Brij Tankha - Fukushima: two years and counting

The IAEA estimates it will take 40 years to bring the process under control, others argue it could take a 100.

The problems created by the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant in March 2011 are getting worse. Last month 300 tonnes of radioactive water leaked and this continues. Storage of the contaminated water is a problem. The Japanese government admits the situation is getting worse and promises to spend US$473 million to build an ice wall to contain the contaminated water; cold comfort to those who have lost their homes and livelihoods. Is there an end in sight? The IAEA estimates it will take 40 years to bring the process under control, others argue it could take a 100.

It is the people and the environment that are paying for the shortcomings of the company and the government. Fukushima reminds us that regulatory practices can be, and often are, subverted. 114,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes and farms; some 120,000 left of their own accord fearing the effects of radiation. These ‘voluntary’ refugees will not be compensated. Produce from these areas is becoming increasingly difficult to sell. South Korea, for instance has banned all fish imports from eight Japanese prefectures.

Japanese law on compensation, passed in 1961, places no cap on the liability of the operator but does not stipulate compensation for assets such as homes or farms. Rules on how to get compensation were framed only after the disaster. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the owner of the plant, initially required a 58-page booklet be filled out for claims and original receipts provided. Public furore forced them to issue a simplified four-page form. TEPCO has also argued that it does not ‘own’ the radiation so each landowner is responsible for what happens on his land. The government in return for controlling shares in TEPCO gave US$12.5 billion for compensation and clean-up. Cleaning up costs are estimated to go beyond US$50 billion and this does not include compensation (estimated at US$38.9 billion) or de-commissioning costs. The government has already allocated US$11 billion to clear contaminated top-soil and hose down contaminated areas. The government by not nationalizing TEPCO is keeping the question of compensation at arms length.

TEPCO can bungle its way through with impunity because of the close connection between the government and the nuclear industry. A 2011 article noted that political donations made in the name of top company officials to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party totalled nearly half a million dollars. TEPCO’s labour union, through the federation of workers in the electric power company, contributed about US$ 375,000 to the Democratic Japan Party, then in power. Moreover TEPCO officials have, after retiring from the company, taken up positions in government agencies such as the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, which looks after nuclear power. A common practice in Japan, it is called ‘amakudari’ or descent from heaven’. 

Why is there support for nuclear power? The central government uses generous subsidies to get acquiescence from cash-strapped regions: more than US$125 million to each prefecture that allows a nuclear plant. The financial lure to local bodies has created concentrations of nuclear power plants: the Fukushima coast has two plants and ten reactors, the Wakasa Gulf coast in Fukui, called the ‘nuclear Ginza’ four plants and 13 reactors, and in Niigata Prefecture TEPCO’s plant, with seven reactors, is the world’s largest nuclear power plant complex. These ‘nuclear villages’ live on subsidies. When the subsidies dry up, the nexus of beneficiaries demand more plants, leading to multiple plants in the same area and magnifying manifold the effects of an accident. Subsidies is why, paradoxically, the Liberal Democratic party candidate won on a platform to restart nuclear power generation in Fukushima. 

Professor Masaru Kaneko, a noted economist, in a trenchant criticism of government policy argues that the Fukushima crisis is a repeat of the financial meltdown caused by bad debts that led to Japan’s ‘lost two decades’. His calculations show that, once the costs of Fukushima and other expenses are factored in, nuclear power costs 23.5 yen per kWh not 5-6 yen per kWh as the government claims. Nuclear power is almost three times the cost of thermal power. Nuclear power companies have huge debts: as of 2013, eight nuclear power companies have a total debt of about 1.5 trillion yen (US$ 15 billion). Is this sustainable?

One solution to their problems is to seek markets abroad. The Japanese government, since the Noda administration (2011-12) has made the export of nuclear power plants a major plank of its policy, and the present Abe government pursues this vigorously. For instance, The Vietnam government plans to build 14 nuclear plants by 2013 and has signed agreements with Japan. China is also a potential market as it operates 17 nuclear reactors and proposes to build another 28. Westinghouse, a US company owned by Japan’s Toshiba Corp, has entered into a joint venture with China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corp (SNPTC) to sell nuclear reactors globally. And on September 3, India held its first talks with Japan, after the Fukushima crisis, to try and reach an agreement on nuclear cooperation.

The debate on nuclear power is indeed a complex issue but its effects on the people, livelihoods and the environment are both dangerous and long lasting and call for wide discussion. In the 1880’s the Watarase river north of Tokyo was polluted by the effluents from the Ashio copper mine. Measures to tackle the pollution were started only after sustained public protests in the early 1900’s but more than a 100 years later the effects are still there, ‘as if it was a recent devastation’. 

http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/1886498/column-fukushima-two-years-and-counting

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