Teetering along the Pacific Ring of Fire, Japan has long cultivated a nuclear power program despite the obvious dangers.

    Now squeezed by energy needs, Japanese leaders say they are ready to embark again on the nuclear route after closing all but two of Japan's 50 nuclear reactors following the massive quake that sparked the Fukushima meltdowns. The reasoning? Japan's technocracy still believes it has the best quake-proofing engineering in the world.

    The majority of the population, until Fukushima, felt the same. Since then, technological certainty and the promise of a golden age of science have been shattered by fear. "I blame the planners and engineers; they knew the risks. It's the same now as then," says Shinobu Nemoto a 28-year-old plumber, subcontracted to work at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

    Nemoto helps maintain the myriad of essential cooling pipes that have been cobbled together since the Tohoku quake of 2011 to keep the reactors cool. Breakdowns are frequent, but workers must keep the water pumping over the nuclear cores. Any break of more than 40 hours could see the cores, now thought cooled sufficiently to cease being a menace, heat up and become volatile again.

    Tsunami, earthquakes, power outages all threaten to bring the situation back to panic stations. "The power companies are not honest with us and put us in danger," he says of the colossal hubris that Fukushima has come to represent.

    The government is attempting to assuage jittery voters with promises of a reformed nuclear industry. Japan's new nuclear power watchdog insists fresh guidelines, which go into effect July 8, will legally require operators of nuclear power plants to be prepared for "severe accidents" mitigating dangers from earthquakes and other terrors.

    Until Fukushima, Japan's reactors had responded well to quakes and shut down safely even after events as large as the 7.2 Kobe earthquake, official records show. However, seismologist professor Ishibashi Katsuhiko of Kobe University believes there hasn't been a technology yet invented that can prevent a disaster in the event of the biggest earthquakes. "To reinforce facilities to withstand such stresses would make them unfeasible," he said at a press conference last year.

    That hasn't stopped the private-sector nuclear power industry from trying. Engineers have been busy upgrading atomic plants to meet what Japan's new Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) is calling the world's toughest earthquake and tsunami standards at a cost to the industry of many billions of dollars.

    尽管核能项目的危险性显而易见，位于环太平洋火山带之上的日本在很久以前就开始了在这个领域的发展。

    由于强烈地震引发福岛核泄漏事故，日本关闭了国内48座核电站，只有2座仍处于运转状态。现在，迫于能源需求压力，日本政府领导人表示，他们准备再次踏上发展核能之路。理由？因为日本的技术官僚们相信，日本掌握着世界上最先进的抗震工程技术。

    福岛核事故发生前，多数日本人都有这样的想法。但事故发生后，技术方面的把握和进入科技黄金时代的承诺都被恐惧所取代。28岁的管道工根本忍以劳务分包形式在福岛第一核电站工作。他说：“我觉得这要怪那些设计人员和工程师。他们知道有风险。现在的情况和原来一样。”

    根本忍的工作是维护福岛核电站的冷却管道，它们数量庞大而且极为重要。2011年，日本东北部发生地震后，福岛第一核电站就安装了这些管道，以便让反应堆一直处于冷却状态。虽然故障频频，但工作人员必须不断向反应堆堆芯泵水。尽管目前堆芯温度较低，已经没有危险，但如果停止冷却的时间超过40个小时，堆芯就会暴露在外，它的温度就会再次上升，重新变得不稳定。

    海啸、地震、电力中断，所有这些都可能让情况再次变得令人恐惧。根本忍说：“电力公司没有对我们以诚相待，还让我们置于危险之中。”他指的是福岛核电站所代表的极为傲慢的态度。

    日本政府承诺将对核电行业进行改革，希望借此缓解选民的紧张情绪。新设立的原子能管制委员会（NRA）坚持实施的新指导方针已于7月8日生效，该方针依法要求核电站经营方为“严重事故”做好准备，以降低地震等重大灾害所带来的危险。

    日本官方数据显示，福岛事故发生前，日本核电站的抗震情况良好，甚至在震级高达7.2级的神户地震发生时也能安全停机。不过，神户大学（Kobe University）地震学教授石桥克彦认为，现有技术还无法防止核电站在最严重的地震灾害中发生事故。去年，石桥克彦在一个新闻发布会上说：“如果把设备加固到能承受那样的冲击力，设备本身就会无法投入运行。”

    但私营核电企业并没有因此而停止尝试。这些企业的工程师们一直在忙于对核电站进行升级，以达到NRA的要求——NRA把这些要求称为世界上最严格的抗震和抗海啸标准，日本核电行业为此已经付出了数十亿美元的代价。

    Following the NRA's demands, power stations are undergoing extensive retrofitting. That includes a strengthening of the basic design, new technologies to prevent core damage and containment failure, as well as the addition of extra costly backups such as remote control centers each at a cost of around $1.5 billion -- changes calculated to inspire confidence in consumers and investors alike.

    CEO & Chairman of the Institute of Energy Economics think tank, Masakazu Toyoda can't see how Japan can continue in the short run without nuclear power. He suggests in a report that his country should have about a quarter of its energy from nuclear by 2030 for an optimum energy mix. "In addition to energy conservation, four types of energy, that is, nuclear energy, renewable energy, fossil energy and cogeneration should be combined in a well-balanced and diverse way to assure energy security," he says.

    He emphasizes that this time Japan's nuclear power safety must be guaranteed by an independent body.

    Pre-Fukushima government guidelines and controls turned out worse than inadequate for some types of natural disasters and man-made accidents. Past rules called for plants to be able to withstand a magnitude 6.5-class earthquake with the epicenter directly under the plant. However, buildings and cooling systems were not designed to withstand certain massive earthquakes and tsunamis as witnessed in the Fukushima triple disaster.

    Designers working on reactors like those at Fukushima were under instructions to make only "voluntary" design adjustments according to reactor engineer Dr Masashi Goto, who until four years ago worked for Toshiba which built two of the reactors at Fukushima. "We had only guidelines from the government and the companies we were designing reactors for, which suggested the chance of an accident owing to earthquakes would be minimal. They asked the companies involved in designing only to make "voluntary" efforts to make the reactor's containment vessel quake-proof, for example," he says.

    This "wishing of risk away" demonstrates the folly to which Japan's nuclear complex has been particularly prone, says Jeff Kingston, Director of Asian Studies, of Temple University Japan. He points out that stricter rules depend on stricter monitoring and robust compliance. The problem, he claims, is that the separation of industry and watchdog agencies has not been achieved.

    The new NRA is staffed largely by employees from the previous nuclear authority NISA. "To some degree the lessons of Fukushima have been absorbed, but those former NISA employees were part of the averted eyes approach to safety monitoring that has prevailed," he says.

    Aside from institutional failures, there is another question: Can Japan put its close relationship between the nuclear complex and authorities behind it? In the past, side effects of that relationship have included data falsification and fabrication, deliberately duping safety inspectors, and failure to report problems such as uncontrolled criticality incidents at reactors and emergency shutdowns. Unlike the plants themselves, the culture of opacity ingrained in Japan's nuclear nexus could prove harder to re-engineer.

    按照NRA的要求，核电站得到了彻底翻新，其中包括加固基本设计方案，用新技术来防止堆芯损坏和压力容器失效，以及花大价钱增设后备设施，比如单价约15亿美元（92亿元人民币）的远程控制中心。作出这些调整的目的是为了燃起消费者和投资者的信心。

    智囊机构日本能源经济研究所（Institute of Energy Economics）总裁兼董事长丰田正和认为，没有核能，日本很快就会维持不下去。他在报告中建议，到2030年，核能在日本能源体系中的比重应该达到四分之一左右，以便优化能源结构。丰田正和说：“除了节能，四种能源类型，即核能、可再生能源、化石能源和热电联产应当很均衡地组合起来，以多元化方式来确保能源安全。”

    他强调，这次必须由独立机构来保证日本安全使用核能。

    实际情况表明，福岛事故发生前，日本政府的指导方针和控制手段不仅不足以应对某些类型的自然灾害和人为事故，还会让情况变得更糟。以前的规定是核电站要能抗震源在正下方的6.5级地震。然而，建筑物和冷却系统的设计标准并不能抵御福岛三重灾害中出现的那种强震和大海啸。

    据反应堆工程师本山圭太介绍，包括福岛核电站在内，对反应堆设计人员的要求只是“自愿”对设计进行调整。4年前，本山圭太还在东芝（Toshiba）工作，而福岛核电站中有两座反应堆正是由东芝承建。他说：“只有政府以及我们为其设计反应堆的公司给了我们一些指导意见。这些指导意见认为，地震引发核电站事故的可能性非常小。他们只要求设计公司“自愿”采取措施，比如让反应堆压力容器达到抗震标准。”

    天普大学日本分校（Temple University Japan）亚洲研究部门主任杰夫•金斯敦认为，这种“但愿风险别来找我”的想法表明日本核电企业有多么的愚蠢。金斯敦指出，更严格的法规要靠更严密的监督以及积极的配合，而问题就在于日本核电工业与监管部门一直未能实现分离。

    NRA的工作人员基本上都来自前核电监管部门原子力安全保安院（NISA）。金斯敦说：“福岛事故所带来的教训已经得到了一定程度的消化。但那些来自NISA的员工曾在风行一时的安全检查中避免眼神交流。”

    除了制度失效外，还有另外一个问题，那就是日本能否让核电企业与监管部的密切关系成为历史。以前，这种密切关系所带来的副作用有篡改和虚构数据，故意欺骗安全检查人员以及隐瞒问题，比如反应堆中不受控制的临界事故以及紧急停机等。和发电站本身不同的是，实际情况可能证明，日本核电公司的不透明文化比较难以改造。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie