I Want For You To Know What Kind Of Thing A Genpatsu (Nuclear Power Plant) Is - Part VI

By: Norio Hirai（平井 憲夫）

1996

VI. Routine Inspections Also By Novices

It is a fixed rule that after annual operation, a genpatsu must be stopped and have routine inspections conducted. An enormous amount of barometric pressure (ranging from 70 – 150) is applied to a nuclear reactor. The water or shall I say boiling water in it’s pipes have temperatures of up to 300°C and because the water and steam rapidly rush through, some sections of the piping degrade to half the thickness. Degraded pipes and valves of the sort need to be repaired but in doing so you are accompanied with radioactive exposure.

Once a genpatsu is run, it fills up with radiation and inside people are being showered by the radiation as they work. Prior to entering such a site, you need to take all clothes off, and change into protective clothing. Protective clothing sounds like a kind of suit that will protect you from radioactivity, but it doesn’t. That is because an alarm meter for measuring the amount of radiation is attached to the vest of the protective clothing. In other words, the protective clothes are only a working uniform so the worker does not carry radioactivity outside. It is not something to protect the workers against radiation. When work is done and you’re ready to exit, you wear only a pair of underpants to test whether you have been exposed or not. If radioactivity is present on the body, i.e., an external exposure, you shower thoroughly until the radioactivity measures zero, then finally you may exit.

Then you’ve got the safety shoes. These are not safety shoes that comfortably suit individual sizes, your feet the most important body part for the job, are not steady. In addition, to prevent from breathing in radioactivity, you wear a full-faced mask and so on. You enter the site in this kind of attire because you work while worrying about radioactivity; in fact, there is no way to do a good job in the genpatsu. It is totally remote compared to the common workplace.

More than 95% of the workers, as described previously, are complete novices. There are farmers and fishermen who work at genpatsus when they have spare time during the winter. These workers with zero experience go about working inside genpatsus without knowing the fears at all.

For instance, while tightening bolts I instruct them to “Tighten the bolts diagonally, or else leaks will happen.” The workplace is a radiation-controlled environment, so it’s full of radioactivity, the worst place. You attach an alarm meter upon entering the site, because depending on the locations, the amount of radiation differs, and the time when you can work is different. The schedule has everything worked out to the minute.

Before entering the site, the work and time of the day is determined by the amount of radioactivity permissible for a single person per day; in the site you can work for 20 minutes, when the 20 minutes is up, the alarm meter rings. So you give them instructions “When the alarm meter rings, please leave the site.” but there is no clock onsite. If you enter with a wristwatch, it will be contaminated with radioactivity, so you rely on your internal clock.

So while tightening bolts around the reactor, you think that maybe 10 minutes passed or maybe 15; that’s all you start thinking of. Also, the sound of the alarm, it makes this outrageous sound. If heard for the first time, you’ll be terrified feeling like the blood is being pulled out of your head. Only the ones that have experienced this sound can relate. When this sound goes off, if compared to x-rays, would be like getting zapped a dozen times at once.  Anyhow, getting back to the tightening of bolts… Even if instructed to tighten bolts diagonally, they end up not doing so and just think tightening will do, resulting in sloppiness… Then, what will happen?

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Will continue… 7-11/21