Japan: Problems with Nukes

 

Japan Not To Allow New Nuclear Power Plants

10/5/2012 6:57 AM ET
Japan will not allow construction of new nuclear power plants under the new energy policy adopted last month, Industry Minister Yukio Edano said on Friday.
He told a news conference in Tokyo that the government would not grant sanction to the Chugoku Electric Power Company to build a nuclear power plant in Kaminoseki town in Yamaguchi prefecture in western Japan.
Edano said the government's new energy policy rules out construction of new nuclear plants, and that Chugoku Electric's plan is subject to this principle. But power companies can resume work on plant already under construction remaining suspended after last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster. The policy seeks to end Japan's reliance on nuclear power by 2030.
http://www.rttnews.com/1978205/japan-not-to-allow-new-nuclear-power-plants.aspx

Nobel laureate Oe leads protest of Oma nuclear plant

• Previous ArticleINSIDE FUKUSHIMA: How workers tried but failed to avert a nuclear disaster

October 14, 2012

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Nobel Prize-winning writer Kenzaburo Oe and others led a rally in Tokyo on Oct. 13 to protest the resumption of construction of a new nuclear power plant in Aomori Prefecture.
“Both the Cabinet and the political party hoping to seize power are clearly determined to continue nuclear power generation,” Oe, 77, told an estimated 6,500 people who gathered at Hibiya Park. “It is an insult to the public.”
Oe called for untiring efforts to move away from atomic energy.
“To march against nuclear power is creating a path where there was none and creating our hope,” he said.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201210140047

Fukushima operator feared shutdown if risks revealed

TEPCO ignored chance of big tsunami, 'fesses up to fear of regulation

By Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor

Posted in Science, 14th October 2012 23:30 GMT

The operator of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, TEPCO, has admitted it was ill-prepared to cope with the tsunami of March 2011, and promised to do better in future.
That promise is articulated in a new document, Fundamental Policy for the Reform of TEPCO Nuclear Power Organization (PDF [1]), released last Friday.
The document makes for sobering reading, as TEPCO admits it had not paid a lot of attention to safety since 2002 and simply decided tsunamis of the scale that arrived last March would not be a problem because “... there were no watermarks or records of one.”
The report also says “There was no awareness that a tsunami exceeding site elevation would directly result in a severe accident.”
Nor was the plan prepared for a severe accident, with the report noting:

"Means for mitigating the impact after reactor core damage had not been prepared (preventing primary containment vessel damage, controlling hydrogen, preventing release of large amounts of radioactive materials into the environment, etc.)."

A powerful reason tsunami mitigation measures were ignored seems to have been fear that doing something would have alerted the world the precarious state of the plant.
In the document management admits it “Feared that if tsunami risk studies were disclosed that it would lead to immediate plant shutdown” and that “There were concerns of back-fitting operating reactors and litigation depending on the recent intention of the Nuclear Safety Commission to regulate severe accident measures.”
Another nasty from the report says:

“There was concern that if new severe accident measures were implemented, it could spread concern in the siting community that there is a problem with the safety of current plants.”

Management was also worried that putting in place would accelerate the anti-nuclear movement.
Elsewhere, the report details how staff simply didn't know what to do when the tsunami hit and unexpected failures occurred. Necessary supplies to mitigate the incident weren't at hand and were hard to procure, but staff weren't sure how to make them work when they did arrive and were, in any case, exhausted.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/14/fukushima_feared_shutdown_lawsuits_if_tsunami_risks_revealed/print.html