Introduction
On March 11, 2011, The Great East Japan Earthquake occurred, and the tsunami waves it induced triggered an unprecedented accident at the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)-owned Fukushima-1 (Daiichi) Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). Three and a half years have already passed since then. Great efforts by those involved with recovery have placed the reactors in cold shutdown; however, the problems of contaminated water, over 130,000 evacuees (160,000 immediately after the accident) still kept out of their homes, and decontamination still continue.
On May 24, 2011, the Cabinet Council decided to establish the Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations. Its assignment was, for Fukushima-1 and Fukushima-2, to “conduct multi-faceted research and verification to identify the cause from a neutral standpoint of the people of Japan and propose policies to stop the damages from escalating and prevent similar accidents from repeating [1].” Naoto Kan, the Prime Minister at the time, appointed one of the authors of this book, Yotaro Hatamura, to chair the committee. Seiji Abe and Masao Fuchigami were appointed by Hatamura to serve as technical consultants to the committee.
After its first meeting on June 7, 2011, the committee visited the sites of Fukushima-1 and -2 NPPs for inspection and interviewed a total of 772 people: the Prime Minister and others from the central government, heads of affected local governments, residents and evacuees of the area, and others. The committee published its Interim Report on December 26, 2011 [1], and the Final Report on July 23, 2012 [2]. After a public presentation in Fukushima prefecture, the Cabinet Council dissolved the committee.
The Interim and Final Reports (English versions available from www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/icanps/eng/) are precise records of the investigation into the facts of the accident. The two-volume reports amount to about 1,500 pages of text and figures and are about 8 cm thick. It will be extremely difficult for the general public to read through the pages to understand what the investigation clarified. The facts in the reports are like potatoes and radishes dug from the ground and piled at the storefront of a grocery store. Potatoes and radishes need to be cooked to taste good. In addition, we will not enjoy their flavors unless we consume them. We cannot understand this situation if we are just given the raw material, and unless we can understand the facts, we will never learn anything from this accident, which caused great sacrifices.
In June of 2011, when the committee started, I made an announcement that, as the chair of the committee, my policy was to explain what happened in the course of the Fukushima NPP accident, and why it happened, so everyone could acquire that information as knowledge. In other words, I set the goal to answer the questions of the people of Japan and of the world. The committee, however, primarily due to time constraints and limitations of a temporary organization, could not fully meet that goal to my expectations. I felt that leaving the work as such would not be fulfilling the roles I had assigned to myself at the beginning of the project.
Thus, the authors gathered to make available this book, which plainly explains what we can learn from this catastrophic accident based on what the committee published, in addition to the authors’ opinions, which were not in the government reports. The book is targeted toward members of the general public who may not have knowledge in nuclear power generation or radiology.
Before publishing this book, in December of 2012 Hatamura and Fuchigami published a book titled What Happened in Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant?: Breakdown of the Government Investigation Committee Report (in Japanese, coauthored with Naoto Kasahara, Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun Ltd) [3]. Then in April 2013, Hatamura and Fuchigami joined with Seiji Abe to publish Why Did the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident Happen?: Breaking Down the Core of the Government Investigation Committee (in Japanese, Kodansha) [4].
These two books written in Japanese have not been translated into English. The authors felt an obligation to make the knowledge and lessons learned through their investigation available to those worldwide who are interested in the Fukushima NPP accident.
Hatamura, Fuchigami, and Abe, who served as members and technical consultants in the government investigation team, with Kasahara, an expert in nuclear engineering, gathered to edit this English version. This book extracts important contents from the two aforementioned Japanese books, rearranges the significant information coherently, reworks the text into plainer language, and with additional analyses, further clarifies the overall picture of the Fukushima NPP accident. Kenji Iino, a former GE Nuclear engineer, translated our Japanese manuscripts.
The book begins with Chapter 1, which outlines the accident and the operation of the nuclear power industry, including how the government and TEPCO prepared for nuclear safety and disaster prevention. Chapter 2 explains the accident progress inside the plant; Chapter 3 shows where and how the central and local governments made mistakes; and, Chapter 4 outlines problems with TEPCO’s response. Chapter 5 discusses the events outside the plant, including how radiation was released and how people evacuated the area. The chapter also discusses how to tackle the problem of decontamination. Chapter 6 reviews the accident from the viewpoint of the “Study of Failure” and reveals my opinions after serving as the committee chair, and finally, Chapter 7 concludes with suggestions on how we should approach (or depart from) nuclear power.
Chapters 1, 3, and 4 were primarily written by Abe; Chapter 2 was written by Fuchigami and Kasahara; and Chapters 5–7 were mainly produced by Hatamura. Position titles and affiliations of people mentioned in the book are all from the time of the accident.
It is the authors’ hope that this book will serve to provide the information, clarified as of today, of what happened in Fukushima NPP and how the events progressed. It is intended for those who desire to learn the background and causes of the accident so the information can offer a foundation for those who are at the turning point of whether to push for nuclear power generation or to abandon it. We also hope that the book will provide the lessons we learned from the Fukushima NPP accident to those that are working to reduce accidents and disasters anywhere in the world. It will be our great pleasure if this book can reduce at least some of the anxiety in those who are still not allowed into their homes.
August, 2014
Representing the authors,