"Risky Event": Japan is about to restart the 44-year-old reactor at the Mihama nuclear power plant
In Japan, plans are being discussed by the government to restart a 44-year-old reactor at the Mihama nuclear power plant in Western Japan, in Fukui Prefecture.
The government explains the need for restarting by the fact that before the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, nuclear power plants provided 30% of Japan's energy resources, the restoration of the operation of the reactors will change the situation in the energy sector. In particular, the Mihama NPP reactor could improve the power supply to Osaka and its industrial suburbs.
Environmentalists have the opposite point of view. They argue that the authorities did not take into account the lessons of Fukushima and are now making the same mistake again, ignoring the many risks associated with the launch of the 44-year-old reactor.
- noted in Japan itself.
The reactor, which is being launched, is the oldest among the reactors to be restarted since the 2011 disaster. To launch it, it was required to take special permission from the government to extend the service life beyond the forty years that it had already served. At the same time, the system of regulation and supervision of reactors in Japan has numerous shortcomings, due to which most of the reactors are currently inoperative: they are not started up, because they do not trust the results of inspections.
Former deputy chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission under the Japanese government, Tatsujiro Suzuki, believes that the permission to restart the reactor was given with violations. Lack of transparency and subsidies to turn the local population in their favor were the main characteristics of the permitting process.
Recall that in 2011, a powerful earthquake occurred off the northeastern coast of Japan, which killed 15 thousand people. The earthquake led to a shutdown of cooling at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. As a result, huge clouds of radioactive material formed over land and sea. One of the reasons for the disaster was, among other things, weak supervision by those government agencies that were supposed to be responsible for assessing the tsunami risks.
Industry and government, according to Suzuki, have not learned from the experience of the disaster at the Fukushima station, which entails the emergence of new risks. Therefore, certain forces began to push the idea of restarting the reactor. Representatives of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), which are lobbying for the introduction of nuclear energy, have become frequent visitors to Fukui.
Local authorities received impressive subsidies from the government, after which Governor Fukui approved the restart of the reactor.
The government, in turn, claims that the trips to Fukui were carried out to "exchange views." Of course, officials exclude any corruption component in these visits.
Meanwhile, Kiyoshi Kurokawa, who investigated the accident at the Fukushima plant, is convinced that the collective thinking of government officials prevails in Japan, putting the interests of the ministry or corporation above protecting the safety of the public and the environment.
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