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Fukushima and the Anti Nuclear Power Mood

28th March, 2011 - Posted by Wolf Paul - No Comments

I have noticed that in all the reporting on the problems in and around the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the wake of the earth quake and tsunami there is one subject that is hardly mentioned:

TEPCO’s inadequate implementation of standards and measures prescribed by the appropriate government agency as much as a year ago.

Especially here in Austria, where there is a basic distrust and rejection of nuclear power technology in the population the media reporting tends to emphasize the fundamental danger and unpredictability of nuclear power technology. Basically, the media are saying what their readers/listeners/viewers want to hear and see the events in Japan as confirmation of their prior opinions and assumptions.

It would be very important, however, to clearly point out that the earth quake and the tsunami following it had such devastating results because the Fukushima operators were slow and negligent in implementing measures ordered by Japan’s nuclear supervisory body, and because they (and others) generally try to get by with the minimum of safety measures ordered by the authorities.

Every technology is potentially dangerous, and that potential is realized when the people using it do not primarily have the maximal safety of all concerned in mind, but rather maximal profits for their owners and investors. This is not peculiar to nuclear technolgoy; we saw the same principle at work in the oilspill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

As an example, in Fukushima the critical situation in the reactor blocks is exacerbated by the presence in the reactor buildings of storage pools for spent fuel rods which also require constant cooling. Of course it was simpler, cheaper, and probably perfectly legal to place these pools in the immediate vicinity of the reactors, but it created additional risk.

After the failure of the electricity supply and thus of the cooling pumps they tried to bring in external generators and pumps, but failed initially because of incompatible power connectors — another example of deficient preparedness and cost-cutting measures.

The problem thus is not in the first place the unpredictability of nuclear energy, but the greed and lacking responsibility on the part of managers and politicians.

Even if we abandon nuclear energy, that problem will not go away.

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