OK, for now enough of economies who are on their last legs. It is time to take a look at something completely different. Whenever I see any news on nuclear reactors, my first thought is on an old sketch by Benny Hill. “Would you like to see your children to glow in the dark? Feed them Windscale porridge!” I thought it was hilarious. Of course, as I was still growing up in the Netherlands, I did understand the nuclear reactor part, but what I did not know was that the joke was linked to the “Windscale accident, accident in 1957 at the Windscale nuclear reactor facility and plutonium-production plant in the county of Cumberland (now part of Cumbria), in north-western England, that was the United Kingdom’s most serious nuclear power accident.” (Source: Britannica).
But issues at present are not that funny. Less than 24 hours ago another leak was spotted at TEPCO’s famous new place called Fukushima. (At http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/03/japan-fukushima-water-idUSL4N0HT0BW20131003) Quoting Reuters, we get the following facts: “Leak probably flowed into Pacific after worker misjudged tank capacity” and “Tepco’s efforts to improve water handling not sufficient, govt says“. Really? The word ‘Misjudge‘ is used?
In addition there are these two quotes. “Tepco has been relying on hastily built tanks to hold excess cooling water flushed over damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi site” and “Tepco said the water that leaked contained 200,000 becquerels per litre of beta-emitting radioactive isotopes, including strontium 90. The legal limit for strontium 90 is 30 becquerels per litre.”
Fortunately, I am a technologist and not an economist. Yet, when we judge the news article Reuters comes with, which was DEVOID of the name of whoever wrote it, then I have two issues.
1. Was TEPCO actually this stupid? (Until later in the article I was not completely convinced that this was the case).
2. The Reuters article contains ‘misjudge’, ‘hastily build tanks’ and ‘strontium-90’, I want to see a clear identity on the source. The partially implied information that the ocean is receiving 6666 times the acceptable dose of radiation is leaving me with too many questions. The article ‘implies’ I said, because the wording leaves in the middle what the exact radiation source is. In addition, the fact that they are relying on hastily build tanks 2.5 years after the event is not just unacceptable, in my eyes the non-acting by the Japanese government needs to be questioned on EVERY news station on this planet. Just in case Tim Burton was right, we need to transmit that newscast to Mars too! (Before it attacks)
I know it is ‘only’ a day old and covering bickering US politicians seems a lot more sexy then radiation leaks, the fact that both ‘event‘ and ‘news covering‘ is a little out of whack, the leak should get the spotlight it deserves.
Why is this an issue? Well, in 1945 the Japanese population was set at 71,000,000. After the bombs there, Japan had massive issues, especially food shortages (not sure how much was due to radiation). Now consider that Japan consists of 121 million people. Even though Fukushima in one place, it dumped radiation into the ocean and it seems there is nowhere near the needed levels of control in play to prevent long term damage to fishing waters.
TEPCO does not seem to have its game face on and Reuters implies that it will not change for the better any day soon. As soon as the government walks in, the TEPCO execs will clamp up and the Japanese people will not receive the answers they are entitled to. The implication from Reuters that hastily build tanks were never improved upon within 3 years, so this implies that the problems the Japanese face are long term and might include long term health issues.
What is so upsetting?
In my mind I see a few. First the fact that places like TEPCO did not learn anything from Tsernobyl. Even though nature was the reason for what happened in Fukushima and the damage to any solution due to the tsunami is not their fault, but when I see that people ‘misjudge’, that hastily build tanks were not replaced within mere weeks by a less hastily solution gives me the shivers. If we look at TEPCO’s 1st Qtr. earnings for 2013 (at http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/corpinfo/ir/tool/presen/pdf/130731_1-e.pdf)
We see a consolidated ‘Net income’ of almost 4.5 billion dollar, so the ‘hastily build’ tanks are no way an acceptable excuse.
Now, we must realise that the Reuters source is not known and no way to check who wrote this, but either it was written by someone now in his/her last week of journalism EVER! Or, the TEPCO board of directors need to be openly arrested and get immediately placed in front of the honourable Hironobu Takesaki, Chief justice of the Supreme Court of Japan, with every Japanese TV news camera in that same court. I would like to see the faces as they answer in regards to those hastily build tanks, misjudgement and still report a 4.5 billion dollar net income.
I could accept issues when the net income was ‘ZERO’. I would understand that they are facing a disaster due to natural causes. I would understand that they got financial support from the government in such events. I do not understand the combination of 4.5 billion and utterly lacking acts!
Perhaps it is just me!
The engineer in me understands the nightmare that these engineers face today. The impossible conditions, the lacking resources and no clear solution. But these lack of results in 2+ years draw all kinds of questions, many of them not very positive.
This is not about Japanese worker ethics; this is not about the size of the challenge. It is that the combination and the time passed give nowhere near the lack of results. I do not envy them and no matter what will be done, it will be an expensive and time consuming endeavour. Whether they look at a Dutch water dike system to insulate the area, place 2-3 tankers next to these hastily build tanks to collect water, whether they freeze it all solid with liquid nitrogen. Something else needs to be done.
Last week Bloomberg had a much better article. (At http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-25/russia-offers-to-help-clean-up-fukushima-as-tepco-calls-for-help.html)
“‘It was clear for a long time that TEPCO was not adequately coping with the situation’, Asmolov said. ‘It looks like TEPCO management were the last to realize this,’ he said. ‘Japan has the technologies to do this, but they lacked a system to deal with this kind of situation’.”
It seems that the implied blame towards TEPCO sounds more justified then I thought, and in this case Vladimir Asmolov is the man who runs the state owned Russian Nuclear Utility. So the man would know his non-glow in the dark solutions.
What the article shows is the one part that many might not know “Russia repeated an offer first made two years ago to help Japan clean up its accident-ravaged Fukushima nuclear station, welcoming Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s decision to seek outside help. ” So Russia was there to help, but (and I am assuming here), TEPCO had a pride issue for 2 years? I get that they will weigh it all for the first few days, even the first month, but the first 29 months? I reckon it is time to ask questions.
No matter how I feel, I do wonder how members of the board of TEPCO can get home safely every night from Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan to wherever they live, having to get past 9 million Tokyo residents and many of them with likely not that great an appreciation of these board members as they have to live with the consequences of that glow in the dark mess.
Perhaps we will see a new Sketch in Japan soon:
あなたは暗闇の中で輝きたいのですか？福島フィッシュ
Do you want to glow in the dark? Fukushima Fish. (Via Google Translate)
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 