Reply #23: Japan uses nuclear power for two simple reasons.

[Xithras]

1. Japan is a very energy-poor country. No coal, no oil, very little natural gas, and THAT is only found in waters contested by China. There isn't enough land for large scale on-shore wind, and the prevailing winds during the summer come from the Pacific side, where the seafloor drops off too steeply for offshore wind farms. The only thing that Japan DOES have plenty of is geothermal (it IS a volcanic island chain, after all), but that's not sufficient to meet all of their energy needs.


2. Nuclear weapons. As freaky as it sounds, Japan is considered to be a "paranuclear state" by the IAEA. While they have no real military of their own, they ARE surrounded by belligerent neighbors that don't like them very much (China and North Korea in particular), and there has been a longstanding assumption that they would rapidly militarize their technologies if a large scale war ever became a real possibility. Japan is interesting in that it has no nuclear weapons, and yet it has all of the raw materials and the technical skills needed to develop them. Doing it by the book, it's been estimated that Japan could have a full nuclear weapons program capable of delivering a steady stream of nukes in under a year. In a rush and while fighting off a hostile neighbor, it's been estimated that they probably cobble together a handful of one-off nuclear bombs in only a few months.

While the Japanese are a peaceful people and have repeatedly stated their disinterest in war, they're also a proud people, and they have hedged their bets in MANY areas to ensure that they retain the capability to rapidly militarize, if it ever becomes absolutely necessary. They have no interest in becoming the next Tibet.