Today's Nuclear Safety Commission Meeting Has a Noisy Audience

(Update) It's unreal. The commission members continue the meeting, totally ignoring the questions from the audience who want Tomari Nuke Plant stopped and inspected properly. At one point, the commission head, Haruki "Detarame" Madarame declared the meeting over.



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It looks like something very unusual is happening. There are a lot of people attending the Nuclear Safety Commission's meeting on August 11 which is open to public, and they are shouting at the commissioners.



The NSC is discussing the nuclear power plant maintenance schedule. Why is it an issue that attract so many people? It's because of one nuclear power plant in Hokkaido that has been "testing" the reactor for over 5 months after the regular maintenance was over.



Even though the "testing" is done on a full, commercial scale, Hokkaido Electric Power who owns the plant, Tomari Nuclear Power Plant, is calling it "testing" so that they can continue to generate power without going through the so-called "stress test".



The NSC meeting today is supposed to endorse the re-start of "commercial" operation of the reactor without the stress test, and that's what people who fill the room are upset about.



But shouting down the commissioners? And apparently the commissioners don't even try to rein in the crowd, as one reporter tweets "guilty conscience, maybe?"

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Kyushu Electric: Emails Sent to 2,300 Employees at Subsidiaries

More on Kyushu Electric Power Company busted (thanks to the Internet) for urging its employees and the employees at its subsidiaries to stuff the hearing for the re-start of Genkai Nuke Plant in Saga Prefecture with "anonymous, pro-nuke" emails.

According to Kyodo News Japanese (7/8/2011), A "Bucho" (general manager of a division) at Kyushu Electric ordered a "Kacho" (junior manager who work under "Bucho") to send emails urging the subsidiaries to participate in the hearing as anonymous pro-nuke citizens. 4 managers at the 4 subsidiaries dutifully forwarded the email to everyone at their respective companies, total 2,300 emails to 2,300 employees.

4 managers at the subsidiaries are all from Kyushu Electric. The "bucho" who ordered the "kacho" to create this email didn't say whether he also specified the details.

As the result of this scandal, even the pro-nuke gung-ho mayor of Genkai-cho (where the nuke plant sits) has grudgingly withdrawn his consent for the re-start, trashing both Kyushu Electric and the national government, who out of the blue has come up with the brilliant idea of nuke plant "stress test" that will not only delay the re-start at best, and at worst may reveal the aging Genkai plant to be very unsafe (if they really test).

But would anyone who believe the test, when the test parameters are set by the NISA and the nuclear industry?

Well, sadly it may well work. Just like the "stress test" for Wall Street banks devised by the US regulators (Turbo Tax Timmy and Helicopter Ben) and the banks themselves seems to have worked. Not that anyone believed the result, but more like "OK it's done, they cheated again, what's next? Anything changed? No. So what? Let's move on. Oh American Idol is on!" And the declaration by the banks and the regulators that "the US banks are safe".

Another minor victory for no-nuke people in Japan is that Banri Kaieda, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry who amassed a fortune selling books on how to invest in risky assets right before the Japan's asset bubble collapsed, may be resigning over this Kyushu Electric scandal.

He feigned surprise and indignation, but hardly anyone believes he didn't have a hand in it. But just like his boss PM Kan, resignation "when the time comes" may mean he will never resign because no one knows "when" the time will come and what he means by "the time".

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#Fukushima I Nuke Accident: EU's "Stress Test" For Nuclear Reactors Just like US's "Stress Test" for Wall Street Banks

To "learn" from the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, as the IAEA is to recommend, no doubt, the EU is going to conduct the "stress test" for the 143 reactors in Europe to see how Europe's nuclear facilities are able to withstand natural or man-made disasters.

Caveat?

The test is voluntary, and as one German MEP (member of European Parliament) contends, the check is "largely in the hands of operators".

Sound familiar?

It's just like the so-called "stress test" devised by the US Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve to assure the world that the US banking system was safe and sound, in the wake of September-November 2008's financial disaster that crashed the financial markets and triggered the worldwide recession. The "test" was not "voluntary" but the Treasury and the Fed handpicked which banks to do the "test". The banks knew exactly what they would be tested for, because for the most part they were the ones who told the regulators what parameters to test.

That should be very familiar to the Japanese, too. In Japan, at least in the past, when the fire department or the public health department conducted safety checks on the public facilities (hotels, restaurants, etc.) they used to "warn" those facilities days in advance about the inspection date and what to inspect.

Globalization is truly here.

From BBC News (6/9/2011):

MEPs split over nuclear 'stress tests'

MEPs have clashed over plans for "stress tests", which are due to be carried out on nuclear facilities in the EU.

There were angry scenes during the Commission statement on 9 June 2011, which caused Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger to appeal for calm.

Mr Oettinger was outlining plans for the tests - ordered in the wake of Japan's Fukushima disaster - which are designed to see how Europe's nuclear facilities are able to withstand natural or man-made disasters.

The so-called stress tests will be performed on Europe's 143 working reactors and other atomic installations and will consider a range of factors, including seismic activity, flooding, and power loss at reactors.

But German Green MEP Rebecca Harms dismissed the plans as a "paper check" designed to "downplay the risks of nuclear power".

Ms Harms attacked the voluntary nature of the tests, saying it left the checks "largely in the hands of operators".

Her comments were dismissed by fellow German MEP Herbert Reul, who described Ms Harms' opinion as "naïve".

Mr Reul praised the commissioner, saying that although the plans were "not 100% what we wanted", they would not be improved by other MEPs "complaining and harking on about it".

British conservative Giles Chichester protested about the "internal German discussion", and asked MEPs to focus on "the European issue".

Germany has recently announced that all of its nuclear power plants will be phased out by 2022, becoming the biggest industrial power to give up nuclear energy.

However Germany's nuclear industry has argued that an early shutdown would be hugely damaging to the country's industrial base.

Meanwhile countries including the UK, France and Poland have all announced further development of nuclear energy.

I wonder if there's an equivalent of "Saturday Night Live" in Europe. I hope they will make a wonderful spoof of this nuke plant "stress test", much like the SNL spoof on Geithner's "stress test" for banks. In case you missed that SNL skit from 2009, here it is.

(h/t Robbie001 for BBC News)

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