Japan’s biggest business lobby Keidanren called on the government to include nuclear power expansion in the national energy strategy currently under revision.
Electrification, use of generative artificial intelligence, and new data centres and semiconductor chip factories will increase electricity demand from industries, the lobby group said on Friday.
Companies will need “high-quality, stable electricity sources — and that can’t be met with renewable energy alone”, said Michiko Ikeda, director of environment and energy policy at Keidanren. “We’re deeply concerned that without nuclear power, companies will be forced to reduce domestic capital investment, and industries will hollow out.”
Japan is among a number of countries showing renewed interest in nuclear energy as governments look to reduce consumption of pricey fossil fuels and meet future power needs.
The Asian nation is reviewing its energy plan, which will outline what the country’s power mix may look like beyond 2030. The current strategy, released in 2021, says that Japan will reduce its dependency on nuclear power as much as possible. Keidanren called for that line to be removed from the text.
The business group also asked the government to make clear plans for the construction of next-generation reactors, saying that nuclear power capacity will dwindle beyond 2040 unless decommissioned reactors are replaced.
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Japanese companies and government need to cooperate to ensure that fuels such as LNG are procured from a broader range of countries and that contracts are flexible, Keidanren added in its recommendations. The group also called for an expansion of the so-called “Strategic Buffer LNG”, which the government established to prevent industrial shortages.
