Anti-nuclear power movement in Japan Anti-nuclear power movement in Japan Long one of the world's most committed promoters of civilian nuclear power, Japan's nuclear industry was not hit as hard by the effects of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident (USA) or the 1986 Chernobyl disaster (USSR) as some other countries. Construction of new plants continued to be strong through the 1980s and into the 1990s. However, starting in the mid-1990s there were several nuclear related accidents and cover-ups in Japan that eroded public perception of the industry, resulting in protests and resistance to new plants. These accidents included the Tokaimura nuclear accident, the Mihama
Peaceful nuclear explosion many of the "tests" were considered economic applications, not tests, in the Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy program. These included one 30 kiloton explosion being used to close the Uzbekistani "Urtabulak" gas well in 1966 that had been blowing since 1963, and a few months later a 47 kiloton explosive was used to seal a higher pressure blowout at the nearby "Pamuk" gas field. (For more details, see Blowout (well drilling)#Use of nuclear explosions.) The public records for devices that produced the highest proportion of their yield via fusion-only reactions are possibly the Taiga Soviet peaceful nuclear explosions of