December 18, 2018

It has come to light that the planned construction of a nuclear power plant in Britain by Japan’s major nuclear plant maker is likely to be delayed due to the uncertainty in financing for the project. The Abe government’s ambitious policy of exporting Japanese nuclear power plants to other countries has not achieved success.

In accordance with the Abe government’s nuclear export policy, Hitachi formulated a plan to construct a nuclear power plant with two reactors in Wales. Under the plan, Hitachi’s British affiliate is supposed to launch construction in 2020.

However, as the total cost for the project was estimated to far exceed the initial estimate and may reach three trillion yen, the NPP maker in June this year began negotiating with the U.K. government regarding financial support for the project. The negotiations have yet to reach an agreement. Hitachi Chairman Nakanisi Hiroaki on December 17 at a press conference expressed his view that the company has no choice but to put the NPP project in Wales on hold.

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira on the same day in the Diet building said to the press that the stalemate in Hitachi’s NPP project in the U.K. represents the collapse of PM Abe’s policy to promote Japan’s export of nuclear power plant technology in defiance of the world trend moving toward departure from nuclear power.

Referring to the fact that the Abe government has agreed with the governments of the U.S., Taiwan, Vietnam, Lithuania, Turkey, and Britain on a program to construct nuclear power plants in those countries, Koike stressed that all these countries have decided to withdraw from or at the least shelve the NPP agreement.

Koike pointed out that the reason for this is that the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident revealed that there is no such thing as a safe nuclear power plant and that nuclear emergency preparedness costs too much money. Nevertheless, the Japanese government still asserts that electricity from nuclear energy is very cost effective and sticks to its support for nuclear power generation, Koike said.

Past related articles:
> Japan to give up export of nuclear power plant to Turkey [December 5, 2018]
> Abe gov’t energy plan disregards domestic and global trend toward departure from nuclear power generation [July 4, 2018]
> TEPCO gives up exporting nuclear power plants to Vietnam [June 29, 2012]