Noda stated that the move was needed to “protect the economy and people's livelihoods”. Let me point out here that this is not a political sound bite and he most certainly not exaggerating. I’ve blogged previously about the extreme economic costs that Japan has been living with since shutting down all of it reactors and realistically it was only a matter of time before restarts were announced.
It’s expected that the first two restarts may occur as early as this week and, in my opinion, more will follow once the Japanese authorities have finished the combination of safety inspections, stress tests and public consultation.
The economic effect of the restarts on Japan, at a national and local level, will be instant. Fossil fuel imports – which have risen dramatically in the absence of nuclear energy generation – can finally be reduced and businesses can operate at full capacity. What of the effect on the rest of the world, however?
Well I personally believe that we will start to see an end to the fiction created by many areas of the Media that Fukushima heralded the beginning of the end for nuclear power because in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. As the statements and actions of numerous governments in the past few months alone have proved, energy demand continues to rise worldwide and nuclear power is the only clean, low-cost, high baseload energy capable of meeting the increase.
