TOKYO, April 11 (RIA Novosti) – The government of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved a new energy policy Friday providing for the reactivation of idled nuclear power plants, reversing an earlier plan to shutter the country's 48 reactors by 2030.
The new plan also envisages expanding the share of renewable power beyond the government targets of 13.5 percent in 2020 and 20 percent in 2030.
The policy proposes to bring online the Monju reactor, prone to numerous problems and accidents, which has been kept offline for the past 20 years. The facility would become an international research center for the reduction of nuclear waste and toxicity.
Before the Fukushima disaster, electricity generated by nuclear power plants made up 30 percent of the country’s output, with plans to raise atomic energy’s share to 50 percent by 2030.
In March 2011, Japan was hit by a massive magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami, claiming more than 15,000 lives and causing a number of explosions at the Fukushima plant.
The Fukushima disaster saw three of the plant’s reactors undergo a partial meltdown as radiation leaked into the atmosphere, soil and seawater.
