Energy

Hitachi is having difficulty persuading Japanese companies to share the burden of building a nuclear power plant in the U.K., raising the specter of a withdrawal from the project worth more than 3 trillion yen ($26.5 billion).

The Japanese government has decided to relax the conditions for cutting solar power subsidies for projects that have not started operations following opposition from power producers and other firms.

On a side street near a darkened Ikata shopping arcade full of abandoned storefronts, the Sushi Ko restaurant is unusually busy on a weekday.Balancing a tray full of drinks, Sachiyo Ozaki said most of her restaurant’s customers were there because of an industry shunned elsewhere: nuclear power.

Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions, Toshiba's infrastructure unit, is teaming up with Johnson Controls Power Solutions of the U.S. to make lithium-ion batteries, the Japanese company said on Wednesday.

With the population increasingly aging, the production of adult diapers has reached a record high, leading to an increase in waste. According to sources, the Environment Ministry plans to create guidelines to encourage municipalities to recycle used adult diapers from next fiscal year, hoping to reduce waste by making effective use of used diapers.

Solid-state batteries have the potential to dominate the next generation of batteries, letting Japanese companies regain prominence in a field they once led.

In Japan's port city of Kobe, a pair of 150-meter high white chimneys tower over the bay. Located just beside a residential area only 15 minutes by car from the city center, the chimneys belong to a giant 1.4-gigawatt coal-fired power plant that is about to loom even larger over residents' lives.

Sumitomo Metal Mining will spend over 200 billion yen ($1.77 billion) to set up a nickel smelter in Indonesia to meet strong demand for the metal used in electric car batteries.

Switzerland's ABB is reportedly in talks with multiple suitors to sell its power grid business, including Hitachi and a major Chinese company.

A high court in western Japan on Thursday rejected a lawsuit to shut down Shikoku Electric Power's only operable nuclear reactor.