Since the March 11, 2011, natural disasters led to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, 53 of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors are now off line.

On March 25, 2012, Reactor 6 in Niigata Prefecture was shut down for regular inspections.  The next, and last reactor to shut down will be Tomari in Hokkaido.

Reactor 3 at Tomari nuclear power plant was supposed to be shut down permanently in April, but the operator, Hokkaido Electric Power Company, decided to delay until May 5, 2012.

While the Tomari reactor is not scheduled for re-start, those that are have been blocked by local governments.  In Japan the local governments have the final word on reactor re-start, and because of the on going disaster reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, the majority of people in Japan are against re-starting any reactors.

For the summer of 2011 Japan’s domestic industries suffered greatly because of an electrical power shortage, even with only about 37 reactors operating.  Attempts were made at other sources of electricity, but it wasn’t enough with such short notice.

Individuals, as well as industries had to deal with power black outs.  This caused many industries to close up, since they needed at least eight continuous hours of electricity (or longer).   As an example, a bread factory needs at least eight hours of electricity to make bread on an industrial scale.  The power black outs took place about every six hours.

Some individuals say they handled the summer without air conditioning well, because it didn’t get that hot (what was that about global warming?).

Now Japan is heading into summer 2012, with not one nuclear reactor up and running.  Officials are scrambling to find ways to convince the local governments to re-start reactors, even bringing in international inspectors to reassure local leaders.

This is one reason the Obama Administration recently exempted Japan from the U.S. oil sanctions against Iran.  Japan will be using a lot more oil to run petroleum fired power generators.

There has been a push for wind power, but, just like here in the United States, there’s been a backlash of people who are against it because those windmills are “eyesores” and reduce property value.

It just doesn’t look good for Japan going into the summer of 2012.