[NukeNet] Japan Nuke Plant Leak Worse Than Thought

[Bill Smirnow]

  >''To be honest, it's a mess,'' said company President Tsunehisa Katsumata

   A mess?  A potential catastrophe is more accurate. Let's all keep our
eyes on this one and remember the watered down Sandia Labs CRAC-2 Report
from 1980:  http://www.mothersalert.org/crac.html   Years ago I tried to
find a Japanese study looking at those factors that CRAC-2 addresses but
have lost whatever I had with computer trouble. Is anyone ahare of such a
study[s]? If so can you please post it?

   -Bill Smirnow




    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-Quake.html
     Japan Nuke Plant Leak Worse Than Thought
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 18, 2007
Filed at 4:55 p.m. ET

KASHIWAZAKI, Japan (AP) -- An earthquake-wracked nuclear power plant was
ordered closed indefinitely Wednesday amid growing anger over revelations
that damage was much worse than initially announced and mounting
international concern about Japan's nuclear stewardship.

Toyota and other Japanese automakers, meanwhile, suspended production at
factories across the country because a major parts supplier sustained damage
from Monday's magnitude-6.8 quake, which killed 10 people and left tens of
thousands without power or water.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. warned that the nuclear plant shutdown could lead
to power shortages in Japan. It has asked six other power companies to
consider providing emergency electricity to prepare for rising demand from
summer air conditioning, spokesman Hiroshi Itagaki said.

The mayor of Kashiwazaki, a city of 93,500 on the northern coast, called in
the head of the nation's biggest power company and ordered the damaged
nuclear station closed until its safety could be confirmed, escalating a
showdown over a long list of problems at the world's most powerful
generating plant.

''I am worried,'' Mayor Hiroshi Aida said in ordering the closure. ''The
safety of the plant must be assured before it is reopened.''

Officials at Tokyo Electric, operator of the plant, said damage caused by
the quake posed no danger to people or the environment.

But damage was widely visible on the site, from cracked roads and buckled
sidewalks to the charred outside wall of an electrical transformer building
that caught fire.

''To be honest, it's a mess,'' said company President Tsunehisa Katsumata,
but he insisted fears of radioactive contamination were unfounded.

That did little to calm anger over the company's slow revelations of damage
at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, which generates 8.2 million kilowatts of
electricity. The plant, like much of the nuclear industry in Japan, has been
plagued with mishaps, such as a radioactive leak in a turbine room in 2001.

On Tuesday, the utility shocked the nation by releasing a list of dozens of
problems triggered by the quake, after earlier reporting only the
transformer fire and a small leak of radioactive water.

The new list of problems included the transformer fire, broken pipes, water
leaks and spills of radioactive waste. It also said the leak of radioactive
water into the Sea of Japan was 50 percent bigger than announced Monday
night.

''We made a mistake in calculating the amount that leaked into the ocean,''
the company said in a statement. Spokesman Jun Oshima said the amount was
still ''one-billionth of Japan's legal limit.''

Even that list had to be revised. Tokyo Electric said later Wednesday that
about 400 barrels containing low-level nuclear waste had tipped over at a
storage facility at the plant during the quake, revising an earlier figure
of 100.

The impact from falling knocked the lids off about 40 barrels, spilling
their contents onto the floor, spokesman Tsutomu Uehara told reporters in
Tokyo. Uehara said no radiation had been detected outside the facility.

Concerns about nuclear safety echoed across Japan, which depends on 55
reactors for about 30 percent of its electricity needs.

''Japan has a dense population so the human damage would be major here.
There would be many deaths,'' Hideyuki Ban, a director of the civil group
Citizen's Nuclear Information Center, told reporters. ''I think that a
quake-prone country should phase out its use of nuclear power.''

The International Atomic Energy Agency pressed Japan's government to
undertake a thorough investigation of the damage to see if lessons could be
applied to nuclear plants elsewhere.

Speaking in Malaysia, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei offered help from his
U.N. watchdog agency.

''I would hope, and I trust, that Japan would be fully transparent in its
investigation of that accident,'' he said. ''The agency would be ready to
join Japan through an international team in reviewing that accident and
drawing the necessary lessons.''

Katsumata, Tokyo Electric's president, said the company would thoroughly
study the impact of the earthquake.

''We will conduct an investigation from the ground up. But I think
fundamentally we have confirmed that our safety measures worked,'' he said.
''It is hard to make everything go perfectly.''

Yet, while Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries,
executives at the plant admitted they had not foreseen such a powerful
temblor hitting the facility.

The plant's deputy superintendent, Masakazu Minamidate, said the strongest
known quake in the region previously was a magnitude 6.5. ''This was
stronger than we expected,'' he said.

New data from aftershocks following Monday's offshore quake suggested a
fault line may run underneath the power plant itself, which was only 12
miles from the epicenter.

Minamidate said an onshore survey of fault lines had been completed, but not
one offshore. While it was unclear how close the fault line involved in the
quake is to the plant, Meteorological Agency official Osamu Kamigaichi said
it might stretch under the site.

Japan's Coast Guard said it would launch a study of the ocean floor off
Kashiwazaki starting Friday to better map fault lines in the area.

Repercussions from the quake also were felt in the business world.

The temporary closure of auto parts maker Riken Corp.'s plant at Kashiwazaki
forced Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co., Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and
Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. to scale back production.

Toyota, Japan's No. 1 automaker and challenging General Motors Corp. for
world leadership, will stop production lines at a dozen factories centered
in central Aichi prefecture Thursday afternoon and all day Friday, Toyota
spokesman Paul Nolasco said.

Several thousand Kashiwazaki residents remained in gymnasiums and civic
centers Wednesday night because their homes had either been destroyed or
damaged or because water service remained off.

Search teams pulled a 10th body from the rubble Wednesday night, and one man
was listed as missing.
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