Japan Press Weekly

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2016 July 20 - 26 [POLITICS]

Woman candidate for Tokyo governor is strong advocate of nuclear energy

One of the major Tokyo gubernatorial candidates, Koike Yuriko, who once served as the Environment Minister has been a strong advocate of nuclear power generation. She considers renewable sources of energy as only complementary to nuclear energy and has been very active in promoting nuclear power plant exports.

On the eve of the July 14 campaign announcement day, in a press conference at the Japan National Press Club, Koike, who was also a former Defense Minister, seemed to be trying not to touch upon the nuclear energy issue. She only said, “Safety assurance is important.” However, each time a nuclear accident occurred or some flaws were detected in the past, she loudly insisted on maintaining strong support for nuclear power generation.

Her official website has an article featuring an interview carried in the September 2003 issue of the monthly debate magazine VOICE. Around that time, the revelation of cover-ups of defects at TEPCO’s nuclear power plants was a focus of public attention. In this interview, she said, “Serious reconsideration is, of course, necessary. But, we should make use of this failure to reassure the public of the safety of nuclear energy and ensure a fresh start of NPPs.”

Regarding renewable energy, she said, “It is only complementary,” and pinned a negative label on its use by saying, “It is almost impossible for renewables to be the country’s main source of energy.” She then concluded, “Therefore, nuclear power is the only indispensable energy source.” Soon after the magazine ran this interview, Koike was chosen to head the Environment Ministry under the Koizumi government.

In 2011, after a serious nuclear crisis took place at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi NPP, she in the Diet criticized the then Prime Minister Kan Naoto for calling for breaking away from Japan’s dependency on nuclear energy. Koike relentlessly questioned the then Prime Minister, “As Japan is pressing ahead with its NPP export businesses, are you saying that you would take nuclear energy off the list of Japan’s new growth strategy?”