Kyushu Electric Power Co has become Japan's second nuclear generator after the Fukushima disaster to seek state support this week as reactors across the country remain idled and industry losses stack up three years after the Fukushima disaster. All of Japan's 48 nuclear reactors have been shut down, pending stringent safety checks, since an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima nuclear complex in March 2011.
Kyushu Electric, a regional monopoly that supplies power in southern Japan, said on Wednesday it was in talks with state-owned Development Bank of Japan Bank of Japan (DBJ) for financial backing. The country's nine publicly traded nuclear operators have together lost 3.2 trillion yen ($31 billion) in the two business years since then and five of them, including Kyushu Electric and Hokkaido Electric, also expect to be loss-making in the year just ended, Reuters reports. Japanese banking practices make it difficult for private lenders to extend credit, including refinancing existing loans, to companies that post three straight years of losses. That means the utilities...
