TOKYO, May 11 (Kyodo) — Japan's electric power industry body has used terms unsupported by nuclear experts to describe the current state of reactors at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi power plant in a pamphlet it is offering to the public.
The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan says the three reactors suffering core meltdowns are "under cold shutdown," a term used for normal suspension of reactors, which does not apply to reactors where meltdowns have occurred, according to nuclear experts.
The Japanese government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. created a new term "a state of cold shutdown" during efforts to bring the reactors under control, and the government declared last December that the plant has been brought to that stable state.
The pamphlet, titled "Consensus 2012" and formulated in March, says the plant's No. 1 reactor was brought to cold shutdown last July or later, the No. 2 reactor last October or later and the No. 3 reactor last September or later, not December as declared by the government.
The government issued its declaration after assessing the whole situation of the plant, while the federation assessed each of the troubled reactors, the industry body said.
The federation, comprising Japan's 10 regional power companies, said it used the term "cold shutdown" to have the same meaning as the government's "state of cold shutdown."
But experts have questioned the use of the term "cold shutdown," noting that exact conditions remain unknown in the damaged reactors which remain unstable and continue leaking water contaminated with radioactive substances.
At the outset, the pamphlet, available on the federation's website, says the Fukushima Daiichi power plant has already been brought to cold shutdown, using the same description with that for Tohoku Electric Power Co.'s Onagawa plant and Japan Atomic Power Co.'s Tokai plant where, unlike the TEPCO plant, the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami did not trigger a nuclear accident.
