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.