Prime Minister Naoto Kan's request that Chubu Electric Power Co. shut down the Hamaoka nuclear power plant was valuable, though he should have reached this decision much sooner after the Fukushima crisis, according to an expert on nuclear and renewable energy.
"Kan's decision was late, compared with that of German Chancellor (Angela) Merkel," Tetsunari Iida, executive director of the Tokyo-based nonprofit organization Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, said this week in an interview.
Merkel decided to shut down seven old reactors in Germany on March 15, four days after the massive earthquake and tsunami hit Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.