180 mishaps in UK nuclear waste transport vehicles
UK nuclear weapons convoys ‘have had 180 mishaps in 16 years’ Vehicles carrying nuclear weapons have had collisions, breakdowns and brake failures, disarmament campaign says, Guardian, Rob Evans, 21 Sept 16, Military convoys carrying nuclear weapons through Britain’s cities and towns have experienced 180 mishaps and incidents, including collisions, breakdowns and brake failures during the last 16 years, according to a report produced by a disarmament campaign.
The incidents catalogued in the report – based on official logs released under theFreedom of Information Act – include fuel leaks, overheated engines, clutch problems, and other mechanical faults in the convoys.
At other times, according to the report, the convoys went the wrong way, were diverted, and lost communications with commanders. The rate at which the incidents have occurred has risen in recent years, with 43 in the last three years.
In its report published on Wednesday, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) warns that a serious accident involving the convoys could spread radioactivity over cities, contaminating communities and increasing cancer risks.
The convoys pass through cities and towns between Scotland and southern England. However, an opinion poll commissioned by Ican shows that nearly two-thirds of British adults did not know that the military transports nuclear warheads on British roads, prompting the campaigners to argue that members of the public have not given their consent to the dangers they pose.
Materials for nuclear weapons are driven through or flown over 122 local councils in the UK, including densely-populated areas such as Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester and Newcastle, according to Ministry of Defence data…….
The Ican report describes how nuclear warheads are carried in dark green, 44-tonne trucks between a bomb factory at Burghfield near Reading in Berkshire and a naval depot at Coulport on Loch Long near Glasgow, where they are loaded onto submarines.
The 900-mile round trips, usually spread over one or two days, are completed between two and six times a year, with the most recent onereported to have been completed this week.
According to Ican, the convoys – comprising up to 20 vehicles including police cars and a fire engine – use a variety of routes. One from Burghfield, where the warheads are assembled and maintained, goes along the M40, round Birmingham and past Preston on the M6, and then the M74 to Glasgow……..
Matt Hawkins, spokesman for Ican, said the report “painted a grim picture of the great risks posed by nuclear convoys”, adding that nuclear weapons “only add danger to our lives, exposing us all to the risk of radiation leaks or an attack by terrorists on one of these convoys”.
In 2003, following pressure from the Guardian, the MoD was forced to publish a list of accidents involving nuclear weapons between 1960 and 1991 after decades of secrecy. It showed that the weapons had been dropped, struck by other weapons and carried on a truck that slid down a hill and toppled over. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/21/uk-nuclear-weapons-convoys-have-had-180-mishaps-in-16-years
Nuclear dangers: the 15 costliest nuclear disasters
The 15 costliest nuclear disasters and the nuclear risks of the future,Treehugger, Christine Lepisto (@greenanswer) September 20, 2016 The names Chernobyl and Fukushima connote nuclear disaster. But do you remember Three Mile Island? Have you ever heard of Beloyarsk, Jaslovske, or Pickering? These names appear among the 15 most expensive nuclear disasters.
- Chernobyl, Ukraine (1986): $259 billion
- Fukushima, Japan (2011): $166 billion
- Tsuruga, Japan (1995): $15.5 billion
- Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, USA (1979): $11 billion
- Beloyarsk, USSR (1977): $3.5 billion
- Sellafield, UK (1969): $2.5 billion
- Athens, Alabama, USA (1985): $2.1 billion
- Jaslovske Bohunice, Czechoslovakia (1977): $2 billion
- Sellafield, UK (1968): $1.9 billion
- Sellafield, UK (1971): $1.3 billion
- Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA (1986): $1.2 billion
- Chapelcross, UK (1967): $1.1 billion
- Chernobyl, Ukraine (1982): $1.1 billion
- Pickering, Canada (1983): $1 billion
- Sellafield, UK (1973): $1 billion
A new study of 216 nuclear energy accidents and incidents crunches twice as much data as the previously best review, predicting that
“The next nuclear accident may be much sooner or more severe than the public realizes.”
The study points to two significant issues in the current assessment of nuclear safety. First, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) serves the dual masters of overseeing the industry and promoting nuclear energy. Second, the primary tool used to assess the risk of nuclear incidents suffers from blind spots.
The conflict of interest in the first issue is clear. The second issue may not be transparent to the layperson until they understand more fully how industry conducts the probabilistic safety assessments (PSAs) which are the source of the standard predictions of the risk of nuclear accidents. …….http://www.treehugger.com/energy-disasters/15-costliest-nuclear-disasters-and-nuclear-risks-future.html
UK Liberal Democrats oppose Hinkley nuclear plan – ‘very poor value for money’
Lib Dems vote to oppose Hinkley nuclear plant in emergency conference motion, Left Foot Forward,
Adam Barnett 19 September, 2016 Project is ‘very poor value for money’ and we should use renewable energy instead, say members Liberal Democrats voted to oppose a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C today in an emergency policy motion at party conference.
The party agreed this morning that the new £18 billion plant in Somerset was ‘very poor value for money’ for consumers and proposed renewable energy instead.
The motion also noted that similar nuclear plants in France and Finland are both ‘years behind schedule and significantly over budget’.
It concludes:
‘Conference believes that construction of a new nuclear station at Hinkley Point is both entirely dependent on public subsidy and represents very poor value for money for UK consumers, and that therefore it should be opposed.
Conference calls for a UK energy strategy resting on investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy, storage and interconnection with European grids, thereby providing energy security, an end to fuel poverty and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at the same time as creating jobs, exports and prosperity.’……..https://leftfootforward.org/2016/09/lib-dems-vote-to-oppose-hinkley-nuclear-plant-in-emergency-conference-motion/
Further nuclear power development in China will need local public consent
China nuclear developers must seek public consent: draft rules, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-nuclear-safety-idUSKCN11Q18K (Reporting by David Stanway; editing by Jason Neely), 20 Sept 16 China’s nuclear developers must seek the consent of local stakeholders before going ahead with new projects, according to draft rules published by the country’s cabinet on Monday.
Developers will need to assess the impact a nuclear project will have on social stability and solicit public opinion through hearings or announcements, the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council said.
China is in the middle of a rapid nuclear reactor building program and aims to have 58 gigawatts (GW) of capacity in full commercial operation by the end of 2020, up from 30.7 GW at the end of July.
But despite a strong safety record at existing plants, the government has struggled to convince the public about the safety of nuclear power.
Protests in the eastern coastal city of Lianyungang last month led to the cancellation of a proposed $15 billion nuclear waste processing plant.
“Japan’s Fukushima accident once again created doubt about the safety of nuclear power among the public, and also caused feelings of fear and opposition to occur from time to time,” the Legislative Affairs Office said in a statement.
It said the new draft rules would improve information disclosure and allow the public to participate more actively in the construction and supervision of nuclear projects.
The Legislative Affairs Office has made the draft guidelines available to the public and will accept suggestions until Oct. 19, it said in a notice posted on its website (www.chinalaw.gov.cn).
A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency said this month that China’s “unparalleled” nuclear expansion would pose challenges for its regulators, and more work needed to be done in areas such as waste management and the handling of ageing reactors.
US taxpayers up for huge costs for accident at Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP)
WIPP nuclear waste accident will cost US taxpayers $2 billion. Ecologist, Dr Jim Green 20th September 2016 The clean-up after the February 2014 explosion at the world’s only deep underground repository for nuclear waste in New Mexico, USA, is massively over budget, writes Jim Green – and full operations won’t resume until at least 2021. The fundamental cause of the problems: high level radioactive waste, poor regulation, rigid deadlines and corporate profit make a dangerous mix.
An analysis by theLos Angeles Timesfinds that costs associated with the February 2014 explosion at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) could total US$2 billion.
The direct cost of the clean-up is now estimated at US$640 million, based on a contract modification made in July with contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership.
The cost-plus contract leaves open the possibility of even higher costs as the clean-up continues and, as the LA Times notes, it does not include the complete replacement of the contaminated ventilation system (which failed after the 2014 explosion) or any future costs of operating the repository longer than originally planned.
The lengthy closure following the explosion could result in waste disposal operations extending for an additional seven years, at an additional cost of US$200 million per year or US$1.4 billion (€1.25b) in total. Thus direct (clean-up) costs and indirect costs could exceed US$2 billion.
And further costs are being incurred storing waste at other nuclear sites pending the re-opening of WIPP. Federal officials hope to resume limited operations at WIPP by the end of this year, but full operations cannot resume until a new ventilation system is completed in about 2021……….
GAO identifies a host of problems
An August 2016 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the federal Department of Energy (DOE) did not meet its initial cost and schedule estimates for restarting nuclear waste disposal operations at WIPP, resulting in a cost increase of about US$64 million (€57m) and a delay of nine months.
Worse still, mismanagement of the clean-up has involved poor safety practices. Last year, the DOE’s Independent Office of Enterprise Assessments released a report that found that WIPP clean-up operations were being rushed to meet the scheduled reopening date and that this pressure was contributing to poor safety practices.
The report states: “The EA analysis considered operational events and reviews conducted during May 2014 through May 2015 and identified a significant negative trend in performance of work. During this period, strong and unrealistic schedule pressures on the workforce contributed to poor safety performance and incidents during that time are indicators of the potential for a future serious safety incident.”
The report points to “serious issues in conduct of operations, job hazard analysis, and safety basis.” Specific problems identified in the report include:……….
the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) – a semi-autonomous agency within the DOE – is itself a big part of the problem of systemic mismanagement of nuclear sites. A June 2015 Government Accountability Office report strongly criticised NNSA oversight of contractors who manage the nation’s nuclear weapons facilities.
The report points to a litany of ongoing failures to properly oversee private contractors at eight nuclear sites, including those managing LANL. The report found that the NNSA lacked enough qualified staff members to oversee contractors, and it lacked guidelines for evaluating its contractors.
Greg Mello from the Los Alamos Study Group was blunt in his criticism of the NNSA: “An agency that is more than 90 percent privatized, with barely enough federal employees to sign the checks and answer the phones, is never going to be able to properly oversee billion-dollar nuclear facilities of vast complexity and danger.” http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988145/wipp_nuclear_waste_accident_will_cost_us_taxpayers_us2_billion.html
Finland ready to grasp a nuclear marketing opportunity in South Australia
Finland’s Onkalo nuclear waste disposal facility want to export the technology to South Australia, The Advertiser Daniel Wills, Helsinki, Finland, The Advertiser September 21, 2016 OPERATORS of the world’s most advanced nuclear disposal facility want to export the technology to South Australia and form an alliance to help the state develop its own commercial facility to take waste from around the world.
At a briefing with Premier Jay Weatherill at Finland’s Onkalo nuclear waste disposal facility, Posiva Solutions Oy managing director Mika Pohjonen said his company would be willing to licence intellectual property and engineering solutions to SA if it were to proceed with expanding the local nuclear industry.
Posiva is a joint venture owned by two of Finland’s biggest energy companies — Teollisuuden Voima Oyj and Fortum Power and Heat. It is set to become the first organisation in the world to bury a canister of spent nuclear fuel when they begin inserting them into the bedrock from 2020. Mr Pohjonen said SA could hope to move from site selection to burying canisters within about 15 years, less than half the time taken by Finland, because the Scandinavians had already undertaken the slow work of proving the technology………
The Onkalo disposal site is about 10 times smaller than that conceived by SA’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission.……
Mr Weatherill will by the end of the year declare a formal State Government position to Parliament on expansion of the industry………
“The next major step is a threshold question about whether we maintain our prohibition against a facility for spent fuel or whether we take a step to explore it further.”- Mr Weatherill said ….
European Court of Auditors see nuclear decommissioning funds shortfall
EU auditor sees nuclear decommissioning funds shortfall, Reuters, By Alissa de Carbonnel, 20 Sept 16, | BRUSSELS European Union plans for financing the decommissioning of nuclear plants in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia are inadequate and more resources need to be put aside, the European Court of Auditors said in a report.
The report criticizing costly delays and warning of technical hurdles ahead shines a spotlight on the challenges facing Germany and other nations within the bloc that are planning to retire their nuclear reactors.
The EU’s spending watchdog said the estimated cost of decommissioning the three Soviet-era plants closed more than a decade ago had risen 40 percent since 2010 to at least 5.7 billion euros ($6.4 billion) by 2015. That figure doubles if the cost of disposing spent fuel once and for all is included.
The EU auditors said while the bloc’s budget covered the vast majority of the costs of shutting down the reactors in the three member states, significant funding was still needed to take the plants offline completely.
They said the reactor buildings at Bulgaria’s Kozloduy, Lithuania’s Ignalina and Slovakia’s Bohunice had yet to be dismantled and no solution had been found for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel……..
The only repository for spent fuel being dug deep underground in Europe has been under construction in Finland for nearly 40 years and won’t be ready until after 2020…….
A working paper by the European Commission, seen by Reuters in February, showed the bloc was short of more than 118 billion euros needed to dismantle its nuclear plants. ($1 = 0.8945 euros)(Editing by David Clarke) http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-nuclearpower-idUSKCN11Q12A
South Africa’s Energy Minister is asked to release all nuclear-bid information
Minister will have to release all nuclear-bid information’, IOL News, 21 September 2016, Craig Dodds Cape Town – The chairman of Parliament’s energy oversight committee is to write to Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson to request all documents related to nuclear procurement by October 11, after she refused to release them on the basis that they were “sensitive”.
This comes after a legal opinion sought by another parliamentary committee confirmed that it had the right in terms of the National Assembly rules to “summon any person to produce any document it requires in carrying out its functions”………
In a written reply to a request from Mackay earlier this month, Joemat-Pettersson refused to provide a number of key documents related to nuclear procurement.
Majola said the National Assembly rules provided a mechanism for the committee to deal with confidential documents, which gave the chairperson of the committee, and not the minister, the authority to determine what should be kept from public view, and how.
“We will have to ask for the documents. We will go through legal advice to see which of the documents can be dealt with by the committee differently, not which of the documents will not be seen by the committee,” Majola said.
He committed to write to Joemat-Pettersson immediately, requesting that the department furnish the committee with all the documents.http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/minister-will-have-to-release-all-nuclear-bid-information-2070774
South Africa has no plan for dealing with nuclear waste
Where will SA put lethal nuclear waste?, BD Live, BY NEIL OVERY SEPTEMBER 20 2016, ENERGY Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson’s announcement that the procurement of 9.6GW of nuclear power will begin at the end of September demonstrates the government’s commitment to its nuclear plans despite opposition.
The opposition has almost exclusively focused on the potential financial costs of the procurement as they relate to the build of nuclear plants, and on the relative costs of electricity produced by nuclear power compared to other forms of generation.
Surprisingly little has been said about the substantial additional costs of managing the radioactive waste that will be produced by new nuclear plants.
This waste comes in three forms, categorised according to health risk. While low-and intermediate-level wastes present considerable dangers to humans, the major problem of waste disposal at nuclear power plants relates to how to effectively dispose of so-called high-level waste, largely in the form of spent fuel rods.
These spent fuel rods contain extremely high levels of radioactivity in the form of uranium and plutonium, which remain lethally radioactive for tens of thousands of years. High-level waste accounts for 95% of all radioactivity in waste produced by a nuclear power station.
Koeberg produces about 32 tonnes of spent fuel a year; over its predicted 40-year lifetime, it will produce 1,280 tonnes of high-level waste.
The government is looking to build between six and eight new reactors………
Initially, it was hoped that waste would be reprocessed and recycled back into the reactors, the so-called “closed fuel cycle”. Reprocessing plants were built in a number of countries, but they have been dogged by technical problems (some relating to serious radioactive leakages) and have been spectacularly expensive to operate. Most have now closed down…….
In 2015 Eskom unsurprisingly confirmed that the reprocessing of high-level nuclear waste “was not economically viable”. The only other option, aside from ludicrous suggestions such as firing it into space, is to store the waste. But safely storing something that remains radioactive for geologic time frames is a cold call that may not be possible………
THE National Nuclear Regulator stated in 2001 that the Vaalputs Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility (100km southeast of Springbok in the Northern Cape), which accepts low-and medium-level waste, “may be” a suitable site for an underground repository for SA’s high-level waste. However, it also noted that SA’s “limited nuclear programme” meant the construction of such an expensive depository may not be necessary.
In 2008, legislation was passed to create the National Radioactive Waste Disposal Institute, tasked with managing all of SA’s radioactive waste. It was eventually constituted in 2014 and was almost immediately caught up in a scandal involving allegations of mismanagement.
To date, the institute appears to have done absolutely nothing, but recently advertised a tender for office space.
Given Eskom’s rejection of reprocessing and the fantastic costs associated with building an underground repository, it stores high-level waste above ground in cooling pools and reinforced casks.
But because there is nowhere else to put the waste, Koeberg is running out of space in its cooling ponds (due to be full by the end of 2018) and Eskom is buying more casks at R30m each to put into a new storage building.
However, there are substantial problems and dangers with long-term cooling pond storage and dry cask storage. As Eskom’s planning application revealingly notes, these casks are only a “temporary, interim” measure.
They are designed to last no more than 60 years, and then the high-level waste will need to be moved again — and needs to be safely contained for at least 10,000 years.
Most worrying, however, is that nuclear power station sites are not designed to store high-level nuclear waste.
The dangers of storing it on site were revealed dramatically by the Fukushima disaster of 2011, which resulted, and continues to result in, tonnes of highly radioactive water leaking from its damaged storage pools.
Such storage also presents a potential target for terrorists. On-site storage has been rejected in the US as an unsafe and inadequate response to the problem of high-level radioactive waste.
If SA does indeed build six or eight new reactors, in the interests of public safety and environmental health, the government will have to find, at the very least, a 10,000-year solution to the problem of high-level radioactive waste.
How it will do so, and where the trillions of rand needed to do that will come from, are questions that remain entirely unanswered as the government forges ahead with its procurement plans. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2016/09/20/where-will-sa-put-lethal-nuclear-waste
China’s nuclear marketing plan gets a big boost from Theresa May’s decision to go ahead on Hinkley project
British Project May Clear Way for China’s Nuclear Exports to the West VOA, Saibal Dasgupta, 20 Sept 16 BEIJING —
There’s a whole lot more in British Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to allow a Chinese company to invest in the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant than mere business.
Chinese investment is limited to investing funds in the $24 billion project, which will use two French reactors supplied by Electricity de France. But the project could clear the way for Chinese involvement in a more crucial project at Bradwell, east England, which would allow China to export its nuclear technology to the Western world, analysts say.
China General Nuclear Corporation, the investor in Hinkley Point, already has signed a pre-feasibility agreement for the Bradwell project……..
Only a few developing countries like Pakistan are using Chinese reactors. These countries are not known to have the kind of strict regulatory control seen in the West.
The Bradwell B project could be a game changer. Getting regulatory approval in Britain for its reactors is crucial for China because it can open the doors for Chinese nuclear exports to the West……..
But there’s many a slip between May’s lip and China’s cup of hope. Britain already is in the midst of fierce debate with critics voicing concern about security issues. Critics question a provision in the contract that provides for a fixed electricity rate for 35 years at a time when energy prices are falling, and are expected to be much lower in the future……..
For Beijing, British approval for the Hinkley Point project is a major image booster, analysts say. Chinese business is seen in the West as an acquirer of property and trader of low-tech, unbranded goods, they point out…….http://www.voanews.com/a/british-project-china-nuclear-exports-west/3517485.html
Wisconsin nuclear plant: licensee wants license to be terminated
Decommissioning Debate Continues At Former Nuclear Power Plant Near La Crosse
New License-Holder Wants Some Land Released From License Requirements Wisconsin Public Radio, September 20, 2016, By Chuck Quirmbach. The next step in decommissioning the former nuclear power plant in Genoa, Wisconsin, will be the subject of a public meeting Tuesday night.
The session will focus on the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor, which was shut down in 1987.
La Crosse Solutions, the decommissioning firm that took over the license from Dairyland Power Cooperative this year, is seeking federal approval of its plan to officially close the books on the nuclear facility. Known as a license termination plan, it includes radiological information, decommissioning steps that need to be taken and plans for future radiation surveys of the site……..http://www.wpr.org/decommissioning-debate-continues-former-nuclear-power-plant-near-la-crosse
South Aftica’s President Zuma signs secret Russian nuclear deal
Zuma signs secret Russian nuclear deal, The Times, Stuart Graham, 19 Sept 16 South Africa is moving ahead with a multibillion-pound deal for eight Russian-built nuclear power stations despite warnings that the century-long project would plunge it into massive debt and shift a key western ally towards Moscow.
President Zuma, who has had several meetings with President Putin since 2014, has been pushing for the project with Rosatom, Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, to be approved.
The first tender in the project, a 171 million rand (£9.2 million) contract for a system to manage the nuclear build project, was assigned to the son of one of Mr Zuma’s friends on Friday.
The decision… (subscribers only) http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/zuma-opens-door-to-russian-nuclear-deal-pv6wxxfmm
Nuclear reprocessing a failure as a method of dealing with radioactive wastes
Where will SA put lethal nuclear waste?, BD Live, BY NEIL OVERY SEPTEMBER 20 2016, “……THE UK’s Thorp reprocessing plant, built at great cost in the 1990s, is due to close in 2018, leaving a decommissioning nightmare estimated to take at least 100 years to complete, at huge cost. In Japan, the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, which was due to open in 2008 at a cost of R100bn, has yet to open and has so far cost nearly R400bn over a 26-year period.
France, the only country that reprocesses nuclear fuel on a significant scale, has only been able to do so because of a huge subsidy from the state-owned energy company, EDF.
Despite initial hopes, a large quantity of highly radioactive waste that still needs disposing remains after processing. There are also serious security considerations, because reprocessing high-level waste results in the creation of separated plutonium, which could be stolen and worked into a simple, dirty bomb. The very existence of separated plutonium eases nuclear proliferation.
Nuclear proponents often champion so-called “fast reactors” as a different form of reprocessing that could solve the waste problem. These reactors are designed to burn more plutonium than they breed.
But after 50 years of research and vast expense, not one has operated commercially due to the high costs associated with running them and the fact that they still produce significant quantities of high-level waste that needs disposal. Due to these chronic limitations, most have closed down.
The Kalkar fast reactor in Germany, which cost R100bn to build, never operated and was sold at a huge loss in 1995 and converted into an amusement park.
The US National Academy of Sciences stated in 2008 that the reprocessing of nuclear fuel makes nuclear energy “more expensive, more proliferation-prone and more controversial”……
The US has tried, and after spending the equivalent of R1.4-trillion, has given up. In 2002, Yucca Mountain in Nevada was identified as the site for an underground repository for high-level waste. Despite tens of thousands of pages of scientific research and countless investigations, no agreement has been reached about whether it is safe to store high-level nuclear waste underground. The site was closed in 2011 by the Obama administration.
In Onkalo, Finland, a R75bn underground repository is being built, despite significant opposition.
Similar options are being considered in the UK, France and Sweden.
No one knows, however, if waste can be stored safely underground for tens of thousands of years…….. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2016/09/20/where-will-sa-put-lethal-nuclear-waste
Fukushima Daiichi Contaminated Groundwater Pouring into the Sea
Fukushima Daiichi Groundwater Rises from Typhoon N°16 Sept. 21, 2016
« Groundwater level rises in the aftermath of Typhoon 16, due to its heavy rain the groundwater now reaches now the surface.
It is unclear as whether or not the groundwater has been contaminated with radioactive material as it poured out into the sea, To be determined later, Tepco says. »
http://www.news24.jp/sp/articles/2016/09/21/07341567.html
Tepco pumping groundwater from Fukushima plant.
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station says it is pumping groundwater from under the plant to prevent contaminated water from leaking into the adjacent port.
Tokyo Electric Power Company says the heavy rains brought by Typhoon Malakas have raised the underground water levels around the plant’s embankments.
TEPCO officials say they added pumps to prevent the groundwater from rising further. They say the water rose nearly to the surface shortly before 10 PM on Tuesday.
The officials say this has prevented rain from permeating the ground and increased the risk that the rainwater could become contaminated and flow into the port.
The utility says that while it is pumping the groundwater to prevent leakage, it will measure the radioactive substances in the water.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20160921_09/
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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