Japan needs nuclear power as its main energy source and shouldn't follow European examples in banning new reactors, according to Shosuke Mori, chairman of Kansai Electric Power Co., the nation's second-biggest utility.
"It's the only way to secure a stable supply of environmentally clean electricity at a relatively low cost," Mori, who also heads the Kansai Economic Federation, the biggest business lobby in western Japan, said last week in Osaka. "Nuclear power should keep its current status."
The earthquake and tsunami that crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 plant in the northeast and Prime Minister Naoto Kan's request for Chubu Electric Co. to shut its Hamaoka plant in Shizuoka Prefecture to strengthen disaster defenses have cast doubt on how Japan will meet its energy demands.