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HOME  > Past issues  > 2011 July 20 - 26  > ‘Best mix’, the mantra of continued nuclear power promotion
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2011 July 20 - 26 [POLITICS]

‘Best mix’, the mantra of continued nuclear power promotion

July 22, 2011
A strategy taskforce in the Liberal Democratic Party on July 20 released a report promoting a “best mixture” of the use of nuclear power generation and renewable energy sources as a mid- and long-term policy enabling Japan’s economic restoration.

The report calls for the “best mixture” of maintaining operations of nuclear power plants while promoting renewable sources of energy in addition to making more energy-saving efforts and improving the efficiency of LNG and thermal power generation.

The report, however, makes the claim that renewable energy will not be able to immediately cover the same output supplied by nuclear power stations.

The LDP’s “best mixture” proposal resembles what the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) called for in its policy proposal published on July 14.

The policy proposal stresses the continued importance of “nuclear energy playing a key role as a quasi-domestically produced energy” and attacks renewable energy for its “high costs”, arguing that a “best mixture” of energy sources should be created.

The idea for the “best mixture” argument came from the electric power companies themselves for the purpose of maintaining and promoting nuclear energy. The “best mixture” is the very mantra that will be used to continue nuclear promotion.

The government has spent more than two trillion yen in tax revenues for atomic-power related policies over just the past five years in contrast to only 650 billion yen spent for renewable energy development during the same period of time.

Withdraw from nuclear power generation and retarget the budget allocation, and the explosive spread of renewable energy will be made possible.
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