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| April 12, 2011 |
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| Dangerous Realities Around Our Life |
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Transnational monopoly corporations of Japan, US and France are struggling to survive and promote nuclear industry. Even at the moment the business is eager to sell dangerous technologies to the rest of the world, though perils have been proven to a serious extent. As for Japan, it has experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the archipelago is prone to earthquakes. The best solution for the country is to shut down all nuclear plants built on the islands. It is crutial to put an end to the industry at the earliest time.
RAGE MORE FURIOUSLY AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER INDUSTRY
Sacrifices of People to Save Business Profits
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima Power Plant, referring to the No.2 reactor at the Dai-ichi plant, announced that the cladding tubes of fuel rods were ‘failed’ but that they had not reached to a point of melting where fuel decays. This is deceptive. In fact the fuel rods were left stripped off water in the pool for eight-nine hours. It is incredible that the fuel remained intact. The bottom of pressure vessel (main body of reactor) was damaged.
Due to the quakes, piping of the reactor and the assembly of control rods might have been failed before reaching this phase. The hydrogen explosions could have caused damages in the containment vessel. Highly radioactive tainted water has leaked out massively from the reactor, flowing into the turbine building and filling up the trench (underground reservoir). Plutonium was detected, too. Similar phenomena have probably occurred at the No.1 and No.3 reactors. A big quantity of injected water was contaminated with high-level radioactive substances and then ran out into the ocean. The situation has made restoring activities extremely difficult.
It is absolutely necessary to pour water immediately until the upper tips of fuel rods are well dipped in the pool at each reactor and to cool it down to 100 degree Celsius with pumps and heat converters to circulate. The situation at the moment, however, is serious as the water is heavily laced with radioactivity and rushes out from the reactors. At least three years of time is necessary to cool down with water and air cooling will be applicable in the next stage after decay heat is reduced. Subsequently preventive measures should be taken so that radioactive substances may not spread externally. The process is strenuous.
The raging nuclear disaster is a colossal crime of the monopoly capital against people. For the sake of profits shared by Big Business of power generation and production of appliances and heavy machinery, the governments have assisted to build up nuclear stations on the quake-prone islands, neglecting criticisms and voices of objection. The state authority ensures so that electric power companies may gain profits (income of business activities) in parallel with a size of constant capital (machinery, equipment, nuclear fuel and etc.). Constant capital invested in the nuclear energy generation is extraordinarily big, comparing with that of other types of electricity generation per unit. Not only Hitachi, Toshiba and Mitsubishi but also nine electric power companies have enjoyed enormous benefits.
Nuclear Energy Must be Abandoned
Operation of all plants on the archipelago, including those at Fukushima, must be halted without delay. Thermal power generation could cover total absence of nuclear energy when the former’s proportion rises. Steel industry as well as oil refining, chemical, gas and pulp industries have own large-scale power generation systems. Electric power companies have an agreement to suspend supply service to these businesses and are allowed to purchase electricity from them. The controversial ‘planned power grid’ suggests a policy that ‘nuclear power generation is indispensable’.
Full attention should be paid to wind power; the state and power companies must develop this energy source. Its safety is superior to that of nuclear, a construction period is shorter, cost for construction and maintenance is lower. It increases employment. Ill effects of sound wave can be removed when a wind farm is located in the right distance from a residential area. It can be built both in the sea and on the land. In Denmark 20% of total energy consumed is generated by wind power and no nuclear power plant is installed.
Germany is intended to learn from the experiences. After seeing the disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, 250 thousand Germans took part in the street demonstrations, which obliges the Merkel government to cancel the extension policy of nuclear operation.
It is, however, people who live in Japan, who are workers and citizens, and their descendants, that will be inflicted by the catastrophe.
Even a local assembly member could be a pivot of struggle against nuclear power generation; he/she can present a letter to the municipal authority, adopt a resolution in the assembly and enact an ordinance for referendum.
The New Socialist Party (NSP) has a policy ‘to build a society that would not have a nuclear power plant or produce and use plutonium. It should develop soft energy sources like solar energy and wind power’. The NSP stands and will stand in the front line of the anti-nuclear movement to shut down all plants in the country.
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