This disaster has left nearly 20,000 people dead or missing. It also destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and released large amounts of radioactive material. The accident triggered large-scale evacuations, heavy economic losses and the eventual shutdown of all nuclear power plants in Japan. A decade later, the nuclear industry has not yet fully addressed the safety issues that Fukushima has exposed.
We are scholars specializing in engineering and medicine and public policy, and we have advised our governments on the safety of nuclear energy. Kiyoshi Kurokawa chaired an independent national commission, known as the NAIIC, set up by the Japan Diet to investigate the root causes of the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Najmedin Meshkati was a member and technical advisor to a committee appointed by the US National Academy of Sciences to identify lessons from this event to make US nuclear power plants safer and safer.
These reviews and many others concluded that Fukushima was a man-made accident, triggered by natural hazards, which could and should have been avoided. Experts widely agreed that the main causes were lax regulatory oversight in Japan and an inefficient safety culture at the utility operating the plant.
These problems are far from unique in Japan. As long as commercial nuclear power plants operate anywhere in the world, we believe it is essential for all nations to learn from what happened in Fukushima and to continue to double in terms of nuclear safety.
Non-compliance and planning
The 2011 disaster produced a devastating one-two blow to the Fukushima factory. First, the 9.0 magnitude earthquake destroyed electricity off-site. The tsunami then broke through the plant’s protective wall and damaged parts of the site.
The floods disabled the monitoring, control and cooling functions in several units of the six-reactor complex. Despite the heroic efforts of the factory workers, three reactors suffered serious damage to their radioactive nuclei, and three reactor buildings were damaged by hydrogen explosions.
Off-site releases of radioactive materials contaminated land in Fukushima and several neighboring prefectures. About 165,000 people left the area, and the Japanese government has established an exclusion zone around the 311-square-mile factory.
For the first time in Japan’s history of constitutional democracy, the Japanese parliament has passed a law creating an independent national commission to investigate the root causes of the disaster. In its report, the commission concluded that the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission has never been independent of industry or the powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which promotes nuclear energy.
In turn, the central operator of Tokyo Electric Power Company or TEPCO had a history of non-compliance. The company recently launched an error-prone assessment of the tsunami hazards in Fukushima, which significantly underestimated the risks.
Nuclear power generates about 10% of the world’s electricity (TWh = terawatt-hour). About 50 new factories are under construction, but many operating facilities are aging. World Nuclear Association / CC BY-ND
The events at the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant, 61 km from Fukushima, told a contrasting story. Onogawa, which was owned and operated by Tohoku Electric Power Company, was closer to the epicenter of the quake and was hit by an even larger tsunami. Its three operating reactors were of the same type and vintage as those at Fukushima and were under the same poor regulatory oversight.
But Onogawa closed safely and was remarkably undamaged. In our opinion, this was due to the fact that the utility of Tohoku had a proactive, deep safety culture. The company learned of earthquakes and tsunamis elsewhere – including a major disaster in Chile in 2010 – and continually improved its countermeasures, while TEPCO ignored and ignored these warnings.
Regulatory capture and safety culture
When a regulated industry succeeds in harassing, controlling or manipulating the agencies that supervise it, making them inefficient and subordinate, the result is known as regulatory capture. As the NAIIC report concluded, Fukushima was an example of a textbook. The Japanese regulators “did not monitor or supervise nuclear safety … They avoided their direct responsibilities, leaving operators to apply regulations voluntarily,” the report noted.
Effective regulation is needed for nuclear safety. Utilities must also create internal safety cultures – a set of characteristics and attitudes that make safety issues a top priority. For an industry, safety culture functions as the human body’s immune system, protecting it from pathogens and defending against disease.
A factory that promotes a positive safety culture encourages employees to ask questions and apply a rigorous and prudent approach to all aspects of the workplace. It also encourages open communications between line workers and management. But the TEPCO culture reflects a Japanese mentality that emphasizes hierarchy and agreement and discourages questions.
There is ample evidence that human factors, such as operator errors and poor safety culture, played a key role in all three major accidents at nuclear power plants: Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979, Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986. and Fukushima Daiichi in 2011. Unless nuclear nations do better in both respects, this list is likely to grow.
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Global degree of nuclear safety: incomplete
Today there are about 440 nuclear reactors operating worldwide, with about 50 under construction in countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
Many advocates argue that given the threat of climate change and the growing need to produce carbon-free basic electricity, nuclear energy should play a role in the world’s future energy mix. Others call for the abolition of nuclear energy. But this may not be feasible in the foreseeable future.
In our view, the most urgent priority is the development of tough, system-oriented nuclear safety standards, strong safety cultures and much closer cooperation between countries and their independent regulators. We see worrying indications in the US that independent nuclear regulation is eroding and that nuclear utilities are resisting the pressure to learn and delay the adoption of internationally accepted safety practices, such as adding filters to prevent radioactive emissions from reactor isolation buildings with the same features like Fukushima Daiichi.
The most crucial lesson we see is the need to counter nuclear nationalism and isolationism. Ensuring close cooperation between countries developing nuclear projects is essential today as the forces of populism, nationalism and anti-globalism spread.
We also believe that the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose mission is to promote the safe, secure and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, should urge its Member States to strike a balance between national sovereignty and international responsibility when it comes to operating. nuclear reactors in their territories. As Chernobyl and Fukushima have taught the world, the fall of radiation does not stop at national borders.
Author Najmedin Meshkati holding an earthquake railing in a Fukushima Daiichi control room during a site visit in 2012. Najmedin Meshkati / CC BY-ND
In the beginning, the Persian Gulf countries should give up political struggles and recognize that, with the start of a nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates and others planned in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, they have a common interest in nuclear safety and security. collective response to emergencies. The entire region is vulnerable to falling radiation and water contamination due to a nuclear accident anywhere in the Gulf.
We believe that the world remains in the same period that it faced in 1989, when it was then Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. made this perceptual argument:
“A decade ago, Three Mile Island was the spark that ignited the funeral pyre for a once promising source of energy. As the nuclear industry demands a second look at the nation in the context of global warming, it is fair to look at how its supporters will respond to enhanced safety oversight. This will be the measure of whether nuclear energy becomes a phoenix or an extinct species. “
Kiyoshi Kurokawa is one Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo.
Najmedin Meshkati is a Professor of Engineering and International Relations, University of Southern California.
Disclosure statement: Kiyoshi Kurokawa, MD, MACP, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo and Professor at the National Graduate Institute for Political Studies, Tokyo. He served as chairman of Japan’s Fukushima National Nuclear Accident Investigation Commission, which published its official report in July 2012. The English translation of his book, Regulatory Capture: Will Japan Change? will be launched in 2021.
Najmedin Meshkati, Ph.D., CPE, is Professor of Civil / Environmental Engineering, Industrial and Systems and International Relations at the University of Southern California (USC). He teaches and conducts research on the safety of technological systems and has visited numerous nuclear power plants around the world, including Chernobyl (1997), Mihama (1999) and Fukushima Daiichi and Daini (2012). He has been a member and technical advisor to the US National Academy of Sciences / National Research Council Committee for Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident to improve the safety and security of US nuclear power plants.
Reposted with permission from The Conversation.
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