福島第１原発第４号機：元日立技師の告発？

Bloomberg 英語版に出ていた記事です。Bloomgergの東京駐在の記者が書いたことになっています。

元日立製作所で、福島第１原発第４号機の格納容器を設計した（と記事の最初の方で言って置きながら、後のほうでは格納容器になっています。まあ両方やったんでしょうか）技師、田中三彦さんの地震後の談話と、この方が１９９０年にお書きになった本をベースにした記事のようです。

田中さんによると、第４号機の圧力容器の最終仕上げ（摂氏６００度に加熱）を広島の呉工場で行っていたときに何かの手違いで圧力容器の内側を支えるはずだった支持棒を入れ忘れるか外れたかのどちらかで、圧力容器が炉から出てきたときに変形してしまっていた、本来廃棄処分にすべきものだったのに、日立はそれを東電には内緒で、変形をどうにか叩き直して納品した、とのことです。東電が見に来るとシートで覆い隠し、後はゴルフ温泉の接待でごまかした、と言っています。

廃棄処分にしたら、数百億円の商売が潰れ、日立は倒産していただろう、と田中さんは言います。

もし東電の人が見ても、多分何も分からなかったろう、とも。電力会社の人は、発電機のパーツがどうなっているのかなどは知らない、と田中さんは言っています。（ははは。）

リンクはゼロヘッジから取りましたが、ゼロヘッジのTyler Durdenが言うような「内部告発」、というわけではなさそうです。何しろ田中さんは１９９０年から第４号機には問題あり、と言い続けていらっしゃるわけですから。

Bloombergの記者が今ひとつ理解していないんじゃないかと思われる書きぶりですが、まあその辺は日本の記者が原発のことを書いてはいるけれど今ひとつ理解していなさそうなのと同じようなことかも知れません。

さて、第３号機と第５号機を設計製作したのは東芝ですねえ。東芝製の原子炉の「内部告発」もあるのかな？

Fukushima Engineer Says He Covered Up Flaw at Shut Reactor
By Jason Clenfield - Mar 22, 2011 5:54 PM PT

One of the reactors in the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant may have been relying on flawed steel to hold the radiation in its core, according to an engineer who helped build its containment vessel four decades ago.

Mitsuhiko Tanaka says he helped conceal a manufacturing defect in the $250 million steel vessel installed at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 4 reactor while working for a unit of Hitachi Ltd. (6501) in 1974. The reactor, which Tanaka has called a “time bomb,” was shut for maintenance when the March 11 earthquake triggered a 7-meter (23-foot) tsunami that disabled cooling systems at the plant, leading to explosions and radiation leaks.

“Who knows what would have happened if that reactor had been running?” Tanaka, who turned his back on the nuclear industry after the Chernobyl disaster, said in an interview last week. “I have no idea if it could withstand an earthquake like this. It’s got a faulty reactor inside.”

Tanaka’s allegations, which he says he brought to the attention of Japan’s Trade Ministry in 1988 and chronicled in a book two years later called “Why Nuclear Power is Dangerous,” have resurfaced after Japan’s worst nuclear accident on record. The No. 4 reactor was hit by explosions and a fire that spread from adjacent units as the crisis deepened.

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Fukushima No. 4

Tanaka says the reactor pressure vessel inside Fukushima’s unit No. 4 was damaged at a Babcock-Hitachi foundry in Kure City, in Hiroshima prefecture, during the last step of a manufacturing process that took 2 1/2 years and cost tens of millions of dollars. If the mistake had been discovered, the company might have been bankrupted, he said.

Inside a blast furnace the size of a small airplane hanger the reactor pressure vessel was being treated one last time to remove welding stress. The cylinder, 20 meters tall and 6 meters in diameter, was heated to more than 600 degrees Celsius (1,112 degrees Fahrenheit), a temperature that softens metal.

Braces that were supposed to have been placed inside during the blasting were either forgotten or fell over when the cylinder was wheeled into the furnace. After the vessel cooled, workers found that its walls had warped, Tanaka said.

Warped Walls

The vessel had sagged so that its height and width differed by more than 34 millimeters, meaning it should have been scrapped, according to nuclear regulations. Rather than sacrifice years of work and risk the company’s survival, Tanaka’s boss asked him to reshape the vessel so that no-one would know it had ever been damaged. Tanaka had been working as an engineer for the company’s nuclear reactor division and was known for his programming skills.

“I saved the company billions of yen,” said Tanaka, who says he was paid a 3 million yen bonus and presented with a certificate acknowledging his “extraordinary” effort. “At the time, I felt like a hero,” he said.

Over the course of a month, Tanaka said he made a dozen nighttime trips to an International Business Machines Corp. office 20 kilometers away in Hiroshima where he used a super- computer to devise a repair.

Meanwhile, workers covered the damaged vessel with a sheet, Tanaka said. When Tokyo Electric sent a representative to check on their progress, Hitachi distracted him by wining and dining him, according to Tanaka. Rather than inspecting the part, they spent the day playing golf and soaking in a hot spring, he said.
Wining and Dining

“The guy wouldn’t have known what he was looking at anyway,” Tanaka said. “The people at the utility have no idea how the parts are made.”