Fukushima Daiichi plant chief confident new disaster won't threaten clean-up

Star-vikingFEB. 14, 2016 - 03:13AM JST

Get real. Fukushima Daiichi NPP needs more than 1000 people to operate. Leaving just 50 people to manage 6 nuclear reactors in critical condition is nothing but abandoning the plant. They can do absolutely nothing to deal with any possible new developments.

Christopher Glen

Hardly. They wanted to abandon ship after March 11. Mr Kan had to go in himself and shame them into staying.

Hardly. Kan misinterpreted a request to move non-essential personnel, blew his top, and went and bothered the plant workers when they were trying their best to fix the problem.

The shame is on ex-PM Kan.

I predict another tsunami and earthquake....

within the next 1000 years.

Actually, TEPCO ignored advice that their tsunami defence were inadequate. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/09/26/national/tepco-rejected-requests-antitsunami-steps-2011-nuclear-crisis/

TEPCO is doing a difficult job merely providing you your daily sparks so you can live a modern life on this rock.

Hardly. They wanted to abandon ship after March 11. Mr Kan had to go in himself and shame them into staying. The fact that TEPCO is still in charge of the operation 5 years later beggars belief

5SpeedRacer5,

+1, great comment.

I predict another tsunami and earthquake....

within the next 1000 years.

Let's start preparing now.

Everyone posting here uses electricity. Lots of it. I would venture that, on a net basis, I use less than anyone else posting here. That is because I generate it myself. Probably, all the rest of you have to rely on someone else to give you what you need, and you complain a lot despite the convenience. I won't call you hypocrites and know-nothings, but somebody might. And probably none of you lives closer to the Fukushima Daiichi power plants than I do. Maybe somebody does. So I take that into account too, when I read the comments.

The point of taking a 1000-year perspective is that we need to be conscious of who we are and where we are. Japan takes risks to get its energy because it always has. Hundreds if not thousands of people have died in coal mines in Fukushima in the last hundred or so years. And Fukushima Daiichi was built to bring jobs, electrification, and revenues to Fukushima in exchange for sparks to light up the Ginza cheaply. The hubris was NOT building the plant. The hubris was in lighting up Tokyo's night life for pennies per kWh while separating Tokyo people from the hazard and unpleasantness.

The hubris continues. People posting above believe that there is some magic way that somebody else can provide them what they need, for pennies, and conveniently. Why not? We demand progress! We are counting on it! And clean that mess up! And who do you expect to pay for that?

Cut the hubris. TEPCO is doing a difficult job merely providing you your daily sparks so you can live a modern life on this rock. On top of that, they have to clean up a big mess and give news conferences to remind people that they are doing their best so you don't have to. And if they raised their rates, the howling from the masses of spark-users would be deafening. Wouldn't it be better to curb your consumption, buy some LEDs, put some panels on your roof, and use public transportation more? Have a look at your phone bill and see what your old refrigerator really costs you. If you can't do ANY of those things, then your tone had best be generally supportive of the people who make your childishly carefree lifestyle possible.

The closer you are to Fukushima and the closer you get to your electric bill, the less you feel like cursing the darkness. TEPCO is not passing the buck. And there is a lot more that the average person could do here and now to reduce the need for new power plants of any kind for the next thousand years. Are you personally doing those things and earning the right to complain? And if not, it is hubris to believe that you are not part of the bigger problem. It is hubris to believe that Japan has enough of ANYTHING to waste on people who can't take responsibility for themselves first.

Fukushima Daiichi plant chief confident new disaster won't threaten clean-up

And TEPCO was so confident a tsunami would never hit that they didn't build a larger sea wall. That worked out well didn't it?

I am glad he is so confident no new disasters well take place. Now if he willing to move their with his family to prove how confident that he is. It is so easy to make claims when you don't live near by.

Is this the same Fukushima Chief who told us the meltdowns could not happen?

And we still think nuclear is cheap? Who is paying for all this?

And compared to the ongoing nightmare at Fukushima, Mihama NPP is simply due to be decommissioned; the plan which was submitted today says it will take 30 years and cost 680,000,000,000 JPY. (680 oku)

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20160212-00000044-mbsnewsv-soci

Is the amount of radiation going into the Pacific less than the radiation still being there from the 50' nuke tests?

There isn't anything, at present that can handle the vast amounts of radiation that is being given off by the melted fuel. There are no means available to clean up the uncleanable! Meanwhile, radiation continues to leak into the environment....

DisillusionedFEB. 12, 2016 - 10:23AM JST

There's no mention of the super expensive 'great ice wall' that was supposed to stop ground water seeping into the reactors,

Thanks to the naysayers against the "expensive" ice wall, TEPCO is now dumping pumped contaminated water into the ocean, with the blessing of US nuclear regulation authorities.

This is just vague rhetoric, which amounts to nothing more than political guff! Nearly everything they have said they would do has either failed or not happened. There's no mention of the super expensive 'great ice wall' that was supposed to stop ground water seeping into the reactors, but there is mention of the thousands of tons of groundwater that are seeping into the reactor. I love his comment a of "about a thousand tanks". How many are their exactly? He probably doesn't know, but there are many more than a thousand. Furthermore, these tanks are only designed to last 5-10 years, meaning many of them are already deteriorating and will need to be replaced. His comments about having a new sea wall that would prevent the same disaster is also guff! They said the same thing before the last one! They have done nothing about waterproofing the electrics or moving the back up generators of the remaining reactors, which means, the danger of it happening again is still very real! I'm not sure which is sadder, the fact that he expects people to believe this or the fact that people do be leave this garbage!

Fukushima Daiichi plant chief confident new disaster won't threaten clean-up

Another proof that nothing changed over there, provide the same circumstances and the same will happen, Einstein got it right when he quoted the "insanity", guess he had a premonition of TEPCO's exec : doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

This guy knows that what you say will keep him in a job. Whether true or not.

Nothing instills confidence like a TEPCO nuclear plant manager being confident.

Fukushima Daiichi plant chief confident new disaster won't threaten clean-up

That's one. Bringing the grand total to...

One!

There is actually no way to know that.

Dear Mr Akira Ono San we all know that some radioisotopes have half lives of 15 years or more and that levels of radiation are most likely near or above what was there 5 years ago after the accident. So blow a smoke screen somewhere other than the public...

About 1,000 huge tanks for storing contaminated cooling water occupy large parts of the site.

So far.