- (Saturday) Disaster Minister Goshi Hosono has personally inspected the physical integrity of SPF #4. He said he can confirm what Tepco has said about unit #4 SPF for more than 14 months…the internal building itself and new support structures under the bottom off the pool are intact. The reinforcement using steel-reinforced concrete has been tested to withstand an earthquake many times greater than the temblor of 3/11/11. In parallel with the Hosono statement, Tepco has confirmed that the #4 SPF structure is not tilting and is capable of safely storing the nuclear fuel. Tepco did say the outer west wall of the #4 reactor building is deformed and bowed outward some 33 centimeters, probably due to the hydrogen explosion of 3/15/11. It is unlikely that the outer wall’s deformation had a negative effect on the soundness of the pool because the wall and the pool are niether located close to each other nor are they inter-connected. (Kyodo News)
- (Saturday) Fukui governor Issei Nishikawa says Oi units #3 & 4 can restart if he says they can. His decision will not be swayed by dissent from neighboring prefectures, including the bombastic mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto. “We’re not necessarily waiting for approval from the Kansai region. This issue can be resolved if the central government clearly shows its stance,” Nishikawa said at a press conference. Nishikawa criticized the central government for dragging its feet and not clarifying its position on the reactivation. Technically, Nishikawa has yet to firmly state his position on the matter, but said “there will be no reason” to “bother to reactivate the two reactors when both the state and major power-consuming areas say they do not need electricity.” Nishikawa also criticized Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, saying he is “opportunistic.” Meanwhile, Kobe Mayor Tatsuo Yada asked the head of Kansai Electric’s branch office to try and avoid rolling blackouts because they would “shatter the social system and threaten human life.” (Mainichi Shimbun)
- (Sunday) Industry minister Yukio Edano was interviewed by the Diet’s Fukushima accident investigative committee on Saturday. In a clear attempt to support his former boss Naoto Kan, he said Tepco made it “clear” to him that they intended to abandon F. Daiichi on March 15, 2011. Edano says he heard Tokyo Electric President Masataka Shimizu “stammer” when asked over the phone whether the situation might get out of control if all staff were withdrawn from the plant. “I do not remember the exchanges of words accurately,” Edano admitted. (Mainichi Shimbun) In another report, Edano explained what he remembers, “I told Shimizu (over phone) that the situation could only get worse and the disaster would be unstoppable if no workers were left at the plant to handle the accident. Then Shimizu stammered, so it was clear that he did not intend to leave some workers (to contain the accident) there.” Asked what he thought of Kan’s controversial visit to the Fukushima plant on the morning of March 12, Edano said he told Kan he would face criticism for interfering too much. The minister believes Kan’s visit had the positive effect of gathering critical information for key officials in Tokyo who were largely in the dark. (Japan Times) comment – Whether Tepco was really considering a complete pullout from Fukushima Daiichi has been a major question in the investigation. The utility has denied such planning from the start of the crisis, but Kan and Edano have continued to contradict Tepco in an effort to absolve Kan of over-reaction during the early days of the accident.Tepco said it never considered the option and has insisted it was thinking of leaving a skeleton crew to handle the accident while temporarily withdrawing everyone else. They have also said Kan’s visit to the site on March 12 was unwelcome because the feverishly-working staff already had enough pressure on them to stop the accident’s progression. Kan only made the situation worse. Now he and Edano are trying to whitewash Kan’s malfeasance.
- On Sunday, more of the Edano interview with the Diet panel was revealed. (1) He admitted the government failed to provide sufficient information to the public and regretted Tokyo’s response to the accident. His regrets began with the government’s inability to acquire timely, accurate information, and anticipate evens. In addition, he has misgivings because there were major gaps between his understanding of radiation exposure and the public’s. He also feels that his request that Tepco and NISA submit all information to the government before making it public was not followed. Finally, he regrets that he did not find out about SPEEDI projections on the spread of contamination until 15 or 16 days after March 11, 2011. (2) Edano said the reason Tokyo initially refused the assistance of other nations, like the United States, was because Japan had a history of making their own decisions as a sovereign state. He tried to explain this to American officials, but they only grew frustrated. (NHK World) (3) Edano admitted that if Fukushima were to happen today, the same mistakes would probably be made. He feels the current government and Japanese nuclear community (nuclear village) have not learned the lessons of Fukushima well enough to avoid a recurrance. For example, he assumed the public knew enough about radiation for him to make statements based on his level of understanding. Early in the crisis, Edano stated there would be “no immediate (physical) effects” from radiation leaks with respect to eating food banned from shipping, loading and unloading items from vehicles between 20 and 30 kilometers from Fukushima Daiichi. He also spoke of the low probability of mid- to long-term low-level radiation effects. On the third point Edano said he had “questioned whether that was the right thing to say.” A meeting participant, Reiko Hachisuka of Fukushima Prefecture said, “Residents are thinking, ‘Well, the health effects might not be immediate, but they will hit us in the future.'” (4) Edano challenged the belief that Tokyo covered up the three meltdowns until June, 2011. “I stated during a March 13 news conference (two days into the disaster) that there was a real chance the cores had melted down, and the government was proceeding based on that assumption. We took the possibility of core meltdowns for granted as we dealt with the disaster, and I did not have the chance to reiterate that possibility,” he added, denying any deliberate cover-up.” During a news conference on March 12, 2011, NISA officials alluded to the possibility of core meltdowns at the No. 1 plant. Soon after the news conference the Prime Minister’s Office informed NISA of its misgivings over the agency’s press announcement methods. Mentions of “meltdowns” then disappeared from NISA briefings. Edano criticized the NISA and Tepco reports on March 11&12, saying, “Laypeople could not understand what they were talking about. All the news conferences did was sow anxiety, so we told (NISA and TEPCO) to admit when they didn’t know something, and inform the Prime Minister’s Office of the information that they were releasing at press conferences.” Panel chair Kiyoshi Kurokawa jumped at this statement by Edano, “The officials who received those instructions might have thought they meant the Prime Minister’s Office would decide on all information releases.” (Mainichi Shimbun) (5) Edano openly denied ever censoring the word “meltdown” from Tepco or NISA statements, “We didn’t regard the word as a problem. At least, I never ordered anyone not to use it.” He said that the Prime Minister only wanted official announcements to be coordinated, “It meant that we asked NISA to at least notify the Prime Minister’s Office before announcing something, because TEPCO and NISA officials sometimes revealed information that had not been reported to the Prime Minister’s Office, especially in the initial phases of the crisis.” (Yomiuri Shimbun)
- This Morning, Naoto Kan was brought before the Diet’s Fukushima investigative panel. In addition to echoing everything said earlier by minister (and political cohort) Yukio Edano, Kan took the opportunity to call for a complete abandonment of nuclear power in Japan. He blamed the government for promoting nuclear power as a national policy. He apologized for failing to prevent the accident as the head of government at the time. Kan alleged NISA said nothing about what would happen in such an accident, nor did the government receive information from other sources. He criticized what he calls an inner circle of nuclear policymakers, experts and businesses for trying to hold on to their power without doing any soul-searching after the accident. (NHK World) In another report, Kan blames a lack of sufficient nuclear accident laws as key to mistakes that were made, “The nuclear disaster special measures law does not assume a serious disaster” like Fukushima. He stated that situations assumed under the law were “extremely insufficient.” He also attempted to absolve himself of responsibility for mistakes when he said, “We could hardly get information. We couldn’t do anything.” He said this was the reason he felt compelled to take firm control of everything he could, including trying to call the shots for the operating staff at F. Daiichi. ( comment – He neglected to say that all communications with the Tohoku region were disabled until March 15. He focused only on the nuclear accident and virtually ignored everything else.) It wasn’t until March 15 that the government and Tepco started sharing the same level of information. On that day, Kan decided to form a crisis task force in Tepco’s Tokyo headquarters. He said that decision was prompted by rumors that Tepco wanted to evacuate the plant. (Japan Times)
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