2 nuclear safety panel members got 7.1 mil. yen donation from industry
TOKYO (Kyodo) — The head of the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan and a member of the government panel received donations totaling 7.1 million yen from the atomic power industry before assuming duties at the watchdog, the two said Monday.
Haruki Madarame, a former University of Tokyo professor who became the commission chief in April 2010, said he received 4 million yen over four years through 2009 from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., a major manufacturer of nuclear power reactors.
Seiji Shiroya, another member of the panel who joined the commission at the same time as Madarame, said he received 3.1 million yen from a regional branch of Japan Atomic Industrial Forum Inc. over three years to 2009 while serving as a Kyoto University professor.
The forum consists of power companies and other companies in the nuclear industry.
Madarame said the donations have not influenced the panel’s decision-making process. The five-member state commission is tasked with double-checking regulatory measures implemented mainly by the industry and science ministries to ensure nuclear safety.
The donations provided by private entities were intended to promote research at universities, and the money was spent to conduct research and to cover overseas business trip costs, according to the two experts.
Madarame said the panel has made public the minutes of its meetings and that he would leave it up to the public to judge whether such donations were appropriate.
Kyodo Press, January 3, 2012
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2012/01/03/20120103p2g00m0dm005000c.html
TEPCO sees no board member as responsible for Fukushima disaster
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Tokyo Electric Power Co., in a document sent by Monday to its shareholders, denies that any current or former board members hold responsibility for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan.
The denial comes in a TEPCO auditor’s notice to shareholders who have asked the utility to file a damages suit against current and former board members, a lawyer for the shareholders, Hiroyuki Kawai, said at a press conference.
After considering reasons cited in the notice against such a suit, TEPCO shareholders will file a suit with the Tokyo District Court possibly later this month urging current and some former board members to pay a total of 5.5 trillion yen in damages to the company for the disaster.
“The board members had appropriately considered and implemented anti-tsunami measures based on government instructions and approvals,” the TEPCO notice says. “The accident is attributable to the tsunami waves that were far higher than assumed for the measures.”
It also said the current board members promptly organized a task force in response to the disaster and made and implemented appropriate decisions to deal with it under a difficult situation.
“None of the board members has violated any law or company statute, nor did they neglect due diligence,” the TEPCO notice says.
Kyodo Press, January 17, 2012
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2012/01/17/20120117p2g00m0dm036000c.html
New probe vows to cut deeper in Japan nuke crisis
TOKYO (AP) — A newly formed investigative panel on Japan’s nuclear disaster will use its subpoena powers wisely and cut deeper into the accident than the government’s probe, the leader of the independent commission said Monday.
The panel appointed by parliament last month has gained attention here because its 10 members include outspoken critics of Japan’s nuclear policy who long ago questioned the seismic risks to the country’s 54 nuclear reactors.
It is expected to examine the extent to which the 9.0-magnitude earthquake contributed to the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, as well as the ensuing tsunami and radiation alert system. Interim reports by the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. focused on the tsunami and deny the quake itself caused damage that led to fires, reactor meltdowns and radiation leaks from the plant.
“We will get to the bottom of the case and compile a proposal for the future as we strive to live up to the people’s expectations,” panel chairman Kiyoshi Kurokawa told reporters after the commission had its first full open meeting. “We will seek how we can be different from the government panel.”
During the meeting, a government official who was summoned to provide overview of the ministry’s accident response revealed that Japan had provided crucial radiation leakage data to the U.S. on March 14, nearly 10 days before disclosing them to its own people.
Top government officials have come under fire for failing to use data produced by the radiation warning system, known as SPEEDI, for evacuation when the reactors were in critical condition. They said they couldn’t use them due to the lack of accurate data. The disclosure could renew criticism over the government bungling of the evacuation.
But Itaru Watanabe, an Education Ministry official in charge of radiation monitoring, told the panel that the SPEEDI data were given to the U.S. military via Japan’s Foreign Ministry “for use in their relief effort.”
The panel is the first bipartisan investigative panel appointed by parliament in its modern political history, said Kurokawa, an expert of internal medicine and a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
It is also the first that can request that parliament subpoena witnesses and documents, although the lack of a penalty for objectors raises questions on its effectiveness. The panel will submit its findings to parliament around June for action to be taken.
The panel includes legal, nuclear and medical experts. Seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi has long warned of tsunami risks in the earthquake-prone country where all 54 nuclear reactors are built on the coastline. Engineer Mitsuhiko Tanaka designed nuclear reactors at Babcock-Hitachi K.K. and has suggested the March quake damaged the Fukushima reactors before the tsunami.
The separate government-appointed panel released preliminary findings last month and found plenty to criticize. It said management of the crisis was marred by erroneous assumptions about equipment, delayed disclosure of radiation leaks and other problems.
The government panel had no subpoena power and the more than 400 witnesses it interviewed were allowed to stay anonymous. Kurokawa said he might seek those transcripts to avoid overlaps.
He said the panel has not decided whether to try to question former Prime Minister Naoto Kan and other top officials responsible for the initial crisis response in public. Kan resigned in August amid widespread criticism of his handling of the nuclear and tsunami disasters and recovery efforts.
Kyodo Press, January 17, 2012
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2012/01/17/20120117p2g00m0dm033000c.html
Energy agency boss told subordinate to cover up estimated costs to dump nuclear fuel
A division head at the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy instructed a subordinate in April 2004 to conceal the estimated costs for disposing of spent nuclear fuel without reprocessing it, sources involved in the case and a memorandum have revealed.
Two months later, a government advisory panel proposed a system under which electric power consumers would be required to foot approximately 19 trillion yen for the costs of operations at a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture.
Under the current government policy, all spent nuclear fuel is supposed to be reprocessed. However, if the data had been disclosed, it would have revealed that dumping nuclear waste is far cheaper than reprocessing it and could have spurred calls on the government to review its so-called nuclear fuel recycling policy.
It earlier came to light that top officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry had considered withdrawal from the nuclear fuel reprocessing project since 2002.
Masaya Yasui was serving as director of the agency’s Nuclear Energy Policy Planning Division when he instructed the cover-up. Yasui, a technical official who had majored in nuclear engineering at the University of Tokyo, has been involved in atomic energy promotion policy for many years.
In other words, those involved in the promotion of nuclear power blocked moves toward abandoning the nuclear fuel recycling project.
However, Yasui denied having instructed the subordinate to cover up the data. “He might have brought such data to me, but I have no recollection of instructing him to cover it up.”
In the late 1990s, the then International Trade and Industry Ministry commissioned the Radioactive Waste Management Center, which is now called the Radioactive Waste Management Funding and Research Center, to estimate the costs of disposing of spent nuclear fuel.
In 1998, the center estimated the costs at 4.2 to 6.1 trillion yen, one-fourth to one-third of the approximately 19 trillion yen needed to reprocess nuclear waste.
An April 20, 2004 memorandum, which the Mainichi Shimbun has recently obtained, states, “The subordinate notified director Yasui yesterday of the existence of the estimate. The director ordered the subordinate to ’keep it away from the eyes of the general public.’”
In an interview with the Mainichi, the subordinate admitted that Yasui had instructed him to keep the data somewhere where nobody else could see it.
In May 2004, a number of members of an advisory panel to the economy, trade and industry minister on natural resources and energy policy urged the government to estimate costs for disposing of spent nuclear waste without reprocessing it.
However, officials of the agency’s Nuclear Energy Policy Planning Division did not inform panel members of the existence of the estimated costs. In June of that year, the panel proposed a system under which the approximately 19 billion yen necessary to operate the Rokkasho reprocessing plant would be added to electricity bills.
Based on this, the government worked out the current nuclear power policy outline, which calls for all spent nuclear fuel to be processed and recycled.
Mainichi Shimbun, January 2, 2012
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2012/01/02/20120102p2a00m0na014000c.html
TEPCO’s N-Plant Data System Had No Emergency Power on March 11
Tokyo, Jan. 19 (Jiji Press)—Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s <9501> crucial system to send nuclear plant status data was left without any emergency power source when the firm’s doomed plant was hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami last year, TEPCO officials said Thursday.
The power firm removed the emergency power supply device for the system at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant in November 2010 during renewal work for the system, the officials said.
The system, which sends data on the plant’s nuclear reactors to the government’s Emergency Response Support System, had no emergency power source when the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and massive tsunami struck, the officials said.
The ERSS is designed to monitor temperatures and pressures inside nuclear reactors in emergencies, such as the one at the northeastern Japan power plant.
If connected to the power device, TEPCO’s data transmission system would have been able to send crucial plant data for about two hours until the government’s disaster communications network broke down on March 11, the officials added.
Jiji Press, January 19, 2012
http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2012011900455
TEPCO neglected anti-flood measures at Fukushima plant despite knowing risk
A room housing an emergency power system at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant had been submerged due to a pipe leak 20 years ago, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) revealed Dec. 29.
The utility’s latest revelations indicate that the company had failed to institute measures against flooding despite knowledge that it was possible.
According to TEPCO, the incident took place on Oct. 30, 1991, when seawater used as reactor coolant leaked from a pipe inside the turbine building of the plant’s No. 1 reactor. Although the emergency power system room was flooded, the power supply was not cut. The reactor, however, was stopped for the day.
Both the emergency power room and pipe were located on the basement floor of the building. The corroded pipe leaked water at a rate of 20 cubic meters per hour, which penetrated the room with the reactor’s emergency power system through the door and holes for cables. Of the two power sources, one was completely submerged, but its drive mechanism remained unaffected.
Water from tsunami following the Great East Japan Earthquake in March this year flooded the power plant’s emergency power systems and power switchboards through aboveground openings, disabling them. The reactors subsequently overheated, leading to reactor meltdowns.
Mainichi Shimbuan, December 30, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/12/30/20111230p2a00m0na008000c.html
New nuclear safety agency to have 500 staff: Hosono
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japan’s new nuclear safety agency to be launched in April under the Environment Ministry will consist of about 500 staff members and is expected to secure some 50 billion yen in the fiscal 2012 budget, Environment Minister Goshi Hosono said Tuesday.
The figures are larger both in terms of the scale of the organization and the budget compared with the existing nuclear regulatory body, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which has around 400 personnel with a budget of about 40 billion yen. NISA, under the industry ministry, will be integrated into the new agency.
The move to overhaul the country’s nuclear safety system came as public confidence in the agency was shaken in the wake of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, with questions raised about whether it is appropriate to have regulators under the industry ministry, which also promotes nuclear power.
The new nuclear safety agency is expected to focus on enhancing crisis management functions and will also be in charge of conducting health surveys for people affected by the Fukushima accident, which was triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to the environment ministry.
Kyodo Press, December 20, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2011/12/20/20111220p2g00m0dm098000c.html