Author: Rick E

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Minamata Film Premieres in Berlin

Minamata, a film drama based on the book by W. Eugene and Green Action director Aileen M. Smith, premiered on February 21st at the Berlin International Film Festival. Directed by Andrew Levitas, the film stars Johnny Depp as photographer Eugene Smith, who travels with Aileen to Japan to document the effects of mercury poisoning on the residents of a coastal community. Actors Bill Nighy, Hiroyuki Sanada and Minami play supporting roles as Life editor Robert Hayes, activist Mitsuo Yamazaki and Aileen Mioko Smith.

At a press conference for the film, Depp, who spearheaded the film’s production, said he felt that Minamata was “a story that needed to be told.” He spoke of his belief in the “power of the small” to confront and topple “monolithic opponents.”

  • Aileen Mioko Smith, Katherine Jenkins, Akiko Iwase, Minami (photo courtesy Berlinale 2020)
  • The film team (photo courtesy Berlinale 2020)
  • Minami and Johnny Depp as Aileen Mioko Smith and W. Eugene Smith in Minamata

At the premiere, Green Action and environmental organization IPEN distributed flyers to raise awareness of ongoing mercury pollution from fossil fuels, gold mining and industrial contamination.

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Letter to AREVA Japan Calling for Disclosure of MOX Fuel Quality Control Data, 2016-07-21

Frédéric Patalagoity,
President and Managing Director
AREVA Japan
Urban Toranomon, Bldg. 5F
1-16-4 Toranomon, Minato-ku
Tokyo 105-0001
Japan

July 21, 2016

Dear Frédéric Patalagoity,

We are writing to you to express our disappointment and concerns over the use of AREVA produced MOX fuel in Japanese nuclear power plants.

As you know we wrote to you on January 28th of this year to request details over the quality of plutonium mixed oxide fuel supplied to Japan, specifically Kansai Electric. We have yet to receive a response to this letter (also attached to this letter).

As you will be aware the Ikata 3 reactor is due to restart operations shortly. Sixteen assemblies of MOX fuel supplied by AREVA in 2009 (as part of 21 assembly delivery) have been loaded into the reactor. As with the fuel supplied to Takahama, there are major doubts over the safety of the MOX fuel about to be used in Ikata, including quality control issues related to the thermal stability of the fuel.

We are alarmed by the lack of transparency over issues of fundamental nuclear safety demonstrated by AREVA’s lack of response.  At a time of unprecedented crisis for the global business operations of AREVA, failure to provide information that is in the public interest and that of nuclear safety is both unacceptable and poor business practice. Once again we calling on AREVA to release immediately the actual quality control data for MOX fuel assemblies supplied to both Kansai Electric’s  Takahama 3&4 reactors, and Shikoku Electric’s  Ikata 3 reactor.

Yours sincerely,
Shaun Burnie
Senior Nuclear Specialist,
Greenpeace Germany

Aileen Mioko Smith
Executive Director,
Green Action
Kyoto

Hideyuki Ban
Co-Director,
Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center
Tokyo

Hideyuki Koyama
Director,
Osaka Citizens Against the Mihama, Ohi and Takahama Nuclear Power Plants (Mihama-no-Kai)
Osaka

PDF: Letter to AREVA Japan Calling for Disclosure of MOX Fuel Quality Control Data, 2016-07-21

日本語訳

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Letter to AREVA Japan Calling for Disclosure of MOX Fuel Quality Control Data, 2016-01-28

Frédéric Patalagoity,
President and Managing Director
AREVA Japan
Urban Toranomon, Bld 5F 1-16-4
Toranomon, Minato-ku
Tokyo 105-0001
Japan

January 28th 2016

Dear Frédéric Patalagoity,

We are writing to you to outline our concerns with the production standards, quality control and, ultimately, safety of AREVA plutonium MOX fuel produced for Japanese utilities. Specifically the planned use of 30 MOX assemblies in the Takahama reactor units 3&4, owned by Kansai Electric.

As you will be aware it is fifteen years since the poor quality control and production standards of plutonium MOX fuel was first disclosed in the case of 8 MOX fuel assemblies manufactured by the then British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) at Sellafield in the UK, and delivered to the Kansai Electric reactor Takahama unit 4 in Fukui prefecture. As a result of our analysis, based on original quality control data that BNFL were forced to disclose publicly at that time, Green Action and Mihama-no-Kai filed a legal challenge. For two month both Kansai Electric and BNFL denied that the fuel had falsified quality control data. However, in December 1999, one day before the court ruling, Kansai Electric and BNFL were forced to confirm in that plutonium MOX fuel to be used in Takahama 4 contained falsified quality control data. As you know the fuel was returned to the UK and scrapped.

In 1999 and 2000 we produced analysis that showed production and quality control standards for MOX fuel produced using the MIMAS method, including at the Cogema/AREVA Melox plant, were actually of a lower standard than used by BNFL. This was used by a legal challenge to the Fukushima District court on behalf of 1000 plaintiffs in challenging the loading of 32 MOX fuel assemblies into the Fukushima Daiichi unit 3 reactor. The MOX fuel was manufactured using the MIMAS method, under a contract between Tokyo Electric and COMMOX, of which Cogema was a lead agency. While the judgement of the Fukushima District Court did not uphold the lawsuits complaint, the judgement also made clear that quality control data for the MOX fuel should be publicly disclosed. No such data was released by COMMOX in the intervening years. As a consequence of the doubts and controversy over the safety and quality of MOX fuel, Tokyo Electric were prevented from use of the 32 assemblies of MOX fuel until September 2010, six months prior to the March 2011 disaster.

You will also be aware that 28 MOX assemblies delivered to the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata in 2001, as a consequence of the controversy over the quality and safety of MOX fuel and the opposition of the people of Kariwa, was not loaded into unit 3 as planned. Nearly 15 years later that plutonium fuel remains unused and stored in the cooling pool at the reactor site.

As AREVA sought to restart its MOX business with Japanese utilities the issue of quality control and production standards persisted. Twelve AREVA MOX fuel assemblies, containing 552kg of plutonium were delivered to the Takahama plant in 2010, eight of which were loaded into unit 3. Our analysis at the time found that there were disagreements between AREVA and Nuclear Fuel Industries Ltd (the developer and design code verifier of the MOX fuel and contractor acting on behalf of Kansai Electric and other Japanese power companies). Specifically over the MOX fuel quality and production standards to be used for the manufacture of Japanese fuel at AREVA’s Melox fuel production plant in Marcoule, France, including for Takahama. As a result of AREVA’s production problems, and their intransigence, NFI agreed to AREVA’s insistence that a lower standard of production and quality control would be used for the production of MOX fuel, including for that produced for Kansai Electric. AREVA failed to publicly provide quality control data at this time when challenged by us in 2010.

As you know the safety implications of MOX fuel use are severe. This is made worse by significant problems with the quality control and production standards that exist at the Melox plant.

The MIMAS production technology used at Melox has a multiple problems, including in relation to a fundamental issue for MOX fuel, Thermal Stability. If the plutonium fuel pellets swell under heat alone, and as internal pressure builds up from gaseous fission products, a gas-filled pellet-cladding gap can occur. This has several nuclear safety consequences. Not least that in the event of a loss of coolant accident, the MOX fuel, which may already be fractious, would be further more likely to fragment and “relocate”. The heterogeneous fuel structure can also increase the chance that fuel rods will rupture and block coolant channels if a transient occurs, again potentially impacting cooling function of the reactor core. The reactor safety implications of not being able to sufficiently cool the reactor core fuel are obvious, not least from the meltdown of three reactors at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011. This underscores the importance of achieving the highest nuclear fuel production standards, and applying the most rigorous quality control and inspection. Neither of these are possible at the Melox plant.

The thermal stability problem that exists with Melox produced MOX fuel is but one of multiple concerns we have with plans to operate Japanese reactors with AREVA supplied fuel. The fact that five years after delivery of MOX fuel to Takahama, AREVA has made no effort to provide details on their production and quality control standards is unacceptable to the people of Japan. Already subjected to the consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, the people of Japan are now confronted with the risks of the restart of the Takahama reactor units 3 and 4, to be operated with 24 assemblies and 4 assemblies of AREVA MOX fuel, containing 1,088kg and 184kg of plutonium respectively.

The failure of the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) to re-assess the risks of MOX fuel use in Japan is deeply regrettable and we have challenged them on this, relying as they do on the reviews conducted by the discredited NISA. At the same time, AREVA as the manufacturer of this substandard product, has a duty to publicly disclose all relevant and original data on the quality control and production standards of its fuel that is about to be used in the Takahama reactors.

It is all the more critical that AREVA release the quality control data for the Takahama MOX fuel, as in 2010 the French nuclear safety regulator, ASN, confirmed to Greenpeace France in relation to the fuel then being shipped to Japan for use in Takahama unit 3, that, “The ASN is not involved in the quality control of production destined for Japanese utilities.” With neither French or Japanese regulators overseeing MOX fuel standards and quality control there clearly are additional major failures and risks from Kansai Electric’s plans to use AREVA MOX fuel. Without a commitment to transparency on this issue, assurances that the fuel is safe to use are meaningless.

We understand that AREVA have multiple threats and challenges to their future business prospects. Securing additional MOX business with Japanese utilities, including new MOX fuel manufacture, must rank high in your priorities given the 16,000kg of plutonium belonging to Japan currently stored in France. This will require the transport of many hundreds tons of MOX fuel from France, including that scheduled for 2016. But we would contend that a failure to put safety first and above commercial interests is in no ones interests, including those of AREVA.

Conducting a nuclear test on the people of Fukui, Kansai region and wider Japan, is never acceptable. As we approach the anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi accident it is even more reprehensible that AREVA has so far refused to fully disclose all relevant data on its MOX production problems at Melox. We are calling on you to release immediately the actual quality control data for the 30 MOX fuel assemblies about to irradiated in the Takahama reactors.

Yours sincerely,

Shaun Burnie
Senior Nuclear Specialist,
Greenpeace Germany

Aileen Mioko Smith
Executive Director,
Green Action, Kyoto

Hideyuki Ban
Co-Director,
Citizens’ Nuclear Information 
Center
Tokyo

Hideyuki Koyama
Director,
Osaka Citizens Against the Mihama, 
Ohi and Takahama Nuclear Power Plants
(Mihama-no-Kai)
Osaka

PDF: Letter to AREVA Japan Calling for Disclosure of MOX Fuel Quality Control Data, 2016-01-28

日本語訳

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Japan: A Land of Earthquakes and Nuke Plants?

Japan is the only country in the world where dozens of nuclear power plants and earthquake-prone areas overlap. The black dots on this map represent locations of past earthquakes. The red dots represent the location of the 54 nuclear power plants in Japan, four of them reactors at Fukushima that suffered the accident on March 11, 2011.

Green Action has played a key role in addressing the problem of active earthquake faults under nuclear power plants, particularly under the Ohi Units 3 and 4 nuclear power plant reactors in Fukui Prefecture facing the Japan Sea. The site is owned and operated by Kansai Electric, the second largest electric utility in Japan and the one most dependent on nuclear power. In June of 2012 Green Action, along with the Osaka-based citizen organization Mihama-no-Kai, demanded that an investigation be undertaken to see if the “F-6” earthquake fault under Units 3 and 4 is active.

Working with other anti-nuclear citizen organizations Green Action worked on a national petition demanding an investigation. Our joint efforts also lead to 108 members of Japan’s national Diet to demand an expert investigation of the F-6 fault be undertaken. This resulted in the government establishing an expert investigation committee to investigate the F-6 fault.

On November 15, 2013 the government investigation committee concluded the F-6 fault was not active, even though the trench the utility dug at the southern end of the reactor site to find the fault was much shorter than what was originally demanded by the government, and even though a fault that was found and declared not active was located in a different place that the place where the utility originally stated the F-6 fault existed. The “New F-6 Fault” was found inactive and the investigation was closed.

During the government expert investigation, an active fault was found at the northern part of the site. Although there was comment during the peer review undertaken on December 27, 2013 that this fault should be checked to see how close it continued to the emergency coolant pipe leading to the reactors, and even though the Nuclear Regulation Authority stated it would undertake this, it did not.

There are many other earthquake faults under the Ohi Unit 3 and 4 according to Kansai Electric’s investigation.

The battle is still on.

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Women from all over Japan demand the end of nuclear power, support of Fukushima citizen rights

Japanese women throughout Japan join Fukushima women in front of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Tokyo, location of a tent pitched in front of the ministry demanding the end of nuclear power. The women are united in working to end nuclear power in Japan and supporting Fukushima citizens, particularly children who are suffering from radiation exposure. Children are the most vulnerable to the effects of radiation exposure. The rallying call: “Let’s protect Fukushima children! Let’s protect children all over Japan! Women will stop nuclear power! Men will stop nuclear power! We will all together stop nuclear power!” (November 2011)

Rallies calling for no restart of nuclear power in Japan take place every Friday evening in Tokyo and many cities from the north to south of Japan including Sapporo, Niigata, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagasaki, and Fukuoka, Kagoshima.

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Organizations Protest Approval of Sendai Nuclear Power Plant’s Conformation to Regulatory Standards

[English translation]

Joint Statement Protesting: Nuclear Regulatory Authority’s Draft Approval of Sendai Nuclear Power Plant’s Conformation to New Nuclear Regulatory Standards

16 July 2014
Issued by:
The Nuclear Regulation Authority Citizen Watchdog Group
and 7 other organizations

Today, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) issued a draft report on Kyushu Electric’s Sendai Nuclear Power Plant application for restart, stating the NRA’s review found the plant conforming to the New Regulatory Standards. We strongly protest this report.

The NRA review to inspect conformation to the New Regulatory Standards does not learn from the lessons of Tokyo Electric’s Fukushima Daiichi accident, and, for the following reasons it is clearly evident that the situation is far from being able to issue such conformation to New Regulatory Standards.

  1. In spite of acknowledging the warnings issued by experts that assessments on the effects of volcanoes cannot predict volcanic eruptions, the NRA review is ignoring this fact, thus violating its own Volcanic Effects Assessment Guide.
    • Although Kyushu Electric’s claim which states that the possibility is extremely small that a gigantic volcanic eruption (caldera eruption) would occur during the operation of the nuclear power plant is not substantiated with sufficient evidence, the NRA, with not a single volcano expert on its committee, without asking the opinion of experts, and with virtually no discussion, allowed this claim to pass.
    • With volcano experts stating that a huge volcanic eruption (caldera eruption) is difficult to predict, the government admitted the difficulty of being able to predict the extent and timing of such eruptions. Being able to predict the extend of the volcanic eruption and when pyroclastic flow will occur is absolutely necessary because nuclear fuel must be removed from the power plant site beforehand and because this removal takes years to complete. In spite of this, the NRA has only put monitoring in place for now, and has tossed aside this issue as an issue to be handled in the mid-term future.
  2. The NRA is requiring absolutely no measures to be undertaken to prevent contaminated water from being released into the ocean and other areas in the event of a serious accident

The New Regulatory Standards require that, even though the containment has been breeched during a serious nuclear accident, countermeasures must be undertaken to limit the dispersal of radiation. Although it is stated that the New Regulatory Standards are based on lessons learnt from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, the review process completely ignored the serious situation of contaminated water emissions currently occurring at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and did not require measures be undertaken to prevent radioactive emissions from the Sendai Plant in the event of an accident.
Moreover, at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant, 300 tons of groundwater is being pumped out daily, and when the pump equipment no longer functions in the event of a serious accident, groundwater would enter the nuclear power plant facility and mix with the contaminated coolant water that has leaked from the bottom of the containment, thus creating the danger that large quantities of contaminated water would be generated. No countermeasures have been put in place to prevent such an occurrence.

  1. Measures to prevent breeching of the containment and hydrogen explosions in the event of a serious accident are inadequate—cross-checking to verify the reliability of the analysis code has not been undertaken

Kyushu Electric has a shocking plan in the event of a serious accident involving loss of coolant and loss of power. The company plans to abandon cooling of the reactor vessel and instead will switch to pooling water at the bottom of the containment vessel and having the molten fuel which has breeched the reactor vessel fall into the pooled water. The company claims that this would not lead to breech of the containment vessel nor hydrogen explosions, but its claims are only based on computerized analyses.

The accuracy of the computer code used by Kyushu Electric has been put into question. Nevertheless, the Nuclear Regulation Authority / Nuclear Regulatory Agency did not undertake a cross-check with another computer code, a procedure which is normally undertaken.

  1. Seismic motion has been underestimated

The NRA did not have the method utilized for estimating the effects of a tsunami, the Takemura Method, used for estimating the earthquake motion at the Sendai Plant. The Takemura Method takes into account the special characteristic of Japanese earthquakes. If the Takemura Method had been utilized, it would have approximately doubled the earthquake motion estimation for the Sendai Plant.
Although the inadequacy of the New Regulatory Standards regarding estimation of volcanic effects became evident during the review process, as Chair of the NRA Shunichi Tanaka points out, the New Regulatory Standards do not guarantee safety.
With regards to the nuclear accident emergency preparedness plans which NRA Chair Tanaka calls “the second wheel” of a two-wheel vehicle (the other wheel being the New Regulatory Standards) the situation is as follows:

    • Kagoshima Prefecture has stated it will abandon plans to evacuate people living beyond the 10-kilometer radius who require special support. It has instead forced responsibility for undertaking plans for these people upon the welfare facilities and hospitals. As a result, no plans are in place for these people. These people are being abandoned, sacrificed.
    • As for the emergency preparedness plans for the general public, there is not enough capacity at the evacuation points to take in the people who have evacuated, thus no environment exists for remaining there. Also, there is a possibility that these evacuation points will be downwind. Moreover, the plans do not take into account the possibility of an earthquake, tsunami, or some other event occurring simultaneously to the nuclear accident. Plans for distributing potassium iodine are not in place. The screening points (the locations to undertake measurements and decontamination of radioactive materials) has not been established and no resolution for this is in sight. The possibility that evacuation may be required beyond a 30- kilometer radius has not been taken into consideration, etc.

Numerous issues remain problematic. An effective nuclear accident emergency preparedness plan is not in place. The greater the efforts put into making such plans concrete, the more apparent it becomes that there are great difficulties with evacuation.

The Sendai Nuclear Power Plant restart process should not be allowed to continue under these circumstances. The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) should retract its review report. Restart of the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant must not proceed.

原子力規制を監視する市民の会
The Nuclear Regulation Authority Citizen Watchdog Group

反原発かごしまネット
Anti-Nuclear Kagoshima Network (ANK Net)

玄海原発プルサーマルと全基をみんなで止める裁判の会
People’s Action Against The Genkai Nuclear Power Plant

グリーン・アクション
Green Action

美浜・大飯・高浜原発に反対する大阪の会
Osaka Citizens Against the Mihama, Oi and Takahama Nuclear Power Plants (Mihama-no-Kai)

国際環境NGO FoE Japan
International Environmental NGO FoE Japan

福島老朽原発を考える会
Citizens Against Fukushima Aging Nuclear Power Plants (Fukuro-no-Kai)

Contact: The Nuclear Regulation Authority Citizen Watchdog Group
Tel: +81-90-8116-7155 (Sakagami)

Contact: (in English): Green Action
Suite 103, 22-75 Tanaka Sekiden-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8203 Japan
Tel: +81-75-701-7223 Fax: +81-75-702-1952 Cell: +81-90-3620-9251 (Smith)

Download: Joint Statement Protesting Nuclear Regulatory Authority’s Draft Approval of Sendai Nuclear Power Plant’s Conformation to New Nuclear Regulatory Standards（PDF）

Japanese: 川内原発の新規制基準適合性審査　原子力規制委員会による審査書案に抗議する共同声明（PDF）

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English translation of the epoch-making Japanese court verdict issuing an injunction against restart of Japan’s nuclear power plants Ohi Units 3 and 4

English translation of the epoch-making Japanese court verdict issuing an injunction against restart of Japan’s nuclear power plants Ohi Units 3 and 4

On May 21, 2014, the Fukui District Court in Japan issued a scathing indictment against restart of the Ohi Nuclear Power Plant owned and operated by the second largest electric utility in Japan.
The injunction against the plant is epoch-making because it addresses generic issues applicable to nuclear power plants worldwide. English translation of summary now available.

Translation: Greenpeace / Cooperation: Green Action

https://www.greenpeace.de/sites/www.greenpeace.de/files/publications/fukui-urteil-03072014_0.pdf

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Press Briefing: Osaka High Court Hands Down Verdict on Ohi Injunction Lawsuit Case

Press Release / Briefing Paper
9 May 2014
Contact: Aileen Mioko Smith cell: +81-90-3620-9251 email: amsmith@gol.com

 

Will Japan Restart Nuclear Power Yet Again Ignoring Danger of Earthquakes?

Osaka High Court Hands Down Verdict on Ohi Injunction Lawsuit Case,
Reneges on Judicial Responsibility —Rules In Favor of Kansai Electric

Japan—The Osaka High Court handed down a verdict today at 14:00 in favor of the defendant, Kansai Electric, in an appeals case brought by 253 citizens seeking an injunction to stop restart of the Ohi Units 3 and 4 nuclear reactors located along Wakasa Bay in Fukui Prefecture and owned and operated by the utility. Plaintiffs were from the central Japan Kansai region, Fukui, Wakayama, and Gifu prefectures.

The case was fought under the new post-Fukushima nuclear regulatory standards issued on 8 July 2013 by the newly established Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA).

The court, declaring the earlier Osaka District Court ruling (in favor of Kansai Electric, handed down 16 April, 2013) null and void, ruled that since the restart of Ohi Units 3 and 4 was not imminent, the case did not qualify as necessitating consideration of an injunction. It also stated that since the NRA was currently in the process of reviewing Kansai Electric’s application, the court would not rule on the issues addressed by plaintiffs. Many of these issues are common to all utility applications seeking restart.

Eight electric utilities have submitted a total of 17 applications for restart of reactors, i.e. the reactors are being examined to confirm whether or not they comply with the new post-Fukushima standards.

During the year-long high court case, Kansai Electric had not issued any rebuttal of the plaintiffs’ arguments. The court’s explanation of Kansai Electric’s position was given in just 9 lines. The court also did not go into the plaintiffs’ arguments. Its option consisted of 3 pages in the 11-page verdict text.

The plaintiffs’ arguments centered on the following:

Issue One:
Underestimation of Earthquake Shaking Effect on Ohi Units 3 and 4
Ohi Units 3 and 4 are sited in the Wakasa Bay region (Fukui Prefecture), which is riddled with earthquake faults. Emeritus Professor Katsuhiko Ishibashi, the seismologist who first coined the expression “Nuclear Accident Disaster by Earthquake” (“Genpatsu Shinsai”) has testified in Diet Upper House committee that next to the Hamaoka nuclear power plant located in Shizuoka Prefecture, the reactors most threatened by seismic activity are those along Wakasa Bay. Both Kansai Electric and the NRA under-estimate the scale of seismic motion that could occur in the event of a serious earthquake near the Ohi site.

The Ohi site is situated close to 3 earthquake faults (FoB, FoA and Kumagawa) that are aligned longitudinally. Citizens, and now the NRA, have stated these should be presumed to act as one fault.

Although Kansai Electric uses the Takemura Method (which is based on past Japanese earthquakes) to estimate the effects of a tsunami at the Ohi site, it uses another method based on past overseas earthquakes and just one earthquake which occurred in Japan, the Irikura-Miyake Method, when it comes to estimating seismic motion at the reactor site. Characteristics of Japanese and overseas earthquakes differ. Japanese earthquakes have been found to produce greater seismic motion with the same area (length and width) of fault movement than foreign earthquakes. The cause of this is not known.

If Kansai Electric utilized the Takemura Method to estimate seismic motion at Ohi Units 3 and 4 instead of the Irikura-Miyake Method, projected seismic motion affecting the reactors would be 4.7 times greater. Under such stress, the facility at Ohi would not be able to withstand the shaking that would occur. Since government regulations require a nuclear site to be able to withstand the most serious seismic motion estimated, the plants would have to be shut down if the Takemura Method were utilized.

Kansai Electric balked at assuming all three faults (FoB FoA and Kumagawa) would shift in unison. The Osaka District Court verdict, despite ruling in favor of Kansai Electric, had stated that estimation of seismic motion affecting the reactors should be undertaken under the assumption that the three faults would act in unison. This no doubt helped to support NRA Deputy Chief Commissioner Kunihiko Shimazaki, the authority’s seismic expert, who then continued to insist that the utility should make its estimates assuming movement of the three in unison. Shimazaki also stated that the earthquake should be presumed to shift at 3km depth rather than 4km. This would yield greater seismic motion. Ohi Units 3 and 4 now must undergo costly reconstruction and delay of restart before the reactors’ review is completed. Newspaper reports state it will be difficult to restart the reactors within this fiscal year, thus leading to the court’s statement that restart is not imminent.

While taking a stand on the 3-fault issue, the NRA is not requiring that Kansai Electric use the same Takemura Method it used for estimating tsunami height when it estimates seismic motion of the reactor site, although at one point the Nuclear Regulation Agency used Takemura Method figures when pointing out to Kansai Electric that it should employ several types of analyses, not just Irikura-Miyake. Later, the Agency withdrew the Takemura Method remark. Commissioner Shimazaki had stated earlier, when addressing the two different methods used for tsunami and seismic motion of the reactors, that “The earthquake is the same one.” Later, however, he made no further mention of this issue. The NRA often changes its stance after holding closed-door meetings with utility applicants. (All electric utilities use the same method of using one method for tsunami and the other for seismic motion affecting reactors.)

The plaintiffs demanded that in order to protect citizens, Kansai Electric must use the Takemura Method when estimating seismic motion of Ohi Units 3 and 4.

Issue Two:
A: Kansai Electric is Violating the Post-Fukushima Accident Regulation Requiring Measures to be Undertaken to Prevent a Breach of the Reactor Vessel—NRA is Also Ignoring its Own Regulation
The post-Fukushima regulations issued by the NRA require that, in the event of a serious accident, operators have a plan for preventing melt-through of the molten fuel through the reactor vessel. Kansai Electric’s application for restarting the Ohi units (and all PWR applications of other utilities), however, ignores this regulation. Instead, the reactor vessel is to be abandoned once the fuel begins to melt and instead, spraying and pooling of water at the bottom of the containment vessel is planned. This is in clear violation of the NRA regulation. The NRA should have not accepted the application in the first place. However, the NRA is currently processing all utility applications. In fact, Commissioner Toyoshi Fuketa, the NRA’s reactor expert, has described this type of application as “not having much of a problem.”

The plaintiffs are demanding that Kansai Electric meet the NRA regulation and have a plan to inject water into the reactor vessel in the event of a fuel melt, and undertake measures to retain radioactive material inside the containment vessel in the event of a reactor vessel breach.

B: Kansai Electric Measures and NRA Regulations Do Not Prevent Release of Radioactive Water into the Ocean in the Event of a Serious Accident
Kansai Electric’s method of preventing radioactive material from entering the ocean is a silt fence around the bay where the reactors are situated. This is the same ineffective method that is currently being employed by Tokyo Electric at Fukushima Daiichi. NRA regulations do not require measures to be undertaken to prevent release of radioactive material from entering the marine environment in the event of an accident.

The plaintiffs insist that lessons from the Fukushima accident should be learned and Kansai Electric must undertake measures to prevent release of radioactive material into the marine environment in the event of an accident.

Issue Three:
Active Fault at Ohi Unit 3 and 4 Site Being Ignored by Kansai Electric (and NRA)
The Ohi Unit 3 and 4 site is riddled with shattered zones (earthquake faults). As a result of citizen action and Diet member petitioning, one of the faults, the F-6, was investigated by the NRA. During the investigation, Kansai Electric refused to dig a 300-meter trench which the NRA had asked for in order to locate the fault, digging instead a trench only 70 meters long. There, at a different location than where the utility had said the F-6 was located, it found an inactive fault, and declared it to be the F-6. This was then called the New F-6 fault. By drawing a contorted fault line crossing the reactor site from the north to the south which bends sharply in the middle, it stated this was the New F-6 fault and it is inactive. The NRA agreed.

During the investigation, an active fault was found at the northern part of the reactor site at a location called Daibahama. The fault is located 210 meters from the emergency coolant pipe leading from the ocean to the reactor vessels. Although the peer review which followed the NRA investigation stated that the fault should be investigated to see whether it goes further into the reactor site and closer to the emergency coolant pipe, and the NRA agreed to investigate further, the NRA has failed to put this on its agenda and no such investigation has been undertaken.

The NRA chart listing issues that been completed under the review process for Ohi Units 3 and 4 registered the earthquake fault issue as having cleared the review. It is worth noting that the new post-Fukushima regulations issued by the NRA state that if an active fault is found near a vital facility at the reactor site, the site cannot be operated. The NRA is ignoring its own regulation.

The plaintiffs are seeking that the court should issue an injunction to prevent restart of Ohi Units 3 and 4 because the plant is unsafe from earthquakes.

———

“Both the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) and the electric utilities including Kansai Electric are reneging on their responsibility to prevent another nuclear power plant disaster in Japan. It is unfortunate that the Japanese judiciary is following suit. We hope the judiciary will change course and realize it must think and act on its own,” stated Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of Green Action (Japan).

Citizens (many of the same plaintiffs) are also suing the Japanese government in Osaka District Court. The lawsuit seeks to have the court declare that Ohi Units 3 and 4 should not be restarted.

In civil society action, citizens are addressing the inadequacy of Japanese nuclear accident emergency planning and are protesting the NRA’s declaration that the danger of volcanic eruption to the Sendai nuclear power plant site in Kagoshima Prefecture will be addressed only after completion of the restart application review. I is worthy to note that none of the NRA commissioners have expertise on volcanoes.

Download: Osaka High Court Hands Down Verdict on Ohi Injunction Lawsuit Case

Today’s Japanese press release issued by the plaintiffs can be found at:
http://www.greenaction-japan.org/modules/wordpress/index.php?p=698

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Press Release: Third Anniversary of the 3.11 Great East Japan Earthquake

Third Anniversary of the 3.11 Great East Japan Earthquake

Those Responsible for the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident Not Held Accountable

Japanese government pushing for restart of nuclear power

Press Release
For immediate release
For further information contact: Aileen Mioko Smith +81-90-3620-9251
amsmith@gol.com

11 March 2014 (Kyoto, Japan)

No One Held Criminally Responsible for Man-Made Accident
Three years into the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, not a single individual has been held criminally responsible for the disaster. This is in spite of the fact NAIIC (The National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission) stated on 5 July 2012 in its final report that, “The TEPCO Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO, and the lack of governance by said parties. They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents. Therefore, we conclude that the accident was clearly “manmade.”

Responsibility for Tsunami Underestimation Should Also be Investigated
In February 2002, those responsible in the Japanese government for establishing tsunami warning levels chose the estimate of the Nuclear Civil Engineering Committee of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers. This committee was and is riddled with people from the electric utilities, the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI), the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO), and the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC) . The government chose this committee’s estimate over the scientific estimate established by authoritative earthquake and tsunami experts, the Earthquake Research Committee of the Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion.

Responsibility for this underestimation of the tsunami must also be investigated.

Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) Prioritizes Restart of Nuclear Power Over Dealing with Fukushima Daiichi Disaster
The Nuclear Regulatory Agency does not keep a record of how Nuclear Regulation Authority commissioners spend their time. So Green Action tracked the time commissioners spent on dealing with the Fukushima Daiichi Accident (including radioactive discharges) vs. processing of electric utility applications for restarting nuclear reactors. We found that since 8 July 2013 through 6 March 2014 , only 72 hours and 22 minutes were spent on dealing with the Fukushima Daiichi accident vs. 472 hours and 35 minutes on processing applications for restart of nuclear reactors.

Japan’s Nuclear Authorities Are Yet Again Underestimating Earthquake Potential for Destroying Japanese Nuclear Power Plants
Japan is riddled with earthquake faults. There are innumerable earthquake faults under and in the vicinity of Japanese nuclear reactors. Electric utility applications uniformly are under-estimating the seismic motion that could occur in the vicinity of reactors. Electric utilities are using one method to determine the tsunami height potential in the event of an earthquake (the Takemura calculation method), but use a different method (the Irikura/Miyake calculation method) for the same earthquake when they determine the potential seismic motion that would strike the nuclear reactor site. Both look into high magnitude earthquakes but the Takemura method is modeled after past Japanese earthquakes (taking the average), whereas the Irikura/Miyake model uses (with the except of one earthquake which took place in Japan) past earthquakes that have occurred around the world (likewise taking the average).

The cause for the phenomena is unknown, but for any given earthquake area (length and width), the shift that occurs with Japanese earthquakes is greater than earthquakes that occur in other parts of the world, resulting in greater earthquake moment i.e. more earthquake motion. In fact, Japan’s average (i.e. the average derived by the Takemura calculation) is equal to the most severe end of worldwide earthquakes.

The result of using basically non-Japanese earthquakes to estimate the potential damage to nuclear reactors in Japan results in severe underestimation of the degree of damage that could occur if and when a serious earthquake strikes a Japanese nuclear reactor. For example, for the Ohi Unit 4 plant, Kansai Electric’s application under-estimates by 4.7 times the seismic motion that could hit the Ohi site. In other words, if Kansai Electric were to use the Takemura calculation method instead of the Irikura/Miyake method which it is using, Ohi would be hit by 4.7 times greater seismic motion. None of the Japanese reactors including the Ohi site would pass regulatory requirements if electric utility applicants used the Takemura calculation method.

In the NRA restart hearings, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency has pointed out the Takemura figure and told Kansai Electric that this and other methods should be used to calculate seismic motion at Ohi Unit 3. However, when asked if the NRA would actually follow up on this issue, it pretends that it never mentioned the Takemura method.

Will the Nuclear Regulatory Authority Break Its Own Rules?
During the assessment of whether reactors meet the new regulatory standards put in place on 8 July 2012, the NRA appears to be ready to break its own rules.

For example, new NRA regulations state that the level of hydrogen in the containment vessel cannot exceed 13%. This is for avoiding a hydrogen detonation . In spite of this being a new regulation, all electric utilities have undertaken only one modeling (all utilities use the same method to calculate the hydrogen concentration: GOTHIC) for the potential hydrogen concentration that could occur in the containment vessel in the event of an accident (using MAAP for the accident process that yields the hydrogen.)

For example, with the Ohi Unit 3 and 4 reactor applications, Kansai Electric’s estimate is that the degree of hydrogen concentration could go up to 12.8%. But since the margin of error for MAAP should be taken into consideration, the figure would exceed the 13% regulatory limit.

Nuclear Emergency Preparedness System Plans Not In Place
New regulations require plans for evacuation of all individuals around a 30km limit, the PAZ (Urgent Protective Action Planning Zone) of nuclear power reactors. There is also a PPA guideline (Plume Protection Planning Area), which would set requirements beyond a 30km limit. The government has stated they do not know when they can issue the PPA guideline.

No regional authorities have workable emergency preparedness plans in place.

Citizens from the northern end of Japan (Hokkaido) to the southern end of Japan (Kyushu) are holding meetings with the Nuclear Regulatory Agency and ANRE (Agency of Natural Resources and Energy, MITI), addressing safety and these nuclear emergency evacuation plans.

Restart Rush
There are zero nuclear power plants operating in Japan today. The NRA will probably be selecting one to two reactors on 13 March for fast-tracking the new regulatory requirement review process. Japanese media report that the NRA will probably be completing the inspection process for this/these application(s) by the end of April, with the aim of restarting the first reactor in June.

Citizens all over Japan are fighting to prevent restart of nuclear power in Japan.

http://warp.da.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/3856371/naiic.go.jp/en/blog/reports/es-1/#toc-conclusions-and-recommendations

Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) and the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC) were joined into the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in 1 October 2005.

References are in Japanese only.
「東北南部で大津波」02年予測、政府対策に生かされず
地震調査委・島崎委員長代理が明かす
http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNASGG11003_R10C11A9000000/

視点・論点「大震災から３か月　巨大津波のメカニズム」
https://www.nhk.or.jp/kaisetsu-blog/400/86441.html

東北地方太平洋沖地震を教訓とした地震・津波対策に関する専門調査会
（内閣府）
http://www.bousai.go.jp/kaigirep/chousakai/tohokukyokun/
English:
http://www.bousai.go.jp/kaigirep/chousakai/tohokukyokun/pdf/Report.pdf

地震調査研究推進本部政策委員会第２４回総合部会
http://www.jishin.go.jp/main/seisaku/hokoku11n/sg24-7.pdf

東北地方太平洋沖地震を教訓とした地震・津波対策に関する専門調査会（第１回）
http://www.bousai.go.jp/kaigirep/chousakai/tohokukyokun/1/index.html
議事録
http://www.bousai.go.jp/kaigirep/chousakai/tohokukyokun/1/pdf/gijiroku.pdf
(22ページから土木学会と地震調査委員会。)

Date applications for restart were accepted.
The most recent meeting.
http://greenaction-japan.org/internal/140310_NRA.pdf

If closed-door meetings etc. are taken into account, the gap becomes even wider.

Statement made 18 December 2013, by Masaru Kobayashi, Director for Nuclear Regulation, Nuclear Regulatory Agency, at the Nuclear Regulation Authority restart application processing/inspection meeting.

Hydrogen explosions would occur at lower levels. This regulation is set to assure that a hydrogen detonation will not take place.

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