Update #63: September 21, 2011
This article was posted on CounterPunch today. (H/T to Kevin Logan)
It concerns many questions about how the Japanese government and TEPCO have handled the Fukushima disaster. It is an excerpt from a recently published book. The most shocking question posed is about the magnitude of the earthquake itself.
As I said to Kevin after he sent it to me, "Hard to explain all those falling pipes, broken tubes in the reactor and cracked foundations if everything was designed to withstand an 8.4 earthquake and that's actually how strong the earthquake was." You be the judge. (Author and translation details follow the article.)
September 21, 2011
Why Did They Fake the "9.0"?
What TEPCO and the Media are Hiding
by TAKASHI HIROSE
When did the radiation start to leak from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and how far has it spread?
About this our greatest interest, the Japanese Government announced nothing for several days (at least until March 17) after the earthquake occurred on March 11, 2011. They just described the facts saying they "….happened" in the past tense, explaining neither the cause of the explosion nor its mechanism. They never talked about expectations of danger. What is "the worst scenario" that this nuclear accident might lead to? A reporter asked this of Edano Yukio, Chief Cabinet Secretary, at a news conference, but whether because Edano couldn't answer or didn't want to, he said nothing clearly.
Like the government, most of the media, rather than informing us of the dangers posed by this accident, kept claiming groundlessly that there was none. The stock phrase used by both Edano and the TV "experts" – "no immediate effects to health" – means what? That radiation effects start one year or 10 years later? If the radiation was to have "immediate effects", that would be a horror. People would be dropping dead in the streets of acute radiation sickness as they did after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But that is not what we are talking about. The question is whether radiation taken into children's bodies is really safe.
The "Experts" Who Were Unable To Foresee a Hydrogen Explosion
This is the first time a genpatsu shinsai syndrome occurred in Japan – or in the world. [Translators' note: genpatsu shinsai is a new term to describe an unprecedented phenomenon: a combined nuclear power plant (genpatsu) earthquake disaster (shinsai). Rather than attempt an awkward translation, it is rendered here as genpatsu shinsai syndrome.] With the situation changing by the minute, people surely would want to know more about what was likely to happen next, and not just what had already happened at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant.
But was there any medium that was able to foresee what was coming?
On the afternoon of March 12, the day after the earthquake, a hydrogen explosion occurred in #1 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi Plant and the reactor building suffered severe damage. This explosion should have been avoided at any cost, because a large amount of radioactive substances was carried away by the blast wind and spread into the atmosphere.
It is because neither the government, nor the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), nor the Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC), nor TEPCO was able to predict the explosion that they failed to avoided it. I was watching this process on TV and thought of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. …. I was on edge, thinking "There's going to be an explosion!" I was praying those "experts" on TV would raise the alarm and that the danger could be avoided. But no one said a thing.
The cause of the hydrogen explosion is simple. In #1 reactor the cooling system stopped working just after the quake, and after a full day with no cooling most of the uranium fuel rods in the core must have melted down. Uranium fuel is processed into the shape of pellets and encased in zircalloy (an alloy of zirconium) pipes.
If the core starts to melt, the zirconium, making contact with water, reacts, and oxidization begins. If the metal oxidizes in the water (removing the O from the H2O), more and more hydrogen is generated. If enough hydrogen is produced, explosion occurs.
Just when I was getting more and more irritated watching the TV where no one was mentioning this, the phone rang. It was a newspaper reporter asking for my comments.
I said, "Go immediately to the NISA press conference and ask them about the danger of a hydrogen explosion."
Right after that, the explosion occurred.
After the explosion those "experts" were on TV again, giving plausible explanations of what had caused it. This is what we call showing up for the fair a day late. Real experts would be ashamed of not being able to explain the danger of the explosion before it happened.
At the press conference after the explosion, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano said, "Even though #1 reactor building is damaged, the containment vessel is undamaged. On the contrary, the outside monitors show that the [radiation] dose rate is declining, so the cooling of the reactor is proceeding."
Both NISA and NSC insisted, "For this accident to reach the Chernobyl level is out of the question."
Most of the media believed this and the university professors encouraged optimism. It makes no logical sense to say, as Edano did, that the safety of the containment vessel could be determined by monitoring the radiation dose rate. All he did was repeat the lecture given him by TEPCO. I was persuaded that TEPCO, the government spokesmen and the TV commentators are a pack of amateurs. I had a bad feeling that something even worse was going to happen.
It was on March 14, two days after the explosion at #1 reactor, that the hydrogen explosion occurred at #3 reactor. Though it was the second explosion I had not seen any "experts" on TV who predicted it or warned about it.
I will explain the process of the hydrogen explosion at #3 reactor. The process was as follows.
It began on March 13, the day after the #1 reactor explosion. Just after 7 AM, the feed-water stopped and #3 reactor lost its cooling function completely. With three-quarters of the fuel exposed meltdown began, and the hydrogen explosion occurred through exactly the same mechanism as that of #1 reactor. The time was 11:01 AM on March 14. It took about a day from the time the cooling function stopped until the explosion. That was about the same amount of time as it took #1 reactor. But after the explosion the situation got worse than at #1 reactor. The building was blown off together with its steel frame, and four TEPCO employees and three workers from partner companies were injured.
Was the Earthquake Really Magnitude 9?
Aside from the way the genpatsu shinsai syndrome was reported, there was another thing I could not understand about the media report of the Great Tohoku Earthquake. It is the expression "once-in-a-thousand-years earthquake" used by every TV station including NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). The expression is based on the figure "magnitude 9" announced by Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). But was it really that big an earthquake?
When an earthquake occurs, it is recorded by seismographs, and the amount of energy generated at the epicenter is called the magnitude. …. If the magnitude figure is 0.2 larger, that means the energy is about twice as great, so if the magnitude is greater by a factor of 1.0, that means the energy is 32 times greater (2 to the fifth power: 2x2x2x2x2).
In the Southern Hyogo Prefectural Earthquake (1995) which brought about the Great Hanshin Earthquake Disaster, the magnitude was recorded at 7.3. That would calculate out to mean that the energy of the Great Tohoku Earthquake was 355 times that of the Southern Hyogo Prefectural Earthquake.
When I talked with news people who reported on the disaster, they all said with one voice, the earthquake damage was not so great, but the tsunami was appalling. I myself saw the enormous damage wreaked by the tsunami on TV and was terrified. However, the damage from the quake itself is not clearly known. One reporter said that this time he did not see anything like what he saw during the Southern Hyogo Prefectural Earthquake, when the Hanshin Expressway was toppled off its foundations.
So I examined the data.
"Gal" is a unit for measuring the strength of a quake precisely. It is an acceleration unit named after Galileo. One Gal indicates the amount of force which, when it acts on an object 1 gram in weight, will cause that object to accelerate at a rate of 1 centimeter per second. In time of earthquake this rate of acceleration indicates the momentary force that acts on people and buildings.
In the Great Tohoku Earthquake the strongest tremor, as far as I know, was the shindo 7 recorded at Tsukidate Kurihara City, Miyagi Pref. [again, the shindo is a unit used in Japan to measure the force of an earthquake at each specific site, not at the epicenter]. The ground acceleration figure there was 2933 Gal. A big quake it is, but in the Iwate Miyagi Inland Earthquake (magnitude 7.2) in 2008, they recorded vertical acceleration of 3866 Gal and three-component synthesis maximum acceleration of 4012 Gal (the highest ever recorded) in Ichinoseki City, Iwate Pref. This would mean that while its magnitude was less than the 9 alleged for the Great Tohoku Earthquake, its force on the ground was greater.
Was the 3/11 earthquake really the most powerful earthquake in history?
Watching the process, it seemed suspicious. At first JMA announced the magnitude of the earthquake provisionally as 8.4. Then this was corrected to 8.8, and finally "upgraded" to 9.0.
Escaping Responsibility by Managing the News
The seismologist and geologist Shimamura Hideki (former Director of the National Institute of Polar Research) said, "This never-before-heard-of figure of magnitude 9 is was produced by JMA's arbitrary altering of the magnitude scale."
In fact a number of different scales have been used to calculate magnitude. In Japan in the past the "JMA magnitude (Mj)"scale has been used. If we enter data of the Great Tohoku Earthquake into the Mj formula (omitted here as it is complicated), its magnitude would be 8.3 or 8.4 at most according to Shimamura. He continues, "It is because JMA recalculated the data using the ‘moment magnitude (Mw)' scale, which has been used only by scientists, that the magnitude could be raised to 9.0."
Note that in my book the magnitude of all the past earthquakes is shown by the customary Mj scale. If the scale is changed abruptly, it becomes impossible to compare with past earthquakes. Why did JMA change the scale without explanation? Here I can feel political intervention distorting a scientific truth. If the magnitude figure remained at the original 8.4, that would mean that the earthquake fell within the range of a "predictable" disaster. And if that were so, not only TEPCO, but also the Japanese government and the "experts" who have promoted nuclear power, would be held responsible.
The Chubu Electric Power Company (CHUDEN) has announced that its Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant is built to withstand an earthquake of a magnitude of magnitude 8.4. Advocates of nuclear power needed to raise the magnitude to 9.0, otherwise they would be in a pinch. By announcing this unprecedented figure, they want to make people think the earthquake was "a once-in-a-thousand-years earthquake" and "beyond expectation" thus escaping responsibility.
Especially TEPCO has tried to avoid criticism by raising the magnitude to 9.0. Even now their sales are decreasing sharply because of planned outages and electricity conservation measures by consumers. If they need to pay huge damage compensation for the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant accident, it will be hard to keep the company afloat. They want to keep compensation costs as low as possible; that is their aim as a company.
Excerpted from Chapter 2 of Takashi Hirose's just translated Fukushima Meltdown: The World's First Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster (Kindle Books).
Takashi Hirose has written a whole shelf full of books, mostly on the nuclear power industry and the military-industrial complex. Probably his best known book is Nuclear Power Plants for Tokyo.
Translated by Doug Lummis, who is a political scientist living in Okinawa and the author of Radical Democracy. Lummis can be reached at ideaspeddler@gmail.com
At the Plant Site
From SKF today
#Fukushima I: Contaminated Water Rose 18 Millimeters, 4 Tonnes/Hr Water into Reactor 6 Turbine Bldg
The Typhoon 15 quickened the pace and traveled through Honshu and then Hokkaido, all's clear. […] Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant survived. Not much rain and wind as had been feared.
Post-post typhoon water situation at […] [Fukushima] from Yomiuri Shinbun (9/21/2011):
TEPCO announced on September 21 that due to the approaching Typoon No.15 the water levels in the turbine buildings for Reactor 2, 3 and 4 rose by 13 to 18 millimeters in 9 hours from 7AM to 4PM.
At the current rate, there is no fear of contaminated water overflowing, according to TEPCO.
Meanwhile, a leak of water at 4 tonnes/hour was found in the basement of Reactor 6 turbine building. It is considered to be the rainwater. Leaks were also found in the rooms near the central control room for Reactor 1 and 2. TEPCO is carefully monitoring the situation.
NHK on this story: Fukushima nuclear plant on typhoon alert
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are stepping up precautions in advance of the approaching typhoon.
Typhoon Roke is expected to approach the northern prefecture of Fukushima on Wednesday night. It has already brought a total rainfall of more than 200 millimeters to the area since Tuesday midnight.
Efforts to install steel plates at the plant's water intake area have been halted for fear of storm surges. Strong winds and heavy rain have forced the suspension of work to cover the No. 1 reactor building.
Outdoor piping and pumps for injecting water into the reactors have been secured with ropes to keep them from being knocked over by strong winds.
Tokyo Electric Power Company has confirmed rainwater has flowed into the basement floor of the No. 6 reactor turbine building and that it has found leaks in the roof of the central control room of the No.1 and 2 reactors. But no serious damage to the plant has been discovered.
Rainfall of up to 250 millimeters is expected in the area through Thursday noon, but TEPCO says radioactive wastewater is unlikely to overflow from the reactor turbine buildings.
TEPCO says it is closely monitoring the wastewater levels around the clock.
TEPCO has reported no other damage, however ENENews reports tonight that a Large crane above Fukushima reactor goes down during storm condition…
The crane appears to fall on Unit 3 in the videos posted at the link. There was also a a 5.2 earthquake today which is recorded in the second video.
ENENews also carries reports of spiked radiation counts in Tokyo and Fukushima. These would be rain-out events due to the heavy rains from the typhoon.
Report: Radiation level spiking around Tokyo as typhoon nears Fukush…
The other report at ENENews today concerns the fuel rods in the (or I should say, below) the reactors.
Japan nuke expert: Melted fuel rods estimated to be 12 meters underg…
Below is the summary from ENENews. Note that there were no fuel rods in Unit 4 as it was in cold shutdown for maintenance and all the rods had therefore been moved to the spent fuel pool. The comment about Unit 4 fuel rods makes me wonder about the veracity of this story, but the video link there is in Japanese so I can't verify anything.
[Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute] estimates nuclear fuel rods may be now 12m deep underground at reactor 1-3. Only God knows about reactor 4.
Melted rods can not be taken out for 1-2 years. One piece of the fuel rods is estimated to sink into the ground at a rate of 17m per year. Therefore, 2 years from now, they may be 34m underground.
Report from NHK on the proceedings at the Nuke Experts meeting in Japan
Expert urges checks of reactor interiors
An expert commenting on the accelerated plan to contain the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says the interior temperatures of the damaged reactors need to be checked.
Masanori Naitoh, director in charge of nuclear safety analysis at the Institute of Applied Energy, was speaking to NHK about the revised timetable for bringing the plant under control.
The Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Company updated on Tuesday their preparations to achieve a cold shutdown by the end of this year instead of in January as originally planned. Cold shutdown means temperatures of the reactors are kept stable and below 100 degrees Celsius.
Naitoh said that TEPCO is now only measuring temperatures outside the reactors. But he said that it needs to be confirmed through simulation that temperatures inside have fallen below 100 degrees.
He said it also must be proven that there are no risks of a recurrence of nuclear reactions, even though such possibilities are low.
The government and TEPCO plan to start installing new devices at the No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors next week to extract contaminated gases and reduce the release of radioactive substances.
They will also improve reactor cooling systems so that the temperature of the No. 2 reactor, in addition to that of the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors, will drop below 100 degrees.