Eleven years after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japan is planning to build new nuclear power plants using the latest technology.

At the same time, the government wants to quickly connect more of the dormant nuclear power plants to the grid in order to avoid bottlenecks in the energy supply as far as possible.

Patrick Welter

Correspondent for business and politics in Japan based in Tokyo.

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Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is not only reacting to energy shortages as a result of the western boycott of Russian oil and gas.

The shift in energy policy is primarily part of Japan's efforts to further reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the fight against global warming.

Corresponding plans by the Ministry of Industry to expand nuclear power were discussed in a committee meeting in the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on Wednesday.

The government intends to adopt a corresponding plan by the end of the year.

Kishida is positive about the ideas.

He has repeatedly emphasized that Japan must use all available technologies for energy supply.

Currently, 10 out of 33 reactors in Japan are approved and basically connected to the grid.

The government wants to have a further seven reactors up and running again by next summer, having been upgraded in terms of safety.

It is also being considered to increase the lifetime of reactors from 40 to 60 years.

The plan to use more nuclear power finds a positive echo in the economy.

The powerful trade association Keidanren says it is imperative that Japan uses more nuclear power because it wants to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

According to Keidanren's calculations, Japan needs 27 nuclear power plants on the grid by 2030 and 40 nuclear power plants by 2050 to meet the environmental target.

Even among the population, which largely rejected nuclear power after the meltdown in Fukushima Daiichi, a rethink seems to be beginning in view of the Russia-Ukraine crisis and rising energy prices.

In a recent poll, the majority of Japanese voted for greater use of nuclear power.

The government's new plan would mark the first time Japan has clearly committed to building new nuclear power plants since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.

On March 9, 2011, a powerful tsunami in the nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan destroyed the emergency power supply from diesel generators.

As a result, the power plant suffered a triple meltdown and around 160,000 people were evacuated.

A few tens of thousands are still unable to return to their homes today, and some never will.

After the accident, Japan initially shut down all its nuclear power plants in order to re-license them under stricter safety regulations.

But the country never left any doubt that it wanted to stick with nuclear power, albeit on a much smaller scale than planned before the accident.

According to the current plan, the country, which is poor in raw materials, is aiming for a nuclear power share of 20 to 22 percent by 2030.

Experts have repeatedly pointed out in recent years that this plan requires the construction of new nuclear power plants and the extension of the service lives of existing power plants.

The government has so far avoided making a clear statement about this.

During this very hot summer, Tokyo was at times faced with power supply restrictions, which were ultimately avoided through savings.

The energy suppliers had also avoided bottlenecks by making full use of the available gas and coal-fired power plants.

Standing on the side of Western Europe and the United States, Japan has announced as sanctions that it will stop purchasing Russian coal and oil in response to Russia's incursion into Ukraine.

There is no clear schedule for this.

Japan intends to continue purchasing liquid gas from Russia.

Japanese trading houses are involved in corresponding development companies on the Russian island of Sakhalin.

The government is advising companies like Mitsubishi and Mitsui not to give up their stakes in the development companies.

The share prices of companies in the "nuclear village", as it is called in Japan, gained on the Tokyo stock exchange on Wednesday.

Tokyo Electric Power, the largest regional power company in Japan, gained 9.8 percent.

The company not only operates the Fukushima Daiichi disaster power plant, but also a large-scale dormant power plant in Niigata Prefecture.

Shares in Mitsubishi Heavy Industries rose 6.8 percent and Japan Steel Works rose 5.7 percent.

Hitachi gained 2 percent, while Toshiba lost 0.2 percent.