Fukushima water release: Asian states to pursue nuclear energy plans despite recent protests

Japan's release of Fukushima waste water is unlikely to set back development of nuclear energy across the Asia-Pacific despite protests by its neighbours about the environmental impact from the discharge, analysts say.

Last week, Japan conducted the first of a long-planned series of releases of treated waste water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was wrecked by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has assessed that the water release is safe and launched a webpage to provide live information on the discharge, but Japan's actions have provoked fury and unease among Chinese and South Korean citizens.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

China has imposed a blanket ban on all imports of Japanese seafood, while stones were thrown at a Japanese school in Qingdao city last week, and another Japanese school elsewhere in China was pelted with eggs, Bloomberg reported.

Investors in nuclear energy, however, are undaunted.

"Nuclear energy development is moving in the right direction. We see a lot of activity in terms of companies investing in small modular reactors," said Julien Bacobza, a Tokyo-based partner of legal firm White & Case. "I think there are a lot of opportunities, whether it is Japan, India or the Philippines."

Small modular reactors (SMRs), which are a fraction of the costs and size of traditional reactors, have stoked the interest of several nations, although they are unlikely to be built soon.

"Large SMRs are equivalent to power stations of 500-600 megawatts. It still requires a lot of work, a lot of funding and technology for them to be ready," Bacobza said. "So yes it is moving, but it is slow."

Ximena Vasquez-Maignan, a Paris-based counsel for White & Case, said there were currently around 80 SMRs, out of which only one, by the NuScale Power Corp in the United States, had been licensed.

Regulators around the world would take their time to review all aspects of SMRs, she said.

"There is a whole new market that is developing for small modular reactors because it can help industries to decarbonise. The World Nuclear Association has just established that to discuss that with end users [in September]," she said.

Nuclear energy supplied 10 per cent of the world's electricity and around a quarter of low carbon clean electricity last year, even though the amount dipped by 4.2 per cent year on year due to outages in France, reactor shutdowns in Germany and the halting of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia plant, said the World Nuclear Association earlier this month.

However, in Asia, nuclear generation rose by 5 per cent last year, more than doubling over the last decade, it said.

"Nuclear [energy] is booming in Asia-Pacific and will continue to do so since the region has a growing need for clean and 24/7 reliable and affordable energy," said Andre Wakkar, an independent consultant and energy professional.

But he added that big nuclear plants made more commercial sense because of the economies of scale, with a 1,000MW reactor costing just three times that of a 100MW SMR.

On the other hand, proponents of SMRs argue that the units are suitable for smaller nations such as those in Southeast Asia, because they are more pocket-friendly and do not need large land parcels.

Analysts concur that nuclear energy is one of the best options for the time being for the transition to clean energy. The viewpoint seems to have struck a chord even with Southeast Asian nations that previously had reservations about the energy source.

Malaysia's Natural Resources, Energy and Climate Change Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, who in July said the nation would keep to a "no nuclear policy" citing environmental concerns, said this week that nuclear power generation was "on the cards".

Minister of Economy Rafizi Ramli, who shared the stage with Nik Nazmi at the Energy Transition Conference in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, echoed the view, citing the "energy trilemma" of affordability, security and sustainability.

"I can say with clarity that I don't think we can be choosy [about clean energy] and I prefer to be agnostic, so long as it meets all our stringent demands and requirements," Rafizi said.

The protests that have followed the release of Fukushima waste water betrayed deep-seated fears about radioactive waste that shows people need to be educated about long-standing misbeliefs, experts say.

"While there is widespread public fear in many Asian countries, these fears seem to consistently neglect the yearly discharges of radioactive isotopes of their own nations," said Matias Otero Johansson, an independent political scientist.

The safety of nuclear energy technology has come a long way since the Fukushima disaster in 2011, observers say.

"No one expected such a tsunami to hit, so it was more a result of poor placement or planning [in the building of Fukushima], and low elevation vis-a-vis the height of the normal tide line," said Doug Woodring, founder of the Ocean Recovery Alliance non-profit. "A lot has been learned as a result, on both the positioning of plants, and redundancy on backup plans and emergency actions.

"The climate is changing faster than most [other than scientists] had expected, and there aren't many large-scale solutions for consistent, reliable, clean-output power," he added.

The outcry over Fukushima waste water may have a silver lining as it could reduce over-fishing and give the "ocean some much-needed space to rejuvenate", Woodring said, highlighting that the South China Sea was one of the most overfished waters.

"The fish do not have a chance to grow larger, nor often reproduce, putting us in a downward spiral with fewer and fewer species, and smaller ones for those who are able to still survive," he added. "The waters around Japan are less overfished than other waters in Asia, because their controls on overfishing are stronger and enforced."

Most Southeast Asian countries have been pivoting more towards renewables, such as wind, solar, hydro and geothermal energy, said Ada Li, vice-president at Moody's Investors Service, told This Week in Asia earlier in August.

She said nuclear power operators had higher financial pressure and execution risks, but supportive policies would mitigate nuclear operators' financial pressure. "Continuous policy support in the research and development of new civilian nuclear power technologies (for example, SMRs) will enhance the long-term competitiveness of nuclear power and cultivate the technical expertise of staff."

Technological advances for safer, structurally reinforced and climate resilient reactors with provision for safe waste disposal should help alleviate policy hurdles and public concerns about nuclear power, Li added.

Additional reporting by Hadi Azmi

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.