Strange Way of Thinking in Power Company

The Chubu Electric Power (CEP) released a report on its safety data fabrication in Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant on September 11th. The report made by a third-party committee found that there was “extremely strange way of thinking” to justify the fabrication in the CEP for making the data to meet its schedule to resume nuclear reactors in Hamaoka. It is unclear whether the CEP can regain confidence of the government or people as an owner of nuclear reactors. 

After severe accident in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, the government of Japan ordered all the electric power companies to stop operation of nuclear reactors and demanded safety measures against natural disaster. The CEP submitted request of resumption for reactors #4 in Hamaoka in 2014 and #3 in 2015. As the lifetime of a reactor was determined as 40 years, the reactor #3 established in 1987 was close to the end.

 

Hamaoka plant is said as standing at the most dangerous place in the world, because it is in an area of possible seismic center of Nankai Trough Great Earthquake, magnitude-9 class huge quake which has occurred every 150 years. In addition, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) had discovered an active fault, named A-17, underground of Hamaoka plant. To resume operation of reactors, the company had to prove that the plant can endure any possible earthquake.

 

The CEP perceived that the facility can be safe with up to 1,200 gal of quake. The threshold is called standard ground motion Ss, or simply Ss. The CEP manipulated basic data for calculating Ss to make them contained within the standard. The report found that 208 data out of whole 225 were fabricated. The report acknowledged that top managers of CEP put pressure on their staffs to accelerate their effort for resumption of reactors in Hamaoka and dismissed whistleblowing from some staffs.

 

To meet the demand of managers, the staffs in charge of resumption began to think that requirement given by the NRA was unscientific and irrational, that inspectors of the NRA did not know about ground moves better than experts, and that violation could be tolerated as far as safety was maintained. The NRA was an organization of the government of Japan, launched with lessons of the severe accident in Fukushima. The CEP ignored the public rule set by the authority to meet its own interest as a private company.

 

 

Former presidents announced that they would step down as top managers of the CEP, and they would retract their request for resumption of reactors #3 and #4. However, the outgoing president, Kingo Hayashi, insisted that his company would not discard its hope to resume those reactors when it can restore its credibility. But it is not clear when it will be.

 

Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Ryosei Akazawa, indicated that Hayashi’s comment for seeking resumption to be inappropriate. However, the company’s false management stemmed from nuclear policy of Japanese government, which encourages using nuclear power as much as possible. As long as the government keeps that policy, the power companies can repeat the same kind of cheating.

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