Spare no expense for N-plant safety
Efforts have been made at nuclear power plants across the nation to ramp up safety measures in the wake of the series of serious accidents that occurred at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in the aftermath of the massive tsunami on March 11.
Plant operators reportedly aim to establish safety measures to prevent similar accidents from happening even if a plant is struck by a tsunami with a magnitude exceeding the scale assumed at the time of its design and construction. Compilation of such measures must be finished swiftly.
Such efforts have been made by electric power companies at the behest of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry.
The nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant stopped operating immediately after the temblor occurred. Up to that point, events corresponded to what had been assumed. But events beyond the scope of assumption followed due to the huge tsunami as it became impossible to use the emergency power sources needed to cool the nuclear fuel rods. Some of the rods melted due to overheating and this led to increased pressure inside the reactors, thereby bringing about an emergency involving the leakage of radioactive substances outside the reactors.
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Urgent measures
Based on this, METI called on the utilities to implement urgent measures by the end of this month, including moving the facilities for emergency power sources to higher ground to prevent them from being inundated and installing reserve power supply vehicles.
The ministry also made it mandatory for the power companies to work out operation manuals and hold disaster drills at plants to prepare for extreme emergency scenarios, thereby minimizing the damage should an emergency like one at the Fukushima plant happen.
These are measures to be taken for the time being, but METI should closely and strictly monitor whether such measures are being carried out at plants. If deficiencies are found, the ministry must take such stern measures as shutting down noncompliant plants.
There are a host of issues to be tackled from a medium- and long-term perspective.
One is that the scale of the maximum tsunami assumed at each nuclear plant has not been changed.
Precautionary measures against tsunami have been far from a major focus even in the government's guidelines on anti-earthquake measures for nuclear power stations. The enormous tsunami that hit the Fukushima plant was as high as 15 meters--much higher than the 5.7-meter maximum assumed beforehand.
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Response too late
METI says it will reexamine the guidelines after inspecting the cause of accidents at the plant. But this is too late a response. Chubu Electric Power Co. has announced a plan to build a 15-meter-high anti-tsunami wall around its Hamaoka nuclear plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. The ministry needs to examine whether this is sufficient to ensure safety.
It is also essential to assume a greater scope of damage at each nuclear plant when a serious accident such as a leak of radioactive material happens. It is necessary to reexamine disaster response measures to be taken by the government and business operators in response to such damage assumptions. The measures include evacuating disaster victims and stemming the expansion of damage.
Conventional disaster response measures taken by the government so far have lacked realistic perspective. This is one reason behind the delay in measures taken this time.
Every one of these measures requires huge spending. Kansai Electric Power Co. intends to invest 70 billion yen in bolstering safety measures. The government, for its part, is urged to work out fiscal assistance steps.
Considering the size of damage to be incurred by the occurrence of a nuclear accident, investment in safety measures should not be spared.
DPJ should learn lessons from its election losses
The second round of this year's unified local elections was conducted Sunday, wrapping up the quadrennial nationwide battles.
The two rounds of campaigning were unusual. Electoral races were postponed in some areas in the aftermath of the cataclysmic March 11 earthquake. Meanwhile, political parties and candidates generally held back from street speeches during their campaigns.
When the votes were counted, it was evident that the ruling Democratic Party of Japan had suffered a setback.
For instance, DPJ-affiliated candidates for governor in Tokyo, Hokkaido and Mie Prefecture were all defeated by candidates with the backing of the leading opposition Liberal Democratic Party. DPJ-ticketed candidates, as well as those endorsed by the party, also fared poorly in 41 prefectural assembly elections and other contests.
The DPJ suffered the humiliation of failing to field a candidate in a by-election for the House of Representatives seat in Aichi Constituency No. 6, which was held at the same time as Sunday's unified races.
The number of candidates who had chosen to run with the DPJ's endorsement was only half of the party's initial numerical target. This was because a number of candidates renounced their status as DPJ-authorized or recommended candidates, apparently disheartened by the flagging popular support ratings for the Cabinet of Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his DPJ.
The DPJ must sincerely accept its electoral setback and calmly analyze the reasons for its unfavorable results.
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Leadership found lacking
The DPJ's defeat was preceded by a series of indecisive responses by the Kan administration in dealing with such affairs as a Chinese fishing boat ramming Japan Coast Guard vessels in waters off the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture and the controversy over whether former DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa should appear before the Diet to testify over a political funding scandal.
The situation was exacerbated by the Kan government's failure to minimize the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and defuse an ensuing crisis arising from the series of accidents at a crippled nuclear power plant. There is no denying that all this added to voters' distrust of the DPJ-led administration.
During the campaign for the latest quadrennial elections, the Kan government drew fire from the opposition camp for its initial response to the nuclear crisis, as well as its failure to give fishermen's associations and neighboring countries advance notice that radiation-contaminated water would be discharged into the sea.
It will be no easy task for the prime minister to thwart attempts from both inside and outside the DPJ to topple him from power unless he resolutely pulls his administration together.
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Bureaucratic talent untapped
In the first place, the prime minister should work out arrangements by which bureaucrats at each government ministry can bring their abilities and commitment into full play in fulfilling their duties. His adherence to the idea--described by many as "an empty initiative"--of politicians taking the lead in policymaking and other affairs of state discourages bureaucrats from playing an active role. This has left them to sit back and wait for instructions to be given to them by the government.
It is also disturbing that the prime minister has set up too many panels and task forces on reducing the impact of the March 11 disaster. These entities should be consolidated to better address pertinent issues.
This must be complemented by efforts to better finance specific disaster-related government policies. The Kan administration should retract such lavish handouts as the child-rearing allowance program as soon as possible, explaining to the public that a good portion of financial resources accruing from this policy change will be used to rehabilitate quake-hit areas.
Kan and DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada have said the political situation should not be disturbed at a time when the nation is still struggling with the massive weight of the quake-tsunami disaster, coupled with the lack of an immediate prospect of success in ending the nuclear crisis.
If they are true to their own word, these leaders must take specific actions to fulfill their duties by, for example, making daring concessions to the opposition parties with the aim of securing their cooperation.
Kan and Okada should act on this. Merely chanting the need to avert turmoil in the current political situation would inevitably allow them to be accused of taking advantage of the disaster to try to keep the current administration alive.
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