"The Day the Tepco Will Die"

("Le Jour où Tepco Disparaîtra")

Excellent news-event with Sumio Mabuchi (DPJ) today Oct 18 2013 at the press club in Tokyo. Representative Mabuchi served as an aide to the prime minister Naoto Kan on the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011. Mabuchi san made lots of proposition on the concrete resolution of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

M: Rep. Sumio Mabuchi, L: Interpreter Takamatsu R: Moderator Tetsuo Jimbo (Videonews)

Today we faced a sharp rise in radioactivity in a well near a storage tank on Fukushima. How far can Tepco go further unable to fix problems on reasonable terms? Unable with present technologies? Bad choices? Also to halt the flow of groundwater, Tepco engineers say they will build a mile-long underground wall of frozen earth around the reactor buildings. But Sumio Mabuchi says the idea of building such underground barrier was planned as early as June 2011, when he was working with Tepco engineers to try to bring the Daiichi plant under control. But the plan was kept secret because the utility was worried about the possible negative impact on the financial markets...

Dealing with Tepco once for ever, imagine new technologies (for instance spray and transformation of contaminated substances instead of millions of tonnes of water for 40 years on the ruined reactors and melted cores) and open the debate to the international community to receive nuclear physicists' options/solutions but not depend once for ever on Tepco. Splendid idea. The issue is now provided by a constructive parliament opposition (Minshuto-Democrats) to succeed instead of pretending all is under control as PM Abe pretended.

Sumio Mabuchi is one of leading figures of the DPJ. He served as Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in the Kan administration. He twice ran for president of the party, losing to the incumbent Banri Kaieda at the last race of December 2012. He is a graduate of Yokohama National University, Department of Civil Engineering. And HE answers to foreign media questions with clear cut sentences, not mere satisfied self-promoting propaganda.

His interview Sept. 25th in the Asahi Shimbun: "If taxpayer money is used to deal with the contaminated water problem at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the government should consider having Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant's operator, go bankrupt or nationalising it, Sumio Mabuchi, who served as an aide to the prime minister on the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, told The Asahi Shimbun in a recent interview."

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201309250060

"Extremely flippant" control of Fukushima politics!

(Contrôle "extrêmement désinvolte" de la politique sur Fukushima)

 Japanese Parliament 

"The government will continue efforts to address the problem with multiple preventive measures using the world’s wisdom," Abe told a plenary session of the House of Representatives. "The situation has been under control as a whole." Abe’s repeated no-cause-for-alarm assessments of the situation at the Fukushima plant, which suffered three reactor-core meltdowns shortly after it was hit by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and monster tsunami, are raising the eyebrows of critics who regard the condition as worrying and warn of possible negative fallout on the environment and industries," the Japan Times writes today.

Not so in control actually. In the new 185th Lower House session special committees, the Parliament MPs committee overseeing the work of the nuclear energy safety commission 原子力問題調査特別委員会 and nuclear related issues, is to disappear. If confirmed and if no MP is eager to impose rigorous Parliament control's tools on the monitoring of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, then what a big surprise. Seen as an added outrage by the Parliamentary opposition.

Fukushima is on everyone and global security radar screens, here especially with the nuclear refugees/evacuees… and abroad with the safety risks imposed on Japan and its neighbouring countries such as China, Korean peninsula, the Asia Pacific nations and the Asian seas community.

Banri Kaieda DPJ, opposition.

Banri Kaieda, head of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan questioned on Wednesday the prime minister Abe on Fukushima at the Diet and according to a Diet watcher:

"Abe was short on explaining to the Diet what the government is going to do, now that "it (not Tepco) is in full charge". Abe reiterated that the government will play a major role in addressing the water problem (including taxpayers money potential financial assistance for the utility) not leaving the task to the Tepco's utility alone.

Taro Aso and Shinzo Abe yesterday

Nevertheless in regard to a proper democratic functioning of Japan politics, axing the committee while Fukushima crisis is developing, is a political error, "maybe a different one [committee] would have been less prone to misunderstanding" as a Japan based commentator told me. The number of Lower House special committees is limited to 10.

Japan opposition leader Kaieda stated that Shinzo Abe, as a prime minister, should be more careful about assessing the situation at the plant, criticising his remarks as being "extremely flippant!" EoQ.

 Anti nuclear demonstrator