The "more political thread" besides "Japan Earthquake: nuclear plants" scientific one

Yamanote

Indeed, looks like a kind of "Three Wise Monkeys" syndrome:

etudiant

I think that is not right.
The reality is that Japan had a disaster which could not be averted or mitigated in any meaningful way.
Sure, they could have evacuated Tokyo... where to and for how long?? At what cost in human lives and ruined communities?

It seems to me that Japan has managed this debacle rather well, the country is functioning again, after the worst double whammy in a millenium and the problems are really pretty minimal, at most claimed to be a few percent increase in the eventual cancer rate in a society where cancer is eventually found in half the population already.
Would we do as well if the Ramapo fault caused a serious problem with the Indian Point reactors just up the river from NYC?

zapperzero

You're kinda sorta missing the point here. It could very well have become necessary to evacuate Tokyo. Upon learning this fact, the J-gov promptly buried it. THEY DID NOTHING.

Compare and contrast:

There was about a company-size element of CBIRF (IRF-A) sent to Tokyo to cover the evacuation of the US embassy, should it become necessary. It was withdrawn (to a US army base in Japan iirc), then sent again, then withdrawn again. They never set foot in Fukushima, because, regardless of what you read on the news, those guys are not aid workers; they are marines, there to shoot people and break things. Families of military and diplomatic personnel were evacuated, private US citizens told in no uncertain terms to evacuate a huge area around the NPP, pack up and stick close to airports... the US was preparing for the worst case scenario.

What did the J-gov do to prepare for significant fallout in Tokyo and the Kanto region? For a country cut in half by a radioactive wasteland?

Sure, worst did not come to worst and the SFPs did not boil dry. But this is not proof of good management.

clancy688

Well, perhaps some kind of advanced fatalism:

"In the worst case, we're done for. Not anything we could do to manage THIS. Therefore we won't waste our time with preparing for an emergency which can't be prepared for."

zapperzero

I wouldn't want my government thinking like that.

etudiant

It is simply that even preparing for an evacuation during a crisis has massive bad consequences.
Any plan to evacuate would automatically spur individuals to act to front run the rush, with chaos not far behind. The US had the luxury of needing to deal with a relative handful of people, whereas the Japanese government had to weigh its actions knowing at least 30 million concerned citizens were watching everything it said or did.
I agree there should now be a more forceful set of emergency measures plans set up and practiced for Tokyo, if only because a large earthquake there seems a sure thing, but imho it invites a panic to start to plan for unprecedented actions in the midst of a disaster.

Yamanote

I would relate the statement from Caniche more to what happened BEFORE the accident. Or better what DID NOT happen before the accident for some reason, especially the preparation with respect to flooding by a Tsunami.

And it is quite evident, that this risk was not addressed as it should have been. Maybe it was money TEPCO wanted to save, maybe it was just carelessness, I don't want to guess about the reasons and the outcome is always the same anyway. Once the damage is done, it is too late.

If you are the owner of an NPP, you have to ensure that
1.) the plant will not loose electric power supply
2.) if electric power is lost, the reactor cooling doesn't fail
3.) if it fails anyway, venting and freshwater injection can be accomplished

They were not prepared for this kind of accident accordingly and they failed in all these points, as the Tsunami knocked out the plant completely.

By the way, currently only three reactors are in service in Japan...

etudiant

Clearly there has been a reaction to this disaster, as the above statistic shows.
Logically one would expect much more of this, as I cannot imagine any Japanese political leader willing to be caught out this way again. How reform will be implemented however is apparently still a very unsettled question.
Unfortunately, the US press offers no insight into Japanese decision making. In fact, our press does not even know the topics under discussion, much less the alternatives being weighted.

Caniche

Have no fear ,I'm sure that next time,just like last time ,we will have learnt all the relevant lessons and the causes of disaster will be entirely new and totally unpredictable

etudiant

Just as in medicine, where miracle drugs produce miracle bugs.
It is always the problem you did not anticipate that gets you. That said, it is disappointing that TEPCO did not adequately address even the anticipated problems.

jim hardy

Progress has come generally from painful lessons.
Engineering magazines from 1880's are full of bridge collapses and boiler explosions.

Technology gets better.

Human Nature probably does too..

Somebody decided Titanic's watertight doors needn't go all way to main deck despite her intended use, plying icy waters at high speed..

a hundred years later somebody decided those electrical rooms in the basement didnt need watertight doors despite new findings about local tidal waves.

Memo to Western Civilization: we're old enough to know better.

Caniche

Hang about, failure to anticipate a statistically predictable regular occurrence is just stoopid,which is more than disappointing . I mean,the old guard even stuck marked rocks at the maximum height of previous inundations. "How were we to know?" "look there's a stone that tell's you"

zapperzero

TEPCO posts losses equal to already received gov't bailout, asks gov't for more money.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...on-of-aid.html

zapperzero

I'll just leave this here, as I think the "management and government performance" thread kinda died and I don't feel like bumping it.

http://www.japan-cities.com/fukushim...hima-city.html

tsutsuji

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/feature/201...OYT1T01050.htm The Fukushima prefecture nuclear energy public relations organization has unanimously decided to dissolve. It was funded by Fukushima prefecture and 11 cities and towns. It published a magazine 4 times a year. They stopped their activity in March as their office is in the restricted zone in Ookuma town. They explain : "We have been doing public relations about nuclear safety, but with the Tokyo Electric Fukushima Daiichi plant accident, the prerequisite has collapsed".

LKofEnglish

First time poster. Came over from a site called Zero Hedge. Saw a story about potential recriticality at FD and thought I would chime in here first as my only nuclear experience came from studying Chemistry in HS. My question is this: how can anyone really expect to improve the situation without their being some purpose or reason to trust those who inform us? I have more to add but I would curious to hear what you all think about "disclosure after a nuclear accident." thanks.

zapperzero

TEPCO has been doing a lot of heel-dragging, blame-shifting and general obfuscation.

But, the stuff that can be checked out by and large checks out - total radioactive release (source term) estimates they have published are consistent with (independently) observed contamination, for example. Results of the modeling TEPCO use to estimate core damage are also consistent with the observations and calculations others (including people on here) have made. Reported temperatures evolved as expected, by and large. And so on and so forth.

So, it would appear that whatever data is being made public can be trusted. That's not to say that everything that should be made public was or is.