Personal Impression on Nuclear Power

Before March 11, 2011, I have paid little attentions to potential risks arising from nuclear power plants, and I have not cared about why nuclear power industries have been or have not been required by our society. On the other hand, I have received a couple of orders from nuclear power related industries in my job in the past. In this sense, the nuclear power industry was one of my clients, and along with this line, I have not had strong negative impressions on this industry.

However, after the accident of Fukushima Daiichi, I started to gather information relating to nuclear power safety issues. During this process, I found that a small number of individuals, some from science and others from engineering, have kept insisting potential risks of nuclear power energy for a long time – more than 10 years.

Before March 11, such anti-nuclear activists seemed to be minority, and major opinions prevailing over our society was that “we need nuclear power in order to sustain our current level of life, then why should we abandon the nuclear power?” Probably, reflecting to such negligence to voices from the minority part, I have not set aside enough time to hear opinions posed from the anti-nuclear activists.

However, today on the Internet, I heard discussions held in the Upper house on May 23, 2011. The purpose of the discussion was that members of the House of Councilors could scrutinize the first response to the nuclear accident in Fukushima by the Japanese government and look into past and current status regarding nuclear energy policy in Japan.

The following four people were invited for the discussion as an information holder:

-       Hiroaki Koide (Assistant Professor at Kyoto University) (小出裕章 (京都大学原子炉実験所助教))

-       Masashi Goto (Part-time lecturer at Shibaura Institute of Technology) (後藤政志 (芝浦工業大学非常勤講師))

-       Katsuhiko Ishibashi (Emeritus Professor at Kobe University) (石橋克彦 (神戸大学名誉教授))

-       Masayoshi Son (President at Soft Bank) (孫正義 (ソフトバンク株式会社代表取締役社長))

After quick search by Google, I found that the first three people were, as it is called, anti-nuclear activists. They have been raising an alarm mainly over safety issues of nuclear power plants for a long time. One of the worse scenarios which they had forecasted to occur in the near future was really realized in Fukushima on March 11.

After hearing the discussion, I found that I did not have any reasons to disagree the standpoint that there seem to be little locations suitable for nuclear power plants in Japan because Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.

The fact that Japan is a quake prone country seems to be scientifically fact. In addition, power and scale of earthquake and its subsequent event by tsunami were proved to be extraordinary on March 11. I am not sure whether current safety measures prepared in nuclear power plants in Japan are capable of future earthquake and tsunami.

Radiation Contaminated Waste (Part 1)

No one can neglect his/her fears arising from radioactive contamination. We can relief ourselves only when scientific insight tells us how safe or how dangerous the contamination is in a quantitative context.

In a near future, a good number of workers will be needed when the Japanese government proceeds with a task to remediate or remove a large amount of radiation contaminated soil in or around Fukushima Prefecture.

Under the Radiation Hazards Prevention Law enacted in Japan, a radiation protection supervisor is defined as a specialist who shall be in charge of the safe management of radioactive substances. One can become a radiation protection supervisor when he/she passes a national examination and take a set of lectures.

Nuclear Safety Technology Center (usually called as NUSTEC) is a responsible organization for the national examination as well as the set of lectures regarding the radiation protection supervisor. According to the website of the NUSTEC, 8607 people have passed the national examination for the last 10 years from 2001 to 2010.

I will discuss a shortage of the number of a radiation protection supervisor at this moment in some days on this blog.

Roles of Individuals

I found many individuals writing their opinions on the crisis in Tohoku caused by the tsunami as well as the Fukushima nuclear accident on their own blog since last March. Individuals have been acting and uploading the action on their blog. As a matter of fact, each blog is not connected to each other, and can be regarded as just the flooding of information. However, they provide me with opportunities to think about the roles and the responsibilities of individuals in the time of and after the crisis. Let me introduce several blogs which are interesting.

To begin, the blog of Junichiro Makino is interesting. He is specialized in astrophysics and a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology. He has been estimating and uploading the severity of the Fukushima nuclear accident in a quantitative manner almost every day since the nuclear crisis occurred in March 11. He wrote his motivation for doing the estimation on March 14 as following:

(Original text)

こういうみつもり計算をやるのが普段役に立たない天体物理学者の使命だと思う。

(Translated into English by Takanori Ishizuka)

I think that the mission of astrophysicists, who seem to be unable to function in a daily life, is to conduct such a type of estimation.

His estimation helps me understand the severity of the current situation regarding the nuclear accident.

Next, I like the blog of Ai Kanoh. She lives in Bombay and is working at an Indian company. She has sometimes uploaded her posts with respect to the crisis in Tohoku. On April 28, she introduced a song "I love you & I need you, Fukushima" on her blog. I have not heard the song until I found it on her blog. The song and the moving images on YouTube are very good, and kind of moving.

Finally, the blog of aYa also contained good information. aYa lives in Geneva and is working at the WHO (World Health Organization) as a technical expert. She had been voluntarily translating parts of English official documents published by the WHO Western Pacific Region into the Japanese language from last March until last April, and both the original document and the translated document were uploaded onto the website of WHO. She uploaded this activity on her blog on March 25.

Activities conducted and information published by these three individuals taught me the roles and responsibilities of individuals.