This
past week, large scale protests took place in Tokyo against the government’s
decision to reactivate two nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda
explained that the purchasing of oil and gas imports to replace the missing
energy sources was forcing the Japanese to quickly restart the heavily public
invested nuclear plants. However, the
protestors fear that the dangers posed by Fukushima and other power plants have
not subsided and the very nature of nuclear power plants in such a geologically
unstable region like Japan makes little sense.
In the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster, several countries banned or scaled back their nuclear power facilities. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the calamity in Japan. In Japan, racked by fear and uncertainty since the earthquake/tsunami, some Japanese are lashing out, albeit in an organized and peaceful way, to the news of the re-started plants. It would seem that the Japanese government is in a difficult position yet the Japanese people have legitimate concerns about the viability of nuclear energy and the stability of those plants currently operating. The Economist, in an article on the protests, suggested that the incident has ignited the urgency of a rather small group of liberals on the issue of nuclear power as a whole but the party that represents that point of view has not grown in support, a temporary reprieve for the Noda government.
In the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster, several countries banned or scaled back their nuclear power facilities. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the calamity in Japan. In Japan, racked by fear and uncertainty since the earthquake/tsunami, some Japanese are lashing out, albeit in an organized and peaceful way, to the news of the re-started plants. It would seem that the Japanese government is in a difficult position yet the Japanese people have legitimate concerns about the viability of nuclear energy and the stability of those plants currently operating. The Economist, in an article on the protests, suggested that the incident has ignited the urgency of a rather small group of liberals on the issue of nuclear power as a whole but the party that represents that point of view has not grown in support, a temporary reprieve for the Noda government.
While
a country like Japan, unique in that it is a mountainous country without fossil
fuels like coal, could have naturally gravitated towards geothermal power,
previous Japanese governments have sought the clean and cheap alternative of
nuclear power. Throughout the world,
nuclear power has provided an energy alternative that has seldom created the
nightmarish scenarios that protestors and activists promised. True, if things go wrong as they did in that
“perfect” storm of natural disasters in Japan, nuclear power poses an
extraordinary risk but the history and technology of the industry suggest that
it would take another confluence of disasters to create the same ideal setting
for catastrophe.
Countries
who sought to eliminate or reduce nuclear power energy were often those who had
no history of risk but simply did so to mollify fears generated by the
immediate hysteria of troubles in Japan.
In the United States, in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island
near-disaster, nuclear power plant construction dropped to a stand-still yet,
the increasing safety measures and technology have made such plants safe,
dependable and productive. It seems that
the attempts to throw the baby out with the bathwater are unreasonable and
illogical.
If
any country’s reactionary stance on nuclear power is understandable, it is that
of Japan. However, the Japanese have
grown increasingly weary of their governments – the rate of government turnover
is remarkable. And a beleaguered
government cannot throw away the millions of dollars in investments on a
progressively safer and reliable energy source.
The geological instability of the region would suggest a shift towards
geothermal is advisable but for now, the Noda government must utilize the
resources they have in order to bring more normalcy to daily lives while
working diligently to upgrade all nuclear facilities.
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