December 5, 2012

Dec 5, 2012 | Fukushima Accident Updates

  • Wide-spread election campaigning has come to Japan. There are nearly 1,300 candidates from eleven parties vying for 300 “single-seats” in the lower house of the Japanese Diet (congress). The Communist Party has the highest number of contenders at 299, followed by Liberal Democratic Party with 288, PM Noda’s DPJ with 264, 151 in Shintaro Ishihara’s Restoration Party and 111 from the brand-new Tomorrow Party (formerly the Japan Future Party). There are 49 independent candidates and 25 hopefuls from local groups. There are also 180 “proportional” Diet seats being contested which have 1,000 candidates. Because many hopefuls are running in both the single-seat and proportional elections, the total is just under 1,500. The two partyheads most likely to become Prime Minister, LDP’s Shinzo Abe and DPJ’s incumbent Yoshihiko Noda, began their campaigns in Fukushima Prefecture to show concern for Japan’s future energy policy. In Fukushima City, Abe told the crowd, “Our mission is to protect the safety of our children and the public, to protect our territory and beautiful waters. We are determined to win a majority [in the Diet]. We’ll implement an evolved economic policy to bail the economy out of deflation.” During Abe’s speech, antinuclear protestors demonstrated, holding signs that said, “It’s the LDP that built the nuclear plant in Fukushima.” Meanwhile, Noda kicked-off his campaign in Iwake, south of Fukushima Daiichi. Noda promised “We will make a start for Japan’s revival by affirming anew that there will be no revival of Japan without revival of Fukushima.” He implied that the Abe-led LDP is pro-nuclear when he said, “The point in question is whether we will move ahead with tasks we must tackle or will go back to old politics.” The DPJ pledges to phase out nuclear power by 2040 while the LDP says it will decide whether or not to restart nukes over the coming three years. The LDP has a substantial lead over the DPJ in news media opinion polls, but it is unlikely either will garner a majority in the lower house. (NHK World; Japan Today; Yomiuri Shimbun)
  • “Third Parties” also kicked off their campaigns in other parts of Japan. The Restoration Party head, Shintaro Ishihara, was in Kita Ward, Osaka. “The nation’s politics are dominated by bureaucrats who spend all their time doing useless things,” Ishihara said. “Japan will face ruin unless all of us restore the nation.” He supports restarting currently-shuttered nukes if they meet the regulations to be created by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA). The Tomorrow Party’s creator Yukiko Kada chose Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, to start the campaign. Kada said, “We would revitalize local economies by shifting from nuclear power to natural energy. An economy that produces locally and consumes locally has stability if a disaster occurs.” Ishihara wants nukes phased out by 2040 while Kada wants them abolished in ten years. However, the two third-parties are at odds over the consumption tax issue and the Trans-Pacific Trade agreement. (Yomiuri Shimbun)
  • Many evacuees from the Fukushima no-go zone feel the election is only window-dressing and the politicians really don’t care about them. “This is no time for an election,” said Iwake evacuee Ryohei Endo, “Compensation and decontamination work have not progressed [since the disaster started last year]. I wonder how concerned [the candidates] are about people leading miserable lives like us.” Endo added that PM Noda and LDP-leader Abe’s decisions to start their campaigns in Fukshima Prefecture are merely election ploys, “I assume they want to be Diet members for their own sake in the end.” Kazuyuki Raiju said he may cast his vote for a party that promises to end nuclear power because, “The Fukushima nuclear plant shows that when something like this happens, we have no means to contain it.” Tomoe Unuma, who runs a coffee shop in a Saitama evacuation center, said, “This place seems like a symbol of abandonment. I am mad that people talk about [things related to] Fukushima only when there’s an election.” (Japan Times)
  • The Mainichi Shimbun has revisited the events central to Prime Minister Noda’s nuclear policy decision in mid-September. The DPJ had pushed a policy proposal through the Diet designed to abolish nuclear energy by 2040. Five days after the resolution was passed, Noda put that policy aside in an apparent contradiction of his party’s position. Why did he do this? Earlier, Noda met with his Cabinet at his Tokyo residence and presented them with an array of documents detailing the economic challenges and technological obstacles that would hinder the no-nukes option. One person said, “So the public mood has pushed the issue this far. Well, now we have all the facts in front of us, and at least we know how difficult this really is.” Another added, “Our projections were too optimistic. If someone called us too slow to understand what’s involved here, they wouldn’t be wrong.” The documents revealed how a “no-nukes” decision would damage Japan’s international status and threaten the country’s economic future. The behind-closed-doors meeting was probably central to the DPJ’s campaign pledge on nuclear, which says, “We will re-evaluate the status of nuclear power from the point of view of necessity. On direct nuclear waste disposal [underground in Japan], we will take responsibility for the issue and express our direction.” (Mainichi Shimbun)
  • It seems there is a small light at the end of the decontamination waste-disposal issue. Environment Ministry officials have met with Okuma Town Mayor Toshitsuna Watanabe to firm up plans for as many as nine temporary repositories in the municipality. Environment Ministry officials told the mayor that they removed 3 sites from the list of candidates for geological and environmental reasons. The mayor says he understands much of what the ministry is telling him and he will transmit the information to his constituents, all of whom are evacuees and are not yet allowed to return home. The ministry is also talking to two other municipalities in the hope that Okuma will not be the only repository host. (NHK World)
  • The NRA has decided to have three foreign experts as consultants. They are; Richard Meserve, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Andre-Claude Lacoste, former chairman of the French nuclear safety authority, and Mike Weightman, the head of Britain’s nuclear regulation office. The NRA wants to use them for independent insight into the new regulations being created for Japanese nukes. (Kyodo News Service)
  • In an attempt to stem the tide of increasing liquid natural gas (LNG) costs, Japan is negotiating with the United States about shale gas imports. America says it will look into the possibility and give Japan an answer by the end of the year. The proposed move was revealed at the Japan-U.S. Clean Energy Policy Dialogue meeting, attended by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the U.S. Department of Energy. Japanese imports of LNG have sky-rocketed due to the nuclear moratorium invoked by former Prime Minister Naoto Kan. Nearly all of the LNG imports come from the Middle East, thus Japan is forced to pay the price for the fuel that the supply nations demand. A deal with the USA might lessen the financial burden Japan currently labors under. (Kyodo News Service)
  • Forty residents from near the F. Daiichi nuke have filed a new lawsuit against Tepco asking for nearly $23 million in damages. The plaintiffs all come from the 30km no-go zone. Tokuo Hayakawa, 73, who heads the group, says, “We won’t be able to put our lives back in order with the amount of compensation decided by TEPCO, the victimizer. If things remain as they are, we [evacuees] will become abandoned citizens. I want to convey our appeal through the lawsuit for the sake of our friends who cannot raise their angry voice at TEPCO and for the sake of the evacuees who were compelled to silently accept the situation.” The lawyers representing the group say this is the first large class-action suit of its kind. Each plaintiff is demanding $235,000 for mental suffering, along with other claims. (Mainichi Shimbun)