Nuclear policy is wavering.
Japan’s nuclear policy has been operated under Nuclear 3 Principles in Atomic Energy Basic Law. 3 Principles are deeply concerned with international society surrounding post-war Japan which was forced to declare it would utilize nuclear material for commercial use only, never for military.
To secure energy resource was also important as it was a major premise for prosperity. Unlike Oil, Natural gas, Nuclear fuel, once loaded in reactor, will generate for years, and theoretically, spent fuel will create sufficient additional energy by reprocessing, all of them are major attractions of nuclear for resource poor country.
Therefore, as a defeated nation, they had to emphasize never to use nuclear fuel for military, but simultaneously, to secure resource was indispensable, to make these propositions compatible was a point of departure of nuclear policy.
The notion “Planned by State, Run by Power Utilities” is derived from such circumstances. Nuclear has been promoted by government as national energy policy, and it has been constructed and utilized by power utilities as private companies. Like a three-legged race, they have worked closely together under such historic origin of nuclear.
That role-sharing, nowadays taken for granted, has long been supported by tacit understanding between government and power utilities. Japanese government, taking account of the suspicion of international society, has never exploit nuclear for itself, but entrust nuclear power plant to power utilities. In return, they created accounting system advantageous for nuclear, under which power utilities have promoted construction and generation of nuclear power, and got profit by operating cheap-calculated nuclear.
This very tacit-understanding has been connected a pair of wheels, or government and power utilities, as axis.
As well known, before The Great East Japan Earthquake, profit of power utilities has fluctuated by utilization factors of nuclear.
This premise has collapsed.
Nowadays, as many concerned have realized, nuclear power does not contribute to profit, on the contrary, has become enormous burden for power utilities.
Now managers of power utilities must be devided into two types. One, believing nuclear economy as before, is waiting for resuming operation and high utilization, the other, seriously consider how to shutdown nuclear plants and to avoid high level radioactive waste disposal.
The latter’s judgement is correct, of course, but to realize their idea will be extremely difficult, and big transaction with government will be inevitable.
Next, we will reconsider how nuclear regime has collapsed historically.