1, EDF and decentralised energy. Les Echos, the French business newspaper, carried an extraordinary article from a Senior Vice President of EdF, the largely state-owned utility that will build the nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point in England. Mark Boillot contends that ‘large nuclear or thermal power plants designed to function as baseload are challlenged by the more flexible decentralized model’. He says that the centralised model of power production is dying, to be replaced by local solar and wind, supplemented by batteries and intelligent management of supply and demand. Not only will this be cheaper in the long run but customers are actually prepared to pay more for solar electricity and actively work to reduce usage at times of shortage. His conclusion is…
Document images, below, from the British National Archives. Notice the sign off by HM Queen Elizabeth who was 31 years old (b. 1926) and had been Queen for 5 years. Now she is 90 years old.
Russian President Putin was almost 5 years old. A former KGB officer for the USSR, President Putin (b. Oct. 1952) has acted remarkably like the British predicted in 1957. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin President Putin’s grandfather was cook to Lenin and Stalin both of whom may have been poisoned to death. Due to fears of poisoning, the cook is probably the most important official. Former Sec. of State John Kerry was born in 1943, so he was 14 years old. President Obama was born in 1961. President Trump was 11 years old. Exxon CEO become US Sec of State Rex Tillerson was 5 years old. General Eisenhower was president.
Prolonged closure at Flamanville plant after fire damage piles further financial pressure on state-owned energy firm
Image source EURDEP showing small spikes and a switch of yesterday, in the radiation monitoring in Cork Ireland (Maybe to hide radiation releases from Flamanville?). All of Irelands radiation monitoring network was switched off.
Prof Neil C Hyatt, head of nuclear materials chemistry at the University of Sheffield, said the lost revenue from the reactor closure in Normandy could be £1m per day.
“Bringing a nuclear power plant back online after an unscheduled outage is a complex task and EDF will want to ensure that all parts of the system are working safely and effectively. A short delay to complete the necessary checks is to be expected, given that the outage was unplanned,” he said.
Another expert said the cost of closure could be up to £1.8m per day, depending on energy market prices, and questioned why there was a delay.
“It took operator EDF almost a week to progressively correct the original outage estimate from one day to 50 days. EDF has provided no information as to why the outage time went from a few days to seven weeks,” said Mycle Schneider, a nuclear energy consultant based in Paris.
The 1.3GW reactor at Flamanville is one of a dozen of EDF’s French nuclear fleet currently offline, which the company said was usual for this time of the year
It did not say why the restart date for the reactor had been revised four times, or why it had jumped from a few days to more than six weeks.
John Large, a nuclear consultant who has advised the UK government, said initial reports that the fire was in a ventilator suggested the offline reactor would be back online within a week or two. Replacing such parts should be relatively straightforward, he said.
He added that the plant’s continued closure would also add to headaches at the French grid operator RTE, which warned of power cuts at the start of winter due to nuclear outages. “The continuing impact on the grid is likely to be significant, especially if a cold snap develops,” Large said.
A second reactor at the plant is still supplying electricity to the French grid. EDF said: “Work on recommissioning the affected equipment has started this week and should last several weeks, with reconnection to the grid planned for the end of March.”
But Mycle Schneider, who has advised a number of European governments on nuclear issues, said: “We are taling about very large sums of money. This is pie in the sky.”
21 February 2017 | By David Blackman
The government’s plans to quit the Euratom treaty pose a fresh threat to the UK’s increasingly embattled nuclear new build programme, a new report has warned.
Last month Brexit secretary David Davis confirmed its intention to pull out of Euratom, the European nuclear research agency that predates the European Union and its predecessors. The plans were included in explanatory notes to the Brexit Bill.
The decision was criticised by Tom Greatrex, the chief exectuive of the Nuclear Industry Association, who said: “The UK nuclear industry has made it crystal clear to the government that our preferred position is to maintain membership of Euratom. The nuclear industry is global, so the ease of movement of nuclear goods, people and services enables new build, decommissioning, R&D and other programmes of work to continue without interruption.”
Now a new study by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IME) says the government’s plans to quit the treaty could imperil fuel supplies, jeopardising energy security as well as threatening plans to build new nuclear reactors and decommissioning activities.
The IME said the government should create a transitional framework for the nuclear industry instead and as well as create new nuclear cooperation agreements (NCAs) with Euratom and non-EU trading countries ahead of leaving Euratom.
In particular, nuclear goods, services and research activities should be part of any new trade deals negotiated with the US, Canada, Australia, China and South Africa.
Dr Jenifer Baxter, head of energy and environment at IME and lead author of the report, said: “Without suitable transitional arrangements, the UK runs the risk of not being able to access the markets and skills that enable the construction of new nuclear power plants and existing power stations may also potentially be unable to access fuel.
“There needs to be a thorough framework in place to provide assurances on nuclear safety, nuclear proliferation and environmental issues.
Last week, the government’s nuclear new build ambitions were branded “pie in the sky” by an international energy expert who said it would not be able to afford the level of capital support required.
Reports suggested the Treasury was looking to sweeten deals for private investors by taking stakes in new nuclear power stations, worth up to 30%. But Mycle Schneider, who has advised a number of European governments on nuclear issues, said: “We are taling about very large sums of money. This is pie in the sky.”
GEAI has made a major submission to the Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Climate Action and Communications on the EPA-commissioned Unconventional Gas Exploration and Extraction (UGEE) Joint Research Programme. This Study had as its major research question: “Can UGEE be carried out while protecting the environment and human health?”
Conclusions do not reflect findings
We have discovered that the overall summary report did not reflect the findings of the five research reports, which more correctly should have highlighted that:
UGEE (fracking) operations globally have major impacts on the environment and on human health, but as human health was not included in the Terms of Reference for the study, the impact of fracking on human health was not included in the study.
There are several unknowns around the process of fracking globally and it is not possible to guarantee that hydraulic fracturing can be carried out without contamination of groundwater and air.
The hydrogeological profile of the Northwest Carboniferous Basin (mainly Leitrim and Fermanagh) is heavily faulted with deep-seated aquifers and shallow shales, which makes it unsuitable for fracking.
Sellafield’s ongoing failure to meet its obligations to an international Strategy is the subject of a CORE critique submitted to OSPAR’s recent Radioactive Substances Committee meeting. CORE’s investigation has revealed that the UK and Sellafield have repeatedly failed to comply with the principal objectives of the Strategy – the ‘progressive’ and ‘substantial’ reduction of discharges from Sellafield’s B205 (magnox) and THORP (oxide) reprocessing facilities.
Along with other European governments, the UK signed up in 1998 to the Strategy designed by the OSPAR (Oslo/Paris) Commission to protect and conserve the North East Atlantic maritime region. Sellafield’s failure to date to meet the discharge reduction objectives has significantly threatened the Strategy’s ultimate aim of ensuring that, by 2020, levels of radioactive substances in the sea are ‘close to zero’ above historic levels.
CORE’s spokesman Martin Forwood said today: ‘Sellafield’s failure, aided and abetted by successive UK Governments, makes a mockery of the corporate claim that environmental stewardship is a core value of the company, and we await a response to our findings from the UK Government’s Head of Delegation to OSPAR’s committee meeting last week. We have also warned OSPAR that, for its Strategy to retain any shred of credibility, it needs to get a grip on those who fail to comply and, contrary to claims in its most recent report, acknowledge the routine breaches by the UK and Sellafield’.
OSPAR’s most recent report the Fourth Periodic Evaluation was published by its Radioactive Substances Committee in October last year. Assessing Sellafield’s discharges between the period 2007- 2013 and comparing them with those from 1995 onwards, the report concluded that ‘no assessments of contracting parties showed any evidence of any increase in discharges.
That claim is roundly debunked by CORE whose investigation has found that, as a Contracting Party, the UK has overseen multiple increases of discharges from Sellafield over the years, including the 2007-2013 period covered by the recent OSPAR publication. The main findings of CORE’s report are that:
• Sellafield’s reprocessing discharges, driven largely by commercial interests, have routinely breached the principal discharge reduction objectives of the Strategy and will continue to do so until the end of reprocessing around 2020. • OSPAR has failed to censure the UK – as a contracting party – for non-compliance with and lack of commitment to the Strategy.
The graphic shows that, contrary to the ‘progressive’ discharge reduction required by the Strategy, Sellafield’s reprocessing throughput (tonnes of spent fuel/year) has fluctuated widely in ‘yo-yo’ fashion since 1995 – with correlated fluctuations in discharge. As has been pointed out to OSPAR, the only ‘substantial’ reduction (2004/05) shown in the graphic resulted from the major accident that closed THORP for almost three years and that, since that event and for the 2007-2013 period of OSPAR’s Fourth Periodic Evaluation, discharges are again on the rise to further compromise the prospect of meeting the 2020 ‘close to zero’ target.
The risk of missing that target was recognised a decade ago by Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) when both were advocating that the then predicted end of reprocessing around 2012 would allow a number of years – a clear breathing space – for the radioactive substance levels to reduce/decay to close to zero by 2020.
But as a result of poor plant performance, the subsequent extensions of reprocessing and its discharges – THORP to 2018/19 and B205 to 2020 – has removed any remaining breathing space. Such an outcome was recognised by the NDA in 2010 with the suggestion to ‘move to a contingency plan – i.e. agree not to meet OSPAR deadline(emphasis added) or put in place a different strategy’. The suggestion epitomises the apparent disdain of officialdom towards the Strategy.
EDF and decentralised energy. Les Echos, the French business newspaper, carried an extraordinary article from a Senior Vice President of EdF, the largely state-owned utility that will build the nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point in England. Mark Boillot contends that ‘large nuclear or thermal power plants designed to function as baseload are challlenged by the more flexible decentralized model’.
He says that the centralised model of power production is dying, to be replaced by local solar and wind, supplemented by batteries and intelligent management of supply and demand. Not only will this be cheaper in the long run but customers are actually prepared to pay more for solar electricity and actively work to reduce usage at times of shortage.
His conclusion is that ‘the traditional model must adapt to the new realities, thus allowing the utilities to emerge from …hypercentralized structures in a world that is becoming more and more decentralized’.
In most jurisdictions Mr Boillot would have been asked to clear his desk. What will EdF do about one of its most senior people openly forecasting the end of the large power station as it tries to raise the ten billion Euros necessary to pay for its share of Hinkley?
During the meeting, Yun also expressed Seoul’s skepticism about opening any dialogue over North Korea’s demand to sign a peace treaty, the sources said. Pursuing talks with North Korea simultaneously on denuclearization and a peace treaty would give the regime an excuse to delay its denuclearization, Yun was also quoted as telling Tillerson
Foreign minister Yun dissuades Tillerson from reward-for-nuclear freeze deal with N. Korea: sources
2017/02/21 12:24
SEOUL, Feb. 21 (Yonhap) — Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se has voiced South Korea’s reservations about any U.S. agreement with North Korea that would reward Pyongyang for a nuclear freeze, sources said Tuesday, referring to the policymaker’s recent talks with American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Instead, any deal with Pyongyang should aim to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in a “complete, verifiable and irreversible” manner, the sources quoted Yun as telling Tillerson during their talks in Bonn, Germany on Thursday,
It was Yun’s first meeting with the U.S.’ top diplomat under the Donald Trump administration, which came after North Korea’s launch of an intermediate ballistic missile on Feb. 12. The provocation highlighted North Korea’s nuclear issue as one of the most pressing security challenges facing the new U.S. administration.
The sources said that the South Korean foreign minister stressed that a mere freeze on North Korea’s nuclear program would be meaningless mainly because the country is believed to be already in possession of dozens of nuclear weapons and a freeze of North Korea’s highly-enriched uranium program may be hardly verifiable.
“The (South Korean) government regards it as meaningless to pursue a freeze deal when North Korea shows no intention to give up its nuclear weapons program although freezing its nuclear facilities would be part of the inevitable process before the complete, verifiable and irreversible (nuclear) dismantlement,” the sources told Yonhap News Agency.
During the meeting, Yun also expressed Seoul’s skepticism about opening any dialogue over North Korea’s demand to sign a peace treaty, the sources said. Pursuing talks with North Korea simultaneously on denuclearization and a peace treaty would give the regime an excuse to delay its denuclearization, Yun was also quoted as telling Tillerson.
The foreign minister then underlined the importance of maintaining the on-going pressure-oriented diplomacy toward North Korea, suggesting broader sanctions on North Korea and Chinese firms doing business with the North. He also called for continuing pressure on North Korea’s human rights violations as a desirable policy approach toward the reclusive country, according to the sources.
Yun’s policy stances are likely to be put to discussion when the South Korean and U.S. representatives on the North Korean nuclear issue hold a meeting in Washington possibly before the end of this month.
……..The 21st century has brought new challenges. Toshiba logged a net loss of 254 billion yen after the information technology bubble burst. The financial crisis put the manufacturer 398.8 billion yen in the red, and the accounting scandal gave rise to a 460 billion yen loss. Each time, the company managed a recovery by selling off operations such as liquid crystal display panels, medical equipment and dynamic random-access memory chips, known as DRAM.
Now, amid the fourth crisis of this century, onlookers seem less willing to cut Toshiba slack. The earnings delay and plunge into negative net worth have sparked overwhelming selling of Toshiba stock, with the shares falling from around 250 yen apiece to 186 yen by the end of Monday. If the company ends the fiscal year with net worth below zero, it will drop from the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s first section to its second section.
“Are corporate governance measures actually functioning?” Kazutoshi Inano, chairman of the Japan Securities Dealers Association, asked Wednesday. Sources at the TSE called the reporting delay “routine.”
Toshiba sees the need to relinquish control of memory operations to escape the latest pinch, and will begin anew negotiating the sale.
“Don’t be discouraged — keep doing your best,” Tsunakawa told employees in a broadcast on the evening of the 14th. “We’ll do all that we can.”…….
Our Rainbow Warriors Facebook group started in 2011 as an FB group about the Fukushima catastrophe, its old name was the “Fukushima 311 Watchdogs”. In June 2012, after an exhausting first year the Fukushima 311 Watchdogsgroup was dissolved, and one month later was reborn as the Rainbow Warriors, with a broader scope of interests, environment protection, climate change etc. https://www.facebook.com/groups/277245265712386/
However the ongoing Fukushima catastrophe still remains one of our our major concerns.
The Fukushima 311 Watchdogs has survived as a community FB page:
Fukushima 311 Watchdogs https://www.facebook.com/fukushima311watchdog/
and as a blog: Fukushima 311 Watchdogs https://dunrenard.wordpress.com/
This coming March 11th will be the 6th Anniversary of the beginning of the still ongoing nuclear catastrophe. Many people have disappeared along the way since March 2011, however among those who were with us right from the beginning, the Fukushima Watchers, the Fukushima Watchdogs, some haven’t yet forgotten and are still here with us.
3.11.2017 FUKUSHIMA SIXTH ANNIVERSARY ONGOING DISASTER.
TAKE ACTION: #FUKU+6 Anniversary is happening 3.11.17 … six years since the #Fukushima nuclear meltdown and ongoing poisoning of our oceans began … our air land food water have been contaminated. #Fukushima continues to spew radioisotopes into the Pacific Ocean threatening vital marine life, ecosystems and the food chain. Japan continues to burn radioactive debris and dump it into the Pacific spreading poison into the atmosphere. Join the FUKU+6 actions and events fb page taking place worldwide. Act in solidarity, please click on this image, download it, and make it your cover pic, and help spread the word. https://www.facebook.com/groups/3.11fukushimasixthanniversaryactions/601393323403623/?ref=notif¬if_t=like¬if_id=1487640969842420
It looks like its too radioactive for robots to survive. I wonder how they will do this work now?
Tokyo, Feb. 20 (Jiji Press)–A failed robot survey of melted nuclear fuel that has dropped through the bottom of a damaged reactor pressure chamber at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant complicates the formulation of a policy in the summer for taking out the fuel debris.
The removal of the molten nuclear fuel is regarded as the most demanding challenge in the decommissioning of the disaster-stricken plant’s reactors, said to take 30 to 40 years.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Co. <9501>, the manager of the plant in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, is discussing the drawing up of a broad policy outline before conducting an additional survey to work out a detailed plan for the nuclear fuel removal, company officials said.
TEPCO’s initial plan called for a self-propelled survey robot, dubbed scorpion, to enter the No. 2 reactor’s containment vessel and travel on a 7.2-meter rail to reach a metal grating directly beneath the reactor’s damaged pressure chamber. The robot would have surveyed the extent of damage to the chamber, while locating melted nuclear fuel that is believed to have dropped through the metal grating to the bottom of the containment vessel and shooting the fuel’s images.
The No. 2 reactor is one of the three units that suffered meltdown due to the failure of their cooling systems caused by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
It is unclear why there is less radioactivity under the reactor vessel, when it is where there should be the most.
A robot was expected to solidify ways to clean up the No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, but its short-lived mission raised puzzling questions that could derail existing decommissioning plans.
The robot, Sasori, was abandoned in the melted-down reactor after it became stuck in deposits and other debris that are believed to have interfered with its drive system.
But it did take radiation measurements that indicate Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the plant, was too optimistic about the state and location of the melted fuel within the reactor. The melted fuel, in fact, may be spread out all over the reactor’s containment vessel.
Scientists had believed the melted nuclear fuel fell through the reactor’s pressure vessel and landed on metal grating and the floor of the containment vessel.
The results of Sasori’s investigation, coupled with previous data taken from possible images of the melted fuel, show the situation within the reactor is much worse than expected. And a fresh investigation into the reactor is now nowhere in sight.
A remote-controlled video camera inserted into the reactor on Jan. 30 took what are believed to be the first images of melted fuel at the plant, which suffered a triple meltdown after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
Based on the images, TEPCO estimated 530 sieverts per hour at a point almost halfway between the metal grating directly beneath the pressure vessel and the wall of the containment vessel. Black lumps on the grating are believed to be melted fuel.
A different robot sent in on Feb. 9 to take pictures and prepare for Sasori’s mission estimated 650 sieverts per hour near the same spot.
Both 530 and 650 sieverts per hour can kill a person within a minute.
Sasori, equipped with a dosimeter and two cameras, on Feb. 16 recorded a reading of 210 sieverts per hour near the same location, the highest figure measured with instruments in the aftermath of the disaster.
Sasori was supposed to travel along a rail connecting the outer wall of the containment vessel with the metal grating to measure radiation doses and shoot pictures inside, essential parts of work toward decommissioning the reactor.
After traveling only 2 meters, the robot became stuck before it could reach the metal grating.
TEPCO at a news conference repeatedly said that Sasori’s investigation was not a “failure” but had produced “meaningful” results.
However, an official close to TEPCO said, “I had great expectations for Sasori, so I was shocked by how it turned out.”
Hiroaki Abe, professor of nuclear materials at the University of Tokyo who has studied TEPCO’s footage, tried to explain why high doses were estimated between the pressure vessel and the containment vessel.
“Instead of directly landing on the rail, the melted nuclear fuel may have flown off after it reacted violently with the concrete, which had a high moisture content, at the bottom of the containment vessel, just like what happens when lava pours into the sea,” Abe said.
But he said this scenario raises a puzzling question, considering the estimated radiation readings near the area below the pressure vessel were down to 20 sieverts per hour, according to an analysis of the video footage.
“If nuclear fuel debris had splattered around, the radiation levels at the central area below the pressure vessel must be extremely high,” he said. “In addition, deposits on the rail would have taken the shape of small pieces if they were, in fact, flying nuclear fuel debris. The findings are puzzling.”
Images by the remote-controlled camera also showed that equipment in the lower part of the pressure vessel was relatively well preserved, indicating that the hole at the bottom of the vessel is not very large.
“How to remove nuclear fuel debris will all depend on how much remains inside the pressure vessel and how much fell out,” Abe said.
Toru Obara, professor of nuclear engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, stressed the need to retrieve substances from the bottom of the robots or elsewhere.
“We could get clues as to the state of the melted nuclear fuel and the development of a meltdown if we could figure out which materials mixed with the nuclear fuel,” he said.
The surveys by the camera and robots were conducted from a makeshift center at the No. 2 reactor. The center’s walls are made from radiation-blocking metal.
TEPCO and the government plan to determine a method to remove nuclear fuel debris in fiscal 2018 before they proceed with the actual retrieval process at one of the three destroyed reactors.
One possible method involves filling the containment vessels with water to prevent radioactive substances from escaping.
The original article was published by Fukushima Minpo, local Fukushima Newspaper, which promotes “recovery”.To export your contaminated fruits to other countries is plainly criminal.
Fukushima peaches are making inroads into Southeast Asian markets in what prefectural officials see as a model case of recovery in its farm produce.
Fukushima grabbed the top share of Japanese peach exports to three Southeast Asian countries last year — 73.9 percent in Thailand, 76.8 percent in Malaysia and 55.9 percent in Indonesia.
In terms of volume, Fukushima exported a combined 30.6 tons of peaches to the three countries plus Singapore in 2016, surpassing the 23.9 tons logged in 2010 — the year before the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant shattered trust in its farm produce in March 2011.
Given the improved figures, the Fukushima Prefectural Government now believes the measures it took to combat harmful rumors are paying off. It hopes to revive sales channels for other produce by using the recovery of peach exports as a base.
The prefectural government announced the export data at the end of January based on the Finance Ministry’s trade statistics for 2016 and other figures compiled by the Fukushima headquarters of the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations, or JA Zen-Noh.
Fukushima is the nation’s No. 2 peach-growing prefecture after Yamanashi and has been dubbed a “fruit kingdom” for the wide variety grown, including cherries, grapes, pears and apples.
Its peach exports peaked at 70 tons in 2008, thanks mainly to Taiwan and Hong Kong, but import bans imposed from the Fukushima disaster saw the peach trade collapse to zero in 2011.
According to the prefecture’s public relations office, Fukushima was quick to review its sales strategy and shift focus to Southeast Asia, where some countries eased import restrictions on its produce at an early stage.
A decision to promote the sweetness and freshness of Fukushima peaches was also a major factor in grabbing the hearts of consumers, the office said.
Despite the success in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, it may take time before other countries in the region follow suit.
In Singapore, for example, Fukushima peaches last year had a market share of only 12 percent among all peaches the city-state imported from Japan.
The prefecture is hoping that the improvements in the three countries will help persuade other markets, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, that its peaches are safe.
The recovery of the fruit’s reputation overseas has provided great encouragement to the prefecture’s peach growers, including Shigeyoshi Saito, 58, of the city of Date.
“Along with other items, peaches are a main pillar of Fukushima’s farm produce,” he said. “I hope their good reputation in Southeast Asia will spread the word to the entire world.”
The latest robot seeking to find the 600 tons of nuclear fuel and debris that melted down six year ago in Japan’s wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant met its end in less than a day.
The scorpion-shaped machine, built by Toshiba Corp., entered the No. 2 reactor core Thursday and stopped 3 meters (9.8 feet) short of a grate that would have provided a view of where fuel residue is suspected to have gathered. Two previous robots aborted similar missions after one got stuck in a gap and another was abandoned after finding no fuel in six days.
After spending most of the time since the 2011 disaster containing radiation and limiting ground water contamination, scientists still don’t have all the information they need for a cleanup that the Japanese government estimates will take four decades and cost 8 trillion yen ($70.6 billion). It’s not yet known if the fuel melted into or through the containment vessel’s concrete floor, and determining the fuel’s radioactivity and location is crucial to inventing the technology needed to remove it.
“The roadmap for removing the fuel is going to be long, 2020 and beyond,” Jacopo Buongiorno, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in an e-mail. “The re-solidified fuel is likely stuck to the vessel wall and vessel internal structures. So the debris have to be cut, scooped, put into a sealed and shielded container and then extracted from the containment vessel. All done by robots.”
Read more: Robots are being utilized to clean up U.K.’s nuclear waste
To enter a primary containment vessel, which measures about 20 meters at its widest, more than 30 meters tall and is encased in meters of concrete, outside air pressure is increased to keep radiation from escaping and a sealed hole is opened that the robot passes through. Three reactors at the plant suffered meltdowns, and each poses different challenges and requires a custom approach for locating and removing the fuel, said Tatsuhiro Yamagishi, Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. spokesman.
The machines are built with specially hardened parts and minimal electronic circuitry so that they can withstand radiation, if only for a few hours at a time. Thursday’s mission ended after the robot’s left roller-belt failed, according to Tokyo Electric, better known as Tepco. Even if it had returned, this robot, like all others so far designed to aid the search for the lost fuel, was expected to find its final resting place inside a reactor.
No. 1 Unit
Hitachi Corp. in the next two months plans to send a machine into the No. 1 reactor core that scientists hope can transmit photos of the fuel and measure radiation levels.
The snake-like robot will lower a camera on a wire from a grate platform in the reactor to take photos and generate 3-D models of the bottom of the containment vessel. This will be the third time Hitachi sends in this robot design.
While the company is hopeful this robot will find some of the fuel, it will likely be unable to find all of it, according to Satoshi Okada, a Hitachi engineer working on the project. The company is already planning the next robot voyage for after April.
“We are gathering information so that we can decide on a way to remove the fuel,” said Okada. “Once we understand the situation inside, we will be able to see the way to remove the fuel.”
No. 2 Unit
On Thursday, Toshiba’s scorpion-like robot entered the reactor and stopped short of making it onto the containment vessel’s grate. While Tepco decided not to retrieve it, the company views the attempt as progress.
“We got a very good hint as to where the fuel could be from this entire expedition” Tepco official Yuichi Okamura said Thursday at a briefing in Tokyo. “I consider this a success, a big success.”
Tepco released images last month of a grate under the No. 2 reactor covered in black residue that may be the melted fuel — one of the strongest clues yet to its location. The company measured radiation levels of around 650 sieverts per hour through the sound-noise in the video, the highest so far recorded in the Fukushima complex.
A short-term, whole-body dose of over 10 sieverts would cause immediate illness and subsequent death within a few weeks, according to the World Nuclear Association.
The Hitachi and Toshiba robots are designed to handle 1,000 sieverts and no robot has yet been disabled due to radiation.
“Radiation levels near the fuel are lethal,” said MIT’s Buongiorno, who holds the university’s Tepco chair, a professorship based on an initial donation by the company 10 years ago. There are no formal affiliations or obligations for the faculty who receive the chair, he said.
Because the No. 2 unit is the only one of the three reactors that didn’t experience a hydrogen explosion, there was no release into the atmosphere and radiation levels inside the core are higher compared to the other two units, according to the utility.
No. 3 Unit
Tepco’s balance sheet has been strapped by ballooning Fukushima cleanup costs and slumping national power demand. All of the company’s nuclear power plants remain shut since it halted the No. 6 reactor at its Kashiwazaki Kariwa station in March 2012. The company is seeking drastic changes in top management in consultation with the Japanese government, TV Asahi reported Friday, without attribution.
The utility has focused on removing spent fuel in the upper part of the reactor building, which Toshiba aims to extract with a claw-like system. This fuel didn’t melt and is still in a pool that controls its temperature.
The used-fuel in No. 3 is scheduled to begin removal before the end of the decade, the first among the three reactors that melted down. Toshiba is developing another robot to search for melted fuel, planned to enter sometime in the year ending March 2018. The company hasn’t announced yet the design or strategy.
Year over year, ever since 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown grows worse and worse, an ugly testimonial to the inherent danger of generating electricity via nuclear fission, which produces isotopes, some of the most deadly poisonous elements on the face of the planet.
Fukushima Daiichi has been, and remains, one of the world’s largest experiments; i.e., what to do when all hell breaks lose aka The China Syndrome.
Scientists still don’t have all the information they need for a cleanup that the government estimates will take four decades and cost ¥8 trillion. It is not yet known if the fuel melted into or through the containment vessel’s concrete floor, and determining the fuel’s radioactivity and location is crucial to inventing the technology to remove the melted fuel.1
As it happens, “”inventing technology” is experimental stage stuff. Still, there are several knowledgeable sources that believe the corium, or melted core, will never be recovered. Then what?
According to a recent article, “Potential Global Catastrophe of the Reactor No. 2 at Fukushima Daiichi,” February 11, 2017 by Dr. Shuzo Takemoto, professor, Department of Geophysics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University: The Fukushima nuclear facility is a global threat on level of a major catastrophe.
Meanwhile, the Abe administration dresses up Fukushima Prefecture for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, necessitating a big fat question: Who in their right mind would hold Olympics in the neighborhood of three out-of-control nuclear meltdowns that could get worse, worse, and still worse? After all, that’s the pattern over the past 5 years; it gets worse and worse. Dismally, nobody can possibly know how much worse by 2020. Not knowing is the main concern about holding Olympics in the backyard of a nuclear disaster zone, especially as nobody knows what’s happening. Nevertheless and resolutely, according to PM Abe and the IOC, the games go on.
Along the way, it’s taken Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) nearly six years to finally get an official reading of radiation levels of the meltdown but in only one unit. Analysis of Unit #2 shows radiation levels off-the-charts at 530 Sieverts, or enough to kill within minutes, illustrative of why it is likely impossible to decommission units 1, 2, and 3. No human can withstand that exposure and given enough time, frizzled robots are as dead as a door nail.
A short-term, whole-body dose of over 10 sieverts would cause immediate illness and subsequent death within a few weeks, according to the World Nuclear Association.1
Although Fukushima’s similar to Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in some respects, where 1,000 square miles has been permanently sealed off, Fukushima’s different, as the Abe administration is already repopulating portions of Fukushima. If they don’t repopulate, how can the Olympics be held with food served from Fukushima and including events like baseball held in Fukushima Prefecture?
Without question, an old saw – what goes around comes around – rings true when it comes to radiation, and it should admonish (but it doesn’t phase ‘em) strident nuclear proponents, claiming Fukushima is an example of how safe nuclear power is “because there are so few, if any, deaths” (not true). As Chernobyl clearly demonstrates: Over time, radiation cumulates in bodily organs. For a real life example of how radiation devastates human bodies, consider this fact: 453,391 children with bodies ravaged, none born at the time of the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, today receive special healthcare because of Chernobyl radiation-related medical problems like cancer, digestive, respiratory, musculoskeletal, eye disease, blood disease, congenital malformation, and genetic abnormalities. Their parents were children in the Chernobyl zone in 1986.2
Making matters worse yet, Fukushima Daiichi sets smack dab in the middle of earthquake country, which defines the boundaries of Japan. In that regard, according to Dr. Shuzo Takemoto, professor, Department of Geophysics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University:
The problem of Unit 2… If it should encounter a big earth tremor, it will be destroyed and scatter the remaining nuclear fuel and its debris, making the Tokyo metropolitan area uninhabitable. The Tokyo Olympics in 2020 will then be utterly out of the question.3
Accordingly, the greater Tokyo metropolitan area remains threatened for as long as Fukushima Daiichi is out of control, which could be for generations, not years. Not only that, Gee-Whiz, what if the big one hits during the Olympics? After all, earthquakes come unannounced. Regrettably, Japan has had 564 earthquakes the past 365 days. It’s an earthquake-ridden country. Japan sits at the boundary of 4 tectonic plates shot through with faults in zigzag patterns, very lively and of even more concern, the Nankai Trough, the candidate for the big one, sits nearly directly below Tokyo. On a geological time scale, it may be due for action anytime within the next couple of decades. Fukushima Prefecture’s not that far away.
Furthermore, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex is tenuous, at best:
All four buildings were structurally damaged by the original earthquake some five years ago and by the subsequent hydrogen explosions so should there be an earthquake greater than seven on the Richter scale, it is very possible that one or more of these structures could collapse, leading to a massive release of radiation as the building falls on the molten core beneath.4
Complicating matters further, the nuclear site is located at the base of a mountain range. Almost daily, water flows from the mountain range beneath the nuclear plant, liquefying the ground, a sure-fire setup for cascading buildings when the next big one hits. For over five years now, radioactive water flowing out of the power plant into the Pacific carries isotopes like cesium 134 and cesium 137, strontium 90, tritium, plutonium americium and up to 100 more isotopes, none of which are healthy for marine or human life, quite the opposite, in fact, as those isotopes slowly cumulate, and similar to the Daleks of Doctor Who fame (BBC science fiction series, 1963-present) “Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!”
Isotopes bio-concentrate up the food chain from algae to crustaceans to small fish to big fish to bigger humans. Resultant cancer cells incubate anytime from two years to old age, leading to death. That’s what cancer does; it kills.
Still, the fact remains nobody really knows for sure how directly Fukushima Daiichi radiation affects marine life, but how could it be anything other than bad? After all, it’s a recognized fact that radiation cumulates over time; it’s tasteless, colorless, and odorless as it cumulates in the body, whether in fish or further up the food chain in humans. It travels!
An example is Cesium 137, one of the most poisonous elements on the planet. One gram of Cesium 137 the size of a dime will poison one square mile of land for hundreds of years. That’s what’s at stake at the world’s most rickety nuclear plant, and nobody can do anything about it. In fact, nobody knows what to do. They really don’t.
When faced with the prospect of not knowing what to do, why not bring on the Olympics? That’s pretty good cover for a messy situation, making it appear to hundreds of thousands of attendees, as well as the world community “all is well.” But, is it? Honestly….
The Fukushima nuclear meltdown presents a special problem for the world community. Who knows what to believe after PM Abe lied to the IOC to get the Olympics; see the following headline from Reuters News:
“Abe’s Fukushima ‘Under Control’ Pledge to Secure Olympics Was a Lie: Former PM,” Reuters, September 7, 2016.
Abe gave the assurances about safety at the Fukushima plant in his September 2013 speech to the International Olympic Committee to allay concerns about awarding the Games to Tokyo. The comment met with considerable criticism at the time… Mr. Abe’s ‘under control remark, that was a lie,’ Koizumi (former PM) now 74 and his unruly mane of hair turned white, told a news conference where he repeated his opposition to nuclear power.
As such, a very big conundrum precedes the 2020 games: How can the world community, as well as Olympians, believe anything the Abe administration says about the safety and integrity of Fukushima?
Still, the world embraces nuclear power more so than ever before as it continues to expand and grow. Sixty reactors are currently under construction in fifteen countries. In all, 160 power reactors are in the planning stage and 300 more have been proposed. Pro-Nuke-Heads claim Fukushima proves how safe nuclear power is because there are so few, if any, deaths, as to be inconsequential. That’s a boldfaced lie.
Here’s one of several independent testimonials on deaths because of Fukushima Daiichi radiation exposure (many, many, many more testimonials are highlighted in prior articles, including USS Ronald Reagan sailors on humanitarian rescue missions at the time):
It’s a real shame that the authorities hide the truth from the whole world, from the UN. We need to admit that actually many people are dying. We are not allowed to say that, but TEPCO employees also are dying. But they keep mum about it.5
Emi Urabe, “Fukushima Fuel-Removal Quest Leaves Trail of Dead Robots”, The Japan Times, February 17, 2017.
“Chernobyl’s Legacy: Kids With Bodies Ravaged by Disaster”, USA Today, April 17, 2016).
Shuzo Takemoto, “Potential Global Catastrophe of the Reactor No. 2 at Fukushima Daiichi”, February 11, 2017.
Helen Caldicott: “The Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown Continues Unabated”, Independent Australia, February 13, 2017.
Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba (Fukushima Prefecture), “Fukushima Disaster: Tokyo Hides Truth as Children Die, Become Ill from Radiation – Ex-Mayor”, RT News, April 21, 2014.
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