Japan’s Nuclear Future
Written by Jeff Kingston

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Japan’s Nuclear Future
https://www.e-ir.info/2012/04/09/japans-nuclear-future/
JEFF KINGSTON, APR 9 2012

Anyone paying attention to public opinion polls in Japan or the cascade of damning revelations about the ongoing
Fukushima nuclear crisis might assume the nation is pulling the plug on nuclear energy. That is not the case. Prime
Minister Noda Yoshihiko is eager to restart some of Japan’s idled nuclear reactors as soon as possible despite
significant safety concerns and he enjoys the powerful support of the so-called ‘nuclear village’ of pro-nuclear
advocates, comprising, utilities, business federations, vendors, politicians, bureaucrats, media, and academics.
Currently, only 1 of Japan’s 54 reactors is operating, but by early May all will be offline for stress tests introduced by
the government in July 2011 to assess operational safety. The government, however, is trying to bring at least tworeactors back online before the summer by allowing utilities to postpone critical safety upgrades.
Japan is the most earthquake-prone nation in the world, experiencing more than 20% of the world’s ‘>6’ magnitude
earthquakes. All of Japan’s nuclear reactors are sited on the coastline, meaning they are also vulnerable to tsunami.
Until 3/11, there had never been a serious nuclear accident at a commercial Japanese nuclear power plant, but thisfour-decade record of safety means little following the three meltdowns at Fukushima as investigations have revealed
an institutionalized complacency regarding safety in Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), and among
government regulators at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA).
Safety Compromised
A private panel investigating the nuclear disaster concludes that TEPCO’s systematic negligence contributed to the
nuclear disaster, and criticized its ‘make-believe’ disaster emergency arrangements.[2] The myth that nuclear
reactors could be operated with absolute 100% safety, embraced and promoted by the ‘nuclear village’, made ittaboo to question safety standards, and militated against sober risk assessment, and robust disaster emergency
preparedness. Those responsible for operating or regulating nuclear reactors bought into the myth of 100% safety,
and this collective failure left them unprepared to deal with an accident or worst-case scenario. They justifed notpracticing evacuations out of concern that the public might grow anxious about nuclear power.
The utilities, government, and associated scientists tout the high tech, fail-safe features of nuclear reactors, but as
disaster expert Charles Perrow reminds us, accidents happen.[3] Immediately after the March 11 disaster, TEPCO
was quick to claim that the tsunami and chain of multiple failures had been inconceivable, but the record suggests
otherwise. In 1975, nuclear chemist, Takagi Jinzaburō, and others, established the Citizens Nuclear Information
Center (CNIC). Fukushima was the nightmare scenario that CNIC had long predicted. In a 1995 interview, Jinzaburō
spoke about the risks of a meltdown in the event of multiple, cascading failures. He raised the possibility of large
radioactive releases from a meltdown, resulting from a breakdown in the emergency core cooling system, and thefailure of back-up diesel generators – exactly what happened at Fukushima sixteen years later.[4]The nuclear village did not heed a series of warnings, and actually rejected proposals to improve safety, since itwould have undermined their quest for nuclear power under Japan’s seismically fraught conditions. As Perrowargues, ‘There is the problem that warnings are often seen as mere obstructionism. This was the view of arepresentative for a Japanese utility who brushed away the possibility that two backup electrical generators would failsimultaneously.’[5] This expert witness testified at the Shizuoka District Court in February 2007, on behalf of Chubu
Electric Power Co., the utility that owns and operates the Hamaoka nuclear power plant.[6] Exasperated by

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questioning from the plaintiff’s lawyers, concerning what would happen in the event of a station blackout and loss ofall backup electricity (as happened at Fukushima four years later), this witness blurted out, ‘If we took all these
possibilities into account, we could never build anything.’ This witness was Madarame Haruki, who wassubsequently named Chairman of the government’s five-member Nuclear Safety Commission in April 2010.
In Japan, cozy and collusive ties between regulators and industry, embodied in the amakudari system and thenuclear village have compromised nuclear safety.[7] This situation has led to widespread regulatory capture,explaining the lack of a culture of safety at TEPCO, and the averted eyes approach to monitoring the nuclear industry
evident at NISA. Workers at Fukushima report being routinely warned in advance of inspections, and inspectors did
not seem eager to uncover violations.
Whistleblower revelations of systematic falsification of repair and maintenance records in 2002, at all of TEPCO’s
nuclear plants, indicate that more robust inspections, transparency and accountability are crucial to nurture a cultureof safety.[8] It is important to remember that in February 2011, shortly before the meltdowns, NISA extended theoperating license of Fukushima Daiichi, despite expressing reservations about a dubious maintenance record, andeerily prescient concerns about stress cracks in the back-up diesel generators that left them vulnerable to inundation.
At that time, the Federation of Electric Power Companies that represents the ten main utilities in Japan, also
summarily rejected the NSC’s recommendations to enhance preventative measures against nuclear accidents, citing
costs and concerns that taking such steps might stoke public fears about nuclear energy.[9]Crisis Assessment
TEPCO conducted an in-house investigation into the nuclear crisis, and issued a report in December 2011 thatshirked all corporate responsibility for the accident, instead, blaming the massive tsunami, calling it a rare natural
event that could not have been anticipated (sotegai), a claim that has been effectively refuted. A government panel
issued an interim report at the end of 2011, which was harshly critical of TEPCO and the government, pointing outthat the utility was ill-prepared for a crisis, and that its workers made critical errors in shutting off automatedemergency cooling systems, and wrongly assumed that part of the cooling system was working when it was not.[10]Plant workers and their managers were inadequately trained to cope with an emergency situation, and according to
the panel, lacked basic knowledge concerning the emergency reactor cooling system. Their mishandling of
emergency procedures exacerbated the crisis.
At the end of February 2012, the non-government Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation (RJIF) released a report basedon its investigation of the nuclear accident.[11] It is a scathing indictment of Japan’s nuclear risk management andcrisis response. The report emphasizes the disarray, dysfunction, miscommunication, meddling, and verticalsectionalism that prevailed, and how these problems exacerbated poor disaster preparedness.[12] The crisis also
exposed the vulnerabilities of the electrical and cooling systems, and lax security rules, raising concerns about apotential terrorist attack. In highlighting these sweeping problems, the report underscores the major risks associatedwith Japan’s nuclear industry and raises serious doubts about whether it is possible to manage these risks.
The investigations reveal that TEPCO ignored several warnings, including internal research, about the possibility of amonster tsunami. It looked into building a larger tsunami seawall, but decided the cost was prohibitive and took no
additional preventive measures. On March 7, 2011, only four days before the tsunami, TEPCO presented the
Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), the government’s nuclear watchdog authority, with results fromsimulations conducted in 2008 by its own researchers, showing that a tsunami as high as 15.7 meters could hit thearea, a finding that was ignored.
Clearly, there is no basis to TEPCO’s claim that the scale of the 3/11 tsunami was inconceivable; the utility chose toignore centuries of geological evidence, and repeated 21st century warnings from modern scientists, including inhouse researchers. TEPCO and two other utilities actually lobbied the government’s Earthquake ResearchCommittee in early 2011, to water down wording in a report, warning that a massive tsunami might devastate the
Tohoku coast. Apparently, the committee agreed to modify the report in accord with concerns expressed by theutilities that a stark warning about the possibility of a colossal tsunami might cause ‘misunderstanding’ among the

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public.[13]Because the possibility of a tsunami inundating the plant was ignored, TEPCO made no preparations for
simultaneous and multiple losses of power. The station blackout that halted cooling systems on 3/11 caused themeltdowns.
Whistleblower
In Diet testimony on February 15, 2012, NSC Chairman Madarame Haruki pulled back the curtain on the nuclear
village, drawing attention to cozy and collusive relations between regulators and the utilities, and lax safety
standards. He spoke of officials ignoring nuclear risks and new international safety protocols, stating, ‘We ended up
wasting our time looking for excuses that these measures are not needed in Japan.’[14] He asserted that Japan’s
safety monitoring technology is three decades out of date, while acknowledging that he and his colleagues had,‘…succumbed to a blind belief in the country’s technical prowess and failed to thoroughly assess the risks of building
nuclear reactors in an earthquake-prone country.’ [15] He said that regulators and the utilities missed many
opportunities to improve operating safety, and warned that safety regulations are minimally enforced andfundamentally flawed. Furthermore, he asserted that regulators were toothless, and overly solicitous of utility
interests. In Madarame’s view, nuclear reactor safety is compromised because of institutional complacency, slipshod
practices at the utilities, and perfunctory enforcement of safety regulations and guidelines.[16]It is unnerving to have one of the nation’s leading nuclear energy experts, the man in charge of the NSC, one who
has long been a stalwart advocate of nuclear energy, suddenly voice many of the same objections that anti-nuclear
activists have expressed over the years. In the one sector, where a culture of safety should have been foremost, thenuclear safety czar revealed a culture of deceit.
Doubts about Stress Tests
Shortly after his Diet testimony, Madarame dropped another bombshell when he announced that he does not thinkthat the first round of stress tests conducted on Japan’s nuclear reactors are sufficient to ensure safe operation.[17]The stress tests were first announced by PM Kan in July 2011, stirring considerable controversy because he did notconsult with his cabinet beforehand. [18] Speaking on behalf of the NSC, Madarame said, ‘With only the first round(of stress tests), the level of safety confirmation that the commission seeks would not be met. Whether to reactivate(reactors) is the government’s decision and we, as the safety commission, won’t say anything about it.’ This highprofile indictment of the stress tests comes at an inconvenient time for the government because NISA has alreadyendorsed first stage stress tests, conducted by Kansai Electric on its Oi power plant in Fukui Prefecture. In response
to Madarame, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Osamu Fujimura, stated that regardless of the NSC, the government will
decide on whether or not to resume operations of nuclear reactors, based on the initial stress tests and local
sentiments in nuclear plant hosting communities.
The Noda cabinet’s desire to restore public confidence in nuclear energy through the stress tests, and restart idled
reactors, has been undercut by Madarame’s statement. The first stage stress tests are only computer simulations
and have no hands-on component, and thus, cannot measure important issues such as metal fatigue in a nation
where 19 reactors are over 30 years old. Public anxieties about nuclear energy are widespread and the stress tests
have been dismissed all along as empty PR gestures by prominent politicians, experts, and citizens’ groups. Nothing,
however, could be quite as damning as the NSC chairman, one of the nuclear village’s headmen, pointedly refusing
to confirm that the first stage of stress tests are sufficient to evaluate operational safety.
On March 23, 2012 the NSC endorsed the Oi power plant stage one stress tests, but stage two tests have notcommenced.[19] The government has taken this as a green-light and is bulldozing ahead on restarting idled reactors
without conducting the second stage of stress tests, as originally planned, because doing so would postpone
resumption of nuclear power operations until 2013 at the earliest. To this end it hastily cobbled together safety
guidelines in early April that allow restarting reactors after minimal safety upgrades as long as the utilities promise to
adopt further countermeasures such as higher seawalls over the next several years.

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Overall, 57% of the Japanese public currently opposes restarting nuclear power plants, and 80% don’t trust the
government’s nuclear safety measures.[20] These skeptical sentiments are shared in the communities that havebenefitted most from hosting the reactors.[21] On March 8, 2012, NHK reported that in a poll conducted in 142
communities in the vicinity of Japan’s nuclear power plants, only 14% of respondents favor restarting idled reactors
now or in the near future, while 79% opposed or had strong reservations about doing so.[22] Clearly, the government
faces a steep, uphill battle in gaining the understanding of Japanese living near nuclear reactors, to pursue plans forrestarting reactors. Legally, however, it does not need local approval to restart the reactors.
Restart or Reset?
It is important to learn lessons from the poor risk management in the nuclear industry because Japan will probably
continue to rely on nuclear energy for years to come, despite the Fukushima debacle. Energy Minister, Edano Yukio,
predicts that Japan will not be relying on any nuclear energy this summer, and favors minimizing reliance on nuclear
energy and replacing it with renewable energy.[23] Perhaps, but as we noted above there are ongoing determinedefforts to restart some reactors based on stress tests that generate little confidence outside the nuclear village.[24]The utilities, with massive government subsidies, have invested vast sums in nuclear energy, and are not prepared tojust walk away from their nuclear plants. Moreover, it will take considerable time and money to ramp up renewableenergy generating capacity to offset the phasing out of nuclear power. While renewable energy may have a promising
future in Japan, the nuclear lobby is powerful and working to undermine Japan’s incipient green revolution.[25]The Yomiuri argues that, ‘The nation cannot afford to delay the reactivation of suspended reactors when there is norational reason for doing so.’[26] But a majority of Japanese digesting the revelations about lax safety, systemic flaws
in crisis preparedness, the bungling crisis response, and ongoing radiation leaks think there are many good, rational
reasons to disagree, and wonder why there is such urgency to restart before the lessons have been learned, andsafety measures vastly upgraded. Perhaps, there is a fear that a nuclear free summer might set a dangerous
precedent.
The nuclear village has been battered over the past year because there are fundamental questions about safely
operating nuclear reactors in such a seismically disadvantaged nation. Kitazawa Koichi, former Chairman of theJapan Science and Technology Agency, stresses that Japan, given the incompetent nuclear crisis response, wasvery lucky that the disaster was not significantly worse.[27] It is equally alarming to know that the scientificcommunity did little to challenge, and in the end perpetuated, the absolute safety myth that enshrouded nuclear
energy.
Decontamination, decommissioning, and disposing of contaminated waste over the coming decades, will keep
nuclear energy under sustained, critical scrutiny. Japan’s spent fuel rods are mostly stored at cooling pools adjacent
to reactors, a dangerous situation that amplifies the risks from an accident. The problem is that existing ‘temporary’cooling pools are almost full, and the reprocessing complex at Rokkasho is not functioning due to a series of glitches
and delays.[28] At the end of February 2012, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, now revising Japan’s basic nuclear
energy policy, suggested the option of direct fuel disposal by burial. This signals a possible move away from thenuclear fuel cycle and reprocessing, but currently there is no disposal site.[29]TEPCO continues to downplay the role of the earthquake in damaging cooling system piping.[30] If the quake isimplicated in the meltdowns, the implications would be enormous, requiring extensive and expensive retrofitting at allof Japan’s remaining nuclear reactors because they are all vulnerable to such seismic events. This is not the sort ofrisk management that instills confidence in a company that seeks permission to restart its idled reactors.
The public is voicing overwhelming opposition to restarting reactors in a series of polls that are upping the politicalstakes. Hashimoto Toru, the mayor of Osaka, is launching a nationwide political movement, and he has been one of
the most outspoken critics of nuclear power. People are also conserving electricity; in the summer of 2011,
household consumption fell 20%. As electricity rates climb, conservation is becoming the new commonsense norm.
In addition, prominent business leaders and politicians are backing renewable energy, and see enormous potential
for jobs, investment and exports.

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Conclusion
The Dream That Failed, ‘…they allowed their enthusiasm for nuclear power to shelter weak regulation, safety systems
that failed to work and a culpable ignorance of the tectonic risks the reactors faced, all the while blithely promulgating
a myth of nuclear safety.’ – Economist, March 8, 2012
The battle lines are drawn between nuclear advocates, who cling to this failed dream, and opponents, who favor ashift towards renewable energy. The nuclear village enjoys many advantages in this battle, as it is easier to maintainor modestly tweak the national energy status quo than to promote a green revolution. The trump card of the nuclear
village is the need to maintain stable electricity supply and its advocates maintain that nuclear energy cannot be
replaced by renewable energy, and note that shifting to carbon fuels is costly in terms of the trade deficit and global
warming. The strategy is to transform this politicized debate into a ‘pragmatic’ decision, dictated by a dispassionate
assessment of energy, economic and environmental realities. But the realities that spewed from Fukushima, and acascade of damning revelations about TEPCO and regulators, lead other actors to draw different conclusions about
the safety, reliability and cost of nuclear energy. The Economist abandoned its longstanding support for nuclear
energy because it is not economically viable. The pragmatic reassessment by nuclear critics also draws on the factthat nuclear energy developed because of significant government subsidies over several decades, and they argue
that similar investments in renewable energy would yield less toxic and more cost effective dividends.
It does seem likely that Japan will continue to rely to some degree on nuclear energy, at least for the medium term
before sufficient renewable energy can be ramped up. However, if it does so, it is critically important to minimize risk
by enacting much more stringent safety measures. It is worrying that the Noda Cabinet, in its haste to restart
reactors, is not according safety the priority it should be given based on the lessons of Fukushima. By July, thegovernment will unveil its new national energy strategy and is expected to set a 20% medium-term goal forrenewable energy, up from a current level of 1% while scaling back nuclear energy from 29% of electricity generating
capacity pre-3/11, to some as yet undetermined level.
Until the utilities improve safety and emergency measures much more extensively, there should be no rush to resume
nuclear operations, and until renewable energy becomes a viable option, greater reliance on relatively clean LNG
seems a less risky bet. The great risk in Japan today and well into the future is that the lessons of Fukushima arebeing skewed, ignored or marginalized in a nation where nuclear energy represents a significant and abiding risk.
—
Jeff Kingston is the Director of Asian Studies at Temple University, Japan. He is the Editor of Natural Disasterand Nuclear Crisis in Japan: Response and Recovery After Japan’s 3/11 (Routledge, 2012).
[1] This essay is adopted from “Mismanaging Risk and the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis”[2] The Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation investigated the nuclear accident and conducted over 300 interviews of
those involved. Asahi 2/28/2012. For a brief synopsis see Yoichi Funabashi and Kay Kitazawa, “Fukushima in
Review: A complex disaster, a disastrous response”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 68(2), (March) 2012, 9-21.
[3] Charles Perrow (2011) “ Fukushima and the Inevitability of Accidents” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 67(6)44-52.
[4] Takagi Jinzaburō, “Kakushisetsu to Hijōjitai: Jishin Taisaku no Kenshō o chūshin ni,” Nihonbutsuri Gakkaishi 50(1995): 821.
[5] Charles Perrow (2011) “ Fukushima and the Inevitability of Accidents”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 67(6)44-52.
[6] Repeta, op.cit., p. 191

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Written by Jeff Kingston[7] NYT, 4/26/2011. Amakudari literally refers to descent from heaven, but in practice means officials securing postretirement sinecures in the industry they previously supervised in their official capacity. This system, creates agovernment-wide conflict of interest; officials are loathe to alienate potential future employers by zealous enforcementof regulations and standards.
[8] On the nuclear reactor whistleblower scandal see Jeff Kingston, Contemporary Japan: History, Politics andSocial Change Since the 1980s. Wiley 2011, pp. 151-152.
[9] Mainichi Daily News 3/ 27/2012.
[10] Asahi Shimbun 12/27/2011[11] Japan Times, 2/28/2012; Wall Street Journal (Asia) 2/29/2012[12] Funabashi, op.cit[13] Japan Times, 2/27/2012[14] AP 2/15/12[15] NYT 2/15/2012; AP 2/16/2012, Bloomberg 2/16/2012[16] Japan Times 2/16/2012[17] Mainichi 2/21/2012[18] Jeff Kingston, “The Politics of Disaster, Nuclear Crisis and Recovery”, in Jeff Kingston (ed.),Natural Disasterand Nuclear Crisis in Japan: Response and Recovery after Japan’s 3/11. Routledge 2012, pp. 194-96.
[19] NHK News 3/23/2012.
[20] Asahi 3/13/2012. 27% are in favor of restarting.
[21] These hosting communities receive large subsides and the plants generates jobs and tax revenues. See Daniel
Aldrich, Site Fights: Divisive Facilities and Civil Society in Japan and the West, Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY,
2008. Also Hiroshi ONITSUKA, ‘Hooked on Nuclear Power: Japanese State-Local Relations and the Vicious Cycleof Nuclear Dependence,’ The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 10, Issue 3 No 1, January 16, 2012.
[22] NHK News 3/8/12[23] NHK News 9 Interview 3/8/2012.
[24] Pre-Fukushima the media was generally pro-nuclear energy but since revelations about the meltdowns coveragehas been more mixed. The conservative newspapers Yomiuri and Sankei remain supportive.
[25] See Andrew Dewit, “Japan Power Switch
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/NC23Dh01.html

Put

to

Test”,

Asia

Times

3/23/2012.

[26] Yomiuri 3/24/2012.
[27] Kitazawa remarks drawing on RJIF non-government investigation report on the Fukushima accident at theForeign Correspondents’ Club Japan, 3/1/2012.

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Written by Jeff Kingston[28] Masa Takubo, “Nuclear or Not? The Complex and Uncertain Politics of Japan’s Post-Fukushima Energy Policy”,
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 67(5) 2011, 19-26. For recent further details on Rokkasho see Reuters 2/ 24,/2012.
[29] Mainichi 2/29/2012[30] Earthquake damage is reported by Jake Adelstein and David McNeill, “Meltdown: What Really Happened at
Fukushima?”
Atlantic
Wire,
July
2,
2011.
Accessed
Dec.
12,
2011.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/07/meltdown-what-really-happened-fukushima/39541/

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