OUTSIDE VIEW: NUCLEAR PLANT ASSESSMENTS
By Tatyana Sinitsyna, UPI Outside View Commentator
United Press International
Aug 3 2007
MOSCOW, Aug. 3 (UPI) — An earthquake hit the city of Kashiwazaki,
Japan, last week, causing an estimated $33.3 billion worth of damage.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, one of Japan’s largest, was in
the earthquake zone. Radioactive substance leakage was reported.
Japanese authorities and the public are attacking the Tokyo Electric
Power Co. after it refused to give information on the danger. The
alarm was sounded at the other end of the world, in the headquarters of
the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Mohamed ElBaradei,
its director general, says he hopes TEPCO will not withhold any facts
from investigation.
Alexei Lopanchuk, an expert on nuclear plants’ environmental effects
at the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency, commented on the situation
for RIA Novosti:
"I saw a burning transformer on the television. It was no shock to
a specialist — a tank transformer can catch fire with the slightest
spark. Every project envisages safety measures. Transformers are set
apart from each other, so fire cannot spread to cause a leak.
Radioactive water could have leaked from the reactor containment sump
— but I don’t think it could get out of the circuit and pollute the
environment, whatever the press might be saying. As for polluted sea,
I think that’s a paranoid allegation."
The expert dismisses speculation that seismic danger was
underestimated when the plant site was chosen: "The Japanese are
top-notch professionals, and exacting and pragmatic to the utmost
degree in choosing plant sites. It was a mere accident, I think."
The Kashiwazaki drama makes us wonder whether Russian nuclear plants
are immune to natural disasters. They face very little risk from
earthquakes on the seismically docile East European Plain.
Nonetheless, safety measures have been steadily tightened since 2000,
when Russia placed a new emphasis on atomic energy. A nationwide
blueprint for updating and enhancing safety procedures has been
adopted.
All present-day projects are designed to withstand earthquakes with
a minimum magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale. Russian specialists
proceed from the same stringent safety standards when they build
plants abroad.
"We design nuclear plants taking account for everything nature can
throw at us — tornadoes, glaze frost, blizzards, torrential rain,
earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides and mud volcano eruptions. We also
consider every possible manmade risk — for instance, air routes and
railroads in the vicinity of plants," Lopanchuk said.
Russian-designed projects have proved reliable in the past. The
premises and infrastructure of the Kudankulam plant in India stood
unscathed in the Sumatran tsunami of 2004. The Armenian plant withstood
the magnitude 9 during the 1988 quake, which wiped the town of Spitak
off the face of the Earth, though the plant was designed to withstand
a force no greater than 5. Designed and built by Soviet specialists,
the Kozlodui plant in Bulgaria survived a sequence of quakes with
the epicenter in neighboring Romania. Now, Russia is designing a
new Bulgarian nuclear project in Belena, also within the Vrancea
seismic zone.
The alarmed Japanese public insists on shutting down not only
Kashiwazaki, but also Shizuoka and another 15 nuclear power plants
out of a total of 55. But this could be expensive. It takes at least
a year to cool a reactor in a process that occasionally costs more
than plant construction. Furthermore, with no resources comparable
to nuclear energy, a shutdown may plunge Japan into an energy crisis.
"I don’t know how accidents are generally estimated. I, for my part,
am no alarmist. Japan is accustomed to quakes, and is very serious
about them. The damaged units will be re-commissioned after thorough
investigation, I am sure," Lopanchuk said.