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Fukushima nuclear plant might now be used as a temporary nuclear waste dump

As the sites are for intermediary use, the nation is still searching for a deep underground storage site for the waste, according to the World Nuclear Association…

Fukushima set to become Nuclear waste graveyard Bloomberg / Tokyo May 27, 2011,  Japan’s atomic energy specialists are discussing a plan to make the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant a storage site for radioactive waste from the crippled station run by Tokyo Electric Power Co.The Atomic Energy Society of Japan is studying the proposal, which would cost tens of billions of dollars, Muneo Morokuzu, a professor of energy and environmental public policy at the University of Tokyo, said in an interview yesterday. The society makes policy recommendations to the government.
“We are involved in intense talks on the cleanup of the Daiichi plant and construction of nuclear waste storage facilities at the site is one option,” said Morokuzu.

Radiation leaks from the three reactor meltdowns at Fukushima rank the accident on the same scale as the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The 20-kilometre exclusion zone around Fukushima has forced the evacuation of 50,000 households, extermination of livestock and disposal of crops, drawing comparisons with the Ukraine plant.

Areas up to 30 kilometres from Chernobyl remain “a dead zone,” Mykola Kulinich, Ukraine’s ambassador to Japan, said in Tokyo on April 26, the 25th anniversary of the disaster…….

Intermediary Use
As the sites are for intermediary use, the nation is still searching for a deep underground storage site for the waste, according to the World Nuclear Association…….

In the past two weeks, the utility known as Tepco has said fuel rods in reactors 1, 2 and 3 had almost complete meltdowns. That matches US assessments in the early days of the crisis that indicated damage to the station was more severe than Tepco officials suggested.

“Most of the fuel rods melted and damage to the cores is most severe in the Number 1 reactor, followed by the Number 3 and then Number 2,” spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said in Tokyo May 24…….Fukushima set to become Nuclear waste graveyard

May 27, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, wastes