Junichi Sato: The Fukushima deterrent

[kristopher]

Junichi Sato: The Fukushima deterrent
India and Japan should introduce strict supplier liability and realise that no amount of preparedness is enough to handle a nuclear disaster
January 23, 2014

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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.

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More at http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/junichi-sato-the-fukushima-deterrent-114012301271_1.html

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

[djean111]

1. The sad thing is there will be no deterrent.

Here in the U.S., the taxpayers will be expected to pick up the tab for accidents before a nuclear plant is even built, and there will be legislation exempting nuclear plant builders and owners and investors from any liability - willingly passed by Congress and signed into law with a flourish.
The only thing that matters is the huge pot of money that is generated.

[kristopher]

2. I don't know...

True about the US , but in Japan the members of the LDP (which is the ruling party) are right now in open revolt against the nuclear policy being pressed by the nuclear village through the party's leadership.