![]() ![]() It has no ready remedy, and even the long-term fixes could break the Japanese economy. After 60 years of dependence, the country is economically, historically, and culturally handcuffed to the atom. Sata may be right: Japan lacks alternate sources of energy that are plentiful and cheap. "If we don't have the nuclear plants, how is it going to work without electricity?" This is not some false dichotomy dreamed up by an old-timer who remembers a world without much light. Then she points to the brightly lit high-rise next to her. The antinuclear movement had previously been an insignificant collection of Cassandra-like students, but now demonstrations regularly rack Japan's cities. ![]() After the earthquake and tsunami that caused the 2011 meltdown, tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Tokyo - and thousands more assembled elsewhere across Japan - to demand a permanent shutdown of the nation's nuclear plants. An antinuclear demonstration in Tokyo last July turned out 170,000, larger even than the 1960s protests against a security treaty with the United States. All of Japan's 54 nuclear reactors except two were idled after the Fukushima disaster, and protesters do not want them reopened.įukushima filled the streets with people. Now, behind Sata, the protesters are chanting, "Stop nukes immediately!" and "Shame on you, TEPCO!" Mostly middle-aged, they are braving the rain to crowd in front of TEPCO and other government agencies, including the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry, where an antinuclear tent flaps permanently in the wind. The advent of nuclear power meant that the Japanese could consume as much electricity as they wanted. "There was a TEPCO office in the neighborhood," she recalls, and when a bulb burned out, "we had to bring it there" to trade it for a new one. Families were allowed just a few lightbulbs in the 1940s, because the electrical system was still in its infancy. Sata, who is older than Japan's nearly 60-year-old civilian nuclear industry, remembers a time without nuclear power. to commemorate the 20-month anniversary of the disastrous triple-meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011. The protesters, we told her, had gathered in front of the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co. "What in the world is going on there?" she asked me and my translator, grimacing at the disturbance. To her left, more than 1,000 people were banging drums and shouting slogans. TOKYO - Hiroko Sata, an 87-year-old nurse, walked out into the Tokyo street on Nov. ![]()
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