The government's basic energy plan, established in 2014, should be subject to a major overhaul. The power supply mix adopted the following year on the basis of the energy plan has much room for updating in that it gives nuclear power a target share too high to be feasible, sets too modest a target for renewable energy sources and seeks to have coal-fired thermal power plants — which many other countries are moving away from in view of their impact on the environment — account for roughly a quarter of the nation's electricity supply in 2030.
In its ongoing review of the plan, however, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has already indicated that it will essentially not change the energy mix. As a result, discussions at a METI panel on the issue — comprising members tapped by the ministry from among scholars, major firms and business organizations — have been restricted to what needs to be done to achieve the energy mix targets. Since the nation's long-term policy on energy is at stake, the plan should be discussed in a more transparent manner and stakeholders from broader segments of society should be involved in the talks.
The current basic energy plan came with a government pledge, following the March 2011 triple meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, to lower the nation's reliance on nuclear power as much as possible by maximizing efforts to introduce renewable energy sources and to reduce energy consumption. Whether the energy mix target of having nuclear power account for 20 to 22 percent of the nation's power supply lives up to that pledge may be questionable. But the fact is, despite efforts by the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the power industry to bring idled nuclear power reactors back online once they have cleared the screening of the Nuclear Regulation Authority under revamped safety standards, restarts have remained slow.