Ten years after Fukushima, Japan again debates role of nuclear power
When a huge earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11 2011, devastating towns and triggering nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima, a stunned world watched the chaotic struggle to contain the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
An onslaught of waves sparked by the 9.0-magnitude quake crashed into the northeastern coast, killing 20,000 people and crippling the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. More than 160,000 residents fled as radiation spewed into the air.
At the time, some — including Prime Minister Naoto Kan — feared Tokyo would need to be evacuated, or worse.
“Fukushima is stamped for the rest of the history of nuclear energy,” said Kiyoshi Kurokawa, head of an investigation that concluded the disaster was “profoundly man-made”.
OFF-LIMITS
The government has spent about $300bn to rebuild the Tohoku region devastated by the tsunami, but areas around the Fukushima plant remain offlimits, worries about radiation levels linger and many who left have settled elsewhere. Decommissioning of the plant will take decades and billions of dollars.
Japan is again debating the role of nuclear power in its energy mix as the resourcepoor country aims to achieve net carbon neutrality by 2050 to fight global warming. But an NHK public TV survey showed
85% of the public worries about nuclear accidents.
Energy policy was left in limbo after Shinzo Abe led his pronuclear Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) back to power the year after the disaster, ousting the novice Democratic Party of Japan, whose image was tainted by its handling of Fukushima.
“They sort of left things adrift,” said Tobias Harris, senior vicepresident at consultancy Teneo and author of a book about Abe.
Kurokawa’s commission, which was appointed by parliament, concluded in 2012 that the Fukushima accident was “the result of collusion between the government, regulators and Tokyo Electric Power” and a lack of governance.
Abe resigned in 2020, citing poor health, and his successor, Yoshihide Suga, has announced a goal of net carbon neutrality for Japan by 2050.
Proponents say nuclear power is vital to decarbonisation.
Critics say the cost, safety and challenge of storing nuclear waste are all reasons to avoid it.
“Those talking about atomic power are people in the ‘nuclear village’ who want to protect their vested interests,” former prime minister Kan told a news conference last week.
The mass demonstrations against nuclear power may have faded, but distrust lingers.
FORGOTTEN
A February Asahi newspaper survey found that nationwide, 53% are opposed to restarting reactors, compared with 32% in favour. In Fukushima, only 16% backed restarting units.
“Ten years have passed and some people have forgotten. The zeal is gone,” said Yu Uchiyama, a University of Tokyo political science professor. “Restarts are not happening, so people think if they just wait, nuclear power will disappear.”
Only nine of
Japan’s 33
remaining commercial reactors have been approved for restarts under post-Fukushima safety standards and only four are operating, compared with 54 before the disaster.
Nuclear power supplied just 6% of Japan’s energy needs in the first half of 2020 compared with 23.1% for renewable sources — far behind Germany’s 46.3% — and nearly 70% for fossil fuels.
Even when extending the lifespan of Japan’s 33 existing commercial reactors to 60 years, there would be only 18 in 2050 and none by 2069, said Takeo Kikkawa, an adviser to the government on energy policy. Newer business lobbies are pushing for renewable energy.
“Japan is a resource-poor country so we should not casually abandon the nuclear option,” Kikkawa told a media briefing. “But in reality, the future of nuclear power is bleak.”
THOSE TALKING ABOUT ATOMIC POWER ARE PEOPLE IN THE ‘NUCLEAR VILLAGE’ WHO WANT TO PROTECT THEIR VESTED INTERESTS
Naoto Kan Former prime minister
There has been a lot of scientific activity over the past several weeks and months. The highlight has been Nasa’s launch and landing of Perseverance on Mars. Somewhat under the radar, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency reported (in December) that its Hayabusa2 spacecraft found more than the foreseen amount of soil and gases inside a small capsule from a distant asteroid, brought it back to Earth and thereby marked a milestone in planetary research.
Further below the radar, the Indian Space Research Organisation has so far carried out about 111 spacecraft and 79 launch missions. Undergirding some of these momentous applications of science are academic research outputs which, when seen together, have strong correllations with economic expansion.
Whenever I read about these things I recall the student who called for “the decolonisation of science”, as part of the terribly
fractious nature of SA politics. In the context under discussion, here this fractiousness is often led not by education or scientific inquiry, but by the politics of revenge, recrimination and erasure, racial profiling, pivoting and crude rhetoric.
The result of all this is, as Carter Woodson wrote several years ago, a triumph of miseducation. As such, the words of politicians carry more intellectual weight and credibility than any scientific treatise from Albert Einstein, the work of Neil deGrasse Tyson, or the achievements of the late Edward Bouchet, the first African-American to complete a PhD in physics at Yale University, in 1876. Julius
Malema or Ace Magashule, two among a legion of apparent bearers of knowledge, carry greater weight than the late mathematician Katherine Johnson and her contributions to US space technology.
As Woodson explained: “If you can control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think, you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do.” What I am alluding to is that the words of Malema, Magashule or any of the radical economic transformation crowd help young people gain fame and notoriety, access and opportunities, without making a shred of contribution to knowledge production in SA. I am discussing science in particular here, without traducing the value and necessity of the humanities.
The problem with the unqualified statement for the decolonisation of science is one of misunderstanding of application. The standout example remains, arguably, the use of the science and technology behind the Manhattan project to kill hundreds of thousands of Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While there are many examples of science being abused for racist reasons (such as the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male”), let us stay in Japan and see if we can clear a path for a discussion on the politicaleconomic value of knowledge production in the sciences.
Japanese policymakers are experiencing somewhat of an existential crisis. Having spent most of the past five decades or so pushing the scientific and technological boundaries of innovation and industry, they worry that Japan has a single company, Toyota, in the world’s top 50 by market value.
Reported the Financial Times, “Once an innovative technology leader, the country is today far from being an instinctive, fearless challenger of boundaries. Three decades ago 32 of the top 50 companies were Japanese. That slide coincides with the steady fall of Japanese universities through the global academic rankings and a worldwide decline in Japanese research paper citations from fourth place to 11th since 2000.
“Over the past two decades Japan’s global share of patent awards has fallen from more than 30% to 10%. Researchers last year found that the total planned $160bn R&D spending of just five US companies (Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet) was bigger than that of the whole of corporate Japan.”
This “existential crisis” comes in the context of fastpaced scientific achievements in China, South Korea, Taiwan and other Asian countries, all of which are making great strides into the fourth industrial revolution with investments and knowledge production in artificial intelligence, robotics, the use of big data and other technologies.
The key, it seems, is knowledge production that results in something tangible. Performance politics by the EFF and the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association produce nothing. Japan, having acknowledged a correllation between its slide down the scale of investment in research & development and economic expansion, has approved a plan to create a giant endowment fund that will feed research with its annual gains, with initial seed funding of $42bn through university fundraising and additional government debt.
Pessimistic though I may be, I am not given to catastrophism. But we are in serious trouble when SA’s young people rely on the wisdom and vision of the likes of Malema and Magashule.