Staff writer

Yauko Taniguchi's life is more hectic than ever these days as she tries to guard herself and her family from a Year 2000 catastrophe.

A Kagoshima city resident, Taniguchi has been growing vegetables and stockpiling food as a precaution against the Y2K computer problem. Recently, she went one step further: the 49-year-old mother has mail-ordered natural foods containing high levels of iodine -- the only substance known to shield the body, at least partially, against cancer-causing radiation poisoning.

Her fear stems not only from the presence of two nuclear plants in Sendai, Kagoshima Prefecture, some 50 km away from where she lives, but also from 49 others in other parts of Japan as well as those in nearby nations.

"No one can say none of those nuclear power plants will go wrong when the year turns over," Taniguchi said. "The uncorrected computer problem (at nuclear plants) may lead to a core meltdown."

Some may say Taniguchi is going too far, but she is not alone in fearing Y2K-induced accidents at nuclear facilities.

Last month, a group of Japanese citizens kicked off a worldwide campaign to demand the temporary shutdown of all the nuclear plants in the world from Dec. 1 till they are confirmed to be safe after the turn of the year.

They have already collected nearly 9,000 signatures and the number is increasing.

"We know the electric utilities are doing checkups. But they may fail to screen out all the defects in millions of chips," says Shoji Takagi, an organizer of the World Atomic Safety Holiday campaign. "Stopping nuclear power plants is the least the country should do for Y2K risk management."

Takagi and other WASH campaign members plan to submit the petition and signatures to the central government Monday, followed by similar moves by their fellow campaigners in other nations.

Japan's electricity industry claims its vital systems are almost ready for any and all 2000 dates and they expect no problems in power delivery -- to say nothing of any malfunction at the nation's 51 nuclear plants, which cover roughly one third of the nation's total electricity supply.

The industry group has asserted that the reactors' most important systems are not subject to Y2K errors because the control systems -- including those regulating cooling water flow, control rods and emergency core cooling -- do not rely on date information. Output of the power generators is regulated in response to the constantly changing electricity demands, industry officials all note.

They acknowledge that problems remain in some support systems that have date-sensitive microchips for monitoring and recording plant operations. But even those systems will be Y2K compliant by October, when all the necessary replacement and reprogramming of computers -- a project costing millions of yen -- is to be completed.

Most recently, the nation's largest electric utility -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. -- conducted a simulation test at its Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima Prefecture earlier this month and confirmed its safety.

The Y2K problem arises because many computers were programmed to recognize years by their last two digits, reading 1999 for example as "99." That means when 2000 rolls around, many computers could misread the year as 1900, and possibly fail.

Tepco officials claim they have prevented problems mainly by inserting command lines to make computers interpret the last two digits of the year from 00 to 69 as 2000 to 2069 and digits 70 and over as 1970 to 1999.

It looks like a mere postponement of the problem, but the company claims the approach is reasonable because whole computer systems will be replaced within a few decades.

Ichiro Takekuro, general manager of Tepco's nuclear plant management department, said the utility has spent some 4 billion yen to repair 230 systems in its 17 nuclear plants.

The work on all types of power generation systems, totaling 605, began in 1996 and will be over in several weeks, according to the company.

"With all our efforts in investigation and verification, we expect nothing will go wrong," Takekuro said.

Other power generators' Y2K project managers have been making similar efforts to address the problem, rewriting computer codes and replacing microprocessors.

On New Year's Eve, with contingency plans at hand, power industry officials will camp out in their offices to watch for any failures at the turn of the year. At Tepco, for example, about 4,800 staffers -- three times more than an ordinary yearend -- will be on standby.

Even if something goes wrong at any of its nuclear facilities, Tepco reckons there is no need to worry.

"Through tough and regular training, our operational staffers have mastered how to manually operate the plant," said Harukuni Tanaka of the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Their efforts apparently succeeded in gaining the confidence of their large-lot industrial customers.

A spokesman at Kawasaki Steel Corp., a company with huge commercial electricity needs, said the firm received enough information, based on which it has mapped out its own Y2K management plan.

Even Intel Co., the world's largest chip supplier, which early this year warned that vulnerable Japanese public utilities could hurt the global personal computer industry when the day comes, noted the utilities are no longer causing headaches.

Still, not everyone, including high-tech consultants, is convinced.

Takashi Tsumura of Y2K Citizens Net, a nationwide Y2K watchdog group, said the power industry is too eager to say "Don't worry, we'll be all right," and does not take the potential problems seriously.

Takehiko Aoyagi, deputy executive director of Center for Global Communications, believes power will be available as usual in 2000, but still wonders why electricity companies can be so certain they are covering all Y2K contingencies.

"They should (take precautions) considering the scale of possible damage caused by power disruptions, however small they may probably be. That's the very basics of risk management," Aoyagi said.

In that sense, Kagoshima resident Taniguchi, who has paid 1 million yen for iodine-rich sea kelp, may be right. "I have to prepare for the worst for the sake of my children," Taniguchi said.

With a mixture of optimism and dread, Japan will be the first country with nuclear power to greet 2000. The rest of the world will watch as the rising sun approaches them, as well.