Panel contradicts Tohoku Electric on whether faultine is active

By MARI YAMAGUCHI

National Dec. 21, 2012 - 10:45AM JST ( 26 )

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26 Comments

5

YubaruDec. 21, 2012 - 07:14AM JST

Nice to see the "experts" telling TEPCO and the country the truth. Now let's see whether or not it sticks and the reactor stays shut down, permanently!
2

hereforeverDec. 21, 2012 - 07:25AM JST

Scientist said, TEPCO said, plant build when LDP was in power. Okay Mr. Abe, your move.
2

YubaruDec. 21, 2012 - 07:27AM JST

Scientist said, TEPCO said, plant build when LDP was in power. Okay Mr. Abe, your move.

ALL the plants were built when the LDP was in power, and look at the shining example TEPCO has done.
2

soldaveDec. 21, 2012 - 08:18AM JST

The panel's findings will be described as "regrettable" and nothing will change.
2

DisillusionedDec. 21, 2012 - 08:35AM JST

Tohoku Electric engineering and construction chief Akira Chigama said his company stands by its view that the faults are inactive. He said the operator’s data have been accepted in past government inspections under the NRA’s predecessor. That supervisory agency was disbanded after facing massive criticism of its lax supervision since the Fukushima disaster in March 2011.

So, here it is folks! This is an extremely disturbing paragraph. They stand by the conclusion of a group that was disbanded for lax supervision and maintenance? Nobody should trust anything said by any of the power companies and/or the LDP in regards to the safety of nuclear plants and stability of fault lines. The only lines they are interested in are bottom lines. And, the bottom line is, they are a bunch of liars that should not be trusted!
1

rowiko68Dec. 21, 2012 - 08:55AM JST

Tohoku Electric claims that the plant is safe and the faults inactive, based on the verdict of an agency that has since been disbanded due to its lax supervision... Need I say more?
2

alliswellinjapanDec. 21, 2012 - 09:00AM JST

Just for clarification this one is Tohoku-epco not TEPCO. Good that the panel reached an unanimous conclusion so there is no ambiguity.
1

FrungyDec. 21, 2012 - 09:07AM JST

Let me see, who to believe... the company that just irradiated a large chunk of the country because they were too cheap to install a backup generator on high ground.... or a group of scientists who have nothing really to gain but a mess of headaches and paperwork.

I know where my vote is going.
1

smithinjapanDec. 21, 2012 - 09:09AM JST

Lest we forget, TEPCO also claimed the fault line under the Niigata plant was inactive, and despite proof they were given to the contrary, they insisted they never made such a claim and had no idea there was a fault there. Then when there was definitive evidence that they lied to get the contract to build it, they pulled the usual, "(Bow deeply) Mistakes have been made. We will do our best to avoid them in the future," etc., etc. In other words, the same old crap. I'm curious to hear what their 'point of view' is; probably, "Look, we really want to get these plants running so we can increase profits, so if you wouldn't mind cooperating and agreeing with us 100% that's be a big help, thanks. Oh, and no, that guy sitting there with all the tattoos and the missing pinky was lying when he said he's in charge of hiring for the cleanup of Fukushima was not telling the truth. He's... ummm... just an acquaintance."
1

minello7Dec. 21, 2012 - 09:17AM JST

This has made my day, don't you love this quote "He said the operator’s data have been accepted in past government inspections under the NRA’s predecessor. " and we all know who they are. Oh !! and the voters just put the same bunch back in power.
-5

basroilDec. 21, 2012 - 11:07AM JST

So just how old is this "active" fault? Almost certainly older than 35000 years the rest of the world uses (and has been perfectly fine with), and very unlikely that there have been multiple movements in the last 500k years.
0

herefornowDec. 21, 2012 - 11:40AM JST

He said the operator’s data have been accepted in past government inspections under the NRA’s predecessor. That supervisory agency was disbanded after facing massive criticism of its lax supervision since the Fukushima disaster in March 2011.

As Disiilusioned said, these two sentences perfectly summarize "nuclear regulation" in Japan for at least four decades. Japan Inc. wanted cheap power, which meant nukes, and the politicians and bureaucrats greased the wheels -- alowing them to build on an ACTIVE FAULT. I mean this plant only opened in 2005, so we are not talking about ancient history here. Very unsettling, because you just know a large number of the other 50 or so reactors will have similar issues. Likely that Japan will have to rely on moe expensive fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, which means folks will b paying out the nose for all the "cheap" energy.
0

JanesBlondeDec. 21, 2012 - 01:51PM JST

Again .... all so depressing.
3

DisillusionedDec. 21, 2012 - 02:00PM JST

The thing is, this whole damn country is an active fault line! The whole country moved two meters last year and sank half a meter in the 3/11 quake. How can they say that this area is safe and this area is not? Science cannot predict where, when or the magnitude of earthquakes. They admit that year's quake was unprecented, but it was not the strongest quake to ever hit Japan. It was the strongest in recent times, but that means bugger all. There could be a magnitude 9 quake tomorrow. The stingy LDP during their fifty year reign as leaders of this country disregarded every warning and went ahead to fit the country out with reactors. Now, Japan has had a huge meltdown resulting in a multi billion dollar bill, but they are still blindly supporting the use of nuclear power in a country perched on the edge of a tectonic plate. It's like sitting on a gasoline can and lighting matches. Sooner or later it is gonna go and it will take everyone within cooee with it. It just doesn't make sense! It is still beyond me as to why Japan is not a world leader in geothermal energy. New Zealand and Iceland are cruising with geothermal power, but the argument in Japan is, the geothermal fields are in national parks and controlled by local governments who have no money. Well, there is no a 20k squared nuclear park around Fukushima dai-ichi. How many more of the nuclear parks will it take before these blind fools start to realize they are sitting on the answer?
0

as_the_crow_fliesDec. 21, 2012 - 02:18PM JST

Tohoku Electric engineering and construction chief Akira Chigama said his company stands by its view that the faults are inactive. He said the operator’s data have been accepted in past government inspections under the NRA’s predecessor.

You could rephrase this as: Whassamatter? Don't you like the colour of my envelopes?
0

Dennis BauerDec. 21, 2012 - 04:01PM JST

Off course the Faultline is inactive, until the next Earthquake!
-2

Kazuaki ShimazakiDec. 21, 2012 - 04:14PM JST

Now, now, let's chill. I agree the way things are looking the plant shouldn't be reopened, but let's not blast Tohoku too much. They understandably don't want to lose their investment in the new 2005 plant, and the fact the old agency approved is one of the best cards they can play. Short of some outright proof the old guys flat out lied, the new agency will need to provide reasons for the change in decision.
-5

basroilDec. 21, 2012 - 04:35PM JST

DisillusionedDec. 21, 2012 - 02:00PM JST

The whole country moved two meters last year

True, but completely irrelevant

and sank half a meter in the 3/11 quake.

False, an area twice the size of Tokyo did, but in the Tohoku area, not Tokai. And that's only an average, some places had less and others more.

How can they say that this area is safe and this area is not?

It's called science. They use information on the shape of the area, locations from where there can be shaking, and math to know order of magnitude chances that something will happen. No place is 100% safe, but you can find places that are safe to within an issue every million years. Not perfect, but pretty damn good.

Science cannot predict where,

It can, quite accurately with enough samples. Areas on land tend to be much more accurate than those at sea.

when

It doesn't need to, because risk assessments are never done that way. You only need probabilities, and those can be found well enough that as long as the necessary precautions are taken, the chances for problems outside those expected are minimal.

or the magnitude of earthquakes.

They are pretty good at predicting the expected size of quakes within a magnitude. Every once in a while their data is wrong, but even so, everything is built to withstand more than expected anyway.

The issue with science isn't the science, it's people ignoring it. That's what happened last time, and at least this time they are taking it more seriously (though still ignoring science, this time overestimating all the problems).
0

billyshearsDec. 21, 2012 - 06:32PM JST

Almost certainly older than 35000 years the rest of the world uses

Are there any nuclear power plants in other countries that have been constructed directly over known earthquake faults (no matter how old they are)? Surprisingly...yes! In the U.S.! The first link is very interesting as VEPCO can be compared to TEPCO!

<http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/11/building-nuclear-power-plant-fault-still-not-great-idea > http://www.sott.net/article/225939-15-Nuclear-Reactors-on-New-Madrid-Fault-Line

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/10-riskiest-nuclear-power-plants-in-america.html
0

billyshearsDec. 21, 2012 - 06:33PM JST

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/11/building-nuclear-power-plant-fault-still-not-great-idea
0

billyshearsDec. 21, 2012 - 06:43PM JST

@basroil. Actually your quoted figure of 35,000 years is not quite accurate. Reading the regulations from the NRC in the US, it states:

(1) Movement at or near the ground surface at least once within the past 35,000 years or movement of a recurring nature within the past 500,000 years.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part100/full-text.html
1

billyshearsDec. 21, 2012 - 06:58PM JST

@basroil...sorry I've just noticed you did mention 500, 000 years.
-4

basroilDec. 21, 2012 - 07:52PM JST

billyshearsDec. 21, 2012 - 06:58PM JST

sorry I've just noticed you did mention 500, 000 years.

Happens. This is the second such article I mentioned it in, so I got a bit lazy and just skipped to the conclusion without the drawn out discussion about it.
0

warnerbroDec. 22, 2012 - 12:11AM JST

"Not perfect, but pretty damn good." What proponents of nuclear power are calling "science" is an invention of the Cold War, and as such has consistently been a political tool. We saw how well it worked in 2011. Maybe it's time to stop believing in fortune tellers who stand to profit from their own predictions and start using maths, geology, physics. The reason that the scientific diagnoses are changing so drastically now is that this is the first time science has been applied to these issues in Japan. These blokes made an extremely poor political decision based on wishful thinking, not science.
1

warnerbroDec. 22, 2012 - 11:27PM JST

Here's what science told us about the possibility for severe earthquakes on the Sanriku coastline (which has had 3 horrific tsunamis since 1896) before the 2011 tsunami that contributed to the Fukushima nuclear plant melt through incidents:

去年３月の巨大地震で震度６弱以上の激しい揺れに襲われた東北地方では２年前に公表された確率で、仙台市が４％、福島市が０．９％、盛岡市が０．７％で確率の数値がほかの地域と比べて高くはありませんでした。

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20121221/k10014357771000.html

Scientific predictions for an earthquake of "weak 6" or stronger were extremely small. Seismology is far from perfect, and given this history, I'd say we'd better prepare for the worst scenario imaginable and add 10%. What that would cost is the true cost of nuclear power in Japan.
-2

basroilDec. 23, 2012 - 12:39AM JST

warnerbroDec. 22, 2012 - 11:27PM JST

Scientific predictions for an earthquake of "weak 6" or stronger were extremely small.

Well, you can always get funny results when people ignore science like you do. Statistical models don't "predict", rather analyze the probability of an event. If you were to compare the science to gambling, science would be the 50% probability you have a pair, and your crazy make believe analysis is going all in on that because "it's got to happen if my odds are that high". Statistical probabilities are just that, probabilities, and sometimes you draw the short straw and get something that was perfectly possible but incredibly unlikely.

Just so you know, there have been exactly five magnitude 9 events worldwide since 1900, and a thousand times more of every other type of major (7 and up) quake. M9 quakes are exceedingly rare and very oddly spaced compared to others (6.5 or so is once a week, 7.5 or so twice a month, 8+ twice a year, 9+ once a decade or two, though nothing between 1964 and 2004)