During the past three decades, Japan has missed numerous opportunities to establish nuclear energy safety regimes. The “safety myth” of nuclear power was built upon the idea that nuclear energy could be controlled completely by humans and has been a theme in Japan’s “lost decades.” The lost opportunities can be observed in the following critical points in time:

• Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission announced in 1991 that power outages were not a threat to nuclear power
• The Japanese Nuclear Industry Safety Association (NISA) ignored advice from US authorities to strengthen measures against potential terrorist attacks on nuclear plants
• The flawed management of TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) paid little attention to warnings, instead delaying taking necessary measures

Suzuki pointed out that one of the fundamental problems with the oversight of Japan’s nuclear industry is the lack of a clear chain-of-command of responsibility. No institution was willing to take responsibility after the Fukushima nuclear accident. Although political tensions between the Democratic Party of Japan government and the bureaucracy, the nuclear disaster cannot be attributed completely to the DPJ.
He also suggested the danger of Japan falling into a new ‘safety myth 2.0’ in which the revised nuclear regulations are believed to be the safest worldwide. Furthermore, with new ties being formed between government and engineers, there is the possibility that a new ‘nuclear village’ may appear.

Buchanan laid out the areas in which Japan can learn from the UK’s experience in liberalizing its energy sector over the past two decades, from 1990-2002. He explained that the liberalization of the UK energy market was skillfully conducted as a step-by-step transition. This transition process can be viewed a as way to educate stakeholders.
He offered the following recommendations for Japan:

• Investing in smart grids and providing incentives for companies to do so
• Refraining from a narrative of liberalization allowing consumers to obtain rock-bottom prices
• Recognizing the limitations of competition
• Avoiding separating market developments from political concerns and mechanisms
• Maintaining a solid foundation of engineering graduates

Swenson-Wright emphasized the need of policy reforms in Japan on both the foreign and domestic levels. He highlighted the currently ongoing discussion on local governance and possibilities for creating new structures which may either expand the local government to larger units or shrink them to maximize local expertise.
He pointed to a few areas which deserve attention:

• The role of technological changes in the new regulatory framework in preventing another 3/11
• The impact of changes in public attitudes on the discourse of representative government
• The willingness of Japanese policymakers to create a transparent regulatory framework