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Watchdog halts Tsuruga nuclear safety assessment after data tampering

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halts Tsuruga nuclear safety assessment after data tampering. Japan Atomic Power had been found to have rewritten data analyzing a drilling survey conducted on an area below the Tsuruga complex premises without approval.

Another data tampering in Japan?

https://www.reuters.com/technology/mitsubishi-electric-apologises-falsifying-train-equipment-inspection-data-2021-07-02/

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Toyota-supplier-Akebono-Brake-says-it-faked-data-100-000-times

12 ( +12 / -0 )

so they were upset about the data maniuplation, NOT the general premise of having a nuclear power plant over an active fault line.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

it will pause its safety assessment of a central Japan reactor in response to the operator having tampered with key geological data related to a fault underneath the facility, putting in doubt its restart after a 10-year shutdown.

PAUSE?, why pause? Wouldn’t the “revelation” that the whole premise of building it there was based on fraudulent information supplied by the company demand an instant decommissioning? The only pause needed is for prosecutors to start criminal proceedings. And the bulldozers to fuel up.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

Japan's nuclear industries are full of lies and deceptions as before Fukushima disaster.

They prioritize benefit than safety, try to deceive people easily.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

This industry has been known for falsifying data, you just can't trust them. I hope that the government will never trust them either, and double check their work. I also hope that Japan will accelerate it's efforts to eliminate reliance on Nuclear power.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

Data tampering is endemic throughout Japanese industry and companies. One reason I would never invest in a Japanese company is you cannot trust any accounting here.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Refreshing to see the NRA doing their job this time, and not bending over backwards to accommodate the demands of the power utilities.

Kudos!

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Japan Atomic Power said at the time the altering of data was unintentional and was done to merely reflect a change in the observation method of the fault.

Well now we have a new defense for illegal "activities"!

" But officer, I wasn't mugging that mam. My knife just sort of Unintentionally was in my hand and I Unintentionally said give me all your money!" " I was only merely reflecting my need for money!"

We can add this to the rest like "I done remember, I was Drunk" and " the train was crowned and my hand just slipped under her.....".etc...

Where are the police and prosecutors on this cases?

3 ( +8 / -5 )

so they were upset about the data maniuplation, NOT the general premise of having a nuclear power plant over an active fault line.

I don't think that is the case. If an active fault is confirmed under the reactor it would affect the decison whether or not to restore it to use. The data was altered in a way, if the article is accurate, to make the fault appear less active than it may be. The regulators want to see the unadulterated data and use that to make a judgement about the fault.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

David BrentToday  08:14 am JST

Data tampering is endemic throughout Japanese industry and companies.

About 8 years ago we looked at a piece of land in North East Tokyo, wanting to build a 3 floor home, but the area is like much of Tokyo is river bed, so we had a ground survey test and the results said it would require very expensive pillars to be driven in deep making it far to expensive.

3 years ago a well known housing company that bought the land built a 3 floor house on the property at a reasonable price.

We looked at buying it and ask for the ground survey and construction plans, no pillars! The ground survey was not even close to our privately paid for one from 5 years earlier,

We submitted the information to the city got a lot of hims a haws and "oh this is serious" then heard nothing.

Someone bought that house and is living in it now.

Our survey engineer that looked at the company data and his original survey said the place will not withstand an earthquake or possibly any serious ground water saturation and the building will start to sink after some point.

This taught us a valuable lessons always get our own survey and engineer report.

The place we bought had several previous surveys done and our engineer got them and compared to those submitted by the seller and builder. All matched up as well as did the required building method/need to safely support the 3 floor house.

How come the government doesn't do it's own testing for something as highly dangerous as a nuclear plant?

Commonsense would tell us never to trust the seller or those with financial interest and to always get an independent evaluation especially when lives are at risk.

7 ( +11 / -4 )

? I don't understand what the fashion is here to manipulate data regarding NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS.

Quite simple!

In earthquake Japan the probability of finding an actual "safe" place to build a nuclear plant is very rare if they want it to be near enough to the inhabited areas they intend to supply, or in a prefecture/municipality willing to let them build one, etc...

So their only option is to fake the data.

The simple fact that nuclear power became the go to energy supply over the more obvious safe freely abundant Geothermal in volcano heavy Japan tells us a lot of brown envelopes and false data had to have been circulated.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Many people are not against nuclear power as such. However, they are against nuclear power in the hands of TEPCO, KEPCO and all other power companies with a history of tampering with or concealing data, evidence of risk.

Japan's nuclear regulator should not pause the safety assessment. It should conclude it is not safe without accurate safet data force its closure.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Stories like this why I avoid food products from Fukushima whenever possible. You can't believe the Japanese government and it's business partners.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

With fusion energy all but assured, we wont need the horrors of fission any more.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58252784

It IS when not if.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@listen the truth

Fusion energy is not happening anytime soon. We need nuclear power. The other alternative is to build dirty coal and gas plants.

-8 ( +0 / -8 )

And what of Japan Atomic Power? If the translation of "altering of data was unintentional and was done to merely reflect a change in the observation method" is correct, then it was intentional because it implies they knew that there was a change in methodology.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

mobius217Today  11:17 am JST

@listen the truth

Fusion energy is not happening anytime soon. We need nuclear power. The other alternative is to build dirty coal and gas plants.

Really? Why, as far as I know. Japan is one very windy place there is free cleaner energy and no need for nuclear decontamination.

Also as far as I can see Japan sits on one very big Geothermal spot wow another free source of energy.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

As if all others wouldn’t tamper data too until they fit their intentions. lol

0 ( +2 / -2 )

mobius217Today 11:17 am JST

.... We need nuclear power. The other alternative is to build dirty coal and gas plants.

There are plenty of nuclear power plants in nearby South Korea and China and nobody says a word about it.

Are there no earthquakes in China or in USA which is also operating nuclear power plants?

The question is really from where should electric power come from?

To use wind and solar are not a reliable supply source, costly construction, depending on weather and time on the day, solar farms require a lot of space, wind farms are noisy, best to construct them off-shore.

LP gas costs a lot of money and has to be imported. Coal is not a clean energy source...

What remains is maybe hydropower, but Japanese rivers are rather short.... Geothermal, no much progress seen so far.

A serious problem is also about storage of electricity, batteries are heavy, costly, contain a lot of poisonous flammable material ...especially a problem for electric vehicles.

What really to do to produce ENOUGH clean electricity?

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

YohanToday  01:43 pm JST

Many years ago the government of Canada and the nuclear industry tried pushing nuclear plants on Canadian provinces.

In Quebec the people were opposed to the idea.

It was not about the environment cost of alternative methods of power production it was about selling Cando reactors ( Canadian made nuclear reactors).

The province because of popular opposition declined.

Today Hydro is the main power source because one thing Quebec had was lake and space.

Japan has a very active Geothermal environment which can produce cheap near inexhaustible supply of energy.

Japan as a vast coastline with again and inexhaustible supply of free wind,

Today's wind turbines combined with newer power storage technology not requiring batteries.

2 examples being piston compression and gravity.

The first is simple excess energy from the wind turbines compresses a piston that in low wind or high demand times is released and produces power, the second, during low demand stores the excess energy by raising rotating weights which when released spin downward turning a turbine creating power.

Safer, cheaper in the long-run easier to replace, easier to upgrade, etc...

And with the recent breakthrough by the university of Hokkaido in creating super magnets from simple iron without the need for large quantities of rare earth metals this will make building cheaper wind turbines.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Geological history proves 100% that there are no inactive faults nor inactive volcanoes. They might rest, but mother nature owns them, not you nor I.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@antiquesaving

Hey wind energy is wonderful and cheap. But building more wind turbines means you need to build more coal and gas plants. Becuase you need coal and gas power to supply electricity when the wind does not blow as plentifully during the months at the beginning of the year. As Germany found out.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/07/28/german-emissions-from-electricity-rose-25-in-first-half-of-2021-due-to-the-lack-of-wind-power-not-willpower/?sh=5484b78f37a2

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/08/15/can-europe-go-green-without-nuclear-power

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Today's wind turbines combined with newer power storage technology not requiring batteries.

2 examples being piston compression and gravity.

The first is simple excess energy from the wind turbines compresses a piston that in low wind or high demand times is released and produces power, the second, during low demand stores the excess energy by raising rotating weights which when released spin downward turning a turbine creating power.

Safer, cheaper in the long-run easier to replace, easier to upgrade, etc...

And with the recent breakthrough by the university of Hokkaido in creating super magnets from simple iron without the need for large quantities of rare earth metals this will make building cheaper wind turbines.

That sounds wonderful, but I have heard all this before and have yet to see any practical and scalable application of excess wind energy storage so far. I'll believe it when I see it.

On the other hand, having a single generation 4 molten salt reactor, with a passive safety design, and 10 or even 15GW capacity and a more than 60 year service life to supplement wind power seems more practical and sustainable.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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