01-08-2025
VOX POPULI: Fukushima debris removal is a task that will likely take eons
Decommissioning work continues around the No. 3 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. (Tsubasa Setoguchi)
Buddhism uses its own unique units to express vast spans of time and numbers.
Imagine a colossal castle, seven kilometers long, wide, and tall, its interior completely filled with poppy seeds. Once every hundred years, a single seed is removed.
The time it would take to empty the castle—removing one seed every century until none remain—would still be shorter than what Buddhism calls a kalpa, or 'ko' in Japanese.
Often translated as an eon, a ko represents an unfathomably long stretch of time, used to convey the sense of an almost inconceivable duration.
The term also appears in the expression 'mirai eigo,' meaning 'an eternal future' or 'for all eternity,' evoking something that continues without end.
How long, then, will it take to remove the fuel debris from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which suffered triple meltdowns in the 2011 disaster?
The debris—which was once nuclear fuel that overheated, melted and fused with structural materials inside the reactors—was originally scheduled for removal beginning in 2021.
Yet immense technical challenges delayed the start until last year.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant's operator, recently announced that full-scale debris removal for reactor No. 3 will begin in fiscal 2037 or later.
For reactors No. 1 and No. 2, no timeline has even been set.
Of an estimated 880 tons of debris, only 0.9 gram has been recovered to date. A simple calculation based on the time since the accident suggests the removal process could take another 13.6 billion years to complete.
Critics rightly argue that such an estimate is absurdly simplistic and misleading. But then, what would a realistic projection look like?
Despite knowing full well the near impossibility of the task, authorities and TEPCO continue to uphold the goal of 'completing reactor decommissioning by 2051'—a timeline that seems more like sleight of hand than sincere policy, meant to lull the public into a false sense of reassurance.
Even as Japan struggles to dismantle the legacy of Fukushima, the nation has pivoted boldly toward the 'maximum use' of nuclear energy. Kansai Electric Power Co. is now preparing to construct an entirely new plant.
Has the landscape really shifted so dramatically—can a country's stance reverse so completely—in just the 14 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake?
There's a word for something that defies belief: 'fukashigi.' Bizarre, inconceivable.
Fittingly, this term too originated as a unit of measure in Buddhist cosmology—used to signify numbers so vast they dwell beyond comprehension.
—The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 1
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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
