Woody has published a new article at the Nikkei Asian Review on how the nuclear society is still isolated.
Four years have passed since Japan’s devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident of March 2011. Since the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi, Japan has essentially been without active nuclear power plants.
In April, a Japanese court dismissed a demand by local residents for an injunction to stop the restart of two Kyushu Electric Power reactors.
Restart of the plants is now the government’s and the industry sector’s primary concern. Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has stated: “We will be tireless in our efforts to improve our regulatory measures so that Japan’s nuclear regulation standards will be among the world’s highest.”
I am pleased to announce that I have joined Curtiss-Wright, Scientech Nuclear Division. and will manage the new Japan office in Tokyo with the title, Director of Risk and Safety, Asia-Pacific. My portfolio includes Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan, where I will be responsible for safety/risk, licensing, and plant performance, in both consulting and business development activities.
The Asia-Pacific market has provided, and will continue to provide, outstanding opportunities in the nuclear field. This year about one-half of Curtiss-Wright’s new orders will have come from Japanese and Korean clients.
My most important immediate task will be to lead the Japan Safe Restart Alliance (JSRA), which brings together many of the leading experts in all aspects of nuclear power plant safety from four world class organizations: Curtiss-Wright (plant performance, PRA, licensing), Appendix R Solutions (fire and safe shutdown), Marubeni Utility Services (project management, business development), and Rizzo Associates (natural hazards).
The alliance members are already engaged in several projects in fire compliance, fire hazard, tornado hazard, active fault, and fault displacement hazard analyses to support safe restart.
The JSRA mission is to assist in the safe restart of Japan’s nuclear power generating stations, to establish the basis for continued safe operations, and to ensure the safety of the people of Japan and the protection of the environment.
Yesterday, the Nuclear Risk Research Center of Japan was created jointly by the Japanese government and the nuclear operating companies of Japan.
Dr. George Apostolakis, former US NRC Commissioner, will be the Chief of the Center, and Mr. John Stetkar will be the Chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee.
Having worked with both of these gentlemen for over 30 years, I strongly endorse their appointments.
Congratulations, George and John. You certainly have your work cut out for you.
This week our independent review team visited the Japan Atomic Power Company’s (JAPC) Tsuruga Nuclear Power Station for the fourth time.
As many of you know, the Japan Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA) has stated that an active fault runs under Tsuruga Unit 2 and therefore under regulations should be shut down. The NRA’s criteria for fault activity, or capability as we say in the US and Europe, is movement during the last 120,000 years.
Our preliminary report was presented at a press briefing in Tokyo yesterday.
According to the NRA’s definition of an active fault (120,000 – 130,000 years ago), and our team’s independent review of the recent investigations by JAPC, we conclude that there is persuasive and powerful scientific evidence that the geological features investigated do not indicate active faults.
The Asahi Shimbun is running a series of articles based on the testimony given by Yoshida Masao, the plant manager during the Fukushima Daiichi crisis. Yoshida-san gave this testimony to prosecutors on loan to the Japan government’s Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station.
From the Asahi Shimbun Online
None of this information has been made public before this time. If true, it gives the public more reasons to lose trust in TEPCO and the Japan central government.
You can find the first one and the second one online in English
Just when we may need nuclear power generation most for economic stability and to combat global warming, new revelations bring into question the ability of Japan to win the hearts, minds, and trust of the public. How can we expect those evacuated from their homes during the crisis to believe the reports from UNSCEAR and other organizations on the safety of returning?
The likelihood that there will be long term radiation fatalities or illnesses from the accident is exceedingly small, indeed.
Science has nothing to do with this situation. But trust does.
People left the ever widening exclusion zone around the plant on orders from the Japan central government. And rightly so since even the best experts did not know exactly what was happening in the early days.
And they stayed away, even knowing the radiation levels were lower and within limits, because of lack of trust that the situation was under control. It could have gotten worse.
They continue to stay away because they lack the trust that current decontamination actions and the removal of spent fuel at Unit 4 will proceed without incident and truthfulness, thus perhaps necessitating another evacuation.
There are Fukushima Daiichi tours given to the media, public figures, and foreign dignitaries, such as U.S. Ambassador Kennedy, on a regular basis.
I would suggest another kind of tour.
Go and listen to the people, as we did in Minami-soma while making the UNSCEAR film. The people in Minami-soma understand radiation and its measurements very well. They are not stupid. They simply do not trust those who have lied.
Go and listen to them.
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