Post-nuclear Japan?
Probably not any time soon, but Naoto Kan last month became Japan's first prime minister ever to take a step in that direction. He said: "Genpatsu ni izon shinai shakai wo mezasubeki da" ("原発に依存しない社会を目指すべきだ, We should aim to be a society that does not depend on nuclear power").
Commentators were quick to note the absence of specifics. By what date, through what measures, would this seisaku no tenkan (政策の転換, policy shift) be jitsugen suru (実現する, accomplished)? Kan has since elaborated: he would have 20 percent of Japan's electricity come from renewable resources — sunlight, biomass, geothermal heat, water power — by 2020. Still, that agenda is little more than a glint in an outgoing prime minister's eye. That's in sharp contrast to Germany, which in May committed itself to phasing out nuclear power by 2022 — but jijō (事情, the circumstances) are different. In Germany, a consensus on datsu genpatsu (脱原発, eliminating nuclear power) had been slowly building for some time. For Germany, Japan's catastrophe was the last straw — not, as for Japan itself, the first.