By Kennedy Maize
Fifteen years ago, March 11, 2011, a civilian nuclear power catastrophe began in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture on the country’s east coast. It began early in the afternoon after a powerful offshore earthquake produced a tsunami sweeping westward and toward the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, located above the beach between the villages of Okuma and Futaba.
The nuclear station consisted of six General Electric boiling water reactors, five with primitive “pressure suppression containments,” donut-shaped pools of water underneath the reactor designed to suppress steam in a loss of coolant rather than the robust concrete and iron domes over the reactor that are standard on pressurized water reactors. Units 1,2, and 3 were operating, while 4, 5, and 6 were out of service.
The 9.0 magnitude earthquake produced a 15-foot tsunami that struck the plants with devastating force. The cooling systems failed and the fuel in the first three units melted completely. The meltdowns produced enormous amounts of explosive hydrogen, which also filled unit 4. All four exploded, seen in terrifying videos.
Wikipedia described the aftermath, “Following the accident, at least 164,000 residents of the surrounding area were permanently or temporarily displaced (either voluntarily or by evacuation order). The displacements resulted in at least 51 deaths as well as stress and fear of radiological hazards. The evacuation was accused of causing more harm than it prevented.Ten years later over 41,000 people from Fukushima were still living as evacuees.”
Japan list week marked the anniversary of the disaster with a nationwide moment of silence at 2:46 p.m., the moment the quake occurred 15 years earlier. At the same time, as the Association Press noted, the recognition of the event occurred “as the government pushes for more use of atomic energy.” The AP account added, “Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, at a ceremony in Fukushima, pledged to do the utmost to accelerate the region’s recovery within the next five years and reinforce “the valuable lessons we learned from the huge sacrifice of the disaster.
Takaichi has pushed to accelerate reactor restarts and sought to bolster nuclear power as a stable energy source, in line with the major reversal of policy in 2022 that ended a decade-long nuclear phase-out plan.”
In February, POWER Magazine reported, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the owner and operator of Fukushima Daiichi, restarted Unit 6 of the seven-unit Kashiwazaka-Kariwa plant in the Niigata region. The 1,325-MW unit is an “advanced boiling water reactor” that went into service in 1992, and was out of service for three years after a large 2007 earthquake before being shut down again after Fukushima.
The trade magazine noted that the unit “is the 15th reactor Japan has brought back online since all nuclear operations were suspended in the wake of Fukushima. Japan wants to restart its nuclear power industry in order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels—particularly imported liquefied natural gas.”
Ironically, the Fukushima anniversary occurred on the same day that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was holding its annual “Regulatory Information Conference,” when the commission attempts to put its best public face forward. The only recognition of the significance of the date was a special panel, one of 15 breakout sessions, titled “Fukushima: 15 Years Later—Driving Innovation in Nuclear Safety and Preparedness,” pitching how “insights from the Fukushima Daiichi accident have driven breakthroughs in nuclear safety, emergency preparedness, and regulatory frameworks. Join us for a forward-looking dialogue that connects past experience with future innovation in nuclear design, operations and oversight.”
The session was the last of the three-day conference, scheduled from 3:30 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. on Wednesday, March 11. Nuclear physicist Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who attended the main NRC event, commented on Twitter, “Today is the 15th anniversary of the #Fukushima Daiichi #nuclear disaster, and the silence is deafening at the @NRCgov Regulatory Information Conference. Yes, there is one session devoted to Fukushima today but otherwise the lessons of the accident have long been forgotten.”
Among major U.S. publications, two — the Wall Street Journal and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — recognized the Fukushima anniversary. The WSJ on March 5 offered a positive review of the HBO documentary “Fukushima: A Nuclear Nightmare” produced to coincide with the 15 anniversary. Reviewer John Anderson wrote, “While essentially a disaster film, the visually alarming and nerve-racking ‘Fukushima’ is also a cross-cultural psychodrama, about an industry, and perhaps a society, having a meltdown all its own.
In the Bulletin, veteran writer Thomas A. Bass, professor of English and journalism at the State University of New York in Albany, an Asia expert and supported by the Pulitzer Center, produced a long and gripping article “Fukushima at 15,” reported from the scene itself. Bass makes the point that the disaster continues, despite the government’s wish to forget.
Bass writes, “Fifteen years later, 4,000 workers struggle to control the ongoing disaster. The three melted reactors remain so radioactive that they destroy the robots sent to explore the damage. No one knows exactly where the melted fuel is located or how deep it has burrowed below the reactors’ concrete pedestals, possibly into the ground.”
With major problems related to radioactive residues still plaguing the area, Bass charges, “Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the Japanese government denies that Fukushima is an ongoing disaster.”
Coming up, March 28, is the 47th anniversary of the Three Mile Island No. 2 reactor meltdown near Harrisburg, Pa., which partially paralyzed nuclear power in the U.S. for decades.
