Published on July 15, 2019.
This article introduces Tsukasa Jonen’s essay from Sankei Shimbun’s iRONNA, titled “Blackout: The Dark Reality of the Nuclear Taboo Behind ‘Mere Electricity.’”
Through the loss of economic added value caused by the Hokkaido blackout, the effects of power saving, comparison with the safety-measure costs for restarting the Tomari Nuclear Power Plant, and the impact on dialysis and ICU patients, it discusses the importance of stable electricity supply and the problem of treating nuclear power as a taboo.

July 15, 2019.
I hear there was a musician who mocked it as “mere electricity,” but I would very much like him to look at this amount of loss and think carefully.
A friend of mine who is an avid reader asked me this morning whether I had read the Sankei Shimbun’s iRONNA article, saying that an essay responding to what I have been mentioning for the past several days had been published.
It is an essay by Tsukasa Jonen titled “Blackout: The Dark Reality of the Nuclear Taboo Behind ‘Mere Electricity.’”
The emphases in the text, apart from the headings, are mine.
This blackout occurred because the Tomato-Atsuma Thermal Power Station, which had accounted for about half of Hokkaido’s total electricity demand, stopped due to the earthquake.
Leaving the technical issues to the experts, I would like to consider the economic added value lost because of the power outage.
First, please look at the following estimate by the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry.
“According to the input-output table（2005, national version 4）, the amount of electricity input into production activities as intermediate input accounts for about 2.3 percent of GDP, and taking its reciprocal gives about 44.
If one considers that, in the short term, electricity cannot be substituted, one can say that economic activity, on the premise of an input of 1 in electricity cost, produces 44 times that amount in added value”（“Overview of the Cost Curve for Supply-Demand Measures,” Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Socio-economic Research Center, Takeo Imanaka）.
“79.1 billion yen” per day.
Now, let us apply this figure of 44 times to the blackout that occurred this time within the service area of Hokkaido Electric Power.
The power-generation costs of the damaged Hokkaido Electric Power are written in the departmental income-and-expenditure statement（April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018）.
According to this, the total cost of the electricity business was 656.4 billion yen.
Dividing this by 365 days, one finds that the daily power-generation cost was 1.79 billion yen.
The 79.1 billion yen obtained by multiplying this by 44 is the economic added value obtained by consuming one day’s electricity cost.
In this case, the blackout lasted about two days, so the loss of economic added value for that portion is estimated at 158.2 billion yen.
This is the economic added value already lost up to this point.
However, the losses do not stop there.
It is also necessary to estimate the negative economic effects caused by the electricity shortage that will continue from now on.
Incidentally, there was the following estimate concerning the economic losses associated with the planned blackouts after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
“According to an estimate by Nobuyuki Saji, chief economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities, based on certain assumptions, if the target areas in one metropolitan district and eight prefectures（Tokyo, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Yamanashi, and part of Shizuoka）continued three-hour power outages until the end of April, 5.4 trillion yen, or 1.04 percent of one year’s GDP, would be lost”（Reuters）.
Roughly comparing prefectural production amounts, the area affected this time is about one-tenth the size of the area affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake.
If this is simply applied, then if planned blackouts had been carried out for the same length of time as during the Great East Japan Earthquake, the loss would probably have been around 500 billion yen annually.
This time, it was a blessing amid misfortune that planned blackouts were not implemented.
However, the economic added value lost because of the 20 percent power saving carried out in response to the government’s request is 110.7 billion yen per week.
Whether it will end with only this much remains uncertain.
Great inconvenience to patients.
When the losses associated with the power outages estimated up to this point are added together, the cumulative loss comes to at least 270 billion yen.
This is only an estimate, but the economic loss associated with a power outage becomes this enormous a figure.
I hear there was a musician who mocked it as “mere electricity,” but I would very much like him to look at this amount of loss and think carefully.
Incidentally, Hokkaido Electric Power’s budget for safety measures aimed at restarting the Tomari Nuclear Power Plant is about 200 to 250 billion yen.
Compared with this amount of loss, is that not inexpensive?
I hear that, because all power sources stopped this time, great inconvenience was caused to people receiving dialysis and to people being treated in intensive care units（ICUs）.
We should recognize once again that loss of power is a matter involving human life, and nothing will begin if we simply treat nuclear power as a taboo and avoid discussion.
I think the time has come to discuss earthquake countermeasures for the Tomari Nuclear Power Plant concretely and to consider a safe restart.