Olympic Games hype to deceive the world about Fukushima nuclear catastrophe – theme for March 21
SEPTEMBER 16, 2019 Tokyo Electric Power’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, which experienced three massive meltdowns in 2011, is running out of room to store radioactive water. No surprise! But now, what to do about phosphorescent water?
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Addressing the issue, Japan’s environmental minister Yoshiaki Harada held a news conference (September 2019). Unfortunately, he proffered the following advice: “The only option will be to drain it into the sea and dilute it.” (Source: Justin McCurry in Tokyo, Fukushima: Japan Will Have to Dump Radioactive Water Into Pacific, Minister Says, The Guardian, Sept. 10, 2019)
“The only option”… Really?
Over the past 8 years, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) has scrambled like a Mad Hatter to construct emergency storage tanks (1,000) to contain upwards of one million tonnes of contaminated radioactive water, you know, the kind of stuff that, over time, destroys human cells, alters DNA, causes cancer, or produces something like the horrific disfigured creature in John Carpenter’s The Thing! That’s the upshot of a triple nuclear meltdown that necessitates constant flow of water to prevent further melting of reactor cores that have been decimated and transfigured into corium or melted blobs. It’s the closest to a full-blown “china syndrome” in all of human history. Whew! Although, the truth is it’ll be a dicey situation for decades to come.
Ever since March 11, 2011, TEPCO has scrambled to build storage tanks to prevent massive amounts of radioactive water from pouring into the ocean (still, some lesser amounts pour into the ocean every day by day). Now the government is floating a trial balloon in public that, once the tanks are full, it’ll be okay to dump the radioactive water into the ocean. Their logic is bizarre, meaning, on the one hand, the meltdown happens, and they build storage tanks to contain the radioactive water, but on the other hand, once the storage tanks run out of space, it’s okay to dump radioactive water into the ocean. Seriously?
Meantime, the Fukushima meltdown brings the world community face to face with TEPCO and the government of Japan in an unprecedented grand experiment that, so far, has failed miserably. Of course, dumping radiation into the Pacific is like dumping radiation into everybody’s back yard. But, for starters, isn’t that a non-starter?
Along the way, deceit breeds duplicity, Continue reading
Fukushima, a ‘coordinator’ for the nuclear-stricken area, takes a cue from the U.S. to break away from reconstruction dependent on the government
March 6, 2021, 18:07 (Kyodo News)
On March 6, a private organization called Fukushima Hamadori Tridec was established to serve as a coordinator between industry, government and academia in the areas affected by the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. In order to promote the reconstruction that the coastal residents of Fukushima Prefecture desire, the organization aims to unite the demands of the region and take the brunt of negotiations with the government and other parties.
The 43 founding members include local business people, researchers, and politicians. The organization will be incorporated as a general incorporated association and will invite individual and corporate members. Takayuki Nakamura, vice president of East Japan International University (Iwaki City), who will serve as the secretariat, said, “We will break away from our traditional stance of depending on the government. We will decide our own fate,” he said of the founding principles.
https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/89939?fbclid=IwAR0IVgauLUBacHECWFx2axSSV7o5CUqvtvxw6KcLJtZ6A1bqoHtwcQ-cEl8
Decade After Fukushima Disaster Survivor Looks Back
The Japanese town of Tomioka ravaged by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster is a shell of its former self.
March 5, 2021
The Japanese town of Tomioka ravaged by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster is a shell of its former self. In some parts, houses and shops lie abandoned, and bin bags filled with contaminated soil line the streets. For Yuta Hatakeyama, who was 14 when his family had to leave their home, the town evokes bittersweet memories. “I had no idea what was going on back then,” he said. “It has been 10 years since and I have been developing sad feelings.”
A decade after the quake and tsunami, Hatakeyama has returned to the town some 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the now shuttered Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, and serves as a community spokesperson. The exclusion zone in the town was lifted in 2017 but around 12% of the town still remains a no-go zone where people can’t enter without an official permit.
Hatakeyama remembers a cherry blossom festival in the town, and a lane brimming with food stalls and people. Now it’s cordoned off and dotted with red safety cones. He said he and his family faced discrimination after leaving Tomioka after the disaster for Iwaki, some 50 km (30 miles) away. “When I moved to a new place and heard people there stigmatising us for being evacuated, my heart really ached.”
The 24-year-old now believes the town must get rid of the bags filled with radioactive waste and make the town more liveable. Tomioka, which used to have 16,000 residents before the disaster, is now home to 1,600 people. The town is planning to lift most of its no-go zones by March 2023.
Decade after Fukushima disaster, decontamination work remains incomplete in 85% of regions
Greenpeace says Japan should suspend returning residents to the afflicted region
Mar.5,2021
Decontamination work remains incomplete in 85% of regions where the Japanese government claims to have removed radioactive contaminants from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster, an international environment group’s analysis shows.
In a report titled “Fukushima Daiichi 2011-2021,” published on Thursday ahead of the 10th anniversary of the disaster on March 11, Greenpeace urged the Japanese government to discontinue its policy of returning residents to the afflicted region without regard for science-based analysis.
Two weeks after the disaster struck in March 2011, the group sent a team of radioactivity exports to the scene in the first of 32 total visits through November 2020 to survey the radiation impacts in the Fukushima region. The recent report was based on its findings to date.
The Japanese government has announced the completion of most decontamination work for a Special Decontamination Area (SDA), which does not include a region close to the plant with particularly high levels of contamination that prevent residents from returning. Carried out through March 2019, the effort involved a commitment of 30 million person-hours and cost US$28 billion.
But an analysis of government data by Greenpeace showed that of the 840 square kilometers in the SDA, actual decontamination work had only been completed on 120 square kilometers, or 15 %.
In the case of Iitate — the largest of the seven administrative districts located entirely inside the SDA — decontamination had yet to be completed for 18,183 hectares, or 79% of its area. In the second-largest district of Namie, just 2,140 hectares, or 10%, had undergone even some decontamination.
Resident evacuation orders for the two regions were lifted in March 2017 — but according to Greenpeace, radiation levels make them still too dangerous for human habitation.
According to a Greenpeace study last November, the average amount of radiation in five out of 11 sites surrounding one home in Iitate was 0.5 microsieverts per hour (μSv/h), exceeding the government’s target of 0.23μSv/h.
The area immediately outside of one Namie school was found to be open to the general public despite 93% of measured sites showing radiation above the government’s targets.
“The fact that 85% of the contaminated surface area of the seven Fukushima districts inside the SDA has not been subject to decontamination is directly related to the radiological hazards posed by the mountainous forested areas,” the report explained.
“These remain a long-term source of contamination, including recontamination,” it warned.
Shaun Burnie, the Greenpeace senior nuclear specialist responsible for writing the report, urged the Japanese government to immediately suspend its return policy and decontamination program in order to protect residents of the Fukushima region, arguing that they ignore science-based analysis.
The same day, Greenpeace also published a technical report analyzing the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor. In it, Greenpeace proposed that the Japanese government adopt an alternative to its current decommissioning plan, which increases the amount of water contaminated with high-level radioactive material.
As an alternative approach, it suggested replacing water with air as a means of cooling reactor core fuel, while reducing the amount of contaminated water by installing moats to prevent seawater and underground water infiltration around the plant.
Chang Ma-ri, a climate energy campaigner for Greenpeace, said, “The ravages of radioactive contamination caused by the Fukushima disaster will pose a burden on humankind that will not be resolved for the next century or more.”
“The Japanese government needs to start by withdrawing its imminent plans for the release of contaminated water [into the ocean],” she urged.
By Kim Jeong-su, senior staff writer
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/985626.html
Fukushima nuclear decommissioning not really under control- persistent highly radioactive debris remains
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FOCUS: Decades-long challenge to scrap Fukushima plant by 2051 in a bind. By Junko Horiuchi, KYODO NEWS – Mar 1, 2021 The decades-long challenge to scrap the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, crippled by the massive earthquake and tsunami disaster that struck northeastern Japan in 2011, is becoming more complex as recent remote-controlled probes have highlighted just how damaged the reactors are.Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., operator of the six-reactor nuclear complex, aims to scrap the plant between 2041 and 2051. But critics have cast doubts on the schedule, citing not only the extremely high radiation levels, but problems associated with delayed probes and underdeveloped robots and other technology needed to extract an estimated nearly 900 tons of melted fuel debris.
Decommissioning of the plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, is crucial for Japan if it wants to stick to using nuclear power safely and show the world that the nuclear crisis is under control. “It is likely that the roadmap will not be completed as scheduled,” said Tetsuro Tsutsui, a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Nuclear Energy, a group comprising academics and nuclear experts. He added the “melted debris is mixed with fractured parts of buildings and concrete material and is highly radioactive, making it hard for robots to clear the debris.” The scrapping of the plant involves the daunting decision on how to dispose of the huge amount of radioactive waste left as a byproduct. This has been made worse as no municipality offered to become the final disposal site when the plant was operating………. “Nearly 10 years have passed following the Fukushima accident but with respect to the long decommissioning process, we are still hovering around the start line. We have a long journey ahead,” said Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori in a recent briefing. “The most difficult step is the safe and stable retrieval of the debris but we don’t know what state it is in,” he added. Despite the use of computer simulations and small-scale internal probes using remote cameras, data is scarce about the exact locations and other details of the melted fuel — crucial information to determine the retrieval methods and develop the appropriate technology and robots. Robotic probes at the Nos. 2 and 3 units have captured images of large amounts of material that appear to be melted fuel, but attempts so far have been unsuccessful at the No. 1 unit.
TEPCO opted to start the fuel removal at the No. 2 unit as it has the best grasp of the internal conditions there but no time frame has been set for the two other units In a setback for retrieval efforts, the company said in late December removing melted fuel from the No. 2 unit would be delayed from its initial starting period in 2021 by at least a year as the coronavirus pandemic has stalled the development in Britain of a robotic arm to be used for the extraction. That robotic arm, however, can only extract a few grams of melted fuel debris at a time. To completely remove the hundreds of tons of melted fuel from the reactor larger machinery is required, experts say. In another development that may affect the decommissioning process, a Nuclear Regulation Authority study group said in January a high concentration of radioactive cesium is likely to have accumulated in the lids of the containment vessels for the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors. The regulator’s findings in a new interim report draft on the Fukushima accident came as a shock because it was previously believed that most of the radioactive material remained at the bottom of the reactors in the form of melted nuclear fuel debris…….. TEPCO, whose biggest shareholder is the Japanese government, has not given an estimate of the costs for the debris removal, which would add to the 8 trillion yen ($75 billion) already forecast for the decommissioning process. The utility and the government have also been grappling with the buildup of radioactive water, which is generated in the process of cooling the meltdown reactors……… According to Yasuro Kawai, another member of the commission, the government’s decision to release treated water into the sea is in fact the government’s attempt to minimize the impact of the Fukushima crisis and say dismantling work is on track. “But the roadmap is nothing but pie in the sky,” he said. The commission says it is more logical to keep the debris inside the reactors than to retrieve it and suggests constructing a shield around the reactors and postpone taking out the melted fuel until 100 years or 200 years later when radioactive activity levels have decreased. |
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Decade after Fukushima disaster, Greenpeace sees cleanup failure
Greenpeace has recommended that Japan suspend the current return policies, which it says “ignore science-based analysis, including potential lifetime exposure risks to the population” and abandon plans to lift evacuation orders in six municipalities
Mar 4, 2021
Ten years after the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, land Japan identified for cleanup from the triple reactor meltdown of the Fukushima No. 1 power plant remains contaminated, according to a report from Greenpeace.
On average, just 15% of land in the “Special Decontamination Area,” which is home to several municipalities, has been cleaned up, according to the environmental advocacy group’s analysis of government data. That’s despite the government’s claims that the area has largely been decontaminated, the group said.
In addition, Greenpeace said its own radiation surveys conducted over the last decade have consistently found readings above government target levels, including in areas that have been reopened to the public. The lifting of evacuation orders in places where radiation remains above safe levels potentially exposes people to an increased risk of cancer, the report said.
“The contamination remains and is widespread, and is still a very real threat to long term human health and the environment,” the report said.
Japan’s Ministry of Environment wasn’t immediately available for comment. Decontamination efforts have reduced radiation levels in residential areas by an average of 76%, according to the ministry’s website, which has compiled monitoring data through 2018. Fukushima Prefecture wasn’t immediately available for comment.
More than 160,000 people were evacuated from the area surrounding the Fukushima nuclear plant after a magnitude 9 earthquake, the biggest ever recorded to hit Japan, caused a massive tsunami that overwhelmed the plant. While the government has been steadily lifting evacuation orders on towns since 2014, roughly 36,000 people are still displaced.
Greenpeace recommended that Japan suspend the current return policy, which “ignore science-based analysis, including potential lifetime exposure risks to the population” and abandon plans to lift evacuation orders in six municipalities.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/03/04/national/fukushima-greenpeace-radiation-health-3-11/
85% of Special Decontamination Area remained contaminated Fukushima Daiichi decommissioning road map unachievable – a new plan is inevitable
2021-03-04
Mar 4, 2021 (Greenpeace Japan) – Nearly a decade after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, Greenpeace released two reports today that highlighted the complex legacy of the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The first report Fukushima 2011-2020 detailed radiation levels in Iitate and Namie in Fukushima prefecture. Our original findings showed that decontamination efforts have been limited and that 85% of the Special Decontamination Area has undergone no decontamination.
The second report Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station From Plan-A to Plan-B Now, from Plan-B to Plan-C critiqued the current official decommission plan within 30-40 years of having no prospects of success and is delusional.
“Successive governments during the last ten years, and largely under prime minister Shinzo Abe, have attempted to perpetrate a myth about the nuclear disaster. They have sought to deceive the Japanese people by misrepresenting the effectiveness of the decontamination program and ignoring radiological risks,” said Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace East Asia.
“At the same time, they continue to claim that the Fukushima Daiichi site can be returned to ‘greenfield’ status by mid-century. The decade of deception and delusion on the part of the government and TEPCO must end. A new decommissioning plan is inevitable so why waste any more time with the current fantasy?” Burnie added.
The first Greenpeace radiation expert team arrived in Fukushima prefecture on 26 March 2011, and have conducted 32 investigations into the radiological consequences of the disaster over the last decade, the most recent in November 2020. The key findings of the radiation report Fukushima 2011-2020 are:
- Greenpeace has consistently found that most of the 840 square kilometers Special Decontamination Area(SDA), where the government is responsible for decontamination, remains contaminated with radioactive cesium.
- Analysis of the government’s own data shows that in the SDA an overall average of only 15% has been decontaminated.
- No time frame for when the Japanese government’s long-term decontamination target level of 0.23 microsieverts per hour (μSv/h) will be achieved in many areas. Citizens will be subjected for decades of radiation exposure in excess of 1mSv/y recommended maximum.
- In the areas where evacuation orders were lifted in 2017, specifically, Namie and Iitate, radiation levels remain above safe limits, potentially exposing the population to increased cancer risk. Plans to continue to lift evacuation orders are unacceptable from a public health perspective.
- Up till 2018, tens of thousands of decontamination workers had been employed in decontamination in the SDA. As documented by Greenpeace[1], the workers, most of whom are poorly paid subcontractors, have been exposed to unjustified radiation risks for a limited and ineffective decontamination program.
The key findings of The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station decommissioning report[2] are:
- There are no credible plans for retrieval of the hundreds of tons of nuclear fuel debris remaining inside and under the three Reactor Pressure vessels – it requires a fundamental review.
- Water used in reactor cooling and groundwater contamination, and therefore accumulating in tanks, will keep growing into the future unless a new approach is adopted.
- All nuclear contaminated material should remain on the site indefinitely. If the nuclear fuel debris is ever retrieved, it also should remain on site. Fukushima Daiichi is already and should remain a nuclear waste storage site for the long term.
- The current plan is unachievable in the timeframe of 30-40 years in the current road map and impossible to achieve in terms of returning the site to greenfield.
It is recommended that a fundamental rethink in approach and a new plan for the decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi, including a delay in molten fuel removal for 50-100 years or longer is needed with the construction of secure containment buildings for the long term. The Primary Containment vessel, with reinforcement, should be used as an incomplete primary boundary and the reactor building as the secondary boundary for the medium-to-long term, while developing robotic technology that can perform tasks without high radiation risks to human workers.
Finally, to prevent the further increase of radioactive contaminated water, cooling of nuclear fuel debris should be switched from water to air cooling, and the Fukushima Daiichi site should be made into a ‘dry island’ isolated from groundwater with the construction of a deep moat.
ENDS
Links to full reports:
- Fukushima 2011-2020
- Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station From Plan-A to Plan-B Now, from Plan-B to Plan-C
- Greenpeace Briefing “Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning Time for a new long term strategic plan”
Notes:
[2] Report commissioned by Greenpeace from a consulting nuclear engineer, formerly with General Electric including at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors, Mr. Satoshi Sato.
Fukushima chief: No need to extend decommissioning target
This Sept. 4, 2017, aerial file photo shows Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant reactors, from bottom at right, Unit 1, Unit 2 and Unit 3, in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, northeastern Japan. The head of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant said Tuesday, March 2, 2021 there’s no need to extend the current target to finish its decommissioning in 30-40 years despite uncertainties about melted fuel inside the plant’s three reactors.
March 3, 2021
TOKYO (AP) — The head of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant says there’s no need to extend the current target to finish its decommissioning in 30-40 years despite uncertainties about melted fuel inside the plant’s three reactors.
Ten years after meltdowns of three of its reactors following a massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan, the Fukushima Daiichi plant has stabilized but faces new challenges.
Nuclear regulators recently found fatal levels of contamination under the lids of two reactors, a test removal of melted fuel debris from one reactor has been delayed for a year, and a recent earthquake may have caused new damage to the reactors.
About 900 tons of melted fuel debris remain inside the plant’s three damaged reactors, and its safe removal is a daunting task that its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, and the government say will take 30-40 years to finish. The removal of spent fuel units from cooling pools is already being delayed for up to five years.
But Akira Ono, who as head of the plant is also its chief decommissioning officer, said he doesn’t plan to change the current goal to finish decommissioning between 2041 and 2051.
“I don’t think we need to revise the target right now,” Ono said Tuesday in an online interview with The Associated Press. “We will stick to the 30-to-40-year finishing target, and will compile a timeline and technology and development plans accordingly.”
He said TEPCO plans to focus primarily on the coming decade and hopefully will release a new 10-year road map by the end of March.
The recently discovered fatal levels of cesium on the bottom of shield plugs atop the primary containment chamber at the No. 2 and 3 reactors will not affect near-term decommissioning work, but could complicate future plans, Ono said.
A lot about the melted fuel, which fell from the core to the bottom of the primary containment chambers in Units 1, 2 and 3, remains unknown, Ono said, adding that it’s too early to decide how the plant should look at the end of the cleanup.
“It is a difficult question,” he said. “If you ask 10 people, everyone has a different answer.” Local officials in Fukushima have said they expect the plant complex to be a flatland where people can walk freely.
Ono said the plant’s end state should be discussed by the government, local residents, experts and other concerned parties, and should be decided by a consensus.
Some experts are still skeptical that the removal of all of the melted fuel debris is possible and suggest a Chernobyl-style entombment of the plant. Ono, however, denied that option, saying a long-term abandonment could pose a bigger risk than a controlled cleanup and hinder the region’s recovery.
Ono said the removal of the melted fuel debris will hopefully progress on track during the 2030s. “The next 10 years for us is to prepare for that goal,” he said.
Massive radiation from the reactors caused about 160,000 people to evacuate from around the plant. Tens of thousands are still unable to return home.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/fukushima-chief-no-need-to-extend-decommissioning-target/
Fukushima resident still can’t return home 10 years after nuclear disaster
Yasuko Sasaki is seen at her house in the town of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, on Feb. 1, 2021.
March 3, 2021
FUKUSHIMA — Yasuko Sasaki’s house lies just 30 kilometers away from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, where a meltdown took place following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. On Feb. 1, Sasaki temporarily returned to clean up leaves that had fallen on the grave at the back of the property.
Once a month, the 66-year-old visits her house in the Tsushima district in the Fukushima Prefecture town of Namie from the prefectural village of Otama — 50 kilometers away — where she is currently evacuated to. It has been almost 10 years since she became unable to live at her own residence.
Due to high radiation levels, Tsushima was designated a “difficult to return” zone, where restrictions for entering are in place, and people are barred from living there. Homes without their owners living in them have been ransacked by wild animals. While Sasaki has been away, wild animals chewed up stuffed turtle and bird specimens kept at her house. She continues to clean her house so that she “can return at any time.”
In the grave are the bones of her husband Kenji, who died of illness at age 57 in February 2011, just before the disaster struck the area, her youngest son Shinji, who passed away at 21 due to cancer in August the same year, and her parents-in-law. Sasaki was born in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, and married her husband and moved to the Tsushima district when she was 33. The couple raised their two children in the house, using mountain stream water in everyday life and boiling the bath with firewood.
“The memories that I have of spending time together with my family are here and only here. I want to come home while I can move my body,” Sasaki explained. A calendar at her house still shows March 2011, when the earthquake and tsunami hit.
The Reconstruction Design Council in response to the Great East Japan Earthquake, an advisory panel to the prime minister, deemed that “recovery from the devastating disaster will not be completed until Fukushima soil recovers.” The government has set up Specified Reconstruction and Revitalization Bases within difficult-to-return zones and is carrying out decontamination work and developing infrastructure so that people can reside in the area once again. It aims to lift evacuation orders for the bases in between 2022 and 2023.
However, the areas designated as reconstruction bases are limited. In the Tsushima district, a 153-hectare space surrounding the town hall’s Tsushima branch is designated — just 1.6% of the whole district. Of the 532 households in the district at the time of the disaster, 80% including Sasaki’s house are not included in the reconstruction base area, and there are no prospects for these people to be able to return to their homes.
Sasaki said, “Everything’s still the same, even 10 years after the (nuclear) disaster. I wonder for how many more years I’ll have to continue cleaning (my house).”
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210302/p2a/00m/0na/012000c
Women in government – the key to getting rid of nuclear power
Nuclear withdrawal was thanks to women, says former energy minister, https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/nuclear-withdrawal-was-thanks-to-women–says-former-energy-minister/46423854 5 Mar 21, Having four women in Switzerland’s seven-person 
government played a key role in the decision to phase out nuclear energy ten years ago, according to Doris Leuthard, who was energy minister at the time of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima on March 11, 2011.
The three other female cabinet ministers at the time were Micheline Calmy-Rey and Simonetta Sommaruga from the left-wing Social Democratic Party and Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf from the centre-right Conservative Democratic Party.Leuthard, from the centre-right Christian Democratic Party, admitted that she didn’t immediately realise the scale of the disaster at Fukushima.
“My first reaction was to say that that’s very far away from us, in Japan, in a country that deals seriously and professionally with events of this kind. I didn’t realise right away that it was a major disaster,” she told Le Temps.
In an interviewExternal link with Swiss newspaper Le Temps on Thursday, Leuthard said she would have had a hard time convincing men on the political right to abandon nuclear power.
“I think women are generally more sensitive to the environment and to the risks to which the population is exposed. When safety is at stake, they are willing to look at new solutions, even if it means paying a little more. They were more quickly convinced that we could opt for a new energy mix,” said Leuthard, who stepped down from the government at the end of 2018.
Only gradually did it become clear how serious the disaster was and that Switzerland had to act. On March 14 the government imposed a moratorium on nuclear projects.
“It was a decision that had to be taken quickly because, at the time, we intended to replace the three oldest [nuclear] plants with a modern, new-generation facility. We had to carry out a new risk analysis and see whether we could maintain the nuclear option in our energy policy. We informed the owners of the Swiss power plants, who had submitted applications to build this new-generation facility. It was a difficult moment, as our decision could cause them significant damage. […] I must admit that I didn’t sleep very well for two nights.”
In the end Switzerland did decide in 2011 to phase out nuclear power, which supplies about a third of the country’s electricity production.
In 2017 Swiss voters endorsed a new energy law that aims to promote renewable energy by banning new nuclear power plants and reducing energy consumption.
In December 2019 the 47-year-old Mühleberg nuclear power plant near Bern was permanently switched off – the first of five Swiss nuclear power reactors to be decommissioned. The event was considered so important that viewers could follow the progress live on Swiss television.
Japan undecided on timing, method of Fukushima water release
Storage tanks for treated contaminated water are seen at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture.
March 3, 2021
Japanese authorities are undecided on how and when to discharge radioactive water from the devastated Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea or air, amid heightened environmental and public safety concerns from its neighboring countries, including South Korea.
“The exact timing on when the government will decide on the method and the period is yet to be decided,” said a Japanese government official Wednesday.
“We are still evaluating the situation. But it’s true that there are limits to the storage space of the tanks, and the government consider it as a task that cannot be delayed,” the official said, reiterating Tokyo’s stance to release the contaminated water, which has been filtered to reduce radioactivity.
The remarks came during a press briefing organized by the Japanese Embassy in South Korea, as next week marks the 10-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, that hit the Fukushima area and caused a meltdown of the three nuclear reactors. Attending the event was officials from the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, Tokyo Electric Power, the state-run operator of the plant, and Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The liquid, which includes water used cool the power station, was contaminated after the nuclear disaster, and Tokyo has been pushing to release more than 1 million metric tons of treated water it has collected at the thousands of tanks at the site since 2011, as the storage capacity is set to run out by summer of 2022. But such a plan has sparked strong opposition and environmental worries among the public in both South Korea and Japan.
The water is being processed through the Advanced Liquid Processing System, or ALPS, to remove most of the dangerous radioactive materials, except for the traces of tritium, a radioactive substance which is still in the water — albeit at low level, according to Tokyo.
Last November, Japan was set to make a final decision on the water — either between disposing in the sea or vaporizing and releasing it into the air — as both were considered the most “realistic options,” but it has been delayed amid fierce backlash from local residents, the local fishery and agriculture industry and neighboring countries.
The authorities said that relevant decision will be made in consultation with local residents, industry personnel and neighboring countries through diplomatic channels. It also stressed it would carry out safety inspections of the release with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and provide transparent, scientific information to its neighbors as well.
If Japan decides to discharge the water, it will likely be dumped as early as summer of 2022 when the storage reaches full capacity.
But the official raised a possibility on the delay of the discharge, considering the filling up of the tank — which includes groundwater and rain that seeps into the plant — inside the storage has slowed down, due to relatively low precipitation in 2020.
“The period as to when the water will be completely filled will depend on the level of rain and typhoons this year,” the official said. “We will review the plan considering such situation.”
Farmers in Fukushima plant indigo to rebuild devastated town
March 2, 2021
MINAMISOMA, Japan — Because of radiation released by the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster a decade ago, farmers in nearby Minamisoma weren’t allowed to grow crops for two years.
After the restriction was lifted, two farmers, Kiyoko Mori and Yoshiko Ogura, found an unusual way to rebuild their lives and help their destroyed community. They planted indigo and soon began dying fabric with dye produced from the plants.
“Dyeing lets us forget the bad things” for a while, Mori said. “It’s a process of healing for us.”
The massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, caused three of the reactors at the nuclear plant to melt and wrecked more than just the farmers’ livelihoods. The homes of many people in Minamisoma, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the plant, were destroyed by the tsunami. The disaster killed 636 town residents, and tens of thousands of others left to start new lives.
Mori and Ogura believed that indigo dyeing could help people in the area recover.
Mori said they were concerned at first about consuming locally grown food, but felt safe raising indigo because it wouldn’t be eaten. They checked the radiation level of the indigo leaves and found no dangerous amount.
Ten years after the disaster, Mori and Ogura are still engaged in indigo dyeing but have different missions.
To Mori, it has become a tool for building a strong community in a devastated town and for fighting unfounded rumors that products from Fukushima are still contaminated. She favors the typical indigo dyeing process that requires some chemical additives.
But Ogura has chosen to follow a traditional technique that uses fermentation instead as a way to send a message against dangers of modern technology highlighted by nuclear power.
Mori formed a group called Japan Blue which holds workshops that have taught indigo dyeing to more than 100 people each year. She hopes the project will help rebuild the dwindling town’s sense of community.
Despite a new magnitude 7.3 earthquake that recently hit the area, the group did not cancel its annual exhibition at a community center that served as an evacuation center 10 years ago.
“Every member came to the exhibition, saying they can clean up the debris in their houses later,” Mori said.
Ogura, who is not a member of the group, feels that a natural process is important because the nuclear accident showed that relying on advanced technology for efficiency while ignoring its negative aspects can lead to bad consequences.
“I really suffered during the nuclear accident,” Ogura said. “We escaped frantically in the confusion. I felt I was doing something similar again” by using chemicals.
“We seek too much in the way of many varieties of beautiful colors created with the use of chemicals. We once thought our lives were enriched by it, but I started feeling that wasn’t the case,” she said. “I want people to know what the real natural color looks like.”
Organic indigo dyes take more time and closer attention. Ogura first ferments chopped indigo leaves with water for a month and then mixes the result with lye which is formed on the surface of a mixture of hot water and ashes. It has to be kept at about 20 degrees C (68 degrees F) and stirred three times a day.
Part of the beauty of the process, Ogura says, is that it’s hard to predict what color will be produced.
With the support of city officials, Ogura started making silk face masks dyed with organic indigo.
She used to run an organic restaurant where she served her own vegetables before the disaster, but now runs a guesthouse with her husband in which visitors can try organic indigo dyeing.
Just 700 meters (2,300 feet) from Ogura’s house, countless black bags filled with weakly contaminated debris and soil are piled along the roadside. They have been there since after the disaster, according to Ogura’s husband, Ryuichi. Other piles are scattered around the town.
“The government says it’s not harmful to leave them there. But if they really think it’s not harmful, they should take them to Tokyo and keep them near them,” he said.
The radiation waste stored in the town is scheduled to be moved to a medium-term storage facility by March next year, a town official said.
https://www.startribune.com/farmers-in-fukushima-plant-indigo-to-rebuild-devastated-town/600029579/
Radionuclides from the nuclear industry increase wildfires, and greatly increase their danger
Radionuclides in trace amounts, in the environment, increase wild fires, 30 fold by making them hotter, bigger and, much more profuse. Radionuclides Increase the width and breadth of wildfires, like the huge 90,000 acre wildfire at Idaho National laboratory, where the area is saturated with radionuclides.
govt extends nuclear reactor licenses, deregulates their supervision further. The government does not mandate-shutting the old dangerous nuke, monsters down . They are so expensive and dangerous, with no place safe to store, their extinction level-hoards of hi level nuclear wast
Death Maybe Your Santa Claus But, Pyrophoricity is The Burning Deliverance. https://www.opednews.com/articles/30-years-too-late-by-Terra-Lowe-Danger_Fukushima_Nuclear-210301-909.html–By Terra Lowe , 3 Mar 21,
STP failure Texas nuclear plant was just 3 minutes away from going completely off-line during blackout – Raw Story – .rawstory.com PSYCHOTIC IRRATIONALITY AND STUPIDITY What have the massive gulf coast hurricanes Harvey, Maria, and others, taught me? Harvey taught that catastrophes occur in America and that they are not well managed.
There was the monster cold-spell and failure of the grid in Texas, with temps in the teens in Feb. Almost freezing to death. Many almost dying again of starvation, like during the hurricanes. Almost dying of thirst and, bacteria infested water. Texas is the rightwing devil of the south. Texas is where the South Texas Project nuclear reactors, at Bay city, lost backup . So close to melting down again, like they were during Hurricane Harvey. This occurred in the time, during the blackouts in Texas . There was no water in half of Texas. Even hospitals in Austin. Texas is a total failure, with the pandemic still going.
I write this diatribe-invective, appealing to the sense and sanity, of the American people and people in the WORLD. No one is listening 30 years too late. Its all 30 years too late. The nukeape countries are: Pronuke energy. Pronuclear weapons. Generals are attached at the hip, to nuclear power. Attached to the Nuclear military industrial complexes and stock markets. There are minnions of them in all nuke countries. In Nuke countrys like the USA , France, Russia, Canada .
Australias wildfires, are starting to burn again. Like all the huge wildfires, they are from hydrocarbon residue in soils, drought, global climate change, pryophoric radionuclides like uranium waste, in the soil.
There are MEGA recurring Firestorms and wildfires, that occur in areas where nuclear catastrophes occured in the forests around Fukushima and pripyat and other heavily contaminated areas.. The phenomenon is from the inherent pyrophoricity of the multiple radionuclides, deposited there by the nuclear explosions and meltdowns or dumping for the past 5 to 10 years. Unusual biannual Forest wildfires have b een recurring around Chernobyl for 30 years. Radionuclide wildfires have been raging at Fukushima, Chernobyl, Santa Susana , INL
Santa Susana had two meltdowns in the 1960s. The Woolsey wildfires there, are some of the worst wildfires in history. The Idaho National Laboratory had 2 nuclear reactor meltdowns, in 50 years.
The 2018 INL wildfires, burned 90,000 acres in and around the 50 reactor, Idaho National Laboratory site, spreading deadly radionulide death over the United States in the air.
INL is a 30 square mile area, chocked full of Radionuclide waste. The pyrophoricity of all radionuclides, the Uranium, plutonium, cesium 137 cobalt 60 strontium 90 americium, thorium 90 . Radium and Uranium, from fracking, from nuclear , from uranium mining, from oil refining and burning hydrocarbons.
Areas around Mayak and Hanford have perennial wildfires .
Depleted uranium is used in bullets, mortars, bombs, rockets because of it’s inherent pyrophoricty.
Areas around Los Alamos, have had perennial-massive wild fires for years from the plutonium and americium byproducts of nuclear bomb manufacturing, residue there. Wildfires will happen this year at Los Alamos. It is primed for it from the drought in nothern New Mexico. Primed for it, from climate change, drought and radionuclide pyrophoric catalysis. Plutonium burns, when exposed to air, like the rocky flats, plutonium pit factory fires in arvada in the 60s, 70s, and, 80s in Denver.
Plutonium, depleted uranium, uranium, Amerecium dust contamination, from plutonium pit manufacture, at Los Alamoa catalyze wildfires, there. Wildfire areas have grown since older wildfire, AROUND LOS ALAMOS.
WILDFIRES ARE GROWING. Wildfires engulfed half of Australia, half of the USA, a third of the Amazon in the past 3 years. Continue reading
No recognition of administrative negligence after nuclear accident
March 1, 2021
The Fukushima District Court has ruled against the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by parents and children who lived in the prefecture at the time of the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, claiming that measures were not taken to avoid radiation exposure to their children.
One hundred and sixty parents and children who lived in the prefecture at the time of the nuclear accident were seeking 100,000 yen per person in damages from the government and the prefecture, claiming that they suffered mental anguish due to the lack of measures to avoid radiation exposure after the accident.
The plaintiffs, parents and children, claimed that they were exposed to unnecessary radiation and continue to suffer from health concerns, while the government and the prefecture countered that they were not exposed to unnecessary radiation.
In his ruling on March 1, Judge Toji Endo of the Fukushima District Court pointed out that the fact that the government did not immediately disclose the prediction of radioactive material diffusion calculated by the system called “SPEEDI” was “not unreasonable as it was in accordance with the operation method stipulated in the national guidelines at that time.
In addition, the court rejected the plaintiff’s claim that the government and the prefectural government did not immediately evacuate the children en masse, pointing out that “the indicators for evacuation in the disaster prevention guidelines at the time of the nuclear accident were standardized for children with high sensitivity to radiation and were reasonable in light of international standards.
This is the first time that a court has ruled on the government’s response to a nuclear accident, while most of the cases involving nuclear accidents hold the government responsible for the occurrence of the accident.
After the verdict was handed down, Sumio Konno, the representative of the plaintiffs’ group, said, “I am not convinced at all. What did the court examine? I thought it was an unfair judgment.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/lnews/fukushima/20210301/6050013639.html?fbclid=IwAR2NhcNi11pOTolqGWmW0AWFc_kOBVS9oRQFCUjlMsjFmlargJGPncNYSwM
Decades-long challenge to scrap Fukushima plant by 2051 in a bind
March 1, 2021
The decades-long challenge to scrap the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, crippled by the massive earthquake and tsunami disaster that struck northeastern Japan in 2011, is becoming more complex as recent remote-controlled probes have highlighted just how damaged the reactors are.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., operator of the six-reactor nuclear complex, aims to scrap the plant between 2041 and 2051. But critics have cast doubts on the schedule, citing not only the extremely high radiation levels, but problems associated with delayed probes and underdeveloped robots and other technology needed to extract an estimated nearly 900 tons of melted fuel debris.
Decommissioning of the plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, is crucial for Japan if it wants to stick to using nuclear power safely and show the world that the nuclear crisis is under control.
“It is likely that the roadmap will not be completed as scheduled,” said Tetsuro Tsutsui, a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Nuclear Energy, a group comprising academics and nuclear experts.
He added the “melted debris is mixed with fractured parts of buildings and concrete material and is highly radioactive, making it hard for robots to clear the debris.”
The scrapping of the plant involves the daunting decision on how to dispose of the huge amount of radioactive waste left as a byproduct. This has been made worse as no municipality offered to become the final disposal site when the plant was operating.
Following a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit the plant on March 11, 2011, Nos. 1 to 3 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant suffered meltdowns, while hydrogen explosions damaged the buildings housing the Nos. 1, 3 and 4 reactors.
Photo taken on Nov. 12, 2011, shows the No. 3 reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, which was damaged by an explosion after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Due to the instability of renewable energy, Japan projects atomic power will remain one of its major power sources, accounting for 20 to 22 percent of its total electricity generation in fiscal 2030. It may further push the emissions-free nuclear power as it aims to become carbon neutral in 2050.
Of the 33 reactors in Japan, excluding those set to be scrapped, just four are currently in operation, partly because they need to clear stricter safety regulations following the Fukushima accident.
Tsutsui, a former petrochemical complex engineer, points to how the risk of extracting debris has become “clearer” compared to when the roadmap was first compiled in December 2011. With that in mind, he urged the government to act responsibly and review the roadmap.
“Nearly 10 years have passed following the Fukushima accident but with respect to the long decommissioning process, we are still hovering around the start line. We have a long journey ahead,” said Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori in a recent briefing.
“The most difficult step is the safe and stable retrieval of the debris but we don’t know what state it is in,” he added.
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex on Feb. 21, 2018. From right, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 reactors.
Despite the use of computer simulations and small-scale internal probes using remote cameras, data is scarce about the exact locations and other details of the melted fuel — crucial information to determine the retrieval methods and develop the appropriate technology and robots.
Robotic probes at the Nos. 2 and 3 units have captured images of large amounts of material that appear to be melted fuel, but attempts so far have been unsuccessful at the No. 1 unit.
TEPCO opted to start the fuel removal at the No. 2 unit as it has the best grasp of the internal conditions there but no time frame has been set for the two other units.
In a setback for retrieval efforts, the company said in late December removing melted fuel from the No. 2 unit would be delayed from its initial starting period in 2021 by at least a year as the coronavirus pandemic has stalled the development in Britain of a robotic arm to be used for the extraction.
That robotic arm, however, can only extract a few grams of melted fuel debris at a time. To completely remove the hundreds of tons of melted fuel from the reactor larger machinery is required, experts say.
In another development that may affect the decommissioning process, a Nuclear Regulation Authority study group said in January a high concentration of radioactive cesium is likely to have accumulated in the lids of the containment vessels for the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors.
The regulator’s findings in a new interim report draft on the Fukushima accident came as a shock because it was previously believed that most of the radioactive material remained at the bottom of the reactors in the form of melted nuclear fuel debris.
While industry minister Hiroshi Kajiyama has acknowledged the “delays” and “difficulties in making predictions,” he insisted the overall decommissioning process is making “steady progress.” The government and TEPCO say they will stick to the current roadmap.
TEPCO, whose biggest shareholder is the Japanese government, has not given an estimate of the costs for the debris removal, which would add to the 8 trillion yen ($75 billion) already forecast for the decommissioning process.
The utility and the government have also been grappling with the buildup of radioactive water, which is generated in the process of cooling the meltdown reactors.
Part of the water is stored inside massive tanks set up inside the premises, having gone through a system that removes various radioactive materials except tritium, which is difficult to separate from water.
Tanks containing treated water including radioactive tritium are stored on the premises of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex on Feb. 21, 2018.
The government is considering dumping the water into the Pacific after diluting it to a radiation level below the legal limit, saying the tanks are filling up. It says space is needed to store debris once it is extracted from the damaged reactors.
But discharging the water remains a sensitive issue especially for the local fishing industry struggling to revive its business following the accident. Neighbors South Korea and China as well as U.N. human rights experts have expressed caution about the discharge.
Releasing it into the ocean could lead to a continued ban on exports from this area or an introduction of new export restrictions, observers say.
According to Yasuro Kawai, another member of the commission, the government’s decision to release treated water into the sea is in fact the government’s attempt to minimize the impact of the Fukushima crisis and say dismantling work is on track.
“But the roadmap is nothing but pie in the sky,” he said.
The commission says it is more logical to keep the debris inside the reactors than to retrieve it and suggests constructing a shield around the reactors and postpone taking out the melted fuel until 100 years or 200 years later when radioactive activity levels have decreased.
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Demystifying Nuclear Power Blog
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11 March ONLINE Ten Years Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Rio de Janeiro International Uranium Film Festival Free Online Screening and Debate.
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13 – March – Protest – France ROUEN (76) – HAUTE-NORMANDIE – RASSEMBLEMENT] Fukushima plus jamais ça : arrêt du nucléaire civil et militaire
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SAFECAST 10TH ANNIVERSARY ONLINE EVENT, SAT. , MARCH 13, 2021
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