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April 5, 2012

[SSJ: 7347] Re: A couple of reasons why the electricity has keptflowing despite the nuclear shutdowns

From: Paul Midford
Date: 2012/04/05

Ron Dore wrote:

"The nuclear phobia was not recently been created. It has been there ,not entirely without reason, since it was first created by American bombs, first on Hiroshima and then, for experimental purposes, on Nagasaki. That is why there was so much local opposition to the siting of every nuclear station and the quid pro quo had to be that much greater than in, say, a France or a Korea."

I am too busy with my day job right now to really participate in this discussion, but on this small point I want to note that this is simply not the case. In the 1960s there was some lingering distrust of nuclear power that resulted from the use of nuclear weapons on Japan. By the 1970s, however, this had been overcome and around 70% of Japanese favored expanding the use of nuclear power to generate electricity, making the Japanese public one of the most, if not the most, pro-nuclear publics in the
world. Japanese public opinion slowly turned against
nuclear power over the ensuing decades, but that was the result of 3 Mile Island, and much more so Chernobyl, Tokaimura and various coverups in the nuclear industry in Japan. Take a look at Daniel Aldrich's book, Site Fights, for more on this.

Nonetheless, as late as April 2011 Asahi's poll showed 50% of Japanese still favoring the use of nuclear power. The loss of majority support for nuclear power and the emergence of anti-nuclear plurality/majority has come since then.


Best Regards,

Paul

Approved by ssjmod at 11:52 AM