Fukushima and the Politics of Disaster

by Michael K. Smith

Following a 9.0 earthquake, a 7-meter tsunami, and an additional 7.1 quake the Fukushima nuclear disaster rating has now been raised to the same level as the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown. According to whom you believe, the current catastrophe either vindicates the safety of nuclear power, since the Dai-Ichi complex has not suffered a full meltdown, even in the wake of a stupefyingly huge, once-in-a-millenium disaster, or is the final proof that nuclear power will kill us all. Adherents of the former thesis tend to regard anything less than molten chunks of exploded nuclear fuel rods on your front lawn as inconsequential, while converts to the latter idea are often so shriekingly hysterical over the disasters wrought by technical rationality that their analyses are easily dismissed.

The current crisis comes four years after a 6.8 earthquake shut down the world's largest nuclear plant, also run by Tokyo Electric Power Company, and in the wake of a company history of faked safety reports and hidden accidents, both of which are sadly the norm for the nuclear industry world-wide. Methodical violation of safety standards, themselves enacted more for propaganda purposes than to protect public health, have been the norm in the nuclear power industry from the beginning. In no other business is the capitalist theme of private gain at public expense more dramatically illustrated.

In 2002 and 2007 TEPCO was shown to have falsified repair records, which disclosure forced the resignation of TEPCO's chairman and president, along with the shut-down of all 17 of the company's nuclear reactors. TEPCO was forced to admit that it had faked reports at its nuclear plants for over 20 years. But they were hardly the only ones. Kansai Electric Power Company, Chubu Electric Power Company, Tohoku Electric Power Company, and Hokuriku Electric Power Company all conceded that they had faked nuclear safety records. Such contempt for public safety is, unfortunately, very much an international phenomenon in the nuclear industry, and similar tales can be heard around the world. [Incidentally, all six of the boiling-water reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant complex were designed by General Electric - of "We Bring Good Things To Life!" fame.]

There were also at least two fatal accidents in the years leading up to the current multiple partial-meltdowns. In 1999 two nuclear workers were killed from radiation exposure. In 2004, an eruption of super-heated steam from a burst pipe at a reactor run by Kansai Electric killed five workers and scalded six others. A government investigation showed that the section of burst pipe had been omitted from safety checklists and had therefore not been inspected throughout the plant's 28-year operational lifetime.

On March 11 of this year, the tsunami triggered by the 9.0 earthquake knocked out TEPCO's emergency core cooling systems. Deprived of electricity with which to pump water into its damaged reactor cores, TEPCO vented radioactive steam into the atmosphere in order to relieve accumulated pressure, which led to a series of explosions that blew out the concrete walls around the reactors. Radiation readings soared; tens of thousands of people living in the vicinity of the plant were evacuated; Japanese officials issued a series of implausible denials of public health risk; supplies of bottled water rapidly disappeared from Japanese markets.

While pundits and industry flacks (sorry for the redundancy) promoted the idea that the multiple partial-meltdowns were unforeseeable events, reality tells a different story. Tsunamis are well-known events in Japan's 2000-year history, and the Fukushima reactors were designed to withstand a 5.7 meter wave, but unfortunately not the 7-meter wave that choked off the emergency core cooling systems at Fukushima. Furthermore, just a decade before the now damaged plants were completed a 6.4 meter tsunami struck neighboring Miyagi prefecture (1960), so TEPCO executives knew they were bringing unsafe reactors online.

Official harbingers of disaster were no less evident. A 1990 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission report identified earthquake-induced diesel generator failure and power outage leading to failure of emergency core cooling systems, exactly what happened in Fukushima, as one of the "most likely causes" of nuclear accidents from an external event. Adequate measures to address this risk were obviously not taken by TEPCO.

Given the complexity of the technology, one can only wonder whether any realistic measures even exist. The most telling feature of the nuclear industry is the fact that no private insurance company is willing to insure reactor operators against damages ensuing from the type of accident now unfolding before the world. The professional experts in risk assessment say that such accidents are inevitable, and that a single one of them would bankrupt any insurance company foolish enough to offer a meltdown policy.

The usual Orwellian official commentary has done its best to obscure this fatal flaw of supposedly "safe" nuclear energy. "We have no evidence of harmful radiation exposure," said Cabinet secretary Noriyuki Shikota after the damaged reactors wafted a radioactive plume over the Northern Hemisphere. When Tokyo radiation levels reached 20 times normal, Mayor Shintaro Ishihara said the radiation would "not immediately cause health problems." In other words, since Tokyo residents can only be expected to sicken and die years from now, there's no reason for us to worry today. Meanwhile, those living near the stricken plants were told to make their homes airtight and dust off their hair, clothes, and the soles of their shoes. Twenty-five miles away in the port town of Soma, resident Kyoko Nambu commented from a hill overlooking her demolished hometown: "Our house is gone and now they are telling us to stay indoors."

Media commentary has mirrored industry propaganda in propagating the thesis that, except for those living near the damaged plants, radiation releases are unlikely to be damaging, since they are allegedly within the levels of "background" radiation we receive from the sun. The trouble with this observation is that it ignores the fact that not all radiation is gamma radiation, which quickly passes through human tissue and only poses an external risk. Alpha and beta emitters, on the other hand, are radioactive particles that can be ingested in food, drink, or simply from breathing. Once implanted in the human body, they cannot be dislodged, and they continuously bombard local tissue with radiation. This obviously poses much greater health dangers.

In any event, the cry of, "it's only background radiation, don't worry," ignores an obvious point. As Buckminster Fuller said years ago, the nuclear reactor bathing us in so-called background radiation is 93 million miles away. If the nuclear power plant operators want to adopt that distance as an industry standard, it is unlikely they will encounter any opposition.

Sources:

Alexander Cockburn, "Fukushima; Cover-Up Amid Catastrophe," Counterpunch Weekend Edition, March 25 - March 27, 2011

Alexander Cockburn, "In the Midst of Fukushima: Ahoy There Nuke-Loving Greens, Welcome to the Real World!" - Counterpunch Weekend Edition, March 18 - March 20, 2011

"Japanese plant hit by fire and third explosion," March 15, 2011, The Guardian

"Japanese Nuclear Disaster Caps Decades of Faked Reports, Accidents," March 18, 2011, www.bloomberg.com

"Japan Says 2nd Reactor May Have Ruptured With Radioactive Release," New York Times, March 15, 2011

-----Michael K. Smith is the author of "Portraits of Empire" from Common Courage Press. He can be reached at proheresy@yahoo.com