© n/a
According to a science journalist well versed in the matter, Tepco is afraid that if the earthquake were to be determined as the direct cause of the accident, the government would have to review its quake-resistance standards completely, which in turn would delay by years the resumption of the operation of existing nuclear power stations that are suspended currently due to regular inspections.
The journalist is Mitsuhiko Tanaka, formerly with Babcock-Hitachi K.K. as an engineer responsible for designing the pressure vessel for the No. 4 reactor at the ill-fated Fukushima nuclear plant.
He says if the earthquake caused the damage to the plumbing, leading to a "loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA)" in which vaporized coolant gushed into the containment building from the damaged piping, an entirely new problem - "vulnerability to earthquake resistance of the nuclear reactor's core structure" - would surface and that this will require a total review of the government's safety standards for nuclear power plants in Japan, which is quite frequently hit by earthquakes.
Comment: The EU using flawed science and emotional manipulation to push for greater control in the affairs of economies posing a threat to the collapsing Eurozone economies (who, hypocritically, have quite happily been polluting and destroying the environment since the Industrial revolution started).