Turn of the Nuclear Screw

While the ruined Fukushima reactors continue to hemorrhage radionuclides and scientists along the California coast prepare to look for them in local kelp, the usual powers in Japan try to suppress public debate about nuclear power. What else can they do, talk logically about it? Prime Minister Abe, who wants to turn the country’s idle reactors back on a.s.a.p., told the candidates in the current Tokyo gubernatorial race not to emphasize the issue over such important topics as the 2020 Olympics and the waiting list for nursery schools.  And a professor of economics at Toyo University, who was the host of the “Business Outlook” show on Japanese public radio NHK for the past 20 years, was ordered by a program director to stop talking about nuclear power during the election campaign. So he quit. Nice to see that humanities professors can still be dangerous.

Meanwhile, TEPCO is on its way to posting a profit for fiscal 2013, which ends in March, thanks to rate hikes.  Japanese citizens continue to shoulder the cost of the Fukushima imbroglio not only through taxpayer support of the company’s cleanup operation, but by being puppets on its financial strings.  No wonder Abe and his right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (what an Orwellian name) love the electricity business.

Comments are closed.