日本重启核电面临透明度质疑

    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。

    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.