hankyoreh

By Han Sung-dong, senior staff writer

South Korea and Japan may have some things in common, but the two countries are going in very different directions on nuclear power. These differences were expressed by Iida Tetsunari, 53, a Japanese anti-nuclear, eco-energy activist at a special lecture organized by Greenfund in Seoul, on May 10. Iida, the executive director of the Institute of Sustainable Energy policies, Japanese non-profit civic group, has a background in nuclear engineering.

“The Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011 provided momentum for irreversible changes in Japan. Before the disaster, the Japanese were not aware of the dangers of nuclear energy. The government and the electricity companies also were blind to the possibility of nuclear disaster,” he said.

“But now we know what happened. With the daily fear of Cesium and other radioactive materials being leaked and radio-contaminated water flowing in to Tokyo bay, the residents cannot get the incident off their minds. Even the news media has changed their stance. They barely criticized nuclear power generation or the electric companies before the Disaster. But now they don‘t hesitate to be critical. Long-term agreement to decommission the nuclear power plants will be kept.”

On the feelings of the Korean public, he said “Despite Korea’s increased awareness of nuclear energy since the Fukushima accident, it still feels how Japan did before March 2011.”

He said, “Because simple activities to oppose nuclear power cannot on their own stop the construction of nuclear plants, there is a need for the power of money which dominates the market economy.” For example, if a nuclear accident occurs in Korea, China or Japan and causes damage across national boundaries, regardless of nationality, the victims should seek responsibility from energy companies and nuclear fuel manufacturers.

In particular, Lida questioned the safety of used nuclear fuel rods, which need to be managed for over 10,000 years, and insisted that there is a need to show that massive compensation payments could bring the nuclear power companies to bankruptcy.

Iida gained the nickname ‘Mr. Energy Shift’ after recently publishing ‘Energy Evolution Theory’ own book emphasizing the need for a shift to natural energy. He predicted an increase in Japanese use of natural energy, thanks to new energy policy implemented from July.

“Japan experiencing the failure of RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard), is shifting to FIT (Feed-in tariff), but Korea is going backwards. Korea must be the only country which has gone the opposite way,” he added.

FIT requires the electricity supply companies to buy eco-friendly generated energy at a fixed price. It has significantly increased natural energy generation and nuclear power plant decommissioning. It was originally introduced in Europe. Japan, who was once in a leading position in the field of natural energy, is applying FIT based on the previous failure of RPS, is receiving various positive results nowadays.

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