60,000 Protest Japan's Plan to Restart Nuclear Power Plants

I think it might be in the Japanese peoples interests to not restart their Nuclear Power Plants. It is good to see them out in force making themselves seen and heard. Whether Japan will listen to its people is another thing entirely...

Approximately 60,000 people rallied in Japan’s capital of Tokyo on Sunday, June 2nd in order to protest recent government plans to restart the country’s idled nuclear reactors. People gathered in Shiba Park and later marched towards the parliament building. Among the organizers was Kenzaburo Oe, a Nobel literature laureate, who called on the Japanese government to leave the nuclear power plants in suspension out of fears for safety.

The Japanese government has previously stated that it will most likely allow those reactors to return to power which have been approved by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), whose new safety guidelines are scheduled to be adopted in July. One of Japan’s largest-ever protests saw 170,000 people gather in a similar fashion in July 2012, around the same time that then-Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda decided on the first two reactor restarts since the March 2011 Fukushima disaster. As of now, the anti-nuclear protestors say they have collected over 8 million signatures of those opposed to reactor restarts.

Wow if they really have collected 8 million signatures that is a vast amount. And surely Japan will listen to what its people want. Or not... Apparently 2 reactors that were restarted last summer in Oi, Fukui Prefecture are the only ones out of Japan's 50 that have returned to operation.

japandailypress.com...





Peace
Fluff

Next 9.0 earthquake to strike japan will cause another fukushima at one of the other plants.

We need to go thorium or figure out fusion.

Or a combo of solar, wind, waves, etc

The one good thing about the world being anti-nuke, is that people are, starting to think about alternative fuel sources

Its a shame... the reckless use of nuclear power has tainted an otherwise fantastic source of energy. I can think of a dozen ways that would completely prevent anything less than a meteor strike or nuclear attack from releasing the contents of the reactors, while still allowing the energy to be extracted and used safely

Unfortunately, none of them would be "cost effective", so it would never happen.

How sad that really is, that a fiction such as "money" gets in the way of true human progress.

Awesome! Good for standing up!

I don't think it'll matter. I think the same amount of people made a human chain on Okinawa to close US base there and it didn't have any effect so..

reply to post by CaticusMaximus


I couldn't agree more. Save for the greed and short sighted design of the reactors? This is probably the most promising technology man has at the present time. Unfortunately, the only examples of it are decrepit old 20-30 year old museum pieces they call reactors ...when they aren't breaking somehow.

Pebble Bed reactor tech is one example of a design that goes into a safe state during catastrophic failure. That ought to be the base design to all of them...then let's talk about cheap energy! Now though? Heck.... A person would be lucky to get the world Nuclear out at all before being booed down due to Fukushima and other issues.

I'm really confused by this.
If they haven't been using their nuclear power stations, how have they been meeting their peoples power demands? Are they importing power? Are they using fossil fuels instead? Did they never need those 48 nuclear reactors before?

I love the movement there, and it's interesting to see the people making such demands. But I just wonder if those people are more than a little naive and deluded.

Where do they expect their power to come from, and how are they personally each willing to sacrifice? I'll bet that if all of those protesters had to go without any power for a couple of days they would be signing petitions to get the reactors started up again.

I am all for non-nuclear energy, and making use of renewable sources. But people are not willing to invest in this themselves. I think these protesters are just more "nimby" people (not in my back yard) who want the perks but not the risks. We have the same in the UK, people who protest against the building of wind farms in their countryside view, but are happy to get their energy needs met by a nuclear power station a couple of hundred miles away where they can't see it.

The power has to come from somewhere, so what are these people doing to come up with answers to that specific problem?

It is really daft of Japan to still nuclear energy after there bad relationship with the stuff. It is evident the people do not want it and the government do...

reply to post by CaticusMaximus


That is only part of the problem with nuclear energy. The other part is the waste. We never should have built a single plant until that problem was solved.

reply to post by TKDRL


Agreed. There IS a lot of waste, and spreading it around Iraq is NOT an appropriate solution!

There must be something that can be done with it, to increase its use beyond its first life as a fuel rod. Unfortunately again, itll come down to money why that function hasnt been discovered.

reply to post by CaticusMaximus


Deep-earth entombment is the solution. Sealed casks buried deep underground, like Yucca Mountain was intended to be. Or drop them into subduction zones where they'll be drawn into the mantle. The only issues with nuclear power are NIMBYism and a lack of education.