Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant to be Decommissioned

From Yumuri Shimbun:

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said reactors are contaminated with impurities and salt, and that forced the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Koriyama City Mayor Hara Masao Fukushima said the United States assistance helped them come to that conclusion. NHK World writes that Edano says the plant will be demolished. Most likely they will eventually bury the reactors along with their cooling pools in sand and cement. He added that the government can't make a definite statement until they go through proper procedures. The plan is to get the plant under control and then scrap it. Prime Minister Naoto Kan may visit the plant on Monday.


Mostly what we are going to see them doing is keeping the spent fuel and reactor cores cool to prevent radiation leaks. Getting to the point of decommissioning will most likely be a long process. Japan's recovery will be even more difficult without enough electricty.

From Japan Subculture Research Center:

The Japanese police are quietly beginning an investigation into TEPCO, the managing entity of the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor for charges of professional negligence resulting in death or injury. It is not “official” and still in the early stages.

The charges would be causing death or injury by negligence. If this happened in another country with nuclear reactors would the outcome have been any different? The Tepco executives said they never though this situation they were faced with was even possible so there was no planning for it and I suspect that would have been true in other countries including ours. It is much less likely to have both an earthquake and a tsunami in most nuclear plant locations in the world, but I can imagine other problems that could severely damage the plants. Are the designs the main problem? Most people think because it has been reported that G.E. built all of their reactors. They built three of them while Toshiba built two and Hitachi built one. Do they all have the same defects? There are many questions which need to be answered. I have felt nuclear power was dangerous since the 1970s, now it will finally have a serious examination. Back then we said we did not have the technology to make nuclear power safe and were brushed aside. I doubt however that nuclear power will be eliminated. They will probably make some kind of changes and claim nuclear power is safe and carry on. The powers that be get what they want because we have not stood up to them. That needs to change.