The Nuclear Safety Commission made public its 2006 white paper on the safety of nuclear power last week. The fact that its publication came after two postponements shows that the safety of the nation's nuclear power plants cannot be taken for granted. It will take tremendous efforts on the part of the government and power industry to regain the people's trust in nuclear power generation.
The first postponement was caused by a series of data-falsification incidents and coverups concerning problems and accidents at hydraulic, thermal and nuclear power stations, which surfaced in and after the fall of 2006. The commission was forced to include a report on these irregularities in the white paper. The second postponement was caused by the July 16 major earthquake off Niigata Prefecture, which caused Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant to automatically shut down.
The plant, equipped with seven reactors for generation of a total of about 8.21 million kW of electricity, is among the world's largest nuclear power plants. It was hit by strong seismic tremors never experienced before at other nuclear power plants. Four of the reactors automatically shut down; the three others were undergoing checks at the time and not in operation.