6 ms·

Power plant executives to face Fukushima charges for first time

42 points by janisS 11y ago

shernan111 11y ago
About time.
baseballmerpeak 11y ago
NOVA's documentary on Fukushima [1] is a very informative watch and shows the immense challenges faced by TEPCO. I don't think they will be convicted. [1] - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/nuclear-disaster.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/nuclear-disaster.html
- stcredzero 11y ago
  The blame should not be with the operators, but with decision makers who signed off on a fatally flawed plant design. Really, you'd think it was common sense: if you absolutely need these generators in case of a disaster, like a flood, don't put the generators and their gear/infrastructure at a lower flood level! Much the same mistake was repeated many times in Houston, and came to light after Hurricane Ike. Other things that came to light that were shown in the video: Completely passive backup cooling systems that were dependent on actively-actuated valves for proper functioning. (Should have defaulted open in case of a power failure.) Dependence on sensors that would fail without power. Dependence on sensors that would provide dangerously misleading readings in precisely the most dangerous situation. (Water already boiled away) I think it's a good video to watch if you are doing operations of any kind that requires worst-case thinking and planning.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    In hindsight it is obvious, but at the time of construction, you would have to justify spending money to protect against both a 9.0 earthquake (pretty rare) and a tsunami larger than one ever recorded at the same time. Which can only happen if you have the 9.0 quake right off your coastline. At the time the plants were built, there was no geologist on the planet that believed Japan could even have a 9.0 quake, or a 30 meter tsunami (which you needed the quake for anyway). Thus, at the time, the plant was over designed for all possible scenarios.
    - WalterBright 11y ago
      The faults could have been corrected at only minor cost.
    - gizmo686 11y ago
      This is why defense in depth is important. Even without anticipating a 9.0 earthquake, they could have anticipated that their floodwalls would fail for an unspecified reason, and desighned the plant to be resiliant to flooding in the event of flood wall failure.
  - WalterBright 11y ago
    Common sense isn't common. But the issues you mention (and others) have been solved by the aviation industry. Nuke plants and the Deepwater Horizon oil rig could have benefited immensely from consultation with airframe engineers. A lot of those faults that doomed them could have been inexpensively corrected. I always remember the backup generators in New Orleans that were put in the basements. Precisely the time you'd need the backup generators was when the basements were flooding. Oops.
mrschwabe 11y ago
The article indicates that Fukushima was the "world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986" but let's not beat around the bush, by now many of us have come to the conclusion that this is the worst nuclear disaster ever as the distrubing ecosystem collapse [1] currently underway in the Pacific Ocean would seem to confirm. When Chernobyl had its meltdown, they weren't pumping up to 400 tons of radioactive waste into an ocean every single day [2]. Either way, am surprised but delighted to see the Washington Post bring the issue to the forefront today. [1] http://enenews.com/govt-official-chilling-report-pacific-ocean-silence-seas-very-very http://enenews.com/govt-official-chilling-report-pacific-oce... [2] http://tass.ru/en/world/759657 http://tass.ru/en/world/759657
- tptacek 11y ago
  There are 187000000000000 million gallons of water in the Pacific Ocean, meaning that "radioactive waste" is 2.1 x 10^-10% of the body of water itself. The waste we're talking about is HTO --- tritiated water --- which is a low-energy beta emitter that has intrinsically low bioavailability, because it is literally just water and is eliminated quickly. Before developing an opinion about how terrifying this radiation leak is, a good number to have handy --- exercise for the reader --- is over the 12 year half life of tritium, assuming 400 gallons pumped into the ocean every day, for 4384 days, what percentage of the background radiation of the Pacific ocean are we talking about elevating it to? Another number, which will not make you feel better about the world, is what elevation to background radiation is produced by the coal plants it would take to offset all the power produced by nukes. Finally: if you believe that HTO leaks from TEPCO are, or are going to be, responsible for mass die-offs of marine life, you're going to have to account for the fact that we basically carpet-bombed the oceans with HTO during the insane nuclear weapons testing of the 1960s; nothing TEPCO is doing will come close.
  - mrschwabe 11y ago
    In an attempt to grasp how toxic the water is, wouldn't it be more effective to measure levels of cesium 137 instead of overall background radiation? I don't care what background radiation the entire Pacific has, I care if the sushi I'm eating has ionized, cancer-causing particles in it. "Michio Aoyama’s initial findings were more startling than most. As a senior scientist at the Japanese government’s Meteorological Research Institute, he said levels of radioactive cesium 137 in the surface water of the Pacific Ocean could be 10,000 times as high as contamination after Chernobyl..." http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/concerns-over-measurement-of-fukushima-fallout.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/concerns-over-m...
ohitsdom 11y ago
Wow, the concept of citizens' panels sounds awesome. I wish we had something similar in the US. It's the perfect solution for dealing with police shootings, where prosecutors are reluctant to indict an officer (since they need to work closely with police in their everyday work).
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  On the other hand, japan also has the concept of "guilty until proven innocent". I don't know if and how it applies in this case, but you might be making a monkey paw wish there.
- baseballmerpeak 11y ago
  A pre-trial in the court of public opinion? I thought that is the purpose of grand juries. After all, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. (Though not all pork, evidently) On one hand, it's a massive waste of judicial bandwidth. On the other, it's an effective check on the coziness between AGs, DAs, and law enforcement organizations.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    The difference seems to be that a US grand jury can indict on a prosecutors motion (and even, IIRC, in certain cases independently), but no one is obligated to prosecute based on an indictment once it is issued (obviously, one sought by a prosecutor will probably usually be followed up on by that prosecutor.) But, from the description in the article, when a citizens' panel finds that charges should be issued after a prosecutor has decided not to prosecute, the case is reopened by prosecutors. Assuming this isn't just a reconsideration where the prosecutor can again decide not to actually prosecute the charges, this is a fairly substantial difference.
  - tedunangst 11y ago
    Isn't this the role fulfilled by Nancy Grace? When she decides somebody needs to be prosecuted, she talks about it on her show until charges are filed. (And then pronounces the defendant guilty.)
  - 11y ago
kazinator 11y ago
Can someone kindly explain how the photo of Norio Kimura and its caption relates to the article?
- yellowapple 11y ago
  I was wondering the same thing. It feels like the article is implicitly blaming the Fukushima meltdown for the tsunami somehow.
marze 11y ago
The people who lived near the plants lost everything, perhaps 80000 of them. I'm not sure what became of them, but I'm pretty sure no one came up and said, here is a check for the fair market value of your property. It was more like, you can live in this cardboard cubical in this community center now. I'm sure they've moved on by now. I'm sort of surprised they weren't treated better. All of the nuclear reactors in Japan are shut down now, and the financial interests would like to see them turned on. But how do you expect public support with 80000 refugees from the meltdowns that are grumpy about it?
- WalterBright 11y ago
  Global warming will cause far worse problems than Fukushima did.

42 points by janisS 11y ago

About time.

NOVA's documentary on Fukushima [1] is a very informative watch and shows the immense challenges faced by TEPCO. I don't think they will be convicted. [1] - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/nuclear-disaster.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/nuclear-disaster.html

stcredzero 11y ago
The blame should not be with the operators, but with decision makers who signed off on a fatally flawed plant design. Really, you'd think it was common sense: if you absolutely need these generators in case of a disaster, like a flood, don't put the generators and their gear/infrastructure at a lower flood level! Much the same mistake was repeated many times in Houston, and came to light after Hurricane Ike. Other things that came to light that were shown in the video: Completely passive backup cooling systems that were dependent on actively-actuated valves for proper functioning. (Should have defaulted open in case of a power failure.) Dependence on sensors that would fail without power. Dependence on sensors that would provide dangerously misleading readings in precisely the most dangerous situation. (Water already boiled away) I think it's a good video to watch if you are doing operations of any kind that requires worst-case thinking and planning.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  In hindsight it is obvious, but at the time of construction, you would have to justify spending money to protect against both a 9.0 earthquake (pretty rare) and a tsunami larger than one ever recorded at the same time. Which can only happen if you have the 9.0 quake right off your coastline. At the time the plants were built, there was no geologist on the planet that believed Japan could even have a 9.0 quake, or a 30 meter tsunami (which you needed the quake for anyway). Thus, at the time, the plant was over designed for all possible scenarios.
  - WalterBright 11y ago
    The faults could have been corrected at only minor cost.
  - gizmo686 11y ago
    This is why defense in depth is important. Even without anticipating a 9.0 earthquake, they could have anticipated that their floodwalls would fail for an unspecified reason, and desighned the plant to be resiliant to flooding in the event of flood wall failure.
- WalterBright 11y ago
  Common sense isn't common. But the issues you mention (and others) have been solved by the aviation industry. Nuke plants and the Deepwater Horizon oil rig could have benefited immensely from consultation with airframe engineers. A lot of those faults that doomed them could have been inexpensively corrected. I always remember the backup generators in New Orleans that were put in the basements. Precisely the time you'd need the backup generators was when the basements were flooding. Oops.

mrschwabe 11y ago

The article indicates that Fukushima was the "world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986" but let's not beat around the bush, by now many of us have come to the conclusion that this is the worst nuclear disaster ever as the distrubing ecosystem collapse [1] currently underway in the Pacific Ocean would seem to confirm. When Chernobyl had its meltdown, they weren't pumping up to 400 tons of radioactive waste into an ocean every single day [2]. Either way, am surprised but delighted to see the Washington Post bring the issue to the forefront today. [1] http://enenews.com/govt-official-chilling-report-pacific-ocean-silence-seas-very-very http://enenews.com/govt-official-chilling-report-pacific-oce... [2] http://tass.ru/en/world/759657 http://tass.ru/en/world/759657

tptacek 11y ago
There are 187000000000000 million gallons of water in the Pacific Ocean, meaning that "radioactive waste" is 2.1 x 10^-10% of the body of water itself. The waste we're talking about is HTO --- tritiated water --- which is a low-energy beta emitter that has intrinsically low bioavailability, because it is literally just water and is eliminated quickly. Before developing an opinion about how terrifying this radiation leak is, a good number to have handy --- exercise for the reader --- is over the 12 year half life of tritium, assuming 400 gallons pumped into the ocean every day, for 4384 days, what percentage of the background radiation of the Pacific ocean are we talking about elevating it to? Another number, which will not make you feel better about the world, is what elevation to background radiation is produced by the coal plants it would take to offset all the power produced by nukes. Finally: if you believe that HTO leaks from TEPCO are, or are going to be, responsible for mass die-offs of marine life, you're going to have to account for the fact that we basically carpet-bombed the oceans with HTO during the insane nuclear weapons testing of the 1960s; nothing TEPCO is doing will come close.
- mrschwabe 11y ago
  In an attempt to grasp how toxic the water is, wouldn't it be more effective to measure levels of cesium 137 instead of overall background radiation? I don't care what background radiation the entire Pacific has, I care if the sushi I'm eating has ionized, cancer-causing particles in it. "Michio Aoyama’s initial findings were more startling than most. As a senior scientist at the Japanese government’s Meteorological Research Institute, he said levels of radioactive cesium 137 in the surface water of the Pacific Ocean could be 10,000 times as high as contamination after Chernobyl..." http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/concerns-over-measurement-of-fukushima-fallout.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/concerns-over-m...

ohitsdom 11y ago

Wow, the concept of citizens' panels sounds awesome. I wish we had something similar in the US. It's the perfect solution for dealing with police shootings, where prosecutors are reluctant to indict an officer (since they need to work closely with police in their everyday work).

Mithaldu 11y ago
On the other hand, japan also has the concept of "guilty until proven innocent". I don't know if and how it applies in this case, but you might be making a monkey paw wish there.
baseballmerpeak 11y ago
A pre-trial in the court of public opinion? I thought that is the purpose of grand juries. After all, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. (Though not all pork, evidently) On one hand, it's a massive waste of judicial bandwidth. On the other, it's an effective check on the coziness between AGs, DAs, and law enforcement organizations.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  The difference seems to be that a US grand jury can indict on a prosecutors motion (and even, IIRC, in certain cases independently), but no one is obligated to prosecute based on an indictment once it is issued (obviously, one sought by a prosecutor will probably usually be followed up on by that prosecutor.) But, from the description in the article, when a citizens' panel finds that charges should be issued after a prosecutor has decided not to prosecute, the case is reopened by prosecutors. Assuming this isn't just a reconsideration where the prosecutor can again decide not to actually prosecute the charges, this is a fairly substantial difference.
- tedunangst 11y ago
  Isn't this the role fulfilled by Nancy Grace? When she decides somebody needs to be prosecuted, she talks about it on her show until charges are filed. (And then pronounces the defendant guilty.)
- 11y ago

kazinator 11y ago

Can someone kindly explain how the photo of Norio Kimura and its caption relates to the article?

yellowapple 11y ago
I was wondering the same thing. It feels like the article is implicitly blaming the Fukushima meltdown for the tsunami somehow.

marze 11y ago

The people who lived near the plants lost everything, perhaps 80000 of them. I'm not sure what became of them, but I'm pretty sure no one came up and said, here is a check for the fair market value of your property. It was more like, you can live in this cardboard cubical in this community center now. I'm sure they've moved on by now. I'm sort of surprised they weren't treated better. All of the nuclear reactors in Japan are shut down now, and the financial interests would like to see them turned on. But how do you expect public support with 80000 refugees from the meltdowns that are grumpy about it?

WalterBright 11y ago
Global warming will cause far worse problems than Fukushima did.