July 16, 2012

Jul 16, 2012 | Fukushima Accident Updates

  • It seems the governor of Niigata Prefecture thinks he understands the Fukushima situation better than Tepco. Governor Hirohiko Izumida met Tepco’s Chairman Kazuhiko Shimokobe and President Naomi Hirose on Friday, concerning the possibility of nuke restarts in the prefecture next year. Izumida says he doubts Tepco is truly aware of its responsibility for the accident because the utility’s recent report concludes the staff did everything properly. He refuses to discuss restarts until Tepco admits being the true cause of the accident. He also demanded immediate release of all Tepco teleconferencing footage of their actions relative to the crucial first weeks of the crisis. (NHK World) comment – Obviously, the governor doesn’t trust Tepco and thinks they are perpetrating a cover-up. He says he wants Tepco to admit they and their nuclear staff was incompetent. This is a position of arrogance on Izumida’s part. What he actually knows about nuclear operations is no more than assumption.
  • The Tokyo government has begun a series of public hearings on what Japan’s energy future should look like. The hearings will take place over the next month in cities across Japan. The first hearing was held in Saitama on Friday and Sendai on Sunday, with nine citizens voicing their feelings in each. Some were in favor of keeping nuclear as a part of the mix, and some felt nuclear energy should be abandoned. One of the selected speakers at Sendai was an employee of Tepco who said the company supported the 20-25% option as being right for Japan since they have no indigenous fuels. The crowd was outraged when he spoke, with many accusing the selection process as being manipulated. Disaster Minister Goshi Hosono tried to quell the uproar, telling everyone the selection process was “totally random”. The Tepco employee said “The company has taken steps to stem manipulation. I applied (to speak) in the capacity of a private citizen.” Later, Hosono said that future meetings will make sure utility employees are not included in the speaker’s mix because, “Organizations can present their policies in various forms.” Another issue was that no less than a third of the people speaking were not from Sendai or the host Prefecture. Rather, they were from Tokyo, although not in any company or government capacity. Concerning the next hearing in Fukushima City, Hosono promised that efforts would be taken to insure only the voices of the host prefecture are heard.  (Kyodo News; Mainichi Shimbun) However, true to the international antinuclear dogma, critics have called these hearings inadequate; they insist one month of debate is not long enough. Nuclear opponents also decried that individual testimonies have a strict time limit and there are no Q&A periods following each. Noriaki Yamashita, senior researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, said “My impression is that (the hearings) are typical moves to prepare an excuse. It’s hardly a move toward a public debate.” Clearly, nothing Tokyo does to placate the antinuclear demographic will be acceptable to them. (Japan Times)
  • Former PM Naoto Kan’s investigative panel will release its full report on the Fukushima accident July 23rd. The report will say Tokyo made a mistake in not using SPEEDI contamination projections to direct evacuations from what would become the no-go zone around and evacuation corridor northwest of the stricken power complex. On 3/15/11, SPEEDI predicted that meteorological conditions were carrying airborne releases northwest and west of F. Daiichi. However, a significant fraction of those told to evacuate were sent directly into the predicted pathway. Ground-based monitoring demonstrates that SPEEDI was correct. The evacuees should have been sent to locations outside the predicted contamination pathway, or otherwise have stayed indoors on March 15 and waited for the wind to blow out to sea on March 16. The report will say people could have avoided unnecessary exposure if the government had used SPEEDI to plan the evacuations. This report will contradict the Diet’s NAIIC investigation which says SPEEDI should not have been used because weather forecasting is imprecise. (NHK World)
  • The July 23 report will also say the staff at Fukushima Daiini responded better to the tsunami than the people at F. Daiichi, implying that the F. Daiichi staff made an insufficient effort. The report will also conclude that evacuation of local residents and hospital patients was much better around the F. Daiini plant. F. Daiini is about 10 kilometers south of F. Daiichi, was struck by a wave about 9 meters high (~28 feet) and the amount of electrical generating equipment damaged was much less than F. Daiichi. The wave at F. Daiichi was about 14 meters (42 feet) high, resulting in a complete loss of all electrical systems. Further, the transmission equipment connecting F. Daiini to outside electrical sources was not destroyed, while the F. Daiichi electrical infrastructure was devastated. Regardless of these two critical differences, the July 23 report will say the F. Daiini staff did an adequate job, but the efforts of the F. Daiichi staff were inadequate. (Yomiuri Shimbun)
  • Friday’s addition to the weekly antinuclear protest in Tokyo was well-attended. The Metro police estimate about 10,000 protestors took part in the well-publicized demonstration. True to form, and in accord with yet another antinuclear dogma (to exaggerate everything), protest organizers inflated their estimate to 150,000. The reason for the demonstration was the safe-and-sound restart of Oi unit #3. (News on Japan)
  • On Monday, a Japanese national holiday, a huge protest occurred in Tokyo. The event was organized by Nobel-winning author Kenzaburo Oe and Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, and was widely advertised over the internet and by the Press. “I dare to say it is merely a matter of electricity,” Sakamoto told the gathering. “Why do we have to expose our lives to danger only for the sake of power?” Oe demanded the immediate abolition of all nuclear power in Japan, implying that none of the shuttered nukes should ever be restarted. In a television interview, Prime Minister Noda responded, “We made a political decision after carrying out strict stress tests and getting through procedures in the safety committee and agency.” Yasunari Fujimoto, another organizer of the rally, said, “We want to continue to stage demonstration as anti-nuclear sentiment is growing steadily among people.” Event organizers estimated the attendance at 150,000. The metro police said the number was 70,000. (Japan Times)