is an island of the

Inland Sea An inland sea (also known as an epeiric sea or an epicontinental sea) is a continental body of water which is very large and is either completely surrounded by dry land or connected to an ocean by a river, strait, or "arm of the sea". An inland se ...

in Japan. With a total altitude of 82 m, it lies at the south-eastern edge of the Yamaguchi Prefecture (山口県, Yamaguchi-ken?) at coordinates . The name is derived from the ancient ritual of passing travellers and is in fact home to a ceremonial fishing dance specific to the island as noted in the crew journey log of the Hokule‘a on their journey from Micronesia to Japan. In 1982,

Chugoku Electric Power Company , trading as (Latin for "energy") is an electric utility with its exclusive operational area of Chūgoku region of Japan. It is the sixth largest by electricity sales among Japan's ten regional power utilities. It operates the Shimane Nuclear Po ...

proposed building a

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...

near Iwaishima, but many residents opposed the idea, and the island’s fishing cooperative voted overwhelmingly against the plans. In January 1983, almost 400 islanders staged a protest march, which was the first of more than 1,000 protests the islanders carried out. Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 there has been wider opposition to construction plans for the plant.

References

External links

''Nuclear power plants and biocultural renaissance: A case study of Iwaishima Island in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan'', ''Journal of Marine and Island Cultures'' Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2012, Pages 126–130
* https://web.archive.org/web/20111002112229/http://www.pref.yamaguchi.lg.jp/cms/a123003/island/iwaishima.html (in Japanese) {{Authority control Nuclear power in Japan Islands of Yamaguchi Prefecture

See also

References

External links