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Takashi Yamada would prefer life without the nearby nuclear
power plant. But the 66-year-old retired electronics retailer says,
'It is also true we all need it.'
Host communities, such as the seaside city on the island of
Shikoku, need the jobs and financial subsidies the plants provide.
And Japan's $5.5trillion (approximately £3.5trillion )economy
needs the energy.
Many Japanese have grown uneasy with nuclear power since the
11March tsunami, which left more than 20,000 dead or missing,
and sent a plant in Fukushima into meltdown. Anti-nuclear
protesters took to the streets, and a heated debate ensued over the
future of atomic energy. A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found
that 55 per cent of Japanese want to reduce the number of reactors
in the country.
At the time of writing though, the nation seems to be sticking
with nuclear power, at least for now. Unlike Germany, which
accelerated plans to phase out atomic energy after Fukushima, Japan
shows no signs of doing so. In recent days, utilities began newly
mandated earthquake and tsunami stress tests, a first step toward
restarting reactors idled for maintenance.
'What is the alternative?' asks Fumiko Nakamura, a flower
arrangement teacher in Tokyo. She worries about nuclear safety in
earthquake-prone Japan but says it will take time to develop other
types of energy. 'Japan is a resource-poor nation, and we need
electricity.'
The world's third-largest economy lacks other sources, such as
coal. An island nation, it can't easily buy electricity from
neighbours, as Germany can from France. Alternative energy is
expensive. And nuclear technology is the nation's pride, even a
lucrative export.
Moreover, consensus-oriented Japan doesn't have an outspoken
public saying 'No' to nuclear power. In a society that frowns upon
defiance of the government, many Japanese are reluctant to join a
movement that is often discredited as eccentric, even after
Fukushima. That means Japan's leaders have no real need to reject
an industry that has helped fuel the country's prosperity for
decades.
'The everyday hasn't changed,' said Haruki Tange, a professor of
policy-making at Ehime University in Matsuyama. 'There is this
prevailing mood that makes it really difficult to voice any
opposition to nuclear power.'
The 11 March may yet prove to be Japan's Three Mile Island
moment. No new plants have been approved in the USA since the 1979
disaster, and Japan has cancelled two new ones already and shelved
plans to increase its reliance on nuclear power from 30 to 50 per
cent.
But Tange's resignation underscores a widespread acceptance of
the status quo in Japan, home to 54 reactors speckling the
coast.
Matsuyama, a city of 500,000, sits 30 miles (50 kilometres) from
Ikata, one of the world's most seismologically risky plants. The
government says there is a 70 per cent probability of a major quake
here in the next 30 years.
In an unprecedented protest, about 100 people took to the
streets in July to demand Ikata be shut down. 'I always thought
protests were scary,' says one marcher, 22-year-old university
student Miwa Ozue. 'But now I want the world to know.'
Most onlookers ignored the largely jovial crowd that banged on
drums and chanted slogans. Two months later, Shikoku Electric Power
Company is moving forward with stress tests on one of Ikata's three
reactors, which was stopped in April for routine inspections.
Fukushima has influenced the public's thinking. Six out of ten
respondents to the AP-GfK poll said they had little or no
confidence in the safety of Japan's nuclear plants. Only five per
cent were very confident.
The telephone poll by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate
Communications surveyed 1,000 adults across Japan between 29
July and10 August. The poll has a margin of error of plus or
minus 3.8 percentage points. Roughly a third said they wanted to
keep the number of nuclear plants about the same, while three per
cent want to eliminate them completely. Such thinking, though, has
not been translated into action.
Power shortages since the tsunami, coupled with an unusually
sweltering summer, have helped business and its backers in
government win the argument that Japan can't afford to shut down
its reactors.
The nuclear industry also benefits from close government ties.
Bureaucratic ranks are packed with former utility executives. The
same ministry both promotes and regulates nuclear power. Such
relationships have endured, despite revelations of past cover-ups
of radiation leaks and safety violations.
Since the tsunami, commuter trains have often been dark inside,
dizzyingly hot and more packed than usual because of reduced
schedules. Neon lights disappeared from once glitzy urban
landscapes. Messages flashed on the internet and electronic
billboards, ominously warning about electricity use versus supply.
Manufacturers scrambled to cope. For auto manufacturers the
juggling included running assembly plants over the weekend and
closing Thursday and Friday to reduce peak demand. 'It has been
totally exhausting,' says Toshiyuki Shiga, chief operating officer
of Nissan Motor Company.
Like many, Yoko Fujimura heeded government calls to conserve by
going without air conditioning at her Yokohama home, despite
outdoor temperatures that reached 100 degrees (38 degrees
Celsius). Clearly worried about shortages, the 32 year old
waitress thinks any move away from nuclear power could take
decades. 'I wonder what would happen if we didn't have
electricity,' she says. 'Our entire lifestyles would change.'
Before he resigned, Prime Minister Naoto Kan pledged to reduce
Japan's reliance on nuclear power and develop solar, wind and other
sources. But he later played that down as his personal view and has
since been replaced by Yoshihiko Noda, who is expected to be more
willing to go along with industry-friendly bureaucrats.
'The panic is starting to calm down,' says Yoshito Hori, chief
executive of management training company Globis Corp., who has been
highly vocal about Japan's need for nuclear power. He predicts all
of Japan's reactors will eventually return to service, with the
exception of Fukushima and possibly Hamaoka, a plant in central
Japan that was shut down after the Fukushima crisis because of a 90
per cent probability of a major quake in the area in the next 30
years.
'We want to restart them,' the economy, trade and industry
minister, Yoshio Hachiro, said recently. Host communities feel they
have little choice. Relatively poor, they have come to embrace
their nuclear plants, as initial doubts give way to gradual
acceptance and financial dependence. Opposition becomes taboo.
Hiroshi Kainuma, a sociologist who has researched Fukushima,
said residents of what he calls 'nuclear villages' fear life
without a plant. 'Almost subconsciously, in their everyday, they
have grown to support nuclear power,' he says.
The persistence of such thinking worries Masakazu Tarumi, a
Buddhist priest who has fought the Ikata plant for more than 20
years. He hopes foreign media coverage might help sway opinion. 'If
this can't bring change, nothing will,' he says of the Fukushima
crisis, fingering a frayed pack of his newsletters warning of
Ikata's dangers. 'What has happened was worse than our worst
fears.'
Tange, an Ehime University professor, remains pessimistic. 'We
are responsible for having created this kind of society,' he says
with a sarcastic laugh, 'a society that doesn't tolerate
opposition.'
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