In disclosures to the NRA in April, Tanaka said he received at least 500,000 yen in the year to March 2012 from the foundation. Tokyo University said it had no information on any possible payment from the Tepco foundation, as this would be Tanaka’s private income. A foundation spokesman said Tanaka had been paid for judging research grants but declined to give an amount. Japan’s Jiji news service said Tanaka also received around 3 million yen over five years to Mafrom the Tepco Memorial Foundation, an organisation set up by the predecessor company to Fukushima operator Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco. He recently told public broadcaster NHK: “If I am approved, I will take into account mistakes from the Fukushima accident and I will do my utmost by utilising all my experience.”Įight months after Fukushima, he was one of the first experts to say it may be safe to consider atomic energy again, according to remarks he made to a government panel on energy.īetween the 20 fiscal years, Tanaka received 6 million yen ($58,500 at current exchange rates) for research from three firms according to disclosures made by Tokyo University in response to a public information request from Reuters: Electric Power Development Co Ltd, known as J-Power, which is building a nuclear plant in northern Japan reactor maker Hitachi Ltd’s nuclear division and Hitachi GE Nuclear Energy Ltd. Tanaka, who was not at parliament on Tuesday, had sought to dispel concerns about his candidacy. “Academic institutions now encourage professors to get research funds and it’s very competitive, so his background should not be judged purely on the outside funds he has received,” said Sawa. “This nomination could undermine the very role of the regulator.”Ĭhief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said last month that the nominees were the “best people for the job, who can fulfil their roles from an independent, scientifically unbiased and fair standpoint”.Īkihiro Sawa, a research director at the 21st Century Public Policy Institute, a think tank affiliated with Japan’s biggest business lobby Keidanren, defended Tanaka.
“Bringing someone like (Tanaka) on as a regulator changes the fundamental role of the NRA,” said Tomoko Abe, an independent anti-nuclear lawmaker not related to the prime minister. Tokyo University would not provide contact information for him, citing privacy concerns. Tanaka did not respond to e-mailed requests for comment on the donations, which were detailed in financial disclosures and Japanese media. “But it is a matter of the degree of money you receive,” said Hideyuki Ban of Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, a non-profit anti-nuclear group. Industry analysts said any nuclear energy expert in Japan would have received funding from the industry given the decades of close ties between utilities and Japanese academia. The upper house is expected to also give them the greenlight. It also approved geologist Akira Ishiwatari, whose candidacy generated little controversy. Japan’s lower house of parliament, where Abe has a majority, approved his government’s nomination of Satoru Tanaka, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Tokyo and a proponent of nuclear power.
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Since then, utilities have pledged more than $15 billion to upgrade equipment and facilities. The commission was set up as an independent agency after Fukushima to replace a regulator seen as too close to the industry and to an energy ministry that promoted atomic power. The NRA’s independence is under scrutiny as it reviews applications to restart reactors, all 48 of which were shut in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
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