Irony on Japan's Nuclear Generation

Along with the commemoration of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s 70th anniversary, another issue has started to surface regarding Japan’s take on nuclear use and production: the restart of Japan’s Sendai 1 reactor.

The Mineral Council of Australia (MCA) has applauded the decision of Japan, stating that it has proven a bright future ahead for the industry. The “ongoing strength” of nuclear, as MCA claims, is greatly troubling many environmentalists and humanitarian organizations.

Carlton Church International is one of the non-profit organizations to campaign against the production of uranium and nuclear energy.

In one of his interviews, Malwin Kiewe, spokesperson for the organization stated, “Ironically, Japan has set to restart the program when only a few days ago, the hatred for anything nuclear has been eminent in the Prime Minister’s claim of never being involved in nuclear projects. Why then was Sendai permitted to operate?”.

It seems like the country has not learned its lesson for being the first victim of nuclear bombings back in 1945. They seem to also forget the recent destruction nuclear has brought when Fukushima exploded in 2011. Considered as one of the largest nuclear meltdown in the history, the Fukushima “incident” has caused the evacuation of 160, 000 locals and the loss of billions of dollars. Even businesses were affected. Thousands of local store owners in Tokyo and other neighboring cities were closed down.

The warning was given to TEPCO, the owner of Fukushima plant several months prior to the incident but it ended to deaf ears. The earthquake and the tsunami which are also big destructions in history have been predicted earlier but the people had not listened. No one did anything about it then – but even if they had – do we have any reason to believe it would have been enough?

The simple fact about nuclear power generation is that the risks and the costs dramatically outweigh any benefit.

We’ve seen some of the risks – in Chernobyl we saw how human error can cause a meltdown, thousands of lives lost and continuous suffering until now. In Fukushima, we have seen how human negligence can be destructive when natural disaster strike. Yet, it isn’t enough.

To add fuel to the fire, nuclear power is actually not an “alternative energy” source as so many claims it’s an incredibly fossil-fuel-intensive process, which, if mishandled can lead to ample amount of complaints and loss.