ANALYSIS: After Fukushima, nuclear energy opens rift in G8

By Takehiko Kambayashi and Jean-Baptiste Piggin May 25, 2011, 9:28 GMT

Tokyo/Berlin - The Fukushima nuclear disaster has opened a rift in the Group of Eight (G8), with three of its members losing faith in nuclear's promise of almost limitless clean energy.

Meeting this week in Deauville, France, G8 leaders intend to show solidarity with Japan as it picks up the pieces after the radioactive releases triggered by the March 11 tsunami. They also want to discuss tougher international safety standards for nuclear power.

With many Japanese convinced that nuclear stations pose an enormous risk in a quake-prone country, the country's electorate is unlikely to accept construction of any more nuclear plants in future.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has already said his country will fully review its energy policy, which had aimed to boost the fraction of electricity produced with atomic energy to 50 per cent and that of renewable energy sources to 20 per cent by 2030.

At the G8 meeting, Kan is expected to announce Japan's new programme to develop renewable energy while continuing to rely on nuclear power as a key energy source, once safety has been bolstered.

The plan would include the construction of large-scale offshore wind farms and the full-scale introduction of next-generation biomass fuels in the 2020s.

In a sense Germany, which is already committed to scrap nuclear power within about 25 years, has reacted more allergically to the disaster than the Japanese themselves.

Within days, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government ordered seven of the country's oldest plants to be idled. An eighth had already been taken offline. Merkel appointed a panel of experts to give her bipartisan advice.

On Saturday, the panel is expected to publicly urge her to scrap the plants as soon as possible, possibly within a decade.

Polls consistently show a big majority of Germans want the plants shut.

'The question is not whether to end nuclear energy but how to bridge the gap,' said Merkel this week, referring to the vast cost of gas-fired generators, wind turbines, solar plants and a new power grid that Germany will soon build to replace the old system.

The four main power transmission companies have warned Berlin there could be blackouts if the nuclear plants close too soon, leaving the grid without reserves to cope with peaks of winter demand.

Merkel says that with only 22 per cent of its electricity coming from nuclear reactors, Germany can handle the conversion.

'We're not in a situation like France with 80 per cent coming from nuclear,' she said. 'For us, the situation is feasible.'

The Germans last year ranked second in the world after China in terms of investments in clean energy. They invested 41.2 billion dollars, mainly for photo-voltaic panels on the roofs of their homes, the US-based Pew Trusts recently calculated.

Germany's radical anti-nuclear stance is likely to vex the remaining G8 nations. Russia, the United States, Canada, France and Britain remain nuclear advocates.

Non-G8 nations India and China also see nuclear power as a means to expand power production without more carbon emissions.

China has said it will increase nuclear capacity seven to eight times over by 2020, while India plans to boost its nuclear production 13 times by 2030, Bloomberg News has reported.

'I do think that nuclear power should be part of the mix in future as it is part of the mix right now,' said British Prime Minister David Cameron a week after the March disaster.

Only Italy has a policy, established after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, of not building any more nuclear sites. Talk of dropping that policy has gone silent since Fukushima.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) warns Germany's lone-wolf policy may destabilize linked power grids throughout Europe. 'It's not German, it's a European problem,' said Nobuo Tanaka, the veteran Japanese diplomat who is IEA executive director.

Sceptics say Germany may simply end up importing nuclear-generating electricity from its neighbours, salving its own conscience while leaving them with all the disadvantages of nuclear.

'Long term, we must prove that we are not net importers of electricity,' Merkel responded.

IEA's world energy outlook report last year suggested that nuclear energy, which currently generates 6 per cent of world electricity, might produce 8 per cent by 2035. By that time renewables would generate 14 per cent, with the rest from coal, oil and gas.