Residents appeal court decision to restart Sendai nuclear reactors

I can't beleive and am sad to see only 12 filing the appeal. I would think it would be in the tens of thousands!

Authority have underestimated the risk of nearby volcanoes and operational plans lack credible evacuation measures, Fuji TV reported. They also say the plant is not strong enough to withstand an earthquake as powerful as the one that struck on March 11, 2011.

Yeah, but that has nothing to do with it. It's only about money!

They also say the plant is not strong enough to withstand an earthquake as powerful as the one that struck on March 11, 2011.

Japan has the real world evidence of the Onagawa nuclear power station, 60 kilometers closer to the epicenter than DaiIchi and able to withstand the March 11th quake. It should not be difficult to determine if this claim has any basis just by comparing the engineering and design standards of the Sendai plant with those in place at Onagawa and seeing if they measure up to the same standards. As for volcanoes, this article does not give any details on what the alleged risks are, but if the suit mentions the Aira Caldera and/or 40 km. pyroclastic flows as previous claims about the dangers of the Sendai Plants have, then the residents are facing exponentially bigger problems and dangers than a nuclear accident and should evacuate immediately!

They never listen to what the people say - they only hear their "wallets" calling them...

Guy_Jean_DailleultMay. 07, 2015 - 08:03AM JST Japan has the real world evidence of the Onagawa nuclear power station, 60 kilometers closer to the epicenter than DaiIchi and able to withstand the March 11th quake.

Firstly, Fukushima Daiichi was taken out by a combination of a tsunami and a glaring design flaw as a result of penny-pinching during construction. A comparison of the relative damage between the sites would be meaningless.

Secondly, earthquake damage is cumulative, and buildings do not heal. Like metal fatigue everything is working just fine until suddenly something breaks catastrophically. The Onagawa nuclear power station is over 30 years old, and TEPCO has a well-documented record of cutting corners on both construction and maintenance.

Thirdly, Onagawa nuclear power station was only able to withstand the tsunami because ONE engineer during the construction dug his heels in and wanted a 14 meter tsunami wall, which was a major factor in the plant surviving. None of the other engineers would speak up, and this culture of silence by experts who should know better is endemic to Japan.

In conclusion, you have a company that cuts corners on maintenance, experts who are afraid to speak up and old nuclear power plants. That's not a good combination. While there may be a few plants that are able to be restarted safely (and Onagawa is probably one of them) no-one should be pointing to these exceptions and trying to misrepresent them as the rule.

@Frungy You are correct that the Fukushima Daiichi accident was caused by cutting corners on both construction and maintenence by TEPCO. However, the Onagawa plant was not operated by Tokyo Electric, it was operated by Tohoku Electric. During initial construction Tohoku Electric did not lower the land levels to save on construction costs, built a wall far higher than what was estimated necessary at the time, and as knowledge in seismology and about tsunamis advanced they made the appropriate upgrades. For those reasons they had no accident. This appeal claims that the Sendai plants can't withstand M9.0 earthquakes, not that all Japanese people and companies are too stupid to be able to operate a nuclear plant safely (although that is always the unstated impression the anti-nuclear movement tries to leave). So, it is totally appropriate to evaluate claims that some nuclear power plants can't withstand a M9 earthquake by comparing them with plants that did. If they want to make the too stupid claim that is a whole other question.

Guy_Jean_DailleultMay. 07, 2015 - 08:03AM JST

but if the suit mentions the Aira Caldera and/or 40 km. pyroclastic flows as previous claims about the dangers of the Sendai Plants have, then the residents are facing exponentially bigger problems and dangers than a nuclear accident and should evacuate immediately!

The land devastated by volcanic actions may be habitable in a couple of years, but the land contaminated by nuclear waste may not be habitable for more than 100 years.

They also say the plant is not strong enough to withstand an earthquake as powerful as the one that struck on March 11, 2011

I find this an unhelpful statement. Surely it's the intensity of the earthquake at the location of the nuclear plant that should be of concern. A plant might survive an M9 earthquake that occurs 100 kilometers away but will it survive an M7 earthquake 25 kilometers away? Sorry if this seems like nitpicking, but to my mind it weakens their case by focusing on the Tohoku earthquake as a measure of earthquake resitance.

"They also say the plant is not strong enough to withstand an earthquake as powerful as the one that struck on March 11, 2011" well it obviously did ! and its survived many other earth tremors and earth quakes since it was built years ago. so its a pretty shallow argument, so they would be better off saying something, somewhere might happen, at some stage in the future,

Guy_Jean_DailleultMay. 07, 2015 - 10:23AM JST @Frungy You are correct that the Fukushima Daiichi accident was caused by cutting corners on both construction and maintenence by TEPCO. However, the Onagawa plant was not operated by Tokyo Electric, it was operated by Tohoku Electric. During initial construction Tohoku Electric did not lower the land levels to save on construction costs, built a wall far higher than what was estimated necessary at the time, and as knowledge in seismology and about tsunamis advanced they made the appropriate upgrades.

I take your point, but I'd like to point out that the Onagawa plant's upgrades are the result of the one engineer's refusal to compromise, not the actions of Tohoku Electric as a whole. Since the lone voice of sanity has gone Tohoku Electric has continued to operate a reactor near an increasingly active volcanic site.

Does one need any more reason to question Tohoku Electric's commitment to safety?

@ cutting corners on both construction and maintenence by TEPCO.

So nobody is punished for this? Bad karma builds...

The land devastated by volcanic actions may be habitable in a couple of years, but the land contaminated by nuclear waste may not be habitable for more than 100 years.

That is a very debatable point on both counts, but also irrelevant in this case. The appeal has been launched by "residents", and while it is not specified what level of risk they are claiming in the appeal, if they are the same risks that have been claimed by anti-nuclear groups such as Greenpeace and reported in the Japanese media, the residents will all be dead. Making worrying about the potential nuclear accident a pretty pointless exercise.

Guy_Jean_DailleultMay. 07, 2015 - 10:00PM JST

The land devastated by volcanic actions may be habitable in a couple of years, but the land contaminated by nuclear waste may not be habitable for more than 100 years.

That is a very debatable point on both counts, but also irrelevant in this case. The appeal has been launched by "residents", and while it is not specified what level of risk they are claiming in the appeal, if they are the same risks that have been claimed by anti-nuclear groups such as Greenpeace and reported in the Japanese media, the residents will all be dead. Making worrying about the potential nuclear accident a pretty pointless exercise.

Lava flows generally only move about 8km/hr at the fastest (yes, there have been some cases where channeled lava moved up to 55km/hr, but these are highly unusual). 8km/hr. Assuming even a modest warning the residents of the area could probably just briskly walk away and they'd be okay. The assumption that a volcanic eruption would kill everyone is ... well, ridiculous. Would there be some casualties? Almost certainly. Would everyone die? No.

The nuclear power plant? Walking away isn't an option for large buildings, and even an emergency shut down system takes time. The nuclear power plant isn't lava-proof and there's a plausible risk that it would be unable to shut down completely before key systems were damaged, resulting in a melt-down.

And that's the bottom line. It is just pure idiocy to place a nuclear reactor next to an active volcano.

Frungy

Lava flows generally only move about 8km/hr at the fastest (yes, there have been some cases where channeled lava moved up to 55km/hr, but these are highly unusual). 8km/hr. Assuming even a modest warning the residents of the area could probably just briskly walk away and they'd be okay. The assumption that a volcanic eruption would kill everyone is ... well, ridiculous. Would there be some casualties? Almost certainly. Would everyone die? No.

Pyroclastic flows?

The nuclear power plant? Walking away isn't an option for large buildings, and even an emergency shut down system takes time. The nuclear power plant isn't lava-proof and there's a plausible risk that it would be unable to shut down completely before key systems were damaged, resulting in a melt-down.

Lava-proof? How is the lava going to get from the nearest active volcano, Mt Unzen, to the Sendai Plant? Take a bus over the mountains?

It'll get carried on the antinuclearhighway.

The one that defies logic, science and common sense but thrives on fear.

The assumption that a volcanic eruption would kill everyone is ... well, ridiculous.

The claims that have been made since the Ontake eruption have not been about lava flows, they have been that Sendai can not be opened because of the danger of a pyroclastic flow from one of the Kyushu volcanoes, and also its proximity to the Aira Caldera. A pyroplastic flow would kill everybody in its path and there would be no chance of escape, and an eruption of the caldera likely would kill everybody in Japan. Worrying about the danger of radiation leakage due to the possibility of the most catastrophic cataclysm in human history occurring is frankly pretty screwed up. As for just regular, everyday eruptions nobody has bothered to explain HOW volcanic ash would make nuclear plants meltdown. Just more crazed science fiction like Naoto Kan's multiple meltdowns Tokyo evacuation nonsense.

Residents appeal court decision to restart Sendai nuclear reactors

Good luck with that