Nuclear Reliance, Unease Grow in Japan

Japan’s worst nuclear accident is expected to cause a chain reaction of plant delays and closures, though the government insists that there will be no halt to the development of the nation’s atomic program.

Even opponents of Japan’s nuclear industry acknowledge that it will be difficult to block three reactors under construction and nine others being planned. But Thursday’s radiation leak at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura--Japan’s third serious incident in four years--probably will delay the reopening of another reprocessing plant in the town, which is home to a dozen nuclear facilities.

The continued shutdown of the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp. plant, which was closed two years ago after a radiation leak, in turn would force the closure as early as January of a one-of-a-kind advanced thermal reactor in Fugen, near the Sea of Japan city of Tsuruga, that relies on the plant for waste storage and fuel, industry and government officials say.

Officials from Kansai Electric Company indicated that a shipment of plutonium that arrived from Europe the day after the accident would not be loaded at the Takahama nuclear power plant unless the people in Fukui prefecture, where the facility is located, approve the move in a November referendum.

And on the southern island of Kyushu, electric company officials said plans to change to plutonium fuel from cheaper and relatively safer uranium at three reactors are now frozen indefinitely because of the accident.

Also under potential review: Japan’s experimental fast-breeder reactor program. One of the reactors, the Monju plant, has been closed since a sodium coolant leak in 1996. Japan’s other breeder reactor, the Joyo facility, was to have been the destination of the highly volatile enriched uranium that was the source of Thursday’s accident.

Meanwhile, Kyodo News Service reported today that the Japanese government will revoke the business license of JCO Co., the operator of the Tokaimura processing plant. “The agency decided to revoke JCO’s license due to the seriousness of the accident,” Kyodo said, quoting unidentified sources at Japan’s Science and Technology Agency.

Kyodo quoted the sources as saying that the power authorities confirmed during their investigations that JCO had changed the government-approved procedure manual and used an illegal one as the “standard procedure.”

Police raided the JCO plant in Tokaimura and its Tokyo headquarters today to look for evidence of wrongdoing, authorities said.

But despite the series of setbacks, the industry probably will not die.

Japan “needs nuclear power plants,” said Hiroji Ota, the chief of the Federation of Electric Power Companies, a private industry group. “We will have to try step by step to re-create safety customs from the beginning.”

Though more and more critics are saying Japan can’t live with the potential of nuclear disaster, an even stronger government voice declares that Japan can’t live without the benefits of nuclear power.

Such is the conundrum for Japan, a nation of islands that is determined to become self-sufficient in energy and perhaps a regional leader in nuclear power technology. Even as accidents multiply and public concern mounts--a poll by the daily Mainichi Shimbun on Monday showed a record 74% of respondents do not think nuclear power is safe--Japan’s reliance on nuclear energy is increasing.

The proportion of electricity produced by Japan’s 51 operating nuclear power plants has climbed steadily to 37% last year, and there are blueprints to build as many as 20 more reactors in the next decade to maintain that level as the nation’s energy demands increase. And despite public unease, Japan is the only country in the world still pursuing development of commercial fast-breeder reactors--plants that create more energy than they use. They also produce plutonium usable in nuclear weapons, a side benefit rarely discussed in Japan but never forgotten.

Even Hiroshima, one of the world’s two cities to have experienced the devastation of an atomic bomb, relies on nuclear power for 20% of its energy.

But if anyone has learned about the threats and benefits of nuclear power, it is the people of Tokaimura. The once-pastoral farming village is now known as “Nuclear Alley,” home to 13 nuclear facilities. Houses nestle right up to the wall of the uranium processing plant that Thursday was spewing radiation into the neighborhood. A children’s playground next to the facility is equipped with a radiation detector along with the jungle gyms and swings. But despite another accident in 1997, during which at least 35 people were exposed to radiation, few residents realized exactly what was going on within the plants’ concrete walls and most depended on the government to protect them from serious harm.

“Tokaimura has been dependent on the nuclear industry for jobs and the village budget,” said Seishu Tanno, an organizer of an anti-nuclear demonstration Sunday in the nearby city of Mito. “Some people are convinced we should coexist with nuclear power. Others can’t speak their fear frankly. . . . But none of us realized that this kind of dangerous facility is located right next to our houses.”

Though they are now more acutely aware of the hazards, the people of Tokaimura are unlikely to rise up and demand an end to the industry. Like most other towns where nuclear facilities are found, government-financed plums--such as roads, schools and sports stadiums--help communities swallow the nuclear necessities. There are pockets of dissent: A few prefectures have rejected plans to build projects in their areas, and one prefectural governor refused entry to a ship carrying reprocessed waste from Europe.

But more typically, deals are cut without grass-roots participation, and opposition is far less organized than outside Japan. Communities in Japan need only be consulted for new projects. Once a site is established, the Japanese government can expand and renew the facilities without local permission.

“The government is promoting its policy at its own discretion, ignoring the people completely,” said Fukiko Ikeshima, director of a broad coalition of small opposition groups. But she conceded that sustaining the movement’s momentum is difficult. “Even if people have doubts, it requires a lot of energy to keep expressing it and demanding change every day. The movement is heightened now, but it will fade away gradually.”

That means any changes in the nation’s nuclear power program will come from the top, analysts say, and will likely come slowly.