The Japanese Ministry of Economy announced yesterday that, due to protests by local authorities in the country, the existing nuclear power plants (NPP) may be shut down, and the country’s power sector will become practically nuclear-free by April 2012. To compensate for the reduction in output, Japan will be forced to annually import oil-fuel and natural gas in the amount of $40 billion. Domestic experts are making a significantly higher assessment of Japan’s additional demand for hydrocarbons. However, Russia will hardly have a share of the new “Japanese pie”: almost all of Tokyo’s additional needs will be met by Qatar, Australia and the Arab states.

Today, 19 of Japan’s 54 reactors are operational, and the rest have been stopped for inspection and, perhaps, will not be turned on due to a ban by local authorities. If the local governing bodies continue having a negative stance, then by April 2012 all nuclear power generating units will be shut down as a preventative measure, but will not be returned to operational mode. This possibility, Itar-Tass reports, was announced yesterday by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. If Japan does become a nuclear-free state, it will be forced to annually spend approximately an additional $40 billion on the purchase of hydrocarbons and thermal power plants.

Following the earthquake and tsunami this past March, several other nuclear power plants were shut down in addition to the distressed Fukushima-1 NPP. At the same time, several nuclear power generating units were put out of service for scheduled technical inspections. Due to this situation, Japan now uses only about 36% of its total nuclear capacity. On average, Japanese reactors are turned off for technical inspections every 13 months.

Meanwhile, putting a reactor in operation requires not only obtaining permission from the supervisory agencies, but also from the local government on the territory of which the NPP is located. However, after the accident at the Fukushima-1 NPP, these permissions have not been issued once. And if the local authorities maintain this position, then the Japanese power sector will lose all of its operational NPPs already in nine months.

For now, Russian nuclear energy experts do not believe that Japan will be the next country, after Germany, to abandon the use of nuclear power.

“It’s hard for me to assess the Japanese mentality and the position of the local governing bodies. But on the state level, Japan has declared that it is not planning to shut down the nuclear power plants and abandon the use of nuclear energy,” said a senior academic secretary at the Kurchatov Institute, Andrey Gagarinsky. He is confident that the anti-nuclear epidemic will not spread to any other countries.

At the very least, he said, India, China and Russia are not planning on revising their nuclear programs. Meanwhile, Gagarinsky believes that Japan will not be able to compensate the losses from the closure of the NPPs by annually paying $40 billion.

“Much greater spending will be required,” concluded the academic.

Meanwhile, the experience of recent months has shown that Russia is unlikely to be able to reap any benefits from Japan’s growing demand for hydrocarbons.

“Almost the entire volume of gas which was needed to compensate the losses from the Fukushima accident has been supplied to Japan by Qatar. And Russia was unable to increase it supplies to Japan,” agreed Nezavisimaya Gazeta’s (NG) experts.

“Russian exporters won’t be able to directly benefit from Japan’s growing demand. We have virtually no surplus liquefied gas reserves in the east. And driving fuel-oil to Japan across half the globe hardly makes sense,” said Valery Nesterov, an analyst with Troika Dialogue.

According to Nesterov, the new oil refinery that is being constructed in the Nakhodka District is not focused on oil-fuel production and will hardly interest the Japanese importers. The same can be said about the oil refinery in Khabarovsk. At the same time, Russia is trying not to increase but to decrease the export of oil-fuel.

Meanwhile, additional volumes of liquefied natural gas will appear in Russia only after 2016-2018. At the same time, Nesterov considers the scenario of rapid liquidation of all Japanese NPPs a very unlikely one.

“Even if Tokyo decides to take the German route, the process of liquidation of nuclear energy will take at least 5-15 years,” suggested Nesterov. 

The director of the National Energy Institute, Sergey Pravosudov, agrees with this assessment.

“A full closure of all NPPs is hardly possible. Japan will most likely keep some of the most modern power generating units in operation,” he said.

According to Pravosudov, the main beneficiaries of the closure of the Japanese NPPs could become Russian coal exporters. And Gazprom will be able to benefit from “the Japanese miracle” only indirectly – due to the relieving of pressure on the European market from excess supplies of liquefied natural gas from Qatar.

http://rt.com/politics/press/nezavisimaya/japan-shut-nuclear-power/en/