Japanese nuclear plant deemed safe, nears restart

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-EXCITE

By MARI YAMAGUCHI

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese nuclear plant won preliminary approval for meeting stringent post-Fukushima safety regulations Wednesday, an important step toward restarting the country's first reactors under the tighter rules applied after the 2011 disaster.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority accepted a report that found the design upgrades and safety improvements at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s two reactors at the Sendai Nuclear Power Station have complied with the requirements introduced last July.

The regulators deemed the plant capable of avoiding severe accidents in situations equal to what occurred at Fukushima Dai-ichi, where an earthquake and tsunami critically damaged the plant, causing reactor meltdowns that released radiation into the nearby community. All of Japan's 48 remaining reactors are offline for safety checks and repairs since the 2011 disaster.

Five regulatory commissioners unanimously agreed to move to a next step, a 30-day technical public comment period beginning Thursday until Aug. 15 before a final approval.

FULL story at link.



Protesters shout slogans against a Japanese nuclear plant which won preliminary approval Wednesday for meeting stringent post-Fukushima safety requirements, near the Diet builidng in Tokyo, Wednesday, July 16, 2014. The Nuclear Regulation Authority gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a report that concludes that two reactors at Sendai Nuclear Power Station have complied with the new regulations and are capable of avoiding disasters such as the Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdowns, even if the plant faces equally harsh conditions. The placard at right reads: "Change energy policy!" (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140716/as--japan-nuclear-cc955fb83e.html

[Indydem]

1. Good. Science.

Fukushima was a tragedy, but a once in a lifetime event does not indicate a fundamental flaw in nuclear power.

[The Traveler]

2. I disagree

When the consequences are high enough, low probability events can still be legitimately described as too risky. If one discounts the waste storage problem (which is itself a significant issue), one can rightly say the nuclear power industry has done well at keeping the probability of containment violation events low ... but has failed to address mitigation of the consequences of failure. I assert that this represents a fundamental flaw in nuclear power.

There is so much conflicting data coming out of the Fukushima event that I am unwilling to make (or believe) any prediction regarding the scope of the consequences. Both TEPCO and the Japanese government can be faulted for a lack of transparency and a failure to manage assessment of the event's impacts and consequences. Their data collection techniques are also suspect, given that independent measurements often differ significantly from TEPCO's reports. That may indicate further dishonorable actions on the part of TEPCO, or (in my view more likely) may be indicative of the difficulty of obtaining good measurements in so wide a field.

That very difficulty is itself a cause for concern. After all this time, there is no scientific consensus on the probable impacts of the Fukushima event on the local and global ecosystems potentially affected. (Perhaps there is consensus in the nuclear power industry but that consensus certainly does not extend to other pertinent disciplines.)

Given these considerations and the rapid advance of solar power and related technologies in recent years, I question the cost effectiveness and risk/reward structure of nuclear power, and doubt the wisdom of continuing investment in the operation of that technology.

Trav

[capedownwinder]

3. Good? Science?

Fukushima IS a continuing tragedy......will continue to be so for centuries, likely, and tragic for millions of people. Once in a lifetime? It is a very, very fundamental flaw in nuclear power. And there are hundreds of plants that are vulnerable to the same devastating end and as many that are threatening our lives and our environment with it's toxic waste.

[MineralMan]

4. Bad? Science?

This is not a question of science at all. It is a question of policy. Nuclear power generation is not science, but technology, based on scientific information and built by technological corporations. To blame science for nuclear disasters is way off the mark.

Science gave us the knowledge needed to engineer nuclear power generation. Science is neutral. Technology is not necessarily neutral. By blaming science, you're on the wrong track.

[AndyTiedye]

6. I Think The Poster You Replied to Was Questioning The Claim That this WAS Science

The pro-nuke people always bellow, "SCIENCE", because the science that makes a nuke work is pretty well understood, even if the effects of the resulting radiation are far less so.
Engineers design them. The nukes in Fukushima were designed by engineers in the U.S., where the biggest earthquakes in living memory have been around 7.0, so that is what they designed for.

Japan has a different scale for earthquakes. Their 7.0 is a lot higher than our 7.0, more like a 9. Is it possible that something got lost in the translation?

Is it even possible to build nuclear power plants that can withstand a 9.0?

[Union Scribe]

7. "even if the effects of the resulting radiation are far less so"

Lol. No. We have extensive literature on the effects of radiation across a broad spectrum of doses and periods of time.

And btw as I recall the reactors there survived the earthquakes just fine. It was the tsunami that wiped out the emergency generators that began the problem.

[AndyTiedye]

8. Radiation Had Already Started to Spike BEFORE the Tsunami

We have extensive literature on the effects of radiation across a broad spectrum of doses and periods of time.

Not long enough periods of time.

as I recall the reactors there survived the earthquakes just fine. It was the tsunami that wiped out the emergency generators that began the problem.

That was how it was reported at first, but the radiation levels had already started to spike before the tsunami hit. At least one reactor vessel ruptured and was spewing radiation. After the tsunami hit, there were three. They're still spewing. Melted-down and probably somewhere under the reactor buildings by now, they will spew radiation for about half a million years.

[font color=red]PLUTONIUM IS FOREVER[/font]

[FBaggins]

9. Which doesn't mean what you appear to think it means.

Not long enough periods of time.

Nope... over a more than long enough period of time. There are many decades of research into the subject... with some studies running for 70 years and covering multiple generations.

That was how it was reported at first, but the radiation levels had already started to spike before the tsunami hit. At least one reactor vessel ruptured and was spewing radiation.

The second statement is either a conclusion you draw from the first... or an independent claim. If the later, it's flat wrong. So we'll assume the former.

Sorry... that simply doesn't follow. There was a very short-term spike and an alarm, but it doesn't therefore follow that the "reactor vessel ruptured". Such a rupture wouldn't result in a radiation spike at such low levels that rapidly went away - nor would the reactor vessel continue to hold pressure for so long. Other explanations make far more sense (even ignoring the possibility of a false alarm).

BWR turbine rooms have potential radiation hazards when the reactor is running that PWRs don't share because the steam used to run the turbines is also the primary coolant loop (again... when it's running). Some oxygen (in the water in the core) is constantly (if briefly) converted to radioactive nitrogen when the reactor is operating... so that radioactive nitrogen is part of the steam that runs through the turbine building. If a pipe or valve was damaged by the earthquake, the steam that was released would be very radioactive for a very short period of time (after which, the radioactive nitrogen would again be stable oxygen).

That fits the evidence much better than a fantasy claim that somehow the radiation came from a ruptured reactor vessel that magically stopped releasing radiation and held pressure.

[AndyTiedye]

5. Nukes Are Not Built to Withstand Really Big Earthquakes (8.0 and Above)

That is a fundamental flaw in building nukes in the most seismically active parts of the world.

The consequences of Fukushima will last more than a lifetime.
Even if the contamination can be contained to the area around Fukushima (which it is not),
a large amount of Japan's best farmland is lost forever, in a nation that already has far too little.

[font color=red]PLUTONIUM IS FOREVER.[/font]

[FBaggins]

10. Depends on what you mean by "withstand"

If a US reactor has a design basis requirement to withstand a 7.3 earthquake (as an example)... that means that it's designed to survive that level of quake essentially undamaged and be back in service (after inspections etc) some weeks/months later. A recent example is the pair of units at the North Anna plant in VA that were hit by a beyond-design-basis earthquake in 2011. They sustained little damage and returned to service 3-4 months later. Note also that there were other Japanese reactors closer to the epicenter that also exceeded their design basis for earthquakes... yet they had no trouble. It was the tsunami knocking out backup power that they "weren't built to withstand" - not the earthquake.

But they can "withstand" much more than that if we're talking about how much they can take before they release substantial amounts of radiation into the environment. There aren't many places on the planet that could plausibly have 8.0+ earthquakes, but reactors built near such places are certainly built to "withstand" that type of earthquake by this definition.

a large amount of Japan's best farmland is lost forever,

That's simply untrue. None of it will be "lost forever" since cesium is the primary contaminant and its half-life is too short - and very little of the impacted farmland is even in the areas that would take those multiple decades to recover.