A Japanese electric utility is likely to pay more in damages for its ongoing nuclear crisis than all the profit it made off nuclear power over 38 years, a study says.

The study by Kenichi Oshima, an environmental economist at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, estimates that Tokyo Electric Power Co. earned nearly 4 trillion yen from the time the Fukushima 1 plant opened in 1970 until the end of the 2008 business year, the Kyodo News Agency reported in The Japan Times.

The damages TEPCO will be forced to pay evacuees, farmers, fishing businesses and others hurt by the nuclear disaster will run into the trillions of yen, perhaps as high as 8 trillion to 11 trillion, according to Kyodo.

Three of TEPCO's reactors experienced full meltdowns after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and continue to leak radiation.

Nevertheless, shareholders on Tuesday rejected a motion for the company to abandon nuclear power, Kyodo reported.