Brief it was, but the plan to protect Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant from a tsunami was certainly not to the point. TEPCO, the plant’s operator, ruled out the possibility of tsunami damage in a one-page memo filed to the Japanese regulator a decade ago, the . The plant made headlines in March when it was damaged by a tsunami that followed a magnitude 9.0 quake.
Such an omission is “clearly absurd”, says at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London – especially given Fukushima’s location on an earthquake-prone coast.
As a result of events at Fukushima, Germany this week announced plans to close all 17 of its nuclear reactors by 2022. It will make up the power shortfall through – although Stephan Köhler, head of Germany’s energy agency, warned last year that over-reliance on intermittent solar power might crash Germany’s grid.
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