Based on a work by Masayuki Takayama, this essay sharply criticizes The Asahi Shimbun’s coverage of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.
It argues that Asahi long obscured the fact that the reactors involved were manufactured by General Electric of the United States, while framing the issue as though Japan alone had been guilty of inadequate safety assumptions.
According to the essay, the more serious reality was that the GE-designed reactors had suffered from major defects, including stress corrosion cracking and turbine failures, and that Japanese companies such as TEPCO and Toshiba had worked together to correct those problems and improve the reactors’ safety.
Even so, Asahi is said to have concealed this core background and instead steered the story toward criticism of TEPCO and Japan’s nuclear exports.
The essay concludes that the true question should be directed at the newspaper itself: what is the value of an article that contains not even a fragment of truth.

2019-03-19
The Asahi Shimbun has him say, “Is that really acceptable?”

The following is from a work by Masayuki Takayama.
The worst party in the Fukushima nuclear accident was the United States.
A full two years had passed since 3/11.
Then a somewhat startling article appeared in The Asahi Shimbun.
It was an interview with a former on-site representative of the American General Electric Company (GE) stationed at TEPCO’s Fukushima nuclear plant.
The reason it was surprising was that, ever since the disaster occurred, Asahi had consistently blurred the fact that the reactors involved in the accident were made by GE.
For example, there was an article published soon after the disaster by Keiji Takeuchi, the editorial writer in charge of nuclear power, titled “Overly Optimistic Assumptions.”
“The containment vessel was not equipped with valves because in Japan it was believed that core meltdowns would not occur.
Valves that were introduced under pressure from overseas developments have now become the lifeline.
This shows how overly optimistic the original accident assumptions were.”
If one reads only that, one is led to think that the reactor was Japanese-made and that it did not even have venting valves attached.
But the reactor was unmistakably made by GE, and the valves were installed voluntarily by TEPCO after observing the accident at Three Mile Island in the United States.
The ones whose “assumptions were overly optimistic” were GE, yet Asahi framed it as though TEPCO’s assumptions had been inadequate, and made that the basis for the lies that fueled the later anti-nuclear hysteria.
And now, only at this late stage, they say it was made by GE.
They must have thought the dust had settled by now.
Did they think they could quietly revise their old lie before anyone noticed?
The substance of the interview is astonishing.
The GE official was a Japanese man born in Okinawa who had devoted his youth to anti-base activism, later worked as a sailor, was picked up by GE, and became a specialist in boiling water reactors (BWRs) without knowing even what thermal neutrons or criticality were.
One cannot help but wonder whether such a person was really adequate, but he reveals that “the Fukushima reactors experienced several abnormal situations, including design mistakes by GE.”
That is true, and the stress corrosion cracking in particular was terrible.
The high-pressure steam pipes and the shroud surrounding the core cracked one after another, causing radiation leaks.
The power-generation turbines also fractured, and the fuel rod cladding was no good either.
In short, it was a completely defective reactor.
The reactors became inoperable, but GE did nothing.
So TEPCO and Japanese manufacturers such as Toshiba worked together to solve the problem.
These were the same people Asahi sneeringly refers to as “the village.”
They also discovered that the stress corrosion was caused by stainless steel with too much carbon and by the welding process.
The turbines that cracked were also changed from cast forms to integrally machined types that made use of Japanese technology.
During these improvements, the gas vent valves that later helped avert the worst outcome in this disaster were also installed.
The GE-model reactors, which had become Japanese-made in every respect except their outward appearance, thereafter knew no breakdowns until the great tsunami of 3/11.
Yet the interview does not touch on this.
Instead, the reporter leads him by asking, “Are nuclear plants not frightening?” and has him speak at length, in a tone of heartfelt anguish as a GE representative, about “how indifferent TEPCO was to safety.”
“BWRs cannot be handled unless one is highly experienced.
There were times when I had to sharpen all five senses, touch the piping, and check whether there were abnormalities in vibration or temperature.”
He does not say that the piping he checked had long since been replaced with safe Japanese-made piping.
It is the manner of speaking of someone who has fully acquired the American habit of lying.
Another point he does not touch on is why GE irresponsibly left defects such as stress corrosion cracking unattended.
At present, over the San Onofre nuclear plant in the United States, the American side is suing Mitsubishi under product liability law, claiming that the plant had to be decommissioned because the steam generators supplied by Mitsubishi failed.
Like the Lexus lawsuits against Toyota, it is almost a lawsuit brought on mere pretext, but even if Mitsubishi had some defect, it would be nothing compared with the seriousness of GE’s defective reactors.
So why did TEPCO not seek indemnification from GE?
Because Article 4 of the Nuclear Damage Compensation Law prohibits the application of product liability law by stating that “parties other than operators such as TEPCO bear no responsibility for compensation.”
At the time, Japan’s nuclear power business depended on financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and indeed from GE itself.
It is said that this clause was inserted at the wish of the American side, which in effect said: we are taking care of you, so do not even think about product liability law.
That is probably also why GE thought Fukushima could be entrusted to a former sailor as its on-site representative.
Thanks to GE’s carelessness, or rather because of it, Japan became able to build excellent nuclear reactors of its own.
Exports have also been strong.
The interview touches on the fact that these Japanese-made nuclear plants are being exported more and more, and The Asahi Shimbun has him say, “Is that really acceptable?”
There is not a fragment of truth anywhere in the article.
That is what makes me want to ask them whether that is really acceptable.
(Issue dated August 1, 2013)