TEPCO hires British-American lawyer as Nuclear advocate

» TEPCO hires British-American lawyer as Nuclear advocate

2013/07/05

Tokyo Electric Power Co.hired a woman lawyer for its nuclear reform committee to help relaunch Japan’s nuclear power program, which was suspended completely in March 2011.

Her name is Lady Barbara Judge–a British-American, who has worked as a lawyer, banker and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner. Judge served as chairman of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority from 2004 to 2010.

Judge visited Fukushima in February 2012 to talk to workers in her new role as deputy chairman of TEPCO’s Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee.
She said “It was fantastic.It was absolutely hope and enthusiasm, not despair.”
Judge met TEPCO employees, some of whom had been on duty on the day of the accident and others who had been working at the plant ever since to clean up the debris and radiation and to make the site fit to reopen.
“I was extremely impressed that these people were so dedicated,” said Judge. “They were heroes.I was amazed at how much work had been done to clear up the site and the high aspiration to make the site the safest in the world.”

In July 5th 2013, Judge answered interview by The Associated Press on July 5, during a trip to Tokyo for meetings at TEPCO.She said “There was a culture of efficiency, not a culture of safety in TEPCO. There was no safety culture. There was an assumption of safety.”

Judge is suggesting that TEPCO should do more outreach to answer people’s questions and show how nuclear is the superior choice.She has advised TEPCO to “apologize profusely” for the accident and asserts that under her initiative, TEPCO is bringing together the toughest standards and safest practices in the world.

Also she noted that the Fukushima accident was set off because backup generators were in the basement when the tsunami struck in March 2011, not a failure of fancy science.

She pointed to Germany as seeing costly energy imports, worsening carbon emissions and higher electricity prices, while it’s buying nuclear power from France, after opting for a nuclear phase-out.”It’s a mess,” said Judge. “Life without nuclear is the Emperor’s new clothes, as far as I’m concerned.”