The official announcement that two reactors at an earthquake-damaged nuclear plant could be suffering meltdowns underscores the Japanese nuclear industry?s troubled history, and years of grass-roots objections from a people uniquely sensitive to the ravages of nuclear destruction.
The unfolding crisis at the two reactors, both at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, feeds into a resurgence of doubts about nuclear energy?s safety ? even as it has gained credence as a source of clean energy in a time of mounting concerns about the environmental and public health tolls of fossil fuels.
The crisis stems from failures of the cooling systems at the reactors Fukushima Daiichi plant. At Daini, three more reactors lost their cooling systems, and Japanese officials were scrambling on Sunday to determine whether the systems could be revived or would also need injections of cooling seawater.
Critics of nuclear energy have long questioned the viability of nuclear power in earthquake-prone regions like Japan. Reactors have been designed with such concerns in mind, but preliminary assessments of the Fukushima Daiichi accidents suggested that too little attention was paid to the threat of tsunami. It appeared that the reactors withstood the powerful earthquake, but the ocean waves damaged generators and backup systems, harming the ability to cool the reactors.
It was not until on Sunday that the increasingly dangerous nature of the problems at Daiichi became clear. But even on Saturday, with reactor No. 1 there having suffered an explosion, James M Acton of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said the nuclear industry would be shaken.