No hope outside nukes?

March 4, 2015

Many see reactor restarts as only option to revive 'Nuclear Ginza' region

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150304p2a00m0na003000c.html

TSURUGA, Fukui -- The reactivation of halted nuclear reactors is expected to be among the main issues of contention in the coming nationwide local election in April. But in this city, which has suffered a huge economic blow from the halted reactors, reactivation is unlikely to emerge as a point of dispute.

Elections will be held in Tsuruga, the largest city in the Wakasa Gulf Coast region -- dubbed "Nuclear Ginza" as it is home to 14 nuclear reactors -- for a new mayor and city assembly members. With the local economy in sharp decline, residents worried about making a living see no real option besides restarting the nuclear reactors.

"Money doesn't circulate when the reactors aren't in operation," lamented Riichi Tsutsumi, 65, who runs a company in Tsuruga that manufactures aluminum building materials. "It's suffocating." Prior to the March 2011 triple disasters, orders related to the nuclear power plants -- including materials for rebuilding The Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPC) employee housing facilities and replacement parts for automatic doors at the plants -- constituted 30 to 50 percent of his company's annual sales. Now such orders are virtually gone. Other clients based in Tsuruga have also scaled back on capital spending, bringing total sales of Tsutsumi's company down to less than half of what they were four years ago.

Tsuruga is host to the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors of JAPC's Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA)'s Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor facility, neither of which have any clear prospects for reactivation. Moreover, there has been a profound drop in personal consumption in the city. Tsutsumi warned an acquaintance against opening a restaurant in the city's entertainment district after the 2011 disasters, saying it would quickly go out of business. The acquaintance went ahead with the plans anyway and opened an establishment in November 2013. Unable to attract customers even during the high year-end and new-year party season, however, the business shut down after just four months.

According to the Tsuruga Municipal Government, approximately 4,700 people worked at nuclear plants in the city -- including on scheduled inspections -- as of March 2010. The number dropped to approximately 3,300 by January 2015. According to a national government estimate, money that workers dispatched for scheduled inspections at the nuclear plants spent on accommodations and meals in Tsuruga and the neighboring town of Mihama in fiscal 2012 dropped by around 580 million yen from fiscal 2010. Meanwhile, the central government's plan for the "revitalization of local economies" still lacks any specific policies. With about 70 percent of the city's workers in the service sector, Tsuruga faces a grave challenge for which reactivated reactors would offer an immediate solution.

Almost none of the expected candidates in the mayoral or city assembly elections in Tsuruga are anti-nuclear advocates. Harumi Kondaiji, 64, a city assembly member who has taken a clear stance against nuclear power since the 2011 city assembly election, says she's been approached by local residents who say, tongue-in-cheek, that everyone in the city is connected to nuclear power plants. "We need to get them moving soon," they tell her. Kondaiji won at least 10 percent fewer votes in the 2011 election than in the previous one in 2007.

According to a public opinion poll taken by the Fukui Shimbun newspaper last December prior to the general election, around 25 percent of voters in the Fukui No. 2 district, which includes Tsuruga, said that all reactors should be decommissioned. There are no signs, however, that reactivation will become a controversial topic in the upcoming local election.

"People are worried about their livelihoods, so even if they question (the wisdom of reactivating reactors), that's probably not reflected in how they vote," Kondaiji suggested.

Chairman of the All Japan Council of Local Governments with Atomic Power Stations and Tsuruga Mayor Kazuharu Kawase, who will step down at the end of his current term, told the Mainichi Shimbun, "An election that does not allow us to see the public's will, including how many people are critical of nuclear power, is problematic. It would be natural for an anti-nuclear candidate to run, too, under the circumstances, so hopefully that will happen."

March 04, 2015(Mainichi Japan)