March 2011 was tragic. Being in Tokyo, watching the Fukushima disaster unfold here in Japan, I saw how we initially struggled to first get the nuclear reactor under control and then for nearly three years, how it's been a struggle for people living around Fukushima to get back to any semblance of normal life. Many areas remain uninhabitable, leaving 140,000 evacuees stuck in limbo, unable to go home, but also unable to rebuild their lives since they lack proper compensation and support.
This ongoing tragedy for the victims of the nuclear disaster is the fault of a system that is supposed to provide fair compensation when there is such a disaster, but doesn't. This system essentially protects the nuclear industry, not the people.
The cost of the Fukushima disaster is estimated at $250 billion, but costs so far have already crushed its owner Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) so badly that the company had to be provided money from the government. TEPCO is one of the largest energy utilities in the world, yet it had to be protected from its responsibilities. Taxpayers are now picking up the tab. Worse still is that the system offers even greater protection to companies such as GE, Hitachi and Toshiba. They built the Fukushima plant based on a flawed reactor design. Yet the regulations allow them to walk away and pay nothing to help the victims. They also don't want to accept any liability for the accident.
As a society, Japan is not used to protests. However, we saw hundreds of thousands of protesters flooding the streets of Tokyo around the prime minister's office and the parliament. These protests continue, and the support for a total nuclear phase-out in Japan is growing. People are angry, first at the previous government's decision to restart a nuclear power plant after all of them were switched off following the Fukushima meltdown, and now they are angry at the new government's plans to restart more reactors, and to resume building them.
We cannot give the people of Fukushima back what they have lost, but we can stand together and ensure they get compensated, that they are remembered, and that no one has to suffer through a nuclear meltdown ever again.
It is with this hope that I write this piece.
I would like to stress on two points. One, had the suppliers at Fukushima been liable, they would have paid more attention to the flawed reactor design and perhaps the man-made tragedy at Fukushima could have been averted. When Manmohan Singh talks to the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, perhaps he should suggest that Japan should introduce stringent supplier liability, and not make these profit-making corporations immune from financial and legal liability.
Second, no amount of preparedness is adequate to handle a nuclear disaster. Even a developed country such as Japan is struggling to cope. In Iitate village in Fukushima prefecture, the estimated cleanup cost is 322.4 billion yen. And to put it in perspective, Iitate is only one village out of 59. The amount of money it takes, first to build a reactor and then to clean up when there is an accident, is just not acceptable, especially when renewables can deliver cheaper and, more importantly, cleaner energy.
Taking lessons from Fukushima, people in India are also opposing this technology. The government's attitude towards protesters in the tiny fishing hamlet of Idinthakarai, near Kudankulam, does not behove a democracy. The fears of the people living near Kudankulam are valid. In Fukushima, I have seen how whole communities have been uprooted, their homes and fields declared contaminated and off limits. Parents struggle to rebuild their lives, even as they fear for their children who have been exposed to high levels of radiation. The latest poll done by Mainichi Shimbun (December 2013) shows that 80 per cent of Japanese people favour phasing out nuclear power. None of Japan's 54 reactors are currently running - without major blackouts - leading to questions about the necessity of nuclear power in the first place.
It is not ethical for Japan to export reactors to India. In one of the Indian newspapers, I read that they are re-starting the negotiations because the Indian government had showed "faith" in Japanese nuclear technology. I would like to tell the prime ministers of both the countries that their people have shown faith in them; they shouldn't belie those.
The author is the executive director of Greenpeace Japan and has experienced the Fukushima tragedy. An excerpt from this piece appeared as a blog on the Greenpeace website
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
