Sunday, March 11, 2012

Pray for Japan, 1 Year Later: Fukushima Power Plant, No more Nuke Plants, No more Uranium Mining



Japan Nuclear Disaster: Fukushima Power Plant Remains Fragile, Plant Chief Says

By MARI YAMAGUCHI 02/28/12 09:24 PM ET

OKUMA, Japan — Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima power plant remains fragile nearly a year after it suffered multiple meltdowns, its chief said Tuesday, with makeshift equipment – some mended with tape – keeping crucial systems running.

An independent report, meanwhile, revealed that the government downplayed the full danger in the days after the March 11 disaster and secretly considered evacuating Tokyo.

Journalists given a tour of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant on Tuesday, including a reporter from The Associated Press, saw crumpled trucks and equipment still lying on the ground. A power pylon that collapsed in the tsunami, cutting electricity to the plant's vital cooling system and setting off the crisis, remained a mangled mess.

Officials said the worst is over but the plant remains vulnerable.

"I have to admit that it's still rather fragile," said plant chief Takeshi Takahashi, who took the job in December after his predecessor resigned due to health reasons. "Even though the plant has achieved what we call 'cold shutdown conditions,' it still causes problems that must be improved."
The government announced in December that three melted reactors at the plant had basically stabilized and that radiation releases had dropped. It still will take decades to fully decommission the plant, and it must be kept stable until then.

The operators have installed multiple backup power supplies, a cooling system and equipment to process massive amounts of contaminated water that leaked from the damaged reactors.
But the equipment that serves as the lifeline of the cooling system is shockingly feeble-looking. Plastic hoses cracked by freezing temperatures have been mended with tape. A set of three pumps sits on the back of a pickup truck.

Along with the pumps, the plant now has 1,000 tanks to store more than 160,000 tons of contaminated water.

Read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/japan-nuclear-disaster-plant-remains-fragile_n_1307203.html


Fighting the Unthinkable: Japan’s Furious Scramble to Contain Catastrophe

By NEIL GENZLINGER
Published: February 27, 2012
PBS gets an early start on observing the first anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan with “Inside Japan’s Nuclear Meltdown,” a “Frontline” episode on Tuesday that doesn’t feel particularly definitive but certainly recaptures the fear, uncertainty and courage engendered by the disaster.       

The program tells the story of what went on at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant through interviews with people who were working there, as well as with Naoto Kan, Japan’s prime minister at the time, and a not-very-helpful spokesman for the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant operator.

It is harrowing stuff, of course, full of cascading problems and difficult decisions. The March 11 earthquake shook the plant — “We were all on our knees, holding onto the railings,” one worker recalls — yet the realization that the plant was in trouble took a while to dawn because workers believed that it had been designed to withstand any punishment an earthquake could bring.

The serious trouble began when the tsunami waves struck; the biggest, we’re told, was more than twice the height of the plant’s protective sea wall. Backup generators that were supposed to cool the nuclear fuel were flooded, something that had been inconceivable to workers.

“When I heard the diesel generators were lost, I couldn’t square that with reality,” Takashi Sato, a former reactor inspector, says. “I was stunned.”

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