A different surprise welcomed the New Year in Tokyo. An earthquake that has a magnitude of 7.0 shuddered people's holiday celebration on Jan. 1.

Tokyoites are among the many people happy to close the 2011 chapter. The earthquake that shook Japan last March had caused radiation crisis and a huge tsunami that warned the world. It was the hottest news as it killed several people and damaged a lot of properties.

Other inauspicious happenings people would want to end from 2011 are credit downgrades, worsening deflation, stepping down of the fifth prime minister and the scandal from the Olympus Corp.

When the ground trembled on the first day of the new year, the first thing that concerned the people is the state of the nuclear facilities situated at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s plants found in Fukushima. Fortunately, the quiver did not trigger any damages.

But several are worried about the next time it hits. A poll published by the Asahi newspaper June showed that 74% disagreed time decommissioning the entire 54 reactors.

The conference today lead by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda emphasized that the opposite is taking place. Japanese wish for a nuclear-free tomorrow, but the authorities is again overprotecting the power industry.

What's the possible reason? The country's nuclear-industrial compound holds components wherein each is considered as powerful as the U.S. military and nexus of business.

There's huge money in the industry, and the nuclear village is surrounding the carriage.

The moment Naoto Kan, Noda's predecessor, declared to lead the industry's partnership with the government officials, his premiership will end.

The people in the country deserve better. In fact, just 6 out of the 54 reactors are activated. While damages will be anticipated, the country proved that it can survive practically good without operating the reactors, which the government claimed to be critical for the economy.

Claims that nuclear power is cost-effective, clean and efficient would be more convincing if the country wasn't that seismically active.

Nobody is demanding to shut down the reactors today. No one would unless the engineers would construct reactors out of rubber, lift them up on big shock absorbers and deal with every possible danger as well as terrorism, deemphasizing the reactors must be every Japanese leader's priority.