Wishful thinking unacceptable

March 24, 2015

COMMENTARY: ‘Wishful thinking’ of nuclear insiders must not be allowed to be reborn

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/column/AJ201503240005

By TOSHIHIDE UEDA/ Senior Staff Writer

FUKUSHIMA--Four years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami triggered a triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011.

“Am I really living in a leading nation of the world?” I have been asking myself ever more often after I moved to this northeastern city, capital of the prefecture of the same name, in spring 2014.

At least 120,000 residents of Fukushima Prefecture still remain evacuated. Simply driving along National Route No. 6, which runs north to south across evacuation zones, or in its environs will let you see, whether you like it or not, many telltale objects such as dilapidated houses, a huge number of bags filled with refuse from the decontamination efforts, and debris left in the open.

A joint survey conducted recently by The Asahi Shimbun Co. and Fukushima Broadcasting Co. showed that 69 percent of Fukushima Prefecture residents believed that little or no foundation has been laid for post-disaster rebuilding. That finding is not surprising at all.

Just as disaster areas remain in such a plight, a subcommittee of the industry ministry began meeting on Jan. 30 to discuss what energy sources should be used, and to what extent, to cover Japan’s electricity demand in the years to come.

“I believe Japan’s (nuclear) safety regulation system has become a global standard,” the minutes of the proceedings quote one former industry ministry official as saying during a subcommittee meeting. “I just hope the public will fully understand that safety standards that are at the world's top level are now in place.”

Those remarks stupefied me.

In Japan, emergency evacuation plans have yet to be covered by the government’s safety screenings, and anti-terrorist measures are also slow in being worked out. And Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.

Even if we had standards of the “world’s top level,” would that be enough? Well, the public remains unconvinced.

'LAUGHABLE' GOAL

The remarks probably only represented “wishful thinking” of the speaker, who hopes things will be like what he said.

It is the wishful thinking of stakeholders that is talked about in Japan’s nuclear policy--I have had that impression more than a few times during the many years I have covered the nuclear issue.

Such a reliance on wishful thinking has reigned over Japan’s nuclear power community since its cradle days.

Physicist Eizo Tajima (1913-1998), who was involved his entire life in Japan’s nuclear power development, wrote an autobiography, “Aru Genshi Butsurigakusha no Shogai” (Life of a nuclear physicist), published by Shin Jinbutsu Oraisha.

Tajima engaged in research for developing atomic bombs at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, today’s Riken research institute, during World War II. He served on the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, as one of the inaugural commissioners of the now-defunct Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, and in other posts in postwar years.

While serving on the JAEC, Tajima proposed adding a safety expert to the lineup of its permanent commissioners. When his proposal was rejected, he resigned as commissioner to protest the government's attitude. He continued to take great pains, until the end of his life, to ensure nuclear safety and have the nuclear power administration reformed.

Tajima was named a JAEC commissioner in 1972. That year, the government revised its “long-term plan” for nuclear power development for the first time in five years. The No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant had only entered service the previous year, and only five nuclear reactors were up and running across Japan.

The new plan said there was “demand for nuclear power generation to account for” some 60 gigawatts in fiscal 1985 and some 100 gigawatts in fiscal 1990. Tajima wrote in his autobiography how he felt about that plan.

“I did not believe such a plan was by any means achievable, and I thought the JAEC ought to be responsible for that long-term plan, so I asked about the grounds for that plan during a JAEC meeting, whereupon I got this answer matter-of-factly, ‘This is a nonbinding goal.’ That dumbfounded me. I could not believe it, but it appeared that was common sense in Japan’s government offices, so I thought it was perhaps laughable to take that seriously for feasible projections.”

Japan currently has 48 nuclear reactors, with a combined power generating capacity of only 44.26 gigawatts. It was the government plan that was “laughable.”

FORGOTTEN WARNING

The government warned itself against a reliance on wishful thinking at least once in the past, when it issued the 2000 White Paper on Nuclear Safety.

The making of that year’s white paper followed the 1999 criticality accident at JCO Co.’s Tokai works in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, during which three workers of the nuclear fuel processing company were exposed to large radiation doses, with two of them dying. The reliance of nuclear power community insiders on a “safety myth,” which assumed nuclear power was absolutely safe, came under heavy criticism.

“Why was an erroneous ‘safety myth’ formed?” the white paper asked, and cited “excessive confidence in track records,” “loss of memory of past accidents,” “wishes for absolute safety” and other reasons as potential factors.

But that warning was left to fade into oblivion.

“Technology goes wrong the moment you assert it is 100 percent safe,” Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, told a news conference on Feb. 18. “The moment you say so, you are abandoning efforts to enhance safety.”

That is something we learned fully from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Prospects for ending the crisis at the disaster site or laying the foundation for post-disaster rebuilding are nowhere in sight. We should not allow the propensity of nuclear insiders to rely on wishful thinking to come back to life.

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The author, based in Fukushima, wrote on other issues.