After Fukushima: nuclear dirty tricks

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/16/editorial-fukushima-nuclear-dirty-tricks

After nearly half a century of producing nuclear power, Japan has finally separated regulation from promotion

Editorial
The Guardian, Tuesday 16 August 2011

The Japanese cabinet decided this week to transfer the country's nuclear safety agency from the trade ministry, where it nestled in a department also dedicated to the expansion of nuclear power, to the environment ministry, where, at least in theory, there is some chance that its operations will not be subverted or manipulated by Japanese energy firms. After nearly half a century of producing nuclear power, Japan has finally separated regulation from promotion, but the move may well have come too late to restore public trust.

In a country where people have to use their own detectors to check on local radiation levels which the government failed to release, where information about threats to life and health after Fukushima dribbled out so haphazardly, and where a nuclear industry apparently unabashed by that disaster has been resorting to dirty tricks to influence public debate, mere bureaucratic rearrangement will hardly suffice. The latest blow to confidence came when it was reported last month that workers at the Kyushu Electric Power Company had been asked to pose as ordinary citizens with no connection to the industry and send emails calling for the resumption of operations at two nuclear reactors in southern Japan to a televised public hearing. Investigations showed this was standard behaviour long before Fukushima, with other power companies admitting that they had sent employees to make up as many as half of the participants in similar forums as far back as 2005.