JAPAN-NUCLEAR: Small Town Makes Big Statement on Nuclear Power

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jan 23 1996 (IPS) - The tiny town of Maki in northern Japan has elected an anti-nuclear mayor who vows to lobby against the building of a new power plant there, reflecting the public’s increasing doubts about Japan’s ambitious nuclear programme.

Takaakoi Sasaguchi, 47, won in Sunday’s municipal elections after he promised to hold a referendum on the nuclear plant to be built by Tohokuo Electric Power Co, one of the leading power firms in the country.

“I want to light the torch of democracy in this town,” Sasaguchi, who heads a local citizen’s group pushing for a plebiscite, said at a campaign rally.

Analysts say the referendum, which Sasaguchi plans to hold in June, will be a crucial test of public confidence in the Japanese nuclear industry.

Sasaguchi enjoys wide support from the public, but he faces a municipal assembly dominated by advocates of the proposed power plant.

The plebiscite cannot be carried out without the consent of the municipal assembly, but the new mayor has vowed to remove his opponents through a petition of the citizens.

Sasaguchi’s landmark victory comes barely a month after a major accident in Japan’s first plutonium-fed fast breeder reactor in Monju.

Monju, the world’s only fast breeder reactor in operation, was forced to shut down after tonnes of sodium in its cooling system leaked due through a fractured pipe.

Sodium, used by the fast breeder reactor for cooling, can explode when it comes into contact with air. Anti-nuclear activists say it was a mere quirk of fate that nobody was hurt in the accident.

The incident triggered a major scandal when the government found out that officials of Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp (Donen) tried to cover up the full extent of the damage caused by the leak.

Monju is operated with government funds, but Donen officials have been charged by the Science and Technology Agency for not sharing all the information they had.

Last week’s suicide of a Donen official in charge of the cover- up has further fuelled public resentment against the nuclear industry. In his suicide note the official apologised for not being able to protect his seniors.

That kind of thinking is regrettable, wrote the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest conservative daily that has long supported the nuclear industry.

The newspaper pointed out that the top priority following such accidents should be learning from the mistakes and talking to the people involved instead of blaming them.

Observers say Sasaguchi’s victory has dealt a hard blow to the Japanese nuclear programme which aims to eventually export nuclear power in the future.

“The Maki election proves that people are fiercely angry and very, very upset. The government can no longer ignore them,” said Mika Obayashi, a researcher at the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Network.

Despite international criticism, the Japanese government and the nuclear industry poured more than 30 billion dollars to build the Monju plant, touted as a symbol of the Asian economic giant’s technological prowess.

Monju started operating at 40 per cent of its capacity last August. Until the accident, it was the only fast breeder reactor in the world generating electricity.

Japan drew widespread international condemnation when it imported huge shipments of plutonium from France to feed the Monju power station.

The prototype reactor, which runs on enriched plutonium, also produces the radioactive substance, raising concern among activists and neighbouring Asian countries that Japan will soon have a large surplus of weapons-grade plutonium.

Activists find it hard to believe the government, which provides the bulk of funds for Monju, was ignorant of the huge damage caused during last month’s sodium leak.

“It is hard to know what is really is going on. The nuclear industry is closed to the public. The cover-up in Monju has frightened a lot of people,” says Obayashi.

Despite the growing public opposition, analysts say the government is unlikely to abandon the nuclear industry, which is very attractive to the nation’s powerful businesses and bureaucrats.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry stresses the need for a resource-poor nation like Japan to become self-sufficient, and has invested millions of dollars in the industry.

Japan relies on 50 nuclear plants for 33 per cent of its power supply. The plan is to raise the share to 42 per cent by 2010. The government also hopes to be able to export nuclear power to meet the rising energy needs in the booming Asian region.

But the Monju accident is expected to delay the industry’s plans. The government says repairs will continue for three years before the fast breeder reactor resumes operation.

Activists, however, believe the damage is so extensive that it will take at least 10 years for Monju to recover. By then, they say, public awareness of the danger of nuclear power will already be very high.