A Japanese power firm began switching off the country’s last working reactor, leaving it without nuclear power just over a year after the world’s worst atomic accident in a quarter of a century.
As technicians close down the No. 3 unit at Tomari in Hokkaido, the debate over whether Japan needs nuclear power has been reignited, amid increasingly shrill warnings of summer power blackouts.
Hokkaido Electric Power, which runs the plant, said they started inserting control rods at 5pm that would halt the chain reaction and bring the reactor to “cold shutdown” sometime on Monday.
Photo: Reuters
“Power output started declining at the No. 3 unit,” said Tomohiko Shibuya, a Hokkaido Electric Power spokesman. “We have not heard of any trouble so far. Power generation there is scheduled to stop completely in about six hours.”
The shuttering will mark the first time since the 1970s that resource-poor and energy-hungry Japan has been without nuclear power, a technology that had provided a third of its electricity until meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant after the earthquake and tsunami disaster in March last year.
“A new [era in] Japan with no nuclear power has begun,” said Gyoshu Otsu, a 56-year-old monk who joined a protest against nuclear power in front of the industry ministry in Tokyo which supervises the nation’s power utilities.
Photo: AFP
“Generating nuclear power is like a criminal act as a lot of people are still suffering,” said Otsu, wearing white Buddhist clothes.
“If we allow the situation as it is now, another accident will occur,” he added.
Protest organiser Masao Kimura said: “It’s a symbolic day today. Now we can prove that we will be able to live without nuclear power.”
Separately, about 5,500 demonstrators staged a rally at a park near Tokyo Tower and later marched through central Tokyo carrying banners which read: “Sayonara [Goodbye], nuclear power.”
“We have to take action now, so that Fukushima should be the last nuclear accident not only in Japan, but all over the world,” Mizuho Fukushima, head of the opposition Social Democratic Party, said during the rally.
When power generation stopped late yesterday, Japan’s entire stable of 50 reactors would be offline, despite increasingly urgent calls from the power industry and bodies like the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, who fear dire consequences for the world’s third-largest economy.
Last month, Kansai Electric Power, which supplies mid-western Japan, including the commercial hubs of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, said a hot summer could see supply fall nearly 20 percent short of demand.
Kyushu Electric Power, covering an area further west, and Hokkaido Electric Power also said they would struggle as air conditioning gets cranked up in Japan’s sweltering summer.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS