A JAPANESE DISGRACE – AT 9:33 A.M. ET:  We have, in recent days, praised the remarkable behavior of the Japanese people in the face of tragedy.  No looting.  No whining.  A great deal of hard work and maximum effort.

However, let's not go too far.  Japan, after all, does not have an entirely glorious history, as plenty of GI's found out in the Pacific some decades ago.  There is a dark side to Japanese culture and governance, and one part of that dark side is corruption.  The Bloomberg news organization has done some fine investigative reporting, and has come up with this:

The unfolding disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant follows decades of falsified safety reports, fatal accidents and underestimated earthquake risk in Japan’s atomic power industry.

The destruction caused by last week’s 9.0 earthquake and tsunami comes less than four years after a 6.8 quake shut the world’s biggest atomic plant, also run by Tokyo Electric Power Co. In 2002 and 2007, revelations the utility had faked repair records forced the resignation of the company’s chairman and president, and a three-week shutdown of all 17 of its reactors.

With almost no oil or gas reserves of its own, nuclear power has been a national priority for Japan since the end of World War II, a conflict the country fought partly to secure oil supplies. Japan has 54 operating nuclear reactors -- more than any other country except the U.S. and France -- to power its industries, pitting economic demands against safety concerns in the world’s most earthquake-prone country.

Nuclear engineers and academics who have worked in Japan’s atomic power industry spoke in interviews of a history of accidents, faked reports and inaction by a succession of Liberal Democratic Party governments that ran Japan for nearly all of the postwar period.

COMMENT:  Clearly, a report like that will have repercussions here.  Critics of nuclear power, both honest and not, will seize upon corruption in Japan to warn of possible dishonesty and twisting of facts in the American nuclear industry, and they may well find some disturbing things.  Faking safety reports is not unknown in the United States.  We've had several scandals here in New York regarding payoffs to building inspectors.  The Indian Point nuclear facility, not far from where Urgent Agenda is written, is viewed with substantial suspicion by many residents of this area.

I believe in nuclear power, but also believe that issues of safety and reliability should be addressed with obsessive seriousness.  The left will oppose nuclear power because it opposes American industry and strength.  The right cannot respond with bland appeals to "the free enterprise system" or with disparaging remarks about "worriers."  Take the safety issue seriously, even establish new layers of protection.  Nuclear power has a good future, even a great one, but only if the public's safety concerns are addressed carefuly and maturely.

March 18, 2011