Japan’s Nuclear Crisis-TEPCO is at fault:Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

Japan’s Nuclear Crisis-TEPCO is at fault

Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

Following a severe earthquake and Tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, the nation faced the worst nuclear emergency with explosions and leaks of radioactive gas in three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station that suffered partial meltdowns. The government ordered half the country’s active military force into relief roles-the largest mobilization in postwar Japan. Possibilities of Boric Acid powder spray through helicopters are also explored but in vain. American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier “Ronald Reagan” also arrived in Japan to help with refueling, supply and rescue duties. Polluted Radioactive air might pass through Russia and even reach California State in USA. Explosion after explosion was reported in one or the other nuclear reactor, as it became clear that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months.

For the elderly, the destruction echoed memories of World War II.

American officials have publicly announced that the damage to crippled reactor was much more serious than Tokyo estimated. They advised Americans to stay much farther away from the plant than the perimeter established by Japanese authorities. The announcement may lead to a serious split between America and Japan at an especially delicate moment. If the American analysis is accurate and emergency crews at the plant have been unable to keep the spent fuel at that inoperative reactor properly cooled, it needs to remain covered with water at all times. The advice to Americans in Japan represents a graver assessment of the risk in the immediate vicinity of Daiichi than the warnings made by the Japanese themselves.

Japan has a history of complacent and bureaucratic reactions to crises. In 1995, after an earthquake hit the city of Kobe, officials were slow to respond. At one point of time, Japan Government did not permit for three days, doctors and nurses who had flown to Kobe from America to treat the affected people on the pretext that they had no Japan’s license. Ten years earlier when a Japan Airlines crashed into a mountain and only a handful of passengers survived, the government delayed getting to the site. However, the government this time has been much faster to allow in foreign aid and to get its own relief efforts into the field. But the inclination is still to limit information flow while asking the public to trust the government's leadership.

Once the dust settles in Fukushima and the details of the current emergency are understood, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Japanese government will have to answer why all that happened. TEPCO confidently built six nuclear reactors - the Fukushima complex - overlooking a fault zone, where earthquakes and tsunamis can happen. An impatient public-in Japan and elsewhere-will want to know why that was allowed to happen in the first place.

According to Mike Head (TEPCO-A history of nuclear disaster cover-ups in the World Socialist Website), TEPCO is the conglomerate at the centre of Japan’s nuclear radiation emergency at Fukushima. Its operations over the past several decades characterize the government-backed pursuit of corporate profit, at the direct expense of lives, health and safety. TEPCO is the fourth largest power company in the world, and the biggest in Asia, operating 17 nuclear reactors and supplying one-third of Japan’s electricity. It has a long, documented history of serious safety breaches, systemic cover-ups of potentially fatal disasters, harassment and suppression of popular opposition and use of its economic and advertising clout to silence criticism. Company has a record of committing more than 200 proven falsifications of safety measures.

The current crisis at Fukushima, caused by earthquake, is not the company’s first quake-related breakdown. In 2007, when a much smaller magnitude tremor occurred the company admitted that the plant had not been built to withstand such shocks. Successive Japanese governments over the past 40 years indirectly abetted TEPCO in the safety failures. With the backing of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), from 1955 to 2009, TEPCO aggressively pursued the construction of more than 50 nuclear plants over the objections of residents and environmentalists, in order to secure the energy needs of Japanese capitalism, despite the potential dangers of doing so in one of the world’s most earthquake-prone zones.

In the year 1995, an official falsification of the extent of a sodium leak and fire at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s fast-breeder reactor caused public outrage. In 1999, one of Japan’s worst nuclear accidents occurred at the Tokaimura uranium processing plant. Government officials later said safety equipment at the plant had been missing. Three years later, TEPCO was exposed as falsifying safety data, including at the ageing Fukushima Daiichi facility. The government pretends concern at these blatant safety breaches and sheds crocodile tears.

The July 2007 earthquake, caused subsidence of the main structure, ruptured water pipes, started a fire and triggered radioactive discharges into the atmosphere and sea. The company admitted that the quake had released radiation and had spilled radioactive water into the Sea of Japan. Had the epicenter been slightly nearer and magnitude little higher, Japan would have experienced a major emergency like the present one. Surprisingly no lessons were learnt from that.

Amid a public outcry, the government ordered closure of the center. TEPCO tasted the first ever losses and now it has reached to the current level of billions of dollars. The current meltdown and radiation emergency at Fukushima is the inevitable product of the protracted record of TEPCO-Government collaboration. The government’s fury is purely for public consumption. In addition it has stepped up a campaign to help TEPCO, to win contracts to build nuclear reactors overseas including in Vietnam, Thailand and USA. Within Japan, TEPCO is planning to open six more nuclear reactors, in 2014 and 2015 and in 2015 and 2018. Last month, residents of the areas where these are planned protested as the company commenced construction, in the dark of night, where a volcano burst this week. TEPCO has also been shielded by the media for decades.

A chain of events over a period transformed the Empire of Japan into an industrialized world power. After victories in the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Japan gained control of Taiwan and Korea. World War I enabled Japan, to widen its influence and territorial holdings. It occupied Manchuria in 1931. Japan resigned from the League of Nations two years later. In 1936, Japan signed Pact with Nazi Germany and invaded other parts of China in 1937. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor and declared war on the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. This brought the US into World War II and, and after the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender on August 15. The war cost Japan millions of lives and left much of the nation's industry and infrastructure destroyed. In 1947, Japan adopted a new constitution emphasizing liberal democratic practices. Later, Japan was granted membership in the United Nations in 1956. Japan later achieved rapid growth to become the second-largest economy in the world. Unfortunately on March 11, 2011, Japan suffered the strongest earthquake in its recorded history.

The unfolding Japanese tragedy also should prompt Americans and to that matter other countries also to closely study their own plans. When such calamities could so badly hurt Japan, a technologically advanced nation, it is equally possible elsewhere also. It will be all the more important to reassess safety standards. It is said that about 30 American reactors have designs similar to the crippled reactors in Japan. They are also planned near geologic faults, in coastal areas reachable by tsunamis or in areas potentially vulnerable to flooding. The energy policy of many nations is not guided by fact. It is governed by fear and the irrational demand that any power source be free of risk or negative consequences. The idea that a substantial portion of energy needs can be derived from solar, wind, or bio-fuels is pure fantasy. What's more, each of these options contains considerable environmental impacts of their own, which are now becoming apparent.

What is missing in most discussions about nuclear energy is the distinction between safety and relative safety. Japan's nuclear facilities were deemed safe, based on an assumption that they were relatively safe under normal conditions and safe up to a point for certain unforeseen circumstances. Against this background the safety of the twenty nuclear power reactors in India that produce nearly 3% of the power requirement is of utmost importance. End