Gov’t OKs long-term Fukushima cleanup plan despite unknowns
TOKYO —The Japanese government on Friday approved a revised 30- to 40-year roadmap to clean up the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, but many questions remain.
The plan, endorsed by cabinet members and officials, delays the start of a key initial step — the removal of spent fuel in storage pools at each of the three melted reactors — by up to three years due to earlier mishaps and safety problems at the plant.
Three of the plant’s six reactors melted following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The fourth, which was offline and had no fuel in the core at the time of the accident, suffered damage to its building, and its fuel storage pool was emptied late last year.
Despite the delay, experts need to locate and study melted fuel inside the reactors and develop robots to start debris removal within six years as planned.
Experts believe melted fuel had breached the reactor cores and mostly fell to the bottom of the containment chambers, some possibly sinking into the concrete foundation.
The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, has conducted limited surveys of the reactors using remote-controlled robots.
The roadmap says the initial plan to repair damage in the containment chambers and fill them with water to conduct debris removal underwater is more technically challenging than previously thought, and alternative plans need to be studied.
Radiation levels at the reactors remain high and the plant is still hobbled by the massive amount of contaminated water.
Some of the uncertainties and questions:
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THE FUEL RODS: Kept cool in storage pools on the top floor of each of the three reactors, they need to be removed to free up space for robots and other equipment to go down to the containment chambers. The 1,573 units of fuel rods – mostly used but some of them new – are considered among the highest risks at the plant, because they are uncovered within the reactor building. To remove them, the building roofs must be taken off and replaced with a cover that prevents radioactive dust from flying out. Each building is damaged differently and requires its own cover design and equipment. The government and plant operator TEPCO hope to start the process in 2018, three years later than planned.
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THE MELTED FUEL: Once the spent fuel rods are out of the way, workers can turn their attention to what is expected to be the hardest part of the decommissioning: Removing the melted fuel from the three wrecked reactors. The biggest questions are where the melted fuel is and in what condition. Radiation levels are too high for humans to approach. Based on computer simulations and a few remote-controlled probes, experts believe the melted fuel has breached the cores and fallen to the bottom of the containment chambers, some possibly seeping into the concrete foundation.
A plan to repair the containment chambers and fill them with water so that the melted fuel can be handled while being kept cool may be unworkable, and experts are now studying alternative methods. How to reach the debris – from the top or from the side – is another question. A vertical approach would require robots and equipment that can dangle as low as 30 meters (90 feet) to reach the bottom. Experts are also trying to figure out how to get debris samples out to help develop radiation-resistant robots and other equipment that can handle the molten fuel.
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CONTAMINATED WATER: The plant is still plagued with massive amounts of contaminated water – cooling water that must be added regularly, and subsequently leaks out of the reactors and mixes with groundwater that seeps into the reactor basements. The volume of water grows by 300 tons daily. TEPCO runs it through treatment machines to remove most radioactive elements, and then stores it in thousands of tanks on the compound. Water leaks pose environmental concerns and health risks to workers. Nuclear experts say controlled release of the treated water into the ocean would be the ultimate solution.
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RADIOACTIVE WASTE: Japan currently has no plan for the waste that comes out of the plant. Under the roadmap, the government and TEPCO are supposed to compile a basic plan by March 2018. Waste management is an extremely difficult task that requires developing technology to compact and reduce the toxicity of the waste, while finding a waste storage site is practically impossible considering public sentiment. This raises serious doubts about whether the cleanup can be completed within 40 years.
Source: JapanToday
Contaminated waste water in Fukushima: the unending horror
This is what passes for good news from Fukushima Daiichi, the Japanese nuclear power plant devastated by meltdowns and explosions after a cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami in 2011: By the end of last month, workers had succeeded in filtering most of the 620,000 tons of toxic water stored at the site, removing almost all of the radioactive materials.
After numerous false starts and technical glitches, most of the stored water has been run through filtration systems to remove dangerous strontium-90, as well as many other radionuclides. TEPCO, the Japanese utility that operates the power plant, trumpeted the achievement: “This is a significant milestone for improving the environment for our surrounding communities and for our workers,” said Naohiro Masuda, TEPCO’s chief decommissioning officer, in a press release.
But it’s not quite so easy to bounce back from a nuclear disaster of this scale. For one thing, don’t take TEPCO’s statement too literally: No one is living in the “surrounding communities”—they’re far too contaminated for human habitation. Furthermore, the filtered water is still full of tritium, a radioactive version of hydrogen. (When two neutrons are added to the element, it becomes unstable, prone to emitting electrons.) Tritium bonds with oxygen just like normal hydrogen does, to produce radioactive “tritiated water.” It’s impractical—or at least extremely difficult and expensive—to separate tritiated water from normal water.
Hence TEPCO’s dilemma—which gets bigger by the day.The enormous volume of water comes from the ongoing need to keep the three melted-down reactor cores cool. More than four years after the disaster, pumps still must pour a constant stream of water into the pressure vessels that contain the radioactive cores. But the meltdowns and explosions rendered those vessels leaky, so TEPCO collects the water that seeps out, as well as rainwater that flows down the hills and through the shattered buildings.
TEPCO has been filling fields with vast arrays of storage tanks to cope with the accumulating water. The company’s 40-year plan for decommissioning the plant calls for the construction of an underground “ice wall” to freeze the soil around the reactor buildings and divert rainwater, and for plugging the leaks in the buildings. But TEPCO has run into problems with the ice wall—the underground tunnels carrying coolant haven’t gotten cold enough to sufficiently freeze the surrounding ground—and the more long-term solution of plugging the reactor buildings’s leaks is still a distant goal. In the meantime, TEPCO keeps building tanks.
Some experts, including the eminently respectable IAEA, have suggested that TEPCO may have to simply dump the tritium-contaminated water into the ocean. Tritium traditionally hasn’t been considered very dangerous to human health. Although tritiated water can reach all parts of the body, like normal water, it’s also expelled quickly from the body, like normal water. If released into the ocean, the contaminated water would quickly be diluted, and it wouldn’t bioaccumulate in fish (unlike strontium-90, for example, which is taken up by bones).
But is tritiated water really so harmless? It’s currently getting a second look from regulators in the United States. Last year, the EPA announced plans to review safety standards for tritiated water, which has leaked from many a nuclear plant. As this excellent Scientific American article explains, there’s considerable uncertainty over whether the stuff is more dangerous than we previously thought.
The amount of tritium in Fukushima Daiichi’s water is not negligible. The World Health Organization’s standard for tritium in drinking water is 10,000 becquerels per liter (34 ounces). According to Mayumi Yoshida, a TEPCO communications officer, Fukushima’s stored water contains between 1 and 5 million becquerels per liter. Yet Yoshida noted that operational nuclear power plants around the world discharge water with a much higher level of tritium than that.
Does that imply that the company is considering discharging its water into the sea, I asked? “Nothing has been decided but to keep storing at the site,” Yoshida said. “We will discuss thoroughly with the government, the oversea and domestic experts, the fishermen, and the surrounding residents, which way would be the safest and the best for everyone, before deciding anything.”
It’s hard to imagine that those discussions will be productive. Releasing the water into the ocean sounds like a non-starter in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, where fishermen are already furious with TEPCO. Fishing has been suspended around the coastal Fukushima Daiichi plant since the accident, and repeated leaks of radioactive water have angered the fishing associations still further.
If the water can’t be released as-is for political reasons, TEPCO’s only options are to keep building tanks or to accept its extremely difficult and expensive fate, and figure out how to remove the last bit of nuclear taint from its enormous holdings of problematic water.
Source: DiaNuke.org
West Coast of North America to be Slammed by 2016 with 80% As Much Fukushima Radiation As Japan
A professor from Japan’s Fukushima University Institute of Environmental Radioactivity (Michio Aoyama) told Kyodo in April that the West Coast of North America will be hit with around 800 terabecquerels of Cesium- 137 by 2016.
EneNews notes that this is 80% of the cesium-137 deposited in Japan by Fukushima, according to the company which runs Fukushima, Tepco:
(a petabequeral or “PBq” equals 1,000 terabecquerels.)
This is not news for those who have been paying attention. For example, we noted 2 days after the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami that the West Coast of North America could be slammed with radiation from Fukushima.
We pointed out the next year that a previously-secret 1955 U.S. government report concluded that the ocean may not adequately dilute radiation from nuclear accidents, and there could be “pockets” and “streams” of highly-concentrated radiation.
The same year, we noted that 15 out of 15 bluefin tuna tested in California waters were contaminated with Fukushima radiation.
In 2013, we warned that the West Coast of North America would be hit hard by Fukushima radiation.
And we’ve noted for years that there is no real testing of Fukushima radiation by any government agency.
Indeed, scientists say that the amount of the West Coast of North America could end up exceeding that off the Japanese coast.
What’s the worst case scenario? That the mass die-off of sealife off the West Coast of North America – which may have started only a couple of months after the Fukushima melt-down – is being caused by radiation from Fukushima.
Source: Washington’s blog
Start of reactor fuel removal at crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant may be delayed up to three years
The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. are planning to push back the start of removing spent fuel at the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex by two to three years from the current schedule, according to government sources.
Under an envisioned revised road map for decommissioning reactors 1 to 4 at the plant, which was ravaged by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, work to begin removing the spent fuel from the No. 3 pool is expected to be delayed until fiscal 2017, the sources said Tuesday. Originally that work was to begin in the first half of fiscal 2015.
Removal work on the Nos. 1 and 2 pools, which was supposed to begin in fiscal 2017, is now expected to start in fiscal 2020.
There is no change to the overall timeline for decommissioning the plant within 30 to 40 years after the nuclear calamity, according to the sources.
The government is expected to hold a Cabinet meeting as early as Friday to officially reflect the changes in the road map.
The government and Tepco, the plant operator are moving to revise the road map for the first time since June 2013. They apparently believe the existing plan has placed too much priority on speeding up decommissioning efforts and put a heavy burden on workers at the complex.
Source: Japan Times
No One Knows What to Do With Fukushima’s Endless Tanks of Radioactive Water
This is what passes for good news from Fukushima Daiichi, the Japanese nuclear power plant devastated by meltdowns and explosions after a cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami in 2011: By the end of last month, workers had succeeded in filtering most of the 620,000 tons of toxic water stored at the site, removing almost all of the radioactive materials.
After numerous false starts and technical glitches, most of the stored water has been run through filtration systems to remove dangerous strontium-90, as well as many other radionuclides. TEPCO, the Japanese utility that operates the power plant, trumpeted the achievement: “This is a significant milestone for improving the environment for our surrounding communities and for our workers,” said Naohiro Masuda, TEPCO’s chief decommissioning officer, in a press release.
But it’s not quite so easy to bounce back from a nuclear disaster of this scale. For one thing, don’t take TEPCO’s statement too literally: No one is living in the “surrounding communities”—they’re far too contaminated for human habitation. Furthermore, the filtered water is still full of tritium, a radioactive version of hydrogen. (When two neutrons are added to the element, it becomes unstable, prone to emitting electrons.) Tritium bonds with oxygen just like normal hydrogen does, to produce radioactive “tritiated water.” It’s impractical—or at least extremely difficult and expensive—to separate tritiated water from normal water.
Hence TEPCO’s dilemma—which gets bigger by the day. The enormous volume of water comes from the ongoing need to keep the three melted-down reactor cores cool. More than four years after the disaster, pumps still must pour a constant stream of water into the pressure vessels that contain the radioactive cores. But the meltdowns and explosions rendered those vessels leaky, so TEPCO collects the water that seeps out, as well as rainwater that flows down the hills and through the shattered buildings.
TEPCO has been filling fields with vast arrays of storage tanks to cope with the accumulating water. The company’s 40-year plan for decommissioning the plant calls for the construction of an underground “ice wall” to freeze the soil around the reactor buildings and divert rainwater, and for plugging the leaks in the buildings. But TEPCO has run into problems with the ice wall—the underground tunnels carrying coolant haven’t gotten cold enough to sufficiently freeze the surrounding ground—and the more long-term solution of plugging the reactor buildings’ leaks is still a distant goal. In the meantime, TEPCO keeps building tanks.
Some experts, including the eminently respectable IAEA, have suggested that TEPCO may have to simply dump the tritium-contaminated water into the ocean. Tritium traditionally hasn’t been considered very dangerous to human health. Although tritiated water can reach all parts of the body, like normal water, it’s also expelled quickly from the body, like normal water. If released into the ocean, the contaminated water would quickly be diluted, and it wouldn’t bioaccumulate in fish (unlike strontium-90, for example, which is taken up by bones).
But is tritiated water really so harmless? It’s currently getting a second look from regulators in the United States. Last year, the EPA announced plans to review safety standards for tritiated water, which has leaked from many a nuclear plant. As this excellent Scientific American article explains, there’s considerable uncertainty over whether the stuff is more dangerous than we previously thought.
The amount of tritium in Fukushima Daiichi’s water is not negligible. The World Health Organization’s standard for tritium in drinking water is 10,000 becquerels per liter (34 ounces). According to Mayumi Yoshida, a TEPCO communications officer, Fukushima’s stored water contains between 1 and 5 million becquerels per liter. Yet Yoshida noted that operational nuclear power plants around the world discharge water with a much higher level of tritium than that.
Does that imply that the company is considering discharging its water into the sea, I asked? “Nothing has been decided but to keep storing at the site,” Yoshida said. “We will discuss thoroughly with the government, the oversea and domestic experts, the fishermen, and the surrounding residents, which way would be the safest and the best for everyone, before deciding anything.”
It’s hard to imagine that those discussions will be productive. Releasing the water into the ocean sounds like a non-starter in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, where fishermen are already furious with TEPCO. Fishing has been suspended around the coastal Fukushima Daiichi plant since the accident, and repeated leaks of radioactive water have angered the fishing associations still further.
If the water can’t be released as-is for political reasons, TEPCO’s only options are to keep building tanks or to accept its extremely difficult and expensive fate, and figure out how to remove the last bit of nuclear taint from its enormous holdings of problematic water.
Source: Nautilus
http://nautil.us/blog/no-one-knows-what-to-do-with-fukushimas-endless-tanks-of-radioactive-water
Plan to end rent subsidies for some Fukushima evacuees under fresh fire
One expert knowledgeable about the evacuees says, “The reason that a plan to end these subsidies has arisen even though the financial burden is not large may be that government officials want to try and force voluntary evacuees to return to their homes, without respecting the evacuees’ own judgments on the matter.”
A plan to end rent subsidies for some evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear disaster has come under fresh fire, as it emerged that those subsidies are costing at most 8.09 billion yen this fiscal year.
The evacuees under consideration for having their subsidies cut — at the end of fiscal 2016 — are voluntary evacuees living in homes other than temporary housing structures built for evacuees. The total Fukushima Prefecture relief budget for disaster evacuees this fiscal year, including non-voluntary evacuees, is over 28.8 billion yen, so the subsidies being considered for being cut account for less than 30 percent of the relief budget.
One expert knowledgeable about evacuees says, “The reason that a plan to end these subsidies has arisen even though the financial burden is not large may be that government officials want to try and force voluntary evacuees to return to their homes, without respecting evacuees’ own judgments on the matter.”
Voluntary evacuees are people who evacuated from areas outside of those where the government ordered evacuations. Until November 2012, Fukushima Prefecture did not allow them to use emergency temporary housing set up for evacuees in the prefecture, and many voluntary evacuees moved outside of the prefecture.
According to the Fukushima Prefectural Government, for this fiscal year it allocated about 20.73 billion yen for the temporary homes of non-voluntary evacuees within the prefecture, and 8.09 billion yen for those of evacuees outside the prefecture. The evacuees outside the prefecture include non-voluntary evacuees, but the exact numbers are not known. A Fukushima Prefectural Government official says, “Non-voluntary evacuees have been using compensation for their lost real-estate to buy homes, and most of the people getting rent subsidies outside of Fukushima Prefecture are probably voluntary evacuees.”
Within the prefecture, voluntary evacuees live in around 300 homes, which are not temporary housing structures, but subsidies for their rent are included in the “out-of-prefecture” budget, so the 8.09 billion yen covers all voluntary evacuees from the prefecture.
According to the Cabinet Office, as of April 1 this year, there were evacuees living in 18,742 homes in Fukushima Prefecture other than temporary housing structures, and according to the Fukushima Prefectural Government, evacuees were living in around 10,000 such homes outside of the prefecture. Both numbers include voluntary and non-voluntary evacuees. Neither the Fukushima Prefectural Government nor the central government has yet released exact figures on the number of homes for voluntary evacuees other than temporary housing built after the disaster, nor have they released exact numbers for the total rent paid for them.
Currently, evacuee homes are set to be subsidized until the end of March 2016, with a decision on whether to extend this to be made soon after discussions between the Fukushima Prefectural Government and the Cabinet Office. A plan to end subsidies for voluntary evacuees would extend the deadline for one more year, to the end of March 2017, after which voluntary evacuees would no longer receive them. Although Fukushima Prefecture has money budgeted for subsidizing voluntary evacuees, this money is in effect all paid for by the central government. Tokyo Electric Power Co. has expressed reluctance to pay for voluntary evacuees’ rent, and so far the central government has not billed them for such.
Meanwhile, this fiscal year’s Fukushima Prefecture budget for radiation decontamination measures is 64.39 billion yen, up 13.35 billion yen from the previous fiscal year. The Ministry of the Environment released an estimate in December 2013 that the total costs for decontamination and mid-term storage for radioactive waste would be 3.6 trillion yen.
Source: Mainichi
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150609p2a00m0na006000c.html
Fukushima Businesses Compensation Payments Terminated, Youth Unwilling to Return
Side Note: While the government continues to try to compel people to return to the evacuation zone, they have turned a section of Tomioka into a permanent high level radioactive waste dump. The dump will take anything over 8000 bq/kg in contamination including trash, contaminated plant matter and building rubble from the evacuation zone. This is in addition to the temporary soil dump being built in Futaba and Okuma.
A new plan was announced by TEPCO and the Japanese government that would terminate compensation payments to businesses impacted by the disaster. The plan includes giving businesses a lump sum payment to cover compensation through fiscal 2016. If a business still needs compensation after that date they will need to take up a new fight against TEPCO who said they would consider more payments on a case by case basis.
This cut off times with the government plan to reopen large sections of the evacuation zone even though radiation levels remain unsafe. At the same time they announced the payment cut off they stressed that they would be putting money into “revitalization” efforts in the evacuated areas.
New polling found a majority of younger residents originally from the towns in the evacuation zone have no intention of returning and see themselves living somewhere else as adults.
While the government continues to try to compel people to return to the evacuation zone, they have turned a section of Tomioka into a permanent high level radioactive waste dump.
Sources:
Fukushima youths ready to desert irradiated hometowns, survey finds
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/05/national/fukushima-youths-ready-desert-irradiated-hometowns-survey-finds/#.VXf-AEZZNBS
Ministry to nationalize Fukushima site to bury radioactive waste
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506060036
Fukushima business owners at a loss over plan to terminate compensation
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506080034
Rain May Have Caused Radiation Spike At Fukushima Drainage Canal
The rain did it. That’s it. It has nothing to do with 3 cores in meltdown under the plant sitting in the aquafier pissing 400 tons plus a day of Radioactive water from the basements down into the ocean 24/7. It’s just the rain.
TEPCO reported a small radiation spike at the K drainage canal on June 6th. .59 inches of rain fell during June 6th according to the historical weather data.
The amount of rain was small but appears to have caused a notable spike in the drainage system. Since multiple locations feed into the K drainage canal it is hard to say what area specifically contributed to the rise but it is a clear indicator that rain does continue to play a role.
Still 960,000Bq Cs-134/137 and 2,336,000,000Bq noble gas discharged from reactors to the air every single hour
On 5/25/2015, Tepco reported still 960,000 Bq / hour of Cesium-134 and 137 is assumed to be discharged from Reactor 1 -4 to the air this April.
This is 2.7 times much as their provisional figure published in the end of April.
Tepco states the difference is caused by the change of calculation method. It strongly suggests the entire historical discharged volume of Cs-134/137 has been underestimated since 311 however they did not disclose the recalculated discharged volume before April of 2014.
Comparing to May of 2014, the discharged volume of Cs-134/137 increased to 180% this April. Tepco however states this is lower than 10% of the set point of “discharge control”, and they haven’t made any explanation on this increase.
Especially in Reactor 3, the discharged volume increased 78 times much as May. 2014. Also, 95,000 Bq / hour of Cs-134/137 is discharged from Reactor 4 building though it does not contain nuclear fuel.
Regarding noble gas (such as Kr-85), PCV (Primary Containment Vessel) gas control system detected 2,336,000,000 Bq of gas discharged from Reactor 1-3 every hour this April. Tepco states noble gas passes by as radioactive cloud to cause only external exposure so the exposure dose caused by the discharged noble gas should be significantly small.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/f1/smp/2015/images/additional_amount_150525-j.pdf
http://www.tepco.co.jp/life/custom/faq/images/d150430_08-j.pdf
Source: Fukushima Diary
A Marine Food Web Bioaccumulation model for Cesium 137 in the Pacific Northwest
July 2, 2014
The Fukushima nuclear accident on 11 March 2011 emerged as a global threat to the
conservation of the Pacific Ocean, human health, and marine biodiversity.
On April 11 (2011), the Fukushimanuclear plant reached the severity level 7, equivalent to that of the 1986-Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
This accident was defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency as “a major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures”.
Despite the looming threat of radiation, there has been scant attention and inadequate radiation monitoring.
This is unfortunate, as the potential radioactive contamination of seafoods through bioaccumulation of radioisotopes (i.e. 137Cs) in marine and coastal food webs are issues of major concern for the public health of coastal communities.
While releases of 137Cs into the Pacific after the Fukushima nuclear accident are subject to high degree of dilution in the ocean, 137Cs activities are also prone to concentrate in marine food-webs. With the aim to track the long term fate and bioaccumulation of 137Cs in marine organisms of the Northwest Pacific, we assessed the bioaccumulation potential of 137Cs in a North West Pacific foodweb by developing, applying and testing a simulation time dependent bioaccumulation model in a marine mammalian food web that includes fish-eating resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) as the apex predator.
The model outcomes showed that 137Cs can be expected to bioaccumulate gradually over time in the food web as demonstrated through the use of the slope of the trophic magnification factor (TMF) for 137Cs, which was significantly higher than one (TMF > 1.0; p < 0.0001), ranging from 5.0 at 365 days of simulation to 30 at 10,950 days.
From 1 year to 30 years of simulation, the 137Cs activities predicted in the male killer whale were 6.0 to 182 times 137Cs activities in its major prey (Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). Bioaccumulation of 137Cs was characterized by slow uptake and elimination rates in upper trophic level.
Source :
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/268982476_A_Marine_Food_Web_Bioaccumulation_model_for_Cesium_137_in_the_Pacific_Northwest
Bioaccumulation of tritiated water in phytoplankton and trophic transfer of organically bound tritium to the blue mussel, “Mytilus edulis.”
July 2012
Highlights
► Tritium was bioaccumulated into organic tritium in phytoplankton cells. ► Green algae incorporated more tritium than the cyanobacteria. ► Organic tritium was transferred from phytoplankton to blue mussels when ingested. ► Linear uptake of tritium into mussels indicates a potential for biomagnification. ► Current legislation may underestimate accumulation of tritium in the environment.
Large releases of tritium are currently permitted in coastal areas due to assumptions that it rapidly disperses in the water and has a low toxicity due to its low energy emissions. This paper presents a laboratory experiment developed to identify previously untested scenarios where tritium may concentrate or transfer in biota relevant to Baltic coastal communities. Phytoplankton populations of Dunaliella tertiolecta and Nodularia spumigena were exposed at different growth-stages, to tritiated water (HTO; 10 MBq l−1). Tritiated D. tertiolecta was then fed to mussels, Mytilus edulis, regularly over a period of three weeks. Activity concentrations of phytoplankton and various tissues from the mussel were determined.
Both phytoplankton species transformed HTO into organically-bound tritium (OBT) in their tissues. D. tertiolecta accumulated significantly more tritium when allowed to grow exponentially in HTO than if it had already reached the stationary growth phase; both treatments accumulated significantly more than the corresponding treatments of N. spumigena. No effect of growth phase on bioaccumulation of tritium was detectable in N. spumigena following exposure.
After mussels were given 3 feeds of tritiated D. tertiolecta, significant levels of tritium were detected in the tissues. Incorporation into most mussel tissues appeared to follow a linear relationship with number of tritiated phytoplankton feeds with no equilibrium, highlighting the potential for biomagnification.
Different rates of incorporation in species from a similar functional group highlight the difficulties in using a ‘representative’ species for modelling the transfer and impact of tritium.
Accumulations of organic tritium into the mussel tissues from tritiated-phytoplankton demonstrate an environmentally relevant transfer pathway of tritium even when water-concentrations are reduced, adding weight to the assertion that organically bound tritium acts as a persistent organic pollutant.
The persistence, potential for biomagnification and the increased toxicity of organic tritium increases the potential impact on the environment following a release of HTO; current legislation does not adequately take into account the nature of organic forms of tritium and therefore may be underestimating accumulation and toxic effect of tritium in the environment.
Such information is necessary to accurately assess the distribution of tritium following routine releases, and to adequately protect the environment and humans.
Source :
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X12001890
Compensation to Fukushima businesses hurt by nuke accident to end in fiscal 2016
Six years after the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. plan to pull the plug on compensation to business operators for losses they incurred due to the forced evacuation.
The plan will be included in a new compensation policy to be worked out as early as this month.
Though the new policy also will include support measures for reconstruction of the businesses, the termination of compensation payments will likely be met with a backlash from business owners who have halted operations or suffered a decline in revenues.
The total compensation TEPCO paid to individuals or businesses due to the nuclear accident in March 2011 stood at nearly 5 trillion yen (about $39.8 billion) as of the end of April. Under the new plan, the total amount is likely to be kept below 6 trillion yen.
About 8,000 business operators have evacuated from the evacuation zones. They have received compensation for financial damages they have suffered for the four years until fiscal 2014, which ended in March 2015.
Under the new policy, they will also receive compensation for an additional two years that will continue until fiscal 2016. However, the lump-sum compensation payments will end then.
Business operators outside the evacuation zones have also received compensation if they have suffered financial damages due to rumors of radioactive contamination. The operators have included those operating tourism-related companies or food processing firms.
Until fiscal 2014, they have received compensation based on the financial damages they have incurred in each fiscal year. The annual amount of compensation has been calculated by subtracting the profits of each fiscal year from those of the pre-nuclear accident year.
Under the new policy, they will receive compensation for the additional two years in a lump-sum payment. The amount of the compensation will be calculated based on the gap between the profits of fiscal 2014 and those of the pre-nuclear accident year.
Before the termination of compensation payments, the government and the private sector will jointly set up an organization to support business operators to reconstruct their operations, change their businesses or find new jobs for them or their employees.
The government will start discussions with economic organizations in Fukushima Prefecture later this month for the establishment of the new organization.
Compensation payments to farmers, fishermen and workers engaged in forestry are expected to continue even after fiscal 2016.
As for compensation payments to evacuees, 14.5 million yen has been paid to each evacuee from the difficult-to-return zones where radiation levels remain high. In the non-residence zones and the zones being prepared for lifting of the evacuation order, 100,000 yen has been paid to each evacuee per month.
The monthly payments will be terminated in March 2018, which is the end of fiscal 2017. At the conclusion, each evacuee in non-residence zones and zones being prepared for the lifting of the evacuation order will have received a total of 8.4 million yen for the seven-year period from fiscal 2011 to fiscal 2017.
Source : Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506070028
Radiated Fukushima Prefecture soil disposal facility to be nationalized
FUKUSHIMA – Environment Minister Yoshio Mochizuki told Fukushima Prefecture leaders Friday that the central government plans to nationalize a private facility intended for the disposal of relatively low radioactive waste in the prefecture.
In a meeting with Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori and others, Mochizuki also said the government plans to launch a new subsidy program for revising the local economy.
The ministry was to utilize the facility, which handles industrial waste, for the final disposal of such radioactive waste under an outsourcing contract, but it accepted the local demand for the nationalization.
Uchibori said in the meeting that he welcomes the ministry’s policy.
Koichi Miyamoto, mayor of the town of Tomioka where the facility is located, was understanding of the ministry’s move.
The facility will be used for the final disposal of waste tainted with radioactive materials released from Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant damaged in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
It will accept waste with radioactivity levels of up to 100,000 becquerels per kilogram.
Waste and soil with higher radioactivity levels are to be kept at an interim storage facility, which will be constructed at a site straddling the towns of Okuma and Futaba.
Source : Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/06/national/radiated-fukushima-prefecture-soil-disposal-facility-to-be-nationalized/#.VXPAaUZZNBS
Fukushima youths ready to desert irradiated hometowns, survey finds
FUKUSHIMA – In 30 to 40 years from now, a majority of the young people living in 12 radiation-contaminated municipalities in Fukushima do not plan to be living in the same place where they experienced the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, it has been learned.
A survey by a panel from the Reconstruction Agency found that more than 50 percent of those respondents between the ages of 10 and 29 stopped short of choosing their prefectural hometowns as the place where they want to be living three or four decades from now.
The 12 municipalities were tainted by fallout from the triple core meltdown that crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s poorly protected Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station in March 2011 — a man-made disaster triggered by the quake and tsunami.
Many of the locales are partially or entirely within the evacuation zone designated around the power plant.
Based on the survey results, the panel plans to draw up proposals on the future of the 12 municipalities as early as this summer, informed sources said.
The survey, conducted in February and March, covered members of some 13,000 households randomly selected from the 77,600 still remaining in the 12 municipalities. Valid answers were only obtained from about 5,100 of the households.
The survey said the proportion of respondents willing to stay in the municipalities where they were residing at the time of the disaster topped 60 percent among those in their 30s or above. For those between 10 and 29, including elementary and junior high school students, the share dropped below 50 percent.
While a majority of those between their 30s and 60s expressed hope of working in their hometowns in the future, the ratio was less than 40 percent for younger people.
“The results are very shocking,” said Satoshi Endo, mayor of the town of Hirono, adding that the town, one of the 12 municipalities listed, needs to create a future vision that appeals to children.
About 60 percent of those who evacuated Hirono have not yet returned.
The Fukushima Prefectural Government will present a clear vision so young people can have hope about their hometowns, a senior official said.
The Reconstruction Agency established the panel last December to discuss the future of the 12 evacuated municipalities.
The proposals will be reflected in the agency’s budget request for fiscal 2016.
The remaining 11 municipalities were the cities of Tamura and Minamisoma, the towns of Kawamata, Naraha, Tomioka, Okuma, Futaba and Namie, and the villages of Kawauchi, Katsurao and Iitate.
Source : Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/05/national/fukushima-youths-ready-desert-irradiated-hometowns-survey-finds/#.VXHhGkZZNBS
Recovery, remediation, decommissioning at Fukushima
Managing contaminated water involves removal of the sources of contamination and isolating ground water from sources
Full remediation and decommissioning of reactors at Fukushima may take a long time. Hasty schedules are not possible or expected as they clash with the safety of people. Water flowing over the melted cores of Units 1, 2 & 3 stricken by the earthquake and tsunami carries a cocktail of radio-nuclides. The integrity of the primary containment vessels of these reactors is not known. They have to develop the needed technologies to handle the cores; it may face its own trials and tribulations.
Fukushima now witnesses a beehive of activity. In April 2013, exactly two years after the accident, the site engaged 2950 workers in various remediation tasks. By February 2014, the work force grew steadily to 7150.
Mr. Naohiro MASUDA, chief decommissioning officer and president of Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination and Decommissioning Engineering Company presented updates of the progress thus far, and the future plans at an international conference organized by the Japanese Atomic Industrial Forum on April 13-14, 2015 at Tokyo.
He covered, among other topics: the present status of the plants; measures against contaminated water; fuel removal from the spent fuel pool and fuel debris removal.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) maintains the reactors at cold shutdown stage by continuously injecting water into them. The operators removed spent fuel rods from the spent fuel pool at Unit 4 by Dec 22, 2014. Now they plan to remove fuel debris from Units 1, 2 and 3.
Maximum dose rate at the site boundary is only 0.03 mSv per year, as against allowed limit of one mSv per year.
Managing contaminated water is a humongous challenge. It involves removal of the sources of contamination, isolating ground water from sources and prevention of water leakage.
TEPCO uses 16 specially designed pieces of equipment each of which can remove one or more of the sixty-two different radio-nuclides including caesium-137 and strontium-90 from water. Each may process 250 to 1200 cubic metres per day. Tritium is a major issue. TEPCO is reportedly discussing with fishermen for its gradual release into sea.
Daily, about 400 tonnes of ground water enter the building. As this water gets contaminated, it has to be stored and decontaminated. Besides other methods, TEPCO plans to construct a frozen soil impermeable wall on the land side to prevent entry of ground water. The wall will use refrigerated coolant at minus 30 degree Celsius, running through pipes that have been placed vertically in the ground, to freeze the surrounding soil.
“There are many underground pipes and other structures associated with each of the four generating units. Building a watertight physical structure around all those obstacles would be nearly impossible and, even if it could be done, the construction would be more complex, time consuming, and disruptive.
It likely would also generate much more potentially contaminated excavated soil that would need to be safely disposed of,” TEPCO stated at its website…
The wall will be in place for six years, the period needed to drain and clean the contaminated water from the buildings and make them watertight.
According to Hiroshi Kainuma, Fukushima University, the yield of rice in Fukushima came down from 4, 45, 700T in 2010 to 3, 53,600 T in 2011. In 2013, it rose to 3, 82,600T closer to earlier years.
In 2012, 71 bags of food had radioactivity above the legal reference value. In 2013, 28; in 2014, no such bag was found.
Neither abortions nor abortion rates have increased in Fukushima. Divorce rate has not increased.
Birth rates lowered. Kainuma noted that the number of direct deaths caused by earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima was 1612; the number of disaster-related deaths due to evacuation was higher at 1793!
Decontamination specialists, with unenviable tasks assigned to them used, on large industrial scales, technologies which were successfully deployed on small scales. There were failures. Diligent auditors did not condone such ‘aberrations.’ You may express empathy or sympathy or hostility on that action depending on which side of the isle you are in!
The reactor owners, regulators and others responsible to operate the Fukushima Daiichi plants safely managed to melt the cores of three of them, throwing nuclear industry world-wide into disarray! Ultimately, the Japanese ingenuity and their expertise in robotics, miniature electronics, and precision engineering will win the day. Japan needs nuclear power; many plants will start operation, though presently only energy specialists look at them benignly.
Source : The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/recovery-remediation-decommissioning-at-fukushima/article7278520.ece
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