经济学人下载:日本灾难,钚与米奇鼠

The problems compound one another. Taro Kono, of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), says there is an “unholy triangle” between METI, its affiliated regulator and the nuclear industry. His office notes that Toru Ishida, a former METI energy official, moved straight into a job as senior adviser to TEPCO. Mr Kono also accuses the media of being in the nuclear industry’s pocket, because of lashings of advertising.

问题是一环套一环。日本反对党自由民主党（LDP）成员河野太郎认为，日本经济产业省、其附属机构和核工业之间存在一个“邪恶三角”。 他的团队注意到前日本经济产业省能源官员石田亨直接作为高层顾问进入东京电力公司任职。河野太郎也指出：为了大量的广告收入，媒体也受到了核工业的操纵。

Paul Scalise, a TEPCO expert at Temple University’s Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies in Japan, responds that the demonising happens, in part, so that politicians, bureaucrats and the electorate can avoid blame themselves. He points out that Japan’s embrace of nuclear technology was a national decision, taken after the 1973 oil shock (Japan imports 99% of its oil). But after accidents at Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl, local people began to take a not-in-my-back-yard attitude. Utilities and the government responded by offering tax incentives, subsidies and other blandishments. The result was some of the highest electricity tariffs in the rich world.

日本坦普尔大学当代亚洲研究学院的东京电力公司方面专家——保罗??斯卡里塞回应道：某种意义上妖魔化东京电力公司的事情发生了，这样政治家、官僚和选民就可以避免责怪自己。他指出自从1973年石油冲击（日本进口了99%的原油）之后，日本接受核能技术是一项国家的决定。但是在三里岛核事故和切诺贝利核事故之后，当地居民采取了反对核设施的态度。电力公司和政府对此提出税收优惠、津贴以及其他的利好行为作为补偿。这个结果只是发达国家最高电力税的一部分而已。

Yet companies like TEPCO have still struggled to build new plants in the teeth of local opposition, Mr Scalise says. That helps explain why so many of its reactors are on single sites. The company stores spent fuel rods on its premises because there is no consensus on where else to put them. Meanwhile, the shortage of capacity means that its margin of excess power has been shrinking for 20 years.

斯卡里塞说：即便在当地反对派的公然反对下，像东京电力公司一样的公司仍然竭力建设新核电站。这能解释为什么如此多的反应堆建造在同一个地方。公司在工厂里储存废弃的燃料棒，这是因为公司在其他地方安放废弃燃料棒上没有达成共识。同时，容量不足意味着电力公司的电力边际产量将会持续减少20年。

Following the earthquake and tsunami, about 28% of TEPCO’s installed capacity, nuclear and non-nuclear, remains shut down. On March 30th, the government acknowledged the obvious—that it is likely to decommission the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant permanently—and possibly have to cover it to stop radiation leaking out. That would knock out about 1.8% of Japan’s energy capacity. In a model of bad planning, the country’s power-distribution systems in the east and west of the country operate on different frequencies, so it is hard to share electricity between them. Unless damaged thermal-electric capacity is brought back soon and more small gas-fired plants are quickly built, months—perhaps years—of energy shortages loom, with crippling effects on the economy.

在地震和海啸之后，包括核设备和非核设备在内，28%东京电力公司已安装的机器停止了工作。3月30日，政府承认：福岛第一核电站有可能会永久的关闭，而且为了阻止核辐射有可能采取掩埋措施。这可能降低日本1.8%的产能能力。在整个规划不佳的模型中，国家东部和西部的配电系统运行采取不同的频率，所以在东部和西部之间分配电力是困难的。除非在短时间内恢复被损坏的火电发电能力或者是建造更多小型燃气发电厂，否则日本将面临数月或者数年的电力缺乏，这会对经济发展产生破坏性的影响。

All this will be a reason to judge TEPCO severely. But the crisis is exposing the failure of the nation’s energy policy as a whole. Prices are exorbitantly high. Power generation produces more greenhouse gases than the government wants. The country has not achieved its goal of nuclear self-sufficiency by reprocessing spent fuel. And now it has a nuclear disaster on its hands. That is not only TEPCO’s fault. It is Japan’s. If the country wants a more reliable energy strategy, it will have to start by acknowledging its collective failings.

这一切都将作为严厉审判东京电力公司的原因。但是这个危机暴露出了国家在能源政策上的整体失误。电价过分的高。发电厂产生的造成温室效应的气体量超过政府所希望的标准。国家通过对于废燃料的再加工并没有实现其核能自足的目标。现在又发生了核灾难。这不仅是东京电力公司的错，而且是日本的错。如果国家想要一种更稳定的能源政策，那么就应该从承认国家做错了事开始。