Japan’s nuclear industry should now excel in decommissioning technology and stop nuclear exports: Masaaki Fukunaga

Prof. Masaaki Fukunaga

Assistant Director
Center for South Asian Studies, Gifu Women’s University

 

 

(Translated into English by Yayoi Koizumi)

Those of us in the Japanese society cannot export our daily suffering from radioactive contamination as a result of the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant overseas.

It is necessary that we oppose the approval of nuclear energy agreement with Jordan, South Korea, Russia and Vietnam, currently discussed in the Japanese Diet, and put an immediate end to the new exportation of nuclear power plant to Vietnam (deals done), Turkey (under negotiation), and India (negotiations resumed) and others by the Japanese government.

Why is it acceptable to export nuclear power plants overseas when building them within Japan is no longer possible as it is considered dangerous?

It is expected of us, of the citizens of Japan, that we do not only abolish nuclear power domestically, but we also stop the exportation of Japanese nuclear power technology overseas.

[Even without the exportation of nuclear technology,] the Japanese nuclear industry still have a path left for contribution [to developing economies of these coutnries]: it can offer the world’s top-class decommissioning technology.

Why not offer them the latest and the best technology for natural and renewable energy for the people in developing countries in need of electricity?

By exporting the dangerous nuclear technology, we will be repeating the same shameful past of exporting our “pollution factories” – the kind of factories that companies could no longer build legally in Japan – to the neighboring Asian countries.

Hiroshima – Nagasaki – Minamata – Fukushima: These are the lessons by negative examples that the people of Japan must inform the world about.
Only by working toward that goal, the next generation will be able to live in peace.

 

< This is the English version of my post. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Kumar Sundaram and Ms. Yayoi Koizumi >

私たち日本の社会で暮らす者は、この東電福島原発事故、その後の放射能物質汚染に苦しむ毎日を海外に輸出することはできません。

現在、国会上程中の原子力協定(ヨルダン、韓国、ロシア、ベトナム)の承認に反対し、政府主導による「新成長戦略」と呼ばれるベトナム(商談成立)、トルコ(商談中)、インド(交渉再開へ)などへの新たな原発輸出を直ちに停止することが必要です。

なぜ、国内では「危険」であるから原発建設できないなら、海外には原発を輸出できるのか。

国内の脱原発だけが問題ではなく、日本の原発輸出を止めることが、いま日本の人びとに求められています。

日本の原子力産業界は、世界最高の「廃炉技術」の提供により、貢献される道が残されています。

電力を必要とする発展途上国の人びとには、再生可能な自然エネルギーについての最新最高の技術を積極的に提供しましよう。

これでは、日本で建設が不可能となった「公害工場」をアジアへ移した歴史と同じです。

ヒロシマ・ナガサキ・ミナマタ・ナガサキ、これらは日本の人びとが、世界に知らなければならない「負の教訓」です。そして、それにより次の世代が生活することができます。

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