The road to hell was indeed paved with good intentions, thought Uchida Zenjirō. As head of one the largest civil engineering consortia in Japan’s atomic energy sector, he was regarded as the pinnacle of leadership in this field. He was venerated by the great and the good of Japanese captains of industry and politicians alike and regarded as a living bastion of the codes underpinning corporate business in Japan – or at least for the time being.
He now realised that years of accolades had blinded him, leading to a string of questionable decisions. It had taken a lifetime, but he had finally reached an inflection point. The once shadowy inevitability was now starkly clear: a reckoning for his dubious past actions loomed, threatening disaster due to his unquenchable thirst for power.
Even in his seventy-seventh year, his voracious craving for control was as intense as ever. With age came a deeper understanding: the more one ages, the more desperately one clutches at life’s reins. Establishing the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant was the crowning achievement of his extensive career. He had schemed to ensure its secrets would remain long after he transitioned into an ancestral Kami, entering the underworld of Yomi-no-kuni, the dark after life realm of the dead.
If it were not for him the plant would have never been built in the first place. Of course, he fully understood that at the time he was putting into place measures that could be considered at best, questionable and unethical, and in most cases unscrupulously corrupt. The position of the conglomerate’s backers was that failure was not an option, and results would be demanded of him at any cost. However, it was clear to see now that mistakes had been made.
What other choice did he have? The sheer scale of the project’s challenges turned what would normally be insurmountable difficulties into everyday realities. The expenditure required in dealing with these issues had been enormous, billions of Yen in fees, on a budget spiralling out of control; costs that had to be recovered from somewhere to avert the collapse of the venture. He had been under enormous pressure to deliver this project on time, and in full. That meant meeting the financial commitments had become critical to its success. The project had struggled technically from the outset, which quickly developed into financial stresses.
Compelled to make it work, he staked everything on the project, fully aware of the dire consequences of failure. This stark reality was underscored from its conception and frequently reiterated by his influential overseers.
The decommissioning bond alone would eventually reach hundreds of billions of Yen, which was more than the entire cost of the combined project construction price.
Each construction contract included an automatic ten per cent markup, a significant amount but dwarfed by the Japanese government’s ninety per cent subsidy. This substantial government funding was committed not only during construction but also for ongoing contributions long after the plant’s completion. The costs escalated on a sliding scale, increasing as more of the six reactors became operational and the massive turbines started generating electricity. Despite this substantial support, managing the cash flow to keep the project on track was a high-stress endeavour, stretching resources to their limits. Initially, he had assigned low priority to the issue of the bond, considering its cost irrelevant unless the plant achieved success. Yet, as his efforts began to bear fruit and the plant unexpectedly sparked into life, those additional costs morphed into a relentless, self-amplifying burden. At the time, he hadn’t grasped the potential profitability of the seemingly unattainable bond. That realisation became apparent later. Back then, the bond was just one of several significant challenges that needed to be addressed efficiently to prevent them from bankrupting the construction budget.
Undoubtedly slowing down the construction timetable was not a viable option. The plant’s output could not be reduced or the revenue curve they had predicted from selling the power to the consumers, would not be met. In addition, the grants and loans they had secured from local and national government, were performance related. They would only receive the agreed subsidies in relation to the facility’s construction schedule. Once the site finally became operational, the remuneration model shifted to be based on the plant’s output, as it began to channel millions of watts of power daily into the national grid.
Uchida’s unscrupulous instincts were always to follow the money, so this is where he began to focus his attention. The two most lucrative revenue streams were always the decommissioning bond and the construction costs. He employed two strategies, each part as audacious as the other. For the latter, eye-watering sums were required to pay a range of contractors who were involved in every aspect of the design build and construction activities for the Fukushima Plant. This was indeed a rich vein, but it would need to be carefully quarried so as not to bring the roof down on himself. The bond was managed by a ‘reputable’ banking organisation, yet it was entangled in a dubious scheme. Operating through an independent entity, he had been orchestrating a sort of ‘shorting’ operation with these bankers. They had arranged for large sums to be siphoned off as ‘loans’ – a blatantly illegal manoeuvre. However, legal boundaries had never deterred the banking sector from exploiting other people’s equity for profit. The interest accrued from loaning out billions of Yen was substantial and it was a scheme he felt compelled to perpetuate.
Uchida’s troubles began when he started devising the dubious strategies needed to feed the project’s insatiable avarice.
The second of his strategies was as audacious as the first and had involved making a deal with his lawyers overseeing the contractual obligations held by the main companies engaged in the massive project. He had arranged a meeting with the Notary Partners, a band of jackals he knew to be as disreputable as himself – well almost. For years, he had been a client of theirs, and their scant scruples mirrored his own – a fact he always kept in mind with cautious awareness during their interactions. The three elderly men who managed the firm, always present at every meeting, appeared so withered by life’s trials that they seemed more than merely aged. The corpse-like dryness cried out for moisture, almost as if they would suck the very life out of you if you came into close proximity. But it was more the predator-like demeanour of the three, parchment skinned, sharp skulled creatures, rather than their appearance, that unnerved Uchida the most.
With a meeting arranged he had made the journey by bullet train to a plush steel and glass tower block in the business area of Tokyo City. He had arranged to meet the cadaverous trio at the headquarters of a highly respected law firm under their control. He had been shown into a beautiful oak panelled room, that was at odds with the modern building it nestled within. After completing the meticulous formal introductions, a ceremony that even their persistent solemnity couldn’t overlook, they had all taken their seats around one end of a huge, highly polished, red oak table. Uchida started by illustrating an interesting offer he would like to propose to them. His primary strategy was to siphon money from the main contractors through a form of legalised extortion. In exchange for their aggressive tactics, he offered them a twenty per cent kickback on any costs recuperated from the subcontractors involved in the build, over and above their standard fees. His sole condition was that the project remained on schedule and did not violate any of the stringent safety standards required for constructing and operating a Nuclear Power Plant. As long as those red lines were not crossed, then they were free to use any means at their disposal to coerce the construction companies reimbursing the syndicate.
At the meeting’s conclusion, the three members stood and bowed, a gesture that sufficed to seal their agreement. The deal was set. The law firm would then unleash its most aggressive lawyers, licenced to exploit any contractual breaches. They would target the profit margins built into the business’ agreements, using obscure penalties and ambiguous clauses in the contracts to siphon revenue from the principal contractors. This relentless legal assault threatened to decimate their profits, pushing many to the edge of bankruptcy, with a few possibly going under from the voracity of the legalised onslaught to come.
This was the point where his oversight allowed the law of unintended consequences to seep into his plans. Putting such a fiscal squeeze on had left the construction companies in a difficult position, the only way they could break even was to start cutting corners. Because of the very high level of regulatory compliance the government’s administration of the nuclear industry demanded, the corners cut, were trimmed extremely covertly. The quality of the building materials was reduced to the bare minimum as were the quantities. Elements such as concrete, cabling, electronic components and steelwork; wherever a lower standard could be sidled past the regulators, it was done.
These actions did take a considerable amount of pressure off the amount of cash being burned. However, due to his greed, Uchida could not resist just one final squeeze that was available to him. So, it was to the very design that he now turned his attention. The core of the plant’s fabrication could not be touched, enshrined as it was in the gold standard of specifications the nuclear industry unequivocally stipulated. Consequently, he turned his attention to the peripheral safety requirements. Within the confines of the emergency planning scenarios for potential events of a catastrophic disaster, he discovered a lucrative loophole that could be made unwittingly far leaner with a little careful paring.
His initial action was to suppress a critical report detailing the potential effects of an earthquake, which could significantly disrupt the seabed of the Pacific, potentially triggering severe seismic consequences. It had sounded like far-fetched nonsense to him at the time. The report stated that if an earthquake struck with a magnitude that exceeded 8.0 anywhere along the Fukushima coast, it would have the potential to develop a wave that could exceed fifteen metres at the point of landfall.
The document had concluded that: even a relatively low-level seismic disturbance could, if the localised geological conditions were compromised, cause catastrophic tectonic disruption to the planet’s crust, enabling an explosively kinetic energy to be unleashed into the plates of the coastal seabed, that could move them both linearly and vertically.
What a pile of ‘Gomi’ he had thought back then. These people seemed to have combined the most destructive possible aspects of every seismic event in the history of Japan and rolled them all into a single worse-case scenario. It was obvious that they gave no consideration to the geographic location of these earthquakes in relation to the location of the plant, in addition to which none of which had ever occurred around Fukushima. And who uses emotive phrase like ‘unleash a catastrophic series of events’ in a technical report? Sensationalists playing to the crowd, he was having none of it.
He proactively addressed the baseless claims by commissioning several reports to assess the probability of the event in question. His goal was to determine the likelihood of its occurrence. He felt a sense of relief when one of these new analyses presented a more optimistic risk assessment. However, all the reports unanimously highlighted the high potential hazards of such an earthquake and its aftermath, vividly depicting the catastrophic consequences should such an event occur. He gravitated towards the more favourable report, which concluded that the plant was more likely to be compromised by the immense upheaval from a direct seismic impact of an earthquake, as opposed to being overwhelmed by a wave, even if it were exceptionally large. This evaluation was based on a detailed analysis of the potential risks posed by tectonic forces.
Uchida, equipped with a hypothesis that suited his needs – one that aligned with his strengths – was now engaged in managing risks. However, these were risks he deemed acceptable, focusing on optimising the plant’s main construction elements in a way that maintained safety.
There was one area of design and build that could not be touched and that criteria had been rigidly adhered to it. The actions he had taken were of one level, but he was not foolish enough to mess with the reactors and their immediate protective surroundings. Indeed, it was possible, in theory at least, that this construction was so robust that it could be lifted up out of the ground and resituated somewhere else and still maintain the required level of atomic safety. Its structural integrity would be uncompromised, still able to maintain control of the reactors via a complete spectrum of extensive technical redundancy for all critical operations.
So, now encouraged by this information, he pushed through several redesigns. Some of these involved building a less substantial breakwater along the plant’s docks and lower flood protection walls on the seaward flank of the site. He also ensured that the less expensive option was taken, that of siting the emergency backup diesel generator units below ground, with reduced protection from flooding, rather than embarking on the far more expensive route of constructing ‘tanked’ casements for the units or locating them at an elevated position within the plant. He had truly believed that these were acceptable risks he had taken when one considered the bigger picture. And indeed, for the next forty-five years he had been proved correct. Too late he had remembered the adage that a ‘reliable probability will always better a speculative prediction.’
Finally constructed in 1971, the plant had gone from strength to strength. With its six reactors operating, it had the potential to produce an enormous 4.7 GW of power.
But the course he had fixed for the project would not be a fair one, for by then the road to disaster had been well and truly laid, set to arrive at its final disastrous destination. For forty years all would be fine. In tandem with the plant’s success as a major contributor to the national power grid, he became richer and more powerful. It was then that the Universe began to conspire to punish his avarice.
His initial challenges arose abruptly and inexplicably, defying any logical explanation he could grasp. At the time, these incidents were sufficiently concerning, yet his understanding of potential catastrophes was naively limited to human-related scenarios. He failed to recognise that beneath Heaven and Earth everything is interconnected.
Those tribulations began with an insignificant civil servant’s innocuous quest for power that had been enlightened by a sudden and late-in-life aspiration for political ambitions. Driven, almost entirely it seemed, by principles of altruistic egalitarianism – in Uchida’s opinion the very worst type of politician. The man had been a useful idiot to his greater cause for many years, his self-righteous socialism, easily hijacked to manoeuvre in support of his own agenda. The fool’s main objectives were manipulated, like a child turning a balloon with an ant crawling on its surface, thinking it was getting somewhere but actually going nowhere.
But then, after a stupid oversight by his contact in the Financial Services Agency (FSA), the governmental financial overseer, the man had stumbled upon something he should not have seen.
The official had been one of those dependable, incorruptible types that Uchida particularly despised. There was only one way of dealing with that type and that was to burst his illusory balloon emphatically. There would be some fallout from his untimely passing but that could be handled.
What was most concerning to him was the sudden disappearance of one of his key conspirators, Iwasaki Shizuko the Governor of Fukushima. A most well connected and helpful woman, who imbued some of the important fundamentals required within politicians – naturally corrupt, with extremely low levels of integrity, and an insatiable lust for power.
She had first come to his attention in the late nineties, demonstrating her skill as a masterful political manipulator of human emotions. She had helped tie the growing anti-nuclear lobbyists in more knots than a Kinbaku bondage master – and he ought to know. Iwasaki had infiltrated the ranks of unions, community groups and small business sectors, working her insincere magic on them all, with promises of support, development, and funding, little of which of course continued to materialise after the plant was completed.
She had been instrumental in his plans then and now, for such an ally to vanish overnight was deeply disconcerting. The larger issue was that this sort of event draws unwarranted attention. It was not long before he heard disquieting whispers of questions being raised in government circles. Even more worrying, was the talk of a move to assign a task force to investigate the matter.
Having unknown quantities poking around in his affairs, which were of a highly delicate nature, would not be conducive to a good night’s sleep for him or his confederates. He had been required to call in several markers from his network of dubious political contacts, to introduce some interference to the proposal. In addition, offering a few incentives to like-minded associates, some of whom were also feeling overly exposed by this latest development and who were in a position to influence the unwanted appointment.
Thankfully his efforts had succeeded with less effort than he had anticipated, and he had managed to appropriate a reduction in the task force to just two policemen. The Commissioner having been persuaded to handle the case as a standard missing person’s incident. Uchida had not been able to find any more details about the two officers, other than one was an academic type and the other a bully. It sounded like they were already out of their depth before they even arrived. Even though the detectives had been dispatched, and were already on their way to Fukushima City, he felt confident that they would be bumbling around for years before they found anything of any significance. His hope was that they would quickly abandon the case altogether.
There was just a small concern scratching in the recesses of his mind, the Commissioner was known as a straight draw. Because of his uncompromising position on the sanctity of the law, he had been content to make enemies during his rise to the top, as long as his credibility remained intact. So, it was out of character for him to unreservedly downgrade his force to such a weaker element. Was it that he was forced to succumb to the greater political pressure that had been brought to bear? Or could it be that the man had misjudged the situation? Whichever it was, it really didn’t matter if he couldn’t understand why or how the Commissioner had been outmanoeuvred, the important thing was that he had been…