Japan’s new prime minister Sanae Takaichi is expected to push for the accelerated revival of nuclear power to tackle inflation, a source of public discontent, with reactor restarts key to reducing costly fuel imports. Takaichi has appointed Ryosei Akazawa, who was Japan’s point person in its recent tariff deal with the U.S., as trade and industry minister – a portfolio that includes energy – signalling a willingness to engage with Washington, including on liquefied natural gas purchases, analysts said. Her government plans a package of purchases to present to U.S. President Donald Trump during his visit to Tokyo next week, including LNG, although not for now from the Alaskan pipeline project championed by Trump, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
However, Akazawa said on Wednesday that it was essential to maximise power sources that contribute to energy security and decarbonisation.
“We aim to proceed with nuclear restarts while taking concrete steps to gain the necessary understanding of local communities and stakeholders,” he said. Japan spent 10.7 trillion yen ($71 billion) last year on imported LNG and coal, a tenth of its import costs. Imported fossil fuels cover 60% to 70% of Japan’s electricity generation and are a source of inflation that has undermined support for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
NUCLEAR RENEWAL
“PM Takaichi will almost certainly push for a more ambitious nuclear reactor relaunch. This is in part to support her push to bring down wholesale power prices while reducing fuel import reliance,” said Henning Gloystein, managing director with Eurasia Group consultancy.
Before the 2011 Fukushima disaster, Japan operated 54 nuclear reactors. Of the 33 that remain operable, 14 have been restarted – a process that takes years. Securing stable new power supply is increasingly urgent as demand is poised to rise from data centre expansion.
Takaichi, an advocate of nuclear power including next-generation fusion energy, has also voiced support for perovskite solar cells – technologies Japan can potentially export – and opposed massive solar projects given their reliance on panels imported from China and the environmental impact.
Costly large-scale renewables projects including offshore wind, already hit by Mitsubishi’s withdrawal, may get less political support, industry insiders say.
“Takaichi… in the long term, is unlikely to provide much support for the industry, as she favours nuclear restarts,” said an industry source involved in offshore wind policy discussions.
ENERGY DIVERSIFICATION
Ahead of Trump’s visit to Japan, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has urged Tokyo to stop buying Russian energy, which mainly consists of LNG that accounts for 9% of Japan’s imports of the fuel.
While playing down political pressure, Japan signed new U.S. LNG purchase deals this year but stopped short of hard commitments to the $44-billion yet-to-be-built Alaska LNG project, under the wider bilateral trade agreement negotiated by Akazawa.
“His ability to maintain dialogue with the U.S. government, including on energy matters, is a positive factor,” said a high-ranked Japan utility company source.
Akazawa, a 64-year-old English-speaker, understands the importance of affordable power, said Tom O’Sullivan, director with Mathyos Global Advisory in Tokyo.
“There is also international pressure on Japan to cease purchasing Sakhalin-sourced LNG so that will also apply pressure to accelerate the restart of nuclear plants,” he said.
(Reporting by Katya Golubkova and Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Tony Munroe and Raju Gopalakrishnan)