Nuclear power in Japan

[12] Also in 1955, Nakasone's group drafted the Atomic Energy Basic Law, which was enacted in Japan to promote nuclear power while limiting activities strictly to peaceful purposes.

[13] The Japanese Atomic Energy Commission was established as a regulatory body, with its first chair, Matsutarō Shōriki, a newspaper magnate, also being a key promoter of nuclear power in Japan.

[16] General Electric offered light water reactors at a discounted price as soon as Yasuhiro Nakasone, then the Minister of Science and Technology, began revising the country's nuclear power strategy in 1961.

From the early 1970s to the present, the Japanese government promoted the siting of nuclear power plants through a variety of policy instruments involving soft social control and financial incentives.

There were flaws in, and lax enforcement of, the safety rules governing Japanese nuclear power companies, and this included insufficient protection against tsunamis.

[27] On 6 May 2011, Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant to be shut down as an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 or higher is likely to hit the area within the next thirty years.

[45] The commission chairman, Kiyoshi Kurokawa, declared with respect to the Fukushima nuclear incident: "It was a profoundly man-made disaster – that could and should have been foreseen and prevented.

"[47] The report outlines errors and willful negligence at the plant before the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011 and a flawed response in the hours, days, and weeks that followed.

[52] Reversing a decision by the previous Democratic Party, the government will re-open nuclear plants, aiming for "a realistic and balanced energy structure".

Japanese nuclear plant builders saw this as potential lifeline given that domestic orders had ended following the Fukushima disaster, and India is proposing to build about 20 new reactors over the next decade.

[62] In 2022, during the global energy crisis which greatly increased the cost of imported fossil fuels, Japan's prime minister announced the building of safer next-generation nuclear reactors and restarting idle existing plants would be considered.

Professor Katsuhiko Ishibashi, one of the seismologists who have taken an active interest in the topic, coined the term genpatsu-shinsai (原発震災), from the Japanese words for "nuclear power" and "quake disaster" to express the potential worst-case catastrophe that could ensue.

[65][66] Dr Kiyoo Mogi, former chair of the Japanese Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction,[67] has expressed similar concerns, stating in 2004 that the issue 'is a critical problem which can bring a catastrophe to Japan through a man-made disaster'.

In 2004, as a member of an influential cabinet office committee on offshore earthquakes, Mr. Shimazaki "warned that Fukushima's coast was vulnerable to tsunamis more than twice as tall as the forecasts of as much as five meters put forth by regulators and Tokyo Electric".

[70] Hidekatsu Yoshii, a member of the House of Representatives for Japanese Communist Party and an anti-nuclear campaigner, warned in March and October 2006 about the possibility of the severe damage that might be caused by a tsunami or earthquake.

[71] During a parliamentary committee in May 2010 he made similar claims, warning that the cooling systems of a Japanese nuclear plant could be destroyed by a landslide or earthquake.

[71] In response, Yoshinobu Terasaka, head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, replied that the plants were so well designed that "such a situation is practically impossible".

[82] Ishibashi has subsequently claimed that, although the new guide brought in the most far-reaching changes since 1978, it was 'seriously flawed' because it underestimated the design basis of earthquake ground motion.

In 2008 Taku Komatsubara, a geologist at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology alleged that the presence of active faults was deliberately ignored when surveys of potential new power plant sites were undertaken, a view supported by a former topographer.

[84] Takashi Nakata, a seismologist from the Hiroshima Institute of Technology has made similar allegations and suggests that conflicts of interest between the Japanese nuclear industry and the regulators contribute to the problem.

Download coordinates as: On 6 May 2011, then Prime Minister Naoto Kan requested the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant be shut down as an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 or higher is estimated 87% likely to hit the area within the next 30 years.

In July 2011, a mayor in Shizuoka Prefecture and a group of residents filed a lawsuit seeking the decommissioning of the reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant permanently.

Seriously exposed workers may be at increased risk of cancers for the rest of their lives...[104] On 24 March 2011, Japanese officials announced that "radioactive iodine-131 exceeding safety limits for infants had been detected at 18 water-purification plants in Tokyo and five other prefectures".

[6] The ongoing Fukushima crisis may spell the end of nuclear power in Japan, as "citizen opposition grows and local authorities refuse permission to restart reactors that have undergone safety checks".

Local authorities are skeptical that sufficient safety measures have been taken and are reticent to give their permission – now required by law – to bring suspended nuclear reactors back online.

[6][106] Two government advisers have said that "Japan's safety review of nuclear reactors after the Fukushima disaster is based on faulty criteria and many people involved have conflicts of interest".

[107] In 2012, former prime minister Naoto Kan was interviewed about the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and has said that at one point Japan faced a situation where there was a chance that people might not be able to live in the capital zone including Tokyo and would have to evacuate.

However, starting in the mid-1990s there were several nuclear related accidents and cover-ups in Japan that eroded public perception of the industry, resulting in protests and resistance to new plants.

Political and energy experts describe "nothing short of a nationwide loss of faith, not only in Japan’s once-vaunted nuclear technology but also in the government, which many blame for allowing the accident to happen".

People associated with the anti-nuclear movement include: Jinzaburo Takagi, Haruki Murakami, Kenzaburō Ōe, Nobuto Hosaka, Mizuho Fukushima, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Tetsunari Iida.