Japan’s plans to export nuclear power stations have totally been discouraged. The monopoly assisted by the former Abe government has made sales campaign tours in the world, regarding the policy as a main core of its growth strategy. Finally all of the export plans have fallen to deadlocks, ending missions together with the Abe’s government.

Useless thing in UK

Hitachi, Ltd. purchased in 2012 a UK’s nuclear power development company, Horizon Nuclear Power, from a leading German electric power company. Hitachi’s plan was to construct two light water reactors (LWR) of the improved boiling water type of 1.3 million KW output on the island of Anglesey, located in the mid-western region of the country, and to start operation in the first half of the 2020 decade.

Due to the swiftly heightened cost for safety measures, however, since the accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi power station, on one hand, and the broader use of renewable energy sources, like clean energy from offshore wind, on the other, nuclear power generation has become obsolete in the UK.

The British government proposed to owe two-thirds of the total development cost of 3 trillion Yen, and the rest would be levied on Hitachi and other Japanese companies; thus, the government of Japan has established a funding scheme in which it would guarantee debts of private firms. That means the state backs up the monopoly group. Eventually, however, it was estimated profits would not be big.

In January last year Hitachi announced ‘a freeze’ of the project, but it had not expressed ‘withdrawal’ before the shift to the Suga government as the companyt had advocated the Abe’s government which had promoted ‘export of infrastructure’ for economic growth. In the UK, meanwhile, nuclear plant construction plans had already come to an end. As for concern over exhaustion at the oilfields in the North Sea, offshore wind power farms have been complementary.

Withdrawals of Mitsubishi and Toshiba

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. was obliged to cease activities in Turkey, a country of earthquakes, while Toshiba Corporation finally retreated two years ago from the overseas nuclear projects. Thus, the so-called growth strategy relying on export of nuclear power development of the new, successive government of the Abe’s one, has totally vanished.

Mitsubishi, Hitachi and Toshiba have worked on their overseas operations to make profits as the domestic market did not allow them to build a new power station. The era has changed today.

Total loss of competitiveness

Total electricity generation by sustainable, renewable energy sources exceeded for the first time last year the entire volume of worldwide nuclear power generation. Cost for nuclear power generation is high and it has totally lost competitiveness in the world’s energy market. Wind energy, in particular, is gaining rapid growth, followed by solar energy.

Japan’s potential for offshore wind power generation is fairly good, compared with other countries, and it is not hard to fill all demands of electricity.

Japan lies in archipelagoes of earthquakes. Nuclear power stations must finish operation immediately and eternally. The government of Japan and the Keidanren, the Japan Business Federation, should engage in development of wind power, a purely made-in-Japan energy source.

Land-based wind energy and solar and geothermal energy sources are important, too, to develop on the premises of preventing unplanned development and nuisances.

October 20, 2020