Fukushima And The Coming Tokyo Earthquake: And What It Will Mean For A Fragile World Economy

By Tony Smyth

This book details the story of two earthquakes, one that has already happened and one that is imminent, and their consequences, not only for Japan but also for the rest of the world. It is structured in a way that ‘chunks up’ in sections, from local/national events through to global consequences.

The first section of the book tells the story of how a country that suffered atomic bombing ended up obtaining a third of its electricity from nuclear power, despite having the misfortune to be located in the most seismically active zone in the world. It then depicts the sequence of what happened in March 2011 after the tsunami struck.

Next, the book details recent peer-reviewed studies about radiation and its effect on human health. A following chapter reveals the full costs of nuclear power– an energy source that never comes in on budget and is incredibly expensive. The final part of this section of the book describes the inadequacy of storing spent nuclear fuel once a nuclear power station has been decommissioned.

The latter half of the book adopts a larger frame or viewpoint, and looks at the use of nuclear and renewable energy in the context of world climate change and the widespread use of fossil fuels.

The final section of the book depicts a coming Tokyo earthquake and its consequences. A big earthquake in or near Tokyo is overdue. They usually happen every sixty to seventy years, yet the last one was in 1923. The author asserts that Japan will have to repatriate much of its treasury bonds which are held in the United States.The tsunami and meltdowns of 2011 represent the most expensive natural disaster in history. Even though Japan is the third biggest economy in the world, because of an estimated debt from the tsunami and Fukushima meltdowns of at least $500 million and weak indebted economy, it will struggle to pay this amount. The most obvious way to pay for rebuilding will be to sell stocks and treasury bonds held in the United States.

An earthquake striking Tokyo will hit right at the nerve centre of the country. All political and economic power is concentrated there.The headquarters of many global 500 companies, as well as all the powerful bureaucracies so vital to the country, are located in one central section of the capital. Most of Japan’s imports and exports are dispatched through Tokyo Bay. After a big quake, this area is likely to be crippled for some time. Moreover, much of Tokyo’s manufacturing takes place on reclaimed land in the Bay – land which tends to liquefy in a big quake.

This book argues that because of the fragile situation of world economies since 2008 (Lehman Bros etc), and the heavily indebted state of Japan’s finances post-tsunami/Fukushima, the only way that Japan will appeal to finance the enormous amount of post-quake rebuilding is to repatriate its investment in US government bonds and securities. This will have an immediate knock-on effect on the American economy and, soon after, most of the world’s economies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Smyth
• Release date: Dec 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9784990935009

Tony Smyth

Tony Smyth graduated from Northumbria University in 1976 with a fine arts degree. During his time of study he developed an interest in Japanese and Japanese culture and art, particularly that influenced by Zen. After working in graphic design for two years, he traveled across America and arrived in Tokyo in 1980. He has lived in Japan for thirty seven years. He first studied Japanese language, before switching to shiatsu and acupuncture, receiving a diploma in shiatsu in Tokyo, and a master level acupuncture diploma in Beijing. He has traveled extensively, particularly in Asia. Currently, he teaches English at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at several schools, is a Christian wedding celebrant, and has a private practice doing Neuro Linguistic Programming and hypnotherapy for the foreign community in Tokyo. He has written articles for the Tokyo Journal and other Japan-based blogs . Fukushima and the Coming Tokyo Earthquake is his first book. A sequel to this book will examine the key role of energy and depleting resources in a world economic system that is dependent on ever-increasing debt and exponential growth

Book preview

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Cultural themes that relate to the Fukushima earthquake and its aftermath

Cultural themes that relate to the Fukushima meltdowns, the importance of the group, the power of Japanese bureaucrats, factional strife.

Chapter 2: Land, the bubble era and the yakuza

Lack of flat land and limited housing space, the yakuza and the bubble era, yakuza involvement in the construction and nuclear industries.

Chapter 3: Japan's nuclear power industry

Promotion of nuclear power in the 1950s and 1960s, influence of two powerful politicians, bribery used to induce acceptance of nuclear power plants.

Chapter 4: Earthquakes, tsunami, nuclear power and Japan's 9/11

Earthquakes and tsunami over the centuries, the author's experience of the March 11 earthquake.

Chapter 5: Fukushima Dai-ichi Denpatsu

The sequence of the meltdowns at Fukushima Dai-ichi after the tsunami hit, close calls at other nuclear reactors, radiation releases, incineration of nuclear-tainted material.

Chapter 6: Radiation, the exclusion zone, cover-ups and secrecy

Radiation, the exclusion zone, cover-ups and denial, effects of low-level radiation, Chernobyl radiation data applied to the Fukushima releases.

Chapter 7: Now, where have we heard this before?

Cultural motifs detailed in Chapters One and Two that reappeared after the meltdowns occurred, Japanese authorities' behaviour that seemed odd to foreign observers.

Chapter 8: The future of nuclear power

The future of nuclear power, earthquake faults near and below Japan, effects of the Fukushima meltdowns on other countries, stages of uranium-based nuclear power - mining, enrichment, and construction costs, through to decommissioning and use of deep geological repositories.

Chapter 9: Renewables and nuclear energy on a warming planet

The Stern report, the use of fossil fuels, food production, methane gases, externalities created by fossil fuel use, modelled consequences of each future degree rise in temperature.

Chapter 10: Innovation, cautious optimism and a polarised debate

Predictions for 2030, changes that need to happen to prevent climate disaster, hopeful developments, energy efficiency, solar and wind power developments, energy storage, thorium-based nuclear reactors, lack of political urgency.

Chapter 11: The coming Kantō earthquake

Edo - origins of the city, Tōkyō as a modern metropolis. The coming Kantō earthquake: crustal plates near Tōkyō, Mount Fuji, lack of preparedness for a big quake, description of the 1923 quake, reclaimed land, Tōkyō Bay industry, likely consequences of a large quake, concentration of political and economic power in one area, chokeholds in key high-tech industries, likely repatriation of Japanese bonds held in the U.S.

Chapter 12: Consequences

The consequences of repatriations of Japanese treasuries in order to pay for rebuilding Tōkyō and Yokohama, Fukushima Dai-ichi's influence on world nuclear power usage, main themes of the book revisited.

Index

Fukushima and the coming Tōkyō Earthquake: and what it will mean for a fragile world economy

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Published by Kindle Direct Publishing

Giants Raised By Pygmies Publications

Fukushima and the coming Tōkyō earthquake: and what will mean for a fragile world economy

Website with video and images related to the book's themes: www.fukushimatokyoquake.com

Copyright © 2016 Tony Smyth, first edition. Member of the Japan Writers Association

Kindle Edition | Copyright 2016 Tony Smyth

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, even in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests, write to the author via the website: www.fukushimatokyoquake.com

ISBN-13: 978-4-9909350-0-9

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Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to each of the following people for helping this book reach completion.

I would firstly like to thank my editor Francine De Selby whose support, tact, patience, ability to clarify and make many small but telling suggestions, as well as one large one – the deletion of the entire final chapter – which has helped to shape, mould and tighten this book for the better.

A number of people read parts of the script as it lumbered slowly, over years, towards completion. I would especially like to thank friend Chris Miles, whose feedback and minute attention to detail – even checking the German in the endnote sources! – was much appreciated. Thank you so much Chris.

Similarly I thank Michael Johnson, a man I have never met but correspond with via his blog and other internet forums. Michael's blog The Overweening Generalist (HTTP://overweeninggeneralist.blogspot.com) is highly recommended. His feedback for the sections he read was most valuable.

Next, I'd like to express my heartfelt thanks to Alan Appleby of I Clawdius Design. Alan and I go back a long way, originally working together in graphic design in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK in the 1970s. Alan is responsible for all of the graphics – not only the book cover and internal maps and graphs, but also for designing and updating of both of the websites related to this book, and also for assembling and editing the accompanying short video [fukushimatokyoquake.com]. His patience and incredible dedication to getting the images and design as sharp as possible is highly appreciated, as are the numerous hours he spent on this project. Alan, I thank thee muchly, not just for your work on this drawn out project, but for a great friendship over nearly 40 years

I'd like to thank Maki Kitamura and Toshiaki Shishido for their help in trying to persuade former Prime Minister Naoto Kan to write a preface to this book. Maki translated several letters into extremely elegant Japanese, and Mr Shishido tried to use his influence as Naoto Kan’s ex-secretary to persuade the Prime Minister to give his time to this project. Unfortunately, his current secretary proved to be an impenetrable barrier.

Next, I would like to thank my brother Brendan Smyth, and also Sean McCullough, Dave Pinkney and Pete Ford for reading the work in progress and giving valuable feedback.

Gary Acord is responsible for finalising the conversion of this text into Kindle and Smashwords formats. This proved to be much more time consuming than I had initially anticipated. My sincere thanks to Gary, who despite a very hectic schedule, did all necessary to convert the e-book versions to a fully professional standard.

My gratitude to friends and acquaintances who read the almost completed book and gave last minute but valuable feedback: Daniel ReLea, Eric Barnes, Ian Sheridan, Mark Devlin, Joe Egan, Fiona Smyth (my sister), Ginny Hanrahan, Aarif Meghani, Bobby Campbell, Paul Thornton, Dave Pinkney, Maggie Holland, Nik Slewerski, Eucharia Donnery, Ben Wheale, Stuart Cowap, Harley Coombes, and to Mia Perry.

Finally, I acknowledge the support and patience of my wife Tomoko Sakamoto, who has helped me to understand Japanese culture far more than I could ever have done alone. Indeed, if it wasnt for her, Japan would probably be distant memory and this book would never have come into existence. Tomoko: honto ni arigatō gozaimashita.

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Organisation and stylistic conventions used within

This book is organised in progressively larger ‘frames’, from local to global: in the case of Fukushima, from Japanese cultural background and themes, to events that occurred after the tsunami hit, through to a detailed description of the entire sequence from uranium mining, through to storage of nuclear waste. A further chapter then examines world energy use in a world where human activities have caused a more than 40% increase in carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.

The second theme of this book details the likely consequences of a large earthquake striking near Tōkyō and Yokohama, first in terms of the consequences for the densely inhabited Kantō Plain and its residents, and then predicts the likely financial effects in Asia, The United States, and Europe, and thence much of the world’s interlinked economy.

As the target readership is Western, all Japanese names in this book are rendered with surname last. Japanese words which are commonly known and used in English-speaking countries – tsunami, Tōkyō and Fukushima for example – are written without italics, whereas those mostly unfamiliar outside Japan, as well as names of Japanese people, are italicised.

The naming of radioactive elements is somewhat unconventional, with the numbering written in subscript: CFC114 rather than CFC 114 for example. I did this on aesthetic grounds, so that the radiation studies section of this book does not look like a list of aircraft flight numbers!

Throughout the book, I have written the name of Japan's capital as Tōkyō, because that is how it is pronounced, just two syllables with equally weighted elongated ‘oh’ sounds. Apologies to those who dislike this, but the teacher in me cringes when hearing the city's name pronounced as To-Kee-Yoh.

Finally, while every effort was made to contact the copyright holders of the materials quoted or referenced in this book, there are instances where I was unable to do so or they simply didn't reply. If the copyright holders contact the author I would be pleased to rectify any omission at the earliest opportunity.

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Introduction

Those who live and work in countries which are geologically ancient most likely never give a thought to the ground beneath their feet. Its stability is presupposed. As the ground is perpetually motionless, architects in such countries design spacious buildings with huge internal spans supported by relatively slender beams and pillars, erect buildings made of brick, and install stone statues on tall columns or ledges far above pedestrian walkways. Yet to take such actions in a country where eleven percent of the world’s seismic energy is released each year would have disastrous consequences.

The archipelago known as Japan is perched upon three separate crustal plates. In 2011, one section of the intersection of the Okhotsk Plate with the Pacific Plate, parallel to the north-east coast of Japan, was the site of the fifth largest earthquake in recorded history.

Roughly 1,500 earthquakes strike Japan every year. As I write this there have been three strong enough to rock my apartment building in just the last week. A hot spring area to the south of Tōkyō, near Mt Fuji, is currently closed off due to underground activity causing steam to shoot from the ground (this much seismic activity in close succession is rare).

This book tells the tale of two earthquakes, both located in Japan. The first section of this book examines the consequences of the 2011 earthquake, a colossal seismic shift that caused not only very widespread tsunami damage and nearly 2,000 deaths but also the destruction of four nuclear reactors. At a likely cost of at least $500 billion, this constitutes the most expensive natural disaster in world history. As a result of the meltdowns at Fukushima there has been a decisive turn away from nuclear energy usage in Europe, and a decline in planned future nuclear power construction in the United States.

Japan’s densely crowded capital has not been struck by a large quake since 1923, yet they usually occur every 60 to 70 years. The next one is imminent.

These two quakes will have major consequences, not just locally but also internationally. Most economic, and all bureaucratic and political power, is concentrated in one small area at the head of Tōkyō Bay. The fact that it is concentrated in the same small sector of the city where Global 500 and other major companies have their headquarters, and the fact that a little over one third of Japan's imports and exports are routed through Tōkyō Bay, means that a large quake anywhere near the Tōkyō/Yokohama metropolis will have acute consequences, not just for Japan, but worldwide.

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Chapter One

Cultural themes that relate to the 2011 earthquake and its aftermath

The earthquake that occurred on the afternoon of March 11, 2011 was the fifth largest in recorded world history. In its aftermath, there were many aspects of Japanese authorities’ behaviour that were puzzling to foreign observers:

Why was a country so highly organised so unprepared for a tsunami striking its nuclear power stations?

Why was Tōkyō Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Japan's main power company, so inept, particularly in the first months of the disaster?

Why did both the government and TEPCO understate and lie about radiation releases and the danger they posed?

Why did it take sustained foreign pressure before the authorities belatedly revealed how critical conditions had become at the stricken reactors?

Why was the relevant authorities’ decision-making so slow?

Why was there no looting or other crime along hundreds of kilometres of coast struck by the tsunami?

In relation to Tōkyō's exalted position as centre of all political and economic power, why is it so concentrated in one small area north-west of Tōkyō Bay?

These and other questions can be reasonably well answered by examining patterns in Japan’s society and culture. For that reason, the first two chapters of this book will describe some of the main political and cultural themes that have a bearing on Japan's nuclear and construction industries, and their relation to the period that followed March 2011.

Insider identity and the group

The aspect of Japan most alien to Western expectation is probably the dominant position given to group priorities. Japanese social patterns overwhelming prioritise relationships and relegate, if not minimise, the importance of the individual.

The Japanese tend to categorise self and society in terms of uchi and soto – inside and outside, though the meaning is more wide-ranging, subtle and complex than Westerners might initially think. Uchi includes the home, family and relatives, students from the same year of graduation from school and college, colleagues from work, and of course one's company. Soto is basically all that is external, separate, and unrelated to uchi. Along with the related omote and ura pairing – roughly translated as in front/surface appearance and at the back/those elements kept hidden from outsiders – uchi and soto constitute one of the most important organisational and social concepts in Japanese society.

Also important is the honne and tatemae pairing. Honne refers to a person's true feelings and desires. These are often at odds with what is expected in everyday life, and so are often kept hidden from all but closest friends and one's spouse. The conflict between the two forms the central theme of many kabuki plays: individual desires versus behaviour expected by society.¹

The uchi/soto concept is so integral to everyday Japanese life that is usually lies well below consciousness. Rather than an individual self, uchi can be regarded as the foundation stone of Japanese social identity. From kindergarten onwards, the Japanese are ceaselessly reminded, both overtly and subliminally, of their position in, and responsibilities to, The Group. The Japanese language plays an essential role in reinforcing this group-based prioritisation.

There is a constant awareness of who is ‘in-group’ and who ‘out-group’ and who gave or received. Moreover, if you receive, there is a strong obligation to return in kind. As we shall see, group dynamics,