9.0 quake hits Japan

[kidlewis]

I don't see how people can have a go about a nuclear plant not with standing a 9.1 richter scale earthquake.

It's like when people were complaining about the planes not being able to fly through the volcanic cloud. Go to Montserrat and have a look at what pyroclastic material looks like, because it ain't a bit of household dust. fly and you're gonna die.

I am surprised the whole thing didn't competely meltdown to be honest. as soon as I saw reports of the fukishima plant and the fact it was a 9.1 scale earthquake, I presumed the thing was in bits already. Wasn't it pretty close to the epicenter?

[BOF]

I don't see how people can have a go about a nuclear plant not with standing a 9.1 richter scale earthquake.

No-one's having a go. If anything, most of us expected that it wouldn't withstand the earthquake and our complaints were over the reluctance of the authorities to be more up front early on. Instead of putting people's lives at risk and then admitting to errors in their approach when it was too late. I said from the very start that a 'rather safe than sorry' approach should be taken because of what I thought was inevitable. That's not a commentary on the plant's abilities.

[peterms]

I don't see how people can have a go about a nuclear plant not with standing a 9.1 richter scale earthquake.

It's like when people were complaining about the planes not being able to fly through the volcanic cloud. Go to Montserrat and have a look at what pyroclastic material looks like, because it ain't a bit of household dust. fly and you're gonna die.

I am surprised the whole thing didn't competely meltdown to be honest. as soon as I saw reports of the fukishima plant and the fact it was a 9.1 scale earthquake, I presumed the thing was in bits already. Wasn't it pretty close to the epicenter?

Well, some of the reasons people have expressed concern include these.

The firm said the plant was designed to withstand earthquakes, but not that size of tsunami. But tsunamis follow earthquakes, and this is a known earthquake/tsunami zone. So did they commission a plant which might be fine for Idaho or wherever the manufacturers are, but not for the specific location it was purchased for?

They say it was a one in a thousand year event, as though that means they shouldn't expect that it may happen.

They appear to have been storing dangerous material at a far greater quantity than they were supposed to, adding to the level of danger.

The backup plan seems to have been fragile, and they don't seem to have understood the magnitude of the possible danger or called quickly enough for more expert help.

The firm has a history of having broken H&S regulations, falsified safety records, and lied about previous incidents.

I don't think anyone expects an earthquake of that scale to leave anything undamaged. The concerns here are that the owners of the plant appear to have done things they shouldn't or failed to do things which they should have, and which appear to have added to the level of risk faced by an awful lot of people. If they were just deciding to run that risk with something that only affected them, like an investment or a bungee jump, fine. But that's not the case.

[kidlewis]

So it's more that the company haven't adhered to H&S regulations and also not tried to put in place necessary options which could have made things less damaged. Okay.

I just thought ppm were saying 'hey how come this plant got damaged and leaked radiation after a 9.1 scale earthquake".

Which i feel is like saying "hey how come the jenga stack fell when Jonah lomu tackled it". At the end of that day all you can do is TRY to prevent things. If something like this earthquake happens. There ain't a lot you can do to stop it.

They've done pretty well all things considered. If that earthquake happened to any other inhabited part of the world it would be pretty much game over. 2004 being an example.

If that epicentre was even 100km east of the US the damage would be pretty epic.

[TheDon]

Well, it's now a 7. Surprised really, nothing has changed, other than the level of radiation being released being reduced, yet they've gone straight from 5 to 7. I think that definitely answers some of the "we can't trust them" worries, because if anything they're over stating the issues.

The same rating as chernobyl is pretty ridiculous really, and says one of two things, we need a better scale because chernobyl was under classified, or the japanese are overly cautious. This isn't as bad as Kyshtym which was only a 6...

If a 6 can be worse than a 7 then I agree we need a better, more comprehensive scale. Still and all though, it's not good to see Fukushima reach Chernobyl levels and is something I feared right from the start would happen.

This is the thing though, it's still nowhere near "Chernobyl levels." The peak output of radioactive material was 10x lower than Chernobyl, and lasted less than an hour, after which it was 5million times lower than Chernobyl which sustained that output for a damn long time as the reactor burnt.

No-one's having a go. If anything, most of us expected that it wouldn't withstand the earthquake and our complaints were over the reluctance of the authorities to be more up front early on. Instead of putting people's lives at risk and then admitting to errors in their approach when it was too late. I said from the very start that a 'rather safe than sorry' approach should be taken because of what I thought was inevitable. That's not a commentary on the plant's abilities.

I'd disagree that they weren't upfront from the start. If anything they've been premature in a lot of things (such as their erroneous statement that radiation was a million times normal when it wasn't).

The evacuation zones and everything concerned with public health have been what you'd expect. The only lives at real risk have been the workers.

[peterms]

This looks quite interesting.

Before anyone had any idea of the level of seriousness of Fukushima, just two days after it happened, our government was working with the nuclear lobby to reassure everyone how safe it all is.

I especially like the bit that goes "We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear." These words produced in ignorance of whether it was a minor or major problem demonstrate that the goal is to reassure us, regardless of the truth.

Also love the bit about "You can work with **** - he is a good egg" (need to open the linked document in the story for this). Chapesses? Good egg? It reads like a parody of some retired major from a thirties novel. I say, Binky! What ho!

Can they ever be taken seriously, or trusted at all?

UK government and nuclear industry email correspondence after the Fukushima accident

Emails released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal the level of coordination between government departments and the nuclear industry during the Fukushima crisis

British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.

Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.

"This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally," wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose name has been redacted. "We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear."

Officials stressed the importance of preventing the incident from undermining public support for nuclear power.

The Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, who sits on the Commons environmental audit committee, condemned the extent of co-ordination between the government and nuclear companies that the emails appear to reveal.

"The government has no business doing PR for the industry and it would be appalling if its departments have played down the impact of Fukushima," he said.

Louise Hutchins, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace, said the emails looked like "scandalous collusion". "This highlights the government's blind obsession with nuclear power and shows neither they, nor the industry, can be trusted when it comes to nuclear," she said.

The Fukushima accident, triggered by the Japan earthquake and tsunami on 11 March, has forced 80,000 people from their homes. Opinion polls suggest it has dented public support for nuclear power in Britain and around the world, with the governments of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Thailand and Malaysia cancelling planned nuclear power stations in the wake of the accident.

The business department emailed the nuclear firms and their representative body, the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), on 13 March, two days after the disaster knocked out nuclear plants and their backup safety systems at Fukushima. The department argued it was not as bad as the "dramatic" TV pictures made it look, even though the consequences of the accident were still unfolding and two major explosions at reactors on the site were yet to happen.

"Radiation released has been controlled – the reactor has been protected," said the BIS official, whose name has been blacked out. "It is all part of the safety systems to control and manage a situation like this."

The official suggested that if companies sent in their comments, they could be incorporated into briefs to ministers and government statements. "We need to all be working from the same material to get the message through to the media and the public.

"Anti-nuclear people across Europe have wasted no time blurring this all into Chernobyl and the works," the official told Areva. "We need to quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl."

Japanese officials initially rated the Fukushima accident as level four on the international nuclear event scale, meaning it had "local consequences". But it was raised to level seven on 11 April, officially making it a major accident" and putting it on a par with Chernobyl in 1986.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has released more than 80 emails sent in the weeks after Fukushima in response to requests under freedom of information legislation. They also show:

• Westinghouse said reported remarks on the cost of new nuclear power stations by the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, were "unhelpful and a little premature".

• The company admitted its new reactor, AP1000, "was not designed for earthquakes [of] the magnitude of the earthquake in Japan", and would need to be modified for seismic areas such as Japan and California.

• The head of the DECC's office for nuclear development, Mark Higson, asked EDF to welcome the expected announcement of a safety review by the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, and added: "Not sure if EDF unilaterally asking for a review is wise. Might set off a bidding war."

• EDF promised to be "sensitive" to how remediation work at a UK nuclear site "might be seen in the light of events in Japan".

• It also requested that ministers did not delay approval for a new radioactive waste store at the Sizewell nuclear site in Suffolk, but accepting there was a "potential risk of judicial review".

•  The BIS warned it needed "a good industry response showing the safety of nuclear – otherwise it could have adverse consequences on the market".

On 7 April, the office for nuclear development invited companies to attend a meeting at the NIA's headquarters in London. The aim was "to discuss a joint communications and engagement strategy aimed at ensuring we maintain confidence among the British public on the safety of nuclear power stations and nuclear new-build policy in light of recent events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant".

Other documents released by the government's safety watchdog, the office for nuclear regulation, reveal that the text of an announcement on 5 April about the impact of Fukushima on the new nuclear programme was privately cleared with nuclear industry representatives at a meeting the previous week. According to one former regulator, who preferred not to be named, the degree of collusion was "truly shocking".

A spokesman for the DECC and BIS said: "Given the unprecedented events unfolding in Japan, it was appropriate to share information with key stakeholders, particularly those involved in operating nuclear sites. The government was very clear from the outset that it was important not to rush to judgment and that a response should be based on hard evidence. This is why we called on the chief nuclear inspector, Dr Mike Weightman, to provide a robust and evidence-based report."

A DECC source played down the significance of the emails from the unnamed BIS official, saying: "The junior BIS official was not responsible for nuclear policy and his views were irrelevant to ministers' decisions in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake."

Tom Burke, a former government environmental adviser and visiting professor at Imperial College London, warned that the British government was repeating mistakes made in Japan. "They are too close to industry, concealing problems, rather than revealing and dealing with them," he said.

"I would be much more reassured if DECC had been worrying about how the government would cope with the $200m-$300m of liabilities from a catastrophic nuclear accident in Britain."

The government last week confirmed plans for eight new nuclear stations in England and Wales. "If acceptable proposals come forward in appropriate places, they will not face unnecessary holdups," said the energy minister, Charles Hendry.

The NIA did not comment directly on the emails. "We are funded by our member companies to represent their commercial interests and further the compelling case for new nuclear build in the UK," said the association's spokesman.

"We welcome the interim findings of the independent regulator, Dr Mike Weightman, who has reported back to government that UK nuclear reactors are safe."

[LondonLax]

I saw that, that guy sounds very dodgy.

It says it was conservative MP Zac Goldsmith who called him out on it though so at least that is good.

[JulieB]

I don't see how people can have a go about a nuclear plant not with standing a 9.1 richter scale earthquake.

No-one's having a go. If anything, most of us expected that it wouldn't withstand the earthquake and our complaints were over the reluctance of the authorities to be more up front early on. Instead of putting people's lives at risk and then admitting to errors in their approach when it was too late. I said from the very start that a 'rather safe than sorry' approach should be taken because of what I thought was inevitable. That's not a commentary on the plant's abilities.

Agree very much with BOF. Sums up my feelings.

My argument with the plant, situated right next to the coast in a well known earthquake zone, making Tsumami risk a perfectly viable one.... is having back up diesel generators for the cooling pumps to the reactor that had no mechanism to be sealed in to protect them from sea water.

Diesel engines don't work very well when they're full of sea water..it's not exactly rocket science is it?

BTW I have a friend who has been involved in Quakebook, which is being sold to raise funds for survivors... it's made up of simple first hand accounts of ordniary people's experiences and dealing with the appalling aftermath. Twitter #Quakebook.

[CI]

Things seem to be finally stabilising thank god

The de-commissioning of the plant is now estimated as a 30 year project !!

Shocker

[The_Rev]

Chernobyl is still an estimated ten years away from being fully decommissioned. Clean, safe, too cheap to meter!

[JulieB]

I think it was on Channel 4 last week, but watched a programme that showed alot of first hand video footage on mobile phones and cam corders of the tsunami and the devastation it caused. Some of the videos were truly terrifying as people were trying to flee for their lives and the sheer power of the waves. Although it was quite staggering to see many people dawdling, more interested in watching the wave & not heeding the warning to run to higher ground as quickly as possible. Some were even weighed down trying to carry personal possessions with them. Madness!

Very moving to listen to first hand accounts from Japanes survivors and to see how they are trying to rebuild their lives after their homes and towns were turned into scrapyards in just a few minutes. Highly recommended if it's available to download.

[villa4europe]

Best bit was the construction site workers casually strolling while the guy filming shouted run you idiot at them

the footage of the guy in his car was mad too, him who just stayed put

The program was a bit disapointing though because it didn't show helicopter footage or the videos that was doing the rounds at the time, could t help but feel that a better/more complete documentary will be made sometime soon

[CI]

I wonder what giant, mutations will manifest in Fukishima area

The giant fish at Chernobyl are freaky, check them out on you tube

[bickster]

I wonder what giant, mutations will manifest in Fukishima area

The giant fish at Chernobyl are freaky, check them out on you tube

They are just normal sized adult catfish

[CI]

Think you'll find they're a tad bigger

[bickster]

Think you'll find they're a tad bigger

nope, just normal sized Catfish

[BOF]

Well it seems my concerns about the misinformation weren't a million miles from the truth. I suppose it has all died down enough that this kind of thing can start to be *cough* leaked out now.

Damage from Fukushima reactor disaster so severe that clean-up expected to take decades

One of Japan's crippled nuclear reactors still has fatally high radiation levels and much less water to cool it than officials estimated, according to an internal examination that renews doubts about the plant's stability.

A tool equipped with a tiny video camera, a thermometer, a dosimeter and a water gauge was used to assess damage inside the number two reactor's containment chamber for the second time since the tsunami swept into the Fukushima Daiichi plant, a year ago.

The data shows the damage from the disaster is so severe the plant operator will have to develop special equipment and technology to tolerate the harsh environment, and decommission the plant. The process is expected to last decades.

The other two reactors that had meltdowns could be in even worse shape. The number two reactor is the only one officials have been able to closely examine so far.

Tuesday's examination, with an industrial endoscope, detected radiation levels up to 10 times the fatal dose inside the chamber.

Plant officials previously said more than half of the melted fuel had breached the core and dropped to the floor of the primary containment vessel, some of it splashing against the wall or the floor.

Particles from melted fuel have probably sent radiation levels up to a dangerously high 70 an hour inside the container, said Junichi Matsumoto, spokesman for the plant operator, Tepco. The figure far exceeds the highest level previously detected, of 10 sieverts an hour, which was detected around an exhaust duct shared by the number one and two units last year.

"It's extremely high," he said, adding that an endoscope would last only 14 hours in those conditions. When locating and removing melted fuel during the decommissioning process, he said, "we have to develop equipment that can tolerate high radiation".

The probe also found that the containment vessel – a beaker-shaped container enclosing the core – had cooling water up to only 60cms (24ins) from the bottom, far below the 10 metres estimated when the government declared the plant stable in December. The plant is continuing to pump water into the reactor.

Video footage taken by the probe showed the water inside was clear but contained dark yellow sediments, believed to be fragments of rust, paint or dust.

An investigation carried out in January failed to find the water surface, and provided only images showing steam, unidentified parts and rusty metal surfaces scarred by exposure to radiation, heat and humidity. Finding the water level was important to help locate damaged areas where radioactive water is escaping.

Matsumoto said the actual water level inside the chamber was way off the estimate, which had used data that turned out to be unreliable.

But the results do not affect the plant's "cold shutdown status" because the water temperature was about 50C, indicating the melted fuel is cooled.

Three Daiichi reactors had meltdowns, but the number two reactor is the only one that has been examined because radiation levels inside the reactor building are relatively low and its container is designed with a convenient slot to send in the endoscope.

The exact conditions of the other two reactors, where hydrogen explosions damaged their buildings, are still unknown. Simulations have indicated that more fuel inside number one has breached the core than the other two, but radiation at number three remains the highest.

The high radiation levels inside the number two reactor's chamber mean it is inaccessible to the workers, but parts of the reactor building are accessible for a few minutes at a time – with the workers wearing full protection.

The 2011 earthquake and a tsunami set off the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, sending three reactor cores into meltdown and causing massive radiation leaks.

The government said in December that the reactors had been safely cooled, and the plant had been stabilised, but experts have questioned its vulnerability.

During a recent visit by journalists, the head of the plant said it remained vulnerable to strong aftershocks and tsunamis, and that containing contaminated water and radiation remained a challenge. Radioactive water had leaked into the ocean several times already.

Workers had found a fresh leak of 120 tonnes from one of the hoses at a water treatment unit this week, with an estimated 80 litres escaping into the ocean, Matsumoto said. Officials are still investigating its impact.

Fukushima's accident has caused public distrust and concerns about nuclear safety, making it difficult for the government to start up reactors even after regular safety checks. All but one of Japan's 54 reactors are offline, with the last scheduled to stop in early May.

[mjmooney]

You'll be in trouble for thread necromancy now, Brian.

[BOF]

Hardehar I think December to March is plenty recent enough (I know you were joking btw).

[Bazdavies79]

Nuclear, it's safe you know.