Newsletter No. 683
News-Analysis
July 23, 2007

 

THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE NIIGATA EARTHQUAKE ON JAPAN’S ENERGY POLICIES

When I heard about the July 16th earthquake in Niigata I didn’t think that I would be writing a Shingetsu Newsletter about it. It seemed like one of those news stories that were important for Japan domestically, but had no relevance for my specialized province of Japanese-Islamic relations. However, there have been some developments over the past week that changed my mind -- the story may indeed be relevant for us here.

Photo: The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in sunnier days
Source: Nuclear Control Institute website

The key point is that the earthquake seems to have exposed serious problems in the Japanese nuclear power industry. Damaged in the quake was the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant -- the world’s largest in terms of capacity. Aside from the fact that there were radioactive leaks caused by this damage, even more problematic was the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s poor efforts at firefighting inside the plant and the reluctance to report to the public the full scope of the damage until several days later. The plant has now been shut down, probably for about five months, but it is more difficult to assess the damage in terms of public trust.

I am not a big expert either on nuclear power or on energy issues in general. There are some others on this list who I’m sure are better informed than me. Still, I think that there is some common sense analysis that I can make at present.

Obviously, Japan needs to derive its power from somewhere. At present there are 55 nuclear plants in Japan that supply about 30% of its energy needs. METI’s “New National Energy Strategy” envisions that Japan will raise that to 40% or more by about 2030 (see Shingetsu Newsletter No. 160).

This earthquake and the problems it has exposed strike right at the heart of these ambitious energy plans. There are already plans to build eleven new nuclear reactors, but local communities in Japan don’t want these facilities in their own backyard precisely because of the fear of accidents and a demonstrated tendency in the Japanese nuclear industry to cover up mistakes rather than inform the public of the potential dangers.

So what’s really going to happen? I don’t know.

However, if the Niigata earthquake really slows down the Japanese nuclear energy industry in an appreciable manner, then we can immediately suggest two ways in which this will impact Japan’s foreign policy in the Islamic world:

1) It may reduce some of the urgency to develop the Japan-Kazakhstan partnership on uranium. We recently had an excellent analysis of this partnership from Elena Shadrina, who is, ironically enough, based at Niigata University (see Shingetsu Newsletter No. 659).

2) It may increase Japan’s dependence on other energy sources like oil and LNG. This means that Tokyo’s desire to gain more leverage vis-a-vis the Persian Gulf may be frustrated once again. If Japan cannot get its nuclear house in order, then the political influence of the Saudis, Emiratis, Iranians, Qataris, and some others will be relatively enhanced.

The real answers to the questions that I am posing here are not likely to be apparent until some years have passed. But the issue of how Japan balances its energy needs between the different industries is certainly a long-term issue for Japanese-Islamic relations. Time will tell whether or not this earthquake will have a major impact on this calculus.