After pivoting to a nuclear phaseout following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the Japanese government has moved in earnest to plan replacements of aging reactors to expand nuclear power. But locally, some say Japan must first resolve labor shortages and residents' distrust of nuclear safety.
According to local media including Nikkei Asia and NHK on the 5th (local time), the Japanese government has set a goal of replacing and building two to five nuclear power plants by the 2040s. The plan is to replace aging reactors with new ones to ensure a stable energy supply.
According to local media, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is expected to present a new plan for replacement construction of reactors at a meeting on nuclear policy to be held that day. Specifically, the plan is said to include a goal of replacing and building two to five reactors by the 2040s and 11 to 14 by the 2050s.
Japan has moved to expand nuclear power because electricity demand is rising rapidly. In the Basic Energy Plan revised in 2025, the government shifted policy to maximize the use of nuclear power and set a goal of raising the nuclear share to around 20% in the 2040 power mix. In fiscal 2024, the nuclear share was 9.4%.
In particular, as power demand increases with the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and the semiconductor industry, the need for a stable power source is growing. The government projected that total power generation in 2040 will reach up to 1.2 billion MWh, up 21% from 2024. The government plans to set specific targets for reactor replacement to spur utilities' investment and workforce development.
However, there are many challenges to overcome to meet the targets. After the Fukushima Daiichi accident, Japan effectively halted new reactor construction, shrinking the related industrial ecosystem and heightening local communities' anxiety about nuclear power.
A representative issue is the labor shortage. According to Nikkei Asia, the number of new-build nuclear construction workers at member companies of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum has fallen to about 2,300, roughly half the level of 2009. IHI last produced a reactor pressure vessel about eight years ago, and at Hitachi, personnel with experience in new reactor construction are said to make up only about 15% of the total. The educational pipeline supplying talent to the nuclear field has also weakened. The number of students advancing to nuclear-related graduate programs has been flat over the past decade.
Restoring residents' trust is also cited as a task. According to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, four reactors will reach an operating life of 60 years by 2040, and a total of 15 by 2050. The government is pushing to build new reactors on existing sites to replace them, but the consent of local residents is essential.
Nuclear safety is also among the issues the government must address. Back in January, during the Nuclear Regulation Authority's screening to restart Units 3–4 at the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station in Shizuoka Prefecture, it emerged that utility Chubu Electric Power had used manipulated data.
Chubu Electric Power said at the time that an employee in the nuclear institutional sector appeared to have used arbitrarily favorable data during the evaluation of the "reference ground motion," which is the basis for seismic design standards. As a result, some pointed out that the reference ground motion may have been underestimated.