information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
17 Juillet 2014
July 17, 2014
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201407170031
The nuclear catastrophe that struck in 2011 raised a wide range of grave issues for Japanese politics and society. But none of them has been answered satisfactorily.
Debate on whether to restart the reactors that have been idled since the harrowing accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has somehow narrowed to focus only on technical issues concerning the performances of nuclear facilities.
Little progress has been made in efforts to develop effective ways to deal with emergencies, which should clarify how the central and local governments, as well as electric utilities, should respond to a major accident. By the same token, there has been little movement in drawing up plans to evacuate local residents in the event of another nuclear accident.
Under these circumstances, it is utterly reckless to try to bring offline reactors back on stream. Doing so can only be considered as a sign of a grossly irresponsible refusal to learn anything from an accident whose aftermath is still unfolding.
This is the first time that the nuclear watchdog has given the green light to the restart of a reactor since the new standards were established a year ago.
While some steps still remain to be taken, including soliciting input from the public about the document, the process of the NRA’s safety checks of the two reactors has passed the most important stage.
The Abe administration has repeatedly said it will leave decisions on whether specific reactors are ready to be brought back online to the expert judgment of the NRA and promised to only restart reactors that have been recognized as safe.
The administration has made it sound as if the NRA’s safety inspection was all that is needed to ensure the safety of a nuclear plant.
But that rhetoric belies the reality. Too many issues have been left untouched, both within and outside the boundaries of the NRA’s power.
If this situation is allowed to continue, Japan could again find itself heavily dependent on atomic energy, but without having made any policy change except for some minor improvements in nuclear power regulation.
TOO MUCH HYPE
In its basic energy plan, the Abe administration asserts that Japan’s new nuclear safety standards are now "the strictest in the world."
Members of his Cabinet and senior lawmakers of his Liberal Democratic Party have also said that reactors will only be restarted if their safety is confirmed under the new standards. They also make the claim that the standards are "the strictest in the world."
This is too much of an exaggeration. Hype of this kind could revive the myth that nuclear power is safe. But this was shattered once and for all by the Fukushima disaster.
To be fair, the new standards demand more vigorous measures to make nuclear facilities better prepared for earthquakes and tsunami. But these features are but a simple reflection of the fact that Japan is one of the world's most quake-prone nations.
Using a numerical approach to gauge the likelihood of a nuclear accident occurring has been widely adopted in Western industrial nations. But Japan's new standards are not as rigorous as to use this method.
Volcanologists have raised questions about the adequacy of measures to protect the Sendai nuclear power plant from possible volcanic eruptions. But the NRA supported the argument made by the plant operator, Kyushu Electric Power Co., which claims it will be able to deal with the risk by monitoring the volcano's activity.
What is essentially important is that satisfying the new standards doesn’t guarantee safety.
NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka has been emphasizing that the new standards are based on the assumption that nuclear accidents can occur.
In other words, the chief of the nuclear watchdog has been insisting that not only the NRA but also electric utilities, the central and local governments and residents living around nuclear power plants should all make a determined effort to help develop effective measures to respond to accidents. But many of the necessary measures remain to be taken.
VITAL ISSUES LEFT UNRESOLVED
More than anything else, no realistic plan has been crafted for the evacuation of local residents during emergencies.
Such plans are supposed to be worked out by the local governments by using the NRA’s guidelines for dealing with nuclear disasters as a basis. But local governments are at a loss how to tackle this formidable challenge, which has been suddenly thrust upon them.
The central government has asserted that nuclear power generation is a matter of national policy. Then, why does it leave the task of developing crucial evacuation plans entirely to local governments?
The conditions for restarting reactors don’t include the existence of an evacuation plan.
If local governments in areas around nuclear power plants readily agree to the restart of reactors without any prospect of crafting a workable evacuation plan, neither they nor the central government can fulfill their responsibility to protect the safety of local residents.
There are many other vital issues that have yet to be addressed.
We need to remember again and again the problems that were highlighted by the accident three years ago.
A catastrophic incident, especially if it happens in an area where many reactors are concentrated, could cause a tremendous number of people to be exposed to radiation and contaminate huge tracts of land with radioactive materials.
Despite this horrifying possibility, however, the NRA has not discussed in any serious manner the risk posed by multiple reactors located close to each other.
While the scope of areas that are given priority in the handling of a nuclear crisis has been widened to “roughly within 30 kilometers” of a nuclear plant, only local governments hosting the plant have a say over whether to restart a reactor. Is this reasonable?
Records of remarks made by the late Masao Yoshida, who was the manager of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant at the onset of the March 2011 accident, revealed that some senior executives of the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., temporarily fled the plant as the crisis unfolded.
He made the remarks during interviews by the government’s accident investigative committee.
Should electric utilities be entrusted with handling a severe accident that is on the cusp of developing into a catastrophe?
MORE IN-DEPTH DEBATE NEEDED
One fundamental problem is that Japanese society has yet to fully absorb the implications of the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
The individuals and organizations responsible for the disaster have not been held strictly accountable for what happened. Nor have they been given immunity from responsibility to share every scrap of information that can be gleaned to understand how the accident came about.
As symbolized by the fact that the records of Yoshida’s testimony have not been officially released, the truth of the accident has not been disclosed to the public.
Three years ago, we proposed in an editorial to set a target of moving Japanese society toward a future without nuclear power generation. Fortunately, the shutdown of all nuclear reactors around the nation has not caused any serious disruption like a large-scale power outage.
The May ruling by the Fukui District Court that ordered Kansai Electric Power Co. not to restart two reactors at its Oi nuclear power plant rejected the argument that suspending nuclear power generation is detrimental to the national interest because it will lead to increasing Japan’s trade deficit and drain of national wealth. The ruling said, “National wealth means that people can live lives firmly rooted in rich land.”
The energy policy, which also covers nuclear power generation, should not be discussed only from an economic point of view. The question that should be asked is how to secure the safety of both human beings and nature for a long time into the future.
Nuclear reactors must not be restarted without broad and in-depth debate on all key issues, including how to dispose of radioactive waste.
--The Asahi Shimbun, July 17
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