Japanese politicians and business leaders said Japan needs atomic energy for sustainable economic development even after the nation's worst nuclear disaster, but some experts at an anti-nuclear conference argued Sunday that was behind the times. More than 10,000 people gathered at the two-day "Global Conference For a Nuclear Power Free World" to discuss energy, radioactive contamination and anti-nuclear movements in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Present at the meeting were experts, activists and lawmakers from30 countries and 200 civic groups from across Japan. Despite strong doubts expressed by experts and local residents, the government declared in mid-December that a cold shutdown had been achieved at Fukushima. The announcement marked an end to the emergency phase of the disaster and the start of the clean-up and scrapping of its reactors. As Japanese utilities have shut down their reactors for inspection or maintenance, they have been unable to restart them amid growing public concerns about atomic power following the disaster. On Friday, Shikoku Electric Power Co said it halted reactor 2 of its Ikata Nuclear Power Plant for regular checkups, which has left only five of the nation's 54 reactors, less than 10 per cent, in service. But Japanese government officials, lawmakers and business groups want to restart nuclear power plants, Hiroyuki Kawai, representative of the liaison group of lawyers to stop nuclear plants in Japan. "Japan is the only country in the world that has so many nuclear reactors in quake-prone areas," Kawai said. Kawai explained that Japan makes up 0.3 per cent of the world's land mass, but the number of earthquakes that take place in the country is some 100 times the world's average.
