福岛之觞：揭秘核泄露内幕

    日本大地震及之后的一系列海啸所引发的核泄露，是自1986年切尔诺贝利事件后全球最大的核灾难。现在时间已经过去一年多了，但福岛核事故仍然是全日本上下争议的焦点。日本核电的发展到了一个历史性的关口，作为全球第三经济大国，日本全国30%的电力都出自核电。目前争议的基本问题是：核电在日本到底应不应该继续发展下去？

    4月13日，野田佳彦政府就此表明了态度。随着夏天临近，日本的用电需求即将达到高峰，日本政府批准了重启两座核反应堆的计划。这两座反应堆位于日本西海岸的一个名叫大饭的小渔港，隶属福井县。

    只要获得政府批准，日本的九大电力公司都有权重启自己的核电站。但问题是野田政府必须首先征得核电站所在的各县和各地政府的同意。目前日本各地还有48座停机的反应堆。要想避免今年夏天出现大面积停电，野田政府还得一一说服这些核电站所在地的政府才行。

    但要说服他们并不容易。自核泄露发生后，日本民间的弃核声浪一直高涨，今年不但没有消退的迹象，而且大多数日本人民现在都站在了弃核的一边。这将野田政府和急需用电的日本企业界逼到了一个非常困难的境地。导火线当然还是去年3月11日东京电力公司福岛第一核电站的核泄露。现在围绕着这场灾难的问题还有很多。

    去年一年里，我们试图通过采访东电员工（有些接受采访的员工获得了公司的官方许可，有些没有）、政府官员以及日本和国际上的核电专家来解答日核危机带来的两个最基本的问题：福岛核灾难究竟为什么会发生？尤其是它为什么会发生在日本这样一个以工艺出色、管理严格而闻名的国家？

    答案令人心头发凉。福岛核电站的灾难宣告了这个核电项目几乎在每个层次上都是失败的，从日本政府对核电的监管，到东京电力公司（TEPCO）在灾难环境下对危机关键细节的管理都乏善可陈。

    管理的失职几乎与天灾本身一样可怕。日本政府自己也承认，核危机的种子早在40年前福岛第一核电站刚修建的时候就埋下了。在日本这个小地震如家常便饭、大地震史不绝书的国家，这座规模居世界前列的核电站居然被建在了大洋边缘。这不仅导致日本国民在震后过着提心吊胆的日子，而且一开始就使东电公司和整个日本处在了一个非常脆弱的位置。

    More than a year has passed since a massive earthquake and a series of tsunamis triggered the worst accident at a nuclear power plant since Chernobyl in 1986, but the epic debacle at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station remains front and center in Japan, at the very core of a historic debate over the future of nuclear energy—one that comes down to a fundamental question: Should nuclear power, which prior to the accident last year generated 30% of the electricity for the world's third-largest economy, have any future at all in Japan?

    On April 13, the government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda tipped its hand. With summer approaching, and with it peak demand for electricity, the Japanese government approved the restart of two nuclear reactors in the small fishing town Oi, in Fukui prefecture on Japan's west coast.

    The nine power companies in Japan have the legal authority to fire up the nuclear plants once they have received regulatory approval from Tokyo, in practice. But the Noda administration now must seek the assent of the local and prefectural governments affected by a restart--as it will have to do for each of the other 48 reactors across the country should it seek to bring them back online in order to avoid crippling brown outs this summer.

    That assent won't come easily. Public opposition to nuclear power now runs hot in Japan. Far from fading over the last year, opposition seems to have expanded to a solid majority of citizens nationwide, putting both Noda's government and Japan's big business community (which needs the electricity) in a very difficult spot. The reason for that is the debacle of Fukushima Daiichi—the six-reactor power station owned and operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) —and the many questions that still surround the terrifying events that began on March 11, 2011.

    For the past year, through interviews with employees of TEPCO (some officially sanctioned by the company, some without its knowledge), government officials and nuclear industry experts in Japan and abroad, we've attempted to answer two of the most fundamental issues at the heart of nuclear debate now roiling Japan: how could the accident at Fukushima Daiichi have happened—and how, in particular, could it have happened in Japan, a country once known, not so long ago, for its sheer management and engineering competence?

    The answers are bracing. The epic disaster at Fukushima Daiichi represents failure at almost every level, from how the Japanese government regulates nuclear power, to how TEPCO managed critical details of the crisis under desperate circumstances.

    As horrific as the natural disasters that occurred on March 11, 2011 were, the Japanese government itself has concluded that the nuclear crisis effectively began more than four decades before that, when one of the world's largest electric generating stations was located at the ocean's edge, in a country in which earthquakes—huge ones— are facts of life, and have been for centuries. This story recounts not only the fearful days that followed the Great Tohoku quake, but what led TEPCO, and Japan, to be in such a position of vulnerability to begin with.