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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
As discussed in Greene's essay, the belief in the safety of nuclear power has historically been quite strong. Jeff Kingston picks up this idea in his piece, characterizing the faith in absolute safety a “myth” that blinded the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Japanese government to the potential dangers of nuclear power. The story that Kingston tells is about how environmental events in the form of an earthquake and tsunami together with human error caused a disaster with grave environmental and human consequences. He argues that the power of an idea, the inadequate knowledge of politicians, and the vested interests of bureaucrats and businessmen resulted in a lack of attention to environmental risks and shortcomings in emergency procedures. Or to put it more pointedly, TEPCO and government regulators failed for a variety of reasons to take seriously the risks of a tsunami or earthquake and to respond adequately to the dangers of radiation. Kingston's essay also prompts us to remember the privileged position from which historians think and write about the past, with the benefit of hindsight, when convincing ideas have been revealed as myth and human failings have been exposed by catastrophe.
1 I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers, Mark Selden and Rodney Armstrong for their helpful suggestions.
2 Asahi 2/28/2012
3 NHK News 2/28/2012
4 In assessing TEPCO's approach to safety it is important to bear in mind it's track record of cover-ups and falsification of repair and maintenance records. Jeff Kingston, Contemporary Japan. Wiley, 2011. 149-155
5 Jeff Kingston, ‘Ousting Kan Naoto: The Politics of Nuclear Crisis and Renewable Energy in Japan,’ The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 39 No 5, September 26, 2011.
6 The nuclear village includes utilities, vendors, bureaucrats, regulators, politicians, academics and journalists who promote and defend nuclear energy.
7 NHK News 9 Interview 3/8/2012.
8 Charles Perrow (2011) “ Fukushima and the Inevitability of Accidents”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 67(6) 44-52.
9 Daniel Aldrich, Site Fights: Divisive Facilities and Civil Society in Japan and the West, Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY, 2008.
10 Hiroshi ONITSUKA, ‘Hooked on Nuclear Power: Japanese State-Local Relations and the Vicious Cycle of Nuclear Dependence,’ The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 10, Issue 3 No 1, January 16, 2012
11 There was no national anti-nuclear energy movement pre-3/11 and the anti-nuclear bomb activists did not embrace this issue. See Simon Avenell, “From Fearsome Pollution to Fukushima: Environmental Activism and the Nuclear Blind Spot in Contemporary Japan” Environmental History (online Feb 22, 2012; print forthcoming) Environmental History 2012; doi: 10.1093/envhis/emr154
12 Some lower court decisions went against the utilities and/or government, but these were reversed on appeal. Lawrence Repeta, “Could the Meltdown Have Been Avoided?”, in Jeff Kingston (ed), Tsunami: Japan's Post-Fukushima Future. Foreign Policy: Washington, DC, 2011. Pp. 183-194. This ebook is available on the Foreign Policy website or from Amazon, here. For a broader discussion about how the judicial system has been manipulated to protect conservative interests and stifle civic activism see Lawrence Repeta, “Reserved Seats on Japan's Supreme Court”, Washington University Law Review, vol. 88 (2011), 1713-1744.
13 Takagi Jinzaburō, “Kakushisetsu to Hijōjitai: Jishin Taisaku no Kenshō o chūshin ni,” Nihonbutsuri Gakkaishi 50 (1995): 821.
14 Perrow, op. cit., 48.
15 Repeta, op.cit., p. 191
16 ibid.
17 NYT, 4/26/2011
18 Amakudari literally refers to descent from heaven, but in practice means officials securing post-retirement sinecures in the industry they previously supervised in their official capacity. This system, creates a government-wide conflict of interest; officials are loathe to alienate potential future employers by zealous enforcement of regulations and standards.
19 For a summary of Noda's views on nuclear energy see Watanabe Chisaki, Bloomberg 9/5/2011.
20 For a discussion of the new law on decommissioning see Sawa Takamitsu, “Tradeoff in Nuclear Power”, Japan Times, 2/27/2012
21 On the nuclear reactor whistleblower scandal see Jeff Kingston, Contemporary Japan: History, Politics and Social Change Since the 1980s. Wiley 2011, pp. 151-152.
22 This section draws on Jeff Kingston, The Politics of Disaster, Nuclear Crisis and Recovery,” in Jeff Kingston (ed.), Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan: Response and Recovery after Japan's 3/11. Routledge 2012, pp. 188-206.
23 Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio told Kan before he flew to Fukushima that his visit would trigger criticism and Kan responded by asking if it was more important to avoid criticism or try to deal with the crisis. NHK News 2/28/2012
24 When the TEPCO president called the plant manager and insisted on cessation of saltwater pumping, the manager agreed in a loud voice to do so while quietly telling his staff to ignore the order. Funabashi Yoichi presenting findings of the non-government investigation into the Fukushima accident at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan, 3/1/2012.
25 NYT, 6/12/2012
26 Japan Times 2/18/12
27 AP 2/28/2012. The RIJIF report focuses on the fact that the institutions that should have been prepared to manage the crisis—TEPCO, METI, NISA and the NSC-were totally unprepared and thus did not respond effectively. Kan very quickly sensed this vacuum in the crisis response and was trying to compensate for the shortcomings of the responsible institutions. Thus to blame him for meddling seems to overlook the context of inaction and what was at stake if he shied from intervening.
28 Funabashi Yoichi responding to question about the RJIF report at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan 3/1/2012
29 Asahi Shimbun 12/27/2011
30 NHK News 2/28/2012
31 Apparently, former Science Minister Takaki Yoshiaki and other top officials in MEXT, the ministry responsible for SPEEDI, decided on March 15, 2011 to withhold data about the dispersal of radiation from the public. Vice Minister Suzuki Kan argues that releasing information about the spread of radioactive substances would have caused public pandemonium. Japan Times 3/4/2012.
32 Japan Times, 2/27/2012
33 Taira Tomoyuki and Hatoyama Yukio, “Nuclear Energy: Nationalize the Fukushima Daiichi Atomic Plant”, Nature (480) Dec. 14, 2011, pp. 313-314, 15 December 2011.
34 Asahi 1/26/2012
35 AP 2/28/2012
36 NHK News 3/9/2012. AP 3/10/2012
37 AP 2/15/12
38 NYT 2/15/2012; AP 2/16/2012, Bloomberg 2/16/2012
39 Japan Times 2/16/2012
40 Indeed, the RJIF report on the Fukushima accident pointed out that as they flew to inspect the Fukushima plant on March 12, 2011, Madarame responded to PM Kan's query by assuring him that hydrogen explosions at the plant would not occur. Later that afternoon the first of three hydrogen explosions happened, destroying trust between Kan and his advisor. Madarame told the committee that later he found himself unable to acknowledge that it was a hydrogen explosion because he had previously told Kan that such a scenario was impossible. NHK News 2/28/2012.
41 Mainichi 2/21/2012
42 Jeff Kingston, “The Politics of Disaster, Nuclear Crisis and Recovery”, in Jeff Kingston (ed.), Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan: Response and Recovery after Japan's 3/11. Routledge 2012, pp. 194-96.
43 Wall Street Journal 3/2/2012. Stage two tests are supposed to assess whether utilities are better able to cope with any new accident, but will not be completed before the end of 2012 at earliest. It is not clear what will be tested and how safety will be measured in the second stage of stress tests.
44 Personal communication, Nils Horner, Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, 2/25/2012
45 NHK News 3/8/12
46 AP 3/12/2012
47 For more on compensation issues see David McNeill, ‘Crippled Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant at One Year: Back in the Disaster Zone,’ The Asia Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 9, No 4, February 27, 2012.
48 Reuters 3/3/12
49 Interview NHK News 9, 3/9/2012.
50 Yoichi Funabashi presenting findings of the RJIF investigation at the Foreign Correspondent's Club Japan, 3/1/2012.
51 Nicola Liscutin, ‘Indignez-Vous! ‘Fukushima,’ New Media and Anti-Nuclear Activism in Japan,’ The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 47 No 1, November 21, 2011; Satoko Oka Norimatsu, ‘Fukushima and Okinawa - the “Abandoned People,” and Civic Empowerment,’ The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 47 No 3, November 21, 2011
52 The number of referenda has been increasing since the 1970s because citizens believe that it is an important method for expressing their views on important policy issues and it is a way for local governments to challenge national policies imposed by the central government. Numata Chieko, “Checking the Center: Popular Referenda in Japan”, Social Science Japan Journal, vol 9, (1) April 2006, pp. 19-31.
53 For an assessment of the prospects of renewable energy see Andrew DeWit, ‘Fallout From the Fukushima Shock: Japan's Emerging Energy Policy,’ The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 45 No 5, November 7, 2011.
54 NHK News 2/28/2012. Asahi 3/10/2012. The Farm Ministry and local governments ban farming in 1/8 of Fukushima's paddies, including the no-entry zone in a 20 km radius around Fukushima Daiichi, but guidelines issued on February 28, 2012 allows rice cultivation in other areas where contamination levels exceed official standards. Municipal governments are supposed to monitor rice cultivation from planting to harvesting and inspect all bags of rice to ensure they don't exceed the new maximum 100 becquerel cesium standard before distribution. The Farm Ministry requires that local authorities submit rice inspection plans by June, but this will be after the planting and such capacity does not currently exist.
55 Interview with Yoichi Funabashi, Chairman of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, Asahi 2/29/2012. Remarks by Kitazawa Koichi, former chairman of the Japan Science and Technology Agency, at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan, 3/1/2012. Kitazawa explained that it was sheer luck that the hydrogen explosion pushed water into the spent fuel rod storage pool at reactor 4; this was not a fail-safe mechanism.
56 Asahi 3/8/2012.
57 Masa Takubo, “Nuclear or Not? The Complex and Uncertain Politics of Japan's Post-Fukushima Energy Policy”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 67(5) 2011, 19-26. For recent further details on Rokkasho see Reuters 2/ 24,/2012.
58 Mainichi 2/29/2012
59 Special Report on Nuclear Energy, The Economist March 10, 2012. Quote from leader on p. 15.
60 With no sense of irony about the wrecked lives and huge costs piling up in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, nuclear advocates slyly remind us that windmills kill birds.
61 Special Report on Nuclear Energy, The Economist March 10, 2012, p. 11.
62 Ibid., p. 12
63 Kitazawa remarks drawing on RJIF non-government investigation report on the Fukushima accident at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club Japan, 3/1/2012.
64 Matthew Penney, Nuclear Power and Shifts in Japanese Public Opinion, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Feb. 13, 2012.
65 Earthquake damage is reported by Jake Adelstein and David McNeill, “Meltdown: What Really Happened at Fukushima?” Atlantic Wire, July 2, 2011. Accessed Dec. 12, 2011. here
66 Japan Times, 2/28/2012; Wall Street Journal (Asia) 2/29/2012
67 AP 2/28/2012
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