no more NUKE power plant

my blog article was translated by j application (http://www.j-application.net/)
they plan to publish e-book about nuke accident in fukushima japan.

I don’t need nuclear power.

I majored in nuclear power engineering in the university. However, I became a newspaper reporter after my graduation. I assumed that the newspaper company initially intended to appoint me as a reporter who would cover nuclear power plants; my first assignment was in Fukui. It was in the period of time when the nuclear power plants were under construction in Wakasa Bay coast.

People often asked me why I was against nuclear power plants. I always told them that it was because they are based on unreliable technologies. These were many reasons why I could not trust them. Is it possible to handle the nuclear waste responsively? It’s not easy to protect humans from radiations. Unrecoverable damage would occur when a nuclear accident happens. I studied at a university and came up to my conclusion. I had no intention to help promoting nuclear power plants.

When I was at the Fukui branch, I wrote only the minimum amount of articles on the nuclear power plants. I had no intention to write articles such as, “A nuclear-powered fire shines at the Osaka Expo”. My supervisors certainly were not keen about my decision. Right before I moved to the Osaka branch, I wrote an article called “Wakasa Coast will be a graveyard”. Later, I have heard that it became a popular topic of conversation in Fukui, “Who wrote this?”

The science department that was a pro-nuclear power plant invited me to join them several times when I was an economic reporter after Fukui. Why don’t you join us? After I turned them down many times, I joined them in the following year of the Three Mile Island accident and stayed in the department for two years. In those days, the science department still insisted that the nuclear power plants are safe even though the Three Mile Island accident happened. I still refused to cover the nuclear power plants.

At the time of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, I was a top reporter who was covering Ministry of International Trade and Industry (now Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) as a member of the economic department of the press. Although I shouted in my mind, “Hey, I told you”, I lent my hands to a group of reporters called the Global Nuclear Contamination.

Since I was young, I have been wondering if it is possible to create a society which doesn’t need nuclear power plants. Since the beginning of the informational society, I have been writing about the computer society and the internet society, believing that those would lead to curb the energy consumption. I also expected a lot from the solar cells that are natural energy. I visited to a research lab of the power cells in the United States in the mid 1980s. I saw the experiment of selling solar-powered electricity in Hawaii, too.

The efficiency of photovoltaic generation was poor in those days. If the efficiency of photovoltaic generation with solar cells improves and cars powered by hydrogen-fuel cells become popular, we can reduce our dependence on nuclear power and on oil from   the Middle East. I thought that natural gas was promising, too. I thought that if we utilize natural gas, the production of the hydrogen would increase and the fuel cells would become popular.

However, the efficiency of the photovoltaic generation is approximately 15% even now. There are only few hydrogen-fueled car are around. The dependence on the Middle East in oil is over 80%.

At last, the photovoltaic cells and the smart grid has been put on the spotlight because of the issues around the CO2 emission. Although the battery vehicles have been manufactured, it is far from being used widely. Contrary, the nuclear power plants that don’t emit CO2 are attracting attention from the public in this period of time. The progress of technologies that I viewed as ideal was slow and it was overtaken by one of the nuclear power plants technology. Although the Internet society has been progressing as I expected, it needed a lot of energy-craving data centers.

The nuclear power plants became major players of electric power generators in Japan. Our society became the one where there will be definitely power blackouts when we stop the nuclear power plants.

And here came the massive earthquake. The myth of the “absolutely safe” nuclear power plants was torn apart. The radioactive substances contaminated the surrounding areas. Something we had been feared happened. We should have constructed society that fully utilizes natural sunlight and hydrogen before this earthquake; it’s too late. Even though a journalist work with everything he could do, the nuclear power plants won’t go away because society needs them. I’m frustrated by hearing my own excuse. During the Second World War, it was probably difficult to write articles that were against the war while everybody else was gun-ho about fighting with the Allies. I assume that the two situations are similar. I was thinking this way, but this is still an excuse.

I don’t need nuclear power plants anymore. I am able to say this now. However, it is too late to say this.

Comments

[投稿情報: プルぷるん♪]

またプルトニウムが敷地内から検出されました。

ソースの保安員と東電とで微妙に発表内容が異なります。

なぜ政府は未だに素人の保安員と加害者の東電に事故処理をさせているのでしょうか。

信頼性のかけらもない。

海外の論調も日本政府に対して私の脳みそ同様、沸騰してきています。

もう我慢ならない。

政府に対して強烈に抗議してきます！

プルぶるんさん
冷静に。敷地内でプルトニウムが検出されたとのニュースはまだ聞いてませんが、検出されても不思議はありません。ただ従業員の被曝管理だけはしっかりしてもらいたいですね。