Former Prime Minister Kan’s campaign to rid the world of nuclear power

he [Kan] noted that already a new energy prospect is visible off the Fukushima coast, where a floating wind turbine is being tested. It has been dubbed “Fukushima mirai,” which means “Fukushima future” in Japanese. “In Japan,” Kan said, “we see that even without nuclear power plants we can actually supply energy to meet our demands.”

The Nuclear Odyssey of Naoto Kan, Japan’s Prime Minister during Fukushima Having led Japan through the 2011 nuclear crisis, the elder statesman is now campaigning for a world without nuclear power, Scientific American, By David Biello, 17 Oct 13, (“……………Kan could not help but wondering how much worse the Fukushima meltdowns might get on the dark nights spent in his office after March 11, 2011. “What was going through my mind at the time?” Kan said through a translator during a public event at the 92nd Street YMCA in New York City on October 8. “How much worse is this going to get, and how can we stop this from getting even worse?”

Kan commissioned a report for the worst-case scenario from the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, which confirmed his worst fears: a potential evacuation area reaching as far as 250 kilometers from the stricken power plant—a zone of exclusion that would have reached all the way to Tokyo and affected roughly 50 million people. The potential for disaster was so great because the Fukushima area houses a total of 10 reactors and 11 pools that store used nuclear fuel. By March 15, three of those reactors were experiencing at least partial meltdowns, and four, thanks to a spent-fuel pool that also lost water cooling of the still-hot rods, had suffered hydrogen explosions…….

Now the one-time nuclear supporter is campaigning for an end to power from fission. “There is no other disaster that would affect 50 million people—maybe a war,” Kan observed. “There is only one way to eliminate such accidents, which is to get rid of all nuclear power plants.”….

“Now we are at the point where the battle will be great, and it is going to determine the future of Japan,” Kan said. “The best and biggest way of achieving a different energy reliance and independence from fossil fuelsis efficiency, reducing energy use.”

Japan has already shown that it can cut back on energy consumption via what has been dubbed setsuden, or power savings, such as reducing air conditioning demand in summer by wearing lighter clothes rather than suits. Such setsuden efforts in summer 2011, after the Fukushima meltdowns, helped reduce peak electricity demand in the Tokyo region by nearly 20 percent. And Kan hopes that, within a decade or so, renewable power sources can replace nuclear completely. He has personally remodeled his home, installing better windows and more insulation to cut down on energy use as well as a photovoltaic system that allows him to achieve “energy self-sufficiency.” He hopes more Japanese will do the same; his last act before resigning as prime minister in August 2011 was to ensure the passage of a guaranteed higher price for electricity generated from the sun.

Kan is not the only elder statesman to join the chorus of opposition to nuclear power in Japan. Former LDP Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the one-time mentor of the current prime minister, Abe, reiterated his disapproval of nuclear power in September. The Fukushima disaster helped bring about his change of mind, as did a recent visit to Finland’s long-term waste storage facility, which convinced him that such a facility could never be built in Japan and that his country’s unstable geology made it ill-suited for nuclear reactors. Japan already has the Monju fast-breeder reactor for recycling used nuclear fuel instead of building such permanent storage, but the facility has been plagued by fires, shutdowns and other delays….

he [Kan] noted that already a new energy prospect is visible off the Fukushima coast, where a floating wind turbine is being tested. It has been dubbed “Fukushima mirai,” which means “Fukushima future” in Japanese. “In Japan,” Kan said, “we see that even without nuclear power plants we can actually supply energy to meet our demands.” http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-power-odyssey-of-naoto-kan-former-japan-prime-minister-during-fukushima