Hiroko Ishikawa, 65, who recounts her experience of March 11, 2011, to visitors at the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum in Fukushima Prefecture, gave her first talk of this year with a special feeling.

"What's going to happen now? Survivors (of the nuclear disaster) must be filled with bottomless dread," she began.

Day after day, the news of the Noto Peninsula earthquake rekindled her memories, from 13 years ago, of the loss of lives and livelihoods and evacuation.

Her first concern was over the state of nuclear power plants in the region.

REALITY OF 'DECOMMISSIONING' NUCLEAR REACTORS

A photo Ishikawa often brings to her talks shows a handwritten signboard she saw along National Route 6.

Made from a tatami straw floor covering, it says, "Are you trying to kill us people?" and "Take the nuke plant elsewhere."

She still thinks to this day that the nuclear plant should be taken to the Diet building.

"A natural disaster, compounded by a nuclear accident, is a reality Fukushima is still stuck with," she explained. "I want lawmakers to really think about that."

Even today, there are about 20,000 people who have not returned to Fukushima Prefecture since they were forced to evacuate in the aftermath of the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. 

In seven cities, towns and villages, there are areas where former residents are still not allowed to return.

Reconstruction is making progress in the town of Futaba, where a textile company based in Gifu Prefecture has moved, and an educational facility has returned to the town of Okuma.

Still, the population in each town has not even reached 10 percent of the pre-disaster level.

Last summer, the Fukushima No. 1 plant started discharging treated contaminated water into the ocean. TEPCO and the government say this is "a part of the planned decommissioning of nuclear reactors."

However, the future of "decommissioning" remains elusive. The removal of debris from melted nuclear fuel has proven extremely difficult, even from the first few grams, and the removal process was postponed for the third time in January.

Water that has been in contact with the debris mixes with underground water, producing contaminated water every day. The project timetable indicates "the completion of decommissioning by 2051," but that is hardly realistic.

The costs of dealing with the accident and compensation payments, originally projected at 6 trillion yen ($40.69 billion), have kept ballooning since and reached 23.4 trillion yen at the end of last year.

The uncertainty of the decommissioning schedule, coupled with the huge price that must be paid for the accident, is a reality that cannot be ignored.

We need to confirm anew that to keep supporting survivors and ensure regional reconstruction, the entire nation must vow never to let the 2011 disaster fall into oblivion.

REVERSAL OF POLICY

A year and a half after the accident, the Democratic Party of Japan administration set the target of "zero nuclear power generation in the 2030s," pledging, in principle, to strictly apply the 40-year limit to reactor operations and to stop building new plants or increasing reactors in the existing plants.

Public opinion was also largely in support of phased abolition of nuclear power generation.

Ever since the Fukushima disaster, The Asahi Shimbun has consistently called for ending nuclear power generation.

In consideration of supply stability and costs, our understanding is that while breaking with nuclear power generation all at once would not be realistic, we should still keep aiming for zero while increasing our reliance on renewable energy.

But after the Liberal Democratic Party's return to power, the zero nuclear power generation target was scrapped.

However, both the Shinzo Abe administration and the succeeding Yoshihide Suga administration followed the policy of "reducing reliance on nuclear power generation as much as possible," and denied any possibility of considering building new plants or expanding existing facilities.

But the policy was reversed to "maximum utilization (of nuclear power generation)" by the current Fumio Kishida administration, which also decided to allow new construction and renovations as well as facility operation beyond 60 years.

Prime Minister Kishida also intends to accelerate the development of next-generation reactors, effectively putting the nation on the path of continuing to rely on nuclear power generation.

Operation beyond the 60-year limit is being directed by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, with the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) approving it by a majority vote.

We are deeply concerned that this situation suggests a departure from the concept of "separation of promotion and regulation," the fundamental lesson the nation was supposed to have learned from the Fukushima No. 1 catastrophe.

Last December, Kansai Electric Power Co. filed for government approval to operate the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at its Oi plant past the 60-year limit as per the new system.

KEPCO President Nozomu Mori stated in January in Fukui Prefecture that "the time has come to start considering" building new reactors.

Developments are afoot to solidify the government's policy reversal.

FURTHER ENERGY SAVING THE ONLY WAY TO GO

TEPCO, which has not operated any of its nuclear power plants since the Fukushima disaster, began preparations this year for restarting its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.

The utility had been forbidden by the NRA to operate this plant because of its inadequate anti-terrorism measures. But the ban was lifted in December in the belief that the plant has since "voluntarily made sufficient improvements."

But last autumn, a worker at the Fukushima No. 1 plant was hospitalized for exposure to highly concentrated contaminated liquid, while contaminated water was found to have leaked on the premises last month.

These incidents run counter to the principle of "proven readiness to decommission reactors" that is the condition for restarting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, or to any "safety above all" operating policy.

The government will revise the nation's basic energy plan before the end of this year.

This will be the first revision since the reversal of the government's nuclear power generation policy, and the focal point will be whether the government will continue to uphold the "reduction of reliance on nuclear power generation" that has always been written into the plan.

Another matter of interest is how the plan will define the government's measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

With respect to decarbonization, the costs of solar and wind generation have been dropping dramatically.

By far the best path Japan can take is to make full use of its natural environment and technological expertise, so it can eventually rely fully on renewable energy that can be procured domestically--think wind farms utilizing the power of the seas that surround the nation, or next-generation solar batteries that can serve as the walls of buildings.

Nuclear power generation requires increased safety measures and its economic viability is declining around the world, not to mention that there are massive unsolved problems with respect to the nuclear fuel cycle and the disposal of nuclear waste.

And more than anything, Japan is a "catastrophe superpower" that is extremely prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunami and volcanic eruptions.

Near the epicenter of the Noto Peninsula earthquake of January is the past planned construction site of the Suzu nuclear power plant.

The quake severed roads, proving that any emergency evacuation plans could readily prove utterly useless in real life.

Japan is standing at a crossroads. Will it remember the lessons learned from the 2011 accident and choose the path of not relying on nuclear power generation in the future?

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 13