Japan overlooks technological treasures right under its feet

Japan’s fast reactor technology will be a key to the development collaboration between Japan and the United States, but Japan has not always been proud of this technology. Japan had fallen behind in fast reactor development when repeated problems led to the decision to decommission Monju in 2016. The number of engineers was decreasing and there was no way to build any commercial fast reactors in Japan. If TerraPower had not paid attention to Japan’s technology, it is highly likely that the technology would have remained buried and left to wither away.

There is a famous Japanese proverb, “Todai moto kurashi,” meaning it is often difficult to see things clearly when they are very close to you. As this proverb suggests, there are some cases in which Japan is unaware of the great research outcomes and technologies that Japan itself possesses. Researchers at the NEC Corp. in Japan created an important element of quantum computers in 1999 for the first time, but it is American companies including Google that have led the commercialization of quantum computers in the world.

In 2020, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two researchers from the US and France who developed the useful gene-editing technology called CRISPR-Cas9, more than 30 years after a researcher at Osaka University made the discovery that marked the starting point on the road to that breakthrough.

The joint development of fast reactors by Japan and the US has taught us the importance of having our own great technologies. Now the Japanese government is trying to increase its research budget and expand its ranks of research personnel in order to make a comeback in science and technology, but it is difficult to do that overnight. It is necessary for us to find the technologies already buried beneath our feet and bring them into the light.

By Sho Funakoshi / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

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