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TEPCO Nuclear Plant May Sit On Fault That Caused Niigata Quake
18 July 2007
Nikkei. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant—the world’s largest nuclear power plant complex—may be sitting on top of the fault line that caused Monday’s magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Niigata Prefecture.
A public relations official at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which runs the power station, said, “We did not assume an earthquake of this magnitude at the time of designing the nuclear power plant.”
“After looking at aftershock location data, we have come to realize a fault lies right below the nuclear power plant,” the official said.
The plant is designed to withstand an earthquake caused by an unknown active fault up to a magnitude of 6.5.
On Tuesday, Tokyo Electric Power said it had confirmed 50 cases of contaminated water leakage, fire and other problems at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant; operations at the plant have been temporarily shut down. The plant has seven reactors and the capacity to generate a combined 8.21 million kilowatts of power.
TEPCO has asked six other power companies to provide electricity during the peak-demand summer season to offset the supply concerns resulting from Kashiwazaki-Kariwa being offline. TEPCO plans to consider such steps as restarting fossil fuel plants as well.
The earthquake disrupted industrial production as well, with at least four Japanese automakers—including Toyota—temporarily suspending production following quake damage to piston ring maker Riken Corp.
July 18, 2007 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: lensovet | July 18, 2007 at 04:12 PM
It will be interesting to see how this affects the world market for oil and LNG. There are 7 large reactors at this location. If the reactors remain shut down for a long period of time while seismic calculations are repeated for higher loads, the replacement fuel will be oil and LNG.
Posted by: kit p | July 18, 2007 at 04:37 PM
It helps strengthen the case for developing renewable electricity. Even if you are going to have nuclear in your portfolio, you can't afford to have too many eggs in one basket because there can be problems that shut it down in huge chunks.
Posted by: P Schager | July 18, 2007 at 04:40 PM
Any report of sightings of Godzilla?
Posted by: DS | July 18, 2007 at 09:39 PM
funny how times have changed, at least here in the US. 20 years ago, Chernobyl and before that, Three Mile Island, it was the only news story for a week. Today it's not making front page on US or British news.
In any event, this really draws a line under the risks of nuclear. This isn't a risk with a wind farm. If we accept that nuclear is "part of the solution" like industry wants, we'll have to get used to these kinds of disasters being part of the solution. You can only roll the dice so many times and land on your feet.
Posted by: Jim G. | July 19, 2007 at 04:51 PM
Jim, what risk and disasters are you talking about? Over the last 10-15 years over, more than 10,000 people have died in Japan as a result of earth quake related disasters.
During the same period (or any period you want to pick), no nuclear reactor designed to US standards has failed to safely protect the public and the environment as a result of a natural disaster or any other cause because they are designed for that risk.
I can design a pair of dice to get the same answer every time. If I give you six dice with only one mark on each side, what is the risk of not rolling a one. It only takes one method to protect people from radiation. Jim may want to argue that all six dice could land on the edge.
Posted by: Kit P | July 20, 2007 at 07:26 AM
As long as Kit P. Moves to St. Helena and puts the nukes in his backyard, or, better yet, sites his house in Baghdad or Kosovo on top of recently dropped depleted uranium munitions, I'm all for it.
Posted by: Jim G. | September 21, 2007 at 09:31 PM
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that's really too bad, but i still think that it's amazing how little damage the plant suffered considering the severity of the quake and the plant's location.
the japanese are smart people, what can i say. i do wonder why they made it "resistant" to only 6.5 though.