The Atomic Energy Commission is expected to adopt a long-term nuclear program by the end of the month. In its draft, the commission has stated its desire to continue its policy of establishing a nuclear-fuel cycle that reprocesses all the spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium for future use as nuclear fuel. A fast-breeder reactor, which produces more fissile material (plutonium 239) than it consumes, will play an important role in the nuclear-fuel cycle. The program will serve as the basis of the nation's nuclear policy for the coming decade, but it raises issues that need to be addressed.

The draft proposes that nuclear-power plants generate 30 to 40 percent or more of the nation's total electric-power supply from 2030. Nuclear-generated electricity used to account for about one-third of the total supply. But its share declined from 34 percent in fiscal 2002 to 26 percent in fiscal 2003, then rose to 29 percent in fiscal 2004. The decline was mainly due to a stoppage and examination of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s nuclear-power plants after it was discovered in August 2002 that the examination records of 13 out of TEPCO's 17 reactors had been tampered with from the latter half of the 1980s to the 1990s -- an act that lowered the public's trust in the nuclear-power industry.

Many of the nation's reactors are now 20 to 30 years old but won't be replaced by new ones until around 2030. Increasing the share of electricity produced by nuclear reactors to, for example, 40 percent, will place great strain on the older reactors. To both increase the operation rate of such reactors and ensure their safe operation will be a great challenge. Even if the amount of electricity produced by nuclear plants is not raised, ensuring their safe operation will still be a significant challenge.