反思日本核电业Rethink looms on nuclear power

This may be a bad time to ask whether Japan ought to have a nuclear power industry. Japanese engineers were on Sunday desperately struggling to contain what the government was calling “a partial meltdown” at an earthquake-stricken nuclear power station, one of more than 50 crammed on to Japan’s geologically unstable landmass.

现在，可能不是质问日本是否应该发展核电的好时机。周日，日本政府称，一座遭遇地震袭击的核电站已“部分熔毁”。日本工程师们正拼命遏制核燃料的熔化。在地质构造不稳定的日本，竟然密密麻麻地分布着50多座核电站。

Roughly one in 10 of the world’s nuclear power stations are in Japan, by far the most earthquake-prone nation in the world. Events since Friday’s devastating quake and tsunami have to make you wonder whether that is such a good idea.

日本这个迄今全球地震最活跃的国家拥有全世界约十分之一的核电站。上周五发生毁灭性地震和海啸以来的一系列事件，让你不得不怀疑这是否是一个好主意。

Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the company that operates the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, suspects that radioactive fuel rods may have partly melted in two reactors. Engineers were forced to vent steam from the vessels to release pressure and avoid the sort of explosion that ripped through one of the plants’ reactor buildings on Friday. Yukio Edano, Japan’s chief government spokesman, said radiation had been released, though the amounts recorded did not suggest a major health threat.

运营福岛第一核电站(Fukushima Daiichi)的东京电力公司(Tepco)猜测，有两座反应堆里的放射性燃料棒可能已部分熔化。工程师们被迫从反应堆容器放汽降压，以避免再次发生爆炸。上周五该核电站已经有一座反应堆建筑发生了爆炸。日本官房长官枝野幸男(Yukio Edano)称，一些放射性物质已经随之泄漏，尽管检测到的核辐射水平不会对人类健康造成重大损害。（编者按：周一早晨，该核电站已经发生第二次爆炸。）

We have been here before. At least we had a low-key dress rehearsal. In July 2007, an earthquake measuring a then-big-sounding 6.8 on the Richter scale jolted the enormous Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant near Niigata in northern Japan. It subsequently emerged that the facility, one of the biggest in the world, had not been designed to take an earthquake of anything like that magnitude. One of the reactors was shaken by a jolt nearly two and a half times more powerful than it had been built to withstand.

这种情况以前也出现过。至少有过一次不太引人关注的“彩排”。2007年7月，一场当时听来已属骇人的里氏6.8级地震袭击了距日本北部新泻县(Niigata)不远的超大型柏崎刈羽核电站(Kashiwazaki-Kariwa)。随后爆出消息，这座规模位于全球前列的核电站，设计的抗震级别却远远低于那次地震的震级。其中一座反应堆所受到的震动，竟然超过其抗震能力近2.5倍。

At the time, there were those who argued that the Kashiwazaki case was cause for comfort. After all, the plant’s four reactors had shut automatically. Damage had been restricted to the plant’s non-nuclear periphery. The radiation leak had been infinitesimally small.

当时，有人声称，柏崎刈羽核电站的例子证明了我们没有必要担心。毕竟，该核电站的四座反应堆当时都自动关闭。破坏仅限于核电站的非核外围设备。泄漏的放射物几近于零。

If Japan avoids nuclear catastrophe this time, there may be those who make the same argument. But two important questions will hover, like tiny nuclear particles, in the air.

如果日本这一次能够避免核灾难，可能还会有人做出同样的论断。但仍有两个重要的问题像核微粒一样，在空中漂浮，挥之不去。

The first is about truth. Japan needs more of it. This, after all, is a country whose doctors often keep the discovery of cancer from their patients for fear of upsetting them. In the past, nuclear operators – sometimes in virtual complicity with the Japanese state – have been less than honest about nuclear safety. Tepco damaged its reputation badly several years ago when it was found to have faked safety data relating to cracks in its nuclear plants. The subsequent regulatory “crackdown” of a government clearly committed to maintaining, if not extending, the use of nuclear power lacked conviction.

第一个问题关乎真相。日本必须更加坦诚。毕竟，在这个国家，医生会因为担心患者感到痛苦而常常向其隐瞒癌症病情。过去，核电站运营商压根做不到坦诚公布核安全状况——有时，他们实际上是和日本政府串通好的。几年前，东京电力公司被曝光篡改了与其核电站爆炸相关的安全数据，令其声誉遭到了严重损害。日本政府显然决意继续、甚至可能扩大核电的使用，其随后采取的监管“打击”措施也缺乏说服力。

To be fair, the authorities seem to have learnt some lessons. Since Friday, they have, at least, been issuing regular public bulletins about the state of affairs at the Daiichi plant. Even so, disseminating information does not come naturally. Details about which building blew up on Saturday were frighteningly sketchy for hours. Some people concluded, almost certainly wrongly, that Japan might be in the midst of a Chernobyl-type event. Even among a generally trusting public, there are many who simply no longer believe what they are being told.

公平地讲，日本官方似乎已经吸取了一些教训。从周五开始，他们至少一直在定期对第一核电站的状况发布公告。即便如此，信息的传播也并不顺畅。关于周六究竟是哪一座建筑发生爆炸的详细信息，在长达几小时的时间内都极其粗略。一些人甚至得出了日本可能正面临切尔诺贝利(Chernobyl)式灾难事件的结论，而这样的结论几乎肯定是错误的。即使是在普遍信任媒体的公众当中，也有许多人不再相信披露的信息。

Second, and much more tricky, what kind of nuclear industry, if any, should Japan have? The country depends on nuclear energy for about a third of its electricity needs. As a resource-starved nation, it has an almost pathological, and not entirely unreasonable, fear of being cut off from essential supplies in a dangerous world. The chances of Tokyo abandoning nuclear power are, as some might put it, infinitesimally small.

第二个问题要棘手得多：如果的确需要，日本应该建设什么样的核工业？日本三分之一的电力需求依赖核电。作为一个资源匮乏的国家，日本对于在这个危险的世界丧失关键能源供给充满了恐惧，这种恐惧几近病态，但又并非完全缺乏理性。日本政府放弃核电的可能性，可以说是微乎其微。

But Japan can rethink what kind of nuclear industry it wants. The Daiichi plant is 40 years old. The two reactors flooded with seawater will never start up again. More than likely, the whole plant will be decom-missioned. It is about time. If Japan must have nuclear reactors, then it must build modern ones able to with-stand far bigger earth-quakes than envisioned by overly optimistic planners decades ago. Backup generators and other “periphery” parts of a nuclear facility are almost as vital as the core reactor itself. They should be built, or rebuilt, accordingly.

不过日本可以重新思考需要什么样的核工业。第一核电站已经运行了40年，已经注入海水的两座反应堆再不会重新启动。整座电站非常有可能被停用。也是时候了。如果日本必须拥有核反应堆，就必须建造现代化的反应堆，能够经受住的地震级别要远远超过几十年前过度乐观的规划者的设想。后备发电机组，以及核电站的其他“周边”设施几乎与核心反应堆本身同样重要，应该相应地进行建造或重建。

Japan can salvage some positives from what Naoto Kan, the prime minister, called its worst crisis since the war. The reaction of the public – calm, dignified, generous – underlines the country’s incredible social resilience. Though the death toll is likely to rise sharply, such is Japan’s preparedness it is almost certain that a similar-sized natural disaster would have caused significantly more casualties in almost any other country on earth. If, when the immediate crisis is over, Japan can conduct a thorough and honest rethink of its nuclear industry, it will have pulled one more positive from the rubble.

日本首相菅直人(Naoto Kan)将此次灾难称为日本战后最严峻的危机，不过日本也可以从中收获一些正面的信息。公众的反应——镇定、尊严、慷慨——显示了日本社会令人难以置信的韧性。虽然死亡人数可能会急剧上升，但鉴于日本准备周密，同样规模的自然灾害如果发生在世界上其他任何一个国家，几乎可以肯定伤亡人数会高得多。如果在当下的危机结束后，日本能对本国的核工业进行彻底而诚恳的反思，则又能从废墟中收获一条积极的教训。