Authority’s Strange Shift

One half a year after its establishment, the Nuclear Regulation Authority in Japan began to make strange move. From the beginning, it has been putting highest priority on safety of nuclear power generation. Now this organization looks like worrying about supply of electricity, which should not have been its job. The new strict safety standard for nuclear power plants, which will be applied to all nuclear reactors in Japan from this summer, may be castrated.

At a current meeting of the authority, the chairman Shun-ichi Tanaka presented a personal opinion for their discussion, which is mainly focused on the only two operating reactors in Oi Nuclear Power Plant. It reportedly referred to a possibility of halting those reactors, “if a significant problem is found after reconfirming the fitness of Oi reactors for the new standard by July.”

However, the wording is unclear about how the authority is serious about safety standard. “Reconfirming” can include some possible exception in the assessment, different from “examining.” “Significant problem” is also unclear about what it means. The standard to halt nuclear reactors is still not determined.

The attitude of Tanaka is getting ambiguous these days. “If we suddenly stop twenty reactors at once, how our society will be?” asked Tanaka in a press conference. He indicated that one or two unfitness to new regulation would not immediately lead to stopping operation. This commitment in political consideration marked a contrast with his former standpoint that had been strictly based on scientific findings.

The focus now is on whether the third and the forth reactor in Oi, the only two operating reactors in Japan, can keep on working this summer. There is an argument that Oi should be recognized as an exception of new standard from a viewpoint not only to reserve power for hot whether, but also to make a momentum for a change from nuclear abolitionism to nuclear survival. The ambiguous explanation of Tanaka might have revealed a possible struggle in the nuclear community in Japan, regardless politics, business and academics.

The upholders of nuclear generation tend to think that if a land is vulnerable for nuclear plant, they need to find another place. Their contenders think that whole land of Japan is totally vulnerable for nuclear power plant and it is unavailable. Although the authority has been trying to be neutral between them by introducing a viewpoint of science, science keeps on showing its limitation. Nuclear generation in Japan has been too much dependent on so called “science.”