Hooked on Nuclear Power:
Japanese State-Local Relations and the Vicious Cycle of Nuclear Dependence 

By Hiroshi ONITSUKA

Abstract
This article examines the problems associated with the fact that Japanese nuclear power plants have multiple reactors within one plant and are concentrated in specific regions.  It analyzes the situation from international, domestic, and local perspectives, revealing features of Japanese state-local relations.


Signboard of Futaba Town saying "Nuclear Power: Eneergy for Bright Future"
(genshiryoku akarui mirai no enerugi) on 29 March 2011. (Source)

The crisis of the crippled nuclear power plant Fukushima Daiichi has continued for nine months and will continue for some time to come.  One of the reasons that this has been such a protracted crisis is that four nuclear reactors within close proximity of each other were damaged simultaneously, making efforts to repair any one of them extremely difficult.  Fukushima Daiichi was equipped with six reactors (operation had been suspended at two of its reactors on March 11, 2011), and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), together with the local government of Futaba Town, where the fifth and sixth reactors are located, had been planning to add two more reactors.  Japanese nuclear power plants are characterized by having multiple reactors within one plant, and being concentrated in specific regions.  The concentration of plants on the coastline of Fukushima Prefecture (two plants and ten reactors) and the Wakasa Gulf Coast of Fukui Prefecture (four plants and 13 reactors) has earned the two regions the nickname "Genpatsu [nuclear power plant] Ginza"1.  At the site located between Kashiwazaki City and Kariwa Village, Niigata Prefecture, TEPCO has what is, with seven reactors, the world's largest nuclear power plant complex (See Map).  This geographic concentration of nuclear reactors significantly increases the probability of a crisis occurring when any of those regions are struck by natural disasters.  Given the risks that they present, why do Japanese nuclear power plants have these features?