Forget Fukushima, from Japan to India nuclear power is retaking centre stage in the fight against climate change

China is leading the way, but South Korea, India and Japan are all also on board with the low-carbon energy source’s resurgence

Some call it ‘grasping at straws’ and nuclear certainly has its problems – but new technologies have restored confidence in the sector somewhat

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A view of Japan’s crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant last month. In the years since the disaster, Japanese policymakers have gone from shunning nuclear to embracing it once again. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 11:30am, 6 Aug 2023Updated: 5:22pm, 10 Aug 2023

Japan’s plan to release treated waste water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant may have ignited controversy recently, but more than a decade after the 2011 disaster, the world’s gaze is once again turning to the low-carbon energy source as unprecedented heatwaves underscore Earth’s new ‘era of global boiling’.

In a G20 statement on the energy transition last month, world leaders highlighted the role nuclear energy can play in cutting emissions and providing energy security.

Nuclear plants are also capable of meeting baseload demand – providing the minimum amount of electricity a grid needs – because their power output is much more constant than intermittent sources such as solar or wind.

Climate experts say the prominence given to nuclear power by the G20 text is a sign of its possible resurgence. It’s certainly making a comeback in Asia, where China, South Korea, Japan, and India are leading the way.

A wind farm in China’s Xinjiang province. Domestic experts cite Japan’s lack of space for solar and other renewable energy infrastructure as a reason for refocusing on nuclear power. Photo: Shutterstock

“Japan is like a large Singapore with not so much land,” Tatsuya Terazawa, the chairman of Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics, told a July 26 webinar on Asia’s ‘Road to a Sustainable Energy Future’.

He cited this lack of space for solar panels and other infrastructure as among the “constraints on expanding renewable energy” in the country.