Former Japanese Prime Minister: "Nuclear power is not safe and very expensive"

(Baonghean.vn) - Mr. Naoto Kan - who served as Prime Minister of Japan during the Fukushima disaster in 2011, warned about Britain's nuclear plans.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan did not support the nuclear plan, especially after the Fukushima disaster five years ago.

“Nuclear power is very unsafe and expensive at any nuclear facility in the world,” the former Japanese prime minister said, during the Fukushima disaster.

During the fifth anniversary of the disaster, former Prime Minister Naoto Kan said he did not support the idea of ​​Japanese manufacturers such as Hitachi or Toshiba building nuclear power plants in the UK.

Responding to The Guardian, Mr. Kan said: “Nuclear energy is not safe at all. In the worst case, up to 50 million people could be displaced. Nuclear energy is also not a suitable technology, renewable energy is a wiser choice.”

The former prime minister insisted that he was not telling other countries like Britain what to do, but was simply making it clear that he did not support the idea of ​​reactors returning to Japan.

His warning comes as Britain's nuclear plans are on hold due to delays at the EDF Energy Hinkley Site C project in Somerset and concerns about the project's financial viability.

While France's EDF is working on the Hinkley scheme, Hitachi and Toshiba have similar ideas in developing new reactors at Wylfa in Anglesey, Oldbury in South Gloicestershire and Sellafield in Cumbria.

In contrast to Mr. Naoto Kan's view, Mr. Tom Greatrex, a member of the nuclear lobby group in the UK, the Confederation of Nuclear Industries, said that he had absolutely no concerns about the safety of Hinkley and other reactors in the UK because all had passed the strictest reviews and regulations in the UK.

“The design review of the reactor has been done in a different way in the UK and that gives us confidence that the reactor will be very safe and we will be able to test that.”

Asked about Mr Kan's concerns, Greatrex said: "Since then (the Fukushima disaster), four reactors have shown signs of coming back online in Japan... the truth of Fukushima is that all the victims were affected by the tsunami and the evacuation, not by the radioactive material that leaked. In that sense, it was a natural disaster rather than a nuclear disaster.

A spokesman for the Department for Energy and Climate Change also said the safety of UK reactors was “fully assured”. “Any new nuclear power plant built in the UK will need to comply with our world-leading nuclear safety legislation.”

“The UK government is backing new nuclear. It is a vital part of our plan to provide homes and businesses with clean, cheap and secure energy that they can rely on now and in the future.”

Tu Linh

(According to Guardian)