It appears as though Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party has won a majority of seats in Japan's lower house.

According to a BBC report, the LDP took 290 of 475 seats in a snap election that Abe called to win support for his economic plan.

Abenomics, as it's called, involves injecting massive liquidity into the system by boosting the money supply, increasing government spending, and imposing reforms on various sectors, all designed to stimulate economic growth.

The election results have strengthened Abe's hand as he pushes to restart more nuclear reactors in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that crippled a power plant in Fukushima, spewing radiation across the Pacific Ocean.

The governor of Kagoshima prefecture has already approved firing up two reactors at the Sendai nuclear plant next year, rejecting calls from protesters to keep the facility closed.

In 2012 after all of Japan's reactors were closed following the Fukushima disaster, the country imported 37 percent of the world's liquefied natural gas.

Any resumption of the nuclear power industry could curtail demand for LNG in Japan, driving down the fuel's price and making it more difficult for the B.C. industry to get off the ground.

In 2013, Abe told International Olympic Committee delegates that problems at the Fukushima plant were under control.

This was despite the calculations by Georgia Straight contributor Alex Roslin that about 800 people worldwide would develop cancer from Japanese fish eaten at the time of his article in October 2013.

Meanwhile, Japan News recently reported that a South Korean team will visit the Fukushima power plant and conduct tests on Japanese fish products.

South Korea has maintained a ban on importing fish from eight prefectures, including Fukushima.

The South Korean investigation will occur just as Japan's nuclear watchdog is calling for the release of contaminated water from the Fukushima plant.

According to an article in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Nuclear Regulation Authority chairman Shunichi Tanaka said officials will need to gain the consent of local residents.

"I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of tanks (holding water tainted with radioactive substances)," Tanaka told journalists. "We have to dispose of the water."