The conclusion of a report of a Japanese parliamentary panel issued last week that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster was rooted in government-industry "collusion" and thus was "man-made" is mirrored throughout the world. The "regulatory capture" cited by the panel is the pattern among nuclear agencies right up to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"The Fukushima nuclear power plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and Tepco [Tokyo Electric Power Company, the owner of the six Fukushima plants] and the lack of governance by said parties," said the 641-page report of The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission released on July 5. "They effectively betrayed the nation's right to be safe from nuclear accidents. Therefore, we conclude that the accident was clearly 'man-made,'" said the report of the panel established by the National Diet or parliament of Japan.
"We believe the root causes were the organizational and regulatory system that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions," it went on. "Across the board, the commission found ignorance and arrogance unforgivable for anyone or any organization that deals with nuclear power." It said nuclear regulators in Japan and Tepco "all failed to correctly develop the most basic safety requirements."
The chairman of the 10-member panel, Kiyoshi Kurokawa, a medical doctor, declared in the report's introduction: "It was a profoundly man-made disaster -- that could and should have been foreseen and prevented."
He also placed blame on cultural traits in Japan. "What must be admitted -- very painfully," wrote Dr. Kurokawa, "is that this was a disaster 'Made in Japan.' Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture; our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to 'sticking with the programme'; our groupism; and our insularity."
In fact, the nuclear regulatory situation in Japan is the rule globally.
In the United States, for example, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, never denied a construction or operating license for a nuclear power plant anywhere, anytime. The NRC has been busy in recent times not only giving the go-ahead to new nuclear power plant construction in the U.S. but extending the operating licenses of most of the 104 existing plants from 40 to 60 years -- although they were only designed to run for 40 years. That's because radioactivity embrittles their metal components and degrades other parts after 40 years, potentially making the plants unsafe to operate. And the NRC is now considering extending their licenses for 80 years.
Moreover, the NRC's chairman, Gregory Jaczko, recently resigned in the face of an assault on him by the nuclear industry and his four fellow NRC members led by William D. Magwood, IV. Magwood is typical of most NRC and AEC commissioners through the decades -- a zealous promoter of nuclear power. He came to the NRC after running Advanced Energy Strategies through which he served as a consultant to various companies involved with nuclear power including many in Japan -- among them Tepco, as revealed by Ryan Grim on The Huffington Post.
Before that, Magwood served as director of nuclear energy for the U.S. Department of Energy. He "led the creation," according to his NRC biography, of DOE programs pushing nuclear power, "Nuclear Power 2010" and "Generation IV." Prior to that, he worked for the Edison Electric Institute and Westinghouse, a major nuclear power plant manufacturer.
Jaczko, although a supporter of nuclear power, with a Ph.D. in physics, repeatedly called for the NRC to apply "lessons learned" from the Fukushima disaster to its rules and actions -- upsetting the industry and the other four NRC commissioners. As Jaczko declared in February as the other four NRC commissioners first approved the construction of new nuclear plants since Fukushima, giving the go-ahead to two plants in Georgia: "I cannot support issuing this license as if Fukushima had never happened."
The NRC was set up to be an independent regulator of nuclear power to replace the AEC which was established by Congress under the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. The AEC was given the dual missions of promoting and regulating nuclear power -- a conflict of interest, Congress realized in 1974, so it eliminated the AEC and created the NRC as regulator and, later, the Department of Energy as promoter of nuclear power. But both the NRC and DOE have ended up pushing nuclear power with revolving doors between them and the government's national nuclear laboratories -- and the nuclear industry.
The International Atomic Energy Agency was established as an international version of the AEC by the United Nations after a speech made at it by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 in which he espoused "Atoms for Peace." Its dual missions are serving as a monitor of nuclear technology globally while also seeking "to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world."
Its first director general was Sterling Cole who as a U.S. congressman was a big booster of nuclear power. Later came Hans Blix after he led a move in his native Sweden against an effort to close nuclear plants there. Blix was outspoken in seeking to spread nuclear power internationally calling for "resolute response by government, acting individually or together as in the [IAE] Agency."
Blix's long-time IAEA second-in command was Morris Rosen -- formerly of the AEC and before that the nuclear division of General Electric (which manufactured the Fukushima plants) -- who said after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster: "There is very little doubt that nuclear power is a rather benign industrial enterprise and we may have to expect catastrophic accidents from time to time."
Mohamed ElBaradei of Egypt followed Blix, and as he told an "International Conference on Nuclear Power for the 21st Century" organized by the IAEA in 2005: "There is clearly a sense of rising expectations for nuclear power."
The current IAEA director general is Yukiya Amano of Japan. In Vienna at the heaquarters of the IAEA, marking the first anniversary of the Fukushima disaster in March, Amano said: "Nuclear power is now safer than it was a year ago."
Really.
Shuya Nomura, a member of the Japanese investigation commission and a professor at the Chuo Law School, was quoted in the New York Times as saying that the panel's report tried to "shed light on Japan's wider structural problems, on the pus that pervades Japanese society."
Those "wider structural problems" are far wider than Japan -- they are global. The "regulatory capture" cited in the Japanese panel's report has occurred all over the world -- with the nuclear industry and those promoting nuclear power in governments making sure that the nuclear foxes are in charge of the nuclear hen houses. The "pus that pervades Japanese society" is international.
With some very important exceptions, people have not adequately taken on the nuclear authorities. And we all must. The nuclear promoters have set up a corrupt system to enable them to get their way with their deadly technology. They have lied, they have connived, they have distorted governments. The nuclear industry is thus allowed to do whatever it wants. The nuclear pushers must be firmly challenged and they and nuclear power must be stopped.
Notice how it refuses to deal with rooftop solar AND wind AND underground heatpump AND conservation/efficiency as one thing. It always separates solar out, because it knows that the Big 4, working together, can defeat any Big Corporate Emplacement of anything, nuclear, solar, wind, whatever.
They cannot deal with these facts so the name-call me "name-caller" as if I hadn't called them on their sham pndring.
Data released by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and a leaked analysis by Southern California Edison provide some new insights into the situation at the San Onofre nuclear plant.
The data released by the NRC showed that a total of 3401 tubes in the Unit 2 and Unit 3 reactors-- 8.7% of the 38,908 total tubes in the plant's four steam generators -- had shown some signs of wear.
The NRC-released data also gives more extensive information than was previously available about the location of the tubes and whether the wear was caused by rubbing against adjacent tubes, support structures, or in the case of two tubes, by a foreign object that Edison identified as a piece of welding material.
Of the tubes with wear, 387 -- about 1% of the total -- had portions that had worn through by 35% or more. At that level of wear, industry standards require the tubes to be plugged and taken out of service.
In addition to the tubes plugged because of excessive wear, Edison plugged another 930 that were in the same area as the deteriorated tubes, as a precautionary measure.
The plant will remain shut down until the NRC gives Edison the go-ahead to restart.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/07/san-onofre-new-information.html
BUCHANAN – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the movement and storage of spent nuclear fuel at the Indian Point power plant in Buchanan.
Under the approved plan, Entergy, which owns and operates Indian Point, may load fuel in the Indian Point 3 spent fuel pool into a specially designed cask that can hold up to 12 spent fuel assemblies and move the loaded cask, outside the buildings, to the Indian Point 2 spent fuel pool. At that point the cask will be unloaded with the fuel loaded into a more typical dry storage cask holding 32 assemblies that will be transported to the plant’s independent fuel storage installation.
Entergy sought the license amendment because the IP3 spent fuel pool is virtually full and without the new approach, it would not be able to conduct a scheduled refueling outage early next year.
The company explored installing a larger crane at the Indian Point 3 spent fuel building to allow the movement of the larger dry casks, but it ultimately determined that was not feasible.
Entergy plans to begin the spent fuel transfers next month.
http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2012/July/14/IP_spent_fuel-14Jul12.html
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/business/local-business/2012-07-14/nuclear-regulatory-commission-rejects-plan-modify-rebar
If you scroll down it is translated to Japanese which I had done because I was sending my first Geiger to a Japanese family that needed real data to make real decisions.
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2012/04/geiger-counter-interpretation.html
Cut out the Big Everythings. Give Power Generation back to the People!
Never mind their vast environmental and economic superiority, or their critical point of use peak time generation, or their radiation/mercury/carbon-free generation of power right where and when it's needed, transmission avoidance, no water waste, no dead raptors, bats or other species. Never mind that they improve property values and create more jobs than every other type of energy. Because they disempower the oligarchs, we are not allowed to have any assistance.
Because if it's Big, it owns the government, it doesn't matter what form the power takes, and if it's democratic, decentralized, clean, fair and right, it gets squashed. Welcome to America.
As a solar contractor, I produce systems that generate at 3 cents per kWH over the life of the system. AND the powers that be are just waking up to the fact that this type of decentralized power really takes away THEIR power over us in a big way.
I am curious about your 3 cent number which is far lower than the numbers we see in CA (btw, the rebates are virtually nothing in CA now, not even near 30%, more like 10%) - we are seeing LCOE of 15 - 17 cents for rooftop systems here, which means that unless you are an energy hog or have an EV that you charge at home, net metering results in net loss, or maybe the occasional return on investment, which is lame when our utilities all get guaranteed profits in the 11-15% range for building much more polluting, expensive, wasteful and competing power generation and transmission - where are our feed in tariffs so even people who don't waste electricity can profit from generating clean, high-value power where and when it's needed?
I'm sure you will agree that
http://www.iea.org/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=301
"Solar electricity could represent up to 20% to 25% of global electricity production by 2050. This important finding emerges from two new analyses by the International Energy Agency (IEA): the solar Photovoltaic (PV) and Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) roadmaps, launched today in Valencia/Spain, during the Mediterranean Solar Plan Conference hosted by the Spanish presidency of the EU."
Wind was also recently beat out coal on costs in India.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-18/ge-turbines-help-greenko-drive-wind-power-cost-below-coal.html
"The cost of wind has closed in on coal thanks to more advanced turbines, which can produce more electricity from lower wind speeds. The shift means new wind farms in India will be able to survive without state subsidies, potentially attracting investors to a country where 57 percent of installed capacity is coal-based and 31 percent renewable, including hydropower."
Don't see where this isn't good news for those looking to displace coal, and expand low-carbon emitting sources of energy.
And I am pissed about all this plutonium they put into our lungs, very pissed.
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2012/03/plutonium-admission-by-epa.html
Odious analogies are a tro specialty.
If you believe that one, I got a bridge to sell.
There is no legitimate reason to double the lifespan of reactors, when they were carefully planned to start with, and material degradation has not changed it's physics since then. Even the newest reactors planned for Georgia will not be required to have safety features recommended by the safety commission. NRC Vogtle liccense approved without safety improvements
Cost cutting and ignoring the risks is too expensive for nuclear power; it must have the highest safety standards since it is the greatest potential for wide spread disaster. Nuclear Plants and Disasters: NRC Inspection Results - ProPublica
Regulatory Meltdown – Four NRC Commissioners Undermine Safety | San Onofre Safety
POGO's letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Diaz on the proposed Design Basis Threat (DBT)
Nuclear Power Plant Lobbyists Shape Post-9/11 Security Tests
Severe nuclear reactor accidents likely every 10 to 20 years, European study suggests
10's of tons of uranium and proportional plutonium were aerosolized and poisoned much of north America and the Pacific.
Proof (using EPA data, is here)
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2012/03/uranium-and-plutonium-launched-into.html
The "Made in Japan" tagline will unreasonably focus attention away from individual actions and onto woolly background issues that people will be less motivated to fix. It also completely fails to acknowledge the likely positives associated with Japanese culture in their response, like the calm and orederly evacuation.
It is perhaps inevitable that more focus will fall on the human elements of the response than the natural precursors, because only the human elements are susceptible to change. An updated, more transparent, more independent and more powerful Japanese regulator is a good response. They need to fend off interference both from politicians and from operators though. One conclusion of the report was that Kan was making things sharply worse, and it was his office that requested a halt to the seawater pumping. Of course because they were talking to Tepco, they used their Tepco secondee to convey the message, but nevertheless that decision was Made-in-the-Diet.
They were still greedily thinking future profits, as teetered on an ELE ledge.
The meltdown at Fukushima has recently been estimated to produce at least 2.5 million deaths over the next 25 years from cancers that result from radioactive fallout.
And that assumes that the dangerous fuel pools at Fukushima do not release massive radioactivity as the result of coolant loss or an earthquake with a 98% probability of happening within the next 3 years. Collapse of those pools could end most life in the Northern hemisphere.
See www.aesopinstitute.org and ENENews.com for much more information.
In a just world, there would be some limit on the magnitude of lies that people are allowed to tell.
See the Wikipedia write up on the book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the_Catastrophe_for_People_and_the_Environment
Here's an excerpt:
"The book was not peer reviewed by the New York Academy of Sciences.[4][5] Five reviews were published in the academic press, with four of them considering the book severely flawed and contradictory, and one praising it while noting some shortcomings. The review by M. I. Balonov published by the New York Academy of Sciences concludes that the value of the report is negative, because it has very little scientific merit while being highly misleading to the lay reader. It also characterized the estimate of nearly a million deaths as more in the realm of science fiction than science.[6]"
You say The Fukushima meltdowns have been estimated to produce at least 2.5 Million deaths. Whose estimate is this? Can you give me a link to a peer-reviewed paper that makes this claim?