+ 27.05.2011 + Greenpeace publishes report on Japanese meltdown.

Greenpeace today presents a previously unreleased study which unmasks the policy of disinformation of the nuclear group TEPCO and of the Japanese and international atomic agencies as being dangerous and irresponsible. It was already a few hours after the Japanese earthquake of March 11 that TEPCO knew of the core meltdowns at Fukushima and that it accepted the radioactive pollution of its employees, of the surrounding region and of the ocean water.

The misleading descriptions of TEPCO were uncritically repeated also by the German Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) (Nuclear Safety Agency). The environmentalists are of the opinion that the new findings also have consequences for the technical and ethical assessment of atomic energy in Germany. Greenpeace therefore today hands over this study to the ethics commission which will present its recommendations to the federal government on Saturday.

“No-one would lie without a reason“, says Shaun Burnie, a Greenpeace nuclear expert. “The elusions and concealments of TEPCO and the continuous declarations of the International Atomic Energy Agency all serve only one purpose: They want the people to believe that atomic energy is controllable even after the catastrophic disaster at Fukushima. But this is a dangerous illusion.“

The GP commissioned study makes clear that TEPCO must have known of the core meltdowns already in the early hours after the earthquake and that it has knowingly deceived the Japanese public and the international community since then. Within the first 24 hours after the accident TEPCO had direct access to data that made clear that temperatures in the pressure vessel were increasing rapidly and that a core meltdown was imminent.

According to British nuclear engineer Dr. John Large, within days of the explosions of Fukushima-daiichi reactor 1 and 3 significant core meltdown was clear in contrast to the communication of TEPCO and the IAEA. The decision to pour sea water on the reactors was made knowing perfectly well that the pressure vessel was already broken. They accepted that many tens of thousands tons of highly radioactive water could risk drain and escape into the environment.

“Germany is not prepared for a worst case. The helplessness in dealing with the disaster in Japan makes this all too clear“, says Burnie. “The measures taken in Japan to cool down the reactors would be impossible in Germany. We could not pump radioactive water into the sea. German disaster control would not be able to cope with an evacuation.

There are then only three logical conclusions for Mr. Töpfer and the Ethics Commission: The most dangerous reactors must be shut down immediately, the facilities situated in areas prone to earthquakes must be re-evaluated, without any taboos, and all other nuclear power plants must be shut down as quick as possible, without any loopholes. A mid-term withdrawal from nuclear energy in 2022 would not be responsible and therefore is not acceptable“.

Greenpeace 2011