Is Nuclear the New Clear?

Of all nations on earth, no one has had a worse experience with the atomic era than has Japan. As the only nation ever attacked with nuclear weapons – the World War II-ending strikes by the United States that decimated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Japan reacted with a new constitutional prohibition: “Since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan has been a staunch upholder of antinuclear sentiments. Its postwar Constitution forbids the establishment of offensive military forces, and in 1967 it adopted the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, ruling out the production, possession, or introduction of nuclear weapons.” Wikipedia. In 1970, it ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.

But with regional powers like Russia, North Korea, China, India and Pakistan clearly possessed of nuclear strike capacity, Japan’s government focused on its own constitutional language – particularly the word “offensive” – and began contemplating deploying tactical (versus the bigger strategic) nuclear weapons for “defensive” purposes. “While there are currently no known plans in Japan to produce nuclear weapons, it has been argued Japan has the technology, raw materials, and the capital to produce nuclear weapons within one year if necessary, and some analysts consider it a de facto nuclear state for this reason. For this reason Japan is often said to be a ‘screwdriver's turn’ away from possessing nuclear weapons.” Wikipedia. With China rising in power and North Korea adding an extensive missile program capable of delivering a strike directly to Japan, the Japanese ambivalence over such weapons continues to shudder through the highest levels of government.

Nuclear power has not exactly fared well in Japan either. While the cost to contain the effects of the 1986 meltdown at the Ukrainian nuclear plant at Chernobyl and massive relocation of hundreds of thousands of regional residents certainly was one of the major contributors to the economic pressures that brought down the Soviet Union, it was only one of two such “level 7” catastrophes. The other, in March of 2011, was the earthquake/tsunami-generated meltdown at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant in coastal northeastern Japan. And while the ultimate release of nuclear contaminants from Fukushima did not reach the level of Chernobyl, the relative impact on the Japanese economy was certainly comparable.

Unlike Russia, which continues to generate nuclear power to this day, Japan reacted by shutting down its fifty nuclear reactors which had supplied 30% of the nation’s electrical power, mandating off-setting power cuts for everything to the garish neon signs in Tokyo to power allocations to larger manufacturing facilities as the nation scrambled to find replacement power: “The government asked major companies to reduce power consumption by 15%, and some shifted their weekends to weekdays to even out power demand.” Wikipedia. Fossil fuels – mostly liquefied natural gas and coal – surged in importance, but blackouts and brownouts have become commonplace, playing hob with an economy already in serious jeopardy.

The government is running out of options: “In a rare personal appeal on national television, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda asked for his nation’s support on [June 8^th] in restarting the first of Japan’s idled nuclear plants, saying that keeping the plants offline could cause blackouts and economic chaos at a time when the country’s struggling economy can least afford it…

“He also cited national security, saying Japan needed nuclear power to avoid relying too heavily on oil and natural gas from the politically volatile Middle East. ‘Cheap and reliable electricity are essential for supporting prosperous and decent livelihoods,’ Mr. Noda said. ‘Japanese society cannot function if we stop or try to do without nuclear power generation.’” New York Times, June 8^th.

Critics say that the previous Prime Minister Naoto Kan simply overreacted to the disaster, effectively generating a policy that threatened to drop Japan’s economy even further into the abyss. But even some of those who favor returning power generation to nuclear facilities are wary, suggesting that the plants only be fired up for the high-use summer season and then returned to idle. Many other Japanese citizens, terrified of their nation’s tumultuous history with things nuclear, raged in protest over the possibility of the return to nuclear power. Noda responded with a pledge of new levels of regulatory policies, stricter enforcement and inspection as well as mandatory upgrades to any reactor put back on line.

Germany also promised to be free of nuclear reactors within eleven years following the Fukushima disaster, and indeed, that country has reduced its nuclear power dependence from about 22% of the total required power to 17% by the end of last year. Still, experts insist that it is very likely that if Germany adheres to this pledge, it will not be able to meet the country’s power requirements through “clean tech” alternatives and will unable to meet environmental standards as it will be forced to return to burning fossil fuel to replace lost nuclear capacity. The United States has not materially altered its nuclear power policies by reason of the Fukushima disaster, although it has stepped up inspections and compliance requirements.

In the end, we have reached a crossroads in the conflict from a world thirsty for more electrical power among the impact of greenhouse gasses from power generation from burning dwindling supplies of fossil fuels, the inability to generate sufficient “green” power through environmentally-friendly sources (not to mention the side effect of causing earthquakes when geothermal power is tapped) and the obvious risks inherent in the use of nuclear reactors, particularly in active fault zones. But in the end, it does seem as if the momentary pause in accelerating nuclear power reactors to meet these nears may soon be over. Let us hope that at least we drastically improve the safety and dependability of this less-than-perfect solution.

I’m Peter Dekom, and at a time when the world needs growth to get us all past this economic meltdown, let’s hope that we don’t experience another kind of meltdown instead.