The nuclear catastrophe in the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Accident (hereafter, “the Fukushima accident”) delivered a blow to the Japanese people and caused widespread fear of nuclear power not only in Japan but also around the world. The Diet and Cabinet each set up investigation committees on the Fukushima accident, which conducted an investigation of the accident’s causes and released the final reports in July 2012. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published “The Fukushima Daiichi Accident” in 2015. According to the reports, natural disaster combined with a series of human, organizational, and technical factors to cause the severe nuclear accident. Before the accident occurred, some Japanese scientists had pointed out the potential for a massive earthquake and huge tsunami along the coast of Fukushima Prefecture, but the additional measures taken to address these concerns were insufficient at the time of the accident. This resulted in the worst nuclear accident at a nuclear power plant (NPP) since Chernobyl.

Right after the Fukushima accident, nuclear regulators worldwide immediately called for their operators to conduct “stress tests” on their nuclear facilities. These tests helped operators reassess the resilience of NPP designs against site-specific extreme natural hazards, analyze their vulnerability to severe accidents, and undertake necessary measures to correct them. This report focuses on the impact of the Fukushima accident on energy policies in the US and Europe, the issue of aging nuclear plants, and a next-generation reactor.