Japanese Company Admits To Nuclear Cover Up

a-charles writes "Just as power companies are considering the first expansion of nuclear power usage in the US since the 70s, Reuters reports on a disturbing anouncement from the nation of Japan. On Thursday the Japanese power company Hokuriku Electric Power admitted it had covered up a 1999 incident in which mishandling of nuclear fuel rods led to an unintended self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction. The mishap caused the plant, located in central Japan, to enter a 'critical state' for much of those 15 minutes. Apparently, this was in the same year that two workers were killed in a separate incident in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo. A pair of workers were killed after using buckets to mix nuclear fuel in a lab, a test that also created an uncontrolled chain reaction for a short time. The nuclear power industry already has a bad name for safety violations in Japan, and these revelations are unlikely to help with that public image."

Comments

People are not safe

[bl8n8r]

They find the quickest way to make money for the least amount of work. Whether it's building a reactor, managing it, or turning the little knobs, people eventually go for the Easy Button. That kind of mentality does not historically* mix well with nuclear power. Another problem is accountability. Nobody (sans the religeous nutjobs) wants to get blamed for contaminating the globe so problems like these will always be minimzed and covered up; if even made public at all.

[*]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_mile_island
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Pow er_Plant#Accidents

SELL it to them, for oil!

[Anonymous Coward]

"* Not to mention the fact that we won't allow some countries to develop nuclear energy, so its an energy solution that's not even on the table for many parts of the world."

You so casually forget that we're perfectly willing to SELL them the power output of nuclear power so that we can use their oil for a few more years.

Re:SELL it to them, for oil!

[soccerisgod]

Oh, and how is that going to work? Unlike oil pipelines, you can't just have a power cable running around the earth for 1000s of miles. If it was that easy, we could just plaster all the deserts with solar power cells and never think about charcoal or uranium ever again.

Statute of limitations

[tokyopimpdaddy]

Sadly, the only reason we're even getting this news is because they're safely outside the three year statute of limitations (or local equivalent) so these morons can't be sent to court and buried with some control rods in a pit somewhere.

I admit I take things like this kind of personally because my family and I live within striking distance of these incidents.

This is the sad side of a culture which doesn't question or criticize. If people want to hide their dirty laundry in an accounting or business situation, fine, but let's not hide whether or not Suzuki-san was watching the dial...

I hope they go over these folks as rabidly as they went after Horie...

That makes two accidents in 1999

[mdsolar]

The one with fatalities is listed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nucl ear_accidents here. This raises a very serious issue. How complete is the list of accidents? The one in 2006 in Sweden suggests that modern plants can't be operated safely but that the risk of a very large accident is one in forty years at the present level of reliance on nuclear power. If the list is very incomplete, as this cover up might urge us to consider, then the risk of large accidents could be much higher than one in forty years at the present level of reliance on nuclear power. In that case, increasing our reliance on nuclear power seems foolhardy and decommisioning existing plants on an accelerated schedule would be a good policy to adopt.
--
Fusion power today: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Re:That makes two accidents in 1999

[kad77]

In your mind, an ever running public wiki of the names, date of birth and location of every human ever involved in a nuclear accident may sound important. It is not. Organizations that matter are aware of the risks, benefits.

Unfortunately, too many 'flat earth' types are hindering scientific and technological progress with their foolish FUD campaigns and political action committees-- hindering third world countries efforts to build fossil fuel burning stations to provide basic services to their impoverished citizens. The same over-reactionary fear mongers (Rory Kennedy comes to mind) are hampering the US from even catching up with China in developing nuclear power stations.

These anti-thought efforts keeps the country stuck burning fossil fuel. The 'alternatives' are highly impractical on a mass scale. We can't produce nearly enough biofuel to run 50% of our energy use, especially without driving food prices high worldwide. Who does that effect? THE POOR. Yeah, less manufacture a million+ tons of chemical batteries to run our cars on. THATS A GOOD IDEA.

Fine, build a windmill in your backyard. But stop telling me that we can't develop pebble bed reactors because you are running scared of nuclear fission technology. Your feel good politics are bringing down the worlds quality of life. Please, think critically.

Re:Let the flamewares begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

The best part being that it goes up in to the air and you're breathing it.
At least the waste from a nuclear power facility is perfectly contained and stored.

Re:Nuclear cycle

[TuballoyThunder]

The key point about Cheynobyl is that the RBMK reactor uses graphite as a moderator, which has a positive temperature coefficient in reactivity. A water moderated reactor (the type used by almost all other reactors) has a negative temperature coefficient. As temperature increases, a graphite moderated reactor will have an increase in reactivity. Thus, the safety issues with graphite-moderated reactors goes beyond a design shortcut and straight to the underlying physics.

The turbine spin-down test that the Soviets were attempting to do was not particularly dangerous and was a reasonable test. The Soviets wanted to determine how long the generators would be turned by the turbines if the site lost power from the electrical grid and steam production was lost (low reactor power, ruptured steam line, etc). The turbine spin-down time would provide information on how long they had to bring the diesel-powered generators online.

The problem was in the design of the test protocol and the lack of oversight by nuclear engineers. The test required that the power levels of the reactor be decreased. About 13 hours after the reactor was brought down to 50% power (1600 MWt), the reactor was ordered by the electric-grid dispatcher to resume full power in order to meet demand. At that point, if a nuclear engineer was in charge, would have postponed the test for several days because of Xe-135 production, which has a huge neutron absorption cross-section (it eats neutrons).

Instead of terminating the test, the test director resumes the test and orders the reactor power to be decreased. The operators fail to program the computer to maintain power at the 700 MWt to 1000 MWt. The excess of Xe-135 causes the power to fall to 30 MWt, so the operators withdrew the majority of the control rods in order to maintain power. Soon after, all eight coolant pumps were activated in order to keep the reactor cool after the test. The fact that the high-flow rate was part of the test protocol is unusual because it violated the operating rules, however, the automatic-scram was bypassed for the test. If a nuclear engineer was in charge, the test should have been terminated before this step (not because of the high-flow rate, though). The increased flow rate decreased the reactivity (remember graphite has a positive temperature coefficient), which require additional control rod withdrawl to maintain reactor power level. These control rod withdrawls was in violation of the operating procedures for the reactor. The fact that the operators were having difficulty in maintaining power was a big warning that there was a lot factors contributing negative reactivity to the system (Xe-135 poisoning, excessive heat removal).

At this point, the reactor is too difficult to control automatically, so the operators assumed manual control and turned off more of the emergency shutdown signals. One minute before the accident, the computer indicated excess reactivity was present and the operators blocked the emergency shutdown. Power started to increase rapidly (through the magic of a positive temperature coefficient) and the reactor operators began insertion of the control rods. This step had the opposite effect because the control rods had graphite leaders on them (in order to maintain symmetry when fully inserted). The graphite leaders introduced additional positive reactivity and displaced water (thus removing a source of negative reactivity). The power increased further because of this step. The reactor had several pules in power in the 100 - 500 time normal power range for about 4 seconds.

The operators at Chernobyl were some of the best in the Soviet Union, but were not adequately trained. The test director did not fully understand the safety requirements and was under pressure to complete the test before the May Day holiday. In addition, the next scheduled down time for the reactor would the next year. There was also a poor chain-of-command (too many "bosses") and the test planning process did not involve the desig