nuclear-news

Now that the safety myth has been shattered, the government should quickly decide to decommission all reactors for which there is no practical evacuation plan

EDITORIAL: Nuclear safety myth is raising its ugly head again ASAHI SHIMBUN, 31 Dec 13 Electric power companies have filed formal applications with the Nuclear Regulation Authority for permission to restart 14 idled nuclear reactors on grounds the facilities meet new regulatory standards. The Abe administration is keen to allow utilities to bring their reactors back online.

But the grim reality is that efforts by local governments to develop emergency evacuation plans have not made satisfactory progress.

Before any of the offline reactors are restarted, a workable plan must be in place in preparation for a possible serious nuclear accident.

No matter what precautions are built into a safety system, a totally unexpected situation can occur at any time. That’s a bitter lesson to be gleaned from the 2011 disaster that crippled the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN A BIND

The local governments that have been entrusted to work out evacuation plans are tearing their hair out in the face of the many tough challenges they are confronting…….

SAFETY IGNORED

The Ikata nuclear power plant in Ehime Prefecture, one of the facilities preparing to restart idled reactors, is located near the root of the Sadamisaki Peninsula, which is long and narrow.

If a major accident occurs at the plant, some 5,000 people living in areas farther along the peninsula will be left isolated. The local government is considering a scenario in which they are evacuated by ship. But that might not be a workable idea given the danger of tsunami.

The Tokai No. 2 power plant in Ibaraki Prefecture, the nuclear power plant closest to the Tokyo area, is located in an area with a sizable daytime population. The daytime population within 30 kilometers of the plant is around 980,000. According to an estimate by the prefectural government, it would take 15 hours to evacuate 90 percent of the people within 5 kilometers of the plant. It would take twice as long if the Joban Expressway, a highway running through the region, becomes impassable.

Fukui Prefecture hosts 14 nuclear reactors, the largest number among prefectures. A major accident at any one of them could lead to a massive release of radioactive materials into the atmosphere. That would render other reactors around inaccessible. The situation could trigger a chain reaction of nuclear accidents.

The plight of these local governments underscores one fundamental problem with the locations of nuclear power plants in Japan: Many of them have been built at sites where there should be no nuclear reactor……

many plants were built in areas where a swift evacuation of local residents is effectively impossible.

Banking on the nuclear safety myth, the government has promoted a policy of locating nuclear plants mainly in depopulated areas suffering from a decline of the local industries.

LESSONS ALREADY FORGOTTEN?

In the United States, no nuclear reactor can be operated without a workable evacuation plan. In Japan, however, even the newly created regulatory standards don’t require an evacuation plan as a prerequisite for operating a reactor. The development of the plans has been entrusted to the local governments while there is no central government agency responsible for assessing the feasibility of the developed plans.

Now that the safety myth has been shattered, the government should quickly decide to decommission all reactors for which there is no practical evacuation plan…….http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201312240044

January 2, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general