Greetings!
The United States has just licensed the first new nuclear plants since 1975, two reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia. Speaking against the licensing, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said “Significant safety enhancements have already been recommended as a result of learning the lessons from Fukushima… Knowing this I cannot support these licenses as if Fukushima never happened.” Jaczko’s caution didn’t matter, though, and the licenses were granted to “a consortium of utilities”. They aren’t frequently named in press releases, but one of the companies responsible for construction in this consortium is… TEPCO.
(correction 5/4/12- We said that TEPCO was involved in the Vogtle plants based on this quote from an article on the continuing Fukushima crisis– “TEPCO…is the same vendor tapped to build new nuclear plants in the U.S. currently planned by the Obama administration.” Upon further research we found that TEPCO is not involved in the Vogtle consortium, but in a group of companies attempting to build nuclear plants on the Gulf Coast of Texas. We apologize for the mistake.)
Who’s TEPCO? As the Fukushima disaster quietly continues so does the stream of revelations about TEPCO
, the Japanese utility that constructed the reactors. From the beginning Fukushima-Daiichi has been the story of natural and man-made factors combining to create an unmanageable calamity, but it has also been the story of the worst kind of greed, malfeasance, lies, cover-up, and corruption.
Here are some of the things TEPCO has engaged in before and during the Fukushima event-
• falsification of inspection records over many years;
• covering up data about cracks in water circulation pumps and pipes which are critical for reactor cooling;
• failure to report cracks in reactor core shrouds (stainless steel cylinders surrounding the reactor core), steam dryers, access hole covers, and components associated with jet pumps (which circulate cooling water inside the reactor);
• in 1991 and 1992, tests of the leak rate of a Fukushima reactor containment vessel were faked by surreptitiously injecting compressed air into the containment building;
• written records of cracks in neutron-measuring equipment at Fukushima were deleted by contractor Hitachi at TEPCO’s request; and
• eight TEPCO reactors were still operating although required repairs had not been carried out
If that’s not enough, here’s what happened while building the reactor pressure vessel for reactor #4: The production process required that the pressure vessel be fired in a gigantic blast furnace using internal braces to support the structure while it cooled. The braces either collapsed or were forgotten completely (it’s unclear) but in either case their absence caused the walls of the vessel to warp. Undeterred, TEPCO decided to “…reshape the vessel so that no one would know it had ever been damaged…” by just popping out the warped area. Unfortunately, bending of any type weakens the structural integrity of a material, and there is no record of stress testing to determine whether the repaired vessel would function like the unmodified version. (You may want to read the full article from UK Progressive here.)
America may be lagging in many things, but I would have thought we had enough graft and corruption here at home without having to go to Japan to get more. If you care about the future of the nuclear industry then this month’s article about Helen Caldicott and John Bartel’s latest work will be particularly interesting, and as always I urge you to get involved!
Make a great day,
Tom
