Just as the stock market performance has increasingly little or nothing to do with the real economy, the nuclear experts who are the members of Atomic Energy Society of Japan feel more confident about nuclear power while ordinary people continue to feel uneasy and threatened, 2 years after the worst nuclear accident in Japan which is still on-going.
The Mainichi article below speculates that the experts may have regained confidence after the LDP win in the Lower House election in December last year. If that's the case, well they are not scientists, but politicians.
As far as I am aware, there has been very little soul-searching, so to speak, after the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident by the members of Atomic Energy Society of Japan (and who make up the so-called "nuclear village"), nor active participation by the members in solving the many problems that TEPCO has been dealing with (albeit ineffectively) since the day 1 of the accident.
They have been lying low, but now that LDP has put the restart of nuclear power plants in the election promise for the Upper House election in July, they should be more confident.
Mainichi English (5/8/2013):
70% of nuclear experts still 'comfortable' with atomic power: survey
Some 70 percent of nuclear energy experts with the Atomic Energy Society of Japan (AESJ) remain "comfortable" with atomic power, while at the same time public confidence in the technology remains low, a society survey has revealed.
The AESJ began the annual survey of its members in fiscal 2006, and of the general public in fiscal 2007. The fiscal 2012 survey, conducted in January and February this year, queried 500 randomly selected residents of the Tokyo region and 559 AESJ members at universities and in the private sector.
In the fiscal 2010 survey, 86.5 percent of AESJ members queried said they were either "comfortable" or "somewhat comfortable" with atomic power generation. In the fiscal 2011 survey -- conducted after the March 2011 Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant meltdowns -- that figure dropped to 62 percent, but bounced back to 69.2 percent for fiscal 2012.
Meanwhile, only about 25 percent of the 500 members of the public agreed or somewhat agreed that Japan should keep using atomic power -- around the same rate as in the 2011 survey and half that of before the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Asked if Japan should keep using atomic power, some 92 percent of AESJ members said yes -- 6.6 points higher than in the fiscal 2011 survey and close to the pre-disaster level of around 95 percent.
"The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) included continuing atomic power in their election promises last year and won a huge victory, so I think nuclear experts might have regained some of their confidence in the technology," Kansai University professor of social psychology Shoji Tsuchida said of the survey results. "But it would be a mistake for them to think that the election results mean the public has signed off on nuclear energy."
For some unknown reason, Mainichi English drops the reference to the percentage of ordinary citizens who are comfortable with nuclear power. According to Mainichi Shinbun's Japanese article,
一方、市民は１０年度の１８・６％が５・２％（１１年度）に下がり、１２年度も６％と低下したままだ。
On the other hand, 18.6% of citizens answered they were comfortable with nuclear power generation in the fiscal 2010. The number dropped to 5.2% in the fiscal 2011, and it remains low at 6% in the fiscal 2012.
Even before the Fukushima accident, most citizens were not comfortable with nuclear power. But they were told it was good for them and good for the planet Earth, and were told it was unscientific and unreasonable to fear the nuclear power.
About the experts confidence, Mainichi English says it is the "confidence in the technology". But that cannot be inferred from the original Japanese, which simply says:
原発利用継続を公約した自民党が圧勝したことで、専門家は自信を回復したのかもしれない。
Because of the huge victory by LDP who promised continued use of nuclear power plants, the experts may have regained their confidence.
I think it is the confidence in themselves.
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15 comments:
Experts were "confident" from the begining that some day some how there would be a science / technical improvement that would do the waste / decontamination job.
Scientists who doubted this had their mouths shut.
Self-asserting confidence, nothing more, that went spiraling down in the well-named "Prometheus trap".
Experts went from nucleocrats to nucleopaths as they went to know for good, and stubbornly deny, that there was no solution but to have the nuclear workers and "people" pay later the real price of this "cheap" energy.
And they made it an insult to their expertise to think otherwise, an insult answered to with a big stick.
And in related news:
92% of rapists, feel rape is perfectly safe as long as the victim is not killed.
Meanwhile, animal trainers overwhelmingly agree that animal acts should remain a staple of circuses.
Interesting that 30% are sufficiently thoughtful that they do not feel comfortable with nuclear power.
The first step towards a better industry is to end the complacency that was endemic in the 'nuclear village'. This survey suggests that has not really happened, but a sizeable minority gets it. It is questionable whether that is enough.
I wonder if the large % of support for nuclear by NUCLEAR EXPERTS is somehow correlated to the source of their income?
Whodda thunk it?
Would like to know the age distribution among the questioned Japanese nuclear workers.
I could well imagine that the younger ones will look for jobs in ethically acceptable trades, while the older ones have no choice than to do reactor duty until retirement.
Thus, maybe part of the rise in confidence with nuclear power is because the people who have kept some ethic conscience left the industry?
It's all about the money and nothing else. All the rest is just kabuki.
Yeah, we live in the Age Of Insanity (I read a book by that title once), alrighty. Any kind of insane nonsense will do as long as you own the apparatus of power. No accountability necessary.
Get this, Britain's sick perverted Satanic pedophilic ruling class is proposing that it become legal to rape 13 year old girls.
Barbara Hewson said aged of consent should be lowered to 13
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2321473/Outrage-barrister-called-Stuart-Halls-crimes-low-level.html
Japan is busy vaccinating 13-year-old girls against cervical cancer. How about in UK? They are good to go, I suppose.
The restart of nuclear energy in Japan or even the world shouldn't be left up to politicians. What a horrible joke. It's apparent nothing has been learned or everything's been willingly ignored to make short term profit and screw future generations further. What's worse is that the LDP doesn't seem to have any serious competition this summer. The public are doomed to more of the same unless we get lucky and Abe slips up somehow. Doubtful. Way to be a
Responsible member of the world community Japanese politicians.
Yeah, and Lehman Brothers was perfectly confident about cooking its books and about eventually been rescued by the taxpayer (the latter according to words from its latest CEO Richard Fuld).
The Japanese article title mentions "市民と隔たり", pointing at the gap/estrangement between experts and citizens. If the new LDP constitution passes, freedom of speech will not be granted for those speaking against public interest; then, I guess, the "experts" will decide what is good for the public.
On the other hand the English title does not say anything about the opinion of the public. I wonder what is the reason of the different nuance.
Beppe
Nuclear
@netudiant, that's a good point.
@Beppe, in the first year of the accident, Mainichi English was really sloppy with translation and fact checking.
Lehman at least went down. The bank that caused the demise by sloppy excel calculation of the margin by a 20-something trader which turned out to be dead wrong, JP Morgan Chase, is alive and well, awash with liquidity thanks to the Fed and no single day of trading loss in the most recent month or quarter I forgot which but that probably wouldn't matter.
Thank You
Talking about confidence in the nuclear industry: on March 31st the boys at Arkansas Nuclear One dropped a ~500 ton generator stator on the turbine deck and managed to kill 1, injure 8 and severe the connection to external electricity supply, which caused reactor 2 to automatically shutdown [reactor 1 was stopped for refueling already].
The accident was caused by the collapse of a lifting rig [crane] (source: Reuters 25 April 2013). Emergency generators were eventually activated for both reactors.
From a source I can't disclose: 70% of expert bank robbers say they are comfortable with robbing banks, 92% say they should continue to rob banks.
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