Nuclear Regulation Authority scraps reactor stress tests

Yet another political snow job! However, the stress tests were only something to have on paper anyway. Well done Japan! Fools!

Tanaka is a Yes Man, and this whole scenario has been planned all along.

Not sure how accurate the stress tests were anyway, but they gave a bit of assurance at the very least.

So a govt spokesman is put into a position of ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants, says he has no authority and will scrap safety tests. All just 18 months after Japan gave us the 2nd worst nuclear disaster in world history.

I've been here too long to even bat an eye at this...

The Japanese government and its agencies should not have any authority over nuclear power what-so-ever! There are just a bunch of dithering old fogies gambling with the whole planet's survival and really don't seem to give sh!t as long as they can balance their books. There is a report in international newspaper (The Examiner) stating the cesium fallout from Fukushima was equal to over 4,000 Hiroshima bombs. And then, they turn around and do this? Who are these twits?

This is beyond a joke. Whatever next? 2 + 2 no longer equals 4? An extra day in the week to increase production? I hope someone somewhere has a lamp to rub.

Back to the same old, Japan has never learnt from history it seems.

It is more surprising that people did not see this coming. What has the J-government done in the the recent past to give anyone a reason to have faith in it? Moneyed interests always trumps public opinion. Politics is only about marketing what those interests want to the population.

Wow. This makes the old neuclear regulation authority seem... somewhat decent?

Yes because stress tests are bloody useless. They're just simulations. But I don't think that that's what they had in mind.

so what exactly is the role of this agency then? to kiss METI's arse?

It will be good to get the plants online. It will save a lot of money and allow for planing, building of green electric plants like Geo-thermal. While Japan is importing all of this oil and gas it is impossible to move forward.

It will be good to get the plants online. It will save a lot of money and allow for planing, building of green electric plants like Geo-thermal. While Japan is importing all of this oil and gas it is impossible to move forward.

Except when there's yet another accident.

Good choice of words Thomas. I only hope the government notices and understand the difference between "when" and not "IF"

The organization has also been criticized for having been created under the umbrella of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which promotes nuclear power.

Seems like the critizism was well founded. Japan Inc will never learn, nor change. And the rsidents there will continue to pay the price as the country continues its long slide down.

Typical.

Japanese must be bold enough to call a spade,a spade.They sould reject the view of the newly created Nuclear Energy regulatory board chairman that there is no need for stress tests and that he cannot stop oi reactors even if tghey are found to be risky not only for japan but for the whole world particularly as they are located on pacific desteructive seismic belt which will face higher magnitude earthquakes one day or the other and cause another fukushima-like explosion and spew intense radio activity in the air,over land and in the ocean waters so that all forms of fisheries and fish food organisms besides ruining food chains and food webs in terrestial and aquatic ecological systems which ultimately ruin the health and welfare of people.There are proven alternate sources of energfy which japan can use instead of the political leaders working to promote the financial interests of Business lobby that offer huge funds for election campaigns of greedy politicians who know that politics is the last resort of only scoundrels like the saddist Hitler who was happy to kill millions of Jews to satisfy his ego and fascist tendencies.The world should be ruled by honest and sane people for ensuring peace and prosperity in all countries.Man does not live by bread alone and he should be more humane for getting NIRVANA

"All just 18 months after Japan gave us the 2nd worst nuclear disaster in world history."

No, you mean after a 9.2 earthquake followed by an insane tsunami gave us the 2nd worst nuclear disaster in world history, don't you?

This is the only issue I have with nuclear power. It's not about safety. When properly managed, as it is in many places around the world, nuclear is no more dangerous than other commonly used method of power production.

It's the human factor that screws things up. Corporations appling an acceptable loss formula to profitability scenarios scares the bejeezus out of me, because believe you me, if a dollar can be made, corners will be cut to make it. And if people have to die to allow that to happen, there are more than a few CEOs out there who think, "Meh... why the heck not?"

Reminds me of a line from one of my favorite graphic novels: "Who watches the watchmen?" It's bad enough If no one keeps an eye on the industry, but it's inexcusable for an official body set up to do just that to effectively shirk their responsibilities without explanation.

Nuclear isn't evil. It isn't wrong. It isn't unfeasalbe. It's people that knock the entire machine cockeyed.

YuriOtani - It will be good to get the plants online. It will save a lot of money and allow for planing, building of green electric plants like Geo-thermal. While Japan is importing all of this oil and gas it is impossible to move forward.

Are you serious? Or, is this sarcasm?

Marcelito - just saw LFRAgain's unfortunate post now, but you have my reply down.

LFRAgain - if Tepco had any integrity, no one would know what Fukushima Dai-ichi was today.

"just saw LFRAgain's unfortunate post now..."

Nothing unfortunate about it. What is unfortunate is this persistant monkey-flinging-poo response to the mere mention of "nuclear power."

The stats don't support your fears. The numbers don't support your worries. The reality doesn't support your demand that nuclear power be mothballed for all eternity.

What nuclear power needs -- what any complex system needs -- is a reliable and verifiable process of ensuring safety issues are being adequately addressed.

TEPCO screwed the people of Eastern Japan. There's no argument about that. They put profit above safety and gambled with lives, when the ways and means to prevent the disaster was readily available, had they cared to adopt them.

Call a spade a spade and put the blame squarely where it belongs: The asshats that made ridiculously inadequate safety decisions at TEPCO.

Nuclear is not to blame.

The reality doesn't support your demand that nuclear power be mothballed for all eternity.

But with the reactors up and running again, the waste they produce will need to be 'mothballed' for thousands of years - which is for all eternity as far as we are concerned.

Surprise, surprise...

@LFRAgain, you're right. People are to blame. But not only the corner cutters trying to make an easy buck. The docile, quick-to-forget, shoganaine, happoshu and canned coffee drinking Japanese public are certainly helping helping out as well. They do so by shifting their ever short attention spanned minds from the issue that was on TV last night, back to what they care most about: shopping and brands.

Tell me when, where and why I should be shocked and surprised. All I can really do is drop my head, sway it back and forth in disgust - concerning how this whole this has been handled - not controlled - by the ones that should have a clue about something that went wrong.

People will look back (in a not so close future) and pin point these 2 years as the area that started the mess they are in then.

LFRAgain - your first post suggests it was an act of god. You then admit it was a man-made screw up.

I have nothing against nuclear power, I just have a problem with it being run by 12 year-old children.

"But with the reactors up and running again, the waste they produce will need to be 'mothballed' for thousands of years - which is for all eternity as far as we are concerned."

The materials used to produce a nuclear reaction wereradioactive when they were mined, they'll be radioactive long after we're done with them. Nothing changes the essential physics of that. Without trying to be rude, this argument is a very, very old one.

zichi,

"There were many design defects with the Fukushima plant..."

No, they are not "design defects," as you would suggest. If you insist on talking about the issue, then at least get the terminology correct. These reactors were designed and built according to very specific stress thresholds. Had the earthquake and subsequent tsunami been within those thresholds, then we very likely wouldn't even be having this conversation.

The reactors stood up to what they were designed to stand up to, and no more. Thus the catastrophic failure of the cooling systems due to the Tsunami. As a point of fact, the Fukushima reactors all withstood the quake with very little damage, despite having been designed to withstand a weaker magnitude tremor. That's impressive design by any estimation.

The problem with the reactors is that they weren't designed to withstand what experts and studies had suggested could be even more powerful quakes and higher tsunamis.

That's not a defect. That's poor judgment.

The materials used to produce a nuclear reaction wereradioactive when they were mined, they'll be radioactive long after we're done with them.

True, but before they were mined they were incorporated in low concentrations (<1%) in ore and spread over a relatively wide area; by the time we've 'done' with them they're highly concentrated, highly radioactive and far more dangerous. Trying to equate one with the other is, without trying to be rude, either very naive or very dishonest.

Would you be happy to have a nuclear waste disposal site in your back garden? or your basement?

zichi, the other nuclear powers are running their plants why does Japan have to shut them all now? It only makes our foes rich and Japan poor. Foreigners have come to Japan for a long time and demanding change. The IEA needs to inspect each plant and make an unbiased ruling if the plants can start.

One thing seems clear to me: nuclear power stations are here to stay, as are the politicians flip-flopping on the issues.