Reconstruction Under Nuclear Disaster and Making Resilient Society in Fukushima

Abstract

This chapter examines the “Balancing Reconstruction with Decommissioning” problem of reviving Fukushima from a double disaster called the Great East Japan Earthquake and the 1F (Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant) nuclear disaster. This issue is a typical case of sustainability and resilience in the twenty-first century in the century of the disaster. First, this paper discusses that it is the reconstruction policy of the declining and aging population with the creative reconstruction in a century, the twenty-first century of the disaster in Japan. This paper then examines the reconstruction policy from the Great East Japan Earthquake and the way of the Fukushima nuclear accident processing before establishing “incompleteness of the nuclear crisis response and surplus of the Great Earthquake disaster reconstruction policy.” Finally, this paper clarifies the difficulty of the issue called “Balancing Reconstruction with Decommissioning” in Fukushima based on the analysis of 1F decommissioning policy, and Fukushima lectures possibly falling into a state such as “Mutual Destruction of Reconstruction and Decommissioning” without altering 1F decommissioning governance. This chapter contributes to SDGs 11; Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

1 The Reconstruction of Fukushima and the Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in the Post-Trans-Science Era

This chapter examines the “Balancing Reconstruction with Decommissioning” problem of reviving Fukushima from a double disaster called the Great East Japan Earthquake and the 1F (Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant) nuclear disaster. This chapter contributes to SDGs 11; Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

1.1 The Trans-Science Era

In 1972, Alvin Weinberg, an American nuclear physicist, who participated in the Manhattan Project, published a paper entitled “Science and Trans-Science” in the social science journal Minerva. In the paper, he argued that societal risks such as serious nuclear power plant accidents and the health effects of low-level radiation were “questions which can be asked of science and yet cannot be answered by science” and proclaimed the arrival of the trans-science era (Weinberg 1972).

The Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011 confronted Japanese society head-on with the risks posed by science and technology, and the trans-scientific era concept has since become widely recognized by risk researchers. Of course, there are various interpretations of how to think of the trans-scientific questions presented by Weinberg in specific terms.

However, be it risk directly related to science and technology, such as low-level radioactive contamination from a nuclear disaster or the scientific assessment of biological disaster risk given the COVID-19 pandemic, the twenty-first-century human society faces wide-ranging scientific and technological risks, including risks posed by the development of advanced science and technology in life science and artificial intelligence (AI). Many of these risks are “questions that can be asked of science, but cannot be answered by science.”

Accordingly, a consensus was reached that risk-response measures in the trans-science era should not be decided by scientists living in the twentieth-century “Republic of Science” (Polanyi 1962) but instead through collaboration between science, politics, and society. Meanwhile, social understanding and acceptance of risk-response measures by science and government alone are low.

1.2 The Post-Trans-Scientific Era

In response to this trans-scientific era, the importance of participatory democracy and deliberative democracy has been emphasized in the second half of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and efforts to complement parliamentary democracy with new mini-publics, such as consensus conferences and debate polls (DP), have been trialed in many democratic societies (OECD 2020).

However, more than two decades into the twenty-first century today, it is challenging to conclude that approaches based on the democratization of knowledge, such as the French Committee for National Debate (CNDP)—which could be considered the epitome of deliberative democracy—consensus conferences originating from Denmark, and debate polls originating in the USA effectively create social consensus (Matsuoka et al. 2019).

In response to the discussion around the democratization of knowledge in the second half of the twentieth century, the British sociologist of science, Harry Collins, argued for the need for a “third wave of science” in scientific research. Collins offered the criticism that the more citizens participate in building a social consensus around science and technology risks, the better they create social failures given their lack of expertise, from which the question of who takes the responsibility emerges (Collins & Evans 2002).

The Japanese sociologist of science and technology, Miwao Matsumoto, also characterized the theory of democratization of knowledge in the age of trans-science as the “theory of monotonically increasing participation” and characterized the arguments of critics such as Collins as the “non-monotonic theory of participation” (Matsumoto 2009). Collins claims his theory has an advantage over other theories that invariably call for increased public participation in that he calls for increased participation at certain periods and decreased participation at others. There are well-known dangers involved in over-expanding the definition of expertise. He holds that the public can be wrong and that a distinction should be made between instances in which participation and deliberation should be promoted and instances in which expert decision-making is desirable.

In the twenty-first-century society, the time has come to move away from the trans-science era of “the more participation and deliberation the better” to a post-trans-science era, which instead asks how social acceptability and social understanding should be fostered through the participation of which experts and which citizens to create what kind of “space” (Matsuoka 2020b, Matsuoka et al. 2021a, b).

1.3 The Reconstruction of Fukushima and Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant as Post-Trans-Scientific Issues

The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (herein referred to as 1F), triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, resulted in a Level 7 nuclear disaster on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), the most severe classification of such disasters. More than 160,000 people were forced to evacuate because of the accident at 1F. Even now, more than a decade after the accident, 35,107 people continue to live as evacuees throughout Japan (survey by the Reconstruction Agency, as of June 9, 2021). The seven municipalities around 1F—Tomioka, Okuma, Futaba, Namie, Minami-soma, Iitate, and Katsurao—remain designated as areas challenging to return to, and it is thought that it will be many years before such designations are completely lifted¹.

In addition to the situation away from the offsite (outside 1F), the situation within the decommissioning on site (348.5 ha) also remains uncertain. The 1F decommissioning project aims “for the completion of decommissioning in 30–40 years” (“Medium and Long Term Roadmap,” December 2019, p. 27) since the declaration in December 2011 that cold shutdown had been achieved. However, the planned removal of spent nuclear fuel from the cooling pools of Units 1 and 2 has been significantly delayed. The questions of how exactly to remove the fuel debris and how to store, manage, and dispose of the fuel debris remain issues for the future. Ten years have passed since the accident, and it will be challenging to finish the 1F decommissioning project within the next 20–30 years (Matsuoka 2021a, b).

In the “Medium to Long-Term Roadmap” that defines the current government’s 1F decommissioning policy, revised for the fifth time in December 2019, the phrase “compatibility between reconstruction and decommissioning” was newly added as the first of four principles for the decommissioning of 1F (Matsuoka 2020a). It is noted that the new principle of the 1F decommissioning project, “compatibility between reconstruction and decommissioning,” would ensure that the decommissioning of 1F would not hinder the reconstruction of surrounding areas in response to the progress of decontamination work in designated reconstruction and revitalization zones in Okuma Town and Futaba Town—the municipalities where 1F is located—and the partial lifting of the difficult-to-return zone.

However, the social significance of the new principle to the “Medium to Long-Term Roadmap” in December 2019 must be understood as the intention of the national and local governments to promote the return of residents to areas surrounding 1F and a strongly mutually prescribed relationship between reconstruction in Fukushima and the 1F decommissioning project. That is, the origin of the Fukushima reconstruction is the nuclear disaster from the 1F accident, and the completion of the Fukushima reconstruction will be the completion of the 1F decommissioning project. If the technical and social safety of the 1F reactors can be guaranteed, and the 1F decommissioning project can be concluded in a way acceptable to Fukushima and wider Japanese society, then Japanese society can also conclude the reconstruction of Fukushima.

Thus, when considering the new principle, the issues surrounding the reconstruction of Fukushima and the decommissioning of 1F are typical of post-trans-scientific questions, where diverse experts and residents create a “forum (Ba) for dialog” and discuss various options, inducing the development of social conviction and social acceptance among a wide range of people. Meanwhile, it is an important social condition that the Hamadori community in Fukushima Prefecture, which has long depended on nuclear and coal-fired power plants, has not been involved in the trans-scientific problem-solving methods of participation and deliberation. Further, the national government, Fukushima Prefecture, and local governments in Fukushima Hamadori have relied exclusively on conventional methods such as holding explanatory meetings for local residents and have a little social capacity to create a “forum for dialog” between experts and residents.

This study defines reconstruction in Fukushima and the decommissioning of 1F as a post-trans-scientific issue. In the last decade of Fukushima reconstruction and 1F decommissioning projects, policy decisions and implementation have been reached solely via the conventional top-down approaches of briefing sessions and opinion-gathering, rather than a “forum for dialog” between diverse experts and residents to obtain solutions to post-trans-scientific issues. Thus, this study holds that it is essential to create a new social system via a “forum for dialog” between diverse experts and residents to respond to the post-trans-scientific issues that characterize the reconstruction in Fukushima and the decommissioning of 1F. From this perspective, the lack of progress in social innovation in creating this new social system may have increased the uncertainty and complexity of the Fukushima reconstruction and 1F decommissioning projects, further increasing their ambiguity.

Thus, to verify the hypothesis, this study focuses on the issue of discharge of Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) treated water (tritiated water) into the ocean under the 1F decommissioning policy, the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework, the international education and research base, and national projects that are key to the Fukushima reconstruction policy, a decade into its reconstruction and the decommissioning of 1F. This study employs the science-policy interface research framework to discuss the post-trans-scientific questions of why it is challenging to create social acceptance for the policy of discharging ALPS-treated water into the ocean, the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework, and the international education and research base.

The rest of the paper is arranged as follows. Section 2.2 describes the science-policy interface research framework and the methodology used for this analysis. Section 2.3 analyzes the process of examining the issue of treated water (contaminated water) in the 1F decommissioning project using the science-policy interfaces research framework. This study considers expert and local knowledge in the process leading to the decision to discharge ALPS-treated water² into the ocean at the Inter-Ministerial Council for Contaminated Water, Treated Water and Decommissioning Issues on April 13, 2021, and why it has been challenging to create social acceptance for the policy to discharge treated water from 1F into the ocean. Section 2.4 analyzes the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework (proposed as a national project central to the Fukushima reconstruction policy) and the international education and research base initiative, a hub for regional innovation. It discusses the difficulties of fostering social acceptance and understanding for the Fukushima Innovation Coast and the international education and research base initiatives. Finally, Sect. 2.5 discusses a model for creative reconstruction in the reconstruction in Fukushima as a post-trans-scientific question.

2 The Science-Policy Interface Research Framework

Science-policy interface research has developed around the question of how society should address science and technology risk issues characterized by uncertainty and complexity. Responding to such issues cannot be solved by regular science; it requires a new approach, referred to as trans-science, (Weinberg 1972) or post-normal science (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1992). “Democratizing Knowledge Production” and “Creating Socially Robust Knowledge” through participation and deliberation have been considered important new approaches.

This study focuses on Spruijt et al. (2014) in the Netherlands, who summarizes science-policy interface research, and establishes its framework to analyze the Fukushima reconstruction and 1F decommissioning projects. Spruijt et al. (2014) conduct a meta-analysis by collecting 267 articles, reports, books, and other research findings on the role of expert knowledge in the formation of policy to address uncertain and complex issues across diverse academic disciplines over a decade, spanning 2003–2012. Two important implications for studies on Fukushima reconstruction and 1F decommissioning based on Spruijt et al. (2014) science-policy interface research framework are as follows.

2.1 Unknown Unknowns: The Limits of Expertise

There are limitations to expert knowledge from specialist fields used to address complex and ambiguous risk issues, such as nuclear disasters (i.e., “unknown unknowns”; issues we do not know about) (Wynne 1992).

Thus, it is important to design interdisciplinary expert groups to overcome the limitations of expert knowledge posed by unknown unknowns. There is a need to include experts with different positions and views even within the same field of expertise and actively utilize technical experts and social science experts to address the social aspects of risk based on the characteristics of the risks in question.

However, the collaboration between various forms of specialized knowledge alone is insufficient to overcome the limitations of unknown unknowns: The formation of socially robust knowledge through collaboration between specialized knowledge and local knowledge is required.

2.2 Designing a “Forum” for Collaboration Between Expert Knowledge and Local Knowledge

The democratization of knowledge creation through participation by diverse citizens, including stakeholder discussions, the formation of epistemic communities, and participation and deliberation processes, is necessary to form socially robust knowledge.

The mode of collaboration between expert and local knowledge is the key to forming socially robust knowledge. Moreover, it is important to design a “forum” that can broadly, deeply, and practically incorporate diverse stakeholders and citizens into the expert and local knowledge collaboration.

Notably, given the nature of the field of research, the conventional science-policy interface research framework mainly focuses on specialized knowledge and experts as a research framework for trans-scientific (not post-trans-scientific) questions. Therefore, there are limits for government and authoritative persons who use specialized knowledge.

The main user of expert knowledge in policy formation is, in general, the government (administration). The government presides over the “forum” (e.g., expert committee), the experts comprising the members of the “forum” are selected per the government's decision criteria, and the government sets the rules of the “forum.” The influence of experts on the design of the “forum” is in many cases limited. For more information on the theory of “forums,” see Chap. 9 of Matsuoka 2018a, b.

Similarly, although the design of participation and deliberation processes, such as stakeholder discussions and civil dialog, may be based on laws and social norms, the specific design of the “forum” for participation and deliberation is often a matter for the government that presides over the forum. Of course, the government cannot freely design the “forum” either. The government designs a “forum” subject to external and internal factors and constraints, such as political, economic, and social power relations; organizational capabilities such as financial and human resources, authority, specialized knowledge, and information possessed by the government (administration); and the ethical viewpoint of its organizational culture.

The current mode of “reconstruction knowledge” in the Fukushima reconstruction and “decommissioning knowledge” in the 1F decommissioning project (Matsuoka 2019a, b) is determined by the diverse relationships among experts from various fields in the reconstruction, the government, and relevant factors such as politics, economy and society, and local community residents.

3 Why is It Challenging to Create Social Acceptance for the Release of ALPS-Treated Water into the Ocean?

3.1 The Spill of Contaminated Water from 1F into the Ocean in August 2013

First, the study probes into the August 2013 incident involving the leakage of contaminated water into the ocean, which became a major turning point in the 1F contamination problem.

“According to TEPCO and others, the starting point was at around 9:50 a.m. On March 19, an employee on patrol discovered water flowing from two drainage valves on the reinforced concrete cisterns installed under the tanks to prevent water leakage in the event of a leak. On the outside of the barrier, two puddles of water were found, three meters length by three meters width by one centimeter in depth” (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, August 20, 2013). Subsequent investigations by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) and others confirmed that approximately 300 tons of contaminated water containing highly radioactive materials from the accident at the 1F had leaked from above-ground tanks on the 1F site and flowed directly out into the ocean outside the power plant port via drainage channels and other means. It resulted in the leakage of approximately 24 trillion becquerels of radioactive material (Asahi Shimbun, August 23, 2013).

The NRA had initially assessed the accident as Level 1 on the INES but revised its assessment to Level 3 (Serious Incident) on August 28, 2013 (Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority, 2013). The NRA’s on-site inspection also revealed that TEPCO had not kept records of its twice-daily tank inspections, including the time spent on patrol and radiation levels. Moreover, Toyoshi Fuketa, then a member of the NRA, who inspected the site, criticized TEPCO’s response in harsh terms, saying, “The inspections can only be called sloppy” (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, August 24, 2013).

Even before the leak (outside the harbor) on August 19, 2013, approximately 11,000 tons of highly contaminated water from the immediate aftermath of the accident on March 11, 2011, had flowed into the tunnels beneath the buildings of Units 1, 2, and 3 at 1F. A massive 1000 tons a day of groundwater flowed in from the mountainside, and about 300 tons of radioactive water leaked into the ocean daily (inside the harbor) through cracks in the concrete of the tunnels and other structures (Asahi Shimbun, August 3, 2013). Figure 2.1 shows an outline of the leak of contaminated water from 1F.

Fig. 2.1

Source Nihon Keizai Shimbun, August 27, 2013

Leakage of contaminated water from 1F into the ocean.

What is more serious is that TEPCO did not confirm the leakage of contaminated water until July 18, 2013, even though radioactive materials had been detected in the ground on the ocean-facing side of the building in late May 2013, and there were strong suspicions of leakage of contaminated water into the ocean given the inflow of underground water. Furthermore, on July 19, 2013, TEPCO’s then-President, Naomi Hirose, instructed local fishermen’s cooperatives to contact them about the contaminated water leaking into the ocean, but TEPCO did not disclose the information until its regular press conference in the evening of July 22, 2013 (Asahi Shimbun, July 29, 2013).

Toshimitsu Mogi, then Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, visited the site on August 26, 2013, and said, “Contaminated water countermeasures are an important issue that cannot be separated from efforts to decommission Fukushima Daiichi. It will be challenging to solve the problem if it is left to TEPCO” (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, August 27, 2013). The Minister announced that the government would consider bringing forward the installation of a frozen soil wall using fiscal 2013 reserve funds, emphasizing the government’s stance of taking the lead in dealing with the contaminated water.

In response to this situation, the Soma-Futaba Fishery Cooperative in Soma City, Fukushima Prefecture, which had been conducting trial operations since June 2012, decided to suspend those trial operations from September 1, 2013. Further, the Iwaki City Fishery Cooperative in southern Fukushima Prefecture was forced to postpone trial operations, scheduled to resume for the first time since the accident at 1F beyond September 2013. The fishermen voiced their dismay, saying that “all the hard work we have done so far has gone down the drain,” and there were concerns about the impact on the local economy—the fishing and tourism industry—and the entire Fukushima reconstruction process (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, August 23, 2013).

The accidental discharge of contaminated water from 1F into the ocean in the summer of 2013 was widely reported overseas. In South Korea, there were calls for a total ban on the import of Japanese marine products (Asahi Shimbun, August 30, 2013), and the South Korean government subsequently imposed a ban on the import of marine products from Fukushima and eight other prefectures from September 9, 2013 (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, September 7, 2013).

Furthermore, to bid for the Tokyo Olympics, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was forced to announce at the International Olympic Committee General Assembly in September 2013 that the Japanese government would take responsibility for dealing with the contaminated water problem (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, September 8, 2013).

3.2 Tritium Water Task Force

Following the accidental discharge of contaminated water into the sea on August 19, 2013, the Japanese government formulated the “Basic Policy for the Contaminated Water Issue” at the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters on September 3, 2013. In this “basic policy,” the government took the lead in fundamentally solving the worsening contaminated water problem, rather than leaving it to the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). To strengthen the system, the government established the “Inter-Ministerial Council for Contaminated Water, Treated Water and Decommissioning Issues (2019)” to actively utilize the expert knowledge of the Committee for Contaminated Water Treatment.

The committee was established on April 26, 2013, comprising 16 members: five members from universities; four from national research institutes, such as the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA); three from private companies, such as Toshiba; two from TEPCO; one from METI; and one from the NRA. Most of the committee members are technical and engineering experts involved with nuclear power.

The Task Force for the Landside Water Barrier (July 1, 2013, to November 8, 2018), the Task Force for the High-Performance Multi-Nuclide Species Removal Facility (November 29, 2013, to March 30, 2015), and the Tritiated Water Task Force (December 25, 2013, to June 3, 2016) were established under the Committee for Contaminated Water Treatment.

The Tritiated Water Task Force, the starting point in developing the policy of releasing treated water into the ocean, was established on December 25, 2013. It was headed by Kazuyoshi Yamamoto (Nuclear Engineering, Nagoya University), a member of the Committee for Contaminated Water Treatment, and comprised ten members: six from research institutes such as the JAEA (one from the medical and one from the fisheries chemistry fields), one from a university (biological science), one from a cooperative (Fukushima Co-op), and one from the Nuclear Regulation Authority.

The Tritiated Water Task Force held a total of 15 meetings during a two and a half year-long study period (the final meeting was held on May 27, 2016), and the “Tritiated Water Task Force Report” (hereinafter the “Tritiated Water TF Report”) was published on June 3, 2016, concluding its role.

The “Tritium Water TF Report” was positioned as a “basic document” for deciding policy for the long-term handling of water treated using ALPS (tritiated water) and contained a technical evaluation of various options. A “proviso” was also added to the “Tritiated Water TF Report,” stating that it was not intended to coordinate opinions among the parties concerned or unify options.

The “Tritium Water TF Report” establishes cases for evaluation based on uniform conditions and conducts a technical evaluation of 11 options (policy options) involving the combination of five methods of disposal (i.e., geosphere injection, offshore release, vapor release, hydrogen release, and underground burial) and their methods of pretreatment. Table 2.1 shows the results of the technical evaluation in the “Tritium Water TF Report” per period (months) and disposal cost (yen, hundreds of millions) required to complete the disposal (see Appendix 2 for a list of results for each evaluation case in the “Tritium Water TF Report”). From Table 2.1, the results strongly suggest offshore release strategy to be the best option in time and cost.

Table 2.1 Technical evaluation of tritiated water treatment options

The “Conclusion” of the “Tritiated Water TF Report” states the following:

“This report is a compilation of the matters, including reports from experts (Reference Materials 1–18), that were deliberated under the Tritiated Water Task Force over a total of 15 meetings from December 25, 2013–May 27, 2016, and it discusses the contaminated water issues at Fukushima Daiichi NPS, in particular the handling of tritiated water, from a technical perspective. It is hoped that this report will serve as basic data for future discussions. Also, since handling tritiated water can largely influence rumors, it is hoped that future discussions about handling tritiated water will be advanced in a comprehensive manner, touching upon both technical perspectives, such as feasibility, economic efficiency, and duration, as well as social perspectives, such as damage caused by rumors.” (Tritiated Water TF Report, p. 13).

In response to the suggestion in the Tritium Water TF Report that “it is hoped that future discussions about handling tritiated water will be advanced in a comprehensive manner, touching upon both technical perspectives, such as feasibility, economic efficiency, and duration, as well as social perspectives, such as damage caused by rumors,” the Subcommittee on the Handling of ALPS-treated water (ALPS Subcommittee) was established on November 11, 2016, under the Committee on Countermeasures for Contaminated Water Treatment.

3.3 The ALPS Subcommittee

Kazuyoshi Yamamoto (Nagoya University, Nuclear Engineering), the lead investigator of the Tritiated Water Task Force, chaired the ALPS Subcommittee, comprising 14 members: five university staff (including experts in sociology and agricultural economics), five members from research institutes, one member from a nonprofit organization (NPO), one member from a consumer group, and one from a business operator (TEPCO). The ALPS Subcommittee is highly regarded from a science-policy interfaces research framework perspective in that it comprises experts from interdisciplinary and diverse fields, including experts in social sciences such as sociology and agricultural economics and members from NPOs and consumer groups. However, in terms of the inclusion of experts with different positions within their fields of expertise, the government (METI), which effectively presided over the “forum,” did not seem to have criteria for selecting committee members, and experts uncritical of government policies were generally selected.

The ALPS Subcommittee met twice in 2016, four times in 2017, six times in 2018, four times in 2019, and once (the final meeting) in 2020. On February 10, 2020, The ALPS Subcommittee Report was released, concluding the subcommittee’s role.

Notably, ALPS Subcommittee held explanatory and public hearing meetings (hereinafter “Briefing and Public Hearing”) on August 30 and 31, 2018, in Tomioka Town, Fukushima Prefecture, Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture, and Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo.

Opinions were heard from 44 people at the three venues (14 at Tomioka, 14 at Koriyama, and 16 at Tokyo), and 274 people participated (101 at Tomioka, 88 at Koriyama, and 85 at Tokyo). Meanwhile, a call for written comments was made; 135 comments were submitted over 39 days (METI, 2018, p. 2).

In the explanatory and public hearing meetings held at the three venues, participants expressed extreme concern and opposition to the idea proposed by the Tritium Water TF Report that the offshore release of treated water would be the most efficient countermeasure in terms of time and cost. Regarding the four other policy options in the “Tritiated Water TF Report” besides oceanic release (geosphere injection, vapor release, hydrogen release, and underground burial), concerns about adverse effects on the environment (vapor release, hydrogen release) and the monitoring challenge (geosphere injection and underground burial) were also raised. As an alternative to the five countermeasure options in the Tritium Water TF Report, the audience proposed long-term above-ground storage in large tanks such as oil storage tanks.

The author attended the explanatory and public hearing meeting held at the Tokyo venue on the afternoon of August 31, 2018, attended by many activists from nuclear opposition groups and other organizations, including those who gave their opinions. The atmosphere was noisy, with those who expressed their opinions doing so in a one-sided manner, with heckles and angry shouts flying across the venue. In the deliberative process, participants must discuss the issues calmly to confirm the basis for and dissimilarity of their respective claims and encourage the discovery of new approaches to the issues. The formation of socially robust knowledge and the democratization approach to knowledge production, as proposed by the science-policy interfaces research framework, is also premised on the formation of a “forum for dialog.” However, it was not the case at the explanatory and public hearing meetings.

As their name would suggest, the explanatory and public hearing meetings in August 2018 may initially have been intended to be a two-way communication between the ALPS Subcommittee, providing an explanation to the public as the public gave their opinions, which is a departure from the traditional method of public hearings where only the opinions of selected residents are heard. Thus, one can appreciate that it could potentially be an ambitious initiative. Ultimately, it did not become a “forum for dialog.”

As the presiding body, the government seems to lack a consistent stance in designing the “explanatory and public hearings” as “forums for dialog.” Thus, a “forum for dialog” between the government, experts, and citizens and residents was never formed, despite opponents of nuclear power plants. Further, the process was half-hearted, consisting only of conventional explanations and public hearings by the government and experts.

Subsequently, the ALPS Subcommittee held its final seventeenth committee meeting on January 31, 2020, and released the ALPS Subcommittee Report on February 10, 2020.

The report concluded that the most realistic options among the five methods of disposal presented in the “Tritiated Water TF Report” by the Tritiated Water Task Force in June 2016 (i.e., geosphere injection, offshore release, vapor release, hydrogen release, and underground burial) would be vapor release or offshore release. The report also compares the merits and demerits of vapor release and offshore release, noting that the vapor release measure has no Japanese precedent, monitoring may be destabilized by factors such as weather conditions, and the influence of rumors may be wider reaching than offshore release. Although the ALPS Subcommittee Report does not draw any conclusion, it strongly suggests offshore release to be a more realistic and reliable option than vapor release and can be said to have, in practice, proposed offshore release.

3.4 The Offshore Release of ALPS-Treated Water as a Post-Trans-Scientific Issue

Considering the formation of socially robust knowledge and democratization of knowledge proposed by the science-policy interface research framework in depth and the issue of the offshore release of ALPS-treated water as a post-trans-scientific issue, the first point to be considered is the adoption of the two-stage approach between the Tritium Water Task Force and the ALPS Subcommittee. Moreover, the second point is that for the duration (more than six years) of the study process, from December 2013 to February 2020, except for explanatory and public hearing meetings by the ALPS Subcommittee in August 2018, an investigation was conducted, exclusively drawing on limited expert knowledge.

What the government presiding over the “forum” envisaged was a government-led policy-making scenario. In the first stage, the Tritiated Water Task Force would present countermeasure options from a technical perspective, followed by a second stage in which the ALPS Subcommittee would examine social angles, such as rumors, narrowing down the options via dialog with citizens and local residents.

The government may have contemplated this two-stage approach to ensure the legitimacy of a key policy in decommissioning 1F (i.e., the offshore release of ALPS-treated water legitimacy), which has uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity risk characteristics. Was it not the case, however, that the formation of diverse options needed to be implemented as a knowledge production that democratizes the process of forming socially robust knowledge?

It is also highly puzzling that the above-ground storage tank option was excluded from the Tritiated Water Task Force’s considerations from the outset. In the debate surrounding the management and disposal of high-level radioactive waste, long-term above-ground storage is a well-known policy option grounded in the principle of reversibility, which guarantees the right of future generations to make policy decisions (Matsuoka et al. 2019). For tritium (half-life: 12 years), with a much shorter half-life than highly radioactive neptunium-237 (half-life: 2.14 million years) and zirconium-93 (half-life: 1.53 million years), above-ground storage is a realistic policy option.

In any case, the activities of the ALPS Subcommittee, premised on the five vaguely credible policy option assessments of the Tritiated Water Task Force, can only be called a failure of the premise. It is also natural that the explanatory and public hearing meetings held by the ALPS Subcommittee based on this Tritium Water TF Report did not result in the formation of socially robust knowledge.

The tragedy of the ALPS Subcommittee, whose discussions were based on the questionably reliable “Tritium Water TF Report” and held explanatory and public hearing meetings, can be attributed to the fact that it separated technical considerations of potential countermeasures from social considerations in the first place.

Regarding the formation of socially robust knowledge proposed by the science-policy interfaces research framework and the ultimate democratizing approach to knowledge production, technical and social aspects must not be separated when considering options. It is only by cooperation between technical and social expertise and between technical and social expertise and the local knowledge possessed by the local community that the formation of socially robust knowledge (i.e., reconstruction and decommissioning knowledge) becomes possible.

3.5 April 13, 2021: The Government Decision to Release ALPS-Treated Water Offshore

Given that the ALPS Subcommittee Report was published on February 10, 2020, the government proceeded with discussions with relevant local organizations in Fukushima, focusing on measures for offshore release. The government held meetings to gather the opinions of concerned parties seven times in Fukushima Prefecture and Tokyo and heard opinions and solicited written opinions from 43 people from 29 organizations, including Fukushima Prefecture, local municipalities, neighboring Miyagi Prefecture, Ibaraki Prefecture, other local governments; agriculture, forestry, and fisheries businesses, consumer groups; and economic organizations. Moreover, the municipalities of Okuma and Futaba, on which the site of 1F is located, and the Liberal Democratic Party’s Headquarters for Accelerating Reconstruction After the Great East Japan Earthquake, petitioned the government for an early decision on the policy for the disposal of the treated water.

However, given the Act on Special Measures against COVID-19, which was enacted in response to its spread from early spring 2020 (enacted March 13, 2020), the decision to postpone the Tokyo Olympics for one year (March 24, 2020), the declaration of a state of emergency, and the transition from the Abe administration to the Suga administration, the official decision by the government to release the ALPS-treated water offshore was repeatedly postponed.

Finally, on April 13, 2021, the Japanese government decided at the Inter-Ministerial Council for Contaminated Water, Treated Water and Decommissioning Issues to release the ALPS-treated water in offshore, given the increasing amount of contaminated water and the fact that the storage tanks will reach capacity circa autumn 2022. At the Inter-Ministerial Council for Contaminated Water, Treated Water and Decommissioning issues, Prime Minister Suga said: “How to dispose of treated water is an issue we cannot avoid while proceeding with the decommissioning of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The government will ensure the safety of the water to a level that goes well within the standards and take thorough measures to address potential damage from negative rumors about local products.” (Asahi Shimbun, April 13, 2021).

In light of the official decision on April 13, 2021, the Japanese government established the “Inter-Ministerial Meeting for the Implementation of the Basic Policy on the Disposal of ALPS-Treated Water” (meeting for the first time on April 16, 2021) and established the “Inter-Ministerial Meeting Working Group for the Implementation of the Basic Policy on the Disposal of ALPS-Treated Water” to exchange opinions with various stakeholders, including the Japanese government, TEPCO, Fukushima Prefecture, Miyagi Prefecture, and Ibaraki Prefecture. This working group met for the first time on May 31, 2021, and held its sixth meeting on July 9, 2021. The METI Agency for Natural Resources and Energy also established the Office of Support for Responding to Damage from Treated Water on April 27, 2021, and established a system to support the implementation of prompt and proportionate compensation for damage caused by harmful rumors³.

Controlled concentrations and quantities of tritiated water have been released from nuclear power and reprocessing plants in Japan and worldwide. The Japanese standard for tritiated water discharge is 60,000 Bq (becquerel) per liter. According to the plan for the offshore release of ALPS-treated water from 1F, the ALPS-treated water will be diluted approximately 100 times with seawater to achieve the same standard as the operational target discharge concentration of 1500 Bq per liter of water discharged from the sub-drains of 1F (wells for pumping groundwater near the main structure, installed to prevent groundwater from entering the damaged reactors). The offshore release of ALPS-treated water will begin in 2023. About 140m³ of contaminated water is still generated daily at 1F (as of 2020), and a total of 1,265,060m³ (as of June 17, 2021, TEPCO website) of treated water (71% of which is not yet fully treated) is stored in tanks, amounting to approximately 900 trillion becquerels of tritium (Asahi Shimbun, April 13, 2021).

The April 13, 2021, decision document (Outline of the Basic Policy on Handling of the ALPS-treated water [at TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station]) states that offshore release will be conducted at a level lower than the annual total of 22 trillion becquerels, the operating target for tritiated water discharge prior to the accident at 1F. It is a method of discharge to manage the impact of rumors as much as possible. Assuming the total annual offshore release of tritium to be 22 trillion becquerels, 900 trillion Bq ÷ 22 trillion Bq/year = 40.9 years. Assuming there is no increase from the current total tritium level of 900 trillion becquerels, it would take approximately 41 years to release all the ALPS-treated water currently held into the ocean. Assuming offshore release begins in 2023, it will end in 2064.

The “Medium to Long-Term Roadmap,” which defines the basics of the 1F decommissioning policy, has consistently set “a goal of completing decommissioning in 30–40 years” since the announcement that cold shutdown had been achieved in December 2011. Ten years have passed since 2011, and if we assume a goal of completion after another 30 years, the goal is to complete the decommissioning of 1F by the end of 2051. The decision to release the ALPS-treated water into the ocean to advance the project to decommission 1F requires an additional decade beyond the 2051 target to complete the 1F decommissioning project.

4 Why is It Challenging to Foster Social Acceptance of the Fukushima Innovation Coast and the International Education and Research Hub Initiatives?

4.1 Low Awareness of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework Among Fukushima Citizens

The national government formulated the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework as a national project, central to the Fukushima reconstruction policy, and plans to open an international education and research base in 2024 that will assume a commanding role therein. This section focuses on the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework, and the international education and research base and considers the reconstruction of Fukushima as a post-trans-scientific question.

The Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework is “a national project designed to build a new industrial infrastructure in the coastal region of Fukushima Prefecture to recover the industries that were lost there given the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, and the nuclear disaster.” (Fukushima Prefecture, Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework Promotion Office 2020). The main project focuses on promoting the buildup of advanced industries in eight fields: decommissioning, robotics, drone technology, energy, environment and recycling, agroforestry and fisheries, medical care, and aerospace.

The Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework originated from the Fukushima International Research and Industrial City Study Group (Akaba Study Group, chaired by Kazuyoshi Akaba, Vice Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry and Director General of the Local Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters). It was established in January 2014 and compiled the “Fukushima International Research and Industrial City (Innovation Coast) Framework Study Group Report” (hereinafter the “Akaba Study Group Report”) in June 2014.

This “Akaba Study Group Report” formed the basis for the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework, which was positioned in the government’s “Framework Policy 2014” and requested for inclusion in the FY2015 budget, solidifying it as a national project within Fukushima reconstruction policy. The Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework was subsequently given legal status through the May 2017 revision of the Act on Special Measures for the Reconstruction and Revitalization of Fukushima. Moreover, the government established the Ministerial Council on the Fukushima Innovation Coast Scheme in July 2017. In the same month, the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework Promotion Organization was established as the implementing organization, thereby establishing the promotion system as a national project.

However, the level of recognition of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework among the people of Fukushima prefecture is low. For the first time, the 2019 edition of the annual Fukushima Prefectural Government Public Opinion Survey asked about Fukushima residents’ awareness of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework directly using a questionnaire (Fukushima Prefecture 2019). The results showed that 46.3% of the respondents “do not know either the name or the contents” of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework, and 37.1% “have heard of the name but do not know much about the contents” of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework (Fukushima Prefecture 2019, p. 17).

In fact, 83.4% of Fukushima Prefecture residents either do not know the name of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework or had heard of it but did not know what it is, which is a shocking result for a national project. Perhaps because the impact of the 2019 prefectural government opinion survey was significant, the 2020 prefectural government opinion survey did not include a questionnaire item asking about the level of awareness of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework among Fukushima residents (Fukushima Prefecture 2020).

Beyond the people of Fukushima Prefecture having a low awareness of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework national project, it is also challenging to explain the logic of the initiative to those involved in the reconstruction of Fukushima.

4.2 Creation of Regional Innovation and the International Education and Research

The creation of innovation requires the effective functioning of two processes: a knowledge creation process to create new ideas and a resource mobilization process to give form to such ideas in society and the market (Matsuoka 2018a, b). In particular, the existence of “knowledge hubs” such as universities and research institutes, which play the role of “forums” for knowledge creation, is important for regional innovation.

Typical examples include Stanford University (founded in 1891) in Silicon Valley, California; MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded in 1865) and Harvard University (founded in 1636) on Route 128 in Boston, Massachusetts; North Carolina State University (founded in 1888); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (founded in 1789); and Duke University (founded in 1924) in the Research Triangle Park (RTP, founded in 1959), North Carolina.

Boston, in the eastern USA, is significantly different from Fukushima Hamadori in history and culture to allow for comparison. Silicon Valley in California also has a history of active industrial development through Stanford University and other institutions since before World War II and is now home to global companies such as Apple and Intel, bearing little comparison with Fukushima.

RTP in North Carolina, developed in the southern part of the USA, may provide some reference for the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework. RTP was established in 1959 by the Research Triangle Foundation, comprising North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, state and local governments, and private companies. Today, 300 companies, including IBM and Cisco Systems, are concentrated within the 28Km² site, employing 55,000 people⁴.

These business agglomerations and concentrations of creative talent (Florida 2008) include two of the nation’s most prestigious universities, having produced several Nobel Prize winners: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, founded in 1789, and Duke University, founded in 1924 by the Duke family, who made their fortune in the tobacco industry⁵.

The challenge and incomprehensibility of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework are that it prioritizes a policy of attracting companies in the form of the agglomeration of advanced industries in eight fields, decommissioning, robotics, drone technology, energy, environment and recycling, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, medical care, and aerospace. The creation of the “forum” for the knowledge generation essential to the agglomeration of these advanced industries is discussed later in this paper.

On December 18, the National Reconstruction Promotion Council (2020) (chaired by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga) established an international education and research base in the disaster-stricken area of Fukushima Hamadori as a new “knowledge hub” that plays a commanding role in the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework (definite plan).

According to the government’s definite plan, the international education and research base will serve as a “key center for creative reconstruction” in the Fukushima Hamadori area, which suffered extensive damage from the nuclear disaster. It will assemble wisdom from within Japan and abroad to develop the talent essential for creative reconstruction, including environmental restoration and the creation of new industries.

Further, as the international responsibility of disaster-affected countries, it will disseminate and share experiences and achievements with the world, using the strength and knowledge gained to strengthen Japan’s industrial competitiveness and generate innovations to solve issues shared by Japan and the rest of the world (Reconstruction Agency, 2020, p. 1). Five specific research fields are being examined: robotics, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, energy, radiation science, and the accumulation and dissemination of data and knowledge on nuclear disasters.

Incidentally, the Mainichi Shimbun (March 7, 2021) published an article titled “10 years after the Great East Japan Earthquake, townspeople are cold to the innovation initiative.” The article describes a study session on the international education and research base held by the Reconstruction Agency at the Namie Town Chamber of Commerce and Industry on January 18, 2021. The Reconstruction Agency explained that the international education and research base would “include about 600 researchers and aim to create 5000 jobs, including [jobs] in the surrounding areas,” and “there are precedents such as Tsukuba, which has 10,000 researchers.”

Meanwhile, a Namie resident in attendance embodied the cold response of local residents, saying, “It’s pie in the sky. Everyone’s puzzled.” The report introduces earnest voices from those involved in the Namie Town Chamber of Commerce and Industry, saying, “There is a definite gap between the reconstruction sought by the townspeople and that envisioned by the town, the prefecture and the national government,” and “We are told that it will take many years to turn Namie Town into an advanced industrial city, but we need to survive today... it has been 10 years since the earthquake.”

The international education and research base, established as a national research and development (R&D) agency in the nuclear disaster-stricken area of Fukushima Hamadori, is scheduled to partially (fully) open in 2023(2024). What should be considered carefully here is that it takes at least 30 to 40 years for the societal effects of “knowledge hubs” such as universities and research institutes to manifest, as in the case of Silicon Valley in California and RTP in North Carolina; such a turnover does not happen overnight.

Diverse creative human resources and a network of human relationships are formed over time, resulting in the buildup of rich social relationship capital, characterized by trust, reciprocity, and networks. A “knowledge ecosystem” in the local community is formed by accumulating rich social relationship capital within the local community, driving the knowledge creation and resource mobilization processes required for regional innovation.

4.3 The 2014 Akaba Research Group and Fukushima Reconstruction as a Post-Trans-Scientific Question

This segment considers the reconstruction of Fukushima as a post-trans-scientific question by reflecting on the discussions of the 2014 Akaba Study Group, the starting point of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework, and the international education and research base.

On January 21, 2014, the first meeting of the Fukushima International Industrial City (Innovation Coast) Framework Study Group was held, chaired by Kazuyoshi Akaba, then Vice Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry and Head of the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters. The study group comprised 21 members, including officials from the national government, such as the METI, the Reconstruction Agency, the Ministry of the Environment, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. It also comprised officials from local municipalities, such as Fukushima Prefecture, Iwaki City, Futaba District Town and Village Association, Soma District Town and Village Association, and Minami-soma City; officials involved with nuclear officials, such as the Tokyo Electric Power Company, JAEA, and International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning; and university officials. The METI led the Akaba Study Group. However, it can be surmised that the group considered the development of the framework using a top-down approach that emphasized consensus building across a wide range of stakeholders, including the state and local communities.

Incidentally, the chairperson of the study group, Kazuyoshi Akaba, toured the USA between January 12 and January 19, 2014, just before the first study group meeting, and visited Texas A&M University and Hanford. The “Akaba Study Group Report” (2014) was compiled on June 23. Nonetheless, it is reasonable to assume Kazuyoshi Akaba had already solidified the basic points of his concept by late 2013.

The document “Document 5: Matters to be considered by the study group” from the first meeting held on January 21, 2014, sets out the following five points as the purpose of establishing the study group (Fukushima International Research and Industrial City [Innovation Coast] Framework Study Group [Akaba Study Group] Secretariat, 2014, p. 2).

The local economies of many of the municipalities in Hamadori have formed around the business activities of nuclear power-related companies, and the decommissioning of the nuclear power plant will result in the loss of that foundation. Henceforth, it will be necessary to create new technologies and industries to rebuild the industrial base of the region and realize the recovery of the entire regional economy.

However, considering the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant over the next 30–40 years, it is necessary to establish R&D centers in a wide range of fields, including robotics, prototype production, and production centers for parts, components, and consumables that support the R&D and decommissioning work, together with training and education centers for researchers and engineers engaged in these activities in the surrounding areas, thus ensuring smooth decommissioning.

Many researchers and related industrial workers live in the area during the R&D to decommissioning process. Therefore, it will be necessary to improve various services and life and transportation infrastructure for the new residents.

The strategic development of international research and industrial base is a nursery for the agglomeration of research and industries related to decommissioning, and the comprehensive development of policy necessary to form industrial clusters over a wide area beyond the conventional municipality framework induces the creation of new technologies and new industries in the future.

Further, to clarify the direction of regional industrial policies that should be implemented in the areas affected by the nuclear power plant disaster, the “Fukushima International Research and Industrial City (Innovation Coast) Study Group” will be established as a private, roundtable meeting with the head of the Local Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters, Mr. Akaba, where experts from the industry, academia, and government will discuss the future direction of R&D and industry and human resource development bases, together with regional development. By June, proposals for future visions for the regional economy, necessary steps to take, and support measures should have been compiled.

In general, the report emphasizes that the creation of new industries to replace the nuclear power industry is essential for the regional reconstruction of R&D and industry and human resource development bases. Moreover, regional development based on industrial clusters involved with the decommissioning of 1F should be developed over a wide area extending beyond the conventional municipality framework.

Similarly, in “Document 5” from the first study group session, under “Preservation and development of ruins from the earthquake,” some fascinating points are made, including “[is it not] important to preserve facilities and data from the 1F and 2F (Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant) for education and training purposes?” and “From the perspective of education and training, [is there not] a need to preserve the facilities and archive materials to ensure an understanding of the situation at the time of [the] accident is passed on to future generations?” (Fukushima International Research and Industrial City (Innovation Coast) Framework Study Group (Akaba Study Group) Secretariat, 2014, p. 37).

The Akaba Study Group, beginning on January 21, 2014, completed its role by compiling the “Report of the Study Group on the Fukushima International Industrial City (Innovation Coast) Framework” (“Akaba Study Group Report”) as early as at the 7th Study Group Meeting on June 23, 2014.

Section 2.2 of the “Akaba Research Group Report,” released on June 23, 2014, states that “2. International joint industry-academia-government research site for domestic and foreign research institutions” is the starting point of the international education and research base currently being promoted by the Reconstruction Agency. It is stated that “possible research themes include research examining environmental contamination and environmental recovery, research into the restoration of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, research into robotics technology, technical research involving the reconstruction of Fukushima, social science research, medical research linked to ensuring residents’ health, and advanced basic research related to solving the problems of decommissioning and contaminated water” (Akaba Research Group, 2014, p. 14), clearly positioning social science research linked to the reconstruction of Fukushima.

The discussions and reports of the Akaba Study Group, which formed the starting point for the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework and International Education and Research Base, discuss the preservation of Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini nuclear power plants from an educational and academic perspective, clearly positioning social science studies linked to the reconstruction of Fukushima as a topic of research within the international joint industry-academia-government arena, thus underpinning the current Reconstruction Agency International Education and Research Base.

The Akaba Study Group substantively formed the idea in late 2013 and published it as the Akaba Study Group Report in June 2014. Seven years have passed since then, and it is necessary for the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework and the International Education and Research Base to go back to the starting point of the project—the Akaba Study Group.

However, merely going back to the starting point does not clarify the question of the Fukushima reconstruction as a post-trans-scientific question (Unknown Unknowns). In addition to the top-down approach planned by the Akaba Study Group (the top-down or bottom-up binary is not particularly significant to Fukushima’s recovery from the nuclear disaster: both are important and necessary), creative reconstruction must materialize the knowledge creation process and resource mobilization process through the formation of a “forum for dialog” between diverse experts and residents.

5 The Strong Path Dependency of the Fukushima Reconstruction and 1F Decommissioning Policies and the Need for Social Innovation

This chapter examines the “Balancing Reconstruction with Decommissioning” problem of reviving Fukushima from a double disaster called the Great East Japan Earthquake and the 1F (Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant) nuclear disaster. This chapter contributes to SDGs 11; Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

This chapter defines the issues surrounding the reconstruction of Fukushima and the decommissioning of 1F as post-trans-scientific issues. It discusses the challenge of fostering social acceptance of the release of ALPS-treated water created through the decommissioning of 1F into the ocean and the challenge of fostering social acceptance of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework and the international education and research base in the course of the reconstruction of Fukushima.

The accidental offshore discharge of contaminated water in August 2013 was a major turning point in the processes surrounding the issue of the disposal of treated water, and the Tritiated Water Task Force was established in December 2013. The Tritium Water Task Force, comprising only technical experts, compiled the “Tritium Water Task Force Report” on June 3, 2016, substantively decided offshore discharge to be the most practical direction to take. The subsequent ALPS Subcommittee, which included social science experts, also moved discussions along with the path dependency of legitimizing the offshore release, and the February 2020 “ALPS Subcommittee Report” settled on the offshore release of ALPS-treated water.

This path-dependent discussion process between government and experts can be understood as a process of legitimization for stakeholders who are members of the “forum” in that the options are narrowed down during the process of building up evidence-based discussions. However, for residents consistently excluded from the “forum for dialog” of task forces and committees on various options available for the disposal of the ALPS-treated water, even if they are asked to express their opinions, being told by the government that the options have been narrowed down to a final decision (offshore release) does not foster social acceptance or ensure the legitimacy of the decision.

The Akaba Study Group was the origin of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework and the international education and research base, national projects central to the Fukushima reconstruction policy. The Akaba Study Group began in January 2014, compiling the “Fukushima International Industrial City (Innovation Coast) Framework Study Group Report” (“Akaba Study Group Report”) in June 2014. Based on the Akaba Study Group Report, the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework has been established as a national project, and an international education and research base has been envisioned to assume a commanding role therein.

However, the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework and the international education and research base have low levels of recognition and expectation among the people of Fukushima Prefecture and cannot be said to have fostered social acceptance as policies for the reconstruction of Fukushima. This notion is strongly influenced by the fact that the Akaba Study Group, the origin of the project, was grounded in a top-down approach led by political, administrative, and Tokyo-based leadership at the outset. The subsequent Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework and international education and research base were fundamentally conceived and implemented following the path laid out by the Akaba Study Group.

However, there were some interesting issues in the 2014 discussions of the Akaba Study Group, such as the preservation of 1F and a clear mention of the importance of social scientific research linked to the reconstruction of Fukushima as a research theme for the formation of an international “knowledge hub.” Many things can be learned from the Akaba Study Group by tracing its roots.

Had an approach to post-trans-scientific issues been developed during the seven years between the June 2014 Akaba Study Group Report and today, the degree of recognition and expectations of the people of Fukushima Prefecture toward the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework and the international education and research base might be quite different.

If the political, governmental, and Tokyo-led initiatives of seven years ago had been replaced by more concrete attempts to establish a knowledge creation process and resource mobilization process through the formation of a “forum for dialog” between a diverse range of experts and residents, it would have been possible to develop the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework and the international education and research base in collaboration with local communities.

The path dependency of the Fukushima reconstruction and 1F decommissioning policies is strong, and unlocking ourselves from the existing pathway is challenging. However, regarding post-trans-scientific issues, to formulate policies that enable the reconstruction of Fukushima (the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework and international education and research base) and the decommissioning of 1F (the offshore release of ALPS-treated water and removal of debris), thereby fostering social acceptance and understanding of these policies, it is essential to create social innovation by creating a “forum for dialog” among experts, government, and residents.

Notes

• (1) The current (as of July 18, 2021) difficult-to-return zone comprises seven municipalities (Minami-soma City, Iitate Village, Katsurao Village, Namie Town, Futaba Town, Okuma Town, and Tomioka Town), approximately 3.37 million km², and approximately 20,000 registered residents. The Specified Reconstruction and Revitalization Base (approximately 27.5 km²) is expected to have its evacuation order lifted in 2022 or 2023. For the remaining areas, the tenth proposal made by the Liberal Democratic Party’s Headquarters for Accelerating Reconstruction after the Great East Japan Earthquake on July 6, 2021, calls for the lifting of evacuation orders for all areas in the 2020s (Mainichi Shimbun, July 7, 2021), though it remains uncertain.

• (2) The term “ALPS-treated water” has been used since the official decision to release water into the ocean on April 13, 2021. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) states that ALPS-treated water is defined as “water that meets the regulatory criteria for environmental release for nuclides besides tritium.” https://www.meti.go.jp/press/2021/04/20210413001/20210413001.html (accessed on July 15, 2021).

• (3) Please refer to the following website for more information on the Office of Support for Responding to Damage from Treated Water at the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy of the METI: https://www.meti.go.jp/press/2021/04/20210427003/20210427003.html (accessed on July 15, 2021).

• (4) For more information on RTP companies and employment data, please visit: https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/subscriber-only/2019/05/10/largest-research-triangle-park.html. (accessed on July 15, 2021).

• (5) The University of South Carolina at Chapel Hill has produced nine Nobel laureates, and Duke University has produced 15 Nobel laureates (up to 2019).