Читать книгу Meltdown - Yoichi Funabashi - Страница 22

JUST BEFORE 11:50 P.M. ON MARCH 11. The security team members of Fukushima Daiichi NPS brought a small generator that they had finally managed to get a hold of into the Central Control Room (Units 1 and 2) and hooked it up to the display terminal of the containment pressure gauge on the control panel. Lights came on on the pressure gauge display.

The operators cried out, “Six hundred kPa (kilopascals)!”

This was far higher than the design maximum of 427 kPa of operating pressure. The site superintendent, Yoshida, reported to the ERC immediately.⁷⁰

Until then, TEPCO had believed the emergency condenser of Unit 1 to be operational. However, with the pressure in the dry well of the containment vessel so high, it was apparent that the vessel had reached a critical condition.⁷¹ At the ERC, before a frustrated room of employees gathered around a U-shaped central desk laden with computers, Yoshida said, “The dry well pressure is six hundred kPa. This exceeds the maximum working pressure, a dangerous condition. The only way to fix this situation is to implement the containment vent. I will notify the government and seek approval for the implementation of the vent. Everyone, please make preparations for the venting urgently.”⁷²

According to the operations manual, the local site superintendent had the authority to vent the containment vessel at his discretion. However, taking into account the seriousness of releasing radioactive material, it was assumed that the president’s confirmation and approval would be sought.

However, TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu was not in Tokyo that day, but on a sightseeing trip with his wife in the Osaka region. He returned to the Tokyo Head Office at nine a.m. the following day, March 12.

At 12:55 a.m. on March 12, Yoshida sent to NISA and TEPCO Head Office a single sheet of A4 paper signed, “Site Superintendent Masao Yoshida.”

“We are currently verifying details because there is a possibility that the pressure in the Unit 1 D/W [drywell] is over 600 kPa. Abnormal rise in containment vessel pressure.”⁷³

Deciding that they needed government consent, TEPCO started reaching out to the Kantei via Takekuro.⁷⁴

12:57 A.M. After speaking with President Barack Obama on the phone, Kan left his office and moved to the small room on the mezzanine floor of the crisis management center.⁷⁵

The government had to make a decision on TEPCO’s request to implement venting. Prime Minister Naoto Kan, METI Minister Banri Kaieda, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama, and Special Adviser to the Prime Minister Goshi Hosono were gathered in the mezzanine room.

In addition to NSC Chairman Haruki Madarame and TEPCO Fellow Ichiro Takekuro, NISA Deputy Director General Eiji Hiraoka was also in attendance. Madarame and Takekuro voiced in unison the need to vent.⁷⁶

Madarame told Kan, “It’ll all be over if meltdown takes place. It’s crucial to start venting as soon as possible.”⁷⁷ Madarame became even more convinced after discussing the matter with Takekuro, who expressed the opinion that they had no other choice. Takekuro pressed TEPCO Head Office to vent.

“I want you to make an organizational decision quickly.”

Takekuro appealed numerous times to Head Office. Madarame was praying that TEPCO would vent as soon as possible.⁷⁸

Since going ahead with venting meant releasing radioactive material along with the steam, it could have a huge impact on local residents’ health, as well as trigger a considerable social response. In the first place, how much radioactive material would be released? What should be done about the accompanying evacuation of residents? How should it be explained to the Japanese people? These were the issues they discussed. Takekuro also reported to the meeting, “Venting can be done in about two hours.”⁷⁹

NISA and NSC later held a discussion on the venting. There were three problems. The first was, which should be vented first, Unit 1 or Unit 2? The next was whether they should review the demarcation lines for resident evacuation. And the last was whether they should administer stable iodine to young people. If radioactive iodine entered the body, it accumulated in the thyroid, leading to the possibility of thyroid cancer. Stable iodine prevented such an accumulation.

As a result, their agreed decision was:

 Venting Unit 1 was the top priority

 The evacuation area would not be reviewed

 They were not at the stage of administering stable iodine to young people80

Regarding resident evacuation and the venting operation, Hiraoka explained, “Even in a regular evacuation drill, which is within a three-kilometer radius (the evacuation radius in force at that time), it is assumed that venting will take place.”⁸¹

1:52 A.M. TBS reported, “According to TEPCO, pressure is mounting in the containment vessel of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1, and there is a possibility of radioactive material leaking outside, a most extraordinary situation.”⁸²

3:12 A.M. Chief cabinet secretary press conference.

The Kantei pressroom.

“I have received a report from TEPCO regarding the Fukushima Daiichi NPS to the effect that, given the fear that pressure has risen in the reactor containment vessel, they have reached the decision that, in order to ensure the soundness of the reactor containment vessel, they need to take measures to release the internal pressure. I have consulted with the METI minister, and we believe that there is no alternative if safety is to be maintained. There is a possibility that during the course of this operation, radioactive material may be discharged, but pre-assessment shows the amount to be minute, and bearing in mind that the wind is blowing seaward, the current three-kilometer evacuation and ten-kilometer indoor sheltering measures will adequately ensure the safety of local residents, so we ask you to respond calmly.”

Q&As

Reporter: At approximately what time will the release into the atmosphere take place?

Chief cabinet secretary: I think it will be at a not too distant time.

Reporter: You say there will be no problem with the wind blowing seaward, but if it did change and started blowing toward those sheltering indoors, how great an impact would it have on their health?

Chief cabinet secretary: I have received a report from the Meteorological Agency that, at present, the wind is quite stable and remains in a westerly or northwesterly direction for the time being.

Just prior to the chief cabinet secretary’s press conference, METI Minister Banri Kaieda and TEPCO Managing Director Akio Komori had given a press conference from METI, regarding the venting operation. Nobuaki Terasaka also attended.

Komori was a former site superintendent at Fukushima Daiichi and a current deputy manager of the Nuclear Power Location Headquarters. Since the TEPCO chairman, president, and manager of the Nuclear Power Location Headquarters were all absent from TEPCO Head Office in Tokyo, Komori, acting on behalf of the president, was the official ultimately responsible for dealing with the nuclear accident.

The Kantei had set up Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano’s press conference before this other conference. If they waited until morning for his press conference, there was a danger that the government would be unfairly accused of a cover-up.⁸³

An urgent report was handed to Terasaka just before Kaieda and Komori’s press conference.

“The RCIC at Unit 2 is working.”

The cooling system at Unit 2 was still working. NISA decided that, if they were to vent, it should be the Unit 1 containment vessel. Up until that time, the Central Control Room at Fukushima Daiichi had been unable to confirm whether the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System (RCIC) at Unit 2 was working. Nor could they verify whether the IC at Unit 1 was functioning. This recognition of the facts, however, was sufficiently shared between the Emergency Response Center in the Anti-Seismic Building and Tokyo Head Office. Komori, based at the latter, was of the belief that the IC was functioning.

Just before ten p.m., TEPCO stated in a press release, regarding Unit 2, “due to a drop in the reactor’s water level, there is a fear that radioactive material will be released.” On the other hand, regarding Unit 1, they merely repeated their earlier press release from around one a.m. on March 12 that “the IC is cooling the vapor.”⁸⁴

The TEPCO view was that the crisis was not at Unit 1, but at Unit 2. Komori, therefore, thought that venting the containment vessel at Unit 2 was the priority—not at Unit 1. Komori had visited Kaieda prior to the press conference, at around 2:30 a.m., to request that venting be prioritized for Unit 2.⁸⁵

TEPCO had confirmed sometime after three a.m. that the RCIC at Unit 2 was working. They realized before the press conference that there was a gap in NISA’s and TEPCO’s understanding. They decided, therefore, to announce the implementation of the venting but not specify which unit.⁸⁶

At the press conference, Komori stated, “We would like to lower pressure first in Unit 2.” He left things somewhat ambiguous with the phrase “first in Unit 2.” The reporters wanted to know, “Why Unit 2?”—but Komori did not give them a clear answer. During the press conference, Kazuhiro Takei, general manager of TEPCO’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Department, intervened.

“This information is just in, but we have been told that it has been confirmed in the field that the RCIC equipment is providing water to Unit 2.”⁸⁷

This information had not even been conveyed to Kaieda prior to the press conference. Kaieda thought that venting at both Units 1 and 2 had to be carried out and quickly.

Yoshida was watching the press conference on television. Seeing Komori flustered when pressed by reporters about which of Units 1 and 2 would be given priority for venting, Yoshida found it beyond comprehension.

Head Office is out of step with the site. What’s going on? ⁸⁸

3:59 A.M. An earthquake hit. Even the Kantei shook considerably. It was reported to the crisis management center that there had been a six-plus earthquake on the Japanese seismic scale on the Niigata-Nagano border. A new sense of tension ran through the Emergency Operations Team. Fukuyama grabbed the mike and yelled, “Is this an aftershock from the Tohoku quake or is it totally unrelated? Which is it?”

The Meteorological Agency official merely replied, “I’ll ask.”⁸⁹

AROUND 4:33 A.M. Another quake hit. It was a six-minus aftershock on the Japanese seismic scale in Nagano Prefecture. The epicenter was off the coast of Niigata. Everyone felt a chill run down their spines. Fukuyama was rushed off his feet for a time, dealing with concerns raised by the aftershock, but things soon settled down.

Worried about the venting, he was dumbfounded to hear from the Kantei staff that it still had not been implemented. Kaieda had said, leaning slightly forward at the press conference, that “the venting will start after three o’clock.” Now it was after four o’clock, and the venting had not been carried out. Fukuyama and Hosono popped into the chief cabinet secretary’s office and told Edano.

“Still no venting.”⁹⁰

Edano was taking a nap in his office, but sat bolt upright on hearing this and shouted, “What?! Why haven’t they done it?”⁹¹

Edano and Fukuyama headed immediately to the mezzanine office in the crisis management center. Kaieda was on his feet, annoyed. Usually self-controlled, he snapped, “I don’t understand why they haven’t started!”

All Takekuro could say, when they asked him, was, “The power is out, they can’t vent it electrically.”⁹²

Why and for how long were they going to do nothing? Kaieda wondered, suspiciously, “Is TEPCO still trying to underplay the scale of the accident even at this late stage? Is that why they’re hesitating?”⁹³

Ichiro Takekuro and Susumu Kawamata, general manager for nuclear quality and safety management, were caught off guard.

“They’re trying to, but they can’t.”

“Well, the radioactive dosage has risen, so I don’t know if they can do it or not.”

All of the TEPCO liaison officials disappeared from the mezzanine office. It was just Kaieda and Hosono now. Witnessing this, Hosono said to Kaieda, “At this stage, I don’t see any alternative to sending in a suicide squad.”

“We have to get TEPCO to vent no matter what. Getting them to do that is our job, the politicians. Let’s gamble on that, Kaieda-san.”

Kaieda replied, “My thoughts exactly. That’s the only way.”

“Let’s do our jobs as politicians. If that doesn’t work, let’s stop being politicians. Let’s resign from politics together.”

“Yes, let’s do that. Let’s resign together.”⁹⁴

In the meantime, radiation levels onsite at the Fukushima Daiichi NPS were rising. One of the operators, who tried to enter the Unit 1 Reactor Building (RB) in order to measure the radiation, saw a cloud of white haze on the far side of the inner door when he opened the double doors. He quickly closed the door.

4:23 A.M. TEPCO reported in a press conference, “It’s 0.59 microsieverts/hour (0.00059 millisieverts) near the Daiichi main gate.” The radiation was rising. Twenty minutes later, it soared.⁹⁵

If they did not hurry with the venting, the radiation would increase. The venting strategy was a battle against time. On the other hand, TEPCO was thinking that they had to take into consideration how far the residents had to be evacuated when they implemented the venting. In the proper order of things, the evacuation of residents was the job of the offsite center. The offsite center, however, was not functioning.⁹⁶

With communications severed by the power outage, there were several local governments that could not be contacted. Even by the early hours of March 12, there were more than a dozen local governments that the Kantei could not reach.⁹⁷ There was no communication between local governments and the Kantei about how to handle evacuation in the light of the venting operation.

JUST BEFORE FIVE A.M., IN THE MEZZANINE OFFICE OF THE CRISIS MANAGEMENT CENTER. When Fukuyama queried Takekuro about the venting, he replied, “It’s not finished.”

“Why isn’t it finished? They’ve had three hours! It was you guys who said you would do it at three o’clock. You’ll make a liar out of the chief cabinet secretary before the people of Japan.”

“Venting can be performed either by electricity or manually, but we can’t use electricity because the power is out. It’s taking time to check the procedures for a manual vent. The radiation is on the increase.”

Fukuyama’s blood was boiling. Haven’t you known all along that there was no power? That report that you would “vent in two hours,” what were the grounds for those “two hours”?

He went immediately with Hosono to report to Edano on the fifth floor. A little later, Kan came down to the mezzanine office with his secretary. When he was told by Fukuyama that “they still haven’t vented,” Kan was angry, saying, “What? Why haven’t they started?”

Immediately thereafter, Kan directly asked Takekuro why they could not vent. Takekuro’s response was the same excuse of “manual procedures and radiation.” Kan asked Madarame, “What will happen if they can’t vent? Isn’t there a danger that the containment vessel will explode?”

Madarame replied, “It’s possible.”

There was a real fear that the three-kilometer evacuation radius, ordered the previous evening at 9:23 p.m., would not be sufficient if they could not vent and the containment vessel sustained damage.

“Venting is a wet event, and since the water is passed out via the suppression chamber (SC), I think the radioactive material released will be adequately abated.”

“Three kilometers is fine for venting, but it won’t be enough if the containment vessel goes up in smoke. So, how about making it ten kilometers?”

These were the suggestions made by Madarame and Hiraoka.

When Edano and Fukuyama said, “It might be best to expand the evacuation area to ten kilometers,” Kan approved, saying, “Yes, let’s do that.”

But when was it to be extended to ten kilometers? Edano and Fukuyama suggested, “The prime minister must decide. Please decide before you leave to visit the site.” Kan agreed on the spot, at 5:44 a.m.⁹⁸

5:44 A.M. The government ordered residents within a ten-kilometer radius to evacuate. This covered 48,000 residents in the towns of Okuma, Futaba, Tomioka, and Namie. Motohisa Ikeda, METI senior vice minister and head of the local NERHQ, rang Kaieda and told him, “I think confusion will reign with a night evacuation of residents. The venting should only begin after the complete evacuation of the residents has been confirmed.”

“Please make sure such arrangements are made.”⁹⁹

The success or failure of the venting, however, was a matter of life and death for the reactor, and it could have a decisive impact on the battle against radiation. Unfortunately, perceptions of the situation by the Kantei, the offsite center, and, moreover, TEPCO, were not the same and there is no evidence that anyone tried to bring them in line.

Coordinating with the local authorities about the timing of resident evacuation and the venting operation would prove problematic that morning. The onsite ERC informed Fukushima Prefecture that they were getting ready to vent at around nine a.m., but Fukushima Prefecture requested that the containment venting be carried out after evacuation had been completed. This all took time.¹⁰⁰

Awareness of the venting situation within the government was also mixed, and there was not enough communication. Michihiko Kano, minister of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries (MAFF), rang Yoshikatsu Nakayama, METI vice minister, and yelled over the phone.

“Nakayama-san, they say they’re going to vent, but are they going to do it without our knowledge? What on earth is going on?!”

Nakayama was a member of the Kano faction within the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which made Kano his boss. The fact that they were on good terms also probably had something to do with it. He must have been concerned about the destructive impact venting would have on agricultural produce. Nakayama guessed that Kano was putting on some sort of a show in front of the MAFF bureaucrats.¹⁰¹

6:10 A.M. There was a report in the TEPCO videoconference.

“Iodine figures rising. Iodine is being discharged. Even if we don’t vent, noble gas will continue to leak.”¹⁰²

6:25 A.M. NHK reported “eight times the normal level of radioactive material recorded in the vicinity of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.” No matter what they were asked, Takekuro and TEPCO Head Office failed to provide convincing answers. Kaieda thought there was no choice but to ask Masao Yoshida, the site superintendent, directly. They managed to contact Yoshida once from the landline in the mezzanine office via an emergency satellite link. Yoshida said, “The operators are risking their lives to do it. Please give us a little more time.”

Kaieda replied, “By all means, please go ahead. Please contact us here when the valves are open.”

It was a short exchange, but they sensed that the workers in the field were working desperately to get the venting going.

Kaieda thought to himself, Can’t TEPCO Head Office decide, after all?

Since the radiation is climbing, perhaps the manager of a single company can’t order his workers to lay their lives on the line in order to get the vents operating. If that’s the case, perhaps it would be better if the state gave the orders in accordance with the Act on the Regulation of Nuclear Source Material, Nuclear Fuel Material, and Reactors. It might be better if we prodded TEPCO by getting the government to take responsibility.

Kaieda told Edano, “I’ll take the responsibility.”

At 6:50 a.m., Kaieda switched the instruction to vent Units 1 and 2 to a formal order from the minister of economy, trade, and industry in accordance with paragraph 3, article 64 of the Act on the Regulation of Nuclear Source Material, Nuclear Fuel Material, and Reactors.

Paragraph 3 provided the minister of economy, trade, and industry with the authority to “order the necessary measures to be taken.”¹⁰³