(Anything Goes Series -3) "Danger of Active Faults Is Baseless Rumor", Says Tokyo University Geologist

The others chime in, and say, basically, "Let's coexist with nuclear power plants that sit on top of active faults."

Very interestingly, the pro-nuclear Sankei Shinbun's article echoes the open letter by the US Energy and Commerce Commission to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with its curious emphasis on "performance-based" policy.

The article by Sankei Shinbun quotes a physicist, a nuclear engineer, and an marine geologist among others who say the Nuclear Regulatory Authority's new safety regulation proposal is not based on science but is pure fiction.

I'm afraid the entire country of Japan is pure fiction at this point.

Sankei's article starts with a very tricky headline as if it were the NRA who says it is possible (for nuclear power plants) to coexist with active faults. It is not, but unless you actually read the article, Sankei readers wouldn't know that.

From Sankei Shinbun via Yahoo Japan (1/30/2013; part; my comments in square brackets in blue italic):

地震・津波原発の新安全基準骨子案　「活断層との共生可能」

Proposed new safety standard outline for nuclear power plants in the event of earthquake/tsunami "It is possible to coexist with active faults"

科学的根拠失った規制を危惧

Fearful of regulation without scientific basis

原子力規制委員会が２９日に骨子案をまとめた地震・津波に関する原発の新安全基準。活断層の真上に重要施設の設置を禁止したが、全国に約２千本あるといわれる活断層大国の日本では「耐震設計で活断層との共生は可能」との見方も出ている。科学者らは失われた科学技術への信頼回復を目指す一方で、安全を強調するあまり科学的根拠を失った規制がまかり通ることを危惧している。

On January 29, the Nuclear Regulatory Authority announced its outline proposal for new safety standard for nuclear power plants in the event of earthquake and/or tsunami. The new standard would prohibit the installation of important facilities on top of active faults, but there are people who think it is possible to coexist with active fault with anti-seismic design in the country where there are about 2,000 active faults. Scientists are trying to restore the trust in science and technology which was lost [in the wake of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident], but at the same time they are worried that with too much emphasis on safety the regulations without scientific basis will go unchallenged.

[Go unchallenged? OK, who are those scientists?]

元文相で物理学者の有馬朗人氏は２５日に都内で開かれたシンポジウムで、東日本大震災でも無事だった東北電力女川（おながわ）原発（宮城県）や東京電力福島第２原発（福島県）を取り上げ、「活断層があってもどうすれば安全が保たれるか研究開発を進めればよい」

In a symposium held in Tokyo on January 25, former Minister of Education and [nuclear] physicist Akito Arima cited Tohoku Electric Power's Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant (in Miyagi Prefecture) and TEPCO's Fukushima II (Daini) Nuclear Power Plant (in Fukushima Prefecture) as having survived the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and said, "Even if there is an active fault, all we need to do is do R&D to maintain safety."

[Well said, Dr. Arima, but nuclear physics doesn't address how to construct buildings on top of an active fault, does it?]

東京大の岡本孝司教授（原子炉工学）は「本当に重要なのは活断層かどうかということではなく、放射性物質が漏れるリスクがあるかどうかだ。だが、その議論がない」と指摘。その上で「規制委での議論は科学とはいえず、小説の世界だ」と断じた。

Professor Koji Okamoto of Tokyo University (nuclear reactor engineering) says, "What's more important is not whether it is an active fault, but whether there is a risk of radioactive leak. But there is no discussion [of the latter]." He concluded, "The discussion at the NRA is not science. It is a world of fiction."

[So, a nuclear reactor engineer calling the discussion by the top seismologists and geologists a fiction. That makes sense. Not.]

首都大学東京の山崎晴雄教授（地震地質学）は「活断層が危ないというのは風評で、原発反対運動の口実として使われている」と指摘。

Professor Haruo Yamazaki of Tokyo Metropolitan University (seismogeology) points out, "Danger of active fault is a baseless rumor, and it is used as a pretext in opposing nuclear power plants."

[Baseless rumor.]

This newspaper is incredible for its choice of words like "go unchallenged", as if the NRA trying to be on the conservative side of science were the bullies punishing the industry for no good scientific reason.

The article continues, saying that the definition of active faults has changed over time - from 50,000 year-old faults to 120,000 to 130,000, and now to 400,000-year-old faults - and the new benchmark of "400,000 years" is "meaningless", quoting a marine geologist. (A marine geologist should know very well about land geology, shouldn't he?)

Right on cue, a faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Parties has started to make noise about the commissioners of Nuclear Regulatory Authority, who have been installed without the consent from the National Diet by then-Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. They say they have doubts about these commissioners because of their extremely strict conditions for the restart of a nuclear power plant, and particularly because of their opinion that Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant (that sits on active faults) has to be decommissioned.

LDP has already bullied Bank of Japan into submission (whatever Governor Shirakawa says now to defend himself as "independent" is ludicrous). Nuclear Regulatory Authority next?

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