Tepco estimates 44 years to decommission Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant
They say that the first stage, comprising radiological surveys, will take ten years. The second stage, which will involve clearing the equipment from around the nuclear reactors, will last 12 years. Removal of the reactors (stage 3) and demolition of the reactor buildings (stage 4), will each last 11 years.
But these estimates are useless. The U.S. has been cleaning up Hanford, WA, site of the reactors that made the plutonium in the Alamagordo bomb, and then the Nagasaki bomb, for decades, at an every mounting cost and an ever-receding completion date. Turns out that generating large amounts of high-level nuclear waste turns out to be a bit more challenging to deal with than the techno-optimists ever dreamed. If there’s anyone around with the consciousness to care several hundred years from now, the creation of nuclear waste is going to be a very nasty reminder of how stupid we were.

Vladivostok customs stopped a radioactive Toyota Prius that arrived from Japan
The contaminated Toyota Prius will be shipped back to Japan. Picture: Vladivostok customs
In Cumbria, concern over nuclear waste canisters, and inadequacy of Radioactive Waste Management (RWM)
Current model for storing nuclear waste is incomplete, https://cumbriatrust.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/current-model-for-storing-nuclear-waste-is-incomplete/ 30 Jan
, New research carried out by Ohio State University has revealed significant problems with one of the key containment methods for high level nuclear waste to be used in the UK. It had previously been assumed that forming high level waste into glass or ceramics within a stainless steel canister would ensure that the waste would be isolated from its surroundings while it underwent radioactive decay. It now appears that the iron within stainless steel canister is reacting with the silicon, a fundamental constituent of glass. This leads to severe localised corrosion at a far higher rate than previously assumed. The full article can be found here.
Followers of Cumbria Trust will be aware that this is not the only example of a canister intended for the UK’s geological disposal programme which has failed to perform as expected. Another is the KBS-3 concept which used copper canisters, where some experiments have shown accelerated corrosion via a pitting process.
During the previous search for a site to bury the UK’s nuclear waste, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) attempted to deny the existence of these problems. Recently, Radioactive Waste Management (RWM), a subsidiary of the NDA, has become more open in its admission of the difficulties they face. Cumbria Trust welcomes this approach, and has had a constructive dialogue with some senior RWM figures over recent years.
Our recent experience with RWM hasn’t been entirely positive though – they have failed to exclude designated areas (such as national parks and AONBs) in the latest search process, despite overwhelming public opposition to their inclusion, and have refused to discuss this with Cumbria Trust when asked. Cumbrians might ask themselves why RWM are taking this stance.
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