{"id":5321,"date":"2021-06-11T15:02:43","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T06:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en-renew\/?p=5321"},"modified":"2021-06-28T12:04:39","modified_gmt":"2021-06-28T03:04:39","slug":"government-omits-description-of-maximum-utilization-of-nuclear-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/news\/5321","title":{"rendered":"Government Omits Description of \u201cMaximum Utilization\u201d of Nuclear Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Subtle differences of views have emerged among the relevant cabinet ministers concerning this matter. At a press conference held after a cabinet meeting on June 4, Hiroshi Kajiyama, head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), noted that the change did not mean that the government had changed its policy on the use of nuclear power.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, at a separate press conference, Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said that the policy of the current administration was to achieve carbon neutrality, putting the top priority on renewable energies.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the Green Growth Strategy, formulated at the end of 2020, the government had positioned nuclear power as a \u201cproven de-carbonization technology.\u201d It also demonstrated the direction of continuing \u201cthe maximum utilization of nuclear infrastructure,\u201d with further safety enhancement, \u201cwhile aiming to decrease dependency on nuclear power\u201d to the maximum extent.<\/p>\n

In the proposed revisions released on June 2, however, the phrase \u201cthe maximum utilization of nuclear infrastructure\u201d has been removed\u2014although the wording on \u201cdecreasing dependency\u201d was unchanged\u2014and a new statement appeared instead: \u201cJapan plans to resume the operation of nuclear reactors in cases where the Nuclear Regulatory Authority has confirmed that the world\u2019s toughest regulatory standards are met.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"METI<\/a>At a press conference on June 4, METI Minister Kajiyama, after saying that the change did not mean the government\u2019s policy had changed, elaborated, \u201cIn the process of consultations, the government listened to opinions from various ministers. As of now, the expressions used in the current fifth Strategic Energy Plan will be precisely followed. As for future Cabinet policy on nuclear power, however, we agreed to discuss the phrasing in the process of revising the Strategic Energy Plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Green Growth Strategy released at the end of 2020 had been formulated by METI after discussions with various ministries, but was not signed jointly by those ministries. In contrast, the draft proposal for revisions shown on June 2 was<\/em> signed off by the relevant ministries, and is credited to them. METI Minister Kajiyama explained how the expressions had been altered.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Environment Minister Koizumi stated, \u201cThe reason why the prime minister declared for carbon neutrality was not to maximize the utilization of nuclear power, but to introduce renewable energies to the maximum extent, and to work toward carbon neutrality under the principle of placing top priority on renewable energies.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cAlthough the Environment Ministry was not responsible for energy policy, it has always spoken out on what was necessary in order to put together climate change countermeasures, its area of responsibility.\u201d Koizumi then emphasized that it was the policy of the Suga administration to \u201cmake the state independent through the achievement of carbon neutrality, putting the top priority on renewable energies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Subtle differences of views have emerged among the relevant cabinet ministers concerning this matter. At a press conference held after a cabinet meeting on June 4, Hiroshi Kajiyama, head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), noted that the change did not mean that the government had changed its policy on the use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[724,32,722,186],"class_list":["post-5321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-policies","tag-energy-policy","tag-meti","tag-nuclear-policy","tag-strategic-energy-plan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5321"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5335,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5321\/revisions\/5335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}