TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant ranked as one of the most dangerous in the world for radiation exposure years before it was destroyed by the meltdowns and explosions that followed the March 11 earthquake.

For five years to 2008, the Fukushima plant was rated the most hazardous nuclear facility in Japan for worker exposure to radiation and one of the five worst nuclear plants in the world on that basis. The next rankings, compiled as a three-year average, are due this year.

Reuters uncovered these rankings, privately tracked by Fukushima’s operator Tokyo Electric Power, in a review of documents and presentations made at nuclear safety conferences over the past seven years.

In the United States — Japan’s early model in nuclear power — Fukushima’s lagging safety record would have prompted more intensive inspections by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It would have also invited scrutiny from the U.S. Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, an independent nuclear safety organization established by the U.S. power industry after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, experts say.

But that kind of stepped-up review never happened in Tokyo, where the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency remains an adjunct of the trade ministry charged with promoting nuclear power.

As Japan debates its future energy policy after the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, a Reuters review of the long-troubled record at Fukushima shows how hard it has been to keep the country’s oldest reactors running in the best of times. It also shows how Japan’s nuclear establishment sold nuclear power to the public as a relatively cheap energy source in part by putting cost-containment ahead of radiation safety over the past several decades.

“After the Fukushima accident, we need to reconsider the cost of nuclear power,” Tatsujiro Suzuki, vice chairman of Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission, told Reuters. “It’s not enough to meet safety standards. The industry needs to search for the best performance.”

TOKYO, July 26 (Reuters) – Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant ranked as one of the most dangerous in the world for radiation exposure years before it was destroyed by the meltdowns and explosions that followed the March 11 earthquake.     For five years to 2008, the Fukushima plant was rated the most hazardous nuclear facility in Japan for worker exposure to radiation and one of the five worst nuclear plants in the world on that basis. The next rankings, compiled as a three-year average, are due this year.     Reuters uncovered these rankings, privately tracked by Fukushima’s operator Tokyo Electric Power, in a review of documents and presentations made at nuclear safety conferences over the past seven years.     In the United States — Japan’s early model in nuclear power – Fukushima’s lagging safety record would have prompted more intensive inspections by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It would have also invited scrutiny from the U.S. Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, an independent nuclear safety organization established by the U.S. power industry after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, experts say.     But that kind of stepped-up review never happened in Tokyo, where the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency remains an adjunct of the trade ministry charged with promoting nuclear power.     As Japan debates its future energy policy after the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, a Reuters review of the long-troubled record at Fukushima shows how hard it has been to keep the country’s oldest reactors running in the best of times. It also shows how Japan’s nuclear establishment sold nuclear power to the public as a relatively cheap energy source in part by putting cost-containment ahead of radiation safety over the past several decades.     “After the Fukushima accident, we need to reconsider the cost of nuclear power,” Tatsujiro Suzuki, vice chairman of Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission, told Reuters. “It’s not enough to meet safety standards. The industry needs to search for the best performance.”   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^     Read story in a PDF: link.reuters.com/vad82s     Graphic on TEPCO:            link.reuters.com/kyj72s     Graphic on dangerous plants: link.reuters.com/myj72s     Radiation at Fukushima       link.reuters.com/qyj72s     Special reports on Japan     r.reuters.com/tec78r   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^     In an illustration of the scale of the safety problems at Fukushima, Tokyo Electric had set a 10-year goal that insiders considered ambitious in 2007. The plan was to reduce radiation exposure for workers at Fukushima to bring the facility from near rock-bottom in the industry’s global safety rankings to somewhere below-average by 2017, documents show.     “Severer management than before will be required,” Tokyo Electric safety researcher Yasunori Kokubun and four other colleagues said in an English-language 2004 report. That report examined why Japan lagged other countries such as France and the United States in limiting radiation exposure for workers during plant maintenance.     The report came from an earlier period of corporate soul searching by Tokyo Electric, a politically powerful regional monopoly in Japan that ran the Fukushima power station and remains in charge of the clean-up work at the crippled plant expected to take a decade or more.     In 2002, the chairman and president of the utility were forced to step down after regulators concluded the company had routinely filed false reports during safety inspections and hid evidence of trouble at its reactors, including Fukushima. All 17 of Tokyo Electric’s reactors were ordered shut down. The last of those did not restart until 2005.         COST-SAVING CULTURE     As part of a bid to win back public trust, the utility promised to repair a “safety culture” it said had failed in the scandal. Teams of newly empowered radiation safety managers were created and began to audit the company’s nuclear operations, including Fukushima. They also reported back findings to other nuclear plant operators and regulators. None of the utility’s safety managers who gave those archived presentations responded to requests for comment for this report.     One problem, according to one of those early assessments, was that Tokyo Electric’s managers on the ground tended to put cost savings ahead of a commitment to keep driving worker radiation doses “as low as reasonably achievable,” the international standard for safety.     Take maintenance, for instance. Japanese plants are required to shut down every 13 months for almost four months at a time – twice as long as the U.S. average. Tepco was slow to invest in the more expensive radiation safety precautions needed during maintenance, thus lowering the cost of operating Fukushima before the accident.      But that focus on costs also kept Tepco from developing a more active commitment to worker safety that could have helped it navigate the March disaster, officials now say.     After the earthquake, contract workers at Fukushima were sent in without radiation meters or basic gear such as rubber boots. Screening for radiation from dust and vapor inhaled by workers was delayed for weeks until experts said the testing was almost meaningless. At least 39 workers were exposed to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation, five times the maximum allowed in a normal year.     Fukushima Daiichi, built in a poor region on Japan’s Pacific Coast to supply power to Tokyo, was pushed into crisis by the massive March 11 earthquake and the tsunami that hit less than an hour later. The backup power systems meant to keep its radioactive fuel cool were disabled, leading to meltdowns, explosions and radiation spewing into the environment, forcing the evacuation of more than 80,000 residents.     Goshi Hosono, the government minister appointed to coordinate Japan’s response to the Fukushima crisis, said he was not aware of the details of Fukushima’s radiation safety record before March 11 and declined to comment on that basis.     But he said the utility had failed to protect workers in the chaos that followed the accident, prompting a reprimand from government officials and a decision by regulators to take charge of radiation health monitoring at the plant.     “In normal times, radiation monitoring would be left to the plant operator, but these are not normal times,” Hosono told Reuters.         HIGHER RADIATION IN OLD PLANTS     In a June report to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Japanese officials said basic design failures, a fatal underestimation of tsunami risk and a chaotic decision-making process had contributed to the disaster. But they also said Tokyo Electric’s “safety culture” had failed it again.     Outside experts agreed. “The main root causes of this man-made disaster can be found in (Tokyo Electric’s) ineffective  — exemplary poor — safety practices and track record,” said Najim Meshkati, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California and former U.S. government science advisor.     In response to questions about the radiation safety record at Fukushima, Tokyo Electric said that radiation exposure for each individual worker at the plant had been kept below the regulatory standard. The overall radiation level remained relatively high because the plant’s six reactors were all between 30 and 40 years old at the time of the accident, the utility said.     “Because it was

FUKUSHIMA, Japan, June 24 (Reuters) – A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis.

Then, as now, a small army of transient workers was put to work to try to stem the damage at the oldest nuclear reactor run by Japan’s largest utility.

At the time, workers were racing to finish an unprecedented repair to address a dangerous defect: cracks in the drum-like steel assembly known as the “shroud” surrounding the radioactive core of the reactor.

But in 1997, the effort to save the 21-year-old reactor from being scrapped at a large loss to its operator, Tokyo Electric, also included a quiet effort to skirt Japan’s safety rules: foreign workers were brought in for the most dangerous jobs, a manager of the project said.

“It’s not well known, but I know what happened,” Kazunori Fujii, who managed part of the shroud replacement in 1997, told Reuters. “What we did would not have been allowed under Japanese safety standards.”

The previously undisclosed hiring of welders from the United States and Southeast Asia underscores the way Tokyo Electric, a powerful monopoly with deep political connections in Japan, outsourced its riskiest work and developed a lax safety culture in the years leading to the Fukushima disaster, experts say.

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FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN (Reuters) – A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis.

Then, as now, a small army of transient workers was put to work to try to stem the damage at the oldest nuclear reactor run by Japan’s largest utility.

At the time, workers were racing to finish an unprecedented repair to address a dangerous defect: cracks in the drum-like steel assembly known as the “shroud” surrounding the radioactive core of the reactor.

But in 1997, the effort to save the 21-year-old reactor from being scrapped at a large loss to its operator, Tokyo Electric, also included a quiet effort to skirt Japan’s safety rules: foreign workers were brought in for the most dangerous jobs, a manager of the project said.

“It’s not well known, but I know what happened,” Kazunori Fujii, who managed part of the shroud replacement in 1997, told Reuters. “What we did would not have been allowed under Japanese safety standards.”

The previously undisclosed hiring of welders from the United States and Southeast Asia underscores the way Tokyo Electric, a powerful monopoly with deep political connections in Japan, outsourced its riskiest work and developed a lax safety culture in the years leading to the Fukushima disaster, experts say.

A 9.0 earthquake on March 11 triggered a 15-meter tsunami that smashed into the seaside Fukushima Daiichi plant and set off a series of events that caused its reactors to start melting down.

TOKYO (Reuters) – The operator of Japan’s crisis-hit nuclear power plant said it started an operation to clean up radioactive water later on Friday, after several glitches that delayed the plan.

Large and growing pools of radioactive water were in danger of spilling into the sea within a week unless the plan got under way, officials had said earlier this week.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, known as Tepco, has pumped massive amounts of water to cool three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant that went into meltdown after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami disabled cooling systems.

But managing the radioactive water has become a major headache as the plant runs out of places to keep it. Around 110,000 tonnes of highly radioactive water — enough to fill 40 Olympic-size swimming pools — is stored at the plant.

Tepco, with help from French nuclear group Areva, U.S. firm Kurion and other companies, has been test-running a system in which radioactive water is decontaminated and re-used to cool the reactors.

But in a setback that delayed the plan by about a week it said water had leaked from a facility used to absorb caesium on Thursday.

Tepco official Junichi Matsumoto told reporters that the operator was aiming to use some of the cleaned water to cool the reactors within the next few days, which would not require the pumping in of fresh water.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s crisis-hit nuclear power plant could spill more radioactive water into the sea within a week unless engineers can fix a glitch in a new system to clean up growing pools of contaminated water, officials said.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, known as Tepco, has pumped massive amounts of water to cool three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant that went into meltdown after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disabled cooling systems.

But managing the radioactive water has become a major headache as the plant runs out of places to keep it. Around 110,000 metric tones of highly radioactive water — enough to fill 40 Olympic-size swimming pools — is stored at the plant.

Tepco, with help from French nuclear group Areva, U.S. firm Kurion and other companies, has been test-running a system in which radioactive water is decontaminated and re-used to cool the reactors.

In a setback, however, it said water had leaked from a facility used to absorb cesium on Thursday, although it hoped to replace equipment and start the decontamination process by the end of Friday as planned.

“We think we can start the system by tonight,” Tepco official Junichi Matsumoto told reporters.

If the treatment system does not work, the complex could run out of space to store contaminated water as early as June 20, and it could then spill into the sea, Tepco has said.

TOKYO, June 16 (Reuters) – Japan’s ruling party aims to raise corporate and income taxes to repay new government bonds for funding massive reconstruction needed after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The ruling Democratic Party (DPJ) is considering raising both taxes by around 10 percent, generating 1-2 trillion yen ($12-24 billion) in annual revenue to pay back borrowing for reconstruction over a decade, the Mainichi newspaper reported without citing a source.

The party will not use revenue from the sales tax to cover the reconstruction bonds, the paper said, as it wants to use that tax for growing social security costs and is already considering doubling it to 10 percent.

The government is trying to set the direction for Japan’s biggest rebuilding effort since the post World War Two period, estimated to cost over $300 billion, after the March disaster devastated the nation’s northeast coast.

Many lawmakers are wary of tax hikes, however, worrying they could alienate voters. Mounting calls for unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan to step down also make it unclear if the DPJ-led government could push tax hikes through parliament.

A nonpartisan group of 211 lawmakers said on Thursday they oppose tax hikes for reconstruction. Instead they urged the Bank of Japan to buy “reconstruction bonds” by boosting outright purchases of long-term government bonds from the market beyond the current 21.6 trillion yen ($267 billion).

“In principle we are against all kinds of tax hikes in the name of reconstruction. We can carry out reconstruction without resorting to a tax hike,” DPJ lawmaker Takeshi Miyazaki told reporters.

TOKYO, June 15 (Reuters) – Japan’s ruling party will extend a session of parliament to approve extra spending needed to rebuild areas ravaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, a party official said on Wednesday, although it is unclear if the bills will win support from a combative opposition.

The ruling Democratic Party (DPJ) is struggling to pass legislation in the parliament, where the opposition controls the upper house and has been blocking bills to try to force unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan to resign.

The party’s No. 2, Katsuya Okada, said it planned to submit a “compact” extra budget in mid-July, followed by a bigger extra budget later on, also for reconstruction. The party is looking at spending of around 2 trillion yen ($24.9 billion)in the next extra budget after a first budget double that size was approved in May, Jiji news agency quoted Okada as saying.

Kan ordered his cabinet ministers on Monday to compile an additional budget for submission next month.

“It would be unthinkable to close parliament and take a summer break while we are dealing with the disaster,” Okada, the DPJ secretary-general, said in a speech to a union group.

“We need a big extension of the parliament session to debate and pass necessary bills.”

Kan, in office for one year as Japan’s fifth prime minister in as many years, survived a no confidence vote early this month by promising to step down, though he did not say when. The pledge, however, failed to break a policy deadlock with the opposition, which refuses to cooperate with the Democrats as long as Kan stays on.

By Chisa Fujioka

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) – In Japan, where nature is believed to cleanse spirits, how do people cope when treasured mountains and oceans are tainted by leaks of radiation from a nuclear power plant?

Sokyu Genyu, a Buddhist priest from a temple just 45 km (28 miles) west of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeast Japan, is drawing attention to the less visible scars from the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

As a member of a government panel to come up with a blueprint for rebuilding after the deadly earthquake and tsunami on March 11, Genyu is adding the people’s voice — and a different view — to debate on dealing with the loss of homes, jobs and communities.

“We need to treat the situation in areas affected by radiation separately,” said Genyu, head priest of the Fukujuji Temple and also an award-winning author, told Reuters.

“It’s not just about getting compensation.”

His small town of Miharu has welcomed thousands of residents who have evacuated from around the nuclear plant, still leaking radiation after being struck by the tsunami.

TOKYO, June 6 (Reuters) – Japanese voters want the ruling party to form a coalition with its main rival instead of governing on its own, a poll showed on Monday, as pressure mounted on Prime Minister Naoto Kan to quit.

Kan’s early exit would ease the way for a coalition with the main opposition party that could enact a bill enabling Japan to issue more debt to fund this year’s $1 trillion budget.

A coalition between the ruling Democratic Party (DPJ) and the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) could also pass an extra budget to pay for rebuilding parts of the northeast devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami which killed about 24,000 people and triggered the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

In a poll by the Mainichi newspaper, 36 percent of voters said they wanted a coalition of the two biggest parties once Kan steps down. Only 13 percent favoured a government led by the ruling DPJ. The same percentage wanted a government led by the opposition LDP.

A further 33 percent said they would favour another form of government. This generally refers to a realignment of parties or support for the handful of smaller groupings in parliament.

Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of influential business lobby Nippon Keidanren, also urged the formation of a coalition.

Kan, already unpopular before the quake struck, has seen his ratings fall due to his perceived mishandling of the recovery and continuing radiation leaks at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, where the tsunami knocked out reactor cooling systems.