Qualla: Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant: Introduction

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit kawamoto takuo, CC BY 2.0. They lowered the bluff. When Tokyo Electric Power Company built Fukushima Daiichi in the late 1960s on a coastal headland in the towns of Okuma and Futaba, the original clifftop stood well above sea level. TEPCO's engineers cut it down. Partly to anchor the reactor buildings on solid bedrock against earthquake risk, but also -- crucially -- because a lower elevation meant cheaper seawater pumps. Their tsunami models said the seawall would be enough. On March 11, 2011, waves from a magnitude 9.1 earthquake poured over those walls and into the basements where General Electric's design had placed the emergency diesel generators and batteries. Three reactors melted down. It became, alongside Chernobyl, one of only two Level 7 nuclear events in history.

Image: kawamoto takuo | CC BY 2.0

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant: Built on Borrowed Confidence

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ENERGY.GOV, Public domain. Fukushima Daiichi was the first nuclear plant designed, constructed, and operated jointly by General Electric and TEPCO, commissioned in 1971. Its six boiling water reactors generated a combined 4.7 gigawatts of electrical power, making it one of the 15 largest nuclear stations i...

Image: ENERGY.GOV | Public domain

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant: Fourteen Minutes That Changed Everything

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit kawamoto takuo, CC BY 2.0. At 2:46 PM Japan Standard Time on March 11, 2011, one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history struck off the northeast coast of Japan. Three of Fukushima Daiichi's six reactors were operating; all three automatically scrammed. The emergency diesel generators kicked i...

Image: kawamoto takuo | CC BY 2.0

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant: The Exclusion Zone

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Asacyan, CC BY-SA 3.0. On April 20, 2011, Japanese authorities declared the area surrounding Fukushima Daiichi a no-go zone, accessible only under government supervision. When the first journalists were allowed in that November, they found three reactor buildings destroyed, the grounds strewn with mang...

Image: Asacyan | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant: The Longest Cleanup in History

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit kawamoto takuo, CC BY 2.0. Decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi is projected to cost $195 billion and take decades. TEPCO spent 34.5 billion yen building an underground wall of frozen soil around the plant -- 1,500 supercooled pipes inserted into the earth to freeze groundwater and prevent it from flowing thr...

Image: kawamoto takuo | CC BY 2.0

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant: What the Neighbor Got Right

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit PekePON, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant sat closer to the earthquake's epicenter than Fukushima Daiichi. It endured the same magnitude 9.1 shaking, the same coast-obliterating tsunami. Onagawa survived without a major incident. The difference was its seawalls -- taller, more robust, buil...

Image: PekePON | CC BY-SA 3.0