"A de facto revival of the nuclear Safety Commission"

June 11, 2014

Abe picks for NRA ‘undermine’ nuclear watchdog’s independence

Reuters

The Lower House has approved a reshuffle of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, including appointing a commissioner who has received more than ¥10 million from nuclear-related entities over the past decade to fund his academic research.

Among the two commissioners stepping down from the five-member panel at the NRA, one is a fierce critic of safety practices within the industry.

Opponents said the changes, which were approved Tuesday, undermine Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s stated commitment to an independent watchdog at a time when utilities are pushing to restart their idled reactors.

The NRA’s independence is under scrutiny as it reviews applications to restart reactors, all 48 of which were shuttered in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The commission was set up as an independent agency after the disaster to replace a regulator seen as too close to the industry and to an energy ministry that promoted atomic power.

The Lower House, where Abe has a majority, approved his administration’s nomination of Satoru Tanaka, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Tokyo and a proponent of nuclear power.

It also approved geologist Akira Ishiwatari, whose candidacy generated little controversy. The Upper House is expected to also give them the green light.

Industry analysts said any nuclear energy expert in Japan would have received funding from the industry, given the decades of close ties between utilities and academia.

“But it is a matter of the degree of money you receive,” said Hideyuki Ban of Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, a nonprofit foe of nuclear power.

Tanaka did not respond to emailed requests for comment on the donations, which were detailed in financial disclosures and the media.

“Bringing someone like (Tanaka) on as a regulator changes the fundamental role of the NRA,” said Tomoko Abe, an independent anti-nuclear lawmaker who is not related to the prime minister. “This nomination could undermine the very role of the regulator.”

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said last month that the nominees were the “best people for the job, who can fulfill their roles from an independent, scientifically unbiased and fair standpoint.”

Akihiro Sawa, a research director at the 21st Century Public Policy Institute, a think tank affiliated with the Keidanren business lobby, defended Tanaka.

“Academic institutions now encourage professors to get research funds and it’s very competitive, so his background should not be judged purely on the outside funds he has received,” Sawa said.

Tanaka, who was not at the Diet on Tuesday, has sought to dispel concerns about his candidacy.

“If I am approved, I will take into account mistakes from the Fukushima accident and I will do my utmost by utilizing all my experience,” he told NHK recently.

Eight months after the three meltdowns at Fukushima No. 1, he was one of the first experts to say it may be safe to consider atomic energy again, according to remarks he made to a government panel on energy.

Between the 2004 and 2010 fiscal years, Tanaka received ¥6 million for research from three firms, Electric Power Development Co Ltd, known as J-Power, which is building a nuclear plant in northern Japan; reactor maker Hitachi Ltd’s nuclear division; and Hitachi GE Nuclear Energy Ltd.

Jiji Press said Tanaka also received around ¥3 million over five years to March 31, 2012, from the Tepco Memorial Foundation. A foundation spokesman said Tanaka had been paid for judging research grants, but gave no amount.

Tokyo University said it had no information on any possible payment from the Tepco foundation, as it would be Tanaka’s private income.

In disclosures to the NRA in April, Tanaka said he received at least ¥500,000 in the year to March 2012 from the foundation. NRA nominees are only required to disclose funding received in the past three years.

For the year to March 2012, Tanaka told the NRA he also received a total of ¥1.1 million from Hitachi GE Nuclear Energy and Taiheiyo Consultant, an engineering firm.

None of the original NRA commissioners received funds from a utility or nuclear plant operator for their research in the three years leading up to their appointment, according to disclosures made when the NRA was set up.

The figures exclude a total of ¥120 million Tepco donated during the four years through fiscal 2011 to a nuclear fuel cycle course taught by Tanaka, according to Jiji.

Commissioner Toyoshi Fuketa received about ¥1.5 million in fiscal 2009-2010 from Nuclear Fuel Industries for research that he conducted with Japan’s sole producer of nuclear fuel, an NRA filing revealed.

The NRA’s most critical voice, seismologist Kazuhiko Shimazaki, will retire in September after two years as its deputy, a period during which he angered the industry with safety demands that in one case effectively scuttled the restart of a reactor.

Activists and some NRA officials had hoped Shimazaki would remain, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. But the government said he and former Ambassador to the U.N. Kenzo Oshima wanted to leave at the end of their two-year terms.

Shimazaki has not spoken publicly about his retirement and the NRA declined to make him available for comment. It’s not clear who will be the NRA’s new deputy.

“The main objective of this shuffle is to remove commissioner Shimazaki,” said Tetsunari Iida, executive director of Japan’s Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, an anti-nuclear group. “The industry would never be satisfied if he wasn’t replaced.”

An official at a utility who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic called Shimazaki’s retirement a “small victory” and said utilities hope restarts will now move ahead quickly.

The first restart, at the Sendai nuclear plant in Kagoshima Prefecture, is expected to be approved in the coming months. The utility resubmitted its application, following demands from Shimazaki to upgrade its assumptions regarding earthquake risks.

NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka acknowledged the regulator is under pressure “from all different directions.”

“We have worked together to create the functions and the independence of the regulator,” Tanaka, who is no relation to the new commissioner, told a recent news conference. “This is a groundbreaking thing, and we will all work toward protecting it.”

 June 11, 2014

Tohoku Electric seeks reactor restart; praise, anger expressed over NRA changes

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201406110056 

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Tohoku Electric Power Co. on June 10 applied to the Nuclear Regulation Authority for safety screenings to restart a reactor that might lie directly above an active fault.

The application for the Higashidori nuclear power plant in Aomori Prefecture was submitted after the government announced plans to replace a NRA commissioner criticized as overly cautious with a pro-nuclear expert. The personnel change has drawn praise from residents around the Higashidori plant and outrage from victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

NRA inspectors have visited the Higashidori plant four times but have yet to reach a conclusion on whether an active fault runs under important equipment at the plant. Under Japanese law, nuclear reactors cannot operate if they lie directly above an active fault.

“All those involved have been irritated with (the NRA’s) slow-moving inspections,” said Yasuo Echizen, the mayor of Higashidori village, adding that he hopes the nuclear plant will be restarted at the earliest possible date.

The NRA was set up in the aftermath of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant accident to replace two nuclear safety bodies that were criticized for their cozy ties to the nuclear industry. The new nuclear watchdog introduced stricter safety rules for nuclear power plant operations.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to restart nuclear power plants, but all reactors remain offline in Japan, with some utilities waiting for NRA approval.

Nuclear power plant operators and government officials have largely blamed NRA Commissioner Kunihiko Shimazaki for the delay in giving the green light for the resumption of reactor operations.

The Diet on June 11 approved the Abe administration’s proposed personnel changes that would replace Shimazaki, a seismology expert, with Satoru Tanaka, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Tokyo and a leading proponent of nuclear energy.

Another NRA commissioner, Kenzo Oshima, will also leave the nuclear watchdog. He will be replaced by Akira Ishiwatari, a professor of geology at Tohoku University, who has only tepid links to the nuclear industry. Some experts expect Ishiwatari to be impartial in judging the safety of nuclear reactors.

Yoichi Suenaga, a former president of Aomori University who is currently chairman of a group of local companies and individuals who discuss nuclear energy and regional development, said he welcomes the changes in the NRA.

“We have had doubts (about the credibility of the NRA) because the body has just been sticking to the problem of a possible active fault,” Suenaga said.

The reaction to the NRA changes was quite different in Fukushima Prefecture, where evacuees from the nuclear accident triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 said they fear that nuclear safety is again taking a back seat to industry interests.

“The personnel replacement is advantageous to those who want to restart reactors, and will render the current nuclear regulations ineffective,” said Hiroaki Kanno, 66, a doctor in Fukushima, who evacuated from Namie, Fukushima Prefecture.

A resident of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, said the Abe administration’s latest decision violates personnel shift rules introduced by the previous administration led by the Democratic Party of Japan.

“It is lunacy that the Abe administration is attempting to appoint Tanaka, an obviously ineligible figure, as commissioner,” said Ruiko Muto, a 60-year-old former teacher who is seeking to hold senior officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, criminally responsible for the disaster.

Yayoi Hitomi, 53, a magazine editor in Koriyama in the prefecture, said the government’s move reminded her of the failures of the NRA’s predecessor to properly evaluate the dangers at the Fukushima plant.

“(The commissioner replacement) represents a de facto revival of the Nuclear Safety Commission,” she said.