In the month of September, Japan will be setting up a new nuclear regulator under the law improved by the Diet’s lower house. The new regulator will be set up after months of delay as a part of a drive to improve safety as well as to restore the trust of the public, especially after last year’s nuclear disaster.
The Fukushima disaster caused in the year 2011 caused a harsh spotlight on the cozy ties between regulators, politicians and the utilities know as Japan’s nuclear village. The experts say that the major crisis could not be averted due to the harsh relationships between the bodies.
The public in Japan is strongly opposing the building of new nuclear plants, which is extending the life of Japan’s aged reactors is a key to maintain the role of nuclear power. About more than a dozen of the country’s 50 reactors are at least three decades old out of which three are already operating for about 40 years.
The new law is expected to be approved by the upper house and would create a five member independent nuclear commission and a nuclear regulatory agency to do the work of the trade ministry’s heavily criticised Nuclear and National Safety Agency.
