IEA Chief Calls for Japan to Restart Dormant Nuclear Plants

(Bloomberg) -- Japan should accelerate its efforts to revive some of the country’s dormant nuclear power plants to meet growing demand for electricity, according to the head of the International Energy Agency. 

“The restart of nuclear power plants is critical,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the Paris-based intergovernmental organization, said at an event in Tokyo on Thursday. 

Birol spoke following a tour on Wednesday of Kashiwazaki Kariwa, the world’s biggest nuclear plant, which was shuttered in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima meltdown along with the rest of Japan’s nuclear capacity. He plans to reiterate that message in meetings this week with officials including Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, he said. 

“I feel really bad that a country I really love, Japan, has so much idle capacity,” Birol said. “I very much hope that soon, not only the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, but other nuclear power plants in Japan will come back, in a safe way.” 

Tokyo Electric Power Co., the owner of Kashiwazaki Kariwa, has said the facility is largely ready to resume operations, but last month announced that it would delay until August 2029 the construction of required anti-terrorism equipment, pushing back any potential plans to restart the site. 

Nuclear power supplied about a third of Japan’s electricity before the 2011 catastrophe, but all 54 of the nation’s reactors were taken offline after the meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, also operated by Tepco. The country’s nuclear regulator has designated 33 reactors as operable, but only 14 are so far back online. Hokkaido Electric Power Co. said this week that it may restart one of its reactors in 2027. 

Japan revised its national energy strategy in February, announcing that it would encourage increased use of nuclear power. That’s a reversal from its earlier position introduced in 2014 to reduce reliance on reactors. It’s a shift that’s welcomed by Birol as demand for electricity is climbing around the world. 

“It foresees that nuclear must play an important role,” Birol said at the event, organized by the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. “It won’t solve all the problems, but it will solve some problems.”

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