Japan Press Weekly

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2012 June 6 - 12 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

JCP Yoshii calls for establishment of fully independent nuclear regulatory body

Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Yoshii Hidekatsu demanded that the government launch a new nuclear regulatory organ which is fully separated from administrative bodies promoting nuclear power generation on June 8 in the House of Representatives deliberations on bills to establish such an organ.

Yoshii cited an accident caused by a tube rupture in a steam generator in the reactor Unit 2 at the Mihama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture in 1991.

In 1980, 11 years before the accident, the Nuclear Safety Commission together with the plant operator and a nuclear-reactor maker assessed the safety of steam generators at the Mihama plant and concluded, “Japanese steam generator tubes are safe to use.”

When a similar steam generator accident occurred at a nuclear power plant in the United States in 1987, the NSC denied the possibility of an occurrence of such an accident in Japan.

Yoshii said that promotion of nuclear power generation in collaboration between the public and the private sectors invariably led to the serious accident.

Regarding stress tests required before reactivating offline nuclear reactors, Yoshii pointed out that nuclear-reactor manufacturers themselves test the safety of their products and that the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency assesses and then rubber stamps the validity of test results. He criticized the government for continuing to maintain a nuclear regulatory organ under the very ministries promoting nuclear energy.