Beyond Fukushima: Toward a Post-Nuclear Society

By Koichi Hasegawa and Minako Sato

''It finally dawned on us. The government was unreliable. Politicians and bureaucrats were unreliable. The media were untrustworthy. The brutal reality hit us that we had to protect ourselves...otherwise bury our heads in the sand or give up altogether.'' *** Written in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Japan and the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Koichi Hasegawa's Beyond Fukushima presents a compelling account of the events of 3/11 against the backdrop of the history and geopolitics of the nuclear industry worldwide. The book begins with the nuclear accident and its immediate impact on Japan, and then expands to form a critical analysis of the global nuclear power industry, providing a framework through which to explain Japan's continued reliance on nuclear power despite widespread public concern. Hasegawa's analysis is convincing. He argues passionately for de-nuclearization and is highly critical of the Japanese government for failing to phase out nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima accident. In the final chapter of the book, Hasegawa outlines steps toward a post-nuclear society, arguing strongly that this transformation must be made to avoid further catastrophe. *** Choice Magazine Editors' Top 75 Community College Resources for July 2016 *** "With a sociological research background in public movement critiques of nuclear power dating back to 1988, the author is in the unique position of being able to present wide-ranging, up-to-date, pertinent data gathered over several decades. Hasegawa very effectively documents the multiple problems associated with the nuclear power industry in Japan in a global context. Highly recommended." -- Choice, Vol. 53, No. 10, July 2016 *** "...a scathing indictment of bureaucratic incompetence and the risks of nuclear power. Detailed, critical, and persuasive, 'Beyond Fukushima' is a 'must-have' for college library social issues and world history collections." -- Midwest Book Review, Library Bookwatch: March 2016, The Social Issues Shelf (Series: Japanese Society) [Subject: Energy Studies, Japanese Studies, Asian Studies, Politics]

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trans Pacific Press
• Release date: Jan 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781925608304

Book preview

Preface to the English Edition

I was alone in my study on the second floor of my home in Sendai when I experienced the great quake of 11 March 2011 at 14:46 JST. It was the longest six minutes of my life; like nothing I had ever experienced before. I was shaken by fear: will the house collapse? Will I be crushed by falling books? Will I be able to escape if I become buried under these books? Books and files fell from their shelves until they formed a pile about one metre high. My wife and son returned home before evening, and thankfully everyone was safe.

In Sendai, where I live, the population was 1.05 million at the time of the quake. Of this, 946 people from the coastal areas lost their lives. From the whole of Miyagi Prefecture, which includes Sendai City, over 10,000 people were killed. Miyagi was the region that suffered the most casualties from the Great East Japan Earthquake.

There is no aspect of this event more shocking and sad than the fact that over 10,000 people from my own prefecture lost their lives and nearly 1,000 people from my own city were killed.

When I visited the disaster zone immediately after the earthquake, fragments of people’s lives, such as photos, children’s school bags, cutlery and futon bedding, were strewn about by the tsunami in a raw manner. Up-ended bicycles, cars, blackened and burnt refrigerators, TVs stuck in mud, boats which had been swept into the streets; it was extremely chaotic, the kind of devastation you would expect in a war zone. I thought about how everyday life, which had continued up until the earthquake and the tsunami which followed, had been suddenly broken and plunged into darkness. Normal emotions, family discussions, chatting at work – I stood frozen as I thought of how these always seemed to be endless facts of life, and how I never doubted these simple joys, until all was swept away and lost.

There was a blackout immediately after the earthquake, and we could only rely on the radio and newspapers for updates, so it was not until the following afternoon on 12 March when we first heard about the severe accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station as a result of the failed cooling system. I was shocked to learn that it had really happened. My first thoughts were defined by a sense of powerlessness. Since 1988 I had been studying the issue of nuclear energy from a sociological point of view, and in 1999 I had written a paper which contained the phrase ‘Must we wait for another Chernobyl in order for there to be a rise in movements critical of nuclear power?’ Even in the previous year, at the ISA World Congress of Sociology on 17 July 2010, I had asked ‘when will you face another Chernobyl accident in some place?’ in a research report I presented in English, titled ‘A Comparative Study of Social Movements for a Post-Nuclear Energy Era in Japan and the U.S.’ I had issued these warnings several times, and yet, my efforts weren’t enough. My research was powerless to prevent the Fukushima accident. This was the root of my feelings of hopelessness in the face of such an outcome.

Even now, four years after the earthquake disaster, if you were to ask anyone from Sendai or Miyagi about how they experienced the disaster on 11 March, and how they survived in the immediate days after, they will reply with raw and feverish accounts of their experiences. We share this lucky feeling of having ‘survived the earthquake’. As survivors, we collectively sense that we must do something to help with the recovery and restoration process following the earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster. Even amongst students’ graduation theses, many proficient masterpieces have been submitted on the topic of the disaster.

What can I do, what should I do? One of my answers to these questions was to write the Japanese edition of this book, ‘Toward a Post-Nuclear Society – Making Electricity Green’. Using the accumulation of over ten years of research, I was able to write it in two months, from late May 2011, to late July 2011.

For a long time in Japan, the issue of energy was discussed only from the perspective of volume sufficiency, of how to ensure that supply meets the growing demand for electricity. However, our energy choices are in fact matters of social choice and social design, in the sense that they affect what kind of future and society we choose to live in. Before the Fukushima nuclear disaster, there was limited input from sociologists and political scientists in relation to the issues of energy and nuclear power. Now, however, we need analysis and advice from a sociological perspective more then ever.

What social issues does nuclear power generation involve? In a period of seismic activity, in a reality where large earthquakes could occur at any time, anywhere on the Japanese archipelago, how should we address the issue of power supply? As survivors of the great earthquake, as witnesses to the disaster, what forms of energy should we choose? How should we ensure a relatively low-cost and stable power supply without increasing our greenhouse gas emissions? This book is my answer to these questions, from a sociologist’s perspective.

This book is the augmented English edition of ‘Toward a Post-Nuclear Society’ (2011 Iwanami Shoten Publishers). I added a fifth chapter in order to update and address the government’s actions surrounding the issue of nuclear power and also the social responses which have occurred since the original publication. Also, in regards to Chapters One to Four, I have updated the data and added notes in order to cover, as much as possible, the changes that have occurred up until late August 2015.

I would like to dedicate this book to the late Professor Harutoshi Funabashi, who passed away on 15 August 2014, at the age of sixty-six. I first met Professor Funabashi in 1976, during my fourth year of university. I have collaborated in over thirty years of joint research with Professor Funabashi, covering issues such as shinkansen noise pollution and nuclear power. He has been my greatest mentor.

Many Japanese sociologists have dedicated themselves to studying the issues surrounding the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but the one who had demonstrated the greatest leadership and devoted the most energy was Professor Funabashi. Professor Funabashi’s sudden passing was the result of a subarachnoid hemorrhage, caused by overwork. Many people are mourning his untimely and sudden death. In a way, Professor Funabashi is also a victim of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

I was able to publish this English edition thanks to the consideration and warm encouragement of Professor Yoshio Sugimoto, who understood the significance of this publication, as he did for my previous book in 2004, Constructing Civil Society in Japan. I express my deepest gratitude to him. I also would like to express my thanks to translator Minako Sato, and editor Miriam Cath Riley, for their hard work.

In relation to the publication of this book, I would like to acknowledge and express my gratitude that for this book’s translation, review and publication, it has received Grants-in-Aid for the Publication of Scientific Research Results (issue number 266004) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, for the years 2014 and 2015.

Koichi HASEGAWA

July 2015

Atatara no funnunogotoku raimeisu

Thunder from Mt. Atatara

outburst of anger

Chieko’s real sky was taken away

Mt. Atatara is one of the several symbolic and beautiful volcanoes in the Fukushima area. It has also inspired many poems including the following exerpt written by Kotaro Takamura in 1928. This poem focuses on his wife, Chieko, an artist, and her love for her hometown neighboring Mt. Atatara:

Chieko says there’s no sky in Tokyo,

…

Chieko looks far off –

Every day there’s a blue sky

High above Mount Atatara,

That’s what I call the real sky, she says.

She’s like a child when she talks about the sky.

(translated by Paul Archer)

1 Why Nuclear Power Generation Persists

Lessons from the Fukushima nuclear disaster

Hydrogen explosions unleash another ‘tsunami’

The hydrogen explosion in Unit No.1 at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station blew up more than its reactor building. A naive and vague sense of trust that the majority of Japanese people had invested in the central government, giant electricity companies, the nuclear power generation system and so on was also vaporized.

The realization emerged that Japan’s nuclear technology was built on very shaky foundations. Executives and technical staff at Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the world’s largest privately owned utility company, appeared helpless in the face of disaster. The prime minister as the nation’s leader fell behind at every step. Politicians plotted their return to power by taking advantage of the crisis, and opposition parties offered nothing but irresponsible criticism. The power game was played out in Nagata-chō (Japan’s political center), using the stricken region of Fukushima as a pawn. The press, TV, experts and so on did little but repeat optimistic and delusional perspectives.

Why didn’t the prime minister’s office, the Diet and Kasumigaseki (the bureaucracy) broadcast a strong message that the protection of the people, the children of Fukushima, from radiation exposure should be given the highest priority?

It finally dawned on us. The government was unreliable. Politicians and bureaucrats were unreliable. The media was untrustworthy. The brutal reality hit us that we had to protect ourselves, and parents had to protect their own children, otherwise bury our heads in the sand and give up altogether.

We were suddenly dumped into a situation where we could trust nothing and rely on no one. A hazy world of doubt emerged where we had to question everything as a premise. The fact that radiation and radioactivity cannot be detected by human senses is highly symbolic of this state.

Photo 1.1: Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station after the explosions

14 March 2011: DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-2 satellite image of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The roof and wall panels around the reactor Unit No. 1 have exploded and the containment structure around Unit No. 3 has been badly damaged. Moreover, at this point the water intake facility has been damaged: intakes are damaged; debris are likely clogging intakes; and the fuel oil tanks, which fuel emergency pumping systems, appear to have been damaged. This confirms that the facility’s coolant system is completely unfunctional at the time of image aquisition.

Source: A satellite image taken on 14 March 2011, released by a US research institute. (DigitalGlobe / Getty Images).

The new huge tsunami waves of confusion, paralysis and incompetence rolled on one after another from the prime minister’s office, the Diet, Kasumigaseki and TV stations. The true ‘tsunami’ struck after the hydrogen explosions.

The post-3/11 world

Naive and carefree smiles were wiped off people’s faces on 11 March 2011. This date marked the beginning of a new era in which the whole of Japanese society would have to contend with the reality of radioactive contamination. Is it safe to walk our children to school? Is school lunch safe to eat? Is it safe to let children swim in outdoor pools at school? Families with young children in Fukushima, adjacent eastern prefectures and the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan area confront endless concerns. Are leafy vegetables, tea-leaves, seafood and beef etc., contaminated? It was the start of a new age that saw the population gripped with anxiety about the safety of food and water. Wherever they are, whatever they are doing or eating, they have to be conscious of radiation levels in food and the environment. When they hear a ‘declaration of safety’, they are compelled to question its criteria.

When one of my Korean colleagues returned to Japan in early May after temporary evacuation, the first thing she said to me was, ‘Japanese people have always trusted the government; we Koreans have always been skeptical of what the government tells us’.

Given certain conditions, a perfect storm can happen at any time. The Fukushima situation ushered in a new era that required us to maintain a healthy skepticism and watchfulness based on distrust of the government and suspicion towards the system.

Chernobyl and the fall of the Soviet Union

Chernobyl shed light on many of the sicknesses of our system as a whole. Everything that had built up over the years converged in this drama: the concealing or hushing up of accidents and other bad news, irresponsibility and carelessness, slipshod work, wholesale drunkenness. This was one more convincing argument in favour of radical reforms. (Gorbachev 1996: 193)

These are the words of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last President of the Soviet Union, on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He also states, ‘The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station was graphic evidence, not only of how obsolete our technology was, but also of the failure of the old system’ (Gorbachev 1996: 189).

His assessment appears to be applicable to contemporary Japan, aside from the ‘wholesale drunkenness’ part. In particular, that ‘The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station was graphic evidence… of the failure of the old system’, fills us with horror.

The Chernobyl disaster shocked the then General Secretary Gorbachev greatly and prompted him to accelerate perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness). The nuclear power plant accident occurred on 26 April 1986, shortly after Gorbachev announced the launch of perestroika after just thirteen months as General Secretary. Reminded by this accident of the potential devastation caused by nuclear warfare, Gorbachev proposed diplomatic measures to end the Cold War in quick succession, including a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing and the elimination of all strategic nuclear weapons over ten years.

From the Chernobyl disaster, it was only three and a half years to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and just over five and a half years to the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Chernobyl triggered the rapid acceleration of the breakup of Soviet society beyond the expectations and intent of Gorbachev himself.

The Chernobyl disaster was a remarkable event in world history that marked a major turning point leading to the end of the Cold War in Europe and precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union ‘by literally knocking the country off its tracks’ (Gorbachev 1996: 189). What kind of crossroads would the Fukushima disaster present to Japan and the world?

From a total loss of cooling capabilities to hydrogen explosions

There are many lessons that Japan’s society and political system need to learn from the Fukushima experience.

Although you can read the details of the accident via three English reports (ICANPS 2011; NAIIC 2012; Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Nuclear Accident 2014), let us briefly recapitulate the cause and course of events.

At the time of the earthquake on 11 March, three (Units No. 1 to 3) of the six reactors at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station were in operation, while Units No. 4 to 6 were off line for regular maintenance.

The massive magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Sanriku at 14:46 JST, and Units No. 1 to 3 shut down automatically. Of the three basic safety functions of nuclear reactors – ‘shutting down, cooling and containing’ – the ‘shutting down’ function was duly executed.

However, external power sources to Units No. 1 to 6 were lost when the earthquake destroyed one of the steel transmission towers supplying electricity to the power station. On-site backup diesel generators in the basement started up automatically, but they were submerged by the massive tsunami that inundated the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station about one hour later at around 15:20. At that point, all backup diesel generators to Units No. 1 to 4 stopped working. Consequently, Units No. 1 to 4 suffered a total loss of power supply (station blackout) one after another, aside from their battery-operated water injection function. The tsunami also flooded the reactor turbine buildings containing backup diesel generators, disabled emergency pumps and cut power to the central control rooms, rendering them virtually inoperable. The amount of water injected by the emergency core cooling systems could not be ascertained, and TEPCO notified the central and local governments according to the Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness as it recognized a loss of all cooling capabilities at 16:36. The government declared a state of nuclear emergency at 19:03 and established the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters.

Although Units No. 5 and 6 were also damaged by the tsunami, they escaped with lesser inundation as they were located about three meters higher than Units No. 1 to 4. Unit No. 5 suffered a station blackout at 15:40, but fortunately a backup air-cooled diesel generator for Unit No. 6 was still operable. This power source was used to begin cooling operations about forty-six hours later and Unit No. 5 reached cold shutdown status on 20 March.

The station blackout and subsequent weakening of battery power made emergency water injection and cooling unreliable and led to decreasing water levels in Unit No. 1. Fuel rods that are normally covered by water became exposed. Consequently, the temperature of the fuel rods rose rapidly and chemical reactions between zirconium from the fuel cladding tubes and water produced a large amount of hydrogen.

In the early hours of 12 March, the internal pressure in the containment vessel began to rise due to leakage of hydrogen etc., and the emergency condenser also stopped working at 04:00. A forced pressure release operation called a ‘vent’ was performed at 10:17 in order to lower the pressure within the containment vessel, releasing a large amount of radioactive material into the atmosphere.

At 15:36, a hydrogen explosion inside the reactor building blew up the building. Seawater injection finally commenced at 19:06, almost twenty-nine hours after the earthquake, in order to cool down the reactor.

Shortly after, a similar situation occurred in Unit No. 2 and the fuel rods became exposed. The containment vessel was vented at 11:00 on 13 March and seawater injection commenced at 19:54 on 14 March. An unusual noise emanated from the vicinity of the pressure suppression chamber at 06:10 on 15 March and pressure dropped. It is suspected that a large amount of radioactive material leaked out at this time.

In Unit No. 3, a cooling operation had been performed by the high-pressure core injection system, but the system failed at 02:42 on 13 March and all cooling functions were lost. Pressure rose rapidly in the pressure vessel. The containment vessel was vented at 08:41 and seawater injection commenced at 13:12. At 11:01 on 14 March, a hydrogen explosion in the reactor building destroyed the building.

At 06:14 on 15 March, a loud noise emanated from Unit No. 4, which had been out of operation, and the building sustained damage. A fire broke out inside the Unit No. 4 reactor building at 09:38.

Dealing with highly contaminated water

A water injection and spraying operation began on 17 March using helicopters, water cannon vehicles and fire trucks and as a result a large amount of water containing highly radioactive materials accumulated in the basement of the turbine buildings. In order to deal with the accident, it was imperative to manage the highly contaminated water in the turbine buildings, inspect and repair the cooling systems and restore continuous circulation cooling operations to the reactors and spent fuel pools. The accumulated radioactive water had to be removed from the turbine buildings before inspection and repair could be carried out.

On 2 April, it was discovered that highly contaminated water was leaking into the ocean through cracks near the water intake of Unit No. 2. It was decided that high-level radioactive water should be transferred to a central waste treatment facility in order to stop the outflow of contaminated water. To facilitate this, TEPCO released some low-level radioactive water into the sea on 4 April. The challenging task of managing highly contaminated water continued while water injection to cool the reactors went on, discharging more highly contaminated water.

It appears that cooling water in Unit No. 1 evaporated rapidly over a period of four hours or so following the tsunami due to high levels of heat from nuclear fuel, and the fuel rods became completely exposed by 19:50 on 11 March. A core meltdown started and melted fuel seems to have dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel, creating holes in its floor. It seems that meltdowns occurred in Units No. 2 and 3 in a similar manner and that melted nuclear fuel fell to the bottom of the pressure vessels and damaged the reactor containment vessels. The ‘cool and contain’ functions failed remarkably easily.

In light of the large amount of radioactive materials that had been released into the environment, the Japanese government announced a provisional evaluation of Level 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), which was equivalent to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident (revised upward from the 18 March announcement of Level 5). About 630,000 TBq of radioactive materials were released into the atmosphere from Units No. 1 to 3 alone, more than ten percent of the 5.2 million TBq released in the Chernobyl disaster (in iodine equivalent, estimated by the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan (NSC)).

On 19 July, just over four months after the accident, the government and TEPCO announced that Step 1, targeted stable cooling, had been achieved and that they were aiming for Step 2, the cold shutdown of the reactors, by mid-January 2012¹.

The above are the official accounts provided by TEPCO and the government, but Mitsuhiko Tanaka and others suspect that ‘it is highly likely that cooling materials were lost from the reactor coolant system pipes when the earthquake struck’ before the arrival of the tsunami, at least in the case of Unit No. 1 (Mitsuhiko Tanaka 2011). If it is true that serious damage was caused by seismic motion, the safety of nuclear power plants all over Japan comes into serious question. Are TEPCO and the government concealing earthquake damage to the facilities? It has not been made sufficiently clear as to how much of the damage was caused by the earthquake and how much was the result of the tsunami. There should not be any underestimation in the assessment of the accident itself as well as its impacts and dangers.

An earthquake and nuclear meltdown combined

The Fukushima disaster was a complex nuclear power plant accident caused by the combination of a major earthquake, a massive tsunami and a man-made disaster the likes of which the world had never seen before. The ‘genpatsu-shinsai’ (combined earthquake and nuclear disaster) coined by seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi in 1997 became a reality (Ishibashi 1997).

The second feature of the Fukushima disaster is the fact that four reactor units fell into critical status almost simultaneously, forcing workers to carry out difficult tasks in the presence of high-level radioactivity. Both the Three Mile Island accident and the Chernobyl disaster were single-reactor incidents. In the case of Fukushima, the policy of constructing multiple reactors at one site completely backfired.

Third, stable cooling was finally achieved more than four months after the accident and the targeted cold shutdown is estimated to take a further three to six months. In the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents respectively, the massive release of radioactive materials lasted only six and ten days (although radioactive materials continued to leak for over six months until the so-called ‘sarcophagus’ was completed).

Fourth, a large