Japan Case Study Part 2: How The Tohoku and Fukushima Disaster Changed Public Opinion on Nuclear Power as a Low Carbon Energy Source

When I first visited Japan on a 3 month travelling trip, it was one and a half years after the magnitude 9 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Honshu in 2011. I had met some people in youth hostels there who were international students studying in Sendai temporarily, who still described Sendai as a 'complete wreck' from the disaster. Having just come from Tokyo, the stark difference in damage between the two regions was palpable, and contamination from the Fukushima nuclear disaster was still being reported worldwide.

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  The Tohoku earthquake struck offshore of Japan, along a subduction zone where two of Earth’s tectonic plates collide, with the tremor releasing centuries of build up stress between the Pacific and the Eurasian plates. The fault contained a slippery clay layer which lined the fault, which researchers believed to have allowed the two plates to slide an enormous distance of around 50 meters. The earthquake began on the 11th March, at 2.46pm local time, and lasted approximately six minutes. The epicenter was centered on the seafloor 45 miles east of Tohoku, at a depth of 15 miles.

  The earthquake caused a confirmed death toll of 15,893 as of the 10th November 2015, according to Japan’s National Police Agency. The majority of deaths were caused by drowning from the destructive tsunami waves that reached heights of up to 39 meters. Many of Japan’s coastal flood defences were decimated from the impact.

  Perhaps one of the most devastating impacts from the tsunami was the resulting ‘nuclear meltdown’ in Fukushima, which caused a cooling system failure at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and the subsequent release of radioactive materials. The tsunami, which reached 13 meters tall in this area, completely overwhelmed the 10 meter sea wall put in place to protect the plant. Trace amounts of radioactivity, including iodine-131, caesium-134 and caesium-137 were widely observed, causing the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. In July 2013, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) admitted that around 300 tonnes of radioactive water continued to leak from the plant everyday into the Pacific Ocean.

A fire at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant resulting from the tsunami. Source

  Unsurprisingly, the Tohoku disaster completely changed public opinion on nuclear power, both nationwide and internationally. The Fukushima disaster came at a time of global resurgence in nuclear energy facility development, with an estimated 360 gigawatts of additional nuclear generating capacity projected to be developed worldwide by 2035, on top of the 390 gigawatts already in use (IEA, 2010). The renewed interest in nuclear energy is in part due to its potential as a low carbon energy source, but also due to concerns about energy security as demand for energy is growing worldwide (Butler et al., 2011). In the case of Japan, government adopted policies aimed at improving energy efficiency and reducing the demand for oil by harnessing nuclear power, resulted in Japan becoming the most energy-efficient country in the world (The Economist, 2011). However, since the disaster, Japan has dropped to number six (Young et al., 2014). This is due to dwindling public support and policy changes on the use of nuclear power after Fukushima (Vivoda, 2011), with Japan increasing consumption of fossil fuels to make up for the loss of nuclear power.

While the full extent of the events at Fukushima were still rippling through global energy policy discourses, there was seen to be a deeper understanding of the risk of nuclear power, and a withdrawal of policy support particularly in Japan. There were also clear implications of the accident on government spending: the expenditure for compensation alone was estimated to be $124 billion (McCurry, 2011). Subsequently, significant proportions of the public in Japan and in other countries withdrew their support for nuclear power, shown in Figure 2. Similarly, Visschers and Siegrist’s (2012) paper on acceptance of nuclear power showed that in Switzerland, acceptance, perceptions and trust of nuclear power significantly decreased after the Fukushima accident.

Figure 2: Respondents who opposed nuclear energy to produce electricity either: a. previously to the Fukushima disaster; or b. recently due to the disaster in 2011. Poll conducted in April 2011. Source

Although the Fukushima disaster may have killed much of the momentum that nuclear power had gained, many still argue that nuclear power is a safe energy alternative and that the disaster resulted from insufficient safety regulations in Japan - which apparently does not exist in the USA (Stoutenborough et al., 2013). Similarly, in the UK, policymakers remained firm on their decision to increase nuclear power generation in the near future (Wittneben, 2012), which may have stemmed from limited media coverage due to the deployment of UK ground troops into Libya soon after. 

Overall, the truth remains that nuclear power offers a viable low carbon solution to feed the world's growing energy needs. At COP21, experts warned that renewable energy offers 'too little too late', and that policy makers should embrace nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels. Has the world already forgotten the tragedy of the Fukushima disaster - or have advances in nuclear power regulations made its use more safe? With environmental change set to increase the frequency of natural disasters, are we at risk of another serious nuclear contamination? Let me know what you think!