Richard Katz 　>
> The fact that Japan may get through the summer
without blackouts
> doesn't mean it has enough electricity.
> Japan's demand is down because the economy is down so
much. Trying to
> replace the nukes with conventional thermal plants is
horribly
> expensive and further depresses the economy. In 2011
alone, the
> increase in imports of gas, coal and LNG cost an
additonal 1% of GDP
> and it will be even more in 2012, given recent price
hikes. That's
> taking purchasing power out of the hands of Japanese
firms and
> consumers and sending it to the Middle East and
elsewhere. It will
> hurt an already fragile recovery.

Consumers often make emotional choices. Politicians, bureaucrats, and business executives exploit this fact to their personal and institutional advantage whenever possible and conspire against emotional choices only when they are inconvenient. Ideally, consumers would have the right to choose between nuclear and conventional power, even if the choice resulted in lower economic growth. In fact, citizens of Osaka and Tokyo have petitioned for the chance to express their view on such a choice but their governors are opposed to holding a nonbinding referendum, so they are very likely to be denied a voice in the matter. If I remember correctly, even Kan as Prime Minister rejected the idea of a national election framed as a referendum on nuclear power. Some local potentates have the chance to express opinions, but the national government has unilaterally decided to brief only muncipalities within a 10 km radius on the restart of nuclear plants. This is in spite of the fact that communities more than 200 kilometers away have experienced financial and population losses from the Fukushima disaster.

Importing conventional fuel costs 1% of GDP but nuclear power is heavily subsidized to begin with, and taxpayers and ratepayers pay the subsidies. (Oddly, rate payers are even forced to pay for the advertisements of regional monopoly utilities. This gives the electrical companies censorship powers over the media and takes the people's money away from potentially more innovative, productive activities. TV companies use the money to pay for herds of yammering celebrities whose job is to eat food, physically abuse or be abused, and laugh at other yammering celebrities who are eating food, abusing or being abused. Japan goes on with fewer engineers, physicians, nurses, nursing home caregivers, tailors, bartenders, etc., than might be the case if the rate payers could keep their own money instead of paying for electrical company advertisements that work to deny rate payers information about nuclear power.)

Will all costs of normal subsidies to nuclear power, and dealing with this disaster for the next several decades, and any safety improvements the power companies deign to make amount to less than 1% of GDP?
Even if so, why not give consumers the same choice they used to have with food (before producers started changing labels from prefecture of origin to "kokusan
(国産)" in response to their displeasure with consumer
choices.) ?

Greg Johnson