Flicking the switch

WHEN he was a student in Satsumasendai, Ryuichi Somekawa was taken on trips to the nuclear-power museum next door to the reactors of the Sendai plant. The museum, which is still open, amounts to a lavish public-relations effort extolling nuclear safety, yet he remained fearful. Now Satsumasendai in Kagoshima prefecture, on the southern tip of Kyushu, southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, is likely to be the country’s first city to approve the restart of a nuclear plant. The Fukushima disaster in 2011 led to the mothballing of all of Japan’s 48 reactors. Like many residents, Mr Somekawa, who is now 47, is dismayed at the news, but he says the decision is well-nigh inevitable.

The final word will come from the governor of Kagoshima prefecture and from Satsumasendai’s mayor. Operations are expected to resume in the autumn. Japan will still need to power itself through a sweltering summer without nuclear energy. Conventional power stations, some formerly idle, have so far saved the economy from power cuts. The pro-nuclear government of Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, hopes a restart at the Sendai plant can open the way for a dozen or more reactors to resume operations.

To that end, Japan’s nuclear watchdog, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), is inspecting 17 further reactors. Last month it declared the Sendai plant in compliance with its new safety rules. The next to restart is likely to be one at Takahama in Fukui prefecture. Switching nuclear back on could quickly halve Japan’s trade deficit, which has climbed along with fuel imports. Without nuclear power, Mr Abe’s plans to revive the economy might falter.

Choosing Satsumasendai for the first restart was politically savvy, says Jeff Kingston of Temple University in Tokyo. Few places better symbolise a decades-old policy of siting plants in remote and poor locations with few economic options. The power plants provide jobs, and nuclear-related subsidies from the central government pay for an array of sports and cultural facilities, parks and museums. The Sendai plant is a long way from Fukushima; so the catastrophe of the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in 2011 remains rather distant for many locals, according to Ichiro Yunohara, head of the city council of Aira, a neighbouring town that has not benefited from nuclear largesse.

The cost of closure to the local economy means that officials who favour nuclear power overwhelmingly outnumber opponents in the local assemblies that will vote in the autumn. Yet on the national stage, Mr Abe may still pay a price. His popularity has recently flagged. Last month his Liberal Democratic Party lost a gubernatorial election in Shiga prefecture, partly due to rising anti-nuclear sentiment. Some three-fifths of people are against the Sendai restart, according to a recent nationwide poll of public opinion.

Back in Kyushu, the possibility of an imminent restart was driven home this week when the prefecture handed out iodine tablets to households near the plant to protect against thyroid cancer in case of an accident. Other plans are incomplete, most notably on basic evacuation routes in case of a nuclear emergency. The plant is likely to restart without an earthquake-proof off-site emergency centre, though these were mandated after the Fukushima disaster. Japan lies in one of the world’s most seismically active areas, but insufficient discussion has been held about the risks posed by a surrounding group of five calderas and by Sakurajima, an active volcano only 50 kilometres (31 miles) away from the Sendai plant.

The central government has to date relied on the NRA and on Kagoshima officials to make the case for the restart. Yet the governor, Yuichiro Ito, now says the authorities in Tokyo must convince the public of the plant’s safety. In 2012, before two reactors at Oi in Fukui prefecture were switched back on for a while, the governor there ensured that the then prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, reassured the public over the plant’s safety. Mr Abe may have to dip deep into his political capital if reactors across the country are to be fired up.