Koide Hiroaki
Koide Hiroaki

Koide Hiroaki worked at the Kyoto University Reactor Research Institute (presently the Kyoto University Institute for Integrated Radiation and Nuclear Science Research) from 1974 to 2015. Drawn to the potential “peaceful uses of atomic energy” in energy-poor Japan, he studied nuclear engineering at Tohoku University. But the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s decision to locate a nuclear power plant in a fishing village, rather than in a nearby metropolis, alerted him to the dangers such plants pose. He then sought to master nuclear science to prevent their construction. He is the most celebrated critic of nuclear power in Japan, and the author of numerous books in Japanese. One has been translated into English: Rethinking Nuclear Energy: Autopsy of an Illusion (2015).