Monday, October 16, 2017

Was Flawed Kobe Steel Used in Construction of Japan's Troubled Rokkasho Plant?

Japan's Rokkasho plant has been under construction for years. Despite delayed time-lines, sky-rocketing costs, and a potentially active fault running under the site, the LDP has insisted on moving forward with Rokkasho, which will be one of the largest nuclear fuel "reprocessing" plants in the world (see Wikipedia).

Many nuclear authorities have called for the Rokkasho plant to be abandoned because Japan already has enough "reprocessed" plutonium to fuel MOX and nuclear warheads far into the future, as illustrated in this article:
Plutonium and Japan’s Nuclear Waste Problem: International Scientists Call for an End to Plutonium Reprocessing and Closing the Rokkasho Plant by Piers Williamson


... Prof. von Hippel concluded [his presentation on March 31, 2012] by making four suggestions:

1) Japan should end its breeder reactor programme. . . ."
The LDP in Japan refuses to halt the Rokkasho project because it has been explicitly linked to "national security," as I document and explain at this post:
Reprocessing nuclear fuel is very dangerous and so it is alarming to read that Rokkasho's operator has been routinely skipping safety checks for 14 years:
Japan Nuclear Fuel skipped safety checks at Rokkasho plant for 14 years ( Oct 12, 2017), The Japan Times,

Nuclear regulators concluded Wednesday that Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. violated legally binding safety rules by failing to conduct necessary checks for over a decade at its uncompleted spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the country’s northeast….

….The envisioned nuclear fuel reprocessing plant is a key component of the government’s nuclear fuel recycle policy, which aims to reprocess spent uranium and reuse extracted plutonium and uranium as reactor fuel….

… The authority also said holes and cracks at exhaust pipes found at Japan Nuclear Fuel’s uranium enrichment plant in September also violated safety rules. The defects had been undetected due to a lack of inspections.
Alarm is amplified when one considers the possibility that construction materials used at Rokkasho could be sub-standard given recently disclosed reports that Kobe Steel has been providing falsified quality certificates for steel sold for construction of NUCLEAR REACTORS, as reported widely in the media:
Leo Lewis and Emiko Terazono (2017, October 15). Kobe Steel scandal strikes another blow to Japan Inc. The Financial Times,

The most unsettling aspect of Kobe Steel’s data falsification scandal is not the scale of wrongdoing — more than 500 customers globally have so far been affected and the risk of litigation could crush the company’s finances — but the problem of familiarity, according to legal and academic experts. Kobe Steel’s self-discovered and self-declared crisis arises from selling materials used in planes, cars, rockets, trains and nuclear reactors with falsified quality certificates.
Reuters is reporting that steel with falsified quality certificates was delivered at Fukushima Daiini:
Yuka Obayashi October 15, 2017 As crisis at Kobe Steel deepens, CEO says cheating engulfs 500 firms. Reuters,

Nuclear power plant parts are the latest to join the list of affected equipment as Fukushima nuclear operator Tokyo Electric Power (9501.T) (Tepco) said on Friday it had taken delivery of pipes from Kobe Steel that were not checked properly.

The pipes were delivered to its Fukushima Daini station, located near the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi plant, but have not been used, Tepco said, adding it was checking all its facilities.

One wonders how much sub-standard fuel is built into the world's nuclear infrastructures?

My guess is that Japan is not alone in producing and disseminating sub-standard steel. For example, you can read here how counterfeit construction material has been "flooding" the US market for years (here).

The risks of nuclear are far higher than represented and now it appears that they are even higher.


  1. It is amazing, that the Japanese people allow the LDP and Komeito, to stay in power. The amount of contamination in most of Japan, can be extrapolated from Marco Kaltofen's data. The contamination is worse than that faced by the most elite Chernobyl- russian scientists and soldiers, closest to the elephant foot.

    There were thousands of them. They all died within 5-seven years after an average 6 months to a year exposure.

    Let us look at areas of tokyo and yokohama, that have as much or more than 600 bq/kg radioactive, cesium contaminations. Places where it is ubiquitous.

    6 months in most of northwest and central Japan, will insure a terrible death in 5-7 years. Japan is a land of half ghosts. Perhaps that is why they are so crazy and stupid, as to let the same criminals, stay in power. The same criminals, who allow and persue these dirty deeds.

  2. Forget the loser Trumpbots and conspiracy bot minions at enenews. They are controlled nihilist bots. Could care less about ending nuclear weapons or shutting-down all nuclear reactors.
    This is what really happened in vegas.
    I went to school with the vegas shooter. By Greg Palast

    " Steve’s brain was too big to end up on the tracks. He lived in empty apartments in crappy buildings he bought, then in a barren tract house outside Reno. I laugh when they say he was “rich.” He wanted to be THEM, to have their stuff. He got close.

    It’s reported that Steve was a “professional gambler.” That’s another laugh. He was addicted to numbing his big brain by sitting 14 hours a day in the dark in front of video poker machines. He was a loser. Have you ever met a gambler who said they were a Professional Loser?

    It’s fair to ask me: Why didn’t I end up in a hotel room with a bump-stock AR-15 and 5,000 rounds of high velocity bullets?

    Because I have a job, a career, an OBSESSION: to hunt down THEM, the daddy-pampered pricks who did this to us, the grinning billionaire jackals that make a profit off the slow decomposition of the lives I grew up with.

    But I’m telling you, that I know it’s a very fine line, and lots of crazy luck, that divided my path from Paddock’s."

  3. It is a crime, that the corporate-political-propaganda bots, the chat bots, and the conspiracy bots, have chased away, so many thoughtful commentors. They have been doing this for years on the enenews site.

  4. The Japanese are only doing what their American Overlords, have done for years. Build monster death-projects in the name of national security. Then lie about it, and do anything, to justify the massive criminal ruse.

  5. Trump: such a great man. Putting all of mericans tax money into funding a bloted military. He is putting even more money into the nuclear security state. Pushing Iran and North Korea to the brink of nuclear war. Not so sure, there will be a 2018 or 2019. Probably Abe will not get his 2020 Olympic Games. We live in a demented world run by evil idiots.

  6. Have you ever noticed, how so many home-schooled millenials never leave home? Live with mommy and daddy. Creepy Duggars stuff.