This week marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
Every year on March 11, Japan pauses at 2:46 p.m., the moment the earthquake struck in 2011. In offices, schools, and even train stations, people stop for a minute of silence. For a brief moment the country becomes quiet. It is a small gesture, but it reflects how deeply that day is still remembered.
I was in Minamisanriku recently, one of the coastal towns where the tsunami destroyed most of the town and took more than 800 lives. Standing there today, it is difficult not to think about how suddenly everything changed for communities along the Sanriku coast. The disaster and the Fukushima accident that followed reshaped the global conversation about nuclear energy and transformed Japan’s energy system almost overnight.
Before March 11, nuclear power supplied roughly a third of Japan’s electricity. Today it remains under ten percent. Fifteen years later, remembering what happened is not the difficult part. The harder question is what Japan chooses to do with the lessons from that day.
Over the past decade and a half, enormous work has gone into strengthening nuclear safety. Reactor regulation in Japan is now among the most rigorous in the world, and engineering standards have evolved significantly since the first generation of plants built in the 1970s and 1980s. Maintaining and safely operating those reactors is an important step forward, but it cannot be the final chapter of nuclear energy in Japan.
What comes next may depend on something Japan has always done exceptionally well: manufacturing.
Most nuclear plants operating today were built as large construction projects. Each reactor was assembled on site and often designed slightly differently from the next. That approach made sense when the industry was young, but it also contributed to high costs, long timelines, and limited standardization.
A different approach is beginning to emerge. Instead of treating every reactor as a unique construction project, smaller reactors could be produced in factories using standardized designs and precision manufacturing. When complex machines are built repeatedly in controlled environments, quality improves and costs tend to fall. Japan’s industrial history—from automobiles to bullet trains—shows how powerful this model can be when applied at scale.
For a country with Japan’s manufacturing culture, this idea is particularly compelling. Precision engineering, tight quality control, and standardized production are strengths that have defined Japanese industry for decades. Applying those same principles to nuclear energy could reshape how reactors are designed, built, and deployed.
Advanced reactor designs may also change how nuclear plants operate. Some concepts use liquid fuels or alternative cooling systems that operate at higher temperatures and lower pressures, improving efficiency and reducing certain risks associated with earlier generations of reactors. These ideas are still developing, but they show how much the technology has evolved since the first nuclear plants were built.
For Japan, the opportunity may be larger than simply restarting reactors. Few countries combine advanced manufacturing capability, engineering expertise, and decades of experience operating nuclear plants. If the next generation of reactors can be built with the same precision that defines Japan’s best industrial products, the country could help shape the future of nuclear energy rather than simply importing it.
That possibility matters not only for Japan but for the world. As countries search for reliable ways to produce clean electricity at scale, many are reconsidering nuclear energy as part of their long-term energy systems.
But in Japan, the conversation inevitably returns to March 11.
The memory of that day should never fade, especially for the communities that lost so much along the Tohoku coast. At the same time, the lessons of that experience should guide how nuclear energy evolves—safer, more transparent, and designed with a deeper understanding of risk.
Japan still needs stable, domestic sources of energy. Expanding nuclear power carefully and responsibly will be essential for meeting that need, and the next generation of reactors should reflect everything learned over the past fifteen years.
Remembering the disaster is essential. For Japan, the future of nuclear energy will ultimately depend on whether the country chooses to build the next generation of reactors with the same care, precision, and responsibility that define its best engineering.