[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 38 (Monday, March 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1584-S1586]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRAGEDY IN JAPAN
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I want to take a minute to say what
came to my mind over the weekend about Japan. Prime Minister Kan of
Japan described this earthquake and tsunami as the worst thing to
happen to Japan since World War II.
I suppose what struck me and struck probably a lot of other Americans
was, of course, Japan and the United States were at war with each other
in World War II. Today, the U.S.-Japanese relationship is extremely
close. I believe
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we don't have a better, more steadfast ally in Asia than the Japanese
people. It is part of why I hope the people of Japan understand that
the people of the United States are with them at this moment in which
they suffer so from this natural disaster, and we will do everything we
can to help them.
They are a proud people, but now they can't handle this all alone. We
want to help them. We are a proud people. I want to share with my
colleagues a conversation I had with the gentleman who was serving in
the American Embassy in Tokyo at the time of Hurricane Katrina. He told
me yesterday the Japanese people lined up outside our embassy in Tokyo
after they heard about, watched films of Hurricane Katrina, to offer
help, whatever they could offer. One private citizen of Japan,
unannounced, arrived at the embassy and wrote out a private check for
$1 million for Hurricane Katrina relief. This is the closeness of the
relationship.
I hope and I am confident we will be as supportive of the Japanese
people as they respond to this earthquake and tsunami and rebuild as
they were to the people of the gulf coast in America in the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blumenthal). The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, as the Senator from Arizona and the
Senator from Connecticut have done eloquently in their ways, I wish to
express on behalf of the people of Tennessee to the people of Japan our
sympathy for the devastation they have experienced.
I applaud the administration and the American people for their
immediate response to offer assistance, charitable aid, and search and
rescue teams to find survivors. There is no more important two-country
alliance than that of Japan and the United States. The former
Ambassador Mike Mansfield used to teach that to all of us younger
Governors during the eighties and nineties. We will stand with the
people of Japan until they recover from this disaster.
There is a special relationship between the Japanese and Tennesseans
because of the location of so many Japanese industries in our State
over the last 30 years. As a result, Tennesseans have been reaching out
to our friends and their families in Japan.
We should also commend the Japanese for their courage they have shown
in dealing with the devastation and in particular with their level-
headed response to the damage at their nuclear reactors at Fukushima
Daiichi. In this age when instant communication can sometimes create
misinformation and even panic, the Japanese leadership and nuclear
scientists are working with organizations from around the world in
responding to the danger and keeping the rest of the world informed.
This is the largest earthquake in Japan's recorded history--30 times
more forceful than the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and 700 times
stronger than the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. While the risk is by no
means over and the events in Japan continue to evolve, the reactor
safety systems so far appear to have done their job in withstanding the
earthquake, tsunami, power loss, and explosions, and no other reactor
containment structures seem to have been breached in these worst-case
situations. The lessons that America can take away from this tragedy
are this: Learn all we can from the Japanese experience to make the
operation of American reactors as safe as possible.
Since the 1950s, the U.S. Navy has safely traveled more than 136
million miles on nuclear power. Today, 104 civilian reactors produce 20
percent of America's electricity and 70 percent of our clean
electricity. That is without sulfur, without nitrogen, without mercury,
or without carbon. No one has ever died from a nuclear accident at any
of our commercial or Navy reactors.
Let me say that again. No one has ever died from a reactor accident
at one of our Navy or commercial reactors.
Without nuclear power, it is hard to imagine how the United States
could produce enough cheap, reliable, clean electricity to keep our
economy moving and keep our jobs from going overseas.
Here is what we know about what has happened in Japan. We have all
seen the video of the explosion of the building at Daiichi unit 1, now
unit 3. I am sure many of us have thought those were reactors
exploding. Fortunately, that is not what happened. A buildup of
hydrogen gas in the secondary containment structures led to explosions
which destroyed the buildings themselves but the primary containment
structures inside appear not to have been compromised. To reduce the
resulting increase in containment pressure, a relatively small amount
of radioactive vapor has been dispersed into the atmosphere.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company has told us that the highest level
of radiation detected onsite to date is 155.7 millirem per hour, and
that has since been reduced to 4.4 millirem per hour. But what does
that mean in regard to human exposure risk? To help put that in
perspective, here are a couple of facts. The average American receives
about 300 millirem of radiation exposure each year from naturally
occurring sources, such as the Sun, and another 300 millirem of
radiation exposure from medical applications, such as CT scans and x
rays.
What did happen after the earthquake is that the ensuing tsunami
crippled the backup electrical generators and batteries needed to keep
cooling water circulating in the plants after they had been safely shut
down. This ultimately led to use of the last line of defense emergency
core cooling system--flooding the entire containment vessel with
seawater. While this pretty much assures that the reactors will not
ever be used again, as long as the seawater continues to be pumped in,
the possibilities of further damage ought to be halted.
People have been evacuated and authorities are taking every
precaution, and that, of course, is what we wish to see. Despite one of
the largest earthquakes in the world's history, with accompanying
tsunamis, fires, and aftershocks--multiple disasters compounded one on
top of the other--the primary containment at reactors near the
epicenter appears not to have been breached and the radioactive venting
appears to have been controlled and minimal.
This experience has brought back memories of the 1979 accident at
Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Although we remember Three Mile
Island as the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, it is also
important to remember that no one was hurt at Three Mile Island. As I
said before, there has never been a death resulting from a commercial
nuclear accident in American history. What happened at Three Mile
Island was basically an operator failure. A valve failed, and when the
automatic safety mechanism kicked in, the operators overrode it because
they became confused by the number of alarms.
Three Mile Island completely changed the American nuclear industry.
The Kemeny Commission, appointed by President Carter, analyzed the
problems and made many recommendations, almost all of which have been
put into practice. The valve that started the whole thing had failed
nine times, but the manufacturer tried to keep it a secret. People in
the nuclear industry then did not talk to each other. Now safety is a
top priority of the nuclear industry. The Institute of Nuclear Power
Operations collectively shares best practices to achieve the highest
levels of safety, as well as reliability. Nuclear operators train for 5
years before they can take over in the control room. They spend 1 week
out of every 5 to 6 weeks in a simulator honing their skills. The
nuclear companies have special emergency teams that can be dispatched
anywhere in the country at a moment's notice. A Nuclear Regulatory
Commission inspector practically lives onsite. What is more, every
reactor in the country is on the hook for $112 million if something
goes wrong at another reactor. As one can imagine, they watch each
other very carefully.
I have talked with any number of Navy veterans who had experience
with nuclear commands. One reason I am confident there have not been
any nuclear reactor accidents in the nuclear Navy that killed anyone
over the last half century is because the responsibility for the safety
of that reactor goes right up to the captain of the vessel.
It was not the same at Chernobyl, the infamous 1986 Soviet accident.
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Chernobyl involved 60 immediate deaths and radiation exposures that,
according to the World Health Organization, may eventually result in
4,000 cancers. But Chernobyl was a completely different kind of
accident and the result of different technology.
More than that, the Soviets had not built a containment structure at
Chernobyl. The containment structures at these Japanese reactors--40 to
80 inches thick concrete and steel--appear, as we speak this afternoon,
to have withstood an 8.9 magnitude earthquake, tsunami, power failure,
and explosion.
There are gas and oil fires raging in Japan. Water and sewer systems
are damaged. The possibility of disease and starvation is imminent.
There are a great many things to worry about in addition to the
problems with the Japanese reactors. There are tens of thousands of
people still unaccounted for. Right now, the effort needs to be helping
those who need help, containing further damage and risk, and getting
Japan back up and running again. Then we can take the lessons learned
from this earthquake and tsunami and apply them to make our nuclear
plants as safe as possible and help the world do the same.
America's 104 nuclear reactors provide, as I mentioned earlier, 20
percent of our electricity, 70 percent of our clean electricity. Japan
has 54 reactors and gets 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear.
France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. The
United States invented nuclear power, but the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has not issued a construction license for a new reactor in
more than 30 years. There are 65 reactors under construction around the
world. However, only one of those 65 is in the United States, and that
is the construction of a previously halted project by the Tennessee
Valley Authority.
The Japanese and the French have surged into the lead in terms of
nuclear power and are now being challenged by Korea and Russia on the
international market. China, with 27 nuclear reactors currently under
construction, will soon join them all.
Nuclear power today provides about 15 percent of the world's
electricity. While there are always risks with every form of energy, it
is important that we be clear about the risks each type of energy
poses. But it is also important to remember that we do not abandon
highway systems because bridges and overpasses collapse during
earthquakes. The 1.6 million of us who fly daily would not stop flying
after a tragic airplane crash. We cannot stop drilling after a tragic
oilspill unless we want to rely more on foreign oil, run up our prices,
turn our oil drilling over to a few big oil companies and all our oil
hauling over to more leaky tankers. Mr. President, 34,000 people die in
motor vehicle accidents every year, but we do not stop driving because
we have to get our children to school and ourselves to work. In all of
these cases, when there are accidents, we do our best to examine the
tragedies and make our continued operation and our lives as safe as
possible. That is what we need to do here.
Our reactors in the United States are built to the highest standards
in the world. The Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in
a press briefing today:
Right now we believe that the nuclear powerplants in this
country operate safely and securely.
The Chairman said:
Nuclear powerplants in the United States are designed to
very high standards for earthquake effects. All our plants
are designed to withstand significant natural phenomena, like
earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis. We will take whatever steps
are necessary to ensure the safety and security of nuclear
powerplants in the country. But right now, we believe we have
a very strong program in place.
``As we get more information from Japan,'' said the Chairman of the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ``as this immediate crisis
ultimately comes to an end, we will look at whatever information we can
gain from this event and see if there are any changes we need to make
in our system.''
The Deputy Secretary of Energy said:
Nuclear power has been a critical component of the United
States energy portfolio.
The White House press secretary, on behalf of President Obama, said:
Nuclear power remains a part of the President's overall
energy plan.
Despite the fact that there has never been a death as a result of the
operation of a commercial American reactor or in our nuclear Navy,
which has been using reactors in its ships and submarines since the
1950s, our goal should be to continue every effort to try to make
certain the operation of our existing and new nuclear powerplants are
as safe as possible.
For example, some have suggested that so-called passive cooling
systems that operate on natural convection could prevent the problems
that arose in Japan when the backup power to pump water was lost.
Nuclear power is a demanding but manageable technology. As we move
forward, let us learn the proper lessons from this Japanese experience
to make sure that in the United States and in the world, we are even
better prepared for the unexpected events of the future.
I thank the Chair, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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