Edano criticizes TEPCO for series of mistakes on nuclear plant

TEPCO = FUBAR Enough said.

The government wants to sell Japanese nuclear plant & technology to Thailand, Myanmar,Vietnam etc. Not surprised they do not want any of this negative advertising.

“We strongly urge TEPCO to provide information to the government more promptly,” Edano said.

and then

TEPCO spokesman Hajime Motojuku declined to comment.

Pretty much shows the ongoing arrogance of TEPCO officials.

Edano won't be getting his TEPCO bonus this year, that's for sure!

Why isn't TEPCO president on site with a bucket and a shovel already?

The situation at the crippled complex remains unpredictable, Edano said Saturday, adding that it would be “a long time” until the crisis ends.

Unfortunately, this is a huge understatement by Edano. As I mentioned in the other article, one just has to look at the videos of the structural damage to the reactor buildings from the hydrogen blasts to deduce there is going to be damage to the contents of those buildings which just complicates the task of stabilizing the cooling situation for both the reactors and spent fuel storage pools. The radiation complicates everything since it makes it difficult to get into the trouble spots to see what is happening; then there is the whole matter of trying to fix them under the circumstances. We're witnessing the classic "exploding parts" problem where you have all these issues cropping up but are able to only address a few of the higher priority ones that are critical to getting the situation stabilized; but fixing the most pressing issues are wrought with other problems that prevents resolving them quickly.

Still, that does not excuse TEPCO's mismanagement with regards to monitoring and reporting radiation levels in a timely manner as well as ensuring the safety of their workers at the site who have it even worse in terms of having to deal with direct exposure to ionized radiation.

Knowing the modus operandi of large entities in how/when they release information to prevent a larger scale of anxiety and panic amongst the general populace that can lead to irrational behavior, it is quite clear (when reading between the lines of Edano's public criticism) that the government is now feeling more pressure in walking that fine line balancing act because as time passes, the public's level of anxiety will naturally increase. I mean look at the run on bottled water when they just released information related to the increase of iodine in the water plant water supply. The problem is compounded by the scope and magnitude of the disaster (the natural one up north and the man made one at the Daiichi plant). There are no quick easy fixes with the nuclear plant issue and that in itself has a trickle effect on so many other things which the government, businesses, and the populace will be facing in the coming months.

And at this juncture, I highly doubt the government even cares about putting on a good public face regarding the selling of their nuclear technology to other countries because their immediate first priority with the nuclear plant is getting the necessary cooling infrastructure in place to provide long term cooling of the reactor and spent fuel storage. Getting that under control reduces the long term radioactivity risks faced by the public.

Sending in young untrained lesser-paid workers from a subcontracter into the most highly radiated area, not providing them with adequate footwear, and not instructing them to respond to their dosometer alarms is criminal.

Why isn't TEPCO president on site with a bucket and a shovel already?

Maybe because he doesn't know how to operate those two?

OH WELL!

The way I see it, TEPCO is only trying to save it`s face by trying to make things looks better that what it truly is. The top officials in TEPCO does a lot of talking while not doing much at all to make things better for everyone that is in Japan. So sad.

I'll have TEPCO in the list of TOP 10 companies affiliated with AIG. AIG= Accountability Is Gone.

“An extremely urgent” request, is that a euphemism for g@d damned bungling idiots? And why is it the US Navy that ships in fresh water. Has all fresh water been bottled here?

What? I thought a lot of people were saying TEPCO was in bed with the govt.? Another illusion smashed.

I suspect these reactors could have been successfully cooled from straight after the quake and tsunami, but they bungled it and now it has gotten this bad that the American government has to tell them to stop using sea water

SushiSake3: they are in bed with the government but the government has to divert angers against TEPCO. The government has to look to be in charge.

sushisake3... tepco is in bed with the regulatory agencies.... the bureacrats.... dont be naive.

If tepco are in bed with anyone it's the nuclear and industrial safety agency. I bet there's a lot of amakudari going on there.

I suspect these reactors could have been successfully cooled from straight after the quake and tsunami, but they bungled it and now it has gotten this bad that the American government has to tell them to stop using sea water

It comes down to the difficulties the government faced in proritizing immediately after the quake. Seen in hindsight, prority could have been given to rigging power lines to Fukishima No.1. But grasping the scale of the overall tsunami disaster and quickly saving human lives in the coastline areas was naturally seen as more important. Kan's initial speech simply said the reactors had safely shut down, which was true.

Has ANY country experienced a 9.0 Mag earthquake and the ensuing high tsunami damage to their nuclear reactors? If not, the data and procedures TEPCO is collecting and analyzing is exclusive to them - that info would be invaluable if NO ONE has it. Interesting.

I am not downplaying the effects and deaths involved w/ the disaster, but TEPCO could? put the exclusive info to good use in protecting future projects.

There's no exclusive info - they will have to report on everything to the IAEA

"What? I thought a lot of people were saying TEPCO was in bed with the govt.? Another illusion smashed."

lol, you noticed that too?

Somedays I can't find my car keys, and I'm not risking my life. It doesn't surprise me that a mix up like the boot things happened. Is it a stupid mistake? Yeah. What kind of a mistake in that situation isn't stupid? But this is the time for sunday quater backs to tell it like it is. Whowa we could do a better job.

I'm actually very satisfied with the way things are being handled. Japan needs nuclear power and it needs to be on the coast. Those are facts of life.

I expect before this is over (talking years) there will be more unfortunate stupid mistakes, that's human.

You would have thought they could have air-lifted generators by helicopter within hours. And got a system working well within a day.

The only other bungling that comes close is Obama's dealing with the BP gulf oil spill.

People should be upset about these "disasters" and should be asking questions and demanding answers.

Government spokesman Yukio Edano may be missing the silver lining to this disaster. TEPCO may be sitting on a "radioactive gold mine". W/ the data and analysis of structural and process impairment from a 9.0 Mag and Tsunami, they would have the invaluable info to make better nuclear reactors - strong containment is important, but more important, how and where to make the containment stronger. This situation is good since they have two different reactors to compare - Toshiba and GE. Comparisons would be incredible. Obviously, Toshiba has the most to gain since they would be able to make a stronger, safer reactor. A reactor that can resist a 9.0 Mag and tall Tsunami would be very attractive to say, island countries like Indonesia? Billions, trillions of Yen always attract my interests.

Can not find your keys, hope that the result is not the contamination of the environment, death and sickness of work friends and the public in general. It is a dangerous industry and we all trust the workers to follow basic rules. TEPCO have continually displayed an attitude that is criminal, the situation has no relevance to lost keys. The rules are there to stop Human error, but if they are ignored yes mistakes happen. Over 400 safety violations in the last 3 years IAEA report, turning off critical systems during an emergency - by mistake. Sending workers into dangerous situations with out proper equipment. There will be more CRIMINAL mistakes because management are the people who have served the company the longest and not because of skill. (And they have a lackey who looks after their keys, who can don a paper suit and be sent in should they forget the keys.) I can not believe you are satisfied with the situation, do you work for TEPCO? I accept the circumstances are exceptional. But on top of this we have a work structure that has a track record of recklessness that defies logic. There is a right way and a wrong way- human error is expected and actions taken to reduce the risk, they appear not to do this. That risks us all.

If you are satisfied fine, maybe I just have a higher standard for people whos actions endanger my family and the environment.

TEPCO may be sitting on a "radioactive gold mine"

Why do you keep saying these things? You're so odd

To Thepro,

"thepro at 11:57 AM JST - 27th March

TEPCO may be sitting on a "radioactive gold mine"

Why do you keep saying these things? You're so odd"

This type of thinking is obsolete in the US. This is a thinking from another era, specifically GHQ. If you are in a crummy situation, can people rig something up to emulate something. The old timers in Japan probably can see the past in my posts.

Sad thing is that KEPCO, or Kanden, providing the same function in the populous Kansai region, is not much better than TEPCO. Also run by a bunch of old, coddled, arrogant know-it-alls. The whole nuclear industry in Japan needs a complete overhaul.

The government should charge and tell TEPCO they have 72 hours to solved the problem or fired them all. Then ask International communities for a professional team that can get the job done. Obviously, TEPCO is not taking it seriously, wasting time, people lives are at stake, and destroying the environment. TEPCO is most unprofessional team ever. I mean don't screw around with radiation. Obviously, TEPCO doesn't care about own people others.

TEPCO is only trying to save it`s face

It hasn't got a face left to save.

To put things in perspective, which this crowd apparently doesn't care about. Think about the land which has been destroyed and the lifes lost in other power sources like coal. People got to pay for energy, sometimes with their lives. What's scary about nuclear is that it might be YOU who has to pay and not some smuchk down in a coal mine.

So yeah, the biggest eathquake in recorded history and a tsumi hit the plant and they seem to got it under controll in a plant that is one of the oldest in the country I'm pretty satisfied. I'm on nerves but I'm not surprised.

RobertCB: "Somedays I can't find my car keys, and I'm not risking my life."

Here's a bit of a newsflash -- walking into water contaminated with 10,000 times the normal amount of radiation, and forgetting where you put your car keys are not quite the same thing.

It was NOT a 'stupid mistake' to send the people in with inadequate gear -- it was gross negligence.

It is now being reported as of now being 10... MILLION times at Number 2.

If you are not taking this seriously then... What WILL you? It is reminding me of the Japanese situation at the end of WWII where the 'powers that be' --even when faced with the absolute realism of defeat-- believed that by just willing it; by just holding on for that bit longer, everything would turn out fine, that the tide would turn. I can't gamble with a hand of optimistic fatalism. Can you? I took my family out of Kanto two weeks ago.

they seem to got it under controll

???Where do you read that? The place is leaking high-level radioactivity and the government is admitting it's a long-term crisis.

And don't talk to me about the dangers of coal. My dad was a coal miner, from a long line of coal miners. I know all about the dangers of coal mining and would be the last person to try to downplay them. But coal mines don't blow up and contaminate half a country with unseen poison for decades.

TEPCO has made a mess of this from the outset. Firstly by concealing what was going on and next by refusing international help. Now, two weeks later, it has become apparent what they did has only caused more damage and they are now undoing what they did. The damage to the environment is significant and the effects of it will last for decades. Now, the US has stepped in to bail them out and after two weeks of dithering the J-Gov is trying to save face by pointing fingers at TEPCO. Well fools, it is too late! The world is laughing at Japan again.

Correct me if wrong, but I believe all instrumentations and manuals are in Japanese. Some manuals may have multilingual translations, but the reactors are Japanese specific in modifications. I would think a foreign team coming in to the situation would have to learn Japanese very quickly, and re-label all the instruments. That would probably take weeks?

Yeah they are saying the levels of radiation in the number 2 reactor's turbine room are in the level of sieverts now. Don't know how they are going to be able to get close to that one.

In the end as I've said TEPCO will be found to have cut corners because they played the odds and FAILED!!!

escape artist worded it well "Sad thing is that KEPCO, or Kanden, providing the same function in the populous Kansai region, is not much better than TEPCO. Also run by a bunch of old, coddled, arrogant know-it-alls. The whole nuclear industry in Japan needs a complete overhaul."

You bet, Japan's whole nuclear power industry needs to give its collective head a shake and soon. There are four nuclear power plants between 65km to 85km from Kyoto and Kyoto is only around 45km away from Osaka and Kobe is next door to Osaka. You do the math...

@apec. Who do you think gave the Japanese the tech know-how? GE.

To YongYang,

The other is from Toshiba. Anyway, are you saying that the GE reactor has everything in English, even when ONLY Japanese will be working w/ it predominantly? That would seem odd.

apecNetworks, agreed. No is the time and opportunity to rebuild the devestated towns and upgrade the utilities.

I don't know about the language on the GE reactor, but I have received equipment written in non-English, and I changed all labels to English - ease of use.

What evidence do we have here? Does anyone have any method of measuring radiation in the air, in water or in food? what happened to the 50 heroes who were saving the world. Where's the back story? Where's the interview with a tearful wife? The media seems to move as one blob saying the same message. The message is based on what? Some shaky pictures from 30+km away and some well crafted press releases received from...... the gov? Tepco? the UN?

RobertCB, Just where are your keys? The levels are 10 million times normal at the moment around No2 reactor. You say its my fault my family are not safe- dude,how is that. You need to link actions to consequences, even your own.

"Pressure readings still indicate no damage to the containment vessel."

Need look no more !

The world is laughing at Japan again.

disillusioned, I agree that TEPCO has covered stuff up and has been incompetent at best, but as far as I know many people around the world are very concerned, not laughing.

If coring for soil samples was done before the Daiichi Fukushima nuclear plant was built and for the others for that matter, there is a high probability that the core samples would have shown evidence of Tsunamis long ago.

This time the Tsunami reached 5km inland,building a Nuclear plant right on the shores of a country that is known for earthquakes is negligent,(10M walls we now know don't work against a huge volume of water moving at 450km per hour.

Japan has the best natural energy resources next to Iceland "Geothermal energy"! If TEPCO or the Japanese government say it is to expensive to tap into! Look at the price they are paying now.

TEPCO WAS in bed with the Government . But she was found " cheating " and got kicked out of bed.

About time Edano come out and say what most of us learned from the " foreign " sensational media.

Hopefully the situation will be under control soon.

@Yep. Not odd. How do the scientists communicate at international forums?

To YongYang,

Who is Yep? Anyway, the GE reactor is not "international forums" per se.

linro: yeah, there's some major negligence in play for the government/tepco to build a nuclear plant in an earthquake and tsunami prone area. you'd think they'd have built better safeguards in place, and taken more precautionary measures.

To YongYang,

After all the commotions ebbs down, perhaps you could visit a nuclear reactor to see if the instrumentation is in only Japanese. Or, perhaps someone else can, like a reporter. I seriously doubt that the instrumentations is not almost all in Japanese.

Apples and large gyrating behemoths, the specs, layout, blue prints and workings of the machinery and others will be in English, I bet the On / OFF switch is in romaji, for sure. Anyway, non sequitur aside, Japan got its tech-kno-how from the US. All of that will be in English. BUT back to the point, the slow unfolding nightmare just got darker.

Strange...I never saw anyone on JT criticizing TEPCO for building nuclear reactors near the sea or on fault lines before. Not surprisingly, a lot of armchair 'experts' come out yelling criticism AFTER the fact. Too easy. Those people need to ask themselves: where else could Japan build nuclear plants but beside large bodies of water? On a mountain, or in Tokyo perhaps? Necessity is at work here. That much should be obvious.

Lots of people. experts and layman, have baulked at the Japanese for building where they have. The whole industry, as any, thinks dollar on the bottom line. This industry is far too dire a distributor of terrible consequence to be allowed to run that way. So... Build WITH all bases covered or don't bother, not with this genie.

Yes, the building of nuclear power plants has been a regular feature on JT. I take it, that the people from the IAEA are no arm chair experts and from what I have been reading, it was the IAEA, that in 2008 warned their Japanese counterparts of the dangers of eartquakes and tsunamis along the Pacific coast. It was brushed aside. Also, since this particular plant started operating in 1971, the fascilities were upgraded exactly 3 times.

sushisake3, maybe not on JT but Greenpeace has been warning for this for over 40 years. Most of Japans nuclear reactors are not built to withstand earthquakes they should be able to withstand. The problem is not necessarily the building of nuclear reactors but rather building them while being optimistic about the strength of earthquakes. That's what they have done here for years and each time one of them gets a direct hit it turns into a mess. Remember the earthquake of 2007?

Oh, and the guys that were taken away with radiation sickness received doses of 2-6 sievert. They are probably living their last weeks... Good job TEPCO, good job.

SushiSake3 Maybe I am missing something, but don't they uses fresh water to cool down reactors? if they are desalinating sea water, then they could pump fresh water from the desalination plant to a safer nuclear plant location and if there is no safe location drill for "Geothermal energy"! The Fukushima plant is dead and can never be used again. The big question is What is TEPCO's end goal to this cruises? Cooling down the plant is only the first stage, then what??

So many armchair experts who criticize in retrospect and hindsight. If not nuclear power stations, what? Highly polluting coal plants? If a nuclear power plant shouldn't be built by the sea, then where do you want it built?? And if you think there's danger from earthquakes in Japan, do you even live here? The whole country has been on a faultlines for centuries. As I said earlier, the current situatinn has been driven by necessity. If you're going to criticize, come up with some realistic alternatives.

sushisake3 do you know what "Geothermal energy" is? I lived in Japan for twenty years and could not understand why Japan never tried it! then again if you don't know about "Geothermal energy" Then maybe Japan doesn't either.

Sushisake3, admittingly there is no realistic alternative. But that should not stop one from considering the fact that if nuclear fission goes wrong, it goes wrong for 10.000 years. For me that's reason enough to seriously consider not to use this technology and if you do, at least try to prepare against all eventualities. Again, I say, I have been reading for 20 years, and I know that others have been saying this for 40 years, that Japan's nuclear sites are not built to withstand the natural disasters occuring in this country. This is not hindsight. They knew it from the start and probably thought: "oh, whatever, such quakes only happen seldomly, let's save some money..."

Sushisake: "Strange...I never saw anyone on JT criticizing TEPCO for building nuclear reactors near the sea or on fault lines before."

Really? Go back to the Niigata earthquake and you will find many. Articles are probably no longer there, though.

Sushisake3: "So many armchair experts who criticize in retrospect and hindsight. If not nuclear power stations, what? Highly polluting coal plants?"

Seriously? more of the "let's look at coal and compare deaths" crap? I would have guessed you were above such a weak allegory, but perhaps I was wrong.

It is hard to have confidence in anything emanating from the TEPCO management at this point. From falsifying safety data, to sending workers in to work in their street shoes, to publishing incorrect radiation readings - TEPCO takes the cake. They are, sadly, a living, ongoing tableau of Murphy's Law in action.

In Germany now, a quarter million people took to the streets to demand an end to all nuclear plants. I would like to see them joined by people around the world, who want to see a sustainable future for the human race.

linro, Japan already has geothermal energy plants. Has had them for years, as any Google search would tell you.

Correct me if wrong, but I believe all instrumentations and manuals are in Japanese. Some manuals may have multilingual translations, but the reactors are Japanese specific in modifications. I would think a foreign team coming in to the situation would have to learn Japanese very quickly, and re-label all the instruments. That would probably take weeks?

Do you really think they have the manuals all spread out like someone come home from an IKEA sale?

Of course there will be documents in English, a lot of the technology will have been patented internationally, and besides, anyone coming will be a specialist in their field. Circuit diagrams and mathematics are the same in any language.

This is why democratic nations are weak. In China the government would've taken FULL control of the situation immediately, to hell with due processes and disputing factions. You can balk all you want about "rights" and "freedoms", but that's irrelevant when faced with a system that WORKS.

xuanzahng:

" This is why democratic nations are weak. In China the government would've taken FULL control of the situation immediately, to hell with due processes and disputing factions. You can balk all you want about "rights" and "freedoms", but that's irrelevant when faced with a system that WORKS. "

Yep. And the trains ran on time under Mussolini and Hitler. Undoubtedly true statements all, but there are reasons why people prefer the messy and slow functioning of a democracy.

But thanks for the plea for dictatorship.

In the event, clearly new design guidelines for nuclear reactors are needed, and guess what? We will get them.

xuanzhang:

And while I am at it, do remind us how wonderfully and efficiently the Soviet government dealt with Chernobyl? I am all ears.