It has now been more than two years since the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami. A great deal of time, money and energy has been expended by TEPCO which owns and operates the Fukushima nuclear power plant and agencies of the Japanese government such as the Nuclear Regulatory Agency in trying to understand exactly what caused the disaster and what has happened since the disaster. There are still unanswered questions about the situation such as what has happened to the cores of the reactors which melted down and how radioactivity is migrating underground with water being pumped into the damaged reactors.
The Nuclear Regulatory Agency of Japan is the agency directly responsible for regulating the nuclear industry in Japan. Although it has been accused of being too lenient and friendly with the Japanese nuclear industry, the NRA has repeatedly cited violation of regulations by TEPCO for decades at the nuclear plants they own and operate. Investigations have shown that the Fukushima disaster did not need to happen. TEPCO knew about problems at the power plant and ignored warnings and demands for changes. Following accidents there have been many criticisms of TEPCO for not taking proper action and for not honestly reporting on the situation at the plant.
One of the biggest concerns at Fukushima is that the cores of Unit One, Unit Two and Unit Three melted down and sank into the earth. It is unknown exactly where these hot melted cores are now. Water is being pumped into the ruins of the reactors to try to keep these cores as cool as possible where ever they are underground. The is a big problem with what is going to be done with all the water being pumped underground, partly because of how close the plant is to the ocean. There is already radioactive contamination of ocean water near Fukushima that is interfering with the fishing industry.
TEPCO has drafted a new report on the situation at the Fukushima plant and modified a plan for moving forward with decommissioning the damaged reactors. When TEPCO met with the NRA on June 28th, they proudly announced that they were actually ahead of the original schedule for dealing with the corium (melted core materials.) The NRA expressed extreme skepticism that the announcement of being ahead of schedule from TEPCO was meaningless because TEPCO didn’t even know where the corium was now and exactly what they would have to do to recover and/or neutralize it. Members of the NRA used a Japanese idiomatic expression that translates to “Drawing a picture of a sweet rice cake may look nice but you cannot eat it.”
I have returned to the Fukushima disaster and its aftermath again and again on this blog because I want the people in the United States to have some vague idea of just how damaging a nuclear accident can be in many ways to a nation. Two years after the Fukushima disaster, the situation continues to deteriorate and no one is sure exactly what to do.
