Test run for Fukushima Daiichi 3 cover installation
Sections of the cover upon the base of the fuel removal machine
In preparation for the installation of a fuel removal machine and a protective cover over unit 3 of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, workers have carried out a practice run of installing roof modules onto the base of the fuel handling machine.
Plans were announced in November 2012 for a cover to be constructed to encase the unit’s damaged reactor building, protecting it from the weather and preventing any release of radioactive particles during decommissioning work.
The section of the reactor building that sheltered the service floor of unit 3 was wrecked by a hydrogen explosion three days after the tsunami of March 2011 – leaving the fuel pond exposed and covered by debris including many twisted steel beams.
The fabrication of the cover has been under way since November 2013 at the Onahama works in Iwaki city. It has been made in sections so that once it is transported to Fukushima Daiichi, the time to assemble it can be shortened and the radiation exposure to the workers on site can be significantly reduced, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said.
A separate structure will be built to facilitate the removal by crane of used fuel from the storage pool. This 54-metre-tall structure will include a steel frame, filtered ventilation and an arched section at its top to accommodate the crane. Measuring 57 metres long and 19 metres wide, it will not be fixed to the reactor building itself, but will be supported on the ground on one side, and against the turbine building on the other.
A detailed replica of a portion of the Fukushima Daiichi site has been created at Onahama to enable workers to train in highly realistic conditions, Tepco said. Training began in May and will continue through June.
On 10 June, workers at Onahama assembled sections of the cover on the base of the specially-made fuel removal machine and slid them into place to make a roof, Tepco announced.
Although the largest pieces of rubble have already been removed, once installed the remotely-operated fuel removal machine will be used to clear the remaining rubble and the 566 fuel assemblies from the unit’s storage pool. The removal of debris and fuel using the system is scheduled to begin in fiscal 2017.
The fuel removed from unit 3 will be packaged for transport the short distance to the site’s communal fuel storage pool, although it will need to be inspected and flushed clean of dust and debris.
Dry run kicks off to build huge dome over damaged reactor
a massive cover will be built over the No. 3 reactor building of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant during a practice run at Onahama port in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, on June 10.
IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture–A dress rehearsal is under way to install a huge “hat” over a crippled reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The bulky dome-shaped cover is meant to stop the spread of radioactive material and protect equipment necessary to retrieve 566 bundles of nuclear fuel rods from a storage pool in the No. 3 reactor building.
The simulation is designed to get workers fully drilled so they can set up the cover quickly, reducing the time they are exposed to radiation.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the crippled plant, has started simulating the process at Onahama port in Iwaki.
On June 10, TEPCO invited reporters to witness part of the drill in which portions of the cover measuring about 18 meters high were moved on a rail for about 50 meters.
The No. 3 reactor building, where a meltdown occurred after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and resulting tsunami, still has an extremely high reading of radiation.
TEPCO plans to begin retrieving the fuel rods during fiscal 2017, starting in April next year.
The drill is expected to continue through this month to ensure there are no flaws in the working procedures and safety measures.
TEPCO plans to first decontaminate the No. 3 reactor building and put up shields so that radiation levels drop when the massive cover is installed.
The cover used in the drill will be dismantled and then shipped to the power plant for reassembly and use in the actual retrieval.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201606130029.html
Parts of the cover to be placed over the No. 3 reactor building of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant are shown during a drill at Onahama port in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, on June 10
Tepco admits they concealed the fact of meltdown
On 5/30/2016, a director of Tepco, Anegawa admitted that Tepco concealed the fact of meltdown in 311.
He stated that in the press conference of that day. He says it was obviously meltdown, but Tepco avoided mentioning the term of “meltdown”. He thinks that was concealment.
In Tepco’s internal manual, meltdown is defined to be when over 5% of reactor core is damaged. However Tepco did not mention meltdown even though they knew 55 ~ 70% of the core was damaged by 3/14/2011.
Anegawa commented ordinary engineer would call such a state meltdown even without a manual.
At this moment, third-party inspection committee is investigating Tepco for its arbitrariness.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/tepconews/library/archive-j.html?video_uuid=y3a6i6b2&catid=61697
http://fukushima-diary.com/2016/06/tepco-admits-they-concealed-the-fact-of-meltdown/
Advisory lifted for most of evacuated village of Katsurao close to crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant
Radioactive waste contained in thousands of black plastic bags are placed in rice paddies in the village of Katsurao, Fukushima Prefecture, where an evacuation advisory was lifted for most of the village Sunday.
FUKUSHIMA – The government Sunday lifted its evacuation advisory for most of Katsurao, a village near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.
This is the first time that an evacuation advisory has been lifted for an area tainted with relatively high levels of radiation with annual doses projected at between more than 20 millisieverts and less than 50 millisieverts.
The government’s move allows 1,347 people in 418 households to return home for the first time since the March 2011 disaster at the plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.
But only a few people are expected to return home for the time being due to inconveniences in everyday life in the village. Municipal bus services remain suspended while shops have yet to resume operations.
The village government plans to offer free taxi services for elderly people so that they can go to hospitals and commercial facilities outside the village.
Earlier this month, the village’s chamber of commerce and industry started services to deliver fresh foods and daily necessities to homes.
The evacuation advisory remains in place for 119 people in 33 households from the remaining Katsurao area where annual radiation doses are estimated at over 50 millisieverts.
Japan report on Chernobyl disaster’s health effects to be publicly released
A 50-million-yen Japanese government report on the health effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe that was not released to the general public will be released in the near future, the secretariat of Japan’s nuclear watchdog said on June 7.
The Secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) indicated at a news conference on June 7 that the report would be released on the secretariat’s website. The secretariat will also comply with related requests for information disclosure that it had previously not accepted, it said.
The government’s investigation into the aftereffects of the Chernobyl disaster was budgeted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. It was carried out between November 2012 and March 2013 — after the Fukushima meltdowns in 2011 — at a cost of 50 million yen.
The NRA secretariat, which took over the role of handling the survey in April 2013, placed it in the National Diet Library without publicly releasing it, drawing criticism from experts in information disclosure.
“It was inappropriate as a way of releasing it,” a secretariat representative said.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160608/p2a/00m/0na/017000c
Evacuation lifted for Fukushima village; only 10% preparing return
Lights appears at only a few houses in Katsurao, Fukushima Prefecture, on June 11, the eve of the government’s lifting of the evacuation order following the 2011 nuclear accident. Waste from decontamination operations is covered with sheets in the foreground. (Yosuke Fukudome)
The government on June 12 lifted the evacuation order for Katsurao, a village northwest of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, but most of the residents appear reluctant to return home.
The lifting of the order covers more than 90 percent of the households in Katsurao. The entire village was ordered to evacuate after the crisis at the Fukushima plant started to unfold on March 11, 2011.
Katsurao is the fourth municipality in Fukushima Prefecture that had the evacuation order lifted, following the Miyakoji district in Tamura, the eastern area of Kawauchi village and Naraha.
Government officials said cleanup and other efforts have reduced radiation levels in Katsurao to a point that poses little problem. The lifting of the evacuation order means that 1,347 people from 418 households, out of 1,466 people from 451 households in Katsurao, can return to their homes to live in the village.
But only 126 people from 53 households, or 10 percent of those eligible to return, have signed up for a program for extended stays in the village to prepare for their return, according to Katsurao officials.
The officials said they believe that many evacuees would rather go back and forth between temporary housing and their homes in Katsurao for the time being, given the situation in the village.
Medical institutions and shops have yet to resume operations in Katsurao. And nearly half of the rice paddies there are being used for the temporary storage of radioactive waste produced in the cleanup operation.
Local officials say they have no idea when the waste can be moved out of the village for permanent storage.
Among the Katsurao residents eligible to return are those with homes in the government-designated “residence restricted zone,” where the annual radiation dose was projected at more than 20 millisieverts and up to 50 millisieverts as of March 2012.
This was the first time evacuees from such a zone have been permitted to return home.
Only the “difficult-to-return zone” carries a higher annual radiation dose.
The government plans to lift evacuation orders for other parts of the prefecture by the end of March 2017, except for the “difficult-to-return zone,” where the annual radiation dose was estimated at 50 millisieverts or higher as of March 2012.
The additional lifting of the evacuation orders would allow 46,000 of 70,000 displaced residents to return to their homes to live.
Demolition work delay hinders Fukushima villagers’ homecoming
Farmer Hidenori Endo is seen at the empty lot where his home used to stand in Katsurao, Fukushima Prefecture, on June 6, 2016.
FUKUSHIMA — Though the nuclear disaster evacuation order for the Fukushima Prefecture village of Katsurao is set to be lifted on June 12, just 14 percent of demolition work needed before homes can be rebuilt has been completed.
The village currently comprises three evacuation statuses: “areas preparing for the lifting of evacuation orders” with annual accumulated radiation doses of 20 millisieverts or less; “restricted residency zones” with annual accumulated radiation doses from over 20 millisieverts to 50 millisieverts; and “difficult-to-return zones.” As of June 12, the 1,347 residents from 418 households in the former two categories will be allowed to move back home. A return schedule for the 119 residents from 33 households with homes in areas in the last category has yet to be determined as radiation levels remain high.
A survey by the village government showed that nearly 50 percent of residents wished to return home. However, as of June 8 only 126 people, or less than 10 percent of residents, had registered to stay overnight in preparation for their complete return.
The Environment Ministry began demolishing houses in 2012 for those who wanted to rebuild their homes in 11 Fukushima Prefecture municipalities subject to nuclear disaster evacuation orders. Of 347 demolition requests in Katsurao, only 14 percent have been completed. Officials say that field research and paperwork are taking time. Overall, a little less than 40 percent of requested work has been done in all 11 municipalities.
Eight municipalities — including Katsurao and the city of Minamisoma, where evacuation orders are to be lifted on July 12 — are requesting the central government to speed up demolition work as the delay is hindering residents’ return to their hometowns. A senior Katsurao village official says locals have been complaining about the demolition work not advancing as planned.
The Environment Ministry hopes to complete about 90 percent of demolition work by March 2017 by streamlining paperwork, but many residents are expected to be unable to return home even after evacuation orders are lifted, as it will take time to rebuild houses after the demolition is completed.
A ministry official explained that there are people who will be able to return home immediately after the evacuation order is lifted, and that it would be inappropriate to keep the orders in place until all the demolition work is done. At the same time, the official said that the ministry will give those who wish to return priority in the demolition work schedule.
Fukushima University social welfare professor Fuminori Tamba, who helped map out disaster recovery plans for municipalities under evacuation orders, pointed out that the lack of progress in demolitions is problematic, since securing housing is the minimum requirement for residents to return. He added that the availability of housing should be considered when lifting evacuation orders.
Katsurao farmer and cattle rancher Hidenori Endo, 74, applied for demolition of his decaying home and barn last summer. Tired of waiting, Endo paid a private firm nearly 10 million yen to tear down the buildings in May.
“I wanted to go home as soon as possible,” Endo said.
He now lives in a temporary housing unit in the town of Miharu, about 30 kilometers from his Katsurao home. Endo travels an hour by car daily to his property to restart his farming business, but taking good care of his cattle is difficult to do going back and forth. To reboot his business, Endo first needs to rebuild his home. Construction work is to begin this summer, but he does not yet know when the work will be completed, and will have to live in the temporary housing for at least another year.
The central government has set prerequisites, such as infrastructure development and operation of everyday services, for lifting nuclear crisis evacuation orders. However, housing is not included in these criteria.
“Even if I could go shopping, there isn’t much I could do if there was no place to live. It’s not right to be unable to return to home even with the evacuation order gone,” Endo lamented.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160611/p2a/00m/0na/016000c
Nuclear disasters and “normalization” of contaminated areas
Translated by Kingsley Osborn
Political, economic, health, democratic and ethical
The nuclear lobby is beginning to openly assert that the evacuation of populations affected by a major nuclear accident is too expensive, is the source of lots of hassles, accidents, despair families, ruin the local economy.
To some additional cancers it will not be worth it to impose populations.
Sezin TOPÇU is PhD in sociology of science and technology, she is a researcher at the National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS) and teaches at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS). She is the author of “Nuclear France. The art of governing disputed technology “(Le Seuil, 2013) and co-edited the book” Another story of the postwar boom. Modernization and pollution disputes in France after the war “(with Christophe Bonneuil Céline and Pessis, La Découverte, 2013).
Here is the introduction to his analysis:
Minimizing impacts of a catastrophic nuclear accident is set to become a classic of our time, and not only in countries where the presence of nuclear installations is important, such as France, or in countries that have already undergone an accident, such as Japan and Belarus, but also in countries that do not. This minimization, which seems to impose forcefully, is the ability to “resilience” of specialists in nuclear, that is to say, industrialists, nuclear states, and certain regulatory bodies, both national and international.
How the specialists in nuclear-they managed to trivialize the radioactive wrong with that? By what means, strategies and watchwords governing bodies have managed to formulate the problem in terms of evacuation procedures and even its legitimacy, when we should collectively discuss the legitimacy to continue to make use of facilities that have potential for processing and destruction unparalleled in the territories, natural resources, living species, and human body?
from these questions, this paper aims to contribute to the emergence of a political debate and citizen which is long overdue, around the issue of contaminated territories in case of nuclear accident.
Three Mile Island? The French nuclear officials there saw immediately that an “incident” or a “glitch”. Chernobyl? In 1996 again, the World Health Organization (WHO) only accounted for 32 deaths. Fukushima? The disaster paradoxically accelerated the offensive of the Japanese nuclear industry for exports. No other sector causes, accident, such bitter controversy and permanent (with expertise, evidence / no-evidence, observations, assessments and also contrasting and contradictory), on health impacts experienced by affected populations.
Beyond the very serious consequences on the health of populations, whose proof or recognition are made difficult due to the latency that require radiation-induced diseases to manifest itself, but also the secret or active factory ignorance that often surround them, a nuclear accident also means the sacrifice of entire territories.
the challenge for specialists in nuclear, since the 1990s at least, is indeed to minimize the sacrifice in the eyes of public opinion. To ensure that the renunciation of land does not occur, or only take place only temporarily. A instrumentalize, for this suffering, certainly real but no singular evacuees to believe that those who remain on their land, even though they would offer more than enough healthy living conditions, suffer for nothing. A claim that may well “learn to live” with ambient radioactivity.
The first part of this note reviews the genesis of panel discussions, legal arrangements and managerial tools for the management of contaminated territories. This is to recall that the unmanageable nature of damage caused by a major nuclear accident has been recognized by the nuclear experts in the 1950s, which has historically conditioned the doctrine prevailing today, whereby post-accident measures (including the abandonment of contaminated areas) will necessarily be limited or should be optimized.
The second part of the note looks at how the contaminated territories have been effectively treated in post-Chernobyl and post-Fukushima. Socio-economic and geo-political criteria that influence how to design the future of the evacuated areas, their status, and they could not “return to normal” are analyzed here.
The last part of the note stresses the importance of official strategies to psychologizing disasters to minimize abandonment of contaminated land, but also to push into the background the prospect of a fair assessment of the health damage caused in the event accident.
To read the entire article: The Show as PDF (400KB) The view on the EPF website
The website of the Foundation for Political Ecology: http://www.fondationecolo.org/
Note:
We’ve been warned: the next nuclear accident, we will be strongly urged to stay or return to live on contaminated territories.
Catastrophes nucléaires et « normalisation » des zones contaminées
http://www.vivre-apres-fukushima.fr/catastrophes-nucleaires-et-normalisation-des-zones-contaminees/
Tepco to inject cement instead of frozen water wall
On 6/2/2016, Tepco reported to NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority) that they need to inject cement to “frozen” water wall and NRA admitted it.
The feasibility of frozen water wall project was questioned since before the beginning. In the meeting of NRA, Tepco admitted the temperature remains nearly 10 ℃ at 4 “freezing” points to cause no improvement to stop contaminated groundwater. It has been in freezing operation for over 2 months.
These 4 points are situated between the reactor buildings and the sea. The volume of contaminated water to be pumped up has not been decreased regardless of the frozen water wall.
Tepco states the temperature remains over 0 ℃ because of the high speed of groundwater. They inject cement to slower the water.
Click to access handouts_160602_06-j.pdf
http://photo.tepco.co.jp/date/2016/201606-j/160606-01j.html
Another evacuation order lifted in Fukushima
The Japanese government has lifted its evacuation order for most parts of a village near the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima. Katsurao Village became the 4th such municipality after the 2011 nuclear disaster.
Officials lifted the restriction on Saturday midnight except some areas where the radiation level remains high. All of over 1,400 residents there were forced to evacuate. Now most of them are allowed to return home.
According to a survey the village conducted last year, nearly half of the respondents said all or at least parts of their family want to return home when the order is lifted.
Local authorities say they will work to ease concerns over radiation and provide medical services. They will also ask shops to reopen there to sell foods and everyday essentials.
The evacuation order remains in 9 municipalities in Fukushima. This is forcing more than 90,000 people to continue living away from home.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20160612_04/
Villagers divided over lifting of order
People from Katsurao have had mixed responses to the lifting of the evacuation order.
Residents who have decided to return to the village include Rinko Matsumoto and her husband.
Matsumoto planted corn seedlings on Sunday in front of her home. She used to eat home-grown corn with her children and grandchildren when they were all living together before the accident.
She says she is happy to be returning home, but that she will miss family members who have no plans of coming back anytime soon.
Akira Miyamoto and his wife spent the day tending roses in their garden and playing with their dog.
Miyamoto says this is the day Katsurao Village has come back to life. He says he wants to enjoy living there surrounded by nature.
Yoshio Matsumoto is one of the former residents who have decided not to return.
Matsumoto lives in temporary housing in another municipality. He says he is not going back home because he is worried about radiation and few of his neighbors are returning.
He says his home has been decontaminated many times, but windy or rainy weather causes radiation levels to rise.
New technologies using zeolite composite fibers to prevent radioactive cesium pollution in Fukushima rivers
The authors have developed and applied new technologies using zeolite composite fibers to prevent radioactive Cs pollution of water in Fukushima, Japan.
During approximately four years in the area, decontamination has been conducted to reduce radioactive cesium (Cs) in the field. However, water contaminated with extra-diluted radioactive Cs has prevented residence within about 30 km of the damaged nuclear facilities. Great efforts at decontamination work should be undertaken to alleviate social anxiety and to produce a safe society in Fukushima.
Decontamination using fiber-like decontamination adsorbents was examined in actual use for radioactive Cs in water in Date city in 2013 and in Okuma town in 2015.
This report describes preparation and properties of the fiber-like decontamination adsorbents. Furthermore, this report is the first describing results of radioactive Cs decontamination using a fiber-like adsorbent for water with extra-low-level concentrations of radionuclides.
Even four years after the accident, results strongly suggest the decontamination still distributed in Fukushima area, depending on the distance of the nuclear power plant. Evidence indicates the importance of preventing extension of radioactive Cs further downstream to human residential areas.
173 Children Thyroid Cancers in Fukushima Prefecture
As a reminder, elsewhere, children thyroid cancer occurs in only about one or two of every million children per year by some estimates. This shows an incidence of thyroid cancer multiplied by more than a hundred.
According to the latest Fukushima prefectural survey report, published on June 6, 2016, the number of childhood thyroid cancers increased from 163 three months and a half ago to 169 now, as 6 persons more were found affected with thyroid cancer.
Then the Fukushima Medical University professor Akira Ozuru verbally reported 3 additional cases, making now the number of thyroid cancers 172.
Therefore in the last 3 months and half, 9 additional cases have been further detected, which brings now the total number of children affected with thyroid cancer up to 172.
Here below in this first picture you may see the evolution of the number of children thyroid cancers and its evolving ratio to the Fukushima population from December 31, 2013 to March 31, 2016.
We can see that they are become higher at every announcement.
This time March 31, 2016 it became one in 1746 children.
In the next picture we see the male-to-female ratio of Fukushima Prefecture childhood thyroid cancer and suspicion of thyroid cancer. The stats proving that girls (women) are indeed getting more affected than the boys (men) by radiation, as well expected.
As you may see in the next picture the thyroid cancer ratio to population differs depending on each municipality.
Red color – 1 in 999
Orange color – 1 in 1000 to 1999
Yellow color – 1 in 2000 to 2999
Green color – 1 in 3000 to 3999
Blue color – 1 in 4000 to 6999
Source: http://www.sting-wl.com/fukushima-children9.html
Translated by D’un Renard
Upper House Election 2016 / ‘Stagnant recovery’ hangs over Fukushima
From The Yomiuri Shimbun, a pro-government Japanese newspaper
Large black bags piled up like stone walls are a common sight in Fukushima Prefecture.
The bags are filled with contaminated soil left over from the decontamination work carried out in the wake of the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The bags of soil are being provisionally stored at about 130,000 spots throughout the prefecture, including in schoolyards and parks.
It has been more than five years since the Great East Japan Earthquake, yet these “temporary” storage sites can even be found in the city of Fukushima.
On May 28, Justice Minister Mitsuhide Iwaki, 66, of the Liberal Democratic Party held a meeting for his supporters at a hotel in the city center. Iwaki represents them in the House of Councillors.
“I want to tell the whole world how safe and secure Fukushima is. The Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in four years are a big chance. I want to show how Fukushima has recovered from the major damage it received,” he said at the meeting, drawing applause from about 250 supporters.
Posters hung around the venue read, “Running flat out toward a true recovery.”
There were about 10.3 million cubic meters of contaminated soil as of the end of last year, enough to fill eight Tokyo Domes. The government wants to move as much as 60 percent of this to interim storage facilities being built in Okuma and Futaba by the time the Olympics are held in Tokyo in fiscal 2020, to give an impression the recovery is making progress.
However, only about 2 percent of the land needed for the sites has been acquired. House of Councillors member Teruhiko Mashiko, 68, of the Democratic Party criticized the delay in moving the contaminated soil at the opening of a campaign office in Koriyama, also on May 28.
“Is the way the LDP is handling things acceptable? Contaminated soil is just being left to sit in schoolyards and parks and beside private houses,” he said.
Mashiko does not dispute the need for interim storage facilities, but since negotiations with about 2,000 landowners are moving slowly, he has proposed nearly doubling the current number of staff from 110 to at least 200 workers.
The number of House of Councillors seats to be contested in the Fukushima constituency this time was cut from two to one in 2013, pitting Iwaki and Mashiko, who currently each hold a seat, against each other. In the 2010 upper house election, Iwaki won a seat but finished second, about 2,700 votes behind Mashiko. This time, Mashiko is set to run as “a joint candidate” backed by opposition parties, so there is a much stronger sense of crisis among Iwaki’s campaign team.
At a meeting on June 5 of the LDP’s prefectural election committee, the chairman of the Election Strategy Committee, Toshimitsu Motegi, urged members of the prefectural assembly and others to join the fray.
“When two sitting lawmakers go up against each other, one must lose his seat. Treat this campaign like it is your own election,” he said.
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said the recovery from the disaster is one of its highest priorities. Abe himself visited Fukushima on June 3. If one of his Cabinet members were to be defeated in such a key electoral district, “It would be seen as a rejection of the recovery policies the government has promoted,” a veteran member of the prefectural assembly said.
The DP has its burdens as well. When the disaster struck, the DP’s predecessor, the Democratic Party of Japan, was in power, and the administration’s scattershot response confused operations on the ground. At the launch of his campaign, Mashiko apologized for the party’s track record.
“We put everything we had into the recovery, but the path was steep. I’m terribly sorry,” he said.
In a survey of 200 Fukushima Prefecture residents who were evacuated, conducted in March by The Yomiuri Shimbun, 80 percent said the recovery was behind schedule. “Even if decontamination is completed, the mountains of contaminated soil remain. Many residents say they don’t want to return,” said Norio Kanno, mayor of Iitate, which had to be fully evacuated after the nuclear disaster.
Will either party be able to accelerate the recovery that is still not being felt in many areas hit by the disaster? Voters will likely view both the LDP and the DP with a critical eye.
Final disposal within 30 years
Decontamination has been completed for almost 90 percent of the about 420,000 houses and other buildings targeted for clean-up in Fukushima Prefecture. The evacuation orders for most of the city of Minami-Soma and two villages in the prefecture are expected to be lifted in June or July. However, it has yet to be decided when the evacuation orders will be lifted for Okuma and Futaba, where the damaged nuclear plant is located, and other municipalities with high radiation levels. Storage facilities for the contaminated soil generated by the decontamination effort are intended to be only an interim solution. Legislation has been passed demanding that a final solution outside the prefecture be found within 30 years.
Numerous other issues also need to be dealt with, including decommissioning the damaged nuclear reactors.
Work on developing robots that can collect the melted nuclear fuel in the reactors has only just begun, meaning the decommissioning process could take as long as 40 years. Work on building an “ice wall” by freezing the ground around the reactor buildings is almost completed. This is expected to stop the inflow of groundwater into the site, which should reduce the amount of contaminated water that is generated.
Decontamination worker’s dead body found full of scars
According to Fukushima prefecture police, a decontamination worker’s dead body was found in the company area that he was working for on 5/16/2016.
The body is assumed to be the man in 40s, who had been missing since last Autumn.
Police found it in the gravel pit of the company area. The company undertakes decontamination works in Iwaki city. From juridical autopsy, intracranial injury was possibly the cause of death. There were several scars on the face and body.
The company president and 5 other employees and former employees were arrested for suspicion of abandonment of dead body.
No more details are reported.
http://irresponsibility.seesaa.net/archives/20160517-1.html
http://matomejapan.doorblog.jp/archives/60130534.html
Residents near Sendai nuclear plant agonize over future power supplies
SATSUMASENDAI, Kagoshima — Residents here are agonizing over whether they will be able to do away with nuclear power and shift to renewable energy.
The No. 1 and 2 reactors at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in this Kagoshima Prefecture city of Satsumasendai were put back online in the summer of 2015.
There had been a common view that the suspension of operations at the Sendai nuclear power complex in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster was having a grave impact on the local economy. But there were unexpected responses to a questionnaire survey of local businesses conducted by the city’s chamber of commerce and industry in 2014. On a question about the impact of the suspension of nuclear reactors, 50.3 percent of the 358 companies that responded to the survey said that there was “no” impact, surpassing 48.9 percent of the companies that said “yes.”
Hiroshi Tanaka, 58-year-old president of local electronics parts manufacturer Okano Electronics Co., said, “There was no impact.” At the request of the municipal government two years ago, he played a mediator role in ensuring cooperation among 18 local companies to put street lights using solar power to practical use. The city is currently making a strong effort to introduce renewable energy such as solar and wind power. The municipal government withheld approval of a plan to build a third reactor at the Sendai nuclear power station after the outbreak of the Fukushima nuclear crisis in 2011. The total output of renewable energy in the city stood at 250 kilowatts generated by only one windmill before the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but it rose to a total of 134,000 kilowatts as of the end of March 2016, enough to cover the needs of all 46,000 households in the city.
Satsumasendai Mayor Hideo Iwakiri has been saying, “The No. 1 and 2 reactors will eventually be decommissioned. We want to gear up for the next generation of energy.” Tanaka also said, “We will take the next step while the reactors are running.” Obviously, it is difficult for the renewable energy industry to create the same amount of jobs as the nuclear power industry. The city is planning to build a major conference hall by using government subsidies of 2.5 billion yen it is to receive for allowing the two reactors to resume operations. The city government, therefore, has been criticized for its policy focusing on the construction of public structures. But there are still calls within the construction industry to build another reactor at the Sendai nuclear power station.
Still, there are signs of the city becoming keen to fully break away from nuclear power. A 71-year-old former head of a neighborhood community association in the city’s Takae district, about 6 kilometers from the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant, said, “We cannot relieve our anxiety because of the accident in Fukushima. We want the existing reactors to keep running until they are decommissioned, but we want new ones to be installed somewhere else. I think that’s what everyone thinks.”
The central government is planning to have nuclear power make up 20 to 22 percent of the nation’s electric power needs in the future. The city is not able to do away with nuclear power so easily, so it is agonizing over the future of its energy program while putting up a two-front strategy — nuclear power and renewable energy.
I got on a boat to visit an islander, hoping to hear his real opinion. The Koshikijima Islands, about 30 kilometers west of the Sendai nuclear plant, merged into the city of Satsumasendai in 2004. Single-seat electric vehicles for tourists are lined up at a harbor on Kamikoshiki-jima island, the central part of islanders’ activities. In the yard of an shutdown school, a private-public project was under way to conduct a demonstration experiment on a power storage system that combines solar panels and used batteries for electric vehicles.
Kyushu Electric Power Co. built the country’s first commercial wind power plant on the island in 1989. After the outbreak of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the city called the Koshikijima Islands “Eco Islands.”
The man I went to see is Kenta Yamashita, 30, who runs a company called “Higashishinakai no Chiisanashima Burando” (Small Island Brand in East China Sea). He studied architecture at a Kyoto university and worked for a while after graduating from college. He returned to his home six years ago to start his own business. His company, which has 13 employees, is engaged in projects to show the attractive points of the island such as “minshuku” (private homes that provide lodgings for travelers) and tour guides.
The Fukushima nuclear accident occurred one year after he returned to the island. No matter how much he is proud of the island’s beautiful nature, he can see the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant far away on a sunny day.
I sat face to face with him in his office that was converted from a house that was more than 100 years old, and asked him unashamedly about what he thinks of nuclear power. He lowered his eyes and thought for a while before saying with a stern face, “There is no electricity generated by nuclear power not even one kilowatt on this island. I don’t care about whether the reactors are running or not.”
Yamashita told me about a fishing port that has a breakwater, a stone wall built by islanders. So, I asked him to take me there. It was a place where fishermen sat on the stone wall and repaired fishing nets over small talk. Yamashita said, “This is an affluent island if you live idyllically. I think the distinct character of this island is the landscapes that cannot be measured by economics.” He said that he had an incisive memory of the stone wall.
This was from around a time when Yamashita moved away from the island to go to high school on the Japanese mainland. When he came back to the island on holidays, his father, who was working for a construction company, was destroying part of the stone wall at the fishing port as part of work to widen a road. He thought, “Who needs such construction work? What is the point of construction work to destroy a place that everyone has been caring about?” On that night, he rebuked his father in anger. His father replied, “It was for the sake of you.”
It requires money to go to school on the mainland. Yamashita was plagued by the irrational fact that he was able to live by having someone destroy the landscape that he had been familiar with since his infancy. He could not say anything to respond to what his father said.
“If you think about the economy alone, this is the worst island,” Yamashita said. He went on to say, “I want to do my best to create work which I can proudly tell the generation of our children ‘this is for the sake of you’. I believe that is the role for me to play.”
Yamashita then told me, “It is true that there are many people who rely on the nuclear power plant for their living. I can’t flatly say this and that.” He feels that nuclear power is equal to a public works project to destroy the stone wall. “It is better not to have nuclear reactors. But once they start moving, they will move closer to decommissioning. I even think that it was good to restart the reactors.”
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160608/p2a/00m/0na/016000c
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
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
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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