Thursday, September 19, 2019

Executive Culpability and Lessons Learned


TEPCO officials are not being held culpable for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster:
Osumi, M. (2019, September 19). Former Tepco executives found not guilty of criminal negligence in Fukushima nuclear disaster. Japan Times, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/09/19/national/crime-legal/tepco-trio-face-tokyo-court-ruling-criminal-case-stemming-fukushima-nuclear-disaster/#.XYRWBH97nwk
I have documented through my research and advocacy that the Fukushima Daiichi was indeed human-engineered, echoing the conclusion of the independent Diet report on the causes of the disaster.

Still, I believe that "lessons learned" are more important in affecting change than "punishment." The problem is that there are no lessons learned for the nuclear industry globally and, especially, in the US.

For example, US nuclear power plants remain at risk from flooding https://thinkprogress.org/nuclear-plants-flood-risk-trump-2eb58bc654a7/

And the US nuclear industry is pushing for less regulation, as covered by Common Dreams and The Los Angeles Times

A US Fukushima is just a matter of time.

Meanwhile, TEPCO announces contaminated water stored at site will be dumped into ocean, despite remaining contaminated:
Yusuke Ogawa, Hiroshi Ishizuka, Noriyoshi Ohtsuki, and Chikako Kawahara (2018, September 29). Treated water at Fukushima plant far too unsafe to be dumped soon THE ASAHI SHIMBUN http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201809290029.html

Some of the "processed" water showed concentrations of radioactive materials at more than about 20,000 times the standard used to determine if the water is safe enough to discharge into the ocean.

TEPCO has been treating the water with a device known as ALPS, or advanced liquid processing system. Water is accumulating at a rate of between 50,000 and 80,000 tons a year.  The latest study covered about 890,000 tons of the 940,000 tons of water that has gone through ALPS and is stored on-site.
 
Tests showed that strontium 90 was present in some tanks at levels of about 600,000 becquerels per liter of water, which is about 20,000 times the safety standard.

10 comments:

  1. There will be a nuclear accident un the US in the next few months 1. From the zealous deregulating of the decrepit reactots 2. Not reinforcing the many aging plants in serious danger zones. 3.Propping up reactors ready to blow, that were closing. It is insane

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    1. https://greenpowerwellnessshow.podbean.com/e/solartopia-green-power-and-wellness-hour-nuclear-fascism-in-ohio/#respond

      Solartopia Green Power and Wellness Hour - NUCLEAR FASCISM IN OHIO

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    2. Authoritarian Neoliberalism

      Authoritarian Nuclear Neoliberalism



      America is very is in serious danger of a nuclear accident, soon.

      Democracy is on a thin line.. America is sick from industrial poison and a systemic collapse in the regulation of the nuclear industry and upkeep of nuclear reactors . The growing dangers of a nuclear accident in America are unprecedented. People are deluding themselves, if they think things can go on the way they are ...

      Reactors in America have little supervision or oversight any more, thanks to the overlord's obsession with authoritarian neoliberaliam and this insane, man's chaotic, destructive interpretation of authoritarian neoliberalism.

      This administration has lunatically taken away the supervision, regulation, and monitoring of nuclear power plant safety, needed to prevent a Chernobyl or Fukushima in America, in any one of the dangerous reactors, here in the near future. It should be of utmost concern, considering the condition of the plants  in America.

      The authoritarian neoliberalism model, that is being thrust upon us, is as bad, or worse than overt fascism, in our current state of ecological decline and post-Fukushima nuclear danger. We are not being told what is going on and  government is captured by corporate interests, that put us all in grave danger from nuclear .

      Nuclear plants in America are now like independent fiefdoms, like the ones in the Ukraine. Groups of technicians in the Ukraine were recently found dangerously tying up the computers of a nuclear plant in the Ukraine , with  bitcoin manipulations and drinking and partying with prostitutes in a nuclear plant. Nuclear plant safety and supervion has been extremely deregulated and limited since the maiden regime took over in Ukraine. They have had many reactor mishaps and are as close as the USA is under Trump, to a major nuclear accident.
      How ironic in the country of Chernobyl's origen.

      https://nuclear-news.net/2019/05/20/ukraines-present-nuclear-reactors-time-bombs-at-risk-of-another-chernoby/

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    3. That is the way it is in the USA under Trump's neoliberal authoritarian deregulation and, absolute ending of any pretense of supervision of the safety, of any nuclear reactors in America.

      Dangerous reactors on the verge of collapse, kept open by the capricious insanity, of the deregulation frenzy, of this insane president.

      No reactors in America have fail-safe, backup now. Thirty oand forty-year-old rusted, surplus diesel generators that will not even crank-up, when they try to test them. Like the ones at Palos Verdes, Besse, Waterford, Fermi and Brunswick. Power lines that would stave off meltdowns are now completely vulnerable to storms, to earthquakes and outages, like never before. All of used-fuel pools, at the reactors in America, are cracked. They are over full with high-level nuclear waste. Most all reactor supervision, is gone now. Deregulated and unsupervised like the ones in the Ukraine. Thanks to Trump.

      Each of the 97 dangerous nuclear reactors in America is an independent fiefdom.

      Their owners are letting them fall apart. Many of their owners are allowing cheap, underpaid contractors to run them, to run amok, while running the outdated computer-operating systems.

      Technicians periodically dump radionuclides into the environment.

      Technicians and unsupervised corporations, bring the dangerous old radionuclide spewing, monsters to the brink of meltdown, on a daily basis. Their control systems are inadequate and archaic. The technicians running them are incompetent. Their pumps and pipes. Their reactor vessels, and containment corroded, clogged, embrittled and disintegrating. All because of the insane Trump policies.

      The 97 reactors are all embrittled.

      Many technicians are contractors who are allowed to go to work on drugs or are not well trained.

      Most reactors are on bodies of water making them vulnerable to the new ferrocious breeds of storms we now experience. Many are also on earthquake faults.

      All plans to reinforce the reactors, to prevent a Fukushima multiple catastrophe, have been cancelled. Cancelled by this authoritarian regime that is obsessed with privatizing everything and taking away supervision of even nuclear reactors. The chaotic Trump regime has an insane neoliberal ideological obsession, to deregulate industrial poisons, pesticides, chemicals to the point of extreme irrationality, including cutting off any supervision of nuclear reactors, of all things. No other person would be stupid enough or crazy enough to do such a thing. No one in history has in America, though it has not stopped meltdowns in these death machines

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    4. All reactors are on bodies of water and/or polluting aquifers. They are polluting and destroying the surrounding areas.

      Palo Verde is contaminating the precious and severely depleted water supply of the meager Phoenix aquifer with Cesium 137 plutonium, tritium etc. Technicians find toilet paper clogging the cooling pipes of the Palo Verdes reactors by Phoenix because the plant is run on and cooled by sewer water from Phoenix.

      The Palo Verde reactors are in the middle of a desert. The plant's coolant water supply is sewer water, from Phoenix. Has been and always will be because Phoenix is in a godforsaken low-water desert. Palo Verdes' pipes are corroded. Palo Verdes' backup generators have failed four times in the past seven years.

      Technicians are caught high on drugs in nuclear reactors and nuclear submarines in America now.

      Even Hillary would not be so stupid. Hillary would not be abrogating arms treaties and explicitly bragging about building low-yield nukes for a limited preemptive nuclear strike.

      Hillary would not be building intermediate-range nuke missiles to provoke the Russians. Hillary would not be forcing the Russians to build nuclear-powered cruise missiles, like the one that caused a nuclear detonation recently.

      I predicted a detonation in the world last year. It happened.

      There will be one or more nuclear meltdown-explosions in the Usa in the next 6 to 14 months because of the extreme dangers set up by this insane administration. Probably in Ohio, at Fermi, Palo Verdes. In Florida, at Waterford. Remember the recent massive earthquakes by Diablo.

      Strong possibility if not guarantee of accidents at reactors in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Illinois or New Jersey. There will also be fuel fires.

      The nuclear catastrophes will eclipse climate-change concerns. American's bodies are already saturated with radionuclides from massive radionuclide pollution. Radionuclides from americium in smoke detectors, the massive military-radionuclide contamination of America. There iss contamination from the reactors, from 70 years of open-air nuking. Uranium mining, nuclear accidents. There was underground nuclear fracking 40 years ago. Contamination from nuke-weapons production. Nuke waste dumps. Current fracking.

      Major reactor-accident severity has increased significantly around the world in the past 30 years in since Chernobyl. Fukushima was an example of nuclear industry-captured safety monitoring of a major nuclear plant. Industry capture of nuclear safety contributed to, if not caused, the worst nuclear catastrophe so far in history. Our insane politicians learned nothing. They do not care.

      People are more aware since Fukushima. People have monitored nuclear releases from Norway and Russia in Europe that were probably from nuclear accidents since Fukushima.

      Nuclear accidents on a grand scale are more likely now because of aged reactors and deregulation in places like the Usa, Ukraine and Russia.

      The largest nuclear wild fire in history recently occurred at INL.

      No one says anything about it. The death, quick-onset cancer epidemics and birth defects in the Western USA have only just begun from that catastrophe on 90 thousand acres at INL. You hear nothing about it.

      Even as bad as Hillary may have been, Hillary would not be so comprehensively and uninhibitedly deregulating the nuclear industry, as Trump is.

      The emboldened, cheap-ass nuclear operators, will not even shut-down reactors in the face of Hurricanes and severe Flooding , as with and STP in 2017. That was when the Bay City Reactor's fences, were breached and the plant was completely flooded. The evil nuclear operators are more deregulated now!

      They keep the massive reactor cores fissioning. They keep the reactors on, in the face of Earthquakes. They force the reactors to run and operators to stay, when plants are completely flooded, with category 5 earthquakes approaching! That is what this insane idiot, Trump has done and is doing in America now. It is only a matter of time!

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    5. Hillary Clinton would not be following the nuclear insanity, of this madman Trummp. Trump said he would like to detonate nuclear bombs in hurricanes recently. Everything about it is a lie and everything it has done related to nuclear is insane.
      Clinton if elected, Would allow reactors on the verge of accidents like Besse, Diablo, Fermi to close .

      For all her other shortcomings she believes in some semblence of liberal democracy and the will of constituents.

      Clinton
      would not allow the insanity of operators monitoring themselves that caused fukushima that fuko bow allows and is consolidating

      There is a long sane precedent for monitoring reactor safety. Hillary said she was ready to reinforce reactors at risk in america, after fukushima. What have we gotten? More radioactive rice from fukushima. A nuclear detonation because of this madman. Wilsfire in the worst and most contamination nuclear reservations in the world. The forced continuence of reactor with holes in them costing taxpayers billions. Trillions wasted on the worst possible nuclear boondogles. Insanity

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    6. Agency could keep Three Mile Island nuclear debris in Idaho
      ByKEITH RIDLER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
      BOISE, Idaho — Sep 16, 2019, 6:53 PM ET
      Email
      FILE - This May 11, 2015 file photo shows nuclear waste stored in underground containers at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho. Federal authorities want to store the partially melted core from one of the United States worst nuclear accidenThe Associated Press
      FILE - This May 11, 2015 file photo shows nuclear waste stored in underground containers at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho. Federal authorities want to store the partially melted core from one of the United States' worst nuclear power accidents for another 20 years in Idaho. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday, Sept. 16, 2019 it's considering a request from the U.S. Department of Energy to renew a license to store the radioactive debris from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. The core of a reactor south of Harrisburg, Pa., partially melted in 1979. (AP Photo/Keith Ridler, File)more +
      The partially melted reactor core from the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history could remain in Idaho for another 20 years if regulators finalize a license extension sought by the U.S. Energy Department, officials said Monday.

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    7. The core from Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania partially melted in 1979, an event that changed the way Americans view nuclear technology.


      The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined there would be no significant impact from extending the license to store the core at the 890-square-mile (2,305-square-kilometer) site that includes Idaho National Laboratory.

      "No significant radiological or non-radiological impacts are expected from continued normal operations," the commission said about its finding.

      The agency would also have to complete a safety evaluation report before renewing the license. Commission spokesman David McIntyre said that will likely happen in the next several days.

      Holly Harris, executive director of the Idaho-based nuclear watchdog group Snake River Alliance, wasn't immediately available to comment.

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    8. The Energy Department site sits atop the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer, a Lake Erie-size underground body of water that supplies cities and farms in the region with water.


      The new license would be good through 2039, four years past a deadline the Energy Department initially set with Idaho to remove the radioactive waste.

      State and federal officials say the waste could still be shipped out of Idaho ahead of the 2035 deadline and would not affect the 1995 agreement that contains penalties for missed deadlines.

      Idaho is already fining the Energy Department for missing a deadline involving radioactive liquid waste stored at the site.

      It's not clear where the Three Mile Island waste could be moved, as the U.S. doesn't have a designated repository.

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    9. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says there's some 77,000 tons (70,000 metric tons) of spent nuclear fuel stored at commercial nuclear sites around the country because there's no place else to put it.

      The Department of Energy said no additional material would be added to the waste storage site in Idaho.

      The previous license expired in March. It said the maximum amount of Three Mile Island debris that could be stored at the Idaho site was 183,000 pounds (83,000 kilograms) of damaged nuclear fuel assemblies and 308,000 pounds (140,000 kilograms) of material removed from the reactor vessel.

      Court battles between Idaho and the federal government culminated with the 1995 agreement requiring the Energy Department to clean up the Idaho site as well as prevent the area from becoming the nation's nuclear waste dump.

      Exelon Generation, the company that owns the remaining nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island, has said it will shut down the facility by the end of this month.

      The company blamed economic challenges and what it said are market flaws that fail to recognize the value of nuclear plants.


      nuke waste 3 mile INL


      Agency keeps Three Mile Island nuclear debris in Idaho
      ByKEITH RIDLER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
      BOISE, Idaho — Sep 16, 2019, 6:53 PM ET


      The Energy Department site sits atop the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer, a Lake Erie-size underground body of water that supplies cities and farms in the region with water.


      The new license would be good through 2039, four years past a deadline the Energy Department initially set with Idaho to remove the radioactive waste.

      State and federal officials say the waste could still be shipped out of Idaho ahead of the 2035 deadline and would not affect the 1995 agreement that contains penalties for missed deadlines.

      Idaho is already fining the Energy Department for missing a deadline involving radioactive liquid waste stored at the site.

      It's not clear where the Three Mile Island waste could be moved, as the U.S. doesn't have a designated repository.

      The U.S. Energy Information Administration says there's some 77,000 tons (70,000 metric tons) of spent nuclear fuel stored at commercial nuclear sites around the country because there's no place else to put it.

      The Department of Energy said no additional material would be added to the waste storage site in Idaho.

      The previous license expired in March. It said the maximum amount of Three Mile Island debris that could be stored at the Idaho site was 183,000 pounds (83,000 kilograms) of damaged nuclear fuel assemblies and 308,000 pounds (140,000 kilograms) of material removed from the reactor vessel.

      Court battles between Idaho and the federal government culminated with the 1995 agreement requiring the Energy Department to clean up the Idaho site as well as prevent the area from becoming the nation's nuclear waste dump.

      Exelon Generation, the company that owns the remaining nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island, has said it will shut down the facility by the end of this month.

      The company blamed economic challenges and what it said are market flaws that fail to recognize the value of nuclear plants.

      THE BIG LIE AS USUAL
      "No significant radiological or non-radiological impacts are expected from continued normal operations," the commission said about its finding. THE WASTE IS IMPROPERLY STORED IN BARRELS OVER ONE OF THE LARGEST AQUIFERS IN THE NW USA

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