Energy situations in Japan before and after the Fukushima nuclear accident

— This article describes the various effects on the public conception on nuclear energy and more generally on energy policies in Japan due to the nuclear accident that occurred on 11th March 2011 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station, which is owned and operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). Before the accident, nuclear energy had been conceived as the main energy source of electricity in Japan for reducing CO2 emission beyond 2020. However, public opinion has turned almost completely against nuclear energy after observing how vulnerable the nuclear system had been. The present Japanese government is now trying to buy time before taking a decision. After explaining these circumstances, the author tries to chart his personal projection of energy sources for Japan to 2050.

A^er this period, Units 1~3 experienced different histories due to different ac>ons (or rather, "inac>ons") of emergency cooling systems: *the IC (isola>on condenser) for Unit 1, *the RCIC (reactor core isola>on cooling system) for Units 2 and 3 and *the HPCI (high pressure coolant injec>on system) for Unit 3.
In the end, the reactor cores of all three Units had been overheated and melted down, so that the zirconium cladding of the fuel elements reacted with water to produce hydrogen gas.
The gas had built up to dangerous concentra>ons in the reactor buildings →successive explosions of the buildings for Units 1 at 15:36 on 12 th March Unit 3 at 11:01 am on 14 th March Unit 4 at around 6:10 am on 15 th March (caused by hydrogen leak) →the containment vessel of Unit 2 was damaged at around 11:00 am on 15 th March but no hydrogen explosion of the building Severe contamina>on of the surrounding area due to release of radio--ac>ve materials of (6.3~7.7)x10 17 Bq (5.2x10 18 Bq released at Chernobyl). The number of people used to have been living in the three affected zones (shown below) and to have had to be evacuated remains at 81,291 (as of 1 st October 2013) Three zones of affected areas: (1) The area impossible to live in the near future 337 km 2 , (2) The area to be accessible but not allowed to live 304 km 2 , and (3) The area to be preparing for living in the near future 509 km 2 , totaling 1,150 km 2 (34 km□) The three zones (1) The main causes of the nuclear accident: (1) SBO (the sta>on black--out) by the earthquake →destroyed the electricity transmission towers leading to the nuclear power sta>on, (2) by the tsunami arrived at the power sta>on a^er about 50 min →inundated the emergency diesel and auxiliary ba6ery power areas, and (3) heavily damaged/destroyed roads leading to the power sta>on →badly hampered the arrival of repair parts to the power sta>on.
"This was a disaster Made in Japan" and Professor K. Kurokawa, The Chairman of the committee nominated by the National Diet "Message from the Chairman" "The fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conven>ons of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to ques>on authority; our devo>on to 's>cking with the program'; our groupism; and our insularity" One of the government committee members Three elements to be considered separately and independently to prepare for imminent accidents of nuclear power stations; first "The nuclear power system" to prevent any failure, secondly "Support systems in case of an accident" such as communications and transportations, and thirdly "Preparations for residents and their evacuations".
All three investigation reports emphasized the complete lack of the first element But the more serious: the total lack of any meaningful measures for the second and the third elements Every decision with regards to the nuclear energy policy →only by the inner-circle people, completely shrouded from the outside world.
"Residents in Gensiryoku-mura (a village where residents are all associated with nuclear energy)" → "The security myth surrounding nuclear energy" They had treated nuclear power stations as "absolutely safe, because those are protected by many layers of safety measures" They insisted this argument to the extent to have had behaved as if telling a possibility of any severe nuclear accident to happen be a false and instead used to tell that Chernobyl-type accident would never happen in Japan because the reactor type be completely different These reasoning and arguments naturally lead to almost complete negligence of or being very reluctant to prepare for the above second and third elements

Ac#ons and reac#ons worldwide
Three groups The first group: Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland The second group: includes most other industrialized countries such as USA, France and Britain The third group consists: emerging economies, such as China and India Japan ?
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "accelerating and enlarging the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world since its foundation in 1957" The Action Plan for defining a program of work to strengthen the global nuclear safety framework: September 2011 12 main actions were listed, such as assessments of the safety vulnerabilities of the nuclear power stations in the light of the accident and strengthening of safety standards and their implementations After more than three years.
still about 140,000 persons evacuated from their homes of residence There was no loss of life due to radiation exposure during and after the 3.11 accident, but there have been about 30 workers on site whose radiation level exceeded 100 mSv and about 90 residents who needed cleaning up of their contamination by radiation.
In addition, there has been death of about 60 people, mostly elderly, due to stress during evacuation in temporary housing.
Let's look back the past Japanese energy policies Because all government measures to stimulate economy to try to get out from the slump had turned out to be fruitless with the resultant mounting deficit of staggering more than double the Japanese GDP (the deficit of about 10 trillion US$, which is on average 80,000 US$/person) The newly formed government has since been very careful to say anything provocative to people and to try to conceal their real intentions "Nuclear reactors are to be abolished as soon as possible" "Resumptions of reactor operations as soon as the Nuclear Regulation Authority declares their decision of meeting their safety standards combined with agreement of the local government of each reactor" "Top-sales by the prime minister to market nuclear power stations to various countries, such as Turkey or Vietnam" Also, the fast-breeder reactor (FBR) project called "Monjyu", the operation of which has been stopped since 1995 due to sodium leakage with subsequent various negligence of regulations and which was almost being slashed by the previous government, has been kept in this Plan with more emphasis on nuclear transmutation of long-lived radio-activities in addition to plutonium breeding In their "Fundamental Energy Plan", approved on 11 th April 2014 by its cabinet meeting, the nuclear energy was labelled as "Bearing the base load of electricity production" the present government must be behaving like this in order to try to buy time so heavily dependent on imports (96 %) of primary energy sources fossil fuels would have to be almost completely eliminated in the next few decades PV and wind energies be so limited for this over-populated country and so unreliable because of their intermittent character this discussion will be focused on in the next Chapter ↓ 5. A personal projecGon of energy sources for Japan to 2050 we have to first realize the present situation regarding energy on which one may be able to chart everyone's future using "Numbers" for relevant quantities