Japan Press Weekly

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2011 April 13 - 19 [POLITICS]

LDP must reflect on nuclear power generation

The Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Democratic Party should assume the responsibility of questioning the promotion of nuclear power generation.

In the ongoing nationwide local election campaigns, LDP candidates are refusing to say anything about the fact that as a ruling party, the LDP had 54 nuclear reactors constructed, which are currently operating across Japan.

Japan’s oldest nuclear reactor began operations in 1970 at the Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant in Tsuruga Town in Fukui Prefecture. Since then, until the latest nuclear reactors were constructed at the Tomari Nuclear Power Plant in Hokkaido in 2009, successive LDP governments pushed forward the construction of nuclear power plants.

The LDP governments encouraged electric power companies to build nuclear power plants by creating a subsidy system to cover the construction costs. Furthermore, it established a relation of subservience to the United States in regard to the energy policy.

Even after major nuclear accidents at Three-Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986), the LDP drew up a plan to build more nuclear reactors and moved forward with the “nuclear fuel cycle” program in which plutonium and uranium extracted from spent fuel are used as fuel to generate power.

The Basic Energy Plan, formulated in 2003 by the LDP-Komei government under Prime Minister at that time Koizumi Jun’ichiro, placed importance on the “promotion of nuclear power generation as a key energy source.” In response to the business community’s call for nuclear power plant exports in order to stimulate Japanese nuclear industry, the LDP-Komei government in October 25 in its energy policy promised to help expand Japanese nuclear power plants throughout the world. The current DPJ-led government adheres to this policy.

Both the LDP and the DPJ governments rejected the repeated requests of Japanese Communist Party Dietmember Yoshii Hidekatsu to improve safety measures at the Fukushima nuclear power plant against possible accidents due to earthquakes and tsunami.

The LDP has been receiving political donations from Japan’s major nuclear plant makers, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. An ex-TEPCO vice president in charge of nuclear power generation was a LDP member of the House of Councilors for 11 years until 2010.