My Nuclear Nightmare

Leading Japan through the Fukushima Disaster to a Nuclear-Free Future

Naoto Kan, Jeffrey S. Irish

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781501706660
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

"Naoto Kan, who was prime minister of Japan when the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster began, has become a ubiquitous and compelling voice for the global antinuclear movement. Kan compared the potential worst-case devastation that could be caused by a nuclear power plant meltdown as tantamount only to 'a great world war. Nothing else has the same impact.' Japan escaped such a dire fate during the Fukushima disaster, said Kan, only 'due to luck.' Even so, Kan had to make some steely-nerved decisions that necessitated putting all emotion aside. In a now famous phone call from Tepco, when the company asked to pull all their personnel from the out-of-control Fukushima site for their own safety, Kan told them no. The workforce must stay. The few would need to make the sacrifice to save the many. Kan knew that abandoning the Fukushima Daiichi site would cause radiation levels in the surrounding environment to soar. His insistence that the Tepco workforce remain at Fukushima was perhaps one of the most unsung moments of heroism in the whole sorry saga."—The Ecologist
On March 11, 2011, a massive undersea earthquake off Japan's coast triggered devastating tsunami waves that in turn caused meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Ranked with Chernobyl as the worst nuclear disaster in history, Fukushima will have lasting consequences for generations. Until 3.11, Japan's Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, had supported the use of nuclear power. His position would undergo a radical change, however, as Kan watched the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 Power Plant unfold and came to understand the potential for the physical, economic, and political destruction of Japan.In My Nuclear Nightmare, Kan offers a fascinating day-by-day account of his actions in the harrowing week after the earthquake struck. He records the anguished decisions he had to make as the scale of destruction became clear and the threat of nuclear catastrophe loomed ever larger—decisions made on the basis of information that was often unreliable. For example, frustrated by the lack of clarity from the executives at Tepco, the company that owned the power plant, Kan decided to visit Fukushima himself, despite the risks, so he could talk to the plant's manager and find out what was really happening on the ground. As he details, a combination of extremely good fortune and hard work just barely prevented a total meltdown of all of Fukushima's reactor units, which would have necessitated the evacuation of the thirty million residents of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area.In the book, first published in Japan in 2012, Kan also explains his opposition to nuclear power: "I came to understand that a nuclear accident carried with it a risk so large that it could lead to the collapse of a country." When Kan was pressured by the opposition to step down as prime minister in August 2011, he agreed to do so only after legislation had been passed to encourage investments in alternative energy. As both a document of crisis management during an almost unimaginable disaster and a cogent argument about the dangers of nuclear power, My Nuclear Nightmare is essential reading.

1

Memories from the Abyss

I would like now to look back in greater detail at the week immediately following the Great East Japan earthquake.

March 11 (Friday)

The Swinging Chandelier

At 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, when the Great East Japan earthquake occurred, I was attending a meeting of the Audit Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper house of the National Diet of Japan.

The opposition Liberal Democratic Party held a majority in the House of Councillors at the time, meaning that we had a “twisted” Parliament [in which the upper and lower houses were separately controlled]. Even the schedule for deliberations was determined at the insistence of the opposition, and the prime minister was to spend long hours fielding questions at meetings of the Standing Committee on Budget and the Audit Committee. Regarding the budget, in keeping with the constitution, the House of Councillors is in a superior position. In recent years the Standing Committee on Budget has enjoyed particular prominence.

Traditionally, the Audit Committee is to have a question-and-answer session regarding the settlement of the accounts and the administration of the previous year’s budget. But the questioning on this day was not with regard to the settlement of the accounts per se. Rather, there was a concentrated focus on a political contribution I had received, and I was attacked with great intensity. The problem was a donation from a foreigner¹ [in Japan, it is illegal to accept donations for political purposes from foreign nationals or foreign organizations] among the contributions I had reported.

At 2:46 p.m., in the midst of what was, for me, harsh questioning, the earthquake struck, and a violent shaking continued for quite some time. The chandelier hanging from the ceiling of the committee chamber swung violently. Fearing that it would fall, I remained seated, clinging to both arms of my chair and looking upward.

After a long period, when the shaking finally ceased, the committee chair Yosuke Tsuruho declared a recess, and I departed immediately for the prime minister’s compound. On arriving, I went directly to the Crisis Management Center in the basement. The chief cabinet secretary was already there, and other related personnel arrived soon after in quick succession.

When an earthquake with a magnitude of six or greater occurs, a response team is automatically established in the office of the prime minister. This emergency team is under the auspices of the deputy chief cabinet secretary for crisis management and is made up of bureau chiefs from each of the ministries. Because Tetsuro Itoh, deputy chief cabinet secretary for crisis management, was in the prime minister’s compound at the time of the earthquake, he had immediately convened the emergency team. Deputy Chief Itoh was formerly the chief commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and had also assumed the office of deputy chief cabinet secretary for crisis management during the Yasuo Fukuda administration in 2008. During that same year he had experienced the Iwate-Miyagi earthquake [that struck the Tohoku area on the morning of June 14, 2008].

Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters

The response team meeting began at 3:14 p.m., shortly after my arrival. Deputy Chief Itoh opened with “Our current concern is the establishment of an Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters,” and I immediately agreed.² A cabinet meeting is necessary for the establishment of an Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters given that this headquarters has a great deal of authority. The director-general (the prime minister) may issue orders if the need arises not only to the central government’s ministries but to the local governments as well. The headquarters comprises all the cabinet ministers and vice ministers and any heads of designated administrative agencies the prime minister wishes to appoint. The prime minister is the director-general; and the ministers of disaster management, defense, and internal affairs and communications are the deputy directors.

We could not fathom the overall damage caused by the earthquake but sensed that this was the largest earthquake to have struck Japan in the postwar era and began to prepare the relief effort. First we determined policy for the saving of lives. It is said that in the case of a major earthquake, the first seventy-two hours is key. Remembering that the Self-Defense Forces had been late to arrive at the site of the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995, I immediately asked Minister of Defense Kitazawa to dispatch the Self-Defense Forces. We received word from the Ministry of Defense that they could commit twenty thousand personnel right away, so I ordered the deployment of twenty thousand. Worried this might not be enough, I asked Kitazawa to consider the possibility of dispatching more.

Station Blackout

Immediately after the Great East Japan earthquake struck, TEPCO shut down all the reactors at Fukushima’s Daiichi and Daini nuclear power plants. At Fukushima Daiichi, reactor units 1, 2, and 3 were all being operated at the time, while reactor units 4 through 6 were shut down for routine periodic inspections. But when a huge tsunami struck the Sanriku coast, one after another the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi lost their power.³

Enacted in 1999, the Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness [hereafter Nuclear Emergency Preparedness Act] establishes how one should deal with a nuclear accident or a nuclear disaster. In Japan, nuclear reactors were first commercially used in 1966—beginning with the Tokai Nuclear Power Plant in Ibaraki Prefecture—but there were no regulations for the handling of nuclear disasters until 1999. The Nuclear Emergency Preparedness Act was enacted when, in September 1999, an accident occurred at the Japan Nuclear Fuel Conversion Co. (JCO) fuel preparation plant in Tokaimura. This accident did not involve a nuclear reactor. Rather, it was caused by a company that handled spent nuclear fuel, and two workers died from acute radiation exposure. Prior to the accident it had been assumed that an accident would not occur at a nuclear power facility, hence the absence of legislation regarding the role of the government in the event one did occur. The Nuclear Emergency Preparedness Act supposes that in the event of a severe accident, the operator (the electric company) is responsible for the reactors and other on-site facilities—for the containment of nuclear accidents—while the national and local governments are responsible for the evacuation of nearby residents and other off-site matters.

In keeping with the Nuclear Emergency Preparedness Act, when a nuclear emergency has been declared, a Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters is established with the prime minister as its director-general and METI’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency as its secretariat. The collection of information and decision making takes place at an off-site center for emergency response measures located near the site. When an accident occurs, all related personnel gather at this off-site center, create a local strategy headquarters, determine the approach they will take, and take action after gaining the approval of the prime minister.

Declaration of a Nuclear Emergency

I attended a meeting of the Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters together with the entire cabinet. When it ended, at 4:22 p.m., I returned to my office. At this time I was already scheduled to hold my first press conference after the earthquake and to meet with the heads of the ruling and opposition parties. Prior to these commitments I had meetings with the Democratic Party’s secretary-general Katsuya Okada and its acting leader Yoshito Sengoku.

At 4:54 p.m., at the first press conference after the earthquake, I spoke of the earthquake, offered my condolences, reported the establishment of the Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters, and said that we would be doing everything in our power to keep the damage to a minimum. I said that a portion of a nuclear power plant had automatically shut down but that nothing was known with regard to radioactive materials.

Although this was a press conference, I did not take questions, so it was over in about four minutes, and I returned immediately to my office on the fifth floor of the prime minister’s compound. A discussion with special advisers Hosono and Terada and a representative of NISA that began around 5 p.m. was joined by METI’s minister Kaieda at 5:42 p.m. Minister Kaieda reported to me regarding conditions, as stipulated in article 15 of the Nuclear Emergency Preparedness Act, and submitted a written statement requisite to the declaration of a nuclear emergency.

It goes without saying that the declaration of a nuclear emergency was required by law, but I also wanted to learn as much as I could about the status of the accident. In the middle of the explanation, I excused myself for five minutes for a scheduled meeting with the heads of the ruling and opposition parties. After returning and listening to a further explanation of the situation, I declared a nuclear emergency at 7:03 p.m. Then I established a Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters and commenced its first meeting.

Later I was criticized for allowing too much time to pass between the METI minister’s written statement and my declaration of an emergency, but in fact an Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters had already been established and the Crisis Management Center was in a state of preparedness. With regard to the nuclear accident as well, a response group had already been established within the prime minister’s compound. Prior to the formal creation of the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters, information was being gathered, the parameters of our authority were being confirmed, and other practical business was being attended to. In no particular respect were we tardy in our response to the nuclear accident.

In the Crisis Management Center in the basement of the prime minister’s compound, the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters and the Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters were set up adjacent to one another.

The position of director-general of the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters is filled by the prime minister with the minister of the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry as the deputy director-general. Furthermore, all other members—the number is not stipulated—are appointed by the prime minister from among the remaining cabinet members. The deputy chief cabinet secretary for crisis management, the vice ministers, and the heads of designated administrative agencies are also appointed by the prime minister. The administrative staff is appointed by the prime minister from among the cabinet secretariat, the staff of designated administrative agencies, and the heads or members of the staff of designated local administrative agencies. Basically, the members are almost entirely the same as the members of the Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters, with NISA being the only organization that is only represented in the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters.

In fact, meetings of the Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters and the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters were often held concurrently. For example, the fifth meeting of the Tohoku Region Pacific Offshore Earthquake Disaster Response Headquarters and the third meeting of the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters might be held at the same time. Just the same, a nuclear accident and an earthquake and tsunami are quite different in nature. While for earthquakes and tsunamis the greatest crisis comes at the time of their occurrence, with nuclear accidents the greatest concern is the degree to which the accident will grow. With earthquakes and tsunamis one is addressing something that has already happened, but with nuclear accidents one must anticipate what will happen and act accordingly. So the two response headquarters had to work from two different perspectives and with two different approaches.

This was true of the evacuation of local residents as well. There was no choice but to relocate those whose homes had collapsed in the earthquake or were washed away by the tsunami. But in the case of a nuclear accident, a person’s house might remain unscathed, and yet we still had to move them out. And while the Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters had to administer to an extensive geographical area, the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters had only to consider the immediate vicinity of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

At any rate, in addition to an unprecedented earthquake and tsunami, we came face to face with the first-ever severe accident involving several nuclear reactors. This was two national crises at once. We had experienced the Great Hanshin earthquake and others too, but this was the first severe accident involving multiple reactors the world had ever seen. No one had ever experienced this before.

Authority and Responsibility

According to article 25 of the Nuclear Emergency Preparedness Act, when an accident occurs, the operator must take the necessary emergency precautions to offset the occurrence or expansion of a nuclear accident. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is owned by TEPCO, which is a private company. In other words, the plant is private property and the employees are all private citizens. So what authority does the state have with regard to this private property and these private citizens? We had to be prepared to make a decision in this regard.

A report prepared by the National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission [NAIIC] has made issue of this matter of intervention on the part of the prime minister’s office and the prime minister, and I would like to share my thoughts in this regard.

First, I would like to make a point with regard to the prime minister’s legal authority. According to article 20 of the Nuclear Emergency Preparedness Act, when emergency measures are deemed necessary, the prime minister, as director-general of the Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters, may direct or instruct the plant’s operator (TEPCO) as required. In this case, the word “instruct” carries some weight, and insofar as TEPCO is a licensed organization, it would be unheard of for them not to submit to the prime minister’s orders. Therefore, it is inaccurate to suggest that an individual who would not normally have authority is coming along, out of nowhere, and intervening. According to law, the director-general of the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters is able to give instructions. Although I might be criticized for the content of the instructions I gave, it is not right to call my giving of instructions an inappropriate intervention.

Second, I would like to address the responsibilities of the prime minister in the face of a national emergency. While certainly, according to the law, the prime minister may give instructions to TEPCO “when it is deemed necessary,” great discretion is required when determining whether or not something is necessary. Generally speaking, I believe that authority should be wielded as little as possible.

In that respect, it was unprecedented that during the four days from the time of the accident until the establishment of the Government-TEPCO Integrated Response Office, the prime minister’s office was directly involved and played a central role in the effort to contain the accident. But while it was certainly highly unusual, when an emergency on the scale of a national crisis occurs, I believe the prime minister should make use of every conceivable form of authority and do everything in his or her power to head off a crisis. This was a severe accident that neither TEPCO nor the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency had anticipated. It was my understanding that conditions were such that I, as the prime minister, should wield my authority. Below I will outline in detail my handling of the accident so that you can be the judge.⁴

The Nuclear Safety Commission

The Nuclear Emergency Preparedness Act also states that the director-general of the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters “may request of the nuclear power plant’s operators and other related entities the provision of materials and information, the expression of opinions, and other cooperation.” It was for this reason t...

Table of contents

• Preface to the English Translation
• Preface to the Japanese Edition
• Timeline for Nuclear Power and the Fukushima Accident
• Prologue: My Nuclear Nightmare
• 1 Memories from the Abyss
• 2 Taking Action before Stepping Down
• 3 The Road to a Nuclear-Free Japan
• Acknowledgments
• List of Acronyms
• Notes
• About the Author
• About the Translator