Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appears willing to approve the construction of more nuclear reactors, abandoning the goal set by his predecessor to end the nation's reliance on atomic power by the 2030s.
Abe said he favored a rethink of nuclear energy policy after his Liberal Democratic Party won the Dec. 16 general election by a landslide, ousting the nuclear-foe Democratic Party of Japan from power. His latest remarks, however, hint at a desire to jettison the goal set by the DPJ, on whose watch the Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred in March 2011, prompting the general public to turn its back on atomic plants.
"The new reactors will be totally different from those at Tepco's Fukushima No. 1 plant that caused the crisis," Abe said on a TV program Sunday. "We will be building them with consent obtained from the Japanese people."