Thousands rally against nuclear power

Rather than rallying for the end of nuclear power, these demonstrators would gain more legitimacy and traction by first calling for more responsible management of what's going on now. Start by demanding the prosecution of those directly responsible for letting Fukushima happen. Then demand transparent and strict oversight of the nuclear industry, and hold political representatives accountable for making sure it happens.

I'm all for taking it to the streets. But demanding the impossible is just counterproductive. (Their calls for compensation are totally appropriate, though.)

Since the disaster France, Britain and the U.S. have all declared they will press ahead with new reactors, while China and India remain on course for building scores more in coming years.

This is misleading. Japan should know its precarious situation. Unlike other countries, it is sitting on unpredictable life threatening earthquakes and tsunamis. Therefore, its energy pathway should be carefully thought putting this into consideration and safety measures should not be same as countries that do not experience earthquakes and Tsunamis. Thinking that many other countries are taking on nuclear energy while forgetting Japan's unique situation is only being careless and insensitive. And for the author's information, Germany put a deadline to use of nuclear energy and other countries such as Australia and Newzealand declared their areas no-nuclear zones but are highly developed. Japan should watch out for such misleading, unresearched, baseless and biased statements such as that of Shinichiro Takiguchi

If their was any true sense of honour in Japan the whole government would have listened to these people years ago. Instead there is greed, corruption and graft on an industrial scale. Shame on ALL in the Diet, cowards with innocent blood on their hands. How do they sleep?!

Good luck to all those who marched today, although I know deep down it will have little effect in Japan at least in years to come you can all look yourself in the eye and know you did the right thing unlike the dishonourable thieves in the Japanese government.

Bunch of idiots. They gonna go home and switch their TV's and sit on warm toilet seats all day. Where do they think this power comes from? Or they would rather pollute all of the air with coal plants?

if they are so much against nuclear power, how about living in a damn forest and never using any electricity at all?

nisegaijin - I was about to expose your post for its utter crassness, naïveté, pompousness etc. but zichi beat me to it. Tell you what, have your home and livelihood destroyed due to the incompetence of an uncaring, unsympathetic govt, and get back to me if these people are still a "bunch of idiots". Oh, by the way, any comment on how the Japanese public manage to survive outside of a "damn forest" with only 4% of their power nuclear? I won't hold my breath waiting for an answer.

@hoserfella

Don't confuse the effects of the tsunami with incompetance at TEPCO.

hoserfella, well great! so how about protests against incompetence, and uncaring unsympathetic govt? I am all for it! There is not point protecting technology that these people have no understanding of, there is a huge point protesting poor execution and lies.

zichi, was last summer fun for you? That setsuden nightmare will be every day if we get rid of the 4%. finally, are you prepared to pay extra for higher price of fossil fuels?

Nisegaijin, I also went through that summer. I installed reflective sheets to all the windows and insulated every crack that had no function. We only needed a small fraction of air conditioner use because of that. There was no change in comfort levels for us. Japan doesn't need to start the nuclear plants to achieve the same comfort levels as pre-Fukushima. All that is required is little technical thinking out of the box.

I also am not blaming nuclear technology for what happened in Fukushima. But the Japanese obviously have no functioning regulatory body nor safety measures nor plans. They cannot operate nuclear power safely. Cutting off arm because of a small wound may be overkill - unless there is gangrene, and I have yet to hear of a vaccine against Tepco.

Nuclear power is a way to boil water to create steam that turns turbines to generate electricity. Surely we can find a better way to boil water.

nisegaijin,

zichi, was last summer fun for you? That setsuden nightmare will be every day if we get rid of the 4%. finally, are you prepared to pay extra for higher price of fossil fuels?

And that is the problem with most human beings: short-termism. We are mostly looking at short-termprofists, gains and comforts. We are not caring what sort of Japan the future generations will inherit when we are long gone! Do we want our children to inherit a Japan with nuclear plants every 100 meters, sitting on dangerous earthquakes just beacause we are inconvenienced? Do you want our children to make geiger muller counters part of their uniform, bemasked and coming from make-shift shelters to go to school for the rest of their lives? So, because somebody's air-conditioner was not working properly as a result of a power cut, nuclear power stations should switched on regardless of consequences to last for tens or hundreds or thousands of years! Astonishing!!!!!

There is a health cost for Japan running all of those thermal plants. Increased lung and heart disease and increased cancer. The quality of life goes downhill in the communities where these plants are located. Next where is Japan going to get all of the oil? How will Japan pay for it? People have been scared STUPID and now Japan is paying the price. The burning of so much fossil fuel is going to raise death rates and increase suffering.

One can empathize, but making nuclear technology and its administration safer would seem to be the better option here. There will always be risk with nuclear technology, even after the appropriate improvements are made. But to make a nation's energy availability more dependent on another nation or nations than necessary would seem to present the greater long term risk.

Protests aren't going to work. They've been around for too long and governments have learned exactly how to stifle and ignore them. To get rid of nuclear power the Japanese people need to independently start generating and sharing clean and renewable energy to make nuclear power unnecessary. Cause their government sure as hell ain't gonna do it.