Hidden social model implicating infinite responsibility for HLW disposal: the Toyocho case

Toyocho is a small town on Shikoku Island. It is an underpopulated area with a population density of only 46 persons per square kilometer, which is one-eighth the average population density of Japan (Kochi Prefecture 2008).²⁰ There are three factors that make this small town extraordinary within the context of HLW disposal:

• 1 This was the first town in which the mayor decided to break the NIMBY-like (Not in My Backyard) patterns of behavior regarding HLW disposal.
• 2 This decision by the town mayor was also the first instance in which it was eventually cancelled due to inhabitants’ objections and resistance to HLW disposal, calling for the resignation of the town mayor.
• 3 It represents one of the rare instances that reveals a typical, implicit assumption embedded and naturalized in an ordinary situation that takes for granted day-to-day social settings to fix type-two underdetermination.

For the purposes of this chapter, the third point deserves further scrutiny because it illustrates a typical way of thinking by which type-two underdetermination is fixed in the pre-Fukushima situation. This way of thinking is such that suffering from being selected as a site for HLW disposal could be accepted in exchange for a significant amount of money granted to that local area. For example, Toyocho was offered 2 billion yen of grant money by the government if they would accept a preliminary documentary survey into the history of geological events in the area. The amount of this grant almost equaled the town’s entire annual budget. A brochure made by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO) for candidates of this preliminary documentary survey illustrates the characteristics of this way of thinking by focusing on the economic effects over a period of about 60 years that can be expected during the period of construction and initial operation of the HLW disposal site. The total estimated economic effects are presented to the candidates by grouping the effects into the following categories (see Table 7.2).

Policy measures made and implemented based on this particular way of thinking have a long history of success in Japan in persuading local residents to accept the location of nuclear power stations (approximately 50 sites). In tact, almost every

Table 7.2 Economic Effects Expected from HLW Disposal Estimated by NUMO

Source: NUMO (2008).

kind of public facility has been built by grants-in-aid from the government that were intensively given to targeted sites selected for nuclear power station locations, as shown in Table 3.3 in Chapter 3. By the same token, all candidates for the application of the preliminary documentary survey into the history of geological events (14 places through 2009, including Toyocho) had been so underpopulated that they suffered from heavy financial deficits prior to being sited (see Table 7.3).

Toyocho, for example, was forced to create a Scheme for a Drastic Financial Reform, which states:

Since the town cannot expect the increase of revenue because of depopulation and progressive aging . . . the finance of the town would collapse without a drastic reform.

(Toyocho n.d.: 3)

This situation gives the town a strong incentive to accept the way of thinking mentioned above, as the local economic condition that could induce residents and their local government to accept policy measures in the siting process of HLW disposal, similar to that which permeated past siting processes for nuclear power stations. The policy measures to deal with HLW disposal also employ similar social models to those embedded in the siting process of nuclear power stations. The way of thinking that backs up the policy measures relies on two assumptions:

• 1 The amount of money put into a target area can be commensurate to all kinds of demerits that may result from siting.
• 2 As such, the problem of HLW disposal siting can be solved by appropriate compensation, if the local residents are rational enough in terms of economic calculation.

In other words, the logic of the social model assumed to fix type-two underdetermination expressed above could involve these assumptions, if introduced in the

Table 7.3 Financial State of Local Governments Showing Interests in the Geological Survey for HLW Disposal

Source: Produced from http;//area-info.jpn.org/index.html (ascertained on June 25, 2010, in Japanese).

Note: Population growth is estimated for the term from 2005 to 2010. To be accurate, mergered municipalities during this period were excluded. Data excluded were Izumi-mura, Fukui (present Ono-city), Yogo-cho, Shiga (present Nagahama-city), Saga-cho, Kochi (present Kuroshio-cho), Nijo-cho, Fukuoka (present Itoshima-City), Goshoura-cho, Kumamoto (present Amakusa-city), and Kasasa-cho, Kagoshima (present Minamisatsuma-city).

actual implementation process of HLW disposal policy; therefore, the elaborated logic can be expressed by the following formalism.

*PUS: Public understanding of science and technology; P: Projects; Com: Compensation; SocAcp: Social acceptance of demerits

This is the overall logic of the social model employed by the governmental, industrial, and academic sectors in advising and persuading local governments and citizens residing in targeted siting areas. What, then, is the social response of these local governments and citizens?

178 To understand or not to understand?