Remembering Fukushima

This week on Nuclear Hotseat, it’s the annual Fukushima Anniversary Special: VOICES FROM JAPAN. This year, host Libbe HaLevy and her guests consider earthquake dangers to Japan’s nuclear reactors. In addition to an update on Fukushima at 13, the program focuses on the January 1, 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake that shook the two Shika nuclear reactors, one of them beyond what it was built to be able to sustain. Fortunately, both reactors were shut down, but that doesn’t mean they were in no danger — just that it could have been much worse.

The VOICES FROM JAPAN report is compiled and written by Yuji Kaneko in Japanese and translated by Beverly Findlay-Kaneko, who reports from Yokohama, Japan.

And in the Hot Story segment by Beyond Nuclear’s Linda Pentz Gunter, a look at the lessons that should have been learned as a result of the Fukushima disaster. So why is the current Japanese government seeking not only to reopen old reactors but also to build new ones? Experts from Japan say this latter will never happen due to the vast expense even of the proposed but still unrealized small modular reactor designs.

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