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60 holes at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuke plant found unfilled in violation of building code

60 holes Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 23 nov 2017.png
Reactor buildings at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant are seen in this file photo taken in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, on April 26, 2017.
 
Sixty holes violating the Building Standards Act were found recently in firewalls at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture, in addition to two similar holes found in July this year, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) announced Nov. 22.
Of the 60 holes, 49 date back to the 1980s when the No. 1 reactor building was built, revealing administrative agencies’ lack of consideration for proper construction management.
Reactor buildings have several thousand holes in them for pipes. Of these holes, those going through firewalls are required to have any gaps filled in with mortar caulk or other nonflammable material. In July, TEPCO found two holes in a firewall in the No. 2 reactor building that had not been properly filled in. A subsequent inspection of the entire plant found that 60 holes had not been filled in — a building code violation — of which 41 were in radiation-control areas.
The power company will begin taking countermeasures, such as filling the holes in, as early as the beginning of the New Year. “At the time the reactor buildings were built, our awareness of the risks was insufficient,” TEPCO spokesperson Yoshimi Hitosugi said.

November 25, 2017 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Nuclear watchdog finds 3 nuclear plants guilty of ‘malicious’ safety violations

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) concluded on June 29 that three nuclear power plants were guilty of “level 2” safety violations by breaching standards on placement of power cables

A “level 2” violation is the second heaviest violation in the NRA’s four-tier list.

The NRA deemed that new safety standards regarding power cable installation had been violated at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)’s Fukushima No. 2 Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima Prefecture, Tohoku Electric Power Co.’s Onagawa plant in Miyagi Prefecture and Chubu Electric Power Co.’s Hamaoka plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear station in Niigata Prefecture was earlier found to have committed a level 2 violation.

The NRA is set to carry out additional safety inspections on the three recently named nuclear plants as well as at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant to check whether problems at these plants have been corrected.

Violation of power cable-related safety standards has been found at 19 reactors within 6 nuclear plants, as well as at Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’s spent fuel reprocessing facility in Aomori Prefecture. Subsequent inspections by power companies and the NRA found such violations at a total of 5,344 locations on the premises of those nuclear plants. Of these, violations at the four nuclear stations including the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant were deemed particularly malicious as utilities failed to check their power cable placing and continued to violate the safety standards even after regulations for power companies to conduct in-house inspections on power cable installation were introduced in October 2003.

http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160630/p2a/00m/0na/010000c

June 30, 2016 Posted by | Japan | , , | Leave a comment