The Mihama No. 3 pipe rupture, the shutdown of every reactor, and the reorganization of the support subsidiaries (2004)

Between efficiency and safety

At the heart of this accident lies the process by which the company most dependent on nuclear power, chasing efficiency under liberalization, let the meaning of unglamorous inspection work wither. Capital spending, repair budgets and the length of scheduled outages were all cut, inspection was handed to affiliates, and the gap in the list went unnoticed by anyone for twenty-eight years. Kansai shut down every reactor after the accident and rebound its support subsidiaries by specialism — but redrawing an organization chart and recovering the capacity to notice something wrong on the plant floor are not necessarily the same thing. The verdict of a frayed safety culture pointed to a distance that restructuring alone could not close.

That it took eight months to settle the question of management responsibility, and that it settled into a president “demoted” and a chairman staying on, is emblematic of what followed. Between the weight of a company honoured with the Deming Prize for quality control losing five lives to an elementary lapse in inspection, and the lightness of the sanction it imposed, there was a gap that could not be bridged. How far management that puts efficiency first may push into safety — that question would press on Kansai Electric far harder amid the upheaval that overtook nuclear power from 2011.