http://www.businessinsider.com/r-japan-court-battles-could-delay-nuclear-restarts-further-2015-3
Japan court battles could delay nuclear restarts further
By Mari Saito and Kentaro Hamada, Reuters
Mar. 4, 2015, 4:03 PM
TOKYO (Reuters) - The fight over restarting Japan's nuclear industry is
moving to the courts, where power companies face the risk of further
delays in firing up idled reactors if judges side with local residents
worried about nuclear safety.
Four reactors owned by two utilities cleared regulatory safety checks in
recent months, potentially soon ending more than a year without atomic
power in Japan, the first such spell in the four decades the nation has
been using nuclear energy.
And while ruling politicians and Japan's bureaucracy are pushing the
restarts, the judiciary - which typically sided with power companies
before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster - may be shifting its attitude.
Judges are now considering injunctions that could halt the restarts and
indefinitely extend the countrywide shutdown of Japan's 48 reactors that
followed Fukushima, posing a threat to power companies already surviving
on government support.
"Japan's courts have always been hesitant to properly check the state
and its legislative process," but the shift in public opinion against
nuclear power may have turned some judges in favor of residents, said
Hiroshi Segi, a former judge turned critic of Japan's judicial system.
The court decisions, which might come this month - four years after the
earthquake and tsunami that knocked out the Fukushima reactors - could
mean months, even years of delays and hundreds of millions of dollars in
losses for Kansai Electric Power and Kyushu Electric Power.
Japanese were shocked when Tokyo Electric Power repeatedly mishandled
and misreported the Fukushima meltdowns and explosions that have forced
a decontamination and decommissioning that will take up to 30 years and
cost billions of dollars. National opposition to restarts remains about
two-to-one over support, polls have consistently shown.
"Now that we are drawing closer to restarts, there is no other entity
but the judiciary to realistically stop it," said Yuichi Kaido, a lawyer
involved in the cases to stop the restarts of nuclear plants at Sendai
and Takahama and who has been battling utilities in court for three decades.
The plaintiffs contend the utilities are underestimating the earthquake
risks at Sendai and Takahama and not meeting tougher post-Fukushima
standards. Residents also say the government has not set credible
evacuation plans in case of a nuclear accident.
Kaido's team of anti-nuclear lawyers are planning to seek injunctions on
every plant that wins regulatory approval.
"Judges must know that their decision could stop the next nuclear
accident," Kaido said.
Ten utilities have so far submitted reactors at 13 nuclear facilities
nationwide for restart. Electric Power Development Co, or J-Power, is
also seeking approval for its Ohma plant now under construction.
EXPENSIVE DELAYS
The costs of halting the restarts are high. Every day the Sendai
reactors sit idle costs Kyushu Electric more than $4.6 million, the
operator estimates.
Kansai and Kyushu Electric, the utilities most-reliant on nuclear power
before Fukushima, have amassed more than $10 billion combined in losses
in the past four years.
Both are also on track for their fourth straight year of losses, Kyushu
Electric even after receiving a government bailout in 2014. Kansai said
last year that its corporate survival was at risk.
Halting restarts would also further complicate Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe's plan to reduce imports of more expensive thermal fuels by
reinstating nuclear power, which previously supplied nearly a third of
Japan's energy.
Abe's government wants the first restarts, of Kyushu Electric's Sendai
reactors in southern Japan, by around June, people familiar with the
matter said last month. The industry had initially hoped the first
reactors would be back online by last summer.
With judges appearing more sympathetic to anti nuclear activists,
though, the utilities face tougher prospects before the judiciary.
DIM PROSPECTS
The lead judge in the Takahama case, Hideaki Higuchi, ruled against
restarting Kansai Electric's Ohi plant in May last year, a rare victory
for activists.
"I think residents could win the (Takahama) shutdown in Fukui District
Court," said Akihiro Sawa, a former official with the Ministry of
Economy Trade and Industry, which oversees electric power companies.
Sawa, now a research director at the 21st Century Public Policy
Institute, affiliated with Japan's biggest business lobby, said he has
been warning utility executives to take the lawsuits seriously.
A Kansai Electric representative said the company will continue telling
the court its plant is safe. Still, "Kansai Electric believes there is a
significant possibility that they will lose," said a person familiar
with the utility's thinking.
Kyushu Electric has asked the court to dismiss the injunction request
against its restart at Sendai, saying it has taken additional safety
precautions after Fukushima and that there is no danger of an accident
that would release large amounts of radiation.
In the Ohi decision last May, the Fukui court judge said protecting
residents' health from a potential nuclear accident was more important
than any financial gains the country may get from restarting stalled plants.
"I am hopeful that the Sendai judge will feel the same," Kaido said.
(Editing by William Mallard and Tom Hogue)
======================================================================
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/3/fukushima-victims-speak-will-anyone-listen.html
[links in on-line article]
Fukushima victims speak. Will anyone listen?
Four years later, Japanese police and prosecutors have yet to conduct a
thorough investigation
March 11, 2015 2:00AM ET
by Trisha Pritikin
On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of
northeastern Japan triggered a tsunami that led to the meltdown of three
nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. While immediate
health consequences are yet to be determined, more than 159,000 people
were evicted from areas deemed too radioactive for human habitation. The
World Health Organization has warned about “increased risk of certain
cancers” for people in the most contaminated areas.
In the U.S. the disaster led to the creation of a federal task force and
new safety and security standards at nuclear plants. On the fourth
anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, Americans may be surprised to
learn that no one in Japan has been held accountable. In fact, Japanese
police and prosecutors have yet to conduct a thorough investigation.
The Fukushima victims are demanding criminal prosecution of the Tokyo
Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and relevant government officials for
criminal negligence for not safeguarding the reactors and the often
catastrophic mishandling and misinformation during and after the disaster.
The innocent people whose lives were devastated by an arguably
preventable nuclear disaster believe a successful investigation and
prosecution will result in more stringent regulations, more cautious and
responsible corporations and ultimately the protection of future
generations. All this is crucial. But a public accounting of the tragedy
is just as urgent not only to Fukushima victims but also to the
disenfranchised victims of radiation exposure around the world.
Seeking accountability
I feel a personal connection to the downwind victims of Fukushima. I,
too, have felt disempowered and invisible, longing to see those
responsible for my radiation-induced health damage to finally be brought
to justice. Just as Fukushima’s children could have been protected from
thyroid cancer, thousands of people, including me, were exposed to
radiation discharged decades ago from the (still leaking) Hanford
nuclear weapon production facility near my childhood home in Richland,
Washington. As in Richland, the children of Fukushima were not given
potassium iodide tablets to block the uptake by our developing thyroid
glands of radioiodine in contaminated milk and food — a simple
protective measure understood since the dawn of the atomic age. Both
Hanford and Fukushima communities put their trust in authorities who
violated that trust and put their lives in danger.
I don’t want to see anyone else’s lives destroyed by radiation and
nuclear catastrophes. A criminal investigation of Fukushima sets a
precedent for governments and corporations around the world, declaring,
“You are responsible for nuclear safety.”
Any nuclear disaster can have global health implications. This was
demonstrated in reports of health damage across Europe after the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine in 1986 and now in suspected
damage to the marine ecosystem after Fukushima Daiichi, where 300 tons
of radiation-contaminated water pours into the Pacific Ocean daily.
The Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority recently approved the restart
of two nuclear reactors at the Takahama complex in Fukui prefecture on
the island of Honshu’s west coast. This makes the need for
accountability even more urgent. Without fear of prosecution, will
continued unsafe practices contribute to new disasters?
Fukushima victims have tried for years to compel police and district
prosecutors to charge TEPCO and government officials with criminal
negligence. In June 2012 more than 1,000 Fukushima residents filed a
complaint with the Fukushima District Prosecutor’s Office, calling for
the indictment of 33 people, including the management of the Fukushima
nuclear plant and relevant officials.
Their action became a national movement in Japan. In November 2012 more
than 13,000 people, many of them from outside Fukushima prefecture,
joined the complaint. In early 2013 supporting petitions signed by more
than 100,000 people were submitted to the Fukushima District
Prosecutor’s Office. Scores of rallies, lectures and press conferences
were held across Japan to demand legal action.
But these protests, filings and demonstrations have not compelled
Japanese prosecutors to initiate legal proceedings. The case now goes to
a committee for inquest of prosecution, a group of citizens that can
order a case be reinvestigated and prosecuted. If the committee finds
that the case should be prosecuted, the court will designate a lawyer to
conduct the duties of the public prosecutor in the case, and the
designated lawyer will prosecute suspects and conduct a trial.
As of today, Japanese police and prosecutors have turned a deaf ear to
these pleas. This disregard of their losses and sacrifices has deeply
affected victims; some have committed suicide. Many others are
redoubling their efforts to be heard. We victims know that you can have
a thousand rallies in the street in vain. Without an official forum to
legitimize our concerns, no change happens.
Victims speak
To bring global attention to their cause, in April 2015, Fukushima
victims will publish an English translation of select statements from
their complaint as a book, available to the English-speaking world,
“Will You Still Say No Crime Was Committed?” Their goal, according to
Ruiko Muto, the chairwoman of the Complainants for Criminal Prosecution
of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, is to let the world “know that the
Fukushima nuclear disaster has not been brought under control, that it
continues to spread harm and that the nation of Japan is choosing to
abandon the victims.”
The book’s personal stories are compelling. Their statements offer a
rare glimpse into their deep sense of betrayal. They tell of mortgages
still being paid on contaminated homes that they can never inhabit.
Livelihoods have been lost, families torn apart. They are under constant
stress, uncertain whether the food they are eating or the air that they
breathe is poisoned, unable to trust the authorities to tell them the truth.
“With no one taking responsibility for the nuclear accident, what we
have is a situation of paradise for the perpetrators, hell for the
victims. I cannot go to my grave like this,” says complainant No. 48,
age 68.
Through the English-language publication of their stories,
grief-stricken Fukushima victims are now asking the English-speaking
world to join in their battle for justice. These innocent victims of
Fukushima Daiichi have reached across the Pacific to raise awareness and
obtain our help.
Let’s add our voices to theirs.
====================================================================
http://www.dw.de/japan-pushes-ahead-with-plans-to-reopen-nuclear-reactors/a-18305161
Japan pushes ahead with plans to reopen nuclear reactors
Four years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the government
continues to insist that Japan needs atomic energy to power its industry
and society. But many Japanese remain opposed to the restart of the
idled reactors.
Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, visited the town of Futaba in
the Fukushima prefecture on March 1 to be given a guided tour of a vast
site that has been set aside for millions of tons of soil that was
contaminated with radioactivity after the disaster at the Fukushima
Dai-ichi nuclear plant in March 2011.
Abe climbed to the top of a building that had previously served as the
office of the municipal government to gaze across the
16-square-kilometer site. On the horizon to the east, tall chimneys and
cranes turned in the cold wind blowing in from the Pacific and mark the
location of the nuclear plant, where teams of workers continue their
efforts to decontaminate the site of one of the worst nuclear accidents
in history.
After descending from the roof of the office, part of a community
abandoned since shortly after the magnitude-9 earthquake struck,
triggering a tsunami that destroyed three of the six reactors at a plant
that had become a local landmark, Abe told reporters that he would like
to express his gratitude to the local authorities and residents for
agreeing to have the dump for radioactive spoil on their land.
'Proceed carefully'
"We will proceed carefully, while respecting people's feelings about
their home towns," the prime minister said. Reaching an agreement on the
Futaba dump was an important achievement for the government as it
simultaneously takes steps to deal with the unsolved problems at the
Fukushima plant and pushes ahead with plans to restart at least some of
the nation's 48 nuclear plants that have been off-line since March 2011.
The government has announced that it intends to bring several of the
nuclear reactors back online as early as June, after the completion of
what nuclear regulators, utilities and the ministries that oversee the
industry insist has been a painstaking and thorough re-examination of
their operations.
Dogged by public opposition to nuclear power, that process has taken
far longer than the authorities anticipated but there is a sense that
the government is increasingly pushing for a restart on the grounds that
continuing to import oil, coal and natural gas to keep the economy
ticking over is prohibitively expensive, as well as increasing the
nation's carbon dioxide output.
The first plant that has been earmarked for a resumption of operations
is the Sendai facility, operated by Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) in
central Japan. KEPCO's Takahama plant is also nearing operational
readiness after regulators issued the first of three approvals that are
required for a restart.
"They are pushing ahead with this despite the opinion polls consistently
showing that a solid 70 percent of the Japanese public want nuclear
energy to be phased out," Aileen Mioko-Smith, an activist with
Kyoto-based Green Action Japan, told DW.
Benefits dismissed
The environmental activist also dismissed the claims of economic
benefits bestowed by the use of nuclear energy, pointing to studies that
suggest the cost of repairing and upgrading nuclear plants is higher
than shifting to zero nuclear power and investing in renewable forms of
energy. "We do not believe the lessons of Fukushima have been learned,"
she said. "For example, the Nuclear Regulation Agency is not following
its own guidelines on the risk associated with a volcano near to the
Sendai plant."
Mioko-Smith believes that the Japanese government is acting in the best
interests of big corporations that are generous donors to political
parties at the national level and provide employment and sizeable
subsidies to communities that permit nuclear facilities to be built nearby.
"The utilities want to use the facilities that they already have rather
than spending on developing new forms of energy, while big companies
want to export their nuclear technology and find it difficult if there
is no nuclear energy industry at home," she said.
Jun Okumura, a visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global
Affairs, says it is inevitable that at least some reactors will be back
in service before the year is out. "The government is completely
committed to this course of action," he said.
"Their first concern is energy security and even though prices for oil
and natural gas are at low levels at present, there is no doubt that
prices will go up again. And we have no idea what will happen in future
in the Middle East," Okumura told DW.
But Japan is also a believer in climate change and as a responsible
member of the international community, it is "committed to doing its
part to reduce global warming, which nuclear energy contributes to," the
analyst added.
And with renewable energy sources still considered unreliable, the
Japanese government has a choice between fossil fuels and nuclear energy
to provide its base load, Okumura said. "The Japanese government
considers that it has no choice but to push nuclear, even though a
majority of Japanese would express unease - as opposed to outright worry
- about the continued use of atomic energy."
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