Not losing to the rain

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With all of the disarray in the nuclear village of Japan, there had to be a story of someone doing something right. I finally found one: Tōhoku Electric Power Company, called Tōho Den, which is located in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, which runs the Onagawa nuclear power plant.

Why did the Onagawa NPP survive the disaster of March 11? It experienced the highest ground shaking of all of the NPP in Japan and also survived a 13m tsunami.

The story begins in 1968 when Hirai Yanosuke joined the costal planning committee for the construction of the Onagawa NPP. Hirai-san was a former VP at Tōho Den and a former head of technology research at the Central Research Institute of the Electric Power Industry. He died in 1986.

Hirai-san was apparently the only person on the entire project to push for the 14.8-meter breakwater. Many of his colleagues said that 12 meters would be sufficient, and they derided Hirai-san’s proposal as excessive. Hirai-san’s authority and drive, however, eventually prevailed, and Tōhoku Electric spent the extra money to build the 14.8m tsunami wall. Some 40 years later, on March 11, 2011, the 13m tsunami struck the coast at Onagawa. Continue reading →

There Will Always Be Accidents

Accidents are exactly that: Accidents. As we have seen from technical disasters from Chernobyl to the Space Shuttle to Deepwater Horizon,  and now Fukushima Daiichi, when complex systems are impacted by a never before imagined sequence of individual failures, catastrophic consequences may result.

Accidents, almost by definition, cannot be avoided. In fact, research shows that the safer a system is made, the more vigilant and well trained are the operators, when an accident does occur, it will be catastrophic.

Safety cannot be measured by an absence of accidents, which is largely dependent on luck. Safety is the result of constant, active identification of hazards and their elimination. Near misses are not testimonials to safe practices.

We cannot stop all accidents. But we can minimize their impact on human life, property, the environment, and to livelihoods with knowledge.

Risk assessments will give you that knowledge.

At woody.com, we can find the best consultants in the world to do technical risk assessments for nuclear, oil and gas, chemical, and natural hazard risk projects.

We have contacts with the best probabilistic risk analysis and probabilistic safety consultants: professionals who understand uncertainty and provide you with risk management programs to make sure that your facilities are safe.