Doubtless everyone here has read that Japan turned off its last nuke a few days ago. Ostensibly this one was turned off for an "inspection" as were most of the others over the past year. The others are still off, making this the longest inspection on record. It isn't actually an inspection; they have abandoned nuclear power. I predict that none of those reactors will ever be turned on again.
That is 30% of their generator capacity. There will be widespread power shortages, especially in Osaka. But no political leader, no matter how conservative, supports turning them on again. It would be roughly similar to a U.S. politician saying we should slap a $5 per gallon tax on gasoline to pay for the war on terror. You would lose the next election by a landslide. I think this is a stupid way to change a national energy policy. I would recommend phasing out the reactors over 10 or 20 years. But the Japanese public will not stand for that. They saw 90,000 people thrown out of the houses, farms and factories. They decided the risk is not worth it. This demonstrates that a nation can change its energy policy radically, practically overnight. If the U.S. had the will to do it, we could reduce our oil consumption by 30% in a few years, and by 90% in 20 years, with things like plug-in hybrids and synthetic liquid fuel from solar and wind sources. By the way, the Monju breeder reactor is also off. They are starting to think about how to roll up that project. That is a worse nightmare than closing down conventional reactors. Monju suffered from one accident after another. It ran for about an hour total during the entire 26-year saga of its construction and operation. I believe the Enrico Fermi breeder reactor also ran for a few hours before malfunctioning so badly it supposedly threatened to make Chicago a wasteland. - Jed
