The problems of thermal generation are well-understood today, so they are seemed to be
needless to say. However two of them should be easily mentioned in order to exaggerate why Japan should not depend on thermal generation any more. One is economical matter. Japan has been hit by oil crises twice in 1970s and the Japanese economics greatly damaged. The government decided to be independent of energy. As a result, the ratio occupied by thermal energy is decreasing, but still the influence of changes of oil’s price has great meaning to Japan. Second is the environmental issue. The global warming is one of the most serious issue for international society. Various attempts have been challenged and Kyoto protocol is one of the biggest one. According to Kyoto protocol, Japan is required to decrease its CO2 emission 6% between 2008 and 2012. Unfortunately this target is seemed not to be achieved. If the global warming is advanced, the earth will be the place where human beings cannot live on any longer. Therefore, thermal generation is no more the best energy and Japan should be independent from thermal generation as soon as possible.

Nuclear power, the Japanese government has been energetically promoting as a solution of
security of supply and the global warming, also has serious problems. First, the most serious
problem is nuclear waste. Nuclear waste is produced in the operation of nuclear reactors. It can
damage human tissue, and a very high dose can cause loss of appetite, illness and even death.
(Hodgson 71) It should be cleared that nuclear waste do not escape into the atmosphere or enter the food chain. The problem is, therefore, how to ensure that nuclear waste does not harm human. It takes for so long, thousands of year or more, that nuclear waste changes harmless. For that reason, nuclear waste is encased in stainless steel cylinders, surrounded by concrete and buried deep underground in a stable rock formation.(Hodgson 71) However, Japan does not have appropriate places which are safe to bury nuclear waste because of the earthquakes or volcanoes. Phillip Richardson who is a geologist and commissioned by the American government and the Germany government to research on management of radical waste in various countries, pointed out that in Japan it was impossible to choose stratum which is solid enough to preserve radical waste because of the frequency of the earthquakes. (Asahi newspaper) As long as management of radical waste is left to be unsolved, building more nuclear plants the Japanese government is planning should not be allowed.

Second important problem is security of nuclear plants. In 1995 the operation of the prototype FBR (Monju) was suspended following a sodium leakage. In addition, in 1999, at the Tokai Mura fuel facility two workers died resulting from an accident and other workers and many residents nearby were exposed to radiation. The accident of Monju was caused by a very simple mistake. A thermometer inside a pipe carrying sodium coolant was broken. Another accident was also drawn by terribly poor management. These two serious accidents show that security system of nuclear plants in Japan is not necessarily well-organized enough. Once an accident takes place, the damage is enormous, which has been proved by the Chernobyl disaster. The fact that the possibility of accidents cannot be eliminated should not be ignored.

As long as nuclear energy includes these two serious disadvantages, the Japanese government should not build more nuclear plants and gain the risks. Building more plants means that radical waste is increasing. Building more plants without developing the security system indicates that another terrible disaster would happen. Therefore the Japanese government should not to promote nuclear energy any longer.