Leak! – Part II
Yesterday I posted a short piece about a radioactive water leak at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, the world’s largest, in northeastern Japan following a major earthquake there on Monday.
Now we get word that in addition to the leaking water there were other problems caused by the quake, including nuclear waste drums that spilled, fires, and burst pipes.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said a total of 50 cases of malfunctioning and trouble had been found at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant since Monday’s magnitude 6.6 quake, which killed at least nine people and left 13,000 homeless.
The company said they were still inspecting the plant, which shut down automatically after the quake, and further problems could emerge.
TEPCO claims all of the problems are minor ones that are no threat to people or the environment.
“Personally I think a nuclear power plant is the safest place you could go in an earthquake,” said Hisashi Ninokata, a nuclear engineering professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology. “That’s how much care they take over construction.”
Japan’s 55 nuclear reactors (the U.S. has 104) produce about one third of its electrical power.
It’s hard reality of the world. Burning fossil fuels causes global warming and petrol will be running out. So we shall rely more on nuclear energy.
If you insist atomic generator should not built on the place where there are many earthquakes, then we can’t have any atomic generators in Japan. And radio active waste of atomic generator will be the headache.(Maybe the underground disposal is the solution.)
July 18th, 2007 at 7:43 amBut Upper 6 earthquakes aren’t that uncommon. You would’ve thought that the law would stipulate nuclear power stations being built with slightly higher resistance, wouldn’t you?
July 18th, 2007 at 7:48 amPersonally I’m not for nuclear energy, overoften.
July 18th, 2007 at 7:55 amOf course the law has to stipulate nuclear power stations being built with high resistance. What I mean is that safe nuclear power station is VERY costly. You also have to take the problems of disposal (of radio active waste and expired nuclear power station itself) into account.
You could rely on more natural energies such as wind power, sun shine energy and so on. There are many things you can do about that.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:38 am[...] Quake Rocks Japan - japundit.com [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 11:29 pm