December 11, 2016
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2016 December 7 - 13 [SOCIAL ISSUES]
Pro-power business unions campaign to restart NPPs |
The initiator of the signature campaign is a pro-nuclear power organization, the National Nuclear Union. Denryoku-soren and associations of commerce and industry across the country are taking part in the campaign. The National Nuclear Union held a national convention on December 1 in Tokyo with lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and leaders of NPP-hosting municipalities attending. The convention approved the launch of the signature-collection drive.
Akahata recently obtained written instructions given by the Kyushu branch of Denryoku-soren. The documents urged union members to gather “as many signatures as possible” by having all their family members sign. In response to an Akahata inquiry, the branch acknowledged that it drew up the documents in accordance with the instructions from its parent organization.
The petition signature calls on the central government to promote the reactivation of idled nuclear reactors as well as the use of the faulty FBR “Monju” and the establishment of a program to recycle spent nuclear fuel. Claiming that “this country cannot last without nuclear power generation”, it demands that the government “employ every means” to put nuclear reactors back online and that the Nuclear Regulation Authority “accelerate” the ongoing safety checkups of suspended nuclear power plants.
A former employee at Hokkaido Electric Power Company, Mizushima Yoshihiro, pointed out that more than 80,000 victims are still forced to take shelter after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown and that the total cost of compensation, decontamination, and the decommissioning of the crippled reactors is expected to reach 22 trillion yen. He added that Denryoku-soren should take this fact seriously.
Recent opinion polls showed that over 50% of the respondents oppose rebooting offline atomic reactors.
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