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Japan
This Week in AsiaHealth & Environment

More Japanese want nuclear plants to reopen ahead of 2011 Fukushima disaster anniversary

  • A new poll shows that half of Japanese favour restarting dozens of reactors in the country, compared with 30 per cent in previous surveys
  • One reason for the shift is more Japanese are swayed by the argument that nuclear energy is the answer to global warming, an analyst says

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The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on August 24, 2023. Photo: AP
Julian Ryall
As Japan prepares to mark the 13th anniversary of the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, a new poll indicates that opposition to the full resumption of operations at the nation’s atomic energy facilities is weakening.
The opinion poll, conducted on February 17 and 18 and published in the Asahi newspaper on Monday, shows that 50 per cent of Japanese are now in favour of restarting dozens of reactors around the country that have been shut down since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered the world’s second-worst nuclear disaster ever after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union.

Local governments have been reluctant to approve the country’s 54 reactors, spread across 17 nuclear power plants, to resume operations. Currently, just 12 reactors at six plants are active after passing stringent new safety tests.

The Asahi has conducted a similar poll every year since 2013. For many years, it showed a stable 30 per cent of people who favoured the plants coming back online while up to 60 per cent opposed. However, those figures shifted radically last year, with 51 per cent in favour and 42 per cent opposed.

The February survey, in contrast, indicates that just 35 per cent of the public still want the reactors to remain shut down.

“There are a number of reasons why opposition is falling but the major factor is the multibillion international campaign by the global nuclear energy industry to convince the world nuclear is the answer to global warming,” said Aileen Mioko Smith, an environmental campaigner with Kyoto-based Green Action Japan.

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