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| Portest against nuclear power in Tokyo |
By Dennis Normile, Science Insider, January 27, 2012
TOKYO—Japan is preparing for the possibility of a summer
without nuclear power as utilities and safety experts squabble over the safety
of the country's remaining reactors. And a key government minister is calling
the power industry's bluff—that blackouts will occur if plants idled for
inspection are not brought online—by saying the nation could avoid disruption
by relying on conservation and thermal power.
By law, nuclear power plants must be periodically shut
down for maintenance and inspection; utilities need national and local
permission to restart operations. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, last
summer the governing Democratic Party of Japan required "stress
tests," analyses of a facility's ability to withstand natural disasters,
to be part of the periodic inspection routine. That analysis was carried out
for two reactors at a plant in Ohi on the Japan Sea coast and submitted for
review to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), which concluded
they had passed. Operator Kansai Electric Power is seeking approval to restart
the two reactors.
But today two members of a NISA advisory committee
called the stress tests flawed and "not proof of safety." At a press
conference, Hiromitsu Ino, a materials scientist and professor emeritus at the
University of Tokyo, and Masashi Goto, a former nuclear power plant designer,
said their concerns were simply ignored in the final report.
Ino said there are nine issues the stress tests failed
to address. He said the criteria for the tests should reflect lessons learned
from the Fukushima disaster, but that the studies into the sequence of events
that led to the cascade of failures are ongoing. Without the results of those
studies, he says, the criteria being used are "subjective and unclear."
He notes that the stress tests called for checking facility resistance to
shaking 1.8 times the design earthquake, yet seismologists have noted that
those design events are based on the historical record and it is now clear that
much more powerful earthquakes have occurred over geologic time. The analyses
also do not consider the inevitable degradation over time of a reactor's
materials.
Meanwhile, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yukio
Edano was reported in this morning's Asahi Shimbun (newspaper) as saying it is
conceivable that none of the country's nuclear power plants will be operating
this summer because of the difficulty of gaining local approval to restart. Of
Japan's 54 nuclear reactors, only three are currently operating, and they must
shut down for periodic inspection by the end of April.
Although gaining local approval is not legally required,
Edano's comments indicate that the national government might support the stance
of local officials, which puts a very high hurdle in front of the utilities. The
governor of Fukui Prefecture, which hosts the Ohi nuclear power plant, is on
record as opposing the restart of any commercial nuclear power plants. "I
am hoping that in this situation decisions will reflect what local people
want," Ino said.
Edano told the newspaper that thermal power and
conservation efforts should get the country through the summer without the
cutbacks and blackouts imposed last year. He added that his ministry is working
on countermeasures to handle reduced power output.
A new national energy policy is due by the end of the summer,
and observers expect it could call for a phase-out of nuclear power. A sudden
and permanent shut down of all reactors, however, would be a huge surprise.
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