Sunday, April 15, 2012

Tokyo Olympic Games 2012

 

Games win would aid healing process - Tokyo chief

 

The International Olympic Committee could give a huge boost to the healing process in Japan after the trauma of last year's tsunami -- if they award Tokyo the 2020 Games, bid leader Tsunekazu Takeda said on Saturday.

This handout picture, released from the Tokyo 2020 bid committee in 2011 shows (R-L) Japanese Olympic Committee President Tsunekazu Takeda, Paralympian swimmer Mayumi Narita, designer Ai Shimamine display the logo mark for the 2020 Olympic Games as Tokyo bids to host the 2020 Olympics.

Takeda was leading the presentation to the General Assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), as Tokyo and their four rivals for the hosting of the Games vye to make the short-list which is decided in Quebec, Canada, next month.

The vote for the winning bidder itself will be held in Buenos Aires next year.

Tokyo -- who previously hosted the Games in 1964 and lost out to Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 edition -- are competing against dark horses Istanbul, Baku, Madrid and Doha.

Takeda, a former Olympic show jumper, said that he and his team were desperate to bring the Games back to Tokyo and help in the recovery of the country's morale following the catastrophic tsunami.

Tokyo are seen as the early favourites, not only because technically they are seen as an outstanding bid, but also because they are the choice of the sentimental voter.

"The many comments we received during our discussions with Olympic Family members provided us with invaluable feedback about their expectations for future Games," said Takeda, who is also president of the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC).

"We believe that Tokyo 2020 offers a responsible and sustainable plan for compact, centralised Games with a showcase stadium to be built on the site of the historic 1964 Olympic Stadium.

"We are highly motivated to leverage the power of sport, with the firm commitment of the Tokyo and national governments, to help heal, unite and inspire Japan at a time of national rebuilding."

Istanbul have been rebuffed five times previously but are seen as genuine contenders this time round, not only because the city is seen as a bridge between Asia and Europe but also thanks to its vibrant economy and huge young population.

Hasan Arat, the bid's vice president, said that a Games in Istanbul would bring to a climax a period of unifying several different strands of society.

"Our commitment to you (the NOCs) goes beyond a robust Games plan," said the 52-year-old former professional basketball player.

"We promise a spectacular Games, taking the Olympic Movement to new shores.

"This is a period of convergence for Istanbul; convergence of our economy with our vision for sport; convergence of our government support with our youthful population; convergence of our commitment to you with our ability to meet every promise."

Doha's bid team were led by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the heir to the throne.

He said he hoped they had laid to rest any debate over it being too hot for the athletes to compete -- a criticism of the 2022 World Cup being awarded to Qatar, with the players due to perform in piping hot temperatures in July.

"Athletes are at the heart of this vision. They must have the right conditions to perform," he said.

"That is why the QOC has been engaging with the International Federations on the timing of a possible Doha 2020 Games.

"This has resulted in our proposal to host the Olympic Games from the 2nd to the 18th of October and the Paralympic Games from the 4th to the 15th of November.

"We have chosen those dates to deal directly with the issue of temperature. To ensure excellent conditions for athletes, spectators, and media, similar to those of previous Olympic Host cities.

"We are grateful to the Federations for the support they have given to these proposals. You could say, we have finally taken the heat out of Doha's so called ?hot issue'."

 

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Monday, April 9, 2012

Tsunami Projections Offer Bleak Fate for Many Japanese Towns

By 

 

Published: April 9, 2012

 

KUROSHIO, Japan — The simulations shocked this sleepy community on the tip of Japan’s Shikoku island: a huge undersea quake could bring a tsunami as high as 112 feet here, a government-appointed expert panel said. The waves could arrive in minutes and engulf most of the town, swallowing up even the foothills that the residents had counted on for high ground. 

“We’d never make it if such big waves came,” said Hachiro Okumoto, 70, a fisherman who has worked off the Kuroshio coast for half a century. “It would be a wall of water. It would block out the sun.”

 Just a year after a tsunami destroyed much of Japan’s northern Pacific coast, an updated hazard map detailing the damage that could be unleashed by another quake of a similar magnitude has been met with alarm across the country.

KUROSHIO, Japan — The simulations shocked this sleepy community on the tip of Japan’s Shikoku island: a huge undersea quake could bring a tsunami as high as 112 feet here, a government-appointed expert panel said. The waves could arrive in minutes and engulf most of the town, swallowing up even the foothills that the residents had counted on for high ground.

The new simulations take into account the lessons learned from the 9.0-magnitude temblor that hit off the Japanese archipelago in March last year. The fault lines in this seismically volatile region could cause far-bigger earthquakes than previously thought possible, spawning tsunamis affecting far wider — and far more populous — areas than the one last year.

According to the new study, released by the panel of seismic experts a week and a half ago, a 9.1-magnitude quake in the Nankai Trough off Japan would trigger intense shaking and tsunamis along a wide stretch of Japan from Tokyo southward, an area many times longer than the Tohoku coastline that was ravaged last year.

According to the report, Niijima, an island 100 miles south of Tokyo, could be hit by waves reaching 97 feet, overrunning most of the island’s inhabited areas. Shimoda, a popular beach town about 110 miles southwest of the capital, could be swamped by waves reaching 83 feet.

Waves of over 30 feet could hit the historic capital of Kamakura, the industrial hub of Toyohashi, the dolphin-hunting town of Taiji and almost 50 other coastal cities and towns. Even central Tokyo could be hit by 10-foot waves, the study says.

About 70 percent of Japan’s population, and much of Japan’s industry and infrastructure, is concentrated along the Pacific coast, from the top of the main island of Honshu south to Shikoku and Kyushu islands.

The doomsday possibilities have worsened the frayed nerves of a country still uneasy after the 2011 disaster, which killed almost 20,000 people along the Pacific coast and set off multiple meltdowns at a nuclear power plant 160 miles north of Tokyo.

“After a disaster of such unprecedented scale, there was a need to update our thinking to include previously unforeseen possibilities,” said Fumihiko Imamura, a tsunami specialist at Tohoku University in northeastern Japan and a member of the panel that drafted the hazard map. “These simulations highlight the need for communities to bolster their evacuation plans.”

Nowhere has the anxiety been more pronounced than Kuroshio, a popular surfing spot and whale-watching town of 13,000 on the southwest corner of Shikoku, Japan’s smallest main island. At an emergency local council meeting on March 31, when the simulations were announced, Mayor Katsuya Onishi declared the future of the town “in peril.”

The scale of the possible tsunami trumps all previous notions of the risks facing the town. Deadly tsunamis have been rare here; the last few waves to reach Kuroshio, including one in 1946, did little damage.

Town officials are not entirely blind to the risks of sitting on a shoreline facing one of the world’s most active seismic rupture zones. Two years ago, they built a tsunami tower for residents to flee to, but it is only about 40 feet above sea level.

And after the tsunami last year, Kuroshio decided to modify plans for a new town hall, moving it farther up into the foothills. But even the new town hall would be just 72 feet above sea level.

“Only a fool would run to the tower now,” said Yukihide Kubota, 60, a small electronics shop owner who has lived his whole life just minutes from the shore. His Plan B — to shinny up the century-old pine tree in his back yard — was also now defunct, he said. I’d make for those hills,” he said, pointing to high ground that he said would take at least 15 minutes to reach by car, “and pray we can somehow outrun the waves.”

But his 25-year-old son eventually plans to move away from the shore, Mr. Kubota said. “After such a big tsunami,” he said, “maybe this whole area ends up under the sea. Maybe I am the last of my family to ever live here.”

Few places in Kuroshio clear the 112-foot mark, and Mr. Kubota’s sentiment is one repeated across the town. A day care center, an elementary school and a high school that had been designated as tsunami evacuation areas all lie well below 65 feet. So do all of Kuroshio’s medical clinics.

About four-fifths of the population inhabits low-lying areas that would be inundated by a large tsunami, according to the town. On Monday, about 130 coastal residents took part in a tsunami drill, climbing a hill about 80 feet high.

“This was supposed to be a safety area,” said Miwa Ninomiya, who heads a day care center with about 130 children. “If such a big tsunami comes, we will simply have to take the children on our backs and run for our lives.”

There is talk of relocating parts of the city to higher ground, or even of building airtight underground bunkers fitted with oxygen tanks and electric generators. But the thrust of the town’s current contingency plans is simply: be prepared to flee for higher ground.

Still, in a town with a declining and aging population, many would simply be unable to run quickly enough or to scramble up the foothills to safety, local officials worry. More than half of the victims of the tsunami last year were over 65.

Some townspeople are angry at the seemingly far-fetched simulations.

Some experts argue that predicting earthquakes is a far-from-scientific pursuit. Those who put together the latest hazard maps emphasize that the study does not predict an imminent large quake, and they stop short of estimating when one might hit.

In a corner of Kuroshio, an epitaph engraved in moss-covered granite serves as a memory of the last deadly tsunami to reach its shores, in 1854: “The farms and rice paddies became the sea. Let this be a warning for the next 100 years.”

 

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Tsunami Projections Offer Bleak Fate for Many Japanese Towns

By 

 

Published: April 9, 2012

 

KUROSHIO, Japan — The simulations shocked this sleepy community on the tip of Japan’s Shikoku island: a huge undersea quake could bring a tsunami as high as 112 feet here, a government-appointed expert panel said. The waves could arrive in minutes and engulf most of the town, swallowing up even the foothills that the residents had counted on for high ground. 

“We’d never make it if such big waves came,” said Hachiro Okumoto, 70, a fisherman who has worked off the Kuroshio coast for half a century. “It would be a wall of water. It would block out the sun.”

 Just a year after a tsunami destroyed much of Japan’s northern Pacific coast, an updated hazard map detailing the damage that could be unleashed by another quake of a similar magnitude has been met with alarm across the country.

KUROSHIO, Japan — The simulations shocked this sleepy community on the tip of Japan’s Shikoku island: a huge undersea quake could bring a tsunami as high as 112 feet here, a government-appointed expert panel said. The waves could arrive in minutes and engulf most of the town, swallowing up even the foothills that the residents had counted on for high ground.

The new simulations take into account the lessons learned from the 9.0-magnitude temblor that hit off the Japanese archipelago in March last year. The fault lines in this seismically volatile region could cause far-bigger earthquakes than previously thought possible, spawning tsunamis affecting far wider — and far more populous — areas than the one last year.

According to the new study, released by the panel of seismic experts a week and a half ago, a 9.1-magnitude quake in the Nankai Trough off Japan would trigger intense shaking and tsunamis along a wide stretch of Japan from Tokyo southward, an area many times longer than the Tohoku coastline that was ravaged last year.

According to the report, Niijima, an island 100 miles south of Tokyo, could be hit by waves reaching 97 feet, overrunning most of the island’s inhabited areas. Shimoda, a popular beach town about 110 miles southwest of the capital, could be swamped by waves reaching 83 feet.

Waves of over 30 feet could hit the historic capital of Kamakura, the industrial hub of Toyohashi, the dolphin-hunting town of Taiji and almost 50 other coastal cities and towns. Even central Tokyo could be hit by 10-foot waves, the study says.

About 70 percent of Japan’s population, and much of Japan’s industry and infrastructure, is concentrated along the Pacific coast, from the top of the main island of Honshu south to Shikoku and Kyushu islands.

The doomsday possibilities have worsened the frayed nerves of a country still uneasy after the 2011 disaster, which killed almost 20,000 people along the Pacific coast and set off multiple meltdowns at a nuclear power plant 160 miles north of Tokyo.

“After a disaster of such unprecedented scale, there was a need to update our thinking to include previously unforeseen possibilities,” said Fumihiko Imamura, a tsunami specialist at Tohoku University in northeastern Japan and a member of the panel that drafted the hazard map. “These simulations highlight the need for communities to bolster their evacuation plans.”

Nowhere has the anxiety been more pronounced than Kuroshio, a popular surfing spot and whale-watching town of 13,000 on the southwest corner of Shikoku, Japan’s smallest main island. At an emergency local council meeting on March 31, when the simulations were announced, Mayor Katsuya Onishi declared the future of the town “in peril.”

The scale of the possible tsunami trumps all previous notions of the risks facing the town. Deadly tsunamis have been rare here; the last few waves to reach Kuroshio, including one in 1946, did little damage.

Town officials are not entirely blind to the risks of sitting on a shoreline facing one of the world’s most active seismic rupture zones. Two years ago, they built a tsunami tower for residents to flee to, but it is only about 40 feet above sea level.

And after the tsunami last year, Kuroshio decided to modify plans for a new town hall, moving it farther up into the foothills. But even the new town hall would be just 72 feet above sea level.

“Only a fool would run to the tower now,” said Yukihide Kubota, 60, a small electronics shop owner who has lived his whole life just minutes from the shore. His Plan B — to shinny up the century-old pine tree in his back yard — was also now defunct, he said. I’d make for those hills,” he said, pointing to high ground that he said would take at least 15 minutes to reach by car, “and pray we can somehow outrun the waves.”

But his 25-year-old son eventually plans to move away from the shore, Mr. Kubota said. “After such a big tsunami,” he said, “maybe this whole area ends up under the sea. Maybe I am the last of my family to ever live here.”

Few places in Kuroshio clear the 112-foot mark, and Mr. Kubota’s sentiment is one repeated across the town. A day care center, an elementary school and a high school that had been designated as tsunami evacuation areas all lie well below 65 feet. So do all of Kuroshio’s medical clinics.

About four-fifths of the population inhabits low-lying areas that would be inundated by a large tsunami, according to the town. On Monday, about 130 coastal residents took part in a tsunami drill, climbing a hill about 80 feet high.

“This was supposed to be a safety area,” said Miwa Ninomiya, who heads a day care center with about 130 children. “If such a big tsunami comes, we will simply have to take the children on our backs and run for our lives.”

There is talk of relocating parts of the city to higher ground, or even of building airtight underground bunkers fitted with oxygen tanks and electric generators. But the thrust of the town’s current contingency plans is simply: be prepared to flee for higher ground.

Still, in a town with a declining and aging population, many would simply be unable to run quickly enough or to scramble up the foothills to safety, local officials worry. More than half of the victims of the tsunami last year were over 65.

Some townspeople are angry at the seemingly far-fetched simulations.

Some experts argue that predicting earthquakes is a far-from-scientific pursuit. Those who put together the latest hazard maps emphasize that the study does not predict an imminent large quake, and they stop short of estimating when one might hit.

In a corner of Kuroshio, an epitaph engraved in moss-covered granite serves as a memory of the last deadly tsunami to reach its shores, in 1854: “The farms and rice paddies became the sea. Let this be a warning for the next 100 years.”

 

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Tsunami Projections Offer Bleak Fate for Many Japanese Towns

By 

 

Published: April 9, 2012

 

KUROSHIO, Japan — The simulations shocked this sleepy community on the tip of Japan’s Shikoku island: a huge undersea quake could bring a tsunami as high as 112 feet here, a government-appointed expert panel said. The waves could arrive in minutes and engulf most of the town, swallowing up even the foothills that the residents had counted on for high ground. 

“We’d never make it if such big waves came,” said Hachiro Okumoto, 70, a fisherman who has worked off the Kuroshio coast for half a century. “It would be a wall of water. It would block out the sun.”

 Just a year after a tsunami destroyed much of Japan’s northern Pacific coast, an updated hazard map detailing the damage that could be unleashed by another quake of a similar magnitude has been met with alarm across the country.

KUROSHIO, Japan — The simulations shocked this sleepy community on the tip of Japan’s Shikoku island: a huge undersea quake could bring a tsunami as high as 112 feet here, a government-appointed expert panel said. The waves could arrive in minutes and engulf most of the town, swallowing up even the foothills that the residents had counted on for high ground.

The new simulations take into account the lessons learned from the 9.0-magnitude temblor that hit off the Japanese archipelago in March last year. The fault lines in this seismically volatile region could cause far-bigger earthquakes than previously thought possible, spawning tsunamis affecting far wider — and far more populous — areas than the one last year.

According to the new study, released by the panel of seismic experts a week and a half ago, a 9.1-magnitude quake in the Nankai Trough off Japan would trigger intense shaking and tsunamis along a wide stretch of Japan from Tokyo southward, an area many times longer than the Tohoku coastline that was ravaged last year.

According to the report, Niijima, an island 100 miles south of Tokyo, could be hit by waves reaching 97 feet, overrunning most of the island’s inhabited areas. Shimoda, a popular beach town about 110 miles southwest of the capital, could be swamped by waves reaching 83 feet.

Waves of over 30 feet could hit the historic capital of Kamakura, the industrial hub of Toyohashi, the dolphin-hunting town of Taiji and almost 50 other coastal cities and towns. Even central Tokyo could be hit by 10-foot waves, the study says.

About 70 percent of Japan’s population, and much of Japan’s industry and infrastructure, is concentrated along the Pacific coast, from the top of the main island of Honshu south to Shikoku and Kyushu islands.

The doomsday possibilities have worsened the frayed nerves of a country still uneasy after the 2011 disaster, which killed almost 20,000 people along the Pacific coast and set off multiple meltdowns at a nuclear power plant 160 miles north of Tokyo.

“After a disaster of such unprecedented scale, there was a need to update our thinking to include previously unforeseen possibilities,” said Fumihiko Imamura, a tsunami specialist at Tohoku University in northeastern Japan and a member of the panel that drafted the hazard map. “These simulations highlight the need for communities to bolster their evacuation plans.”

Nowhere has the anxiety been more pronounced than Kuroshio, a popular surfing spot and whale-watching town of 13,000 on the southwest corner of Shikoku, Japan’s smallest main island. At an emergency local council meeting on March 31, when the simulations were announced, Mayor Katsuya Onishi declared the future of the town “in peril.”

The scale of the possible tsunami trumps all previous notions of the risks facing the town. Deadly tsunamis have been rare here; the last few waves to reach Kuroshio, including one in 1946, did little damage.

Town officials are not entirely blind to the risks of sitting on a shoreline facing one of the world’s most active seismic rupture zones. Two years ago, they built a tsunami tower for residents to flee to, but it is only about 40 feet above sea level.

And after the tsunami last year, Kuroshio decided to modify plans for a new town hall, moving it farther up into the foothills. But even the new town hall would be just 72 feet above sea level.

“Only a fool would run to the tower now,” said Yukihide Kubota, 60, a small electronics shop owner who has lived his whole life just minutes from the shore. His Plan B — to shinny up the century-old pine tree in his back yard — was also now defunct, he said. I’d make for those hills,” he said, pointing to high ground that he said would take at least 15 minutes to reach by car, “and pray we can somehow outrun the waves.”

But his 25-year-old son eventually plans to move away from the shore, Mr. Kubota said. “After such a big tsunami,” he said, “maybe this whole area ends up under the sea. Maybe I am the last of my family to ever live here.”

Few places in Kuroshio clear the 112-foot mark, and Mr. Kubota’s sentiment is one repeated across the town. A day care center, an elementary school and a high school that had been designated as tsunami evacuation areas all lie well below 65 feet. So do all of Kuroshio’s medical clinics.

About four-fifths of the population inhabits low-lying areas that would be inundated by a large tsunami, according to the town. On Monday, about 130 coastal residents took part in a tsunami drill, climbing a hill about 80 feet high.

“This was supposed to be a safety area,” said Miwa Ninomiya, who heads a day care center with about 130 children. “If such a big tsunami comes, we will simply have to take the children on our backs and run for our lives.”

There is talk of relocating parts of the city to higher ground, or even of building airtight underground bunkers fitted with oxygen tanks and electric generators. But the thrust of the town’s current contingency plans is simply: be prepared to flee for higher ground.

Still, in a town with a declining and aging population, many would simply be unable to run quickly enough or to scramble up the foothills to safety, local officials worry. More than half of the victims of the tsunami last year were over 65.

Some townspeople are angry at the seemingly far-fetched simulations.

Some experts argue that predicting earthquakes is a far-from-scientific pursuit. Those who put together the latest hazard maps emphasize that the study does not predict an imminent large quake, and they stop short of estimating when one might hit.

In a corner of Kuroshio, an epitaph engraved in moss-covered granite serves as a memory of the last deadly tsunami to reach its shores, in 1854: “The farms and rice paddies became the sea. Let this be a warning for the next 100 years.”

 

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Japan gives preliminary OK to restart 2 nuclear reactors even without safety upgrades

Japan gives preliminary OK to restart 2 nuclear reactors, even with safety upgrades pending

(Kyodo News/Associated Press) - Japan’s Economy and Industry Minister Yukio Edano, right, listens to Kansai Electric Power Co. President Makoto Yagi during their meeting at Edano’s office in Tokyo Monday, April 9, 2012. The Japanese utility was seeking government approval to restart two nuclear reactors in western Japan, though some of the key safety requirements will not ready for several years.

By Associated Press, Published: April 9 

 TOKYO — Japan’s economy minister said Monday two nuclear reactors tentatively met government safety standards even though completing improvements will take several years, paving the way for final approval for their startup soon.

All but one of Japan’s 54 reactors are offline for regular safety checks, and the last will be shut down in May. Residents fear another disaster like the Fukushima crisis, but Japan faces a severe power shortage if reactors are not restarted.

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Personal Post

The government issued new safety guidelines last Friday to address residents’ worries. In response, Kansai Electric Power Co. submitted its safety plans earlier Monday for two reactors at the Ohi plant in Fukui prefecture, saying the full upgrades will take up to three years.

Hours later, Economy and Industry Minister Yukio Edano said the No. 3 and 4 reactors at the Ohi plant “more or less met our safety standards.”

Edano said top officials will go over the checklist one more time before making a final evaluation, then discuss a possible startup in light of electricity demands during the hot summer months. Kansai Electric said Monday that its service area, including Osaka and Kyoto, will face up to 20 percent of power shortage during the summer if the reactors stayed offline.

Edano said the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that the Ohi reactors’ past safety upgrades since the Fukushima crisis alone could provide enough safety margins and protections to keep reactor cores from melting even in the event of a similar earthquake or tsunami.

The safety upgrade plans submitted by the utility also “demonstrated its voluntary effort to find necessary steps and take concrete action,” Edano said.

Kansai Electric president Makoto Yagi, who handed the roadmap to Edano earlier Monday, said he will aim to achieve “the world’s top-class safety” at the Ohi plant. “I hope a startup is approved as soon as possible.”

However, more than one-third of the necessary upgrades on the list are still incomplete, utility officials said.

The startup guidelines are based on recommendations adopted last month by NISA. Some of the most crucial measures to secure cooling functions and prevent meltdowns as in Fukushima were installed, but the rest were not.

Filtered vents that could substantially reduce radiation leaks in case of an accident threatening an explosion, a radiation-free crisis management building and fences to block debris washed up by a tsunami won’t be ready until 2015. This means the plant, as well as plant workers and residents, won’t be fully protected from radiation leaks if a Fukushima-class accident occurs while the measures are being taken.

Some experts said a resumption without these key protections would leave the plant vulnerable.

Tadahiro Katsuta, a Meiji University associate professor who was on a government panel that produced nuclear safety recommendations, said the upgrades completed are “mostly quick-fix measures,” and that more important ones, such as a crisis management center, have been put off.

“I doubt if this would suffice to carry out the lessons from Fukushima in the case of another accident,” Katsuta told public broadcaster NHK.

Currently, the crisis management headquarters at the Ohi plant is in the basement, which would be flooded in case of a major tsunami, Kansai Electric officials said. The plant is relocating the function to a room next to the control room for the two reactors.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi completed a similar building at a slightly elevated area on the complex just a year before the disasters — though it was meant for quakes. It was the key crisis management center after surviving the March 11, 2011, tsunami that washed into the plant, destroying the plant’s power and cooling systems, causing three reactor cores to melt. Plant officials have said the building was key to their survival.

None of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors are equipped with filtered vents, although their operators are moving to install them in coming years.

Ohi town mayor Shinobu Tokioka called the roadmap a “step forward,” but urged the central government and nuclear regulators to carefully review the reactors’ safety.

Starting up the reactors would usually take one or two days after approval is granted, but it is still unclear how long it would take in this case. Edano is expected to visit the region to request a startup and gauge public reaction.

Local consent is not a legal requirement for restarting the reactors, though government ministers are unlikely to force if the mood is strongly against it.

Fukui, where 13 reactors are clustered in four complexes along the coast, is often called Japan’s “Nuclear Alley.”

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

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Japan gives preliminary OK to restart 2 nuclear reactors even without safety upgrades

Japan gives preliminary OK to restart 2 nuclear reactors, even with safety upgrades pending

(Kyodo News/Associated Press) - Japan’s Economy and Industry Minister Yukio Edano, right, listens to Kansai Electric Power Co. President Makoto Yagi during their meeting at Edano’s office in Tokyo Monday, April 9, 2012. The Japanese utility was seeking government approval to restart two nuclear reactors in western Japan, though some of the key safety requirements will not ready for several years.

By Associated Press, Published: April 9 

 TOKYO — Japan’s economy minister said Monday two nuclear reactors tentatively met government safety standards even though completing improvements will take several years, paving the way for final approval for their startup soon.

All but one of Japan’s 54 reactors are offline for regular safety checks, and the last will be shut down in May. Residents fear another disaster like the Fukushima crisis, but Japan faces a severe power shortage if reactors are not restarted.

0

Personal Post

The government issued new safety guidelines last Friday to address residents’ worries. In response, Kansai Electric Power Co. submitted its safety plans earlier Monday for two reactors at the Ohi plant in Fukui prefecture, saying the full upgrades will take up to three years.

Hours later, Economy and Industry Minister Yukio Edano said the No. 3 and 4 reactors at the Ohi plant “more or less met our safety standards.”

Edano said top officials will go over the checklist one more time before making a final evaluation, then discuss a possible startup in light of electricity demands during the hot summer months. Kansai Electric said Monday that its service area, including Osaka and Kyoto, will face up to 20 percent of power shortage during the summer if the reactors stayed offline.

Edano said the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that the Ohi reactors’ past safety upgrades since the Fukushima crisis alone could provide enough safety margins and protections to keep reactor cores from melting even in the event of a similar earthquake or tsunami.

The safety upgrade plans submitted by the utility also “demonstrated its voluntary effort to find necessary steps and take concrete action,” Edano said.

Kansai Electric president Makoto Yagi, who handed the roadmap to Edano earlier Monday, said he will aim to achieve “the world’s top-class safety” at the Ohi plant. “I hope a startup is approved as soon as possible.”

However, more than one-third of the necessary upgrades on the list are still incomplete, utility officials said.

The startup guidelines are based on recommendations adopted last month by NISA. Some of the most crucial measures to secure cooling functions and prevent meltdowns as in Fukushima were installed, but the rest were not.

Filtered vents that could substantially reduce radiation leaks in case of an accident threatening an explosion, a radiation-free crisis management building and fences to block debris washed up by a tsunami won’t be ready until 2015. This means the plant, as well as plant workers and residents, won’t be fully protected from radiation leaks if a Fukushima-class accident occurs while the measures are being taken.

Some experts said a resumption without these key protections would leave the plant vulnerable.

Tadahiro Katsuta, a Meiji University associate professor who was on a government panel that produced nuclear safety recommendations, said the upgrades completed are “mostly quick-fix measures,” and that more important ones, such as a crisis management center, have been put off.

“I doubt if this would suffice to carry out the lessons from Fukushima in the case of another accident,” Katsuta told public broadcaster NHK.

Currently, the crisis management headquarters at the Ohi plant is in the basement, which would be flooded in case of a major tsunami, Kansai Electric officials said. The plant is relocating the function to a room next to the control room for the two reactors.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi completed a similar building at a slightly elevated area on the complex just a year before the disasters — though it was meant for quakes. It was the key crisis management center after surviving the March 11, 2011, tsunami that washed into the plant, destroying the plant’s power and cooling systems, causing three reactor cores to melt. Plant officials have said the building was key to their survival.

None of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors are equipped with filtered vents, although their operators are moving to install them in coming years.

Ohi town mayor Shinobu Tokioka called the roadmap a “step forward,” but urged the central government and nuclear regulators to carefully review the reactors’ safety.

Starting up the reactors would usually take one or two days after approval is granted, but it is still unclear how long it would take in this case. Edano is expected to visit the region to request a startup and gauge public reaction.

Local consent is not a legal requirement for restarting the reactors, though government ministers are unlikely to force if the mood is strongly against it.

Fukui, where 13 reactors are clustered in four complexes along the coast, is often called Japan’s “Nuclear Alley.”

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Thursday, April 5, 2012

Tepco Reports Another Radioactive Water Leak at Fukushima Plant

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said as much as 12 tons of radioactive water leaked from a pipe at its crippled Fukushima nuclear station, the second such incident in 11 days at the same pipeline, raising further doubts about the stability of the plant.

Part of the water may have poured into the sea through a drainage ditch, Osamu Yokokura, a spokesman for the utility, said by phone. The company known as Tepco stopped the leak from a pipe connecting a desalination unit and a tank today, he said.

“There will be similar leaks until Tepco improves equipment,” said Kazuhiko Kudo, a research professor of nuclear engineering at Kyushu University, who visited the plant twice last year as a member of a panel under the Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency. “The site had plastic pipes to transfer radioactive water, which Tepco officials said are durable and for industrial use, but it’s not something normally used at nuclear plants,” he said. “Tepco must replace it with metal equipment, such as steel.”

Tepco has about 100,000 tons of highly radioactive water accumulated in basements at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear station nearly 13 months after the March 11 quake and tsunami caused meltdowns and the worst radiation leaks since Chernobyl. The tsunami knocked out all power at the station, causing cooling systems for reactors to fail. The utility was forced to set up makeshift pumps to get cooling water to the reactors, with most of it then draining into basements.

More Leaks

Tepco has been criticized before over its handling of the radioactive water following several leaks into the sea, including the one reported on March 26.

Last year, the environment group Greenpeace International said it found seaweed and fish contaminated to more than 50 times the 2,000 becquerel per kilogram legal limit for radioactive iodine-131 off the coast of Fukushima during a survey between May 3 and 9.

Mol, Belgium-based Nuclear Research Centre and Herouville- Saint-Clair, France-based Association pour le Controle de la Radioactivite dans l’Ouest confirmed at the time they conducted analysis of the samples supplied by Greenpeace.

The radioactive material discharged into the sea from the Fukushima plant is the largest in history, according to a study by the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety. The institute, which is funded by the French government, made the estimate in October last year and said it was 20-times the amount calculated by Tepco. Tepco declined to comment on the report at the time.

Strontium Risk

The latest leak contains about 16.7 becquerels per cubic centimeter of radioactive cesium 134 and 137 combined, Tepco said in a statement today. It’s still investigating how much strontium and other types of radioactive particles are contained in the water, Yokokura said.

Strontium can be absorbed in the body through eating tainted seaweed or fish. It then accumulates in bone and can cause cancer, said Tetsuo Ito, the head of Kinki University’s Atomic Energy Research Institute, in a December interview.

On March 26, about 120 tons of radioactive water may have leaked from a pipeline connected to the desalination unit, Yokokura said. Of the leaked water, Tepco believes about 80 liters poured into the sea, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tsuyoshi Inajima in Tokyo at tinajima@bloomberg.net

 

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Tepco Reports Another Radioactive Water Leak at Fukushima Plant

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said as much as 12 tons of radioactive water leaked from a pipe at its crippled Fukushima nuclear station, the second such incident in 11 days at the same pipeline, raising further doubts about the stability of the plant.

Part of the water may have poured into the sea through a drainage ditch, Osamu Yokokura, a spokesman for the utility, said by phone. The company known as Tepco stopped the leak from a pipe connecting a desalination unit and a tank today, he said.

“There will be similar leaks until Tepco improves equipment,” said Kazuhiko Kudo, a research professor of nuclear engineering at Kyushu University, who visited the plant twice last year as a member of a panel under the Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency. “The site had plastic pipes to transfer radioactive water, which Tepco officials said are durable and for industrial use, but it’s not something normally used at nuclear plants,” he said. “Tepco must replace it with metal equipment, such as steel.”

Tepco has about 100,000 tons of highly radioactive water accumulated in basements at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear station nearly 13 months after the March 11 quake and tsunami caused meltdowns and the worst radiation leaks since Chernobyl. The tsunami knocked out all power at the station, causing cooling systems for reactors to fail. The utility was forced to set up makeshift pumps to get cooling water to the reactors, with most of it then draining into basements.

More Leaks

Tepco has been criticized before over its handling of the radioactive water following several leaks into the sea, including the one reported on March 26.

Last year, the environment group Greenpeace International said it found seaweed and fish contaminated to more than 50 times the 2,000 becquerel per kilogram legal limit for radioactive iodine-131 off the coast of Fukushima during a survey between May 3 and 9.

Mol, Belgium-based Nuclear Research Centre and Herouville- Saint-Clair, France-based Association pour le Controle de la Radioactivite dans l’Ouest confirmed at the time they conducted analysis of the samples supplied by Greenpeace.

The radioactive material discharged into the sea from the Fukushima plant is the largest in history, according to a study by the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety. The institute, which is funded by the French government, made the estimate in October last year and said it was 20-times the amount calculated by Tepco. Tepco declined to comment on the report at the time.

Strontium Risk

The latest leak contains about 16.7 becquerels per cubic centimeter of radioactive cesium 134 and 137 combined, Tepco said in a statement today. It’s still investigating how much strontium and other types of radioactive particles are contained in the water, Yokokura said.

Strontium can be absorbed in the body through eating tainted seaweed or fish. It then accumulates in bone and can cause cancer, said Tetsuo Ito, the head of Kinki University’s Atomic Energy Research Institute, in a December interview.

On March 26, about 120 tons of radioactive water may have leaked from a pipeline connected to the desalination unit, Yokokura said. Of the leaked water, Tepco believes about 80 liters poured into the sea, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tsuyoshi Inajima in Tokyo at tinajima@bloomberg.net

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