Katsuhiko Ishibashi Explained
is a professor in the Research Center for Urban Safety and Security in the Graduate School of Science at Kobe University, Japan and a seismologist who has written extensively in the areas of seismicity and seismotectonics in and around the Japanese Islands.[1] He also coined the term genpatsu-shinsai (原発震災), from the Japanese words for "nuclear power" and "quake disaster".[2]
Katsuhiko Ishibashi has said that Japan's history of nuclear accidents stems from an overconfidence in plant engineering. He was a member of a 2006 Japanese government subcommittee charged with revising the national guidelines on the earthquake-resistance of nuclear power plants, published in 2007.[3] His proposal that the committee should review the standards for surveying active faults was rejected and, at the committee's final meeting he resigned claiming that the review process was "unscientific"[3] and the outcome rigged[4] [5] to suit the interests of the Japan Electric Association, which had 11 of its committee members on the 19-member government subcommittee and that among other problems the guide was "seriously flawed" as a consequence because it underestimated the design basis earthquake ground motion.[6]
In May 2011, he said: "If Japan had faced up to the dangers earlier, we could have prevented Fukushima".[7]
Publications
- Ishibashi, K., "Why worry? Japan's nuclear plants at grave risk from quake damage", International Herald Tribune and The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (August 11, 2007)
- Ishibashi, K., "Status of historical seismology in Japan", Annals of Geophysics', Vol.47, 339-368 (2004)
- Ishibashi, K., "Seismotectonic modeling of the repeating M 7-class disastrous Odawara earthquake in the Izu collision zone, central Japan", Earth Planets Space, Vol.56, 843-858 (2004)
- Miyoshi, T. and K. Ishibashi, "Geometry of the seismic Philippine Sea slab beneath the region from Ise Bay to western Shikoku, southwest Japan, Zisin" J. Seismol. Soc. Japan, Ser. 2, Vol.57, 139-152 (English abstract) (2004)
- Itani, Y. and Ishibashi, K., "Horizontal crustal strain in the Izu Peninsula - Mt. Fuji region derived from GEONET data and its tectonic implication, Zisin", J. Seismol. Soc. Japan, Ser. 2, Vol.56, 231-243 (English abstract) (2003)
- Harada, T. and Ishibashi, K., "The 1958 great Etorofu earthquake was a slab event: Suggestion from the mainshock-aftershock relocation", EOS, Vol. 81, No. 22 Suppl. WP157 (2000)
- Ishibashi, K., An Era of Underground Convulsions: A Seismologist Warns, Iwanami Paperbacks, Iwanami Shoten (1994)
See also
Notes and References
- http://www.planet.sci.kobe-u.ac.jp/study/list/seis/ishibashi_e.html Katsuhiko ISHIBASHI
- Michael Reilly, "Insight: Where not to build nuclear power stations" (preview only) New Scientist (July 28, 2007). Retrieved March 24, 2011
- http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7152/ "Quake shuts world's largest nuclear plant"
- Web site: Japan's nuclear disaster caps decades of accidents and fake reports . Jason Clenfield . March 17, 2011 . Bloomberg Businessweek .
- https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=awR8KsLlAcSo Japan Nuclear Energy Drive Compromised by Conflicts of Interest
- Katsuhiko Ishibashi, "Why worry? Japan's nuclear plants at grave risk from quake damage" The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (August 11, 2007) Also published by the International Herald Tribune (August 11, 2007). Retrieved March 24, 2011
- News: Japan Asks Another Nuclear Plant to Shut Down Its Reactors. 6 May 2011. Hiroko Tabuchi. Hiroko Tabuchi . The New York Times. July 9, 2011.