Reply #20: What an ignorant and offensive post. [View All]

http://www.japanfocus.org/-Ishibashi-Katsuhiko/2495

Why Worry? Japan's Nuclear Plants at Grave Risk From Quake Damage
Ishibashi Katsuhiko

I had warned that a major earthquake would strike the Chuetsu region around Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, and about the fundamental vulnerability of nuclear power plants.

<snip>

I was a member of the expert panel that developed the new seismic design guidelines, but I resigned during the final stage of the work last August to protest the panel's stance on this issue. This defect must be fixed quickly, learning from what happened at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.

<snip>

Ishibashi Katsuhiko is a professor at the Research Center for Urban Safety and Security of Kobe University.

This article appeared in the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shinbun on August 11, 2007). Posted at Japan Focus on August 11, 2007.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/12/japan-ministers-ignored-warnings-nuclear

Japan ministers ignored safety warnings over nuclear reactors
Seismologist Ishibashi Katsuhiko claimed that an accident was likely and that plants have 'fundamental vulnerability'
Robin McKie, science editor
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 12 March 2011 18.51 GMT

<snip>

However, the real embarrassment for the Japanese government is not so much the nature of the accident but the fact it was warned long ago about the risks it faced in building nuclear plants in areas of intense seismic activity. Several years ago, the seismologist Ishibashi Katsuhiko stated, specifically, that such an accident was highly likely to occur. Nuclear power plants in Japan have a "fundamental vulnerability" to major earthquakes, Katsuhiko said in 2007. The government, the power industry and the academic community had seriously underestimated the potential risks posed by major quakes.

Katsuhiko, who is professor of urban safety at Kobe University, has highlighted three incidents at reactors between 2005 and 2007. Atomic plants at Onagawa, Shika and Kashiwazaki-Kariwa were all struck by earthquakes that triggered tremors stronger than those to which the reactor had been designed to survive.

<snip>