6 to 9 Months Needed to Completely Cool the Fukushima Reactors

A few recent news pieces about the Fukushima disaster have provided information about the human side of the tragedy.  One article published in Japan reports on some of the economic repercussions of the crisis, repercussions that are falling on the shoulders of precisely those people who were affected the most by the original earthquake and tsunami.  Another, this one a radio show produced by the CBC, is an interview with a journalist who ventured into the disaster zone to see it for himself.  His account is interesting, to say the least.

Also during the week-end, a Japanese paper reported that seismic activity has remained extraordinarily high, in and in the vicinity of Japan, since the earthquake of March 11 struck.

At the Fukushima plant, the struggle continues to prevent more radioactive water from spilling into the Pacific ocean.  At the same time, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has announced that it may take six to nine months to finally completely cool the Fukushima Daiichi reactors.  A few weeks ago, professor Kiminori Itoh from Yokohama University provided interesting commentary about TEPCO's handling of the Fukushima disaster to Roger A. Pielke, a US climate scientist.  In a guest post on Roger A. Pielke's blog, Kiminori Itoh wrote:

"One of the biggest mistakes of Tokyo Electricity Co. (TEPCO) is that they could not decide to abandon (I mean “decommission”) the troubled reactors at the first stage of the event due to the tsunami. Because of the past several accidents at their nuclear reactors at other places (2005 and 2007, in particular) and resultant financial problems, they did not want to close the DF1 plant, I guess.

Moreover, there are several “human errors” by TEPCO. One of them is that they did not suitably prepare for the risk of tsunamis. In fact, the designer of the oldest reactor of the FD1 plant reportedly did not consider tsunamis when he applied the design provided by GE to the plant. This is totally different way from the bottom-up approach which is necessary for local management."
*  The previous 2 paragraphs are quoted from:
Itoh, Kiminori.  (2011, March 28).  "Guest Post By Professor Kiminori Itoh On The Earthquake and Tsunami In Japan On March 11 2011"
Retrieved April 17, 2011 from:  
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/guest-post-on-the-japanese/



Dr. Itoh's guest post on Roger A. Pielke's blog is a worthwhile read, both for the criticism that it provides of TEPCO's handling of the Fukushima disaster, as well as for the commentary that it provides about designing disaster resistant infrastructure and resilient societies.