The threat of climate change gained traction in the global imagination after the end of the Cold War. And as warming worries grew, nuclear power became an anti-emissions trump card in the eyes of many
The Mainichi Daily News reports
In 1997, in the midst of the international negotiations that would eventually result in the Kyoto Protocol, the Japanese delegation was pondering whether it could realistically accept the protocol’s main point: a commitment to a 6 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels. They were also grappling with what such a commitment would mean for Japan’s energy supplies.
Strangely enough, though the Japanese delegation was grappling with issues of carbon emissions and energy needs, there was not a single representative of the then Environment Agency on hand. Osamu Watanabe, vice minister at the former Ministry of International Trade and Industry at the time of the talks and now president of Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., sums up Japan’s thinking like this:
“Taking nuclear power into account was a prerequisite for accepting the 6 percent reduction. Speaking for the industry ministry, we thought that the more nuclear power we had, the more we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Meanwhile, at the Environment Agency — which became the Environment Ministry in 2001 — there were many staff who took a more cautious attitude to the promotion of nuclear power. Their skepticism did not, however, often find effective expression.
“The industry ministry put up a lot of resistance to the Environment Agency getting involved in energy policy,” a senior agency official from the time says. “We just couldn’t get a word in.”
The threat of climate change gained traction in the global imagination after the end of the Cold War. And as warming worries grew, nuclear power became an anti-emissions trump card in the eyes of many, fueling a reactor building spree. Another former Environment Ministry official with long experience in climate change policy told the Mainichi, “Government policy came to incorporate promotion of nuclear power. It was taboo for us to even make an issue of it.”
Even after the Kyoto Protocol was agreed on, the Environment Agency and its successor ministry had a very rough road trying to defend climate change policies. The agency tried to organize domestic support for the protocol’s ratification, but was met with fierce opposition from the governing party and business world figures who worried about the effects on industry and condemned the protocol as an “unequal treaty.”
“We thought getting the protocol ratified was the greatest environmental policy measure we could take, but drawing on nuclear power never entered our minds,” the former senior Environment Ministry official says. It was, however, on the minds of some people in government. When the government finalized its basic principles for climate change policy in March 2002, the document included a provision for “promotion of nuclear power,” and set a goal of increasing nuclear power output by 30 percent by 2010.
The Environment Agency also came under direct pressure to fall in line behind nuclear power even before the rumblings around the Kyoto Protocol. Just after the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, as the agency was undertaking revisions to laws providing capital to environmental NGOs, it was forced by the then ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to insert provisions banning funding to groups that were opposed to nuclear power. Many senior officials were also cornered by governing party lawmakers demanding the agency back nuclear power.
–SO WHAT?! I see nothing wrong with LOTS of Nuclear Power, AND I’m NOT worried by the Global-warming scam. If a substantial sea-wall had been built at the coast-side of the plant, it might have weathered the Tsunami, and been its “Savior” because: –”Its power continued, un-impeded, and assisted the clean-up.”(–example of copy, if cooling Had NOT failed) A melt-down occured, because the COOLING FAILED, plain & simple. If the cooling had NOT failed, it’d STILL be in operation! So in ANY given Island-nation, ALL plants should be built upon immense concrete coffer-dams, that will, literally, FLOAT the entire plant in the event of a Tsunami that overcomes its wave-wall. And wave-motion,or solar-power generation could back-up the diesil-generators that were backing up the primary cooling. The Japanese may eclipse even so stellar a group of Engineers as those of Germany, in certain areas. And it took TWO US A-bombs to drive the Emperor to the Airwaves, during the end of the Era of the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, so the Japanese WILL PERSIST. Sometimes, I even think the Axis were the REAL-VICTORS in WWII, because they got rid of their war-mongering, murdering leaders(–Hitler, Tojo, El Duce), and they devastated, over the next 30 years, whole USA industries without the first bomb/incendiary. So the truly BRILLIANT Japanese, are giving-up, now, on Nuclear power?!! The Japanese NEED to recover their “BANZAI-SPIRIT!”, and even now, SHOW the World How nuclear power is DONE! We’re allowing the Eco-Nazis to put Nuclear-power in a lead-lined coffin. Absurd!
Properly sited and with the most up to date reactor designs, nuclear is the solution to our energy problem here in the U.S. If we fastrack construction and disallow the delaying tactics of the endless law suits we could build 100 reactors in five years. These reactors could supply enough power to remove over ten million homes in the frost belt from oil, gas, or wood heat. The plants give off next to zero green house gases and the homes once converted to all electric would follow suit. Millions of barrels of oil would be saved each year and the nuclear plants could also be constructed to use their steam for high temperature hydrogen extraction. The hydrogen could be used to power reserve generating plants or for vehicle fuel. The problem for the enviro nazis and the no growth freaks is that nuclear would provide cheap, unlimited energy that would fuel rapid and sustained economic growth here in the U.S. and put us in a position of competitive advantage over the rest of the world and stop all this nonsense of the American decline. One world government, and zero growth economics would go down the tube and the resulting prosperity would put entitlement pimps of the left wing glitteratti out of business.
Oh, one more thing! There were more deaths last year on one day at fossil fuel plants than there have ever been from radiation poisoning here in the U.S. To date, with a 60 year history, not one person has died from radiation poisoning at an American nuclear power plant.
There was a substantial sea wall in Japan. The wave of 120 ft or so was just beyond imagination. Roughly 20,000 humans were washed away by the wave. No one was killed by the power plant. Why are we going nuts about the power plant?
It suits the zero growth agenda of the left to demonize the nuclear industry as an alternative to fossil fuels. If they are able stop replacing aging nuclear plants they will deplete the reserve capacity and be in eco-nazi heaven when rationing starts. I was speaking with a woman the other day who lamented the fact that none of the nuclear plants on the east coast were built to sustain a 8.5 earthquake. She was puzzled by my laughter until I explained that damage to power plants would be the least of our worries if we got hit by an 8.5 quake and it would be about the same as writing a contingency plan in the event all the crabs came out of the ocean at the same time.