Japan holds on to nuclear power despite accidents

By Lars Nicolaysen Jul 17, 2007, 14:03 GMT

Tokyo - Radioactive material that leaked from two reactors at the world's largest nuclear power plant when an earthquake hit the northern Japanese region of Niigata on Monday has brought atomic safety back into the headlines.

The 6.8-magnitude earthquake, which killed at least nine and injured more than 1,000 people in the region, also damaged the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant and caused contaminated water to spill into the sea.

Even though Japan has seen incidents of similar consequence in the past, the events in Niigata province have called the safety of Japanese nuclear power plants into question.

Once more the public has demanded stricter safety measures. But changes in Japan's nuclear policy are not yet in sight.

The ground motion measured at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant after the quake was apparently significantly more intense than had been taken into account when the plant was constructed.

Newspapers such as the conservative Sankei Shimbun called for a probe into the earthquake resistance of nuclear power plants, while the government told operating company TEPCO not to switch the plant back on until it could vouch for its safety.

The reactions resemble those to earlier incidents.

When two people died of a lethal dose of radiation after an accident at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura as a result of cost-cutting measures and shoddy work, the government in Tokyo promised to increase nuclear safety.

Nevertheless, there were more accidents.

'For more than 20 years we have been witnessing the failure of state supervision over a nuclear industry which is still unable to sufficiently control itself,' Martin Schulz, an economist at the Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo said.

Japan has been relying on a model of private self-monitoring for a long time. But critics complain that safety concerns are often put behind company profits.

The state only ever intervened after major incidents, however without a systematic improvement of state supervision of the nuclear industry, Schulz said.

Out of 55 nuclear power plants across the country only 37 are still on the grid.

Time and again nuclear power plants are being switched off for reviews on public demand after hazardous incidents.

In particular in regions with many nuclear plants the population is resistant, making it difficult for the government to find new locations for the interim and final storage of nuclear waste.

Despite all this, observers think that Japan, which depends on foreign oil supplies, and currently derives one-third of its energy supplies from nuclear energy, will continue to build new nuclear facilities in the next few years, including fast breeder reactors.

With around 290 billion kilowatt hours, Japan is the largest producer of nuclear power after the United States and France.

Until the 2018 tax year Japan is planning to build another 13 nuclear plants, two of which are already under construction.

Asia, like the rest of the world, has recently been witnessing a clear trend towards nuclear power amidst the current oil crisis and the threat of global warming.

Popular protest in Japan, meanwhile, is unlikely to have much success, not least because compared to other Asian countries, Japan considers its nuclear industry as safe - despite hazardous incidents.