Japan Eyeing Expansion of Nuclear Power Output to Meet Growing Energy Needs

It seeks to enhance efficiency of existing plants to cater to data centres, chip factories

- Walter Sim

TOKYO - Japan must make the most of its existing nuclear power plants and enhance their output efficiencies, given burgeoning energy demands, said the government's annual energy report on June 13.

The 133-page Energy White Paper 2025 noted how data centres and semiconductor factories are vital to the world's fourth-largest economy, adding that it is crucial to prevent "investment opportunities from being lost due to an inability to secure enough decarbonised power sources".

The paper's comment on nuclear energy comes half a year after Japan had, in its seventh Strategic Energy Plan, scrapped wording that it would "minimise reliance" on the source.

Such language was introduced in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster that ranks among the world's worst nuclear catastrophes and led to the closure of its 54 other reactors nationwide.

The re-embrace of nuclear energy has, according to media polls, majority support among the Japanese public. This is particularly so in metropolitan areas, which have come under power-supply and blackout warnings during the heatwaves and cold snaps of recent years.

Japan's energy self-sufficiency rate, at a meagre 15.2 per cent, is due to the protracted restarts of its shuttered nuclear reactors and compounded by geographical limitations that impede the more aggressive adoption of renewable energy.

Nuclear energy made up nearly 30 per cent of Japan's energy mix before 2011, and now accounts for 8.5 per cent after the restart of 14 reactors so far.

Fossil fuel sources, meanwhile, comprised 68.6 per cent of the energy mix, and renewable energy, 22.9 per cent. The bulk of its fossil fuels, however, is imported from abroad, with 65.9 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas brought in from countries such as the United States, Australia and Malaysia in 2024.