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Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has released an interim report in which the company says that no significant damage was caused to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant by the March 11 earthquake.
The 130-page report, released to the media on Friday, also claims that there was no explosion at the plant following the earthquake. It says that critical equipment in reactors one to four within the Daiichi plant were not damaged by the earthquake, based on the fact that there were few changes to data readings from the monitoring systems until the arrival of the tsunami, NHK said.
The report says the sounds of an explosion heard emanating from No. 2 reactor were, in fact, the sounds of a hydrogen explosion in No. 4 reactor. The utility explains that a sudden drop in pressure detected in the suppression pool was probably due to a failure of the monitoring systems.
The report's release came just after it was revealed that a recent TEPCO simulation concluded that overheated fuel could have eaten through the thick concrete floor in the plant's No. 1 reactor. The news is at odds with what company executives originally told Japanese lawmakers during the height of the crisis.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that a number of scientists and nuclear engineers have questioned whether the company's makeshift cooling system is capable of cooling nuclear fuel that could have trickled into the concrete. While the new simulations paint a far bleaker picture than earlier reports, assistant physics professor Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University Research Institute believes TEPCO's latest assessments are still unrealistic.
"This is still an overly optimistic simulation," Koide told the New York Times. He noted that although TEPCO is playing down the possibility that nuclear fuel may have penetrated the outermost protective barriers, "even by their own simulation, it's very borderline."
Britain's Guardian newspaper reports that the darkening picture of the situation at Fukushima Daiichi has emboldened many of TEPCO's critics.
A series of scathing new reports concluded that TEPCO ignored advice warning that the nuclear power facility was at risk of damage from the tsunami. The reports also accused TEPCO of ignoring recommendations that it should implement improved seawater flooding controls, according to the Guardian.
TEPCO admitted in the report that its countermeasures against a possible tsunami were inadequate. It said the plant could have withstood tsunami up to 6 meters high and that the March 11 tsunami, which was 13 meters high, was far beyond the utility's expectations.
Experts say that the failure of three of the six nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi was caused by seawater, which flooded power supply lines and disabled cooling systems. Japan is a global leader in nuclear power use, with two-thirds of the nation's electricity supply coming from nuclear facilities.
© Japan Today
32 Comments
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nandakandamanda
The report does not mention that their computers were compromised by a virus, which fact they only discovered as they were struggling to find ways of opening and shutting vital emergency valves after the tsunami struck.
In-house hackers traced the virus back to a certain Northern hemisphere country. (Name mentioned in the article quoted below.)
Article in 12 December Japanese language 'Post' magazine from an interview with an elderly expert who was called in to try and unlock the security systems surrounding the No 1 reactor's main emergency control computers. He had been a member of the original design team.
He later filed a report asking for immediate checks of all nuclear power station computers in Japan, but has had no reply.
pawatan
YongYang
I don't think radiation being detected is in any way indicative of the type devastation that was to occur after the tsunami hit. That is, I don't think there is much argument that while there was SOME damage due to the earthquake itself the real killer was the tsunami and all its after effects. If there were no tsunami greater than the sea wall we wouldn't be talking in December about the problems at Fukushima in March.
Incidentally, I heard a speech recently by Dr Amano of JAEA where he explicitly said the root cause of the Fukushima accident was not anything his agency or TEPCO did or did not do, but it was a direct result of the US (GE) - a country with little experience with earthquakes or tsunami - bringing their poorly designed reactors to Japan. I kid you not. I almost threw my shoe at him. The arrogance of these guys is amazing.
warnerbro
TEPCO is making history daily. And then making it up. An obvious choice for the next Akutagawa Prize for best fiction.
Bartholomew Harte
-It was all just Mass Hallucination,folks! -Why,,, Tepco is as Solid as a Rock!
saru_au
next they will be telling us there was no accident at Fukushima, we should put more faith in tepco and the government :)
nothing to see here, move along, move along!
YongYang
Eye witness reports have detailed falling walls, broken machinery, broken piping and then the perimeter alarm sounded before the tsunami arrived more than clearly indicating that failure was in process before the tsunami hit.
pawatan
YongYang, I don't see how those reports indicate failure was in process. Of course there was damage from the quake, but to key systems? What sort of machinery and piping? Doesn't seem obvious at all that 'failure was in process before the tsunami hit'.
Of course, that being said the officials quite clearly have their heads in the sand still. Sad.
Ranger_Miffy2
I wish experts on either side of this would not use words like, "trickled". Use figures. OF course, I believe the correct word would be "gushed".
the_edge
For me, the intention of this report is clear. The nuclear power stations are earthquake safe ("no significant damage"). We have to improve the countermeasures against a tsunami and than we can go on with the nuclear power - let's go back to daily business.
Mark Makdad
@Gogogo:
"Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has released an interim report"
What part of that is leaked?
nandakandamanda
VicMOsaka, yes, the Stuxnet virus damage has been reported widely, but is this not the first time that a similar virus has been reported within Japan's nuclear power industry? Viruses have been discovered fairly recently at IHI and Mitsubishi for example.
The article in the Shukan Post yesterday mentioned two countries by name, but did not mention or even hint at Israel, It gave no reason for such an attack. Funnily enough, what you say makes better sense, though.
When you say 'it' blew up, are you referring to the reactor and/or the camera that you say Magna BSP installed? (No 3 reactor is the one that had MOX with plutonium in it, I seem to recall.)
bajhista65
What kind of report is this... HELLOOOOO !!!
VicMOsaka
Nandakandamanda,
Please look up the following website. It can give more information. http://jimstonefreelance.com/
There will be people who won't be convinced that something funny is going on, but there is a lot of data which can't really be disputed. This supposedly camera installed in reactor 3 is the spitting image of what is called a gun type nuclear bomb. If you look at the explosion photo of reactor 3 and compare it to other small nuclear explosions, you will find that they all look similar. Flight 93 explosion in Pennsylvania looks the same as Fukushima along with other photos that I have seen with USA controlled detonations. In the end, I still can't understand why Japan needs security from Israel when they have plenty of technology of their own.
There was another explosion in number 4 reactor but it was completely out of action as all the fuel rods had been removed. The latest report is that it was a hydrogen explosion from some link with no.3 reactor. This of course has only been reported very recently. Too many people asking questions, I guess.
gogogo
Funny how this "report" was leaked.
Cricky
Unbelievable independent experts from several countries dispute this "version" of events, it even contradicts TEPCOS version given to the Diet 6 months ago! And as pointed out eyewitness accounts of what happened! It's a wish report and appears to be about a fictional incident in a land far far away.
MaboDofuIsSpicy
What were they?
Moderator: 6 meters.
Elbuda Mexicano
Tepco?? Internal report?? What a joke!!
Elbuda Mexicano
Tepco has as much credibility as say Kim Jong IL and the North Korean regime!! Both are full of shit!!!
Elbuda Mexicano
Can any of us now living in Japan trust Tepco?? Hell no!!
VicMOsaka
Japan offered to enrich uranium for Iran.
4 months later, Magna BSP, an Israeli company who obtained a contract for security at the Fukushima power plant comes and installs a special camera in reactor number 3 which later blew up. This camera weighed something like 1000 Ibs. These cameras could be remotely controlled. Why one would allow a foreign country to take charge over the Nuclear facility is beyond me. After setting up all this security, the Magna BSP personal returned to Israel.
The Nuclear plant lost control of the pumps and valves that control the cooling of the reactors after the Tsunami. The earthquake was not 9.0 on the scale as evidenced by the original Japanese seismic charts. A true 9.0 earthquake would have devastated the Fukushima area and even further, but where were the damaged buildings and infrastructure prior to the Tsunami? It was only the Tsunami that caused the damage, not the quake.
The Stuxnet virus has been found in Japan. The same virus suspected of causing failures in the Iran nuclear facility. This virus targets Seimen computer controlled fluid control valves and pumping equipment.
All this information has been reported by various news publications around the world and archived. Eg., The Telegraph, Jerusalem Post, Infosec, Daily Yomiuri, Ynet News, The New American, Hindustan Times etc.
herefornow
What was the first clue? Thank goodness the brain-trust behind this report are likely also the ones still running the clean-up operations at Fukushima. Otherwise Japan might be in real trouble.
Elbuda Mexicano
Even if all of the Fukushima nuclear power plants blew up, would the Japanese government let us know??
SquidBert
hrm, something went wrong with that post.
This Japan Times (Originally SENTAKU) article indicates the exact opposite of this report. Interesting read. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20111213a1.html
YongYang
@Paw: You picked up the 'piping' and 'walls' part of the post the answer to your question is answered by the rest of the post, the bit that reads: ...and then the perimeter alarm sounded before the tsunami arrived. Do you see now? Indicative of failure. As radiation was being detected.
Miyagidad
I find it interesting that their report is less in depth than the claim documents that they sent to us - only 130 pages.
They failed to check the majority of the back-up systems prior to the issuance of the permit to keep running the place and admitted such just weeks before the tsunami and we are supposed to believe an 'internal' report are they *;-`/@ joking. A simple fact was that as Yong yang states the perimeter radiation alarms sounded prior to the tsunami hitting, meaning a massive release of radioactive material. This would have caused a huge problem by itself, if only the total collapse of the power station hadn't followed shortly after.