Aug. 6 and 9 are the days on which Japanese pray for the souls of those who died due to the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and renew our resolve to seek a world without nuclear weapons.

But a new dimension has been added to this year's atomic bombing anniversaries. The disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has made the risk of radiation exposure all too real to many people.

For Japan, this poses a very significant question: Can humans coexist with nuclear power?