The Wall Street Journal, Mitsuru Obe
With the government inching closer to restarting the first nuclear reactors since last year's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, a new battleground between Japan's pro- and anti-nuclear camps is emerging: the annual shareholder meetings of the country's big power companies in June.
Japan's four biggest utilities hold their shareholder meetings on June 27. The meeting that's drawing a lot of attention these days is that of Kansai Electric Power Co., which relied on nuclear plants to supply around half of its electricity, and operates the Oi nuclear plant, whose No. 3 and 4 reactors are first in line to restart. Kansai Electric supplies energy to the region around the city of Osaka, Japan's third-biggest metropolis and the utility's largest shareholder, with 8.92% of outstanding shares. And Osaka has submitted proposals to Kansai Electric that it exit nuclear power and separate its power-generation operations from distribution and transmission—or control of the electricity grid. . .View Full Article