The end of green ideology

The managers of Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), which operates the Fukushima reactors, have been justly criticised for using an old generation of poorly maintained generators. The Japanese, who perceive themselves as the world's best engineers, now feel humiliated.

But, despite street protests, the collective reaction in Japan has not been to repudiate nuclear energy. After all, the Fukushima accident has severely injured only a few people - probably less than a dozen workers are dangerously irradiated. Almost all of the thousands of Japanese victims were drowned by the tsunami wave, not wiped out by a nuclear meltdown.