Japan adopts plan to maximise use of nuclear energy

[NNadir]

This is the face of the Fukushima fetish that is unlikely to be swayed by contemplating something called "reality:"

Japan adopts plan to maximise use of nuclear energy

Excerpts:

The Japanese government has adopted a plan to extend the operation of existing nuclear power reactors and replace aging facilities with new advanced ones. The move is part of a policy that addresses global fuel shortages following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and seeks to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Since July, an advisory panel - the Green Transformation (GX) Executive Committee - has been considering the implementation of major changes in energy, all industries, and the economy and society in order to achieve the goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. The government's GX implementation meeting was held on 22 December, during which a roadmap for the next ten years was compiled as a "basic policy for the realisation of GX".

Under the new policy - which describes nuclear power as "a power source that contributes to energy security and has a high decarbonisation effect" - Japan will maximise the use of existing reactors by restarting as many of them as possible and prolonging the operating life of aging ones beyond the current 60-year limit. The government also said the country will develop advanced reactors to replace those that are decommissioned.

Prior to the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan's 54 reactors had provided around 30% of the country's electricity. However, within 14 months of the accident, the country's nuclear generation had been brought to a standstill pending regulatory change. So far, ten of Japan's 39 operable reactors have cleared inspections confirming they meet the new regulatory safety standards and have resumed operation. Another 17 reactors have applied to restart. In 2021, nuclear energy provided just 7.2% of the country's electricity...

In the paper I'll cite below, the decision to shut the reactors to see if they were "safe" should have been considered an indirect cause of death, since the nuclear plants were replaced by the combustion of dangerous fossil fuels. Dangerous fossil fuel plants kill people whenever they operate normally.

The text includes the following:

... On 21 December, Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) approved a draft of a new rule that would allow the reactors to be operated for more than the current limit of 60 years. Under the amendment, the operators of reactors in use for 30 years or longer must formulate a long-term reactor management plan and gain approval from the regulator at least once every 10 years if they are to continue to operate.

The new policy will effectively extend the period reactors can remain in operation beyond 60 years by excluding the time they spent offline for inspections from the total service life.

Under the new policy, Japan will also develop and construct "next-generation innovative reactors" to replace about 20 reactors that are set to be decommissioned...

We may compare the proposed 60 year, or longer, lifetime proposed for Japanese nuclear plants, with the less than 20 year lifetime averages that may be gleaned by analysis of the Danish Energy Agency's Master Register of Wind Turbines.

A recent paper has evaluated and compared direct and indirect human losses of the destruction of the Fukushima nuclear plants with another disaster in Japan, the Covid crisis.

That paper, which is open sourced, can be found here: Comparison of mortality patterns after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant radiation disaster and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Motohiro Tsuboi et al 2022 J. Radiol. Prot. 42 031502

Although the paper is open sourced, I'll quote an excerpt:

3.1. Direct deaths due to FDNPP accident

There was a significant gap in the extent of direct deaths caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and those caused by the FDNPP accident. Although many direct deaths due to COVID-19 were reported, there is no evidence of direct deaths due to radiation after the FDNPP accident. Nonetheless, no observations of direct death after the FDNPP should be cautiously interpreted because it is difficult to completely deny the hypothesis that radiation exposure following the accident may have led to excess cancer deaths. One reason for this is a difficulty in estimating the extent to which radiation exposure may contribute to cancer development in an individual. However, the epidemiological data available so far following the 2011 Fukushima disaster rejects the hypothesis and international authorities support this evidence [3]. Given these facts, it may be reasonable to conclude that there were no or little direct cancer deaths due to radiation after the FDNPP accident. Of course, this does not imply that there is no need to prepare for radiation exposure in future nuclear accidents. Clearly, preparedness for radiation exposure as a direct hazard is important in emergency radiological care...

I trust your holiday preparations are going well.