Based on an essay by Sakurai Yoshiko in the Sankei Shimbun, this article examines how Japan’s energy policy is becoming trapped by decarbonization pressure, the limits of renewable energy, and excessive regulation by the Nuclear Regulation Authority. Through the issue of the shutdown of the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant over specified severe accident response facilities, it questions the need for scientific, rational nuclear policy and the public mission of electric power companies.

2020-01-08
I reported on the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant, and it was a nuclear power plant equipped with what could even be called excessive, world-class safety measures.
For that very reason, I have serious doubts about stopping its operation once again.
The following is from an essay by Sakurai Yoshiko published in the Sankei Shimbun on the 6th under the title “An Energy Policy with No Way Out.”
As I have mentioned many times, she is a “national treasure” of Japan.
It is no exaggeration to say that she is Saichō living in the present age.
Emphasis in the text is mine.
Japan’s energy policy is becoming trapped with no way out.
Last December, the 25th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP25, held in Madrid, Spain, became so radicalized that it made the de facto target the achievement by 2050 of keeping the rise in temperature to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century and reducing carbon dioxide, CO2, emissions to zero.
Through the activism of European countries and China’s strategic backing, decarbonization is becoming the global mainstream.
Under these circumstances, in order to secure an inexpensive and stable supply of electricity that supports the lives of the Japanese people and the nation’s industrial base, there is no choice but to improve renewable energy technology and utilize nuclear power generation.
However, from the posture of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, which is responsible for Japan’s nuclear power generation, and from that of the electric power industry, no future prospect can be seen.
What can be seen from the “specified severe accident response facilities” is the posture of selfish organizations that have abandoned their sense of mission and forgotten how to fight.
In Japan today, nine nuclear reactors have passed the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s “world’s strictest safety standards” and have been restarted, but they are once again on the verge of being forced to shut down.
The cause is delay in the construction of specified severe accident response facilities.
These facilities assume the ultimate case of aircraft terrorism.
Even if the central control room of a nuclear power plant becomes unusable because of a fire caused by an aircraft crash, the facility switches operation to a separately built underground fortress control room, shuts down the reactor, injects water into the core, and prevents leakage of radioactive materials.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority is demanding the construction of an enormous underground fortress unlike anything seen in any other country, with a robust building based on a seismic design even stricter than that for the reactor building itself, and with a huge underground water-source dam capable of supplying water for a long period.
The grace period for constructing specified severe accident response facilities is five years, and in the case of Kyushu Electric Power’s Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture, the deadline for Unit 1 is March of this year, but the construction will not be completed in time.
Kyushu Electric applied in December 2015 to install specified severe accident response facilities for the two Sendai reactors, but since then it has repeatedly made revisions after receiving more than twenty instructions from the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
As a result, the construction became larger in scale than originally planned, the construction costs swelled to several hundred billion yen, and naturally the construction period was also extended.
The fact that the work will not meet the deadline is also the responsibility of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, which made the conditions stricter more than twenty times during the course of construction.
I reported on the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant, and it was a nuclear power plant equipped with what could even be called excessive, world-class safety measures.
For that very reason, I have serious doubts about stopping its operation once again.
The probability of an accident caused by an aircraft collision is one in ten million per reactor per year, equivalent to the probability of a meteorite falling.
The likelihood of occurrence is low, and under the previous nuclear safety standards, specified severe accident response facilities were considered unnecessary.
Toyoshi Fuketa, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, also stated as follows at a press conference on April 24 of last year.
“I do think that Japan’s nuclear facilities are at a very high level. Therefore, I do not think that the absence of specified severe accident response facilities means, as a general matter, that there is a hole in counterterrorism measures.”
Then why stop them?
Fuketa’s judgment is incomprehensible.
The possibility of aircraft terrorism is as low as one in ten million, but let us suppose, on the off chance, that a nuclear power plant is attacked by an aircraft.
If a massive earthquake occurs, airports will also be closed.
If an unidentified aircraft or fighter aircraft approaches, Self-Defense Force aircraft will scramble.
However, what even the Self-Defense Forces would be unable to shoot down would likely be a civilian passenger aircraft carrying hundreds of passengers.
That is precisely why it is important to prevent passenger aircraft from approaching the airspace above nuclear power plants.
Hibako Yoshifumi, who as Chief of Staff of the Ground Self-Defense Force at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake worked to inject water into the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, declared that specified severe accident response facilities cannot be expected to have a deterrent effect, and emphasized that installing aviation obstacles would be far more effective in preventing attacks by passenger aircraft.
“It is not easy to make a passenger aircraft collide pinpoint with a reactor building or containment vessel. The approach angle must be within fifteen degrees relative to the horizontal, and a high degree of skill is required. Aircraft are extremely vulnerable to obstacles in front of them, so the best measure is to install antenna poles or wires along the approach path.”
This could be installed in one month.
However, at the aforementioned press conference, Fuketa stated as follows.
“It is quite difficult to replace the capabilities that specified severe accident response facilities have under their current design with other methods of response.”
Did Fuketa hear the views of security experts?
To make such a categorical statement without listening to them is the height of lack of study.
At the same press conference, he was also asked about the social impact of shutting down as many as nine operating nuclear reactors.
Positioning himself as a “captive of regulation,” he answered as follows.
“We devote ourselves to nuclear safety without being bound by anything. … We consider the safety of facilities with scientific and technological knowledge, without being bound by anything. Taking social circumstances into consideration is, in the first place, not in line with the purpose for which the Nuclear Regulation Authority was established.”
Because he is a “captive of regulation,” he says he will stop nuclear reactors that are considered sufficiently safe.
However, Article 2, Paragraph 2 of the Atomic Energy Basic Act states that ensuring safety shall be carried out “based on established international standards, for the purpose of contributing to the protection of the lives, health, and property of the people, the preservation of the environment, and the security of our country.”
This means that international standards should be followed while also taking into account the social impact of protecting the property of the people.
Is Fuketa an almighty god?
Where is the legitimacy in imposing self-righteous regulation?
While the Nuclear Regulation Authority prolongs safety reviews, electric power companies have had to keep enormous facilities suspended, pay maintenance costs, operate thermal power generation as alternative power sources, and spend money on imports of natural gas and coal.
If nuclear power plants are again shut down over specified severe accident response facilities, further burdens will arise.
All of these costs are added to electricity rates and paid by consumers.
Raising electricity rates, which all people use equally, becomes a heavier burden on the weak.
Precisely because Fuketa and the Nuclear Regulation Authority have strong independence and authority, they have a responsibility to listen humbly to the opinions of operators and experts.
On the other hand, now is the time for electric power companies, especially Kyushu Electric, to fulfill their public mission resolutely.
All electric power companies must think more deeply about the economic burden on the people and regain the pride and spirit of supporting the nation’s economy and industrial foundation.
What are they doing merely shrinking before the unscientific Nuclear Regulation Authority, which is moving toward shutting down nuclear power plants again?
Without raising objections based on science and fighting, they cannot fulfill their responsibility to the public.