Why Worry? Japan's Nuclear Plants at Grave Risk From Quake Damage (from IHT Aug. 11, 2007)

International Herald Tribune via JapanFocus ^ | August 11, 2007 | Ishibashi Katsuhiko

[SteveH]

Why Worry? Japan's Nuclear Plants at Grave Risk From Quake Damage

Ishibashi Katsuhiko

August 11, 2007

I had warned that a major earthquake would strike the Chuetsu region around Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, and about the fundamental vulnerability of nuclear power plants.

The 6.8 magnitude temblor of July 16 caused considerable damage to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), proving me right.

In the 40 years that Japan had been building nuclear plants, seismic activity was, fortunately or unfortunately, relatively quiet. Not a single nuclear facility was struck by a big quake. The government, along with the power industry and the academic community, all developed the habit of underestimating the potential risks posed by major quakes.

Since around the time of the Great Hanshin Earthquake that devastated Kobe in 1995, however, almost the entire Japanese archipelago has entered a period of brisk seismic activity.

In the past two years, major quakes took place in close proximity of three nuclear power plants: the Onagawa plant in Miyagi Prefecture (August 2005), the Shika plant in Ishikawa Prefecture (March 2007) and the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant. In each case, the maximum ground motion caused by the quake was stronger than the seismic design criteria for the nuclear power plants.

[SteveH]

Ishibashi Katsuhiko is a professor at the Research Center for Urban Safety and Security of Kobe University.

[samtheman]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365781/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-All-3-Fukushima-nuclear-plant-reactors-meltdown.html

[Nervous Tick]

I remember the hyperventilating predictions of years and years of death, disease and and ruin from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Didn’t happen.

I remember the hyperventilating predictions of years and years of death, disease and and ruin from the recent oil spill in the gulf.

Didn’t happen.

Remind me exactly why I should give a sh!t about the hyperventilating prognostications now?

Let’s do what we can to help address the problem and wait and see how it comes out. My money is on “everything will turn out OK”.

[BobL]

Perhaps if the same people bring up concerns about nukes back then weren’t also SCREAMING about the dangers of GLOBAL WARMING, Japan could have decommissioned its #1 reactor and maybe started replacing their vulnerable nukes with coal plants.

I’m not about to give the liberals a FREE PASS on this mess, regardless of how it turns out.

[NRG1973]

I have a question for the other posters on this board. As I watch videos from Japan I notice that about 5% of the Japanese citizens are wearing surgical masks. Why is that? Those folks don’t look like they are ill and I don’t think surgical masks will prevent radiation sickness.

[wjcsux]

The surgical masks will stop Alpha and Beta particles. My guess the reason for the surgical masks is because of all of the bacteria from the thousands of dead bodies.

[NVDave]

Japan isn’t going to go towards coal plants. They’re already the biggest consumer of coal in Asia, and they want to reduce their reliance on imports. So their national policy (for several years now) has been to project increases in nuclear energy and decreases in coal consumption.

[jwalsh07]

They wear them all the time. To prevent spreading germs or receiving same during outbreaks.

[NRG1973]

Japan isn’t going to go towards coal plants. They’re already the biggest consumer of coal in Asia, and they want to reduce their reliance on imports. So their national policy (for several years now) has been to project increases in nuclear energy and decreases in coal consumption.

Are you sure about that? I thought that China was the biggest consumer of coal in Asia. Perhaps Japan is the biggest coal importer in Asia?

[NVDave]

I remembered reading something in a report and I found it again:

Japan ended domestic coal production in 2002. You can search for it in this piece:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Japan/Full.html

I also read of the high commodity prices in 2008 making old coal mines in Japan finally pencil out again, when coal went over $100/ton for Japan... their coal mining costs are ferociously high compared to Australia and the US.

So they’re importing most all of the coal they use.

[NVDave]

I’d be betting on the same outcome as you are.

Malthusians are wrong. All the time. They never seem to learn.

[NVDave]

You’re right, my bad. China consumes (total, all sources) about 10X what Japan does. Read the EIA brief too quickly, my fault.

[EQAndyBuzz]

For years we heard that an exposed core will spread deadly radiation across the world, destroying cities, killing women and children(that’s when I should have known it was a lib plot to get rid of nukes) and decimating eco-systems.

So 3 cores are exposed and what?

[NVDave]

When I was in Japan for business, I wondered the same thing. There were people wearing masks on trains, subways, etc. There was no emergency or disease (that I knew about) on the loose. We’re talking the late 90’s, a period of relative calm compared to the last several years.

I didn’t want to be impolite and ask “Hey! You! What’s up with the mask?!” but I found out that there’s a bunch of people in Japan who are, for lack of a better or more graceful word, hypochondriacs. They’re concerned about germs, air pollution, “bad mists” and so on - all the time.

Some older women wearing masks on trains were truly terrified to see me and my fellow engineer (from Canada) step onto their trains. We towered over the average females at 6’1”+, both of us wearing boots and our appearance simply terrified a great number of women, especially those 60+ years old. With our beards and red or blonde hair, they openly stared at us, clutched their purses tighter and moved well back into their seats.

At first, it was funny. Then tedious. And after awhile, it was annoying and tedious.

But they are what they are. They’re hyper-concerned about germs, dirt, foreign substances, you name it.

You should see the produce in their markets. Really. You’ve probably never seen such perfect fruit in your life, and I’m sure you’ve probably never seen it wrapped and packaged in a more wasteful manner to comply with the Japanese obsession for purity in their food.

[DManA]

They have had nuclear powered ships for 50 years and NEVER had a single accident. And a ship is not exactly a stable platform. Seems they can design for earthquakes. They CANNOT design for tsunamis. So, just make sure the reactor is beyond the reach of the worst tsunami.

[sushiman]

If you were in a large city , many people may have been wearing masks due to the air pollution levels .

I have lived in Japan since 1985 . I for one am glad kids at my school wear masks in class when they have colds . : )

[NVDave]

Well, that’s what we don’t know. We won’t know for probably years how exposed the cores were.

It took five years after TMI to learn the true extent of what happened inside the reactor. The actual results out of TMI were that a) the core melted significantly, b) it happened while everyone was hopping up and down, wondering what was going on, c) that it appeared to have happened pretty early in the event, d) it never made it through the pressure vessel.

[NVDave]

We were in what I was told was an air pollution situation, as it was summer. Still, it wasn’t as bad as the LA basin can get on some summer days, so I wondered what they were on about.

I cannot remember the name of the hotel, but I can tell you that a) It was Tokyo, b) that we hiked from the hotel about 5km to Sengaku-ji Temple, then hiked back, overshot and caught a train down to the Akihabara district, where all the grey-market electronics retailers are. What an eye-opener that was. Kids with *perfect* plastic clones of a M-16 on their backs as they peddled their bikes around town. The first one made me whip my head around, lemme tell you.

Tokyo was a very disorienting city for me. Being habituated to the western US, I’m used to being able to orient myself against a easily seen mountain range or other large landmark. Tokyo just seems like a huge mass of people that just does not end...

[Dacus943]

Never learn how to link. But here is an explanation about face masks in Japan! BTW - this series by "TheJapanChannelDcom" is a very informative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geRV7voPh_0

[sam_paine]

I have asked them about the masks in various places in the past. One guy was sick. He wore it at the meeting and would not shake hands with anyone.

In his case, he was wearing the mask as a courtesy to others. Very commendable, if possibly overall ineffective gesture.

The rest of them probably wear them for pollution or disease or both. Why not? I see lots of masks in Taiwan and many I asked there said pollution, and frankly, I think the rain there has visible chunks of stuff in it, so more power to them!!

But NVDave, I think you describe another aspect which I also notice, and I don’t tower +6ft over them. They think foreigners are weird. The Japanese think we’re only slightly less dirty than chinese or korean people. I hate to use the term, and it’s not pejorative to say Japanese are racist. They believe they are superior, and any many respects to many people, they are!

So I think the little old ladies on the train are just caught in a weird contradiction.... They are just as appalled and scared of us as a southern belle in the 50’s was of a “colored” getting on the bus with them, and yet, the Japanese are ruled by the social constraint that they wouldn’t DARE speak up and say anything either. So they squirm.

God bless them. It’s who they are, and I don’t think less of them for it on their terms. At least they’ve kept their Border, Language and Culture as crazy talk radio loon would say.