The head of a government nuclear watchdog has criticized Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) for not being transparent enough, after it submitted documents earlier this month that were mostly blacked out.
“Why don’t they release all the information? There are problems with TEPCO’s attitude toward providing information,” Hiroyuki Fukano, 54, head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), told the Mainichi in an interview on Sept. 16.
The documents in question include an operation manual for responding to nuclear accidents.
“NISA has still not received the manual (in full),” Fukano said. “It is our job to investigate problems such as why the emergency condenser (for cooling the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant) didn’t work properly, and the operation manual serves as a base for such investigations.” Fukano indicated that NISA will request non-blacked out documents from TEPCO.
Regarding the current state of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant six months on from the start of the crisis, Fukano said, “Although conditions have stabilized, there are still large amounts of radioactive water at the site, and we can’t say the situation is under control. There are still many problems to tackle.”
On the plant’s complete loss of electricity after the earthquake, Fukano said, “Such a possibility hadn’t seemed real to us. There was a feeling that a complete loss of power was rare, and a disaster situation would end before it got too serious.”
Regarding the threat of tsunamis, he said, “We considered them as only an ’accompanying phenomenon’ to earthquakes, and did not do enough (to make sure plants were prepared.)”
Commenting on criticism that NISA suffered for initially giving the Fukushima disaster a “Level 4” rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale, Fukano said, “We should have given (an accurate) rating sooner. That’s something that we are rightly criticized over.”
On the safety of other nuclear plants around the country, Fukano said, “I cannot say that they are absolutely safe, and I won’t. Nothing involving humans is 100 percent safe. However, in stress tests from here on, we will announce what risks the plants face and how prepared they are for disasters.”
Fukano, who worked under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry at the time of the March 11 disaster, joined NISA in late March. In August, he replaced Nobuaki Terasaka as head of NISA.
Mainichi Shimbun , September 17, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/09/17/20110917p2a00m0na007000c.html
TEPCO submits heavily redacted copy of Fukushima nuke accident manual
A Diet science committee says it has received a heavily censored copy of a nuclear accident operating manual for the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO).
The House of Representatives Special Committee on Promotion of Science and Technology and Innovation had requested TEPCO submit two operating manuals — one each for accidents and severe accidents — through the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry (METI), but said Sept. 7 that it had received only the former document, which had itself been significantly redacted. The panel, chaired by Hiroshi Kawauchi of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, said it needed the manuals and other pertinent documents on Aug. 26 to help probe the cause of the ongoing nuclear disaster, and has requested TEPCO to resubmit the manuals by Sept. 9.
The 6-page manual for nuclear accidents TEPCO did submit was divided into four sections, including “main item” and “shift supervisor (deputy shift supervisor).” The document was, however, nearly unreadable because most of it had been blacked out. Even those sections left visible had holes, such as one sentence that read: “When reactor pressure rises, stabilizes the pressure at (redacted) Mpa by using an emergency condenser and other techniques, and report.”
According to the METI’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), TEPCO submitted them to NISA on Sept. 2 after seeking a guarantee of nondisclosure the day before. NISA rejected the utility’s request, but then simply delivered the TEPCO documents to the committee.
Sources said TEPCO defended the censored documents, saying they contain intellectual property and may cause problems concerning the protection of nuclear materials.
Committee Chairman Kawauchi said the blacked out documents “are extremely regrettable. If TEPCO refuses to resubmit the manuals in question, we will consider summoning TEPCO executives as unsworn witnesses.”
Mainichi Shimbun , September 8, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/09/08/20110908p2a00m0na022000c.html