[ RadSafe ] Japan Debates Safety After Quake

[Brennan, Mike (DOH)]

 "Yesterday's quake showed that assumptions and suppositions that safety
standards are based on are completely false," says Baku Nishio, a
co-director at Citizen's Nuclear Information Center. "Japan is simply
too quake- bound to operate nuclear plants."

By the same standard, Japan is simply too quake-bound for buildings with
roofs, as the people who were killed died when the buildings they were
in collapsed.  

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
Behalf Of Sandy Perle
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 3:06 PM
To: radsafe at radlab.nl; powernet at hps1.org
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Japan Debates Safety After Quake

Japan Debates Safety After Quake

The magnitude 6.8 earthquake that hit the northwest coast of Japan
Monday morning is rocking the country's faith in its nuclear power
plants, raising questions about the safety of facilities that provide a
third of the energy consumed by the quake-prone archipelago. 
 
The death toll from the temblor, which shook Niigata, Nagano and Toyama
prefectures, was nine as of Tuesday, with one person reportedly still
missing. That's far less than a 2004 quake that struck the same area and
killed more than 60 while leaving 16,000 homeless. But instead of
feeling relief, the entire country has been rattled by TV images of
black smoke billowing from Niigata's Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power
plant, located just 9km (5.6 miles) from the epicenter in the Sea of
Japan. The plant suffered a string of problems when the temblor struck.
Tokyo Electric, the Kashiwazaki plant's owner/operator, was quick to
point out that a smoky fire that broke out in an electric transformer
posed no threat to the rest of the facility and was extinguished in a
few hours. Three of the seven reactors were inactive due to periodic
inspections, the company said, and four others stopped automatically, as
they are programmed to do during strong quakes. 

But as the day went on, it became clear that more had gone wrong than
was originally disclosed. Some 1.2 tons of radioactive water used to
cool the reactors had spilled, the company suspects, from a spent- fuel
pool and into the nearby ocean. Tokyo Electric also announced that 100
drums containing radioactive solid waste were toppled, and some
radioactive material was detected in one of the main exhaust pipes that
emit the plant's treated emissions into the open air. 
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe criticized the company for failing to respond
quickly enough in the quake's aftermath. Tokyo Electric President
Tsunehisa Katsumata apologized, saying "We were not aware of the
dangers." He added that Monday was a national holiday, which delayed the
assembly of response teams. 

The amount of radioactivity escaping into the environment from the water
and exhaust leaks was reportedly minuscule and posed no threat to people
or the surrounding area. But questions are being raised over the safety
of 16 other nuclear plants located throughout Japan, a nation that lies
atop numerous active fault lines. The intensity of Monday's quake was
2.5 times the level the power plant's structures were built to sustain
without any damage. 

"Just because the quake was double the quake-resistant standard, it
doesn't automatically mean a threat," says Shuji Kawahara, an earthquake
safety inspection official in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry's nuclear safety department. "The structures are built to
withstand much much more," he said. How much more? "We don't know," says
Kawahara. 

It's the unknowns that worry regulators and experts. "Yesterday's quake
showed that assumptions and suppositions that safety standards are based
on are completely false," says Baku Nishio, a co-director at Citizen's
Nuclear Information Center. "Japan is simply too quake- bound to operate
nuclear plants." There's also uncertainty about where the next quake
will strike. The Kashiwazaki facility underwent a tectonic survey last
year to reevaluate the site's quake resistency and update it in
accordance with new government guidelines. That survey concluded there
were no active faults in the vicinity. 

But because Japan depends heavily upon nuclear power for electricity,
it's unlikely much can or will be changed. "Building a reasonably
quake-resistant plant is way too costly to be truly realistic," says
Hiroyuki Nagasawa, a management-systems professor at Osaka Prefecture
University. "Nothing short of reevaluating our energy policy will change
the current situation, but we have much bigger political powers working
to keep the plants running." The country has been spared a quake-related
nuclear calamity so far. Citizens can only hope their luck holds.
-----------------------------------------
Sander C. Perle
President
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614 

Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714  Extension 2306
Fax:(949) 296-1144

E-Mail: sperle at dosimetry.com
E-Mail: sandyfl at cox.net 

Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/ 

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