# The World Cup, the Strait of Hormuz, and Japan’s Renewed Nuclear Power Question ***By Toshiaki Yoshida*** On July 19, 2026, the FIFA World Cup concluded with Spain claiming its long-awaited second title. The tournament was laden with historic milestones, including Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo making their sixth World Cup appearances, and FIFA posting record financial gains.1,2 Yet a few incidents rained on the parade. One such incident involved the restrictions imposed on Iran’s national team over security concerns.3 The restrictions stemmed from the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which began on February 28.4 The effects of the war spilled over to countries far beyond the battlefield. Iran’s subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz caused crude oil prices to fluctuate. On January 2, the price was USD 57.32 per barrel (159 L), and it rose to USD 111.54 on April 2, almost doubling in three months.5 In 2025, Japan spent JPY 9.6 trillion (USD 64 billion) to import 863 million barrels of crude oil, and more than 90% of its imports came from the Middle East, passing through the Strait of Hormuz.6,7 Crude oil imports accounted for 10 to 15% of Japan’s total imports throughout the 2020s.8 The fluctuation in oil prices induced an appreciation of the dollar accompanied by a depreciation of the yen, which caused a further *de facto* surge in crude oil prices. It contributed to a downward cycle for the Japanese yen and its economy.9 Japan, again, needs to consider how to build a more independent and resilient energy system, one less vulnerable to external energy shocks and domestic disasters. This is not the first time Japan has faced an energy crisis. Russia’s war on Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, similarly sent oil prices sharply higher, with prices 1.6 times as high at their peak.10,11 Similarly, the First Oil Shock of 1973, triggered by the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, raised the price of oil from around USD 2.50 to about USD 11 per barrel, more than a fourfold increase. The First Oil Shock brought Japan’s era of stable high-speed economic growth following the Izanagi Boom to an end.12 During the Izanagi Boom, from 1965 to 1970, Japan recorded roughly double-digit real GDP growth in most years.13 Learning from the First Oil Shock, advanced economies in the OECD established the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 1974 to prepare for future energy shocks. Its 32 member states are required to maintain emergency oil stocks equivalent to at least 90 days of net imports and to be prepared to release them collectively in the event of a severe supply disruption. Japan, a founding member of the IEA, enacted the Oil Stockpiling Act in 1975 to meet its IEA commitments. The law requires both the government and the private sector to maintain oil reserves. In recent years, Japan has held roughly 240 days’ worth of oil in total, with national reserves supplemented by mandatory private-sector stocks.14 Within two weeks of the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, on March 11, 2026, IEA member states agreed to collectively release 400 million barrels of oil, roughly equivalent to four days of global crude oil supply.15 Advanced democracies had learned to coordinate. However, given the size of the release relative to global demand, its effect is expected to be limited. To build an energy system less dependent on oil imports, Japan bolstered its efforts to site nuclear power plants in the 1970s and joined the ranks of ten countries capable of building their own nuclear power plants.16,17 At the time of the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant meltdown on March 11, 2011, Japan had constructed 54 nuclear power reactors across 22 municipalities, accounting for 25.1% of Japan’s power sources.18,19 After the TEPCO accident at Fukushima Daiichi, Japanese citizens increasingly came to doubt the safety of nuclear power as an energy source. In a 2021 survey by the Japan Atomic Energy Relations Organization (JAERO), 52.8% of respondents supported phasing out nuclear power, a 38.2-percentage-point increase from a similar survey conducted by the Cabinet Office in 2009.20,21 Japanese citizens have grown tired of encountering news reports about the seemingly endless decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi and repeated scandals, including the recent fabrication of seismic data related to Chubu Electric Power Company’s Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant in 2026.22,23 However, Japanese citizens are now perplexed by the energy crisis. In the same JAERO survey conducted in 2024, two years after Russia began its war on Ukraine, support for phasing out nuclear power fell to 39.8%, a 13-percentage-point decrease from 2021. Instead, 37% of respondents answered “other,” “do not know,” or “N/A,” an 8.4-percentage-point increase from 2021.24 This suggests that some citizens who had supported a phase-out during the decade following the TEPCO accident are now torn between the conviction that Japan should phase out nuclear power and the thought that it may still be necessary for the time being. If Japan “returns to nuclear,” one thing is certain. Nuclear power is unlikely to deliver what its proponents claim. A 2026 study by Böse et al. identifies a global “nuclear energy paradox”: a persistent gap between projections of nuclear power development by international agencies and actual installed capacity from the 1980s to the 2020s.25 Development scenarios published by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the IEA, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have consistently overestimated the expansion of nuclear power. For instance, IAEA projections in the 1980s expected installed nuclear power capacity to reach 950 GW by 2000, while in reality it was around 350 GW. Similarly, projections in the 2000s expected installed nuclear capacity to reach 550 GW by 2020, while in reality it remained just over 350 GW.25 In contrast, these reports underestimated the expansion of renewable energy. The IEA’s *World Energy Outlook*, published in 2002, estimated that solar and wind power combined would generate 158 TWh in 2010 under its low-ambition scenario, while actual generation reached 375 TWh.26 The gap between projections and actual installed capacity gradually narrowed as subsequent reports were updated to reflect the rapid expansion of renewable energy. Interestingly, the gap has remained remarkably persistent for nuclear power. Böse et al. argue that nuclear power projections are “disconnected from socio-technical realities” and that the results of energy modelling are partially shaped by nuclear imaginaries, including optimistic cost assumptions for new technologies such as small modular reactors.25 The economic returns from Japan’s investment in nuclear power may be slim at best. If Japan decides not to “return to nuclear,” Japanese citizens will need to find a cure for a headache. The impetus for a potential energy transition may not come from local host communities. While the net gain or loss of Japan’s nuclear power program to the national economy remains uncertain, it has delivered localized gains to host communities. The Three Laws for Power Development, enacted in 1974, allow the Japanese government to channel billions of yen to host communities. In towns hosting nuclear power plants, such as Onagawa, Higashidori, and Takahama, more than 50% of municipal revenues have come from power-source siting grants and fixed-asset taxes.27 TEPCO has also made donations, including a JPY 13 billion donation to construct a national soccer training center spanning Hirono and Naraha in Fukushima, with Naraha hosting the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant.28 Thus, research by Aldrich and Fraser in 2017 reports that decisions to halt nuclear restarts in Japan have come primarily from courts and regulatory authorities over concerns about seismic activity, rather than from local assemblies and mayors.29 Given the financial stakes, host communities are left with few choices but to restart a nuclear power program embedded in an institutionalized system that routinely delivers funding and employment. The 2025 Niigata Prefecture survey on the restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant echoes their analysis. 40% of respondents in Kashiwazaki and 33% in Kariwa said that the plant should not restart even after implementing tsunami countermeasures and seismic retrofitting, while 47% of respondents in municipalities across Niigata opposed the restart.30 Unlike decisions over nuclear restarts, my research shows that decisions over nuclear power plant siting were driven by local communities.31 In Nanto, Mie Prefecture, 37 years of sustained resistance by residents gained support from citizens across Mie, culminating in a prefecture-wide petition and the shelving of the Ashihama project in 2000. In Kubokawa, Kochi Prefecture, local LDP leaders learned to lead anti-nuclear movements in their own town and ultimately helped reject the project by compelling the Kubokawa Town Assembly to adopt a referendum ordinance in the 1980s. Japanese politics, characterized by one-party dominance by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), produced a perverse equilibrium in which a progressive anti-nuclear cause was led by conservatives—supporters of the LDP, which has promoted Japan’s nuclear power program. Yet the routes and strategies that proved effective in rejecting new nuclear power projects may not work in the same way for a nuclear phase-out. Japan’s path toward a nuclear phase-out is a question of political economy rather than simply a socio-technological question. *Toshiaki Yoshida was a Japan Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Program on US-Japan Relations during the 2025–26 academic year and will join Indiana University Bloomington as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Spring 2027.* ## Footnotes 1. FIFA. 2026. “[Records broken at the World Cup 2026](https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/articles/records-broken-set).” July 20. Accessed August 21, 2026. 2. Ames, Nick, Matt Hughes, and Exclusive by Nick Ames. 2026. “[Fifa to Announce Record $15bn World Cup Revenue, Smashing Expectations]().” *The Guardian*. July 18. Accessed August 21, 2026. 3. Ward, Jasper. 2026. “[US Eases Restrictions on Iran’s World Cup Team, Allowing Them in a Day Earlier.]()” Reuters. June 23 Accessed August 21, 2026. 4. Yeganeh Torbati, Aaron Boxerman, Steven Erlanger, and Eric Nagourney. 2026. “[Iran War Timeline: The Latest on Where the Iran War Stands](https://www.nytimes.com/article/iran-war-trump-us-oil-hormuz-key-dates-events.html?eafs_enabled=false).” *The New York Times* (Digital Edition). August 9. Accessed August 21, 2026. 5. Rennison, Joe, and Gregory Schmidt. 2026. “[Stocks End April on a High, Even as Oil Prices Touch New Peak](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/business/oil-gas-price-iran.html).” *The New York Times* (Digital Edition). April 30. Accessed August 21, 2026. 6. Ministry of Finance. 2026. [Trade Statistics of Japan 2025](https://www.customs.go.jp/toukei/shinbun/trade-st/2025/2025_115.xml#pg4). Accessed August 21, 2026. 7. *Asahi Shimbun*. 2026. “Japan eases oil supply crisis, but firms feel pain of elevated costs.” August 17. Accessed August 21, 2026. 8. Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. 2025. “[Chapter 1 Section 3: Fossil Fuel Outlook](https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/about/energytrends/202506/html/s-1-3.html)” August 17. Accessed August 21, 2026. 9. Yamazaki, Makiko, and Takaya Yamaguchi. 2026. “[Why Japan’s Bar for Yen Intervention Is Now Higher](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/why-japans-bar-yen-intervention-is-now-higher-2026-03-13/).” Reuters. March 13. Accessed August 21, 2026. 10. [Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute](https://war.huri.harvard.edu/background/). Nd. Accessed August 21, 2026. 11. Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security. [Looking Back 2022 Oil Market II](https://www.jogmec.go.jp/about/publish/jogmec-news/jogmec-news_72_02.html). 12. Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. 2018. “[150 Years History of Japan’s Energy IV](https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/about/special/johoteikyo/history4shouwa2.html)" May 29. Accessed August 21, 2026. 13. Cabinet Office. 2026. “[Japanese Economy 2018-2019 Chapter 1 Section 3](https://www5.cao.go.jp/keizai3/2018/0125nk/n18_1_3.html)." n.d. Accessed August 21, 2026. 14. Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. 2026. “[Understanding Japan’s Oil Stockpiling System](https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/about/energytrends/202506/html/s-1-3.html)." April 13. Accessed August 21, 2026. 15. Hernandez, America, and Alex Lawler. 2026. “[IEA Announces Record Oil Stockpile Release over Iran War Supply Disruptions](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iea-proposes-largest-ever-oil-release-strategic-reserves-wsj-reports-2026-03-11/).” Reuters. March 10. Accessed August 21, 2026. 16. Yoshioka, Hitoshi. 2011. Shinban Genshiryoku no Shakaishi: Sono Nihon teki Tenkai. \[Social History of Nuclear Power and Its Development in Japan.\] *Asahi Shimbun* Press. 17. Yoshinaga, Kyohei. 2024. “[Japan’s Mission on the Rising Nuclear Power Demand.](https://www.mri.co.jp/knowledge/column/20240917.html)” Mitsubishi Research Institute. September 17. 18. Landers, Peter. 2021. “[Nuclear Power’s Prospects Cool a Decade After Fukushima Meltdowns](https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/nuclear-powers-prospects-cool-a-decade-after-fukushima-meltdowns-11614767406?eafs_enabled=false).” *Wall Street Journal*. March 3. Accessed August 21, 2026. 19. Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan. n.d. [Power Generation Capacity and Electricity Generation](https://www.fepc.or.jp/supply/hatsuden/nuclear/state/setsubi/). Accessed August 21, 2026. 20. Japan Atomic Energy Relations Organization. 2022. Survey on Nuclear Power 2022. Accessed August 21, 2026. [https://www.jaero.or.jp/poll/13\_index\_detail.php](https://www.jaero.or.jp/poll/13_index_detail.php) 21. Cabinet Office of Japan. 2009. [Survey on Nuclear Power 2009](https://www.jaero.or.jp/poll/13_index_detail.php). Accessed August 21, 2026. 22. Normile, Dennis. 2021. “Endless Cleanup.” *Science* 371(6533): 983–983. 23. Yamaguchi, Mari. 2026. “[Japan’s Nuclear Watchdog Halts Plant’s Reactor Safety Screening over Falsified Data](https://apnews.com/article/japan-hamaoka-nuclear-fabrication-data-893d7cf94e790ffb51cb1cf85254d658).” AP News. Accessed August 21, 2026. 24. Japan Atomic Energy Relations Organization. 2024. [Survey on Nuclear Power 2024](https://www.jaero.or.jp/poll/15_index_detail.php). Accessed August 21, 2026. 25. Böse, Fanny, Alexander Wimmers, Björn Steigerwald, and Christian von Hirschhausen. 2026. “The ‘Nuclear Energy Paradox’- Investigating Nuclear Imaginaries in Energy Projections.” *Energy Research & Social Science* 135: 104676. 26. International Energy Agency. n.d. “[World Energy Outlook Previous Editions](https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2022#previous-editions).” Accessed August 21, 2026. 27. *Nikkei Shimbun*. 2011. “[Town of Nuclear Power, Concentration of Financial Revenue Sources](https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXDZO31505050S1A700C1TCG000/).” July 3. Accessed August 21, 2026. 28. *Asahi Shimbun* 2011. “[Triggered by J-Village: Demanding Contributions to TEPCO](https://www.asahi.com/special/10005/TKY201109160725.html).” September 17. Accessed August 21, 2026. 29. Aldrich, Daniel P., and Timothy Fraser. 2017. “All Politics Is Local: Judicial and Electoral Institutions’ Role in Japan’s Nuclear Restarts.” *Pacific Affairs* 90(3): 433–57. 30. Niigata Prefecture. 2025. “[Prefectural Survey on Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant Restart](https://www.pref.niigata.lg.jp/sec/genshiryoku/kashiwazakikariwa-kenminishikityosa-kekka.html).” Accessed August 21, 2026. 31. Yoshida, Toshiaki. 2026. “Entangled Fisherfolk: The Decline of the Fishing Industry and the Rise of Anti-Nuclear Movements in Japan.” *Energy Research & Social Science* 138: 104838. See also:- [ Technology, Society, and Geopolitics ](/projects/technology-society-and-geopolitics)