasted them with super-heated steam at the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in western Japan, raising concerns about Japan's ageing plants and their management's apparent laxity about safety inspections.
-- In 2002, around 35 cases of falsified plant inspection reports were discovered at more than 20 plants, after a whistleblower tipped off the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).
-- Two safety organisations were subsequently formed, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) and the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organisation (JNES), to re-establish public trust and confidence.
PLANTS UNDER CONSTRUCTION
-- As of May 2007, Japan had one nuclear plant under construction; the 912 megawatt TOMARI-3 power plant in Hokkaido, being built by HEPCO with a completion date of 2009.
Sources: Reuters, Japan's Nuclear Power Program (www.japannuclear.com), International Atomic Energy Agency, (www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/cnpp2003/CNPP_Webpage/co
untryprofiles/Japan/Japan2003.htm)
