Summary of Comments Made at a Press Conference by Hiroshi Araki, FEPC Chairman, 13 November 1998.
Today, I would like to comment on two points: how to deal with the
issue of tampered data related to the manufacturing of spent fuel
casks, and electricity demand this winter.
To begin with, I would like to describe the measures we have taken to deal with the issue of spent fuel cask data tampering.
As I stated at the October press conference, it is extremely unfortunate that data tampering occurred in a production process requiring the strictest quality control. The incident caused a great deal of concern and trouble for all of us in the industry, and to residents of the areas in which nuclear power plants are located. The result has been a loss of confidence in the entire nuclear power production process. I cannot stress enough how unfortunate this is.
This incident in question occurred shortly after the shipment of spent fuel samples from TEPCO's Fukushima nuclear power plant to Rokkasho-Mura in Aomori prefecture. Currently, under the supervision of a research committee appointed by the government, the cause of this incident, and the measures that need to be taken to ensure that it is never repeated, are under way. Eight committee meetings have already been held, and at the most recent meeting, I was told that from a technical standpoint, there is no reason to suspect that the data tampering resulted in any actual threat to public safety. Nonetheless, we are seriously concerned, and will promptly implement any remedial measures proposed by the committee.
In the meantime, in parallel with the independent committee's evaluation of the situation, we are working to eliminate such problems and avoid any repetition of the problem by reviewing the organizational structure and business culture of the entire electric power industry. Specifically, at a Presidential Meeting on 15 October, it was decided that each and every electric power company should consider this problem as their own, and review their operations accordingly . On the following day, as President of the Federation of Electric Power Companies, I directed all FEPC members and related companies to cooperate with this task.
Currently, "Corporate Ethics Committees" or "Corporate Culture Reform Committees" are being created at each company. I suspect that the task of studying the organizational and corporate culture issues involved will take until about March of 1999 to complete on an industry-wide basis. This is because such efforts are expected to extend to the ethical and moral standards expected of line technicians, the question of how to deal with leaks of disadvantageous information, and business practices and human relations within companies and with outside contractors. The final results of the study will be shared with related companies and industries to help prevent similar incidents from occuring, and to allow organizational reforms to be carried out on a broad scale.
In any case, we intend to implement firm, decisive and permanent measures to restore public confidence and ensure that such incidents never occur again.
Next, I would like to move on to the subject of electricity demand this winter (see appendix). It is said that the warm winter weather experienced in recent years has been caused by recurrences of the El Nino phenomenon. In fact, last year's warm winter weather was attributed to the most massive El Nino recorded this century.
However, according to the weather forecast, we may have average, or below-average, temperatures this winter as a result of La Nina, a phenomenon which is the reverse of the El Nino.
Recently, heating appliances such as all-season air conditioners and electric carpets have grown rapidly in popularity. In areas served by the nine major electric power companies, for example, use of all-season air conditioners has increased by 2.4 times, and electric carpet use has increased by 70%, in the 9 years since 1989. In consequence, winter demand for electricity is beginning to be affected by changing temperatures the way summer demand is. A one-degree drop in winter temperatures generates demand of 1.7 million kW (load sensitivity to temperatures in the summer of 1998 was 4.8 million kW), or more than the output from a generating unit at a major power plant.
In view of these circumstance, we estimate that peak shift this winter will be 151.62 million kW, about 8 million kW up from last year. As for power supply, we foresee enough electricity enough to secure about 180 million kW during the winter period, although some reduction is assumed due to changes in regular inspection procedures at thermal and nuclear power plants.
I am also concerned about economic activity sustaining fundamental electricity demand. Demand from large industrial users has declined for nine consecutive months due to the economic downturn. For October 1998 - March 1999, the negative trend experienced in the first half may continue, due to a sharp cut in business investment, and the fact that production adjustments are taking longer than initially expected. Peak shift this summer was about 7 million kW lower than expected, with about 2 million kW of this attributed to temperature changes, and about 5 million kW attributed to a decline in electricity demand caused by the economic slowdown.
Because economic activity is such a key factor, I think that electricity demand this winter, as in the summer, will be lower than initially expected. It is undeniable that electric power is a product that is greatly influenced by the weather and the economy, and I sincerely hope that the government's economic stimulus package will take hold quickly, and that cold winter weather will help to sell winter goods and give a boost to the economy.