Japan Press Weekly

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2011 May 18 - 24 [GREAT EAST JAPAN DISASTER]

Shii hands over recovery proposal to PM Kan

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on May 17 met with Prime Minister Kan Naoto at his office and handed over the second JCP proposal for recovery assistance following the first one presented on March 31.

To help restore victims’ lives and help them recover from the disaster, the proposal includes in-depth, specific measures. It also urges the government to abolish all nuclear power stations in Japan.

The JCP developed its new proposal based on the situation that JCP executives had grasped at first hand during their stay in the disaster-hit region (May 6-9) and on requests from municipal heads, primary industries, and small businesses.

The on-going nuclear crisis at TEPCO’s Fukushima plant has shown that nuclear technology has not been fully established yet.

Shii condemned successive governments, including the present one, for sticking to the nuclear “safety myth” and allowing the construction of nuclear power plants in hightly quake-prone areas. Shii demanded that the government create a program with a timeline to decommission all nuclear reactors in Japan. In the meantime, it is essential for the government to take the maximum possible safety measures and to minimize the risks of nuclear accidents, Shii stated.

Prime Minster Kan in response said, “I didn’t know that the Fukushima plant stored so much spent fuel in pools and that’s not good. Operations in the nuclear fuel reprocessing cycle are not functioning properly. Beyond that, I want to go back to the drawing board and review the Basic Act on Energy Policy.”

Regarding a second supplementary budget for disaster relief, the government states that it will not formulate it earlier than August.

Shii, however, emphasized the need to urgently adopt an additional budget that incorporates the recommendations of the JCP proposal within the current Diet session.

As for the latest revised TEPCO road map for bringing the nuclear crisis under control, Shii demanded that the government should not just rubber stamp the timetable set by TEPCO but should carefully examine all data concerned in order to offer the public a timetable based on independent and well informed analysis.

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JCP’s Policy Proposal on Withdrawal from Nuclear Power

This is a part of the Japanese Communist Party’s second policy proposal on the relief and reconstruction of the earthquake- and tsunami-hit areas and the withdrawal from nuclear power. Mr. Shii Kazuo, Executive Chairperson, submitted it to Prime Minister Kan Naoto on May 17th, 2011.

III. Make Decision to Withdraw from Nuclear Power and Formulate Timeframe to Shutdown Nuclear Power Plants

1. Intrinsically flawed and hazardous technology of present nuclear power

Nuclear power generation at present is based on intrinsically flawed and hazardous technology. A nuclear reactor contains massive amounts of radioactive material. However, as the recent events at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station demonstrated, the technology to keep this radioactive material safely isolated under any circumstances does not exist. The on-going crisis also exposed the fundamental defect in the light-water reactor design, in that loss of cooling water may lead to core meltdown and loss of reactor control, increasing the likelihood of a catastrophic disaster inevitable. Since no method to safely dispose radioactive waste has been established, a huge amount of spent fuel continues to be stored at nuclear power plants nationwide, and the dangers associated with such storage is now widely known to the general public.

Once a massive amount of radioactive material leaks into the outside environment, there is no way to contain it. The damage caused by the release would spread geographically in an unlimited scale, and its consequences would persist for generations. Even the very existence of local communities would be endangered. All these potential dire consequences are now there for all to see.

2. Risk of concentrating nuclear power plants in one of the world’s most earthquake- and tsunami-prone countries

It is foolhardy to have a large number of such dangerous plants in Japan, one of the world’s most earthquake- and tsunami-prone countries. The recent earthquake off the northeast coast of Japan requires a thorough reassessment of the scientific knowledge regarding the probabilities and consequences of future earthquakes. In Japan, there are no places that are regarded as “safe” from the dangers of earthquakes and tsunamis. There are thus no nuclear power plants free from the risk of earthquakes or tsunamis in Japan.

3. Dire consequences caused by adherence to “nuclear safety myth”

Public now has to face the serious consequences of successive governments failing to implement safety measures at nuclear power stations even after repeated warnings, and their insistence on continuing to propagate their “nuclear safety myth,” the assertion that severe accidents could never occur at Japan’s nuclear power plants.

Successive governments along with the power companies bear a huge responsibility for their negligence in incorporating safety measures, and relying on the “nuclear safety myth.” Caught up in the myth, they have failed to admit to the following: the fact that existing nuclear power generation is based on an intrinsically flawed and extremely hazardous technology; the risks associated with increasing the number of nuclear plants in earthquake- and tsunami-prone Japan; the inevitability of nuclear accidents as there is no such thing as “absolutely safe” nuclear technology. No other country operating nuclear power plants has such a blind faith in relying on the myth of nuclear safety.

4. We Demand Policy Shift Away from Nuclear Power

The JCP demands an energy policy shift away from the promotion of nuclear power and calls for the permanent shutdown of all nuclear power plants in Japan.

Get out of nuclear power generation and formulate a program to shutdown the nuclear power plants

We demand that the government make a political decision to withdraw from nuclear power generation and to formulate a timetable to shutdown all nuclear power plants.

Swift decisions and actions are called for in the following areas:
* Cancel the nuclear power plant expansion plan;
* Shutdown and decommission the Hamaoka plant;
* Decommission the Fukushima Dai-ichi and Fukushima Daini plants;
* Suspend operations of aged nuclear plants;
* Suspend operations of nuclear plants that do not have residents’ approval;
* Shutdown the radioactive waste reprocessing plants; and,
* Withdraw from the nuclear fuel cycle program utilizing plutonium.

We also demand that the government mobilize the maximum resources at its disposal, whether intellectual or material, for the purpose of developing, promoting renewable energy and creating a low-energy consumption society.

Establish an independent nuclear power regulatory agency to minimize public risk

During the process of shutting down and decommissioning nuclear power plants, we demand that government put into practice every conceivable safety measure to minimize the risk of nuclear accidents and to urgently establish a nuclear power regulatory agency that is independent of and separated from nuclear power promoting agencies, and which has the strong authority of enforcement with a sufficient number of staff.

Since the decommissioning of nuclear power plants presumably takes about 20 years even after their shutdown, maximum precautions should be taken to prevent possible radiation leaks during the process. Given that the technology to safely dispose of spent nuclear fuel does not at present exist, until such technology is developed and introduced, nuclear waste must be kept isolated from the outside environment and under constant surveillance for an extended duration of time. This process also necessitates the establishment of an independent regulatory agency with authority of enforcement and sufficient number of personnel.