Japan and Nuclear Energy “Should Japan continue to use nuclear energy, and if so, to what extent, and when?”
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Japan and
Nuclear
Energy
“Should Japan continue to use nuclear
energy, and if so, to what extent, and
when?”
SHOYA
• Disadvantages of Nuclear Power:o Economic
o Environmental
o Food
o Health
o Political
o Personal
o Community
Economic insecurity• Construction cost
o Expected to be between$6billion to $9billion for 1100MW plant
• What is costing so much?
o Land, Cooling towers and other facilities to run Nuclear
o Interest rate is high (almost double the price)
• Maintenance cost
o expected to be 1,200,000,000,000 yen for 9 nuclear power plants in Japan
o Labor costs and cost of equipment
Environmental insecurity
• Radioactive waste can damage the environment
• Low-level waste, Intermediate-level waste are 97%
• High-level waste (3%) but 12,000 tonnes world wide
• Takes 100,000 years to be non harmful
Food insecurity• After the Fukushima incident,
price of the vegetable went low
o Chiba, Ibaraki, Gunma, Fukushima, Tochigi
• Compared with 2010, which was a bad harvest, 2011 had the same amount of vegetable being able to sell
o Chiba:14% Ibaraki:39% Gunma:17% Fukushima:18% Tochigi: 24%
Health insecurity• Stochastic health effects
o Causing cancer in a long run
o Causing mutation
Teratogenic and genetic
• Non stochastic health effects
o Acute, immediate response in body
Skin burn, nausea, hair loss, dysfunction of organs, and death
• Children are more likely to be harmed
o More cell movements for radiation to interrupt
• Mental Health and stress
o The younger the child is, the more sensitive to stress
o Anxiety and irritation
Political insecurity
• After Fukushima incident, policy making was important
• Government was expected to make a quick response to repair the accident
• Government was pressured to create a good policy
Personal insecurity• As long as there is a nuclear power
plant, it is a threat for the citizens
• After the incident in Japan, many people cannot go back to their home
• People who work in Fukushima nuclear plant is in personal risk
Community insecurity
• Community also broke after the Fukushima incident
• Evacuation
oCannot start their business again
o In some area, people cannot enter
o It is hard to create a new community in the temporary housing
Chernobyl Disaster
• Nuclear power plant accident on April 26, 1986 in the Ukraine
• Explosion of the core reactor during a planned power reduction
• Scattering of radioactive materials led to the graphite moderator catching fire
Radiation
• Radioactive materials spread to the western Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
• The Ukraine, Belarus, Russia were most contaminated
• High radioactivity level
o 350,000 people to be evacuated to other locations
Contamination
• The smoke from the explosion contained radioactive materials
• Particles in the atmosphere rose up the clouds
o Black Rain
• High Iodine, Cesium, Strontium levels in surrounding regions of water
Thyroid Cancer
• 31 firemen and rescue workers of the disaster passed away due to radiation exposure
• Post-disaster: 6000 children and adolescents developed thyroid cancer
• 4000 out of 5 million in contaminated regions have already died from thyroid cancer
Deformities
• Farmers in the Ukraine have claimed that 350 animals were born with deformities
o Extra limbs, missing body parts and bones, deformed skulls
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster
• After the Tohoku earthquake on March 11, 2011, the following tsunami hit the nuclear power plant
• The core reactor shutdown, but the cooling system failed
→ meltdown of three reactors
• Fixed radiation zones
→ 156,000 people displaced
Food and Health • World Health Organization estimated:
o Population of Fukushima prefecture have a higher risk of developing cancer
o Girls exposed as infants have 70% higher chance of thyroid cancer
• Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare:
o High radioactivity in milk and vegetables
• Iinternational Atomic Energy Agency:
o Tokyo’s drinking water exceeded safe level
Clean Up Process• Power plant is leaking radioactive water into the
Pacific Ocean
o Prime Minister Abe orders the government to step in
• Leakage of 300 tons of contaminated water
o Emergency measure to prevent further leaks
• Decontamination process: building chemical underground walls
o Can take decades and be costly
Cost of Disaster
• August 2013 estimate: Japan will need $58.1 billion
• The government only has $10 billion
• Chernobyl and Fukushima case studies show strong influences in:
oEnvironmental Security: Black rain and leakage
oHealth Security: Cancer and Deformities
o Food Security: Contaminated and uneidble
o Personal Security: displacement
oEconomic Security: expensive decontamination
2010 2011 2012 20130%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
28.6
10.71.7 1
25
25
27.6 30.3
29.3
39.542.5
43.2
7.514.4 18.3 14.9
8.5 9 8.4 8.5
1.1 1.4 1.6 2.2
The Ratio of Power Generation
Geothermal & etc.HydroelectricityPetroleum & etc.LNGCoalNuclear energy
• By shutting down reactors:o Increase in
undersupply by strongly relying on thermal power generation
o Causing a great increase in CO2 emission
o Losing an important “baseload electricity source”
Innovative Energy &
Environmental Strategy
• Aiming for 0 nuclear reactors in 2030
• “This innovation not only substitutes nuclear reactors to renewable energies, but also constructs a new structure that every single citizens becomes discrete power plant stations instead of passive consumers of electricity”o Diffusion of solar
power and storage battery to ordinary households
• Issue #1: Unavoidable strong dependence on ME
• Issue #2: Preparation of additional facilities for renewable energy
2030
2010
0% 10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
26
12
8
23
2
21
24
38
29
6
10 Nuclear energy
Hydroelectric-ity
Renewable energy
Coal
LNG
Petroleum
Geothermal Power Generation
• Plenty of resources; the 3rd biggest resource in the worldoNot used frequently: standing 8th in the
world in regard to the installed capacityoCovers only 0.3% of total electric energy
in JapanoResearch has been stagnated since
2003 until 3.11
Conclusion• Nuclear power plant violates all 7 insecurities directly and
interrelatedly to extreme points, if there is no nuclear plants, we can finally be free from fear and threat.
• These case studies of Chernobyl and Fukushima indicate the negative influences of the use of nuclear energy. They threaten the human security in various aspects; therefore, it would be dangerous for Japan to continue it's use.
• In order to free Japan from fear and threat, it is necessary to discover a possible baseload electricity source, replacing from nuclear power to alternative energies such as geothermal power, in practical timescale.
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