UPDATED: Japanese Nuclear Scare (Earthquakes)
July 17th, 2007 by HOLLY IN CINCINNATI
UPDATED AGAIN & MOVED UP:
AP via Earthlink: Nuke Waste Drums Tipped in Japan Quake
KASHIWAZAKI, Japan - A nuclear power plant near the epicenter of a powerful earthquake suffered a slew of problems, including spilled waste drums, leaked radioactive water, fires and burst pipes, the reactor’s operator said Tuesday - more than 24 hours after the tremors struck northern Japan.
The malfunctions at the Kashiwazaki power plant and the delays in acknowledging them are likely to feed concerns about the safety of Japan’s 55 nuclear reactors, which supply 30 percent of the quake-prone country’s electricity and have suffered a long string of accidents and cover-ups.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said a total of 50 cases of malfunctioning and trouble had been found at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant since Monday’s magnitude 6.6 quake, which killed at least nine people and left 13,000 homeless.
The company said they were still inspecting the plant, which shut down automatically after the quake, and further problems could emerge.
UPDATED AGAIN:
Full coverage from AP via the Washington Post:
Tokyo Electric said the water leak had stopped and that there had been no “significant change” in the seawater under surveillance and no effect on the environment, but the developments at Kashiwazaki triggered fresh concern about the earthquake resistance of Japan’s nuclear power plants, which supply nearly a third of the country’s electricity.
Aileen Mioko Smith, of the environmentalist group Green Action, said the fire showed that some facilities at nuclear power plants such as electrical transformers were built to lower quake-resistance levels than other equipment such as reactor cores.
“That’s the Achilles heel of nuclear power plants,” said Mioko Smith, who said it took the plant two hours to extinguish the fire. “Today’s a good example of that… How prepared are they to put out fires when they happen?
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant is the world’s largest nuclear power facility with an output capacity of 8.21 million kilowatts. By comparison, the largest U.S. nuclear power facility, in Palo Verde, Ariz., has an output capacity of 3.88 million kilowatts, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
UPDATED AGAIN:
MSNBC Breaking News: Meteorological Agency reports another quake off Japan’s west coast
USGS: Magnitude 6.8, SEA OF JAPAN, 284 miles from Tokyo.
UPDATED & MOVED UP: Reportedly 7 killed, 600 injured and a leak of radioactive water from a nuclear power plant has caused a nuclear scare.
A strong earthquake in central Japan has damaged a large nuclear power plant causing a leak of radioactive material, officials at the plant have said.
Water containing radioactive substances leaked into the sea and a fire broke out in one of the Kashiwazaki plant’s electrical transformers.
The reactors at the plant automatically shut down during the magnitude 6.8 earthquake.
At least seven people were killed and hundreds injured in the earthquake.
See also MSNBC:
National broadcaster NHK reported that the water leaked from the plant into the Sea of Japan, but that the radioactivity level was below safely levels and posed no danger to the environment.
UPDATE: Per BBC, the Tsunami Warning has been lifted.
A strong earthquake jolted northwestern Japan on Monday morning and caused buildings in the capital Tokyo to sway. The Meteorological Agency said small tsunamis as high as 20 inches were believed to have hit coasts in the area.Three nuclear reactors in the region automatically stopped but no irregularities were reported, public broadcaster NHK said.
The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 and was centered off the coast of the prefecture (state) of Niigata, the agency said in a statement. The tidal waves were believed to have hit the Niigata coasts, the agency added.
Several bullet train services linking Tokyo to northern Japan have been suspended, NHK said.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 7:30 am and is filed under Japan, Weather. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:10 am
If the radioactive water was no threat to the environment why was it stored within a nuclear power plant?
Maybe it really is “below safety levels” but there’s a difference between that and “no risk”.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:12 am
I’m concerned about the 2nd major earthquake causing additional damage.
July 17th, 2007 at 8:04 am
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July 17th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Lynx:
Spent nuclear fuel is commonly stored initially in water. Other high-level radioactive wastes can be stored in water. Water also happens to be the moderator in the reactor, though hopefully the reactor itself wasn’t damaged. A lot of wastes are stored on site rather than relocated to a depository site. NIMBYs are vigorously opposed to having a waste dispository site near them. (much more than people in various states are opposed to taking in for disposal or storage other states’ garbage or prisoners) Anti-nuclear activists are opposed to any depository or other waste disposal program.
There is no such thing as “no risk” in the real world and this cannot reasonably be demanded.
Not only are nuclear plants zero-emitters of air pollution — not “greenhouse gases,” but honest, real, serious air pollution (the ideal electrical generation system nowadays is nuke and hydro), they are competitive with coal in long term use.
Palo Verde is fun to visit, if anybody out there is in Phoenix or is traveling either way between Phoenix and southern California. What was noteworthy when I went there were the plastic pellets that were imitations of the pellets in fuel rods. Next to where the pellets were dispensed was a large one-ton lump of coal. Each pellet is equivalent to that ton of coal for energy production.
Palo Verde emergency procedures
Palo Verde DISASTER PLANS (look at those evacuation zone maps)
Palo Verde
Japan has been at the forefront of earthquake protection of structures, including those of the Shinkansen (high-speed or “bullet” trains). (The Shinkansen are also the object of work related to snow in winter; Hokkaido have heavy snowfall.) It will be interesting to learn what really is wrong at the reactor site. There is nothing to be scared of; the area was not evacuated, so obviously nothing catastrophic happened. Japan does a lot of work related to earthquake threats (see below) and so it will be interesting to see what failures actually have happened.
Overview of Japan’s nuclear power industry
* * *
Of all the places in all the world where no one in their right mind would build scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be pretty near the top of the list.
The Japanese archipelago is located on the so-called Pacific Rim of Fire, a large active volcanic and tectonic zone ringing North and South America, Asia and island arcs in Southeast Asia. The major earthquakes and active volcanoes occurring there are caused by the westward movement of the Pacific tectonic plate and other plates leading to subduction under Asia.
Japan sits on top of four tectonic plates, at the edge of the subduction zone, and is in one of the most tectonically active regions of the world. It was extreme pressures and temperatures, resulting from the violent plate movements beneath the seafloor, that created the beautiful islands and volcanoes of Japan.
When I held up samples of the rocks the plant was sitting on, they crumbled like sugar in my fingers. “But the power company told us these were really solid rocks!” the reporters said. I asked, “Do you think these are really solid?’ and they started laughing.
It might seem obvious to the average man or woman in the street, or the average child in the playground for that matter, that you don’t build nuclear reactors in an earthquake zone. But the average man or woman in the street, not to speak of the average child in the playground, would be naive to make such an assumption. Here in shaky Japan we’ve got 52 of them (soon to be 53) and not a single one has come crashing down - not yet at least.
So returning to the question of how’s the record, the visionaries might have understated the magnitude of the design basis earthquakes, they might have been a bit wayward in their classifications, they might have been a bit too optimistic about the durability of the reactors and they might even have missed a few active faults and earthquake zones here and there, but lets face it, no reactors have fallen over, no radiation has been released into the environment as a result of an earthquake, so what’s all the fuss about? And in their defense, I return to my earlier point, namely that they were just trying to sell a great idea. No salesman is going to tell you that he’s selling you a dud and no visionary technologist is going to tell you that we would have been better off without the industrial revolution. Give the guys a break. Break their bloody necks, I say.
July 17th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Thanks DLS!