cannot believe that Japan finds its better to depend on oil from Middle East and import gasoline instead of building one more nuclear plant

Having a nuclear disaster only decade ago with a flurry of other plants that couldn't pass the safety test when re-checked creates a pretty tough situation.

Right now there's a plant that is stopped by the gov from getting back into production for safety issues, with the elec company trying to appeal for the nth time, and it sure doesn't help the overall image.

"This time it will be fine" is kinda hard to stomach for the impacted public to be honest.

They have no other sustainable energy sources a d frankly I trust japanese engineering minds they can fix their nuclear designs

Japanese engineering at it's core is grit and resilience (”fall down seven times, stand up eight”）. Japan's architecture prowess comes from waves and waves of catastrophes they've overcome and rebuilt upon.

For Japan to be that good at nuclear, there first needs to be a way to gracefully fail and retry, instead of making whole regions unhabitable for a century. We're clearly not there yet.

It's always been surprising to me that they don't have more geothermal power generation. Seems liked they should be well-positioned for that.

TBF Geothermal sounds a lot more complex on the economical side than other renewable sources.

Japan probably has the technology to deal with many of the downsides (additional sysmic risk, pollution, volcanic activity straight destroying the installation etc.) but it might not have the initial money nor a decent enough ROI to maintain the system.