In what many believe to be a desperate election gambit--and I agree--the Noda administration has announced a goal of eliminating all nuclear power by the end of the 2030s. In fact, the measures that they have announced so far would not accomplish the goal. I estimate that about 44% of today's nuclear capacity would still in operation in 2030; 25% in 2035; and 17% in 2039. This policy would not be legally binding unless the Diet approved a new law. However, I believe it will constrain the LDP, assuming it wins the next election, especially if it needs either the DPJ or Japan Restoration Party as allies to form a majority.
Already, on the Sept. 15 TV debate, most of the leading candidates to become the new LDP President played down the issue, to the consternation of the Yomiuri.

I'd like to raise a question about this to the SSJ membership. Although the damange caused by Fukushima is far less than that caused by Chernobyl, a worst-case scenario drawn up for Naoto Kan by Shunsuke Kondo, the head of the Atomic Energy Commission, talked about a possible need to evacuate 30-40 million people in the Tokyo area if the explosions damaged not just the reactor buildings, but the core reactor container vessels. That would have let loose much greater volumes of lethal radiation. Koichi Kitazawa, president of the Rebuild Japan Initiative (also known as the Funabashi
Commission) and a former chief of the Japan's Science and Technology Agency, said that Japan was "very lucky"
to have escaped the worst-case scenario. Funabashi said it would have happened if TEPCO had abandoned the plant. I'm not aware of anyone who has challenged Kondo's assessment.

So, my concern is not over what did happen, but what might have happened.

I'm no scientist, but after reading a number of academic reports, I am convinced that the Fukushima disaster could have been prevented if regulators had demanded that TEPCO put in place upgrades using technology that is available today and that follows best global practice, including some upgrades instituted after some flooding incidents at a reactor in France in 1999. Japan's reactors are designed to shut down when a serious earthquake occurs and back-up reactors go into operation. This has happened numerous times over the years and it happened at Fukushima on March 2001. But the back-up generators and electrical switching gear were in the basement and pumping stations were not hardened to protect against flood. In fact, in some upgrades, new generators were built high enough to survive the tsunami, but the electrical gear was left in the basement. So, after an hour, the back-up power failed due to the tsunami. Because upgrades were done at Fukushima Dai-ni and Onagawa, the tsunami did not lead to a similar disaster.

At the same time, the cost of abandoning nuclear power is very high, inclding more deaths due to air pollution from more fossil fuels, higher prices for fuel imports, lower GDP growth, costs of decommissioning, tons of money thrown at renewables, etc. To my mind, a no nukes policy is like buying very expensive fire insurance.
The odds of a fire wiping out your home are tiny but the impact is enormous. So, it's worthwhile to buy the insurance--as long as the price of insurance is commensurate with the risk. To abandon all nukes is like paying $20,000 a year to raise the coverage on one's insurance, when one could dramatically lower the odds of a fire becoming catastrophic by maknig upgrades that cost $3,000 per year.

On the other hand, what if you believe that the nuclear village is so incestuous and corrupt that Japan is incapable of forcing regulators and firms to adopt the needed changes? After all, Wall Street has hardly been reformed despite the global disaster that it created.
If you believe that the indispensable changes are impossible and we'll just get fig leaf gestures, then a no nukes policy is far more understandable.

So, here's what I'd like to throw open for discussion.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that the technological fixes are in place if there is the political will to enforce them. Do people think that the Japanese political, bureaucratic and business elite is capable of forcing the nuclear village to adopt these upgrades? If they did, do you think it would make any difference to the Japanese public, or has trust been so shattered that it is not recoverable regardless of any safety upgrades?

I don't know the answer to either of the two questions, but I'd like to believe that the answer to the first question is yes.

Richard Katz
The Oriental Economist Report