Nuclear Myths Accused

International Atomic Energy Agency distributed a draft of final report on severe accident in First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant to its member states, according to news reports. The draft accused Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Japanese government of its laziness in taking necessary measures against possible accident. It will be an important alert to the people who want to forget the great impacts of nuclear accident on a nation.

The draft of IAEA report raised a crucial mistake taken by Japanese government. The agency sent a mission to Japan in 2007 to investigate safety measures in nuclear power plants in Japan. The delegation found that Japan had no legal regulation for considering severe accident that would exceed architectural standard. The agency recommended Japan to apply probabilistic safety assessment, which would assume every possibility of severe accident caused by failure of devices, to assessment for safety of nuclear power plants.

Japan ignored the recommendation. The draft found that Japan did not have fundamental measures for a case in which emergency electric source would be broken down by being soaked into tsunami seawater. The regulation authority, though Japan had no true regulation authority before Fukushima accident, did not demand power company decennial review on measures for earthquake or tsunami. The agency is going to conclude that Japan did not follow international standard for nuclear safety.

TEPCO actually had an assessment that tsunami with fifteen meters high would be rushing to First Fukushima Plant, if an earthquake with magnitude 8.3 in offshore of Fukushima had occur. But the company did nothing for it. The draft accused lack of readiness of the government that had been lazy in making evacuation plan for the residents, and TEPCO with no efficient skill to deal with nuclear emergency.

The most important finding of the draft was existence of myth about nuclear technology in “nuclear village” of Japan. “In Japan, a prejudice that nuclear power plants were designed with technological firmness and perfectly protected has been reinforced for decades. As its result, an accident happened in First Fukushima Plant beyond assumption of power company, regulation authority and the government,” the draft accused Japan.

It is important for the Japanese people to remember that the accident was man made, as an investment committee of the Diet indicated in its report. The government and power companies cannot be trusted, because they have failed once and are learning no lesson from it. If the world does not want further nuclear pollution, IAEA needs to deliver stronger measures to regulate to Japan.