I'm just not sure that the "we had to do it because they made us" argument is the best argument for this situation.......that's just my opinion.
Regardless of who is right or wrong about this, after what has happened, I doubt very seriously that they will repeat the same "mistakes" in future construction.
Many times, good things follow bad things..........Maybe in the future, the Japanese people will come to understand that better plants in a more safe location will be to their advantage........
8:}
Well, they are in a no-win situation. The anti-nuke kooks won't let them build on new sites. The national government says the utilities have to meet the power demands. So which will it be? Tell the kooks to take a hike (my choice), or reneg on your duties as a citizen of the Japanese Nation (something shameful which makes you "lose face", a very unpleasant fate).
So they made the best choice they could. They met their obligations to supply energy. They sited the plants where they were allowed, on existing sites, and built them to the specifications required. The design basis earthquake for the Fukushima units was 8.3. This was a 9.0 event. That is 0.7 points higher than the design basis. On a log10 scale, that is about a factor of five. They survived an event five times more powerful than the design was based on. I don't think there are many other industrial facilities that could have done likewise. But for seawater entering the fuel lines of the emergency diesels, this would have been pretty much a non-event.
Regardless of who is right or wrong about this, after what has happened, I doubt very seriously that they will repeat the same "mistakes" in future construction.
Many times, good things follow bad things..........Maybe in the future, the Japanese people will come to understand that better plants in a more safe location will be to their advantage........
If they can get the kooks off their backs, then yes, they can build units in other locales.