05/10/2011 0:05 Cuộc biểu tình từ nhiều tuần nay với khẩu hiệu “Chiếm Phố Wall” ở Mỹ tuy có quy mô nhỏ và tổ chức lỏng lẻo nhưng lại tác động mạnh đến chính trị nội bộ nước này. Nó không chỉ có nguyên cớ từ sự phân hóa giàu nghèo ngày càng tăng mà còn là bằng chứng về sự bất bình của người dân. Thực trạng phân hóa trong xã hội Mỹ được thể hiện qua biểu ngữ thường xuyên xuất hiện trong đợt biểu tình: “Chúng ta là 99%”, ám chỉ 99% người dân luôn phải lo lắng cho cuộc sống thường nhật và bi quan về tương lai. Có nghĩa là chỉ có 1% người Mỹ không ở trong tâm trạng ấy. Việc một bộ phận rất nhỏ người giàu nắm giữ tới 90% của cải mà cả đất nước làm ra cho thấy sự phân hóa trong xã hội có lẽ đã tới đỉnh điểm. |
Showing posts with label analysis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label analysis. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
27/05 News Analysis: Does Mladic arrest actually move Serbia closer to EU membership?
by Steve Milosevic BELGRADE, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Is the arrest of Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic simply yet another milestone on Serbia's tortured path toward European Union (EU) integration? Or does it represent a diplomatic "tipping point," a discernible moment that will redefine Serbia's future direction? In the high-risk contest of Balkan politics, where external forces most often decide the final outcome, the answer will ultimately come from Brussels. Mladic's arrest does offer a moment of self-congratulation for patient, persistent EU politicians, who have gradually been extracting ever larger compromises from Serbia, as the country desperately seeks to hop on the European gravy train. More than any of the other countries to emerge from the implosion of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Serbia bears a stigma of the perpetual "bad boy on the block." Mladic was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity by the ICTY in The Hague, most notably for the summary execution of captured Bosnian Muslim soldiers after the fall of the UN-protected zone of Srebrenica in 1995. Will these same politicians conclude that Serbia has suffered enough, and that by offering up Mladic a national catharsis has been achieved? Was Mladic's arrest a game-changer? Former British prime minister Tony Blair, more than any other leaders, pinpointed the motive behind the arrest by saying: " Europe and the prospect of European Union membership can act as a magnet for changing the behavior of countries, changing their political system. So it's big news and good news." "The doors of Europe are open to you," announced former ICTY chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, upon hearing about the arrest. " This is excellent news for the citizens of Serbia." French President Nicolas Sarkozy described Serbian President Boris Tadic's decision to arrest Mladic as "courageous," and said it was "a step toward integration of Serbia into the European Union someday soon." These are the expectations, these are the motives. In fact, with less than a year before general elections in Serbia, the future of the pro-EU movement in Serbia rests on whether vague assurances of eventual EU membership will be enough to stem the inevitable nationalistic backlash. Almost immediately after news of Mladic's arrest leaked out, a Serbian Internet forum asked the question: "Who sold out Ratko Mladic?" In a country where the vast majority in a recent poll said they would rather turn down the 10-million-euro reward for Mladic than turn him in, what political leverage remains for Tadic to make future compromises and reforms without seeming to capitulate? Tomislav Nikolic, leader the Serbia's main opposition Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) which has a strong nationalistic following, said that Tadic owed the Serbian people an explanation for the arrest of Mladic. Although vilified internationally as a war criminal, Mladic was perceived differently by many of his supporters, according to Nikolic, who carefully weighed his words in the aftermath of the arrest. Furthermore, with the Serbian constitution explicitly stating its sovereignty over Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, how much room is left to maneuver? There are also judicial reforms and regional cooperation to address. Just hours after the arrest of Mladic, another Serb leader from the 1990s, Goran Hadzic, a former president of Serb enclaves in Croatia, emerged as the leading war crimes fugitive on the revised ICTY list.
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Sunday, April 3, 2011
02/04 From Far Labs, a Vivid Picture Emerges of Japan Crisis
From Far Labs, a Vivid Picture Emerges of Japan Crisis
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: April 2, 2011
For the clearest picture of what is happening at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, talk to scientists thousands of miles away.
Thanks to the unfamiliar but sophisticated art of atomic forensics, experts around the world have been able to document the situation vividly. Over decades, they have become very good at illuminating the hidden workings of nuclear power plants from afar, turning scraps of information into detailed analyses.
For example, an analysis by a French energy company revealed far more about the condition of the plant’s reactors than the Japanese have ever described: water levels at the reactor cores dropping by as much as three-quarters, and temperatures in those cores soaring to nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to burn and melt the zirconium casings that protect the fuel rods.
Scientists in Europe and America also know from observing the explosions of hydrogen gas at the plant that the nuclear fuel rods had heated to very dangerous levels, and from radioactive plumes how far the rods had disintegrated.
At the same time, the evaluations also show that the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi escaped the deadliest outcomes — a complete meltdown of the plant.
Most of these computer-based forensics systems were developed after the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, when regulators found they were essentially blind to what was happening in the reactor. Since then, to satisfy regulators, companies that run nuclear power plants use snippets of information coming out of a plant to develop simulations of what is happening inside and to perform a variety of risk evaluations.
Indeed, the detailed assessments of the Japanese reactors that Energy Secretary Steven Chu gave on Friday — when he told reporters that about 70 percent of the core of one reactor had been damaged, and that another reactor had undergone a 33 percent meltdown — came from forensic modeling.
The bits of information that drive these analyses range from the simple to the complex. They can include everything from the length of time a reactor core lacked cooling water to the subtleties of the gases and radioactive particles being emitted from the plant. Engineers feed the data points into computer simulations that churn out detailed portraits of the imperceptible, including many specifics on the melting of the hot fuel cores.
Governments and companies now possess dozens of these independently developed computer programs, known in industry jargon as “safety codes.” Many of these institutions — including ones in Japan — are relying on forensic modeling to analyze the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi to plan for a range of activities, from evacuations to forecasting the likely outcome.
“The codes got better and better” after the accident at Three Mile Island revealed the poor state of reactor assessment, said Michael W. Golay, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
These portraits of the Japanese disaster tend to be proprietary and confidential, and in some cases secret. One reason the assessments are enormously sensitive for industry and government is the relative lack of precedent: The atomic age has seen the construction of nearly 600 civilian power plants, but according to the World Nuclear Association, only three have undergone serious accidents in which their fuel cores melted down.
Now, as a result of the crisis in Japan, the atomic simulations suggest that the number of serious accidents has suddenly doubled, with three of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi complex in some stage of meltdown. Even so, the public authorities have sought to avoid grim technical details that might trigger alarm or even panic.
“They don’t want to go there,” said Robert Alvarez, a nuclear expert who, from 1993 to 1999, was a policy adviser to the secretary of energy. “The spin is all about reassurance.”
If events in Japan unfold as they did at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the forensic modeling could go on for some time. It took more than three years before engineers lowered a camera to visually inspect the damaged core of the Pennsylvania reactor, and another year to map the extent of the destruction. The core turned out to be about half melted.
By definition, a meltdown is the severe overheating of the core of a nuclear reactor that results in either the partial or full liquefaction of its uranium fuel and supporting metal lattice, at times with the atmospheric release of deadly radiation. Partial meltdowns usually strike a core’s middle regions instead of the edge, where temperatures are typically lower.
The main meltdowns of the past at civilian plants were Three Mile Island in 1979, the St.-Laurent reactor in France in 1980, and Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986.
One of the first safety codes to emerge after Three Mile Island was the Modular Accident Analysis Program. Running on a modest computer, it simulates reactor crises based on such information as the duration of a power blackout and the presence of invisible wisps of radioactive materials.
Robert E. Henry, a developer of the code at Fauske & Associates, an engineering company near Chicago, said that a first sign of major trouble at any reactor was the release of hydrogen — a highly flammable gas that has fueled several large explosions at Fukushima Daiichi. The gas, he said in an interview, indicated that cooling water had fallen low, exposing the hot fuel rods.
The next alarms, Dr. Henry said, centered on various types of radioactivity that signal increasingly high core temperatures and melting.
First, he said, “as the core gets hotter and hotter,” easily evaporated products of atomic fission — like iodine 131 and cesium 137 — fly out. If temperatures rise higher, threatening to melt the core entirely, he added, less volatile products such as strontium 90 and plutonium 239 join the rising plume.
The lofting of the latter particles in large quantities points to “substantial fuel melting,” Dr. Henry said.
He added that he and his colleagues modeled the Japanese accident in its first days and discerned partial — not full — core melting.
Micro-Simulation Technology, a software company in Montville, N.J., used its own computer code to model the Japanese accident. It found core temperatures in the reactors soaring as high as 2,250 degrees Celsius, or more than 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to liquefy many reactor metals.
“Some portion of the core melted,” said Li-chi Cliff Po, the company’s president. He called his methods simpler than most industry simulations, adding that the Japanese disaster was relatively easy to model because the observable facts of the first hours and days were so unremittingly bleak — “no water in, no injection” to cool the hot cores.
“I don’t think there’s any mystery or foul play,” Dr. Po said of the disaster’s scale. “It’s just so bad.”
The big players in reactor modeling are federal laboratories and large nuclear companies such as General Electric, Westinghouse and Areva, a French group that supplied reactor fuel to the Japanese complex.
The Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque wrote one of the most respected codes. It models whole plants and serves as a main tool of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Washington agency that oversees the nation’s reactors.
Areva and French agencies use a reactor code-named Cathare, a complicated acronym that also refers to a kind of goat’s milk cheese.
On March 21, Stanford University presented an invitation-only panel discussion on the Japanese crisis that featured Alan Hansen, an executive vice president of Areva NC, a unit of the company focused on the nuclear fuel cycle.
“Clearly,” he told the audience, “we’re witnessing one of the greatest disasters in modern time.”
Dr. Hansen, a nuclear engineer, presented a slide show that he said the company’s German unit had prepared. That division, he added, “has been analyzing this accident in great detail.”
The presentation gave a blow-by-blow of the accident’s early hours and days. It said drops in cooling water exposed up to three-quarters of the reactor cores, and that peak temperatures hit 2,700 degrees Celsius, or more than 4,800 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hot enough to melt steel and zirconium — the main ingredient in the metallic outer shell of a fuel rod, known as the cladding.
“Zirconium in the cladding starts to burn,” said the slide presentation. At the peak temperature, it continued, the core experienced “melting of uranium-zirconium eutectics,” a reactor alloy.
A slide with a cutaway illustration of a reactor featured a glowing hot mass of melted fuel rods in the middle of the core and noted “release of fission products” during meltdown. The products are radioactive fragments of split atoms that can result in cancer and other serious illnesses.
Stanford, where Dr. Hansen is a visiting scholar, posted the slides online after the March presentation. At that time, each of the roughly 30 slides was marked with the Areva symbol or name, and each also gave the name of their author, Matthias Braun.
The posted document was later changed to remove all references to Areva, and Dr. Braun and Areva did not reply to questions about what simulation code or codes the company may have used to arrive at its analysis of the Fukushima disaster.
“We cannot comment on that,” Jarret Adams, a spokesman for Areva, said of the slide presentation. The reason, he added, was “because it was not an officially released document.”
A European atomic official monitoring the Fukushima crisis expressed sympathy for Japan’s need to rely on forensics to grasp the full dimensions of the unfolding disaster.
“Clearly, there’s no access to the core,” the official said. “The Japanese are honestly blind.”
Saturday, April 2, 2011
02/04 自粛しても委縮はしない。
2011年4月2日
灯の消えた銀座４丁目方向（３月２８日、ＰＭ９時ごろ筆者撮影）
天野彰（あまの・あきら）
岡崎市生まれ。日本大学理工学部卒。一級建築士事務所アトリエ4A代表。
「日本住改善委員会」（相談窓口・東京都渋谷区松涛１－５－１／ＴＥＬ０３－３４６９－１３３８）を組織し「住まいと建築の健康と安全を考える会 （住・建・康の会）」など主宰。住宅や医院・老人施設などの設計監理を全国で精力的に行っている。ＴＶ・新聞・雑誌などで広く発言を行い、元通産省「産業構造審議会」や厚生労働省「大規模災害救助研究会」などの専門委員も歴任。「日本建築仕上学会」副会長とＮＰＯ法人「国産森林認証材で健康な住環境をつくる会」代表。
著書には、新刊『建築家が考える「良い家相」の住まい』（講談社）、『六十歳から家を建てる』（新潮選書）、『地震から生き延びることは愛』（文藝春秋）、『新しい二世帯「同居」住宅のつくり方』（講談社＋α新書）、新装版『リフォームは、まず３００万円以下で』（講談社 実用ＢＯＯＫ）など多数。
灯の消えた銀座４丁目方向（３月２８日、ＰＭ９時ごろ筆者撮影） 春とは言え、まだまだ寒さが続く毎日です。被災地の人々には本当に辛い日々と思われます。講演などで何度か訪れた岩手県の釜石市や久慈市の友人らとようやく連絡が取れ、詳細が分かるにつれ、彼らの心情は我々などがとうてい計り知れるものではないことを実感します。天候など構っておられないほどの惨状で、「生きていることが不思議だ」とも言う。片づけの手を止めては茫然として辺りを見回し、落胆し、自力で何とかするしかないと覚悟し、自らを励まし、なぐさめ、そしてまた気を取りなおすことの繰り返しと言う。
阪神大震災以降の２０００年前後、厚生労働省（当時は厚生省）援護課による「大規模災害救助研究会」で私は専門委員を務めました。震災直後からの５年間において、避難所生活から仮設住宅の建設、そして復興への道について分析研究しました。例えば長引く避難所生活で求められていたものは、大空間の中での各自のプライバシーを確保しつつ（前回参照）水場や仮設トイレなど設置することでありました。また、被災地ごとのコミュニティづくりなど日常をどう暮らすかのソフト面や、さらに衣食住とともに「医職充」や情報伝達の重要性などについて提案。仮設住宅の早期の建設のために建設場所を設定したり、公園や校庭などに地下槽を設けて、当面はそこに医療テントなどの災害用品を備蓄し、その後その槽を一時的な屎尿溜め（しにょうだめ）にしたりすることなどを提言しました。
「地震に勝つ家 負ける家」（山海堂）
阪神大震災以降の２０００年前後、厚生労働省（当時は厚生省）援護課による「大規模災害救助研究会」で私は専門委員を務めました。震災直後からの５年間において、避難所生活から仮設住宅の建設、そして復興への道について分析研究しました。例えば長引く避難所生活で求められていたものは、大空間の中での各自のプライバシーを確保しつつ（前回参照）水場や仮設トイレなど設置することでありました。また、被災地ごとのコミュニティづくりなど日常をどう暮らすかのソフト面や、さらに衣食住とともに「医職充」や情報伝達の重要性などについて提案。仮設住宅の早期の建設のために建設場所を設定したり、公園や校庭などに地下槽を設けて、当面はそこに医療テントなどの災害用品を備蓄し、その後その槽を一時的な屎尿溜め（しにょうだめ）にしたりすることなどを提言しました。
「地震に勝つ家 負ける家」（山海堂） しかしながら、今回の災害はあまりにも広範に渡り、巨大津波によって街が根こそぎ被害を受けており、入り組んだリアス式の地形の複雑さにも圧倒されて、阪神と比較する方策すらなく、あんたんたる思いでいます。業界仲間は、実際に現地に入って仮設住宅を建てるにしても、津波への恐怖感から人々が海抜にこだわっていて、高台の平坦なところがなかなか見つからず困窮（こんきゅう）していると言います。まずは壊滅した自治体の仮庁舎をつくるところからのスタートになると思いますが、今後については私の知り得る限りの方策を少しずつお伝えして参りたいと思います。
あれから３週間が経ち、今も身内が見つかっていない友人も多い中、驚くべきはそんな彼らが気丈にも「私たちは津波だけだった。南相馬など原発周辺の人たちはさらに大変だ」と気遣っていることです。さらに避難所のテレビで知った暗くなった銀座や渋谷の繁華街の映像を見て、「自粛は良いが、産業や商売が“萎縮”しては経済が衰えてむしろ困る」などと心配もされていることも合わせてお伝えしたい。
「転ばぬ先の家づくり」（祥伝社）
津波による原発の重大事故の収束は火急ですが、それによる停電や極端な節電で、鉄道、さらには産業すべてが萎縮してしまうことは、大きな二次災害とも言えるでしょう。それでは過酷な生活を強いられている被災地の人々の救援や復興活動にも影響し、遅れることにもなりかねないのです。鉄道はもとより、医療・福祉は最優先で、さらには産業や職場の電源はなんとしても確保すべきで、商店や飲食店もせめて看板と商品へのライティングぐらいはすべきです。
計画停電をするなら、地域エリアごとに消す“計画”だけではなく、工場やオフィスなどの操業時間の調整や、夏場に向けて冷房の温度設定など、限られた総電力量のバランス“計画”を緻密に練ることが大事でしょう。我々もそれに合わせて、夕げの支度など生活時間の調整やクーラーなどの使用計画を立てるのです。これで毎日の生活をむやみに暗くする必要もなくなるのではないでしょうか。
取りあえずこれから先の２，３か月、関東は冷暖房の必要のない季節となります。節電をこまめにしつつも、被災した友人が言うように、自粛、自粛と言って街を、商店を、そして職場をむやみに暗くして、消費意欲を阻害したり、労働意欲を萎縮させたりすることがあってはなりません。停電を恐れてコンサートや催事などを取りやめず、各職場はむしろ今まで以上に明るくしっかり働き、消費を、そして雇用を増やす勢いで努めて平生の生活を送ることが、災害からまぬがれた私たちの務めではないかと思うのです。
こんな時だからこそ、読者の方に阪神大震災直後に出版した拙著「地震に勝つ家 負ける家」（山海堂）と、この３月に出たばかりの「転ばぬ先の家づくり」（祥伝社）を各１０名様に謹呈いたしたいと思います。ご応募は私のプロフィールのホームページから、どちらのご本がご希望かを明記の上でどうぞ。
あれから３週間が経ち、今も身内が見つかっていない友人も多い中、驚くべきはそんな彼らが気丈にも「私たちは津波だけだった。南相馬など原発周辺の人たちはさらに大変だ」と気遣っていることです。さらに避難所のテレビで知った暗くなった銀座や渋谷の繁華街の映像を見て、「自粛は良いが、産業や商売が“萎縮”しては経済が衰えてむしろ困る」などと心配もされていることも合わせてお伝えしたい。
「転ばぬ先の家づくり」（祥伝社）津波による原発の重大事故の収束は火急ですが、それによる停電や極端な節電で、鉄道、さらには産業すべてが萎縮してしまうことは、大きな二次災害とも言えるでしょう。それでは過酷な生活を強いられている被災地の人々の救援や復興活動にも影響し、遅れることにもなりかねないのです。鉄道はもとより、医療・福祉は最優先で、さらには産業や職場の電源はなんとしても確保すべきで、商店や飲食店もせめて看板と商品へのライティングぐらいはすべきです。
計画停電をするなら、地域エリアごとに消す“計画”だけではなく、工場やオフィスなどの操業時間の調整や、夏場に向けて冷房の温度設定など、限られた総電力量のバランス“計画”を緻密に練ることが大事でしょう。我々もそれに合わせて、夕げの支度など生活時間の調整やクーラーなどの使用計画を立てるのです。これで毎日の生活をむやみに暗くする必要もなくなるのではないでしょうか。
取りあえずこれから先の２，３か月、関東は冷暖房の必要のない季節となります。節電をこまめにしつつも、被災した友人が言うように、自粛、自粛と言って街を、商店を、そして職場をむやみに暗くして、消費意欲を阻害したり、労働意欲を萎縮させたりすることがあってはなりません。停電を恐れてコンサートや催事などを取りやめず、各職場はむしろ今まで以上に明るくしっかり働き、消費を、そして雇用を増やす勢いで努めて平生の生活を送ることが、災害からまぬがれた私たちの務めではないかと思うのです。
こんな時だからこそ、読者の方に阪神大震災直後に出版した拙著「地震に勝つ家 負ける家」（山海堂）と、この３月に出たばかりの「転ばぬ先の家づくり」（祥伝社）を各１０名様に謹呈いたしたいと思います。ご応募は私のプロフィールのホームページから、どちらのご本がご希望かを明記の上でどうぞ。
天野彰（あまの・あきら）岡崎市生まれ。日本大学理工学部卒。一級建築士事務所アトリエ4A代表。
「日本住改善委員会」（相談窓口・東京都渋谷区松涛１－５－１／ＴＥＬ０３－３４６９－１３３８）を組織し「住まいと建築の健康と安全を考える会 （住・建・康の会）」など主宰。住宅や医院・老人施設などの設計監理を全国で精力的に行っている。ＴＶ・新聞・雑誌などで広く発言を行い、元通産省「産業構造審議会」や厚生労働省「大規模災害救助研究会」などの専門委員も歴任。「日本建築仕上学会」副会長とＮＰＯ法人「国産森林認証材で健康な住環境をつくる会」代表。
著書には、新刊『建築家が考える「良い家相」の住まい』（講談社）、『六十歳から家を建てる』（新潮選書）、『地震から生き延びることは愛』（文藝春秋）、『新しい二世帯「同居」住宅のつくり方』（講談社＋α新書）、新装版『リフォームは、まず３００万円以下で』（講談社 実用ＢＯＯＫ）など多数。
02/04 TEPCO failures multiply / Compounding of missteps exacerbated nuclear crisis
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s failure in its initial response to the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture invited more trouble in a chain reaction, according to an analysis of events over the past three weeks since the March 11 great earthquake and tsunami.
At the crippled nuclear power plant, three reactors have been cooled by injecting water using temporarily set up pumps. However, there are fears the spent nuclear fuel rods stored in the reactors' temporary storage pools will overheat again.
TEPCO's sloppy way of publicly releasing information related to the accident also has drawn much criticism.
===
Vent operation in trouble
The power plant lost all power on the afternoon of March 11 due to the gigantic tsunami that followed the great earthquake, causing an emergency halt to the operations of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors. The Nos. 4 to 6 reactors already were not operating due to periodic inspections.
Temperatures and pressures inside the pressure vessels of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors began rising sharply, complicating the injection of cooling water into the reactors. When the level of water in the reactors drops, nuclear fuel rods become exposed, overheat and may start melting, risking damage to the reactor as well as the emission of radioactive substances.
On the night of March 11, TEPCO planned a controlled release of vapor mixed with radioactive substances from the No. 1 reactor, in an operation to decrease pressure in the pressure vessel.
However, the operation was not carried out until 10:17 a.m. the following day, four hours after Prime Minister Naoto Kan left the Prime Minister's Office to travel to the Fukushima Prefecture plant for an inspection. Also, evacuation of residents in areas within 10 kilometers of the power plant had not been completed at that time.
Then, on the afternoon of March 12, a hydrogen explosion occurred at the No. 1 reactor, destroying the reactor building roof.
Kenzo Miya, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, an expert on nuclear engineering, said the prime minister's inspection delayed TEPCO's original plans to vent the pressure vessel.
"Because of the prime minister's [impending] inspection, the start of the 'vent' was delayed. The possibility that the subsequent actions all fell behind can't be denied," Miya said.
Haruki Madarame, chairman of the Cabinet Office's Nuclear Safety Commission, also noted the time-loss disadvantage.
"Work [to conduct the 'vent'] took time to get under way. As a result, several hours were lost before starting to inject seawater [to cool the reactor]. It was a painful incident," Madarame said, when recalling the situation on the night of March 23.
Meanwhile, TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu and Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata were on separate business trips on March 11 when the tsunami hit the plant. They could not return to Tokyo until the following day. "As we communicated with cell phones and other measures, there were no chain of command problems," an official of TEPCO's public relations department said.
However, the absence of top management officials might have resulted in the delay in the initial response, some people involved in the handling of the accident said.
===
Use of seawater
To cool the reactor core, TEPCO started injecting seawater in the No. 1 reactor shortly after 8 p.m. on March 12--a full 19 hours since the containment vessel's pressure began rising abnormally.
Since TEPCO began injecting seawater to cool the Nos. 2 and 3 reactors on March 13, the operation was believed to have only a limited effect.
On March 14 at the No. 2 reactor, cooling water ran out of supply due to loss of fuel for temporary pumps. On the morning of March 15, an explosion at the reactor was believed to have damaged its pressure suppression chamber, part of the containment vessel.
It is suspected that water contaminated with high concentration of radioactive substances leaked from the chamber to the reactor's turbine building. The water continues to hamper restoration work at the plant.
Since seawater contains impurities, and its use as a coolant damages the reactors, TEPCO had to consider possibly decomissioning the reactors.
"Crucial efforts to tame Japan's crippled nuclear plant were delayed by concerns over damaging valuable power assets," The Wall Street Journal reported in its electronic edition on March 19.
TEPCO was "reluctant to use seawater because it worried about hurting its long-term investment in the complex," the report added, quoting people familiar with the situation.
TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto tried hard to refute the criticism in a press conference on the night of March 21.
"We've been exercising maximum effort to cool down the reactors," he said.
===
Storage pool for spent fuel rods
Another factor complicating the handling of the nuclear crisis was the delay in TEPCO's response to cool the temporary storage pools for spent nuclear fuel rods.
Although the amount of heat generated by the fuel rods in the storage pools is less than the nuclear fuel within a reactor core, the central problem remains: If the fuel rods are exposed when water levels decrease, they will become damaged by overheating.
The storage pools are even more dangerous as they could easily discharge radioactivity as they are not stored in a tightly enclosed structure as a reactor.
The attention of the government and TEPCO initially only focused on the reactors themselves. However, both parties also began to consider the threat posed by the temporary storage pools on about March 13, around the time the temperatures of the pools were believed to have begun to rise due to the halt in the circulation of cooling water.
At the No. 4 reactor, the pool temperature rose to 84 C on the morning of March 14. In the early hours of the morning of March 15, an explosion and a fire took place at the reactor building, which also houses a temporary storage pool for spent nuclear fuel rods.
===
TEPCO updates late, unreliable
Tokyo Electric Power Co. has been criticized for its delays in disclosing information and repeatedly making inconsistent announcements about the problems at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
For example, when explosions at buildings housing reactors at the plant were aired live on TV, TEPCO made no prompt statement about the facts behind the incidents.
TEPCO's failure to obtain and distribute information about important developments at the plant in a proper manner has been partly due to the fragile state of its internal telecommunications network, which has hampered the transfer of information within the company.
(Apr. 2, 2011)
Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s failure in its initial response to the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture invited more trouble in a chain reaction, according to an analysis of events over the past three weeks since the March 11 great earthquake and tsunami.
At the crippled nuclear power plant, three reactors have been cooled by injecting water using temporarily set up pumps. However, there are fears the spent nuclear fuel rods stored in the reactors' temporary storage pools will overheat again.
TEPCO's sloppy way of publicly releasing information related to the accident also has drawn much criticism.
===
Vent operation in trouble
The power plant lost all power on the afternoon of March 11 due to the gigantic tsunami that followed the great earthquake, causing an emergency halt to the operations of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors. The Nos. 4 to 6 reactors already were not operating due to periodic inspections.
Temperatures and pressures inside the pressure vessels of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors began rising sharply, complicating the injection of cooling water into the reactors. When the level of water in the reactors drops, nuclear fuel rods become exposed, overheat and may start melting, risking damage to the reactor as well as the emission of radioactive substances.
On the night of March 11, TEPCO planned a controlled release of vapor mixed with radioactive substances from the No. 1 reactor, in an operation to decrease pressure in the pressure vessel.
However, the operation was not carried out until 10:17 a.m. the following day, four hours after Prime Minister Naoto Kan left the Prime Minister's Office to travel to the Fukushima Prefecture plant for an inspection. Also, evacuation of residents in areas within 10 kilometers of the power plant had not been completed at that time.
Then, on the afternoon of March 12, a hydrogen explosion occurred at the No. 1 reactor, destroying the reactor building roof.
Kenzo Miya, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, an expert on nuclear engineering, said the prime minister's inspection delayed TEPCO's original plans to vent the pressure vessel.
"Because of the prime minister's [impending] inspection, the start of the 'vent' was delayed. The possibility that the subsequent actions all fell behind can't be denied," Miya said.
Haruki Madarame, chairman of the Cabinet Office's Nuclear Safety Commission, also noted the time-loss disadvantage.
"Work [to conduct the 'vent'] took time to get under way. As a result, several hours were lost before starting to inject seawater [to cool the reactor]. It was a painful incident," Madarame said, when recalling the situation on the night of March 23.
Meanwhile, TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu and Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata were on separate business trips on March 11 when the tsunami hit the plant. They could not return to Tokyo until the following day. "As we communicated with cell phones and other measures, there were no chain of command problems," an official of TEPCO's public relations department said.
However, the absence of top management officials might have resulted in the delay in the initial response, some people involved in the handling of the accident said.
===
Use of seawater
To cool the reactor core, TEPCO started injecting seawater in the No. 1 reactor shortly after 8 p.m. on March 12--a full 19 hours since the containment vessel's pressure began rising abnormally.
Since TEPCO began injecting seawater to cool the Nos. 2 and 3 reactors on March 13, the operation was believed to have only a limited effect.
On March 14 at the No. 2 reactor, cooling water ran out of supply due to loss of fuel for temporary pumps. On the morning of March 15, an explosion at the reactor was believed to have damaged its pressure suppression chamber, part of the containment vessel.
It is suspected that water contaminated with high concentration of radioactive substances leaked from the chamber to the reactor's turbine building. The water continues to hamper restoration work at the plant.
Since seawater contains impurities, and its use as a coolant damages the reactors, TEPCO had to consider possibly decomissioning the reactors.
"Crucial efforts to tame Japan's crippled nuclear plant were delayed by concerns over damaging valuable power assets," The Wall Street Journal reported in its electronic edition on March 19.
TEPCO was "reluctant to use seawater because it worried about hurting its long-term investment in the complex," the report added, quoting people familiar with the situation.
TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto tried hard to refute the criticism in a press conference on the night of March 21.
"We've been exercising maximum effort to cool down the reactors," he said.
===
Storage pool for spent fuel rods
Another factor complicating the handling of the nuclear crisis was the delay in TEPCO's response to cool the temporary storage pools for spent nuclear fuel rods.
Although the amount of heat generated by the fuel rods in the storage pools is less than the nuclear fuel within a reactor core, the central problem remains: If the fuel rods are exposed when water levels decrease, they will become damaged by overheating.
The storage pools are even more dangerous as they could easily discharge radioactivity as they are not stored in a tightly enclosed structure as a reactor.
The attention of the government and TEPCO initially only focused on the reactors themselves. However, both parties also began to consider the threat posed by the temporary storage pools on about March 13, around the time the temperatures of the pools were believed to have begun to rise due to the halt in the circulation of cooling water.
At the No. 4 reactor, the pool temperature rose to 84 C on the morning of March 14. In the early hours of the morning of March 15, an explosion and a fire took place at the reactor building, which also houses a temporary storage pool for spent nuclear fuel rods.
===
TEPCO updates late, unreliable
Tokyo Electric Power Co. has been criticized for its delays in disclosing information and repeatedly making inconsistent announcements about the problems at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
For example, when explosions at buildings housing reactors at the plant were aired live on TV, TEPCO made no prompt statement about the facts behind the incidents.
TEPCO's failure to obtain and distribute information about important developments at the plant in a proper manner has been partly due to the fragile state of its internal telecommunications network, which has hampered the transfer of information within the company.
(Apr. 2, 2011)
02/04 N-reactor builders fret about loss of business
Takeshi Kurihara, Kensuke Nakazawa and Taro Koyano / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers
U.S. and European nuclear reactor builders increasingly are concerned about the situation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant because a prolonged crisis could force countries worldwide to change their policies on nuclear power and eventually deal a heavy blow to their business.
Apparently stemming from this concern, visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Areva SA, a French major nuclear reactor maker, on Thursday announced support for Japan's response to the series of accidents at the nuclear power plant following the massive quake and tsunami.
During talks with Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda in Tokyo, Anne Lauvergeon, chief executive officer of Areva, said she recognized that the problems at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. nuclear plant are not only Japan's but her company's as well. She said Areva would provide maximum support to Japan.
Areva, which has tie-ups with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. and has won many contracts to build nuclear power plants in France, where nuclear power is the primary source of electricity, agreed with Chinese companies in November and December to supply them with uranium. The company also recently signed a deal with India to manufacture nuclear reactors.
Areva has aggressively expanded its business, stepping up marketing efforts to sell its nuclear power plants in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries this year.
However, the business environment changed significantly after the series of accidents at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. China temporarily suspended new nuclear power plant projects while antinuclear power plant movements had a resurgence in Europe.
The crisis has depressed Areva stock, which dropped 12.8 percent from the 35.95 euros (4,257 yen) posted on March 10, the day before the quake, to 31.35 euros at Wednesday's close in Paris.
With environmental awareness rising, nuclear power plants, which do not emit carbon dioxide, had been again viewed as a clean energy source, and plant construction had been accelerating until just recently.
However, the nuclear power boom seems to be quickly fading in the United States in the wake of the series of accidents at the Fukushima facility.
General Electric Co. of the United States, which has a tie-up with Hitachi, Ltd., manufactured the Fukushima No. 1 plant's Nos. 1 and 2 reactors and their turbines. The accidents might deal a serious blow to GE.
GE hastily moved to deny liability for the reactors, saying the size of the March 11 earthquake was far larger than the assumptions when they were designed in the 1960s.
GE's stock has fallen about 7 percent from the 20 dollars (1,670 yen) level seen on March 11.
About 30 nuclear reactors were set to be built by 2030 in the United States, where plant construction had long been frozen after the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident.
However, the U.S. Congress has been cautious about advancing the planned projects, with Sen. Joe Lieberman saying the United States should "put the brakes on" new nuclear power plants.
GE set a target of winning 38 nuclear reactor projects by 2030 while Westinghouse Electric Co., which is a subsidiary of Toshiba Corp., was aiming to win contracts to build 39 reactors by 2015.
Sources close to the companies said their plans would inevitably be delayed due to the March 11 earthquake.
If troubles worsened at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the companies would be forced to revise their outlook and their financial performance might be seriously affected as a result, observers said.
(Nakazawa is a correspondent in London and Koyano is a correspondent in New York. Kurihara is a Yomiuri Shimbun staff writer.)
(Apr. 2, 2011)
U.S. and European nuclear reactor builders increasingly are concerned about the situation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant because a prolonged crisis could force countries worldwide to change their policies on nuclear power and eventually deal a heavy blow to their business.
Apparently stemming from this concern, visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Areva SA, a French major nuclear reactor maker, on Thursday announced support for Japan's response to the series of accidents at the nuclear power plant following the massive quake and tsunami.
During talks with Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda in Tokyo, Anne Lauvergeon, chief executive officer of Areva, said she recognized that the problems at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. nuclear plant are not only Japan's but her company's as well. She said Areva would provide maximum support to Japan.
Areva, which has tie-ups with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. and has won many contracts to build nuclear power plants in France, where nuclear power is the primary source of electricity, agreed with Chinese companies in November and December to supply them with uranium. The company also recently signed a deal with India to manufacture nuclear reactors.
Areva has aggressively expanded its business, stepping up marketing efforts to sell its nuclear power plants in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries this year.
However, the business environment changed significantly after the series of accidents at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. China temporarily suspended new nuclear power plant projects while antinuclear power plant movements had a resurgence in Europe.
The crisis has depressed Areva stock, which dropped 12.8 percent from the 35.95 euros (4,257 yen) posted on March 10, the day before the quake, to 31.35 euros at Wednesday's close in Paris.
With environmental awareness rising, nuclear power plants, which do not emit carbon dioxide, had been again viewed as a clean energy source, and plant construction had been accelerating until just recently.
However, the nuclear power boom seems to be quickly fading in the United States in the wake of the series of accidents at the Fukushima facility.
General Electric Co. of the United States, which has a tie-up with Hitachi, Ltd., manufactured the Fukushima No. 1 plant's Nos. 1 and 2 reactors and their turbines. The accidents might deal a serious blow to GE.
GE hastily moved to deny liability for the reactors, saying the size of the March 11 earthquake was far larger than the assumptions when they were designed in the 1960s.
GE's stock has fallen about 7 percent from the 20 dollars (1,670 yen) level seen on March 11.
About 30 nuclear reactors were set to be built by 2030 in the United States, where plant construction had long been frozen after the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident.
However, the U.S. Congress has been cautious about advancing the planned projects, with Sen. Joe Lieberman saying the United States should "put the brakes on" new nuclear power plants.
GE set a target of winning 38 nuclear reactor projects by 2030 while Westinghouse Electric Co., which is a subsidiary of Toshiba Corp., was aiming to win contracts to build 39 reactors by 2015.
Sources close to the companies said their plans would inevitably be delayed due to the March 11 earthquake.
If troubles worsened at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the companies would be forced to revise their outlook and their financial performance might be seriously affected as a result, observers said.
(Nakazawa is a correspondent in London and Koyano is a correspondent in New York. Kurihara is a Yomiuri Shimbun staff writer.)
(Apr. 2, 2011)
Friday, April 1, 2011
01/04 分析に誤り、東電に保安院が厳重注意
東京電力は、福島第一原発の地下水から国の安全基準の約１万倍の放射性ヨウ素１３１などが見つかったと３１日夜に発表したが、ヨウ素以外の物質の分析に誤りがあったと１日認めた。
経済産業省原子力安全・保安院は同日、東電に厳重注意した。
（2011年4月1日15時03分 読売新聞）
経済産業省原子力安全・保安院は同日、東電に厳重注意した。
（2011年4月1日15時03分 読売新聞）
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