ENVIRONMENT: JAPANESE WARNING AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF FUKUSHIMA DISASTER

• The current visiting Japanese delegation has warned India on the critical issue of equilibrating the priorities of development and its environmental impact.
•  According to Mr. Natsuo Yamaguchi, Japan has experienced a catastrophic nuclear bomb explosion and a recent nuclear accident, which has instilled a greater sensitivity in the Japanese psyche.

A critical analysis of Fukushima Disaster

Even after more than two years, the ghost of Fukushima haunts the social and economic face of Japan.

• Although the devastating effect of the concurrent Tsunami was far greater, still the nuclear crisis provided an acutely distressing scenario, leaving some 50 workers as heroes, TEPCO as villain and more than 1,60,000 civilians as the victims.
• Beyond the release of large amount of radioactive materials in the air and water, the reactor core had melted and burned through their containers into the base of the building.
• Although the worst was avoided, but the total release was equal to half the amount of radioactive materials as was released in Chernobyl. The apparent impact of disaster on Japan’s coastal biota is still a concerning matter.
• The exact death toll is still unknown, and may be Japan escaped the immediate numbers game, but studies suggest that there might be upto 1300 resultant cancer deaths, with extremely small noticeable effects in Asia and North America.

International Repercussions:

• In France, the strongly pro-nuclear govt. was defeated with 70 % people opposing the nuclear energy projects. The present govt. promised to radically reduce dependence on the same.
• In Germany, all the old nuclear reactors were closed and it was decided to completely phase out the rest by 2030.
• In Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, there was a major referendum against the goverment’s  plan to build new nuclear plants and the respective governments had no other option left except conceding defeat.
• Malaysia, Philippines, Kuwait and Bahrain abandoned their nuclear plans while Taiwan had to drastically change its nuclear aspirations.
• China decided to first suspend and then restart its nuclear program with a reduced intensity of approving lesser number of nuclear projects. Moreover, there is an impetus on completely replacing the total nuclear energy contribution with renewables by 2020.
• In US, some proposed projects collapsed and the proportion of renewable energy generation has already overtaken that of nuclear sources.

Still Countries like UK, Russia, South Korea and India are planning major expansion with a large nuclear program in spite of severe public oppositions in many of these countries.

Final Words:

For a country like Japan, which was planning to expand its nuclear program from 26% to 45% of total electricity by 2030, a shift to zero seems too steep a cliff. It would be very significant and would involve major changes, especially when the challenge is to reduce the Green House Gas emission by 23 to 25%, from 1993 levels, by 2030. A whole new field of renewable options ranging from solar to geo thermal will be explored with a significant up gradation of technology.

Japanese track record of technological innovation is almost incredible and considering that, Fukushima Disaster might have had a destructive effect on Japan, but it might turn into a beacon light for a cleaner and greener future ahead.