Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said yesterday that the country must gradually reduce its reliance on atomic power with the eventual goal of becoming nuclear-free.
Four months after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima nuclear accident, the world’s worst since Chernobyl 25 years ago, Kan has repeatedly argued that Japan must focus more on renewable sources of energy.
“By reducing its reliance on nuclear power gradually, we will aim to become a society which can exist without nuclear power,” Kan said at a televised press conference. “Considering the grave risk of nuclear accidents, we strongly feel that we cannot just carry on based on the belief that we must only try to ensure [nuclear] safety.”
Kan earlier announced a full review of Japan’s energy plan, under which atomic power had been set to meet more than half of demand by 2030.
Kan said he wants to make renewables such as solar, wind and geothermal a new “major pillar” of the industrial power’s energy mix.
“If everything goes as scheduled, a renewable energy bill will be discussed in the Diet [legislature] starting tomorrow,” Kan said.
The prime minister, Japan’s fifth in as many years, made the speech at a time when he is under intense pressure to step down from political adversaries who accuse him of having bungled Japan’s response to the tsunami.
Kan has butted heads with plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) over the Fukushima accident.
Kan’s skepticism about boosting nuclear power in the quake-prone nation has also set him on a collision course with pro-nuclear lawmakers, both in the conservative opposition and within his own party.
The earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima plant, which has suffered meltdowns, explosions and radiation leaks into the air, soil and sea.
With all but 19 of Japan’s 54 reactors now shut, mostly for regular checks, Japan is going through a power crunch in the sweltering summer months, and there are fears that outages could slow the already limping economy.
“There are worries about power supply in Japan,” Japanese Minister of Economy Kaoru Yosano said earlier yesterday. “Manufacturers may well consider moving plants to a country with a stable electricity supply or cheaper labor.”
Anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan has grown since the Fukushima disaster and thousands have since protested at a string of rallies against TEPCO and nuclear power and for a shift toward alternative energy.
Telecoms giant Softbank has announced plans to build 10 solar power plants. Softbank president Masayoshi Son and 36 of Japan’s 47 prefectures launched a council yesterday aimed at boosting renewable sources of energy.
The liberal, mass-circulation Asahi Shimbun yesterday called for a shift toward a nuclear-free society within two or three decades.
It pointed at an ongoing energy saving campaign, in which companies in Japan’s northeast are being asked to cut back use by 15 percent, adding that if it works, it proves that Japan can live without atomic power.
“How about setting a target of reducing [atomic power] to zero within 20 years, to urge people to make their utmost efforts, and to review the plan every few years?” the newspaper suggested in its editorial.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS