2016 Volume 12 Pages 15-26
Since the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, Japan has been struggling to deal with nuclear energy issues. Crisis can be an opportunity, but it seems that Japan has not learned lessons well enough from the accident to change the society for better relationship between science/technology and society.
There are, in general, three ways to verify whether the society actually learned a lesson from the accident well. They are; (1) deep understanding of what really happened, (2) understanding of what should be done to prevent future accident, (3) implementation of the changes necessary for the society. This paper examines what happened after the accident until now from all these three aspects, primarily from the perspectives on the relationship between science/technology and society, and concluded that Japan, as a society, has not learned well from the Fukushima accident yet. While technical measures against severe accident have been enhanced, social, political and institutional reform has not been done well. This paper argues, in particular, transforming the decision making process of the government and establishment of an independent organization to conduct technology assessment and to provide objective information so that public can trust such information.
