Published on May 7, 2020: The Denki Shimbun (The Electric Daily News)
Shojiro Matsuura
Advisor

Reading the essay “10 Years of Japan Geopark” penned by geologist, Professor Emeritus and former Kyoto University President Kazuo Oike in the 941st issue of Gakushikai Journal published March 1st, I had a feeling of astonishment bordering on consternation. Professor Oike served as Chair of the Japan Geopark Committee for ten years. In stepping down from that role, he left for us this article in the journal’s essay column as a vestige of what he had learned and contemplated over the course of his work.

Towards the end of his essay, he writes, “It is my suggestion that nuclear waste, the most detrimental legacy that mankind has ever produced, be stored on Minami-tori Island.” His proposal resounded so deeply that it might even be called a “divine revelation.” If his overture could be realized, then Japan might regard Minami-tori Island as a “heavenly blessing” on her eastern flank.

Minami-tori Island is an uninhabited enclave far off in the distant seas of Japan’s territory. It is within province of Ogasawara Village, which is part of the Tokyo Metropolis. Approximately 1,800 km from the main island of Japan, Minami-tori Island is small, flat and shaped like an equilateral triangle that is approximately two kilometers long on each side. It has an area of about 1.5 km², and its highest elevation is nine meters. Shallow waters filled with coral reefs surround the island, but beyond that the sea descends at a sheer precipice going down 1000 meters.

The location where the island is situated has sufficiently cooled and existed for around 150 million years ever since the Pacific Plate evolved. The island formed out of volcanic activity that began during the Cretaceous period and continued through the early Cenozoic period, but all magma activity has completely ceased. Professor Oike’s assessment is that the island is a Japanese territory on the most stable oceanic plate in the world. The Pacific Plate moves toward the Japan Trench at a speed of around eight centimeters per year, meaning that it will take about one million years before the island is swallowed up by the earth.

No one lives on the island. Only rotating shifts of Japan Meteorological Agency and Maritime Self-Defense Force personnel, which operate and maintain facilities on the island, stay there any length of time. Anyone else must obtain special permission before coming ashore and such dispensation is limited to those engaged in construction or engineering work. What this means is that judicial or other risks, which have recently made it more difficult to resolve nuclear issues, are nonexistent.

In view of the aforementioned conditions, no significant issues appear to prevent Minami-tori Island from being converted into a high-level radioactive waste repository, besides the difficulties that transportation entails. Why is it then that no one in the nuclear industry has suggested Minami-tori Island as a high-level radioactive waste repository candidate?

Having had the experience some 40 years ago of participating, albeit temporarily, in a joint Japan-US study evaluating the possibility of establishing a spent nuclear fuel depository on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean, I bitterly regret that we failed to expand our horizons to include maritime possibilities.

The people who first inhabited the Japanese islands were all immigrants from continental Asia who came here by sea. Many archaeological shell mound sites have substantiated that these people lived near or along the sea.

Over the ensuing lengthy history, the introduction and importation of items from the continent would serve as the source from which our island society’s civilization and culture evolved. A civilization and culture that would characterize the archipelago’s society was built as fitting items were selected. Particularly from the time when rice cultivation took hold as the foundation of social dynamism and power, continental features are believed to have been predominant, even as preexistent maritime characteristics were maintained. This is what came to constitute a solid foundation for Japan’s society, which can be seen in the intense attachment that people have to the land and earth.

Nevertheless, shouldn’t we resolve to fuse the development of these maritime and continental characteristics of our outlook and consciousness now today when the greatest upheaval in human civilization in thousands of years is portended in the confusion we are experiencing? I firmly believe that the challenge of realizing Professor Oike’s overture presents us with such an opportunity.

End