Japan Press Weekly

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2014 March 12 - 18 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Ex-head of Fukushima crisis inspectors: public wants zero nuclear

Former chiefs of committees of the government, the Diet, and the private sector investigating the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident had a discussion session on March 10 in Tokyo on the eve of the third anniversary of the disaster. None of them backed the promotion of nuclear power generation as does the government.

Kurokawa Kiyoshi, former chair of the Diet investigation board, said, “Despite the major accident, the Japanese government position has shown no sign of change. Nobody has taken responsibility.”

Referring to the fact that all nuclear reactors are now under suspension, the private panel’s former head Kitazawa Koichi said, “That can be described as due to public consensus.”

Kitazawa also said that Japan will be laughed at by the world if an accident occurs again after resuming the operations of currently offline reactors. He called for a careful decision on any restart of operations.

The head of the government-appointed investigative body Hatamura Yotaro said that before determining the pros and cons of the reactivation of atomic power plants, the public should keep in mind that the process of nuclear power generation retains many unanswered questions.

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission former chair Gregory Jaczko mentioned that such a thing as a 100% safe nuclear energy program is impossible.