Free Republic

The Truth About Nuclear Power: Japanese Nuclear Engineer Calls for Abolition Koide Hiroaki Introduction and translation by Sakai Yasuyuki and Norimatsu Satoko Introduction Koide Hiroaki began his career as a nuclear engineer forty years ago drawn to the promise of nuclear power. Quickly, however, he recognized the flaws in Japan’s nuclear power program and emerged as among the best informed of Japan’s nuclear power critic. His cogent public critique of the nuclear village earned him an honourable form of purgatory as a permanent assistant professor at Kyoto University. Koide would pay a price in career terms, continuing his painstaking research...

Latest news from Japan: From the BBC- 1456: Tepco says it may start pouring water from a helicopter over Fukushima Daiichi's reactor four in the next few days, to cool the spent-fuel pool. 1439: A 30km (18 mile) no-fly zone is in place around Fukushima, says the IAEA. 1436: The IAEA says Monday's blast at Fukushima may have affected the integrity of the containment vessel - there are fears of more serious radioactive leaks if happen. 1435: Following earlier reports, it appears there has been more than one strong aftershock in Japan - AP reports two tremors measuring over 6.0...

Kan raps Tokyo Electric's handling of nuclear crisis TOKYO, March 15, Kyodo Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Tuesday strongly criticized Tokyo Electric Power Co. for its handling of the earthquake-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. ''The TV reported an explosion. But nothing was said to the premier's office for about an hour,'' a Kyodo News reporter overheard Kan saying during a meeting with executives of the power company at its head office. ''What the hell is going on?'' Kan strongly ordered the company not to withdraw its employees from the power plant, which has been facing a series of...

Japan’s turbulent history of war and natural catastrophe has already given the world a terrifying vocabulary of death: tsunami, kamikaze, Hiroshima. But the country now stands on the brink of unleashing its most chilling phrase yet: genpatsu-shinsai – the combination of an earthquake and nuclear meltdown capable of destroying millions of lives and bringing a nation to its knees. The phrase, derived from the Japanese words for “nuclear power” and “quake disaster”, is the creation of Katsuhiko Ishibashi, Japan’s leading seismologist and one of the Government’s top advisers on nuclear-quake safety. He said that the world may never know how...

In Stricken Fuel-Cooling Pools, a Danger for the Longer Term By WILLIAM J. BROAD and HIROKO TABUCHI Published: March 14, 2011 Even as workers race to prevent the radioactive cores of the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan from melting down, concerns are growing that nearby pools holding spent fuel rods could pose an even greater danger. The pools, which sit on the top level of the reactor buildings and keep spent fuel submerged in water, have lost their cooling systems and the Japanese have been unable to take emergency steps because of the multiplying crises. The threat is that the...

Seismologist Ishibashi Katsuhiko claimed that an accident was likely and that plants have 'fundamental vulnerability' The timing of the near nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi could not have been more appropriate. In only a few weeks the world will mark the 25th anniversary of the worst nuclear plant disaster ever to affect our planet – at Chernobyl in Ukraine. A major core meltdown released a deadly cloud of radioactive material over Europe and gave the name Chernobyl a terrible resonance. This weekend it is clear that the name Fukushima came perilously close to achieving a similar notoriety. However, the real...

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...