Amid nuclear crisis, Japan’s Tepco planned new reactors

[Playinghardball]

Source: Washington Post
By Andrew Higgins

FUKUSHIMA, Japan — Even as it struggled to contain the the world’s worst nuclear disaster in a quarter-century, Tokyo Electric Power Co. late last month quietly set out big plans for the future: It proposed building two new nuclear reactors at its radiation-spewing Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

Tokyo Electric, known as Tepco, informed Fukushima prefecture on March 26 of its desire to start building the reactors as early as next spring, local officials said. That was just two weeks after an explosion at the utility’s tsunami-crippled complex set off a cascade of catastrophes.

The proposal was then included in a formal report submitted to authorities in Tokyo on March 31 as part of an annual process designed to assess Japan’s future electricity supply.

Read more at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/amid_nuclear_crisis_japans_tepco_planned_new_reactors/2011/04/05/AFtBbfkC_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage

[LiberalEsto]

1. I wouldn't give TEPCO a permit to sell candy

Somehow they'd manage to irradiate the lollipops.

[Generic Other]

2. My question: Who will be dead first? The plan or all the residents?

This is a disgrace. One idea they could have put on the backburner for now. Oh, I forgot the backburner is melting down!

[aquart]

3. Really? 5 and 6 are destabilizing or whatever you call it.

http://solarimg.org/?p=1053

Fukushima Daiichi Reactors 5-6 Stability Under Threat 04.04.11

[crickets]

4. Unbelievable.

Hubris, thy name is TEPCO.

Nozaki met the head of Tepco’s local branch and told him “we definitely cannot accept” the building of new reactors. A Tepco team from Tokyo was given the same “no way” message. The electricity company, said Nozaki, was told by prefectural officials “to sort out problems on the ground first and stop thinking about new reactors.”

Tokyo Electric pressed on, declining to alter its plans and submitting them to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, or METI, in Tokyo.

Being told "no" twice wasn't enough?

Tepco announced last week that four reactors at the center of the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi will never go back into service. At the same time, it submitted its report to METI that included a proposed timetable for constructing and commissioning two reactors — No. 7 and No. 8 — at the same complex.

“We regret that we submitted the report as it was, considering the feelings of the local residents in Fukushima,” said Hiro Hasegawa, a Tepco spokesman in Tokyo..

Never mind the fact that the reactor site and surrounding areas have been rendered uninhabitable...

Wow, it's hard to imagine a more serious disconnect with reality.