(freshrant.com) Naoto Kan, Prime Minister of Japan, is also known by the press as 'Ira-Kan' or 'Fretful-Kan', just two of the nicknames they have used when referring to his well-known short temper. Kan got his dander up again this week when he demanded, "What the hell is going on?" with the Tokyo Electric Power Company and its failed efforts to cool down the doomed Fukushima Nuclear Plant.
Such public displays of anger are uncommon by Japanese public officials. The wrath of Kan not only appears to be well warranted but also a convenient way to use his public image to deflect growing criticism of the incompetent, confusing, vague and often overly optimistic happy talk that typified the first two weeks of his own government's announcements about the Fukushima disaster.
Kan expressed his frustration with TEPCO, Japan's largest public utility as it watched its share price drop more than 80% since the tsunami hit its Fukushima plant. But Kan's anger is understandable considering the lack of visible leadership from TEPCO president, Masataka Shimizu, who was reportedly hospitalized for high blood pressure after rumors abounded that he may have left the country. Surely, high blood pressure is the least of the worries for the workers who are engaged in what appears to be a desperate, if not losing battle, to cool the plant.
As highly toxic radioactive iodine, Cesium 137 and plutonium leach out of the plant, the folly of the "feed and bleed" operation is finally being realized. The Catch 22: How to dump tons of water onto the spent fuel pools and cracked reactor cores while attempting to dry out the leaky as a sieve nuclear complex of exploded buildings.
The mere concept of cooling the plant with water while trying to dry out the plant seems mind-bogglingly absurd. Not to mention all the damage to equipment by the water and the salt in the sea water that has damaged equipment and reportedly coated the fuel rods with deposits of salt further preventing the cooling process. And all those metric tons of enormously toxic water have nowhere to go but thorough waste tunnels and other conduits mostly leading out into the sea.
One can only wonder the true nature of this week's latest phone call, President Obama's third to Kan since the nuclear crisis began. freshrant has imagined what lies beneath the diplomese of the official statement.
"The President reiterated that the United States is determined to support the people of Japan in their efforts to deal with the devastating effects of this tragedy, both in the short and the long term," a White House statement said.
Translation: President Obama told Kan if the TEPCO and the Japanese government can't handle the situation, they must swallow their pride and allow the ample nuclear emergency resources of the US military already stationed in Japan, along with American and French nuclear experts, to assist in managing the disaster. Americans are getting worried about reports of radiation in the US, no matter how small, as a direct result of the Fukushima nuclear accident. And the US nuclear industry is on pins and needles as news and images of the growing disaster is diminishing the chances for future nuclear power plant development in the U.S.
"Prime Minister Kan thanked the President for the extensive U.S. help in the response effort. The two leaders reaffirmed the importance of close U.S.-Japanese cooperation in dealing with the ongoing nuclear emergency."
Prime Minister Kan finally admitted to Obama that he was resigned to accept whatever aid the US and other nations could provide as he now realizes that this disaster could bring about long lasting economic and environmental ruin to Japan. Both leaders agreed that this is just the beginning of a long joint effort that will affect both countries and the rest of the world in ways neither man can foresee.
But what of the unreported radiation leaks? Public mistrust about the plant's safety? Withholding damaging information about the plants? Faked safety reports? Falsifying data? Warnings of power shortages? Thousands of travel cancellations to the affected area? A larger than expected earthquake shutting down the plant, knowing that it was located near a fault that could cause a more powerful earthquake?
I'm not talking about Fukushima. The Japanese people, sadly, went down this road before with TEPCO at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant overlooking the Sea of Japan in Niigata Prefecture (and my home for 3 1/2 years).
The K-K plant, as it is also known, is the largest nuclear plant in the world as measured by generating capacity. Up until the 9.0 earthquake that disabled the Fukushima Nuclear Plant, the K-K plant held the distinction of suffering the strongest earthquake to ever strike a nuclear power plant. A 6.8-magnitude quake in 2007 shut down Kashiwazaki Kariwa, shaking it beyond the perimeters of its engineered design. A 21 month shutdown was ordered for greater earthquake-proofing before operation could be resumed.
Yes. The world's largest nuclear power plant, newer and more robust from an engineering standpoint than Fukushima, could not withstand the shaking of a 6.8 magnitude earthquake located in one of the most seismically active regions in the world. TEPCO did not see this as any kind of a wake up call. Fukushima didn't stand a chance of surviving the 9.0 quake or it's subsequent 35 foot tall (11 meter) tsunami.
Worse, according to documents released by Japan's trade ministry, TEPCO knew as far back as 2003 the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant was situated near a fault that had greater risk than the 6.8 quake of 2007.
Back in 2002, TEPCO was found guilty of filing false reports related to the inspection of its nuclear plants and its culture of consistently concealing incidents revolving around safety. These finding resulted in the shutting down of all of its reactors and a massive shake up of TEPCO management. TEPCO was found to be guilty submitting hundreds of falsified documents relating to plant operation dating as far back as 1977, including an event of "criticality" at one of the nuclear units.
In all of these hundreds of violations through the decades, not one TEPCO employee was identified as being responsible.
While the K-K plant in Niigata Prefecture is the largest plant in Japan (in the world), the Fukushima Daiichi plant is Tokyo Electric's oldest nuclear facility. It too has been guilty of falsification of documentation and safety lapses as recent as this year.
Just a few days before the tsunami swept through the Fukushima facility, one of the plant operators submitted a report to Japanese nuclear regulators admitting it had failed to inspect 33 pieces of equipment in all six of its reactors.
The failed inspections included equipment used to monitor the reactor's temperature control valves. Some were left unexamined for years along with inspections of cooling systems involving the same water pump motors and diesel generators that are essential in the cooling process that has so spectacularly failed.
The Japanese nuclear safety agency concluded in taut understatement, "Long-term inspection plans and maintenance management were inadequate. The quality of inspection was insufficient."
A nuclear safety agency official said: "We can't say that the lapses listed in the report did not have an influence on the chain of events leading to this crisis". You think?
Ironically, TEPCO said it had underestimated the potential impact of the 2007 earthquake that shut down its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant. And then, as now, more radiation leaked than the company first stated.
Yet again, TEPCO ignored the findings of a study describing another potentially catastrophic earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima plant.
Yukinobu Okamura, head of the Active Fault and Earthquake Research Center at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan, had warned in 2009 of a massive tsunami based on evidence of a major tsunami having swept away at least a thousand people in 869 following an 8.3 quake off the coast of northeastern Japan - nearly the same location as the March 11th 9.0 quake.
Amazingly, Okamura discovered the same coastal regions were affected with flooding near the Fukushima Daiichi plant going as far inland as 4 kilometers.
What price, beyond the human toil and tragedy suffered by the Japanese people, for TEPCO's deceit? A 70% loss in share price and dropping representing a $30 billion loss in value. Talk of the Japanese government nationalizing the company and taking over its $92 billion debt. Too big to fail? It has a sickeningly familiar ring as the tax payers foot the bill for yet one more group of deceitful corporate vandals.
Additionally, the cost of insuring TEPCO on its bad debt has risen ten-fold. It is estimated at current prices, TEPCO will have to spend $1 billion a month just to cover the cost of buying alternative fuels to make up for the generating loss of its nuclear facilities. Rolling blackouts for industry and consumers alike are sure to continue through the coming months as air conditioners get switched on to combat the oppressive heat and humidity of the Japanese summer. Hopefully airborne radiation will not be another reason to operate the Japanese air-con.
So Prime Minister Kan reluctantly announced the nation to be in a state of “maximum alert” after a high level of toxic plutonium was discovered on soil outside the nuclear plant. He told the Japanese parliament that the country is now facing its "most serious crisis since the Second World War" and calling the evolution of the crisis “unpredictable."
One can only wonder what Naoto Kan was thinking when he chose to compare the Fukushima disaster to a time when the only country in the history of the planet was bombed, not once, but twice, by thermonuclear explosions of unimaginable destruction.
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Find more in this series on the disaster in Japan at freshrant.com:
Japan’s History of Nuclear Cover-Ups
Why Fukushima Could Be Worse Than Chernobyl
Media Blind To Fukushima’s Toxic Plutonium Burps
A MOX On All Your Houses: On Blowing Smoke, A Breach & Admission Creep at Fukushima Reactor #3
Next in the freshrant.com series on the Japanese Nuclear Disaster: Fukushima's “Uncoolable Configuration?” Why TEPCO is not to be believed when it says plutonium found on the ground outside the plant is "not harmful to human health." Will the president of TEPCO eat that dirt while feeding crackers to his workers?