Out of Japan’s 50 reactors, only two have been online since they were forcibly shut down in 2011, following the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. With the rising costs of fossil fuel imports and the country’s strong reliance on nuclear power for its electricity supply, there is an enormous pressure to bring the reactors back online. This is in spite of the growing public disapproval of nuclear power.
With that forecast, if Japan restarts 16 reactors by March 2015, annual fossil fuel imports would have increased by 7 trillion yen [About $71 billion] by that period, as compared to March 2011. They are also predicting that Japan will reach record highs in importing liquefied natural gas (LNG), with an increase of 1.7 percent to 88.3 million tons from March 2012 to March 2014, and another 1.5 percent to 89.7 million tons from March 2014 to March 2015. At present, Japan is already the third largest importer of LNG globally.
The IEEJ says is the most likely scenario for restarts, up to six reactors would resume operating by March next year(2014) and 16 would be producing power by March 2015.
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