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http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/hinte ... -1.1071229
Inglorious past
In the Japanese Fukushima nuclear power plant, an explosion occurred. The fear of a worst-case scenario is there. What is a nuclear power plant? Who are the users? It is a group that wanted to cover up several affairs.
The complex of the nuclear power plant Fukushima is one of the largest in Japan. The power plant consists of a total of six reactors, two more are planned. The Fukushima nuclear power plant 1, which was damaged in the earthquake the worst, began operation 40 years ago.
The problem was reactor according to reports from an international nuclear power plant here just before the closure. The Unit 1 of Fukushima One pile should stop in this month's operational and a database of the Nuclear Research Centre Training Centre (ICJT) in Slovenia known as the "expected date of closure," the March 2011. The construction of the reactor block began, according to the World Nuclear Association on 31 July 1967, the line of work was the U.S. company General Electric. On 17 November 1970 was the boiling water reactor to the grid.
The reactor 1 is the oldest of the current six reactor units of the Nuclear power plant Fukushima one. The blocks 2 to 6 were built from 1974 to 1979 and two more blocks are planned. Eleven kilometers south of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima Fukushima One Two with four reactors that were built by 1982 to 1987.
The operator of the severely damaged Japanese nuclear power plant is noticed in the past by various scandals. In 2002 had the then-chief Tepco and four other managers to resign because Japan largest energy producer fell under suspicion of having falsified maintenance documents. The peak forces took over with the resignation of the responsibility for the affair. Five reactors, including reactors had the accident, temporarily from the network. TEPCO is the largest private nuclear power plant operators. At that time the company had shut down all 17 reactors for safety checks. TEPCO had to admit that over the years reports of cracks in its reactors, including been covered up in the steel casing of the reactor core, were. 2006, the group was alleged to have falsified data on the cooling water temperature in the years 1985 and 1988.
It is not the first time that Japanese nuclear facilities of concern, always it came in the last 15 years in serious incidents. The resource-poor Japan to win 30 percent of its electricity from the nation's 54 nuclear power plants. For the construction of the facilities are very strict rules, also with regard to earthquake safety. Opposition to the Nuclear power in Japan, however strong.
First, the country is still traumatized by the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, in which the destructive power of nuclear weapons was clear. But numerous accidents in which hundreds of people were exposed to radiation and killed several people, and lack of transparency of the operators, the distrust of nuclear power have fueled.
In September 1999 it came in the reprocessing plant at Tokaimura worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Workers steel buckets filled with an excessive amount of uranium into a processing tank, setting off from an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction. Two people died, 600 were contaminated with radiation. Only two months previously leaked in Tsuruga 80 tons of radioactively contaminated cooling water from the primary circuit of the system. As early as 1997, a fire in Tokaimura 37 people have been contaminated with radiation. In August 2004, four workers died when the Mihama nuclear power plant, hot steam leaked - the 59th Anniversary of the atomic attack on Nagasaki.
Technical details of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO):
Commissioning: 1971
Capacity: six nuclear reactors performance. The six reactors have a rated output of more than 4000 (4.696 MW) MW of electricity. This is a good third more than the largest German plant Gundremmingen.
Type: Fukushima is a boiling-water reactor: Creating The fuel rods in the reactor pressure vessel steam that drives turbines. Unlike the pressurized water reactor there is only one water circuit, which simplifies the construction. As the engine house is directly connected with the turbines, radioactivity is passed to it. The engine house can be entered so in operation is limited. Boiling water reactors in Germany, the nuclear power stations Brunsbüttel, crumb and Phillipsburg.
Location: directly on the Pacific coast in the town of Okuma in Fukushima Prefecture Futaba district. In the prefecture, which is slightly smaller than that of Schleswig-Holstein, are about two million people.
Distance from Tokyo: about 250 kilometers (north).
Size: The plant covers 3.5 square kilometers.
Building: Power plants were built on solid rock.
