Namie, Fukushima, Japan, June 12—In the long and wide areas struck by the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear meltdown triple whammy stretching hundreds of kilos of northern Japan, many spectacular jaw-dropping scenes are unfolding making visitors wander how to pay for them and their upkeeps. An earthquake and reconstruction museum, a business center, and a hydrogen energy production pilot program, not to count dozens of smaller facilities that purportedly are to accommodate local folks affected by the triple disaster 11 years ago, many of them aging and living in far remote areas and exhausted about returning to their homes.
From the rooftop of the Futaba Business Incubation and Community Center (https://www.f-bicc.jp）, a $30 million glass-walled 5-story structure, the visitor can watch the bright Pacific Ocean across the now-ubiquitous tsunami break walls having been built over the past 11 years along the coastline stretching more than 600 kilos from Chiba, adjacent to Tokyo to the northern province of Aomori, as a key protection against future tsnami. Namie is only several kilometers north of Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station that partially melted down in March 2011.
The spiffy facility was completed in 2021, It is a business complex housing a food court, a gift shop, a restaurant, offices, rental working booths, and conference rooms. I visited the building after 11:00 a.m. on a weekday, walking through most of the facilities before walking up to the roof and observation deck. There were ver few visitors, even few on that overcast day. The food court, restaurant, the shop and the roof top were totally empty. At lunch time, some people cascaded out of the offices of the companies that I identified that all were related to disaster reconstruction and little else, such as Fukushima Create that gauges Fukushima nuclear power reactor radiation levels and Maeda Construction that built the building and other reconstruction facilities.The workers went into the food court and restaurant but the places were were looking still empty.
Right next to the Center, another glass-walled large building stood proudly like a movie star in a shiny clothing on the moon surface, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum (https://www.fipo.or.jp/lore/). It opened in September 2020 at a cost of $48 million. The museum exhibits earthquake and nuclear meltdown relics, photos and panels. Four uses carrying students from local schools were visiting the museum that day. The number of visitors to the museum topped 100,000 in late March 2022 since its opening, half a year ahead of its projection, according to the museum’s website.
On the high ground of Namie about 15 kilos from the two buildings, the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry’s arm, the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Toyota Motor, Toshiba Energy Systems, Tohoku Electric Power and Iwatani are producing hydrogen with solar power at the Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field (FH2R) (https://www.nedo.go.jp/english/news/AA5en_100422.html) since 2020. The stakeholders claim the $200 million FH2R as the world’s largest hydrogen producer. Current output was not available.
On June 11, 2022, Toyota and Aeon, a major supermarket chain, began selling groceries carried on a Toyota experimental EV truck that uses hydrogen produced at FH2R, according to local media reports. Fukushima’s government is promoting several other hydrogen production projects in the Name area. Surrounding fields of the three facilities, which used to be farmlands, are now covered with solar panels and some wind power mills.
NEDO also is conducting R&D on robotics at Minami Soma, north of Namie (https://www.fipo.or.jp/robot/en).
Namie’s population before the 2011 disaster was 21,500. The most recent count of residents was 1,600, while a total of 15,800 were registered as residents but living outside the town, according to the town’s statistics. There are few grocery and other shops for daily necessities, the reason why Toyota EV truck retailing services are appreciated in a municipality where more than 75 percent are 60 years and older and only 7 percent are younger than 50.
Looking at those facilities makes observers speculate that the Japanese government might be trying to pacify the nuclear meltdown-struck Fukushima people with the carrots of the community center and museum, at the same time experimenting hydrogen power with massive solar panel farms that should have drawn strong opposition from farmers had it not been for the disaster, as well as robotics that critics say are partially developed for military purposes.
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Insight Into the Future