Why is Japan in so much trouble with nuclear power?

Answer 1

Actually, the whole world is in trouble with nuclear power. The problem is that people are afraid, in some respects justifiably so, but in many respects, not. The issue is one of perspective.

The incidents at Fukushima Daichi are relatively moderate (by about a factor of 10) when you compare them to Chernobyl. What people don't seem to realize is that the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami were beyond design basis for the facility. Yes, there is concern that a single incident (specifically, the tsunami) took out the emergency power systems, and I'm not trying to minimize that, but it was still beyond design basis.

The engineered safeguards that were in place did, in fact, protect the people from catastrophe. We should not underestimate that.

The reason that the whole world is in trouble, so to speak, is that it seems that we were just recovering from the negativity surrounding the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl incidents, particularly in the US, and that nuclear power was just starting to have a resurgence, when Fukushima Daiichi happened. Now, I'm afraid this is going to set us back another 20 years, and that is going to be costly, because, in point of fact, nuclear is the only viable option for energy, taking everything into account, including risk / benefit analysis, for the next 30 to 50 years.

Answer 2

Mainly I think because they do not have their own oil.

Answer 3

They have no domestic sources of carbon based fuel (coal, oil,) and importing would be much more expensive then nuclear power.