Japan Press Weekly

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2016 March 2 - 8 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Shii: Gov’t policy dependent on nuclear energy comes to dead end

Ahead of the fifth anniversary of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the National Association for a Peaceful, Democratic and Progressive Japan (Kakushinkon) held a symposium in Fukushima Prefecture on March 6 with about 800 people participating. Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo participated as a panelist.

In his speech, Shii condemned the Abe government for trying to weaken the evacuation directives to municipalities around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant with the aim of calling off the relief programs for disaster victims. He claimed that the government and the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) should continue supporting all victims until they can rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

Shii stressed that the government move to abandon Fukushima sufferers is closely connected with its policy clinging to nuclear power generation. Referring to an opinion poll conducted in Fukui Prefecture which hosts the recently-restarted Takahama Nuclear Power Plant, he noted that public awareness of the dangers associated with nuclear power has dramatically increased since the Fukushima nuclear meltdown.

The local poll shows that 50.2% of the respondents in Takahama Town said that there is a “very high” or “relatively high” possibility of a nuclear accident at the Takahama plant which would force them to evacuate. In other surrounding municipalities, the percentage of those who gave the same answer reached nearly 80%. Shii emphasized that the “safety myth” of nuclear power facilities which the government and power companies had spread for decades has completely collapsed among the general public.

The JCP chair also quoted the Fukui District Court decision of May 2014, which ordered the suspension of operations of the Oi Nuclear Power Plant, as stating that unlike other energy technologies, nuclear power generation entails “inherent danger”. He noted that this “inherent danger” is reconfirmed by the fact that municipalities near the disabled Fukushima plant, including the host towns of Futaba and Okuma, remain designated as “difficult-to-return” zones.

Shii went on to say that Japan has not experienced a power shortage in the past five years even without any nuclear power generation. He pointed out that the amount of carbon dioxide emissions in Japan decreased in fiscal 2014 although all nuclear power reactors in the country were offline and that the increment in generating cost in that fiscal year was only one-seventh of 3.5 trillion yen, an estimate which was made by a think tank associated with the financial community.

Referring to the Abe administration’s attempt to continue to operate old and worn out nuclear reactors, Shii stated that as long as atomic reactors are running, high-level radioactive wastes will keep piling up. He argued that the government should scrap its pro-nuclear energy policy and work to create a society free from atomic power generation.