Business Lobbyists Kill Japan's Plan to Go Nuclear-Free
Japan's recent decision to phase out nuclear power had a lot of loopholes to let plants keep operating, but it was opposed by business lobbyists who persuaded the government to drop it on Wednesday. Now, the goal to go non-nuclear has been relegated to little more than a side-note in the country's energy policy, The New York Times' Hiroko Tabuchi reports: "The cabinet on Wednesday said only that it would 'take into consideration' the goal to eliminate nuclear power by 2040, laid down in a policy document released last week."
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Per the Wall Street Journal's Eleanor Warnock:
"The business community absolutely cannot accept this strategy," Hiromasa Yonekura, the chairman of Keidanren, Japan's largest business lobby, said on Tuesday. "I ask the government to draw up from scratch, a responsible energy policy."
On Wednesday the government announced its new energy policy would have no hard deadlines to get off nuclear. "Japan will craft its post-Fukushima energy policy 'with flexibility, based on tireless verification and re-examination,' the cabinet’s resolution read," according to Tabuchi.
