Reply #15: Japan nuclear firm admits missing safety checks at disaster-hit plant

[Octafish]

Thanks, crickets! Didya see this on the tee vee? I didn't. And it wasn't on the radio or in my noose-paper.

Japan nuclear firm admits missing safety checks at disaster-hit plant

Documents show operator failed to carry out mandatory checks at Fukushima Daiichi and allowed fuel rods to pile up

Justin McCurry in Osaka
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 March 2011 13.42 GMT

The power plant at the centre of the biggest civilian nuclear crisis in Japan's history contained far more spent fuel rods than it was designed to store, while its technicians repeatedly failed to carry out mandatory safety checks, according to documents from the reactor's operator.

The risk that used fuel rods present to efforts to avert disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant was underlined on Tuesday when nuclear safety officials said the No 2 reactor's storage pool had heated to around boiling point, raising the risk of a leakage of radioactive steam.

"We cannot leave this alone and we must take care of it as quickly as possible," Hidehiko Nishiyama, of the nuclear and industrial safety agency, said.

According to documents from Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the company repeatedly missed safety checks over a 10-year period up to two weeks before the 11 March disaster, and allowed uranium fuel rods to pile up inside the 40-year-old facility.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/22/japan-nuclear-power-plant-checks-missed

Gee. It seems like storing the spent fuel was such a problem, TEPCO stacked it past "safe" levels. I wonder if the US nuclear industry would never do that?