The cost of cheap power
donen , Japan's state-run nuclear agency, admitted that corrosion had caused leakage of radiation from about 2,000 underground drums storing radioactive waste from a fast-breeder nuclear reactor before February in Tokai, a village north of Tokyo. Government officials said that water was surrounding the dumping site was safe, even as it had levels of radiation 10,000 times the permissible limit, according to reports. Prime minister Ryotoro Hashimoto described the incident as "unbelievable'.
The incident, latest in a series of accidents involving nuclear plants in Japan, has put the country's nuclear programme in serious jeopardy. Public outcry over the incident has been aggravated by the nuclear agency's efforts to cover up the sordid affair. The nuclear agency had known that the drums had corroded as early as February 1997. But the accident was reported by Yomiuri Shimbum , a Japanese newspaper, and not by officials of the government or the nuclear agency. The Tokai plant is Japan's first domestically produced power plant and is essential to the country's nuclear programme.
This has caused outrage in Japan, which is very sensitive to issues pertaining to radiation, being the only country in the world where atomic bombs were exploded. Locals say that the fact that the information was concealed was more disturbing than the incident itself. The government has learned nothing from its mistakes, said Jinzaburo Takagi, physicist and an anti-nuclear activist. "I am shocked. They keep doing it again,' he said.
In March this year, there was a fire and an explosion at the same site that exposed some workers to low-level radiation. Donen officials delayed the notification of the incident to the public. In August, two Donen officials were charged for submitting a false report in connection with a sodium leak at the Monju fast-breeder plant in the Fukui Prefecture in western Japan. The plant remains closed to date.
In order to rid itself of dependence on foreign oil and become self-sufficient in generating electricity, Japan has resorted to fast-breeder reactors that produce more plutonium than they consume and are prone to a lot of technical problems. Most developed countries in the West have moved away from fast-breeder reactors as they are also considered a threat to nuclear disarmament.
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