Slashdot Mirror
Why the Japanese Government Should Take Over the Fukushima Nuclear Plant
Lasrick writes "The Japan Times has an opinion piece about the seriousness of the situation at Fukushima and the incompetence of Tepco. The article makes the case that it's time for the Japanese government to step in and take control of the plant to facilitate clean-up. Quoting: 'Japan has been very lucky that nothing worse has occurred at the plant. But luck eventually runs out. The longer Tepco stays in charge of the decommissioning process, the worse the odds become. Without downplaying the seriousness of leaks and the other setbacks at the plant, it is important to recognize that things could very quickly get much worse. In November, Tepco plans to begin the delicate operation of removing spent fuel from Reactor No. 4. There are 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies in a pool above the reactor. They weigh a total of 400 tons, and contain radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The spent-fuel pool, standing 18 meters above ground, was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami and is in a deteriorating condition. It remains vulnerable to any further shocks, and is also at risk from ground liquefaction. Removing its spent fuel, which contains deadly plutonium, is an urgent task.'"
The Japanese govt. doesn't feel the necessity to take this on to date, evidenced by their unwillingness to even consider it.
They've already blown oversight, transparency, and emergency response planning. They're not going to suddenly become competent.
Get the IAEA in there, use the UN to pressure them to accept international oversight. There are over 12,000 fuel rods 100 feet in the air.
There's really no more time for trusting the Japanese government.
Just build a Waste-Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor (WAMSR) next to the site, problem solved.
http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/MIT-Develops-Meltdown-Proof-Nuclear-Waste-Eating-Reactor.html
Really now, any time nuclear anything is mentioned in comparison with Hiroshima, you know that someone is trying to scare you. I believe the SI unit would be Becquerels, not "Hiroshimas".
It is when a corporate entity want the mess taken over.
Is Japan going to resist the drive to socialize the loss of corporations that can't keep their shit together?
I don't think the government is very likely to take over from TEPCO. TEPCO itself is already practically nationalized due to the vast amounts of money the government has had to pump into it and pay out to those affected by the disaster. By keeping it independent there is someone external to blame for all the problems, which would otherwise be the direct responsibility of the government.
TFA is full of hype but one interesting point that is often missed is worth noting. The earthquake itself damage the plant, and even without the tsunami there would have been a serious accident.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
How about they ask the Americans for help? We have had a lot of experience with nukes, and could use a chance to prove that we can still do something in the world besides violate international law. If we fuck it up, then you can blame external powers for it.
Sometimes it is, actually.
Contrary to popular psychosis, the solution is not always "less government".
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Who are they going to have do it? I don't know, let's call in the experts at Tepco.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Yeah, free enterprise can solve any problem. I am sure there are plenty of entities out there that would love to have a bunch of radioactive waste to play with. I bet they would pay top dollar for it. Only....I think we may not want them to have it. But hey! After they spread it all over Tokyo or NYC, maybe thats actually a business opportunity! Think of the manufacturing revenues we could accrue in coffins.
The thing we need to ask ourselves is not a question of is more/less government the solution, but rather, is this a job that the government can do more effectively? With something such as crucial as this, we must make sure that the means chosen have a good (ideally, the best) likelihood of reaching the ends desired.
And, of a company worried about their own profits and which has been doing a lousy job of the cleanup, or a government which is strongly motivated to get it done -- which would you trust?
Corporations do a lousy job of cleaning up messes like this because they're more worried about spin than actually doing the work.
So the whole time BT was saying "oh, it's only a little oil" they knew it was a load of crap -- but they were more interested in laying blame to contractors and spinning the PR.
Me, I'd put far more faith in the Japanese government than the company who operated the plant and has been doing such a bad job of cleaning it up.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If the government would just stop interfering with the free markets the invisible hand and enlightened self interest would take over and do a much better job! We'd be living in a land of unicorns and rainbows in no time!
Also nuclear power is the only reasonable - and environmentally friendly! - solution to our energy problems. * /sarcasm
* - Excluding all those pesky externalities because we all know in the technologically advanced future we'll magically solve all those problems -- also using the power of the free markets! (some conditions and circular reasoning may apply, offer not valid in all states blah blah blah)
Sometimes it is, actually.
Sometimes. But probably not in this case. The government of Japan does not have an elite team of nuclear cleanup ninjas waiting in the wings. In fact, they have no expertise in this area. TEPCO's initial response was incompetent, but the government's response wasn't so good either. And the government was responsible for the regulatory system that allowed the accident to happen. TEPCO's constant underplaying of the severity, and withholding of information, is a Japanese cultural thing, and the government would have done the same if not worse. These statements were misleading to westerners, who are used to officials that normally exaggerate problems, but it was not misleading to the Japanese public, who just assume that whatever officials say, the reality is ten times worse.
Yea, pretty much it is. What do you think is going to happen if the government takes over the plant? Does the government have nuclear workers? Any expertise at all in this area? No? So they are going to hire whomever has the best knowledge of the facility... oh, Tepco. So now, not only is Tepco still in charge of the cleanup, they're now getting paid to do it and the responsibility for the result is now off their shoulders and there's endless layers of red tape they have to get through to actually do anything.
A more appropriate solution would be to send in government inspectors, have them on-site 24/7 and reporting back to government officials. Make Tepco pay their wages as well.
Or they could hire the best and brightest to oversee the engineers at TEPCO.
Do you think it was the engineers or the bean counters that fucked this up?
Of course TEPCO should pay the full cost of this, in addition to fines and possible criminal penalties.
the International Nuclear organization's crisis teams and resources should be brought in, given a drawer full of blank checks, and set after it without any more interference by the hacks that caused this catastrophe in the first place.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Does anybody think our government could have managed the BP oil blowout?
Having some direct experience with both the culture and government of Japan and of the nuclear industry, I can say [opine] that the Japanese government is completely incapable of handling the task.
If you ask me, I say send the US NRC over to Japan to take the situation over and train Japan's NRC to operate in the same way as the US NRC.
The US NRC is a royal pain in the ass. But they are that for a very good reason. And believe me when I tell you, they aren't just up in the utilities' faces, they are up in EVERYONE connected faces. The Japanese regulatory agency will ONLY communicate with the Japanese utilities and not the manufacturers of equipment, not the people who did construction or planning or any of it. So for the Japanese regulatory agency to ignore those other factors? It convinces me they aren't prepared to see a much larger picture when it comes to nuclear safety.
I am told this aspect of the Japanese nuclear regulatory agency is changing, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Meanwhile, the Japanese habit of never saying more than they should and always holding back information leads me to believe it's actually worse than the mainstream media will say and likely MUCH worse.
Nuclear safety isn't just local. It's not just national. It's a global concern. And if some group of people internationally were to say "hey, this is a global concern. Let's make a global nuclear regulatory agency" I would actually agree to the idea simply because the danger knows no borders. And believe me when I say it's not easy for me to be in favor of -- I am against global government in general. Completely.
Way too late for that. TEPCO is already virtually state owned. If the government hadn't bailed them out people wouldn't have been able to sue them for compensation. Plus the government has been paying benefits to those who lose their jobs and homes around the plant, and for extra healthcare costs, and a whole long list of other stuff.
Nuclear accident costs are always socialized, just like its development was in the first place. It isn't just Japan, in the US plants have $10bn of insurance by law but if you stuck an extra zero on that it would be a fraction of the cost of Fukushima.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The problem was caused by corrupt lying sacks of shit and now you want to let politicians run the show?
That's like exchanging AIDS for terminal cancer!
Oh, you mean like this?? Or this?
How about this:
Sorry, but if you believe what BP has been telling you, you are gravely mistaken.
If by 'completely handled' you mean done badly, incompletely, and we get lied about it sure .. if you mean actually remediating the damage from it, well, you're either delusional or on the payroll.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'd say that this is more of the privatize - nationalize cycle that is favored by big business.
Specifically, the big businesses -- through media shills and lobbyists they have hired -- request the nationalization of their competitors and regulation of the industry that is designed to prevent competition. In turn, when a government, loaded down with such dross, becomes top-heavy, then the big business requests privatization of the profitable sectors, at rock-bottom prices.
Happens all the time.
The real version of this is "steal from the small folks, give to the big folks. Tie them down, then repeat."
I'd favor Japan taking it over-- if they completely nationalized the company, fired the management and legally prohibited them from working in management again, and nationalized the majority of their property [say, in excess of the 50%ile mark]. Alternatively, they can open TEPCO and their managers and stockholders to complete liability. Alternatively, they can say to the managers and stockholders of the time when the mess happened, "clean your mess up, no matter what the cost, or go to jail."
Most of which violates the rule of law. But so does the nationalize / privatize cycle. And so does the nonenforcement of environmental and safety regulations.
Which leads to what they *will* do instead: nationalize, privatize. nationalize, privatize.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The government also pressured Exxon to use chemical dispersant that likely caused more harm that the oil itself.
Do you have a source for that?
No, because I chose my words poorly. The dispersants were certainly not (as I stated) worse than the oil spill. What I should have said was that dispersants likely made the situation somewhat worse. They are harsh, environmentally damaging chemicals. They make the problem look better by breaking up the oil slicks, but don't actually remove the oil from the environment. The proper role for government is this case should not have been try micromanage the cleanup by steering it toward publicity stunts. Instead they should have regulated the industry properly, and never allowed single-hulled tankers to operate in American waters in the first place.
Sigh... The real world doesn't work that way. It's really that simple. As long as there is a human element involved there is room for mistakes, for incompetence, for that one guy that was supposed to check the other guy's work but didn't because it's been a long day and he's tired and his partner always got it right before, or they've never worked together, or he's a rookie, or...whatever. I get what you're saying, but I suspect that you haven't worked in a field that has grave consequences for mistakes. Through training and discipline you're able to minimize risk factors, but at some point the stars align and something you didn't anticipate happens. Look at Corrections and early parole. The PO reviews the case, makes a decision to release to the community, the parole board reviews that, approves, and out the con goes. How many times have we all hard about recidivism (in some cases really nasty stuff) where someone re-offends and ends right back in the slam? Regulation helps, but enforcement has to come through audits and response. The 1st is usually random and the 2nd is after the fact. How does that stop the Boogyman from showing up?
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
If the engineer is uncompetent, he will cause the train to crash, perhaps killing hundreds of people. Not ot worry though, bcause the free market will kick into action, and the survivors and relatives of the survivors will select for different railways. If these railways have poor engineers, with similar fatality rates, the process will continue untl the free and unregulated market gives us a competent railroad, staffed by those engineers who were not so incompetent as to kill all their passengers.
I don't know why those stupid socialists cannot understand the infallibility of this.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Well, I don't know Mr. Andrew Dewit and Mr. Christopher Hobson, but obviously they don't know technically what they are talking about. They should have restricted themselves to policy or economic matters. In this comment I outlined why these fears are so unlikely to happen: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4141363&cid=44704783
Nonsense, the arrays are already encased in boron cages in the fuel storage racks, they will not go critical even if they are not cooled. Cooling is needed to keep the fuel arrays mechanically sound so they couldn't release the radioactive materials inside them. There is no serious damage in the fuel arrays in the spent fuel pool of unit 4. The damage in each of the 4 units destroyed is very different, so a single event making all of the remaining fuel release their radioactive materials is highly unlikely, and even if it happens, they have in their favor that the fuel in the spent fuel pools have already undergone 2.5 years more of cooling and decay of its radioactive material since the accident, so any new emergency in the pools will be easier to manage than in 2011. The fire in unit 4 was caused by the hydrogen released by the damage in the core of unit 3, not by any release from the fuel in its spent fuel pool. Still, there are a bunch of morons of TEPCO's management that should be behind bars due their criminal incompetence and negligence.
The worst possible things about Fukushima I have already happened. The leaks from the storage thanks, the damage to reactors buildings, the evacuation, the radioactive contamination of the surroundings, the explosions, the makeshift equipment, all that could and should have been avoided if TEPCO's management had made the necessary expenditures to protect and improve the safety of their nuclear power stations. 4 nuclear power stations were hit by the quake and the tsunami but the only ones that suffered serious damage were the ones mismanaged by TEPCO. The scarecrow of new explosions and accidents only deflect the attention of the public away from the long delayed trial against TEPCO's managers for their criminal negligence.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!