Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 2017. xiii, 176 pp. US$24.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-5017-0581-6.
Voluminous literature on the Fukushima nuclear disaster has been published, but My Nuclear Nightmare: Leading Japan through the Fukushima Disaster to a Nuclear-Free Future might be one of the most important primary sources to be translated into English. The Japanese version was published in 2012.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan describes Japan’s initial response to the disaster during his tenure of office and his striving for a nuclear-free Japan after his resignation. These memoirs include Kan’s description of the political process and his emotions as he coped with the crisis as well as the proceedings of his press conferences and question-and-answer sessions with the media members. Furthermore, Kan criticizes Japan’s nuclear regulatory authority that was responsible for both promoting and monitoring nuclear energy before Fukushima (139) and the “nuclear village,” Japan’s vested interest in nuclear energy (148). The English translation includes about ten additional pages where Kan describes the support from the US (20‒23), the measures to stop radioactive water leaks into the groundwater (117‒118), his response to Prime Minister Abe Shinzō’s criticism that injection of seawater into Unit 1 was delayed because of Kan’s order (127‒128), and the present circumstances surrounding nuclear restarts (165).
The prologue and the first part of the book describe Kan’s experiences between March 11 and 19, 2011, including an unbelievable series of dysfunctions that Kan had to cope with: no nuclear energy expert was immediately available because Japan had dismissed the possibility of a nuclear disaster and had poorly prepared (20‒21), the plugs of a power-supply truck that was supposed to cool the reactors did not fit (44), the necessary equipment to prevent a hydrogen explosion and the most advanced fire trucks were not transported because of miscommunications (68, 103), and nobody realized the real danger of Unit 4 that came from the spent fuel pool, whose cooling function was lost because Unit 4 was idle and therefore perceived as safe (90).
The second part focuses on Kan’s efforts to improve the decision-making process on nuclear restarts and to put a nuclear energy phaseout on the political agenda for his successor (Yoshihiko Noda) before resigning. Kan also mentions the pressure of the “nuclear village” and politicians who tried to remove him from being the prime minister (129) and the support from the executive and Japan’s civil society for his vision of “a total elimination of nuclear power by the 2030s” (130‒142).
The third part describes Kan’s visits to renewable energy sites all over the world and his interactions with the global antinuclear civil society. Kan discusses obstacles to his “no nuclear power by 2030” goal, such as a possible bankruptcy of electric companies if all nuclear power plants were shut down and decommissioned (157). Kan also reflects on his successor’s energy policy and on his efforts to ask for opinions from advisory committee members and the general public (162).
The book is interesting in many research contexts. Scholars who are interested in crisis management, risk communication, the prime minister’s political leadership, media coverage of the prime minister, nuclear regulatory authority, renewable energy policy, and ethical issues such as the lives of nuclear power plant workers, will find the book engaging. Kan’s statements either correspond or relate to other primary sources, such as the report of the National Diet of Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission; books published by other politicians, such as Fukuyama Tetsurō; or the testimony of the plant manager Yoshida. To examine Kan’s statements, researchers should compare them with these other primary sources.
The book will attract a general audience as well, but these readers might find it confusing at times. Kan mentions many different actors and organizations, and keeping an overview can be difficult. He describes interactions mainly with (1) executive members, such as the chief and deputy cabinet secretaries, vice ministers, and special advisors; (2) representatives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and reactor manufacturers; (3) ministries and agencies responsible for energy policy, such as the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, that resisted Kan’s vision of a nuclear phaseout, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, and the Nuclear Safety Commission; (4) Japan Self-Defense Forces that took the leadership from March 15 onward; (5) politicians of the opposition who refused Kan’s proposal to form a nonpartisan cabinet and tried to seize power; (6) US actors, especially the United States Armed Forces that assisted Japan’s disaster relief; (7) local governments; (8) the International Atomic Energy Agency; and (9) actors in Japanese civil society who were invited to advisory committees about renewable energy policy. Readers might be surprised that Kan had to interact with so many different actors.
While the book often provides detailed information about the political process, it lacks information about important issues, such as the decision-making process on the government policy on radiation, especially the introduction of the new exposure limit of 20 millisieverts that was applied to evacuation zones and to the compensation for nuclear disaster victims. The former parliamentary deputy cabinet secretary (Tetsurō Fukuyama) merely touched on this issue in his book. Moreover, Kan’s remarks about article 3 of the atomic energy damage compensation law seem one-sided. The article exempts nuclear power plant operators from the responsibility to compensate for damages that result from an “extraordinary natural disaster or a social upheaval” (122). Kan emphasizes his mercilessness toward TEPCO, but he does not mention that many nuclear disaster victims, and politicians who supported them, believed that the victims might have received better compensation if the article had been applied to the case of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Kan himself has exerted efforts to support “voluntary evacuees,” individuals who moved from irradiated areas without being ordered to do so by the government and had limited chances of receiving compensation. He should write a second book about the government’s decision on radiation and his activities on the part of voluntary evacuees, or researchers should interview him about his feelings upon meeting voluntary evacuees.
Ayaka Löschke
University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland