Facility utilization rates were stagnant at about 60 percent at the nation's nuclear plants in fiscal 2007, the Japan Atomic Energy Commission said in an annual white paper released Tuesday.
Nuclear energy has failed to live up to society's expectations, the report says, citing the suspension of the trial operation of a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture.
The paper terms 2008 as the year when nuclear power was internationally recognized as an effective energy source in stemming global warming.