By Johanna R. Thibault, Esq.
July 11, 2012
In the nuclear industry, safety is of the upmost importance. Governments, regulators, and the industry itself, know and have known this since the beginning of nuclear power generation. And yet it is the one area in nuclear oversight that continuously receives the least amount of scrutiny. The public can bark loudly, but the upper hand always wins. Why is that?
During the very week that Japan brought its first nuclear reactor back online since the Fukushima nuclear incident in March of last year, the independent commission created by the Japanese legislature released the conclusions of its investigation. According to the New York Times, the mere creation of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission set a new precedent in Japan following examples of those in the United States and other countries where independent investigative panels were developed to uncover the root cause of cataclysmic disasters gone wrong (i.e., Three Mile Island, September 11, and the Columbia and Challenger space shuttle disasters). The 10-member Commission was created by the legislature to probe the Fukushima nuclear crisis, and it was provided the power to obtain all documents and evidence relevant to the investigation.
After a six-month investigation, the Commission controversially stated that although triggered by cataclysmic events, the subsequent accident that occurred at the Fukushima Nuclear facility cannot be regarded as a natural disaster and was instead man-made. The bigger message provided by the report was more shocking, but should not have come across as a suprise: the disaster was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) with a complete failure within the regulatory structure.
This frightening, yet not terribly unexpected, result sounds eerily familiar to issues we have witnessed in the United States with cozy relationships between the industry and the regulator. The Commission's report stated that it "was a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented." And further that "Japan's regulators need to shed the insular attitude of ignoring international safety standards and transform themelves into a globally trusted entity."
TEPCO contends that the nuclear facility withstood any damage from the earthquake, and that it was the "once in a millennium" tsunami that was to blame for the disaster. Such a calamity would clearly be outside the scope of any safety contingency planning. Despite TEPCO's persistence in this view, the report is now stating otherwise. Based on its extensive investigation, it determined that substantive evidence did not exist to demonstrate the accident was caused by the tsunami alone, and it accused TEPCO of using such contentions to avoid responsibility by putting the blame on the unexpected.
Instead, the Commission determined that the earthquake might in fact have caused damage particularly to Reactor No. 1 resulting in the loss of coolant long before the tsunami hit the area. And thus, the direct causes of the accident were all foreseeable.
This begs the question, then, if the disaster that happened at Fukushima was not man-made, then what caused it? Nuclear power has many benefits; benefits of which countries all over the world take advantage. But if we continue to push safety aside and assume the risks are so far fetched they could never occur, then nuclear will continue to struggle its way back into the power sector.
As Steven Weissman with Legal Plant so elloquently puts the question: can the decision to construct a facility housing a nuclear reactor in an active earthquake zone be attributed to natural causes? The waves and the earth are just doing what the waves and the earth do, so does the decision to put such a facility in an area where the potential exists for disaster make that disaster unexpected?
At the very least, making the informed decision to site a nuclear facility in a high risk area should require the development of contingencies regardless of the calamity of the expectation. Moreover, why do we need to wait until these accidents occur to realize there is a risk that should be addressed?
According to CNN, the Commission stated in its report that "the root causes were the organizational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions, rather than issues relating to the competency of any specific individual." And further that the operator, regulators and the government "failed to correctly develop the most basic safety requirements -- such as assessing the probability of damage, preparing for containing collateral damage from such a disaster, and developing evacuation plans."
Our own Nuclear Regulatory Commission might be adverse to strong-handed regulation and oversight of the safety end of the industry. After the release of this report from the Japanese investigation, however, those recommendations made by the NRC's Fukushima Task Force might not be so unpopular afterall.
July 11, 2012
In the nuclear industry, safety is of the upmost importance. Governments, regulators, and the industry itself, know and have known this since the beginning of nuclear power generation. And yet it is the one area in nuclear oversight that continuously receives the least amount of scrutiny. The public can bark loudly, but the upper hand always wins. Why is that?
During the very week that Japan brought its first nuclear reactor back online since the Fukushima nuclear incident in March of last year, the independent commission created by the Japanese legislature released the conclusions of its investigation. According to the New York Times, the mere creation of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission set a new precedent in Japan following examples of those in the United States and other countries where independent investigative panels were developed to uncover the root cause of cataclysmic disasters gone wrong (i.e., Three Mile Island, September 11, and the Columbia and Challenger space shuttle disasters). The 10-member Commission was created by the legislature to probe the Fukushima nuclear crisis, and it was provided the power to obtain all documents and evidence relevant to the investigation.
After a six-month investigation, the Commission controversially stated that although triggered by cataclysmic events, the subsequent accident that occurred at the Fukushima Nuclear facility cannot be regarded as a natural disaster and was instead man-made. The bigger message provided by the report was more shocking, but should not have come across as a suprise: the disaster was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) with a complete failure within the regulatory structure.
This frightening, yet not terribly unexpected, result sounds eerily familiar to issues we have witnessed in the United States with cozy relationships between the industry and the regulator. The Commission's report stated that it "was a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented." And further that "Japan's regulators need to shed the insular attitude of ignoring international safety standards and transform themelves into a globally trusted entity."
TEPCO contends that the nuclear facility withstood any damage from the earthquake, and that it was the "once in a millennium" tsunami that was to blame for the disaster. Such a calamity would clearly be outside the scope of any safety contingency planning. Despite TEPCO's persistence in this view, the report is now stating otherwise. Based on its extensive investigation, it determined that substantive evidence did not exist to demonstrate the accident was caused by the tsunami alone, and it accused TEPCO of using such contentions to avoid responsibility by putting the blame on the unexpected.
Instead, the Commission determined that the earthquake might in fact have caused damage particularly to Reactor No. 1 resulting in the loss of coolant long before the tsunami hit the area. And thus, the direct causes of the accident were all foreseeable.
This begs the question, then, if the disaster that happened at Fukushima was not man-made, then what caused it? Nuclear power has many benefits; benefits of which countries all over the world take advantage. But if we continue to push safety aside and assume the risks are so far fetched they could never occur, then nuclear will continue to struggle its way back into the power sector.
As Steven Weissman with Legal Plant so elloquently puts the question: can the decision to construct a facility housing a nuclear reactor in an active earthquake zone be attributed to natural causes? The waves and the earth are just doing what the waves and the earth do, so does the decision to put such a facility in an area where the potential exists for disaster make that disaster unexpected?
At the very least, making the informed decision to site a nuclear facility in a high risk area should require the development of contingencies regardless of the calamity of the expectation. Moreover, why do we need to wait until these accidents occur to realize there is a risk that should be addressed?
According to CNN, the Commission stated in its report that "the root causes were the organizational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions, rather than issues relating to the competency of any specific individual." And further that the operator, regulators and the government "failed to correctly develop the most basic safety requirements -- such as assessing the probability of damage, preparing for containing collateral damage from such a disaster, and developing evacuation plans."
Our own Nuclear Regulatory Commission might be adverse to strong-handed regulation and oversight of the safety end of the industry. After the release of this report from the Japanese investigation, however, those recommendations made by the NRC's Fukushima Task Force might not be so unpopular afterall.
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