By Mark J. Ravina, University of Texas at Austin
The March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and environmental devastation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on the Japanese coast north of Tokyo shook the entire country. The event compromised the safety systems at the Fukushima plant, causing explosions, radiation leaks, and the evacuation of 165,000 people. The tremors of the incident were strongly felt even on the sociopolitical front.
Mishap at the Nuclear Plant
The massive tsunami that struck minutes after the earthquake damaged the backup systems, battery power, and diesel generators at the nuclear plant. The seawater also destroyed the electrical equipment used to control and monitor the reactor.
As a result, workers lacked instrumentation and even lighting. And they had no standard way to cool the reactors’ fuel rods for a safe shutdown. The managers and workers had to improvise.
They used fire hoses to pump seawater into the reactors in an attempt to cool them. This helped stop the meltdown from spreading beyond the reactors to the pools of spent nuclear fuel. But it created huge pools of contaminated water—a different serious problem.
Implications of the Mishap
The situation at the nuclear power plant exposed the greatest weaknesses of Japanese politics and society today. Everything dysfunctional about Japan was brought to the fore.
The CEO of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Shimizu Masataka, did resign, but he was promptly appointed to the board of Fuji Oil, whose largest shareholder is TEPCO. The company’s cozy relationship with regulators made him somewhat immune from the consequences of his own bad decisions.
Mismanagement and Vested Interests
Japan’s prime minister at the time, Kan Naoto, had campaigned on shaking up institutions like TEPCO—nominally private companies whose relations protect them from the consequences of their own mismanagement.
He didn’t trust the information he was getting from TEPCO, but he needed to work with TEPCO to contain the disaster. Unsure of TEPCO officials’ honesty and competence, Kan took it upon himself to micromanage the crisis.
The optics of Japanese leadership were terrible during the Fukushima crisis. The public saw the old guard as self-serving liars. The leaders did what they can do the best—protect themselves, even at the expense of public safety and trust.
This article comes directly from content in the video series The Rise of Modern Japan. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Resurgence of LDP
Now, even before the disaster at Fukushima, support for Kan and his Democratic Party of Japan had cratered. Kan’s approval rating was a dismal 18%.
But the scope of the disaster, and government mismanagement, opened the door for a resurgence of the Liberal Democratic Party, Japan’s longtime political power. The LDP decisively won the December 2012 elections.
But once the LDP returned to power, it pretended everything was fine. The new prime minister, Abe Shinzō, returned to the status quo. The LDP wanted cheap electricity to promote the profitability of the Japanese industry. It was convinced that it could overcome public concerns about nuclear power after Fukushima.
‘Power’ Struggle
An attempt to restart Japan’s nuclear plants ran into furious opposition. Public opinion polls showed that upwards of 80% of the population wanted to reduce or eliminate nuclear power. Public demonstrations attracted as many as 200,000 protestors. And the opposition cut across the political spectrum.
The surprising member of the anti-nuclear movement was Kobayashi Yoshinori, a manga author. Kobayashi is best-known for his right-wing revisionist takes on Japanese history. But now he joined old leftists like Ōe as fervent opponents of restarting the reactors.
The breadth of the anti-nuclear sentiment blunted industry plans. It was so strong that whereas before Japan’s 54 reactors had produced roughly 25% of the country’s electricity, after Fukushima, four reactors produced about 4%.
‘Power’ Play
But the LDP went ahead with its plans to minimize alternatives to nuclear power. It eliminated the previous government’s subsidies for renewable energy, especially solar power. As a result, Japan has become more dependent on imported fossil fuels, especially natural gas but also coal.
And it fell behind its targets for limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Much of Japan’s progress toward reduced emissions has come from reduced industrial output, and a slow economy not from increased efficiency.
Even a decade after Fukushima, the Japanese had no sensible plan to meet electricity demand while reducing greenhouse gases. The government and the major utilities insist that the answer has to be nuclear power. But the electorate wants the reduction—or elimination—of nuclear power.
Japan Stuck in a Loop
By the early 2020s, however, Japan was no longer a clear leader in green vehicles or green technologies. The government’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry did choose to promote hydrogen fuel cells. And that’s potentially a remarkable technology.
But that requires a massive infrastructure—hydrogen refueling stations are expensive—whereas it’s relatively cheap to add an electric charging station to a parking garage. So, fuel cells might be a great long-term strategy. But its short-term prospects seem limited.
Using fossil fuels to make fuel cells doesn’t help much in greenhouse-gas reductions. In fact, the whole hydrogen fuel cell plan really works only if Japan reopens those 50 shuttered nuclear plants.
So, the Japanese political establishment seems stuck. Before the 1990 financial crisis, Japan’s political establishment could ignore much of public opinion. It was confident that voters would be satisfied with continued economic growth. But after decades of sluggish growth, that strategy doesn’t work. And the Japanese political establishment doesn’t have an alternative.
Common Questions about the Political Aftershocks of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
The massive tsunami that struck minutes after the earthquake damaged the backup systems, battery power, and diesel generators at the nuclear plant. The seawater also destroyed the electrical equipment used to control and monitor the reactor.
Shimizu Masataka resigned as the CEO of TEPCO. But he was promptly appointed to the board of Fuji Oil, whose largest shareholder is TEPCO. The company’s cozy relationship with regulators made him somewhat immune from the consequences of his own bad decisions. The leaders were largely unaffected by the incident’s impact or mismanagement.
The scope of the disaster, and government mismanagement, opened the door for a resurgence of the Liberal Democratic Party, Japan’s longtime political power. The LDP decisively won the December 2012 elections.
