Japan early is hutting down its last functioning nuclear reactor; and with no restart date on the horizon, it begins the longest period since the 1960s that the land of the rising sun has gone without nuclear power.

Engineers began taking Reactor 4 offline at Ohi in western Japan early this morning.  The country’s network of nuclear power plants at one time generated 30 percent of the Japan’s electrical power needs, but they’ve been shut down for extensive safety checks after the triple meltdown at Fukushima in 2011.

Public opinion has turned against nuclear power since the Fukushima disaster.  Since then, Japan has been forced to import huge amounts of coal, liquid natural gas, and other fuels.  Without the nuclear power plants, the average electricity bill has gone up a corresponding 30 percent, putting a dent in the government’s plan to increase consumer spending.

The previous Democratic Party of Japan government had vowed to take Japan off of the nuclear umbilical, but the DPJ was voted out of office and the pro-nuclear, conservative LDP returned.  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to restart as many as 50 idle nuclear reactors but faces deep public opposition.

So far, there have been no blackouts or rolling power outages.