Although opinions among the Japanese are very different, the country’s economy minister’s Yukio Edano told Reuters in Paris that they will reduce the reliance on nuclear power, “but whether we are going to reduce it to zero is a separate issue.”

Edano even mentioned that decisions like Germany’s to reduce nuclear power down to zero are possible. However, prime minister Yoshihiko Noda said that nuclear power plants could play a major role in the energy industry for the next few decades, although 70 percent of the participants in a September poll said they were against.

80,000 people had been forced out of their homes starting March 2011 after a hurricane and a tsunami wiped off houses and crippled the Fukushima reactor. Some 20,000 people were reported dead and 125,000 homes destroyed.

Despite all these, Japan is still relying on nuclear plants, but prime minister Noda says that new plants will have to meet much stricter criteria.

Alternative energy sources like solar and wind power, complemented by natural gas will be the government’s backup plan to recover the lost nuclear output.

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