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Survey begins to determine remote island’s suitability for nuclear disposal site

But while the local leaders of the municipalities in Hokkaido and Genkai approved the literature reviews, the Hokkaido and Saga governors, whose permission NUMO will seek to go on to the next stage — a preliminary on-site survey — are opposed

By Eric Johnston, STAFF WRITER, May 21, 2026, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/tag/nuclear-energy/

A survey to determine the suitability of a remote island in the Ogasawara Islands chain as a final disposal site for radioactive nuclear waste began Wednesday.

The National Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO) will carry out a review of the scientific literature on the geology of Minamitorishima, Japan’s easternmost island, located nearly 2,000 kilometers from Tokyo.

The literature review is the first stage of an investigation into whether the site would be suitable for constructing an underground nuclear storage facility. The radioactive waste would need to be buried at least 300 meters underground for up to 100,000 years.

Minamitorishima has no civilian residents and is part of Ogasawara Village. The mayor, Masaki Shibuya, gave his approval for the survey last month.

Over the next two years or so, experts will scrutinize geological maps and academic papers regarding earthquake fault lines and volcanic activity on and around the island.

Local governments that agree to participate in the literature review can receive up to ￥2 billion in grants, and the central government has been encouraging as many of them as possible to raise their hands.

“The final disposal of radioactive waste is a critical issue that Japan as a whole must resolve, and we intend to conduct literature surveys in as many parts of the country as possible,” NUMO President Akira Yamaguchi said in a statement Wednesday.

Minamitorishima is only the fourth site to agree to the survey. Suttsu town and Kamoenai village in Hokkaido Prefecture have been surveyed, and NUMO is compiling feedback on the report. Genkai, in Saga Prefecture, is currently undergoing a survey as well.

But while the local leaders of the municipalities in Hokkaido and Genkai approved the literature reviews, the Hokkaido and Saga governors, whose permission NUMO will seek to go on to the next stage — a preliminary on-site survey — are opposed.

“If Suttsu and Kamenaichi intend to proceed with a preliminary survey, I’ll express opposition at this time,” Hokkaido Gov. Naomichi Suzuki said in March, citing an October 2000 prefectural assembly ordinance opposing the introduction of nuclear waste into the prefecture.

Saga Prefecture Gov. Yoshinori Yamaguchi has also indicated his opposition to his prefecture hosting a final disposal facility.

“I have no intention of accepting any new burdens,” Yamaguchi said in April when asked about his position on whether he’d provide consent for Genkai to conduct a preliminary on-site survey after the literature survey.

Unlike the other three candidate sites, Minamitorishima has no permanent residents and is off-limits to the public. It houses facilities operated by the Maritime Self-Defense Force, the Japan Meteorological Agency, and the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry.

The Japanese government is moving to restart as many nuclear power plants as possible. But on-site storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel at many power plants are approaching full capacity, while plans to have the spent fuel recycled at the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant in Aomori Prefecture remain stalled.

In February, the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan released figures showing that storage pools at 17 nuclear plants where spent fuel is cooled were 78% full as of the end of last year.

May 25, 2026 Posted by | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

Reactor to be halted after radioactive steam detected in northeastern Japan nuclear plant

CGTN, 16th May 2026,
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2026-05-16/Japan-s-nuclear-reactor-to-be-halted-after-radioactive-steam-detected-1NbFXtkebzG/p.html

The operator of the Onagawa nuclear power station in Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, said Friday that it will halt the facility’s No. 2 reactor after radioactive steam was detected within its turbine building.

Tohoku Electric Power Co. said a small amount of radioactive steam was found in the reactor unit’s turbine building at around 5:10 p.m. local time on Friday, adding no radioactive materials had leaked into the environment and that the halt was for inspection purposes.

The company also dismissed any link between the incident and a 6.4-magnitude earthquake that struck northeastern Japan on Friday night.

The No. 2 reactor at the plant had previously been taken offline for a regular inspection and was only brought back online on Monday, with commercial operations scheduled to resume on June 9.

May 20, 2026 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Japan faces tough road ahead over nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant

Japan Times, 10 May 26,

Japan still faces a tough road ahead over the construction of a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori Prefecture, whose completion date has been moved back 27 times.

With less than a year to go until the current deadline at the end of next March, Japan Nuclear Fuel is in time-consuming exchanges with the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) over the plant.

The completion “will definitely be delayed” again, Aomori Gov. Soichiro Miyashita has said. Meanwhile, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara has said that the deadline remains unchanged.

Japan Nuclear Fuel began the construction of the plant, a key component of the country’s nuclear energy policy, in the village of Rokkasho in 1993, originally planning to complete it in 1997.

Delays primarily stemmed from a series of problems, including those with some equipment, before northeastern Japan was struck by the massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

After the triple disaster, Japan significantly tightened nuclear safety standards. The NRA’s lengthy regulatory review to ensure the Rokkasho plant’s compliance with the standards led to delays in recent years.

The regulatory watchdog finished examining the plant’s basic design in 2020 and then started a detailed design review, which is still going on.

When Japan Nuclear Fuel announced its 27th postponement in the summer of 2024, it said it would complete its submissions to the NRA by November 2025 and win the body’s approval by March this year, but the plans have not progressed as scheduled………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/05/10/japan/japan-nuclear-fuel-reprocessing/

May 13, 2026 Posted by | Japan, technology | Leave a comment

The ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster 15 years on: a photoessay

Peace and Health Blog. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Tilman Ruff, April 2, 2026

It is now 15 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake on 11 March 2011—and the tsunami it generated—wrought havoc on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP). A predictably dangerous plant design, a corrupt and negligent operator, and Japan’s incestuous and corrupted ‘nuclear village’ involving collusion and revolving doors between government, regulator and operators, combined in a lethal mix.

The myth that a nuclear disaster couldn’t happen in Japan and therefore didn’t need to be prepared for continues to exact a high toll. The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, the only such body ever established by the National Diet of Japan, concluded that: 

“It was a profoundly man-made disaster – that could and should have been foreseen and prevented. … a multitude of errors and willful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared for the events of March 11.” “… Bureaucrats … put organisational interests ahead of their paramount duty to protect public safety.”

The accident “was the result of collusion between the government, regulators and TEPCO … They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents.”

“The Commission concludes that the government and regulators are not fully committed to protecting public health and safety”.

Despite this clear and damning indictment, the highest courts in Japan have acquitted Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) top executives and have not held the government accountable. No TEPCO executive or government official is in prison because of a huge and ongoing disaster they could and should have prevented.

The 40th commemoration of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on 26 April this year provides another sombre milestone to reflect on humanity’s flirtation with the most hazardous technology ever invented, intimately linked with weapons that pose the most acute existential threat to the biosphere.

While both national and prefectural governments seek to present the Fukushima disaster as effectively over and the region being open for business, the resulting catastrophe is far from over. A visit to Japan in late 2025 provided a valuable opportunity to visit Fukushima for the sixth time since the disaster and learn from those grappling with the ongoing challenges to health, livelihoods and rebuilding a sustainable future in the regions affected by the disaster, which extend far beyond the boundaries of Fukushima Prefecture, even though government programs to address the disaster’s aftermath focus exclusively on Fukushima.

Because ‘luckily’ half the radioactive caesium (Cs) released by the reactor meltdowns and explosions is Cs-134, with a two year half-life, rather than the 30 year half-life of Cs-137 which makes up the remainder of the caesium released, the initial decline in residual radioactivity, to which caesium is the dominant contributor, has been faster than following the Chernobyl disaster. 

The multiple damaged nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools at Fukushima Daiichi are far from stable, and decommissioning as planned by TEPCO is barely progressing and looks increasingly unfeasible. Just 0.9 grams of fuel debris has been able to be removed to date, in two removals three years later than scheduled, while 880 tons remain with no plans yet for how to remove the bulk of this material. In addition, 1,007 tons of spent fuel remain in the spent fuel pools at Units 1 and 2. The melted reactors with spent fuel pools resting above them have been severely structurally damaged. In reactor 1 for example, robotic cameras have revealed that the concrete of the pedestal which supports the reactor has melted all the way around, exposing the internal reinforcing bars now providing effectively the only structural support. These damaged structures have heightened vulnerability to further earthquake and tsunami damage.


A major independent international assessment of a kind that Japan has resisted to date is warranted to assess the best means to address this extremely challenging, highly radioactive mess to order to most effectively and expeditiously secure the site as much as possible from further fires, meltdown or criticality events, further tsunami or earthquake damage, and ongoing or escalating release of radioactive materials. While it may be feasible and challenge enough to remove the fuel remaining in the spent fuel pools above Units 1 and 2, rather than stubbornly persisting with decommissioning plans going nowhere, aiming to stabilise the damaged fuel in the reactors so that active cooling is no longer required, and establishing durable physical encasement of the damaged facilities on all sides deserve more thorough consideration.


Decontamination and redistribution

Extensive decontamination by scraping away the upper 5 cm of surface soil for 20m around houses, in fields and gardens, in schools, childcare centres, parks and public gathering places, resulting in the accumulation of 14 million m³ of contaminated soil, has denuded areas and reduced fertility of agricultural land, but has had some useful effect in reducing radiation exposure to residents and contamination of vegetables grown in decontaminated areas. Use of potassium-rich fertiliser has also contributed to reducing caesium absorption by crops. However, forested areas, which comprise 70% of Fukushima, particularly covering hills and mountains which received higher fallout than valleys and low-lying areas, act as reservoirs of radioactivity, which is constantly washed down by rain and snow to flatter and lower-lying areas where people’s homes, farms, paddies and fields lie, and also washes into estuaries and beach sands. This contributes to patchiness and high variability of contamination at a local level, and hence the importance of localised and ongoing measurement.

Hot caesium-laden particles

An important discovery was made by Japanese geochemists, particularly Satoshi Utsunomiya, that caesium-rich microparticles 2-3 microns in diameter, small enough if inhaled to be retained in the alveoli of the lung, were not only widely present in hotspots in Fukushima, but also widely deposited in Tokyo on 15 March 2011, when the most intensely radioactive fallout cloud passed over Tokyo following the explosion of the Unit 3 reactor. 

These particles, assessed to be formed by the interaction of molten reactor fuel with concrete surrounding and supporting Fukushima Daiichi reactors 1 and 3, are intensely radioactive, more so than spent nuclear fuel. Contrary to conventional assumptions about the highly soluble nature of caesium and therefore (as a potassium analogue) its even dispersal in organisms and organs, these particles are insoluble, meaning they can deliver a much greater localised radiation dose to surrounding cells, and for a longer period. The main scientific publication of these findings was delayed some years because of academic infighting and political sensitivity. Their significant implications for human radiation exposures and radiation protection related to the Fukushima disaster, including the identification and isolation of radioactive hot-spots, have hardly been explored.

Public health and safety continue to be sidelined

National and regional government policies are still negligent in failing to prioritise public health and safety. In the early weeks after the disaster, the Japanese government, arbitrarily and without scientific justification, increased the maximum permissible radiation exposure for a member of the public from 1 to 20 mSv per year. This unacceptably high level is still in place, 15 years later, as the basis for government policy, including clean-up standards and the designation of areas suitable for residents to return to and ending their eligibility for government support. No other government has accepted such a continuing high radiation level for its population, including the most vulnerable, particularly children. The government is now even countenancing some return to areas where doses estimated to be received are up to 50 mSv/yr.

The Japanese government also continues other weakened protection standards, for example before the disaster, waste and soil with radioactivity more than 100 Bq/kg was regarded as strictly controlled waste, whereas since the disaster, soil which is contaminated up to 8000 Bq/kg has been classified as suitable to be treated as ordinary waste, suitable for incineration and reuse in construction works around the country.

In August 2023, Japan began discharging processed radioactive Fukushima wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. As of 22 Dec 2025, according to TEPCO, 127,000 m3 of contaminated water has been dumped, containing about 31.2 TBq of tritium. Such discharges are planned to continue for at least 30-40 years, in breach of Japan’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which expressly prohibits ocean dumping of radioactive waste. This will no doubt include not only the 1.4 million m3 of wastewater already accumulated, but contaminated wastewater which continues to accumulate for the forseeable future, at a current average of 50 m3/day, containing a raft of radioactive contaminants. Alternatives such as prolonged storage in purpose-built large tanks, or incorporating treated wastewater into concrete for underground construction use, were given no serious consideration.

An epidemic of thyroid cancer in children ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://peaceandhealthblog.com/2026/04/02/the-ongoing-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-15-years-on-a-photoessay/#more-7185

May 11, 2026 Posted by | environment, Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

Japanese earthquake and tsunami warning forces evacuation from Fukushima nuclear plants

20 Apr, 2026 By Tom Pashby

 Workers at two Fukushima nuclear power plants in Japan were forced to
evacuate to higher ground following earthquake and tsunami warnings today
(20 April). Japan’s nuclear power company Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power
Company) issued statements where they sought to reassure the public about
its plants. “At around 16.53 [local time] on April 20, 2026, an
earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 on the Richter scale struck off the
coast of Sanriku, Japan”, it said. “As of now, there is no abnormality
with our main power system. “In response to the tsunami advisory issued
for Fukushima Prefecture, evacuation orders have been issued to workers at
the Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Stations.

 New Civil Engineer 20th April 2026,
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/japanese-earthquake-and-tsunami-warning-forces-evacuation-from-fukushima-nuclear-plants-20-04-2026/

April 23, 2026 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, Japan, safety | Leave a comment

TEPCO halts cooling of spent fuel pool at Fukushima Daini plant

April 6, 2026 (Mainichi Japan),
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260406/p2a/00m/0bu/002000c

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Kyodo) — The operator of the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant being decommissioned said Sunday it halted cooling of a spent fuel pool after receiving an alert about a pump malfunction.

According to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., the alarm for the spent fuel pool of the No. 1 reactor was triggered at around 2:45 p.m. Sunday. Workers shut down the pump after smoke was confirmed at the site, suspending the pool’s cooling.

The four-reactor Fukushima Daini plant is located about 12 kilometers south of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

TEPCO has decided to decommission both complexes following the disaster.

The latest incident has not affected the radiation level outside, and no one has been injured, TEPCO said. The company is investigating the cause.

The No. 1 unit spent fuel pool at the Fukushima Daini complex stores 2,334 used fuel assemblies, as well as 200 new fuel ones.

The water temperature at the time when the cooling system was halted was 26.5 C, and it will take about eight days to exceed the temperature level set for safe operation, according to TEPCO.

April 9, 2026 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

The Nightmare of Fukushima 15 Years Later

SCHEERPOST, By Joshua Frank,  March 20, 2026

“…………………………………………………………………………………… The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, built by General Electric (GE) in the mid-1960s, was designed to withstand natural disasters, but its creators never foresaw an earthquake like that. When the plant’s sensors detected the quake, its reactors automatically shut down. That emergency shutdown (or scram) halted its fission process, triggering backup power to keep cold seawater flowing through the reactors and spent-fuel containers to prevent overheating. Things at Fukushima were going according to plan until that massive tsunami battered the plant, washing away transmission towers and damaging electrical systems. There were backup generators in the basement, but those, too, had been inundated by waves of seawater, and an already bad situation was about to get far worse.

A power outage at a nuclear power plant is known as a “station blackout.” As you might imagine, it’s one of the worst scenarios any nuclear facility could possibly experience. If all electricity is lost, that means water is no longer being pumped into the reactor’s scalding-hot core to cool it down. And if that core isn’t constantly being cooled, one thing is certain: disaster will ensue. The fission process itself may be complicated, but that’s basic physics. To make matters worse, there were three operating reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. Luckily, three others had already been shut down for maintenance. If power wasn’t restored in short order, that would mean that all three of Fukushima’s reactors were in very big trouble.

We would later learn that no one — not at TEPCO, GE, or among Japanese regulators — had ever considered the possibility that all the reactors might lose electricity at once. They had only drawn up plans for one reactor to go down, in which case the others could keep the plant running. But all of them offline, and every generator out of commission? There was no precedent or playbook for that.

The nuclear industry has a reasonably polite name for a disaster like the one that was rocking Fukushima. They refer to it as a “beyond design-basis accident” because no single nuclear plant design can account for every possible problem it might encounter in its lifetime. The fact that there’s a term for this should make you anxious.

Meltdowns and Fallout

Over the next several days, the emergency at Fukushima Daiichi only worsened. Every effort to restore power to its reactors hit a dead end. On-site radiation-detection equipment, which would have triggered warnings and guided evacuation efforts for those in danger, was no longer functioning. Plans to pump water into the reactors to cool them had faltered. Their cores kept overheating, and the boiling pools of spent fuel were at risk of drying out, potentially triggering a massive fire that would release extreme amounts of radiation.

Within three days, following a series of fires, hydrogen explosions, and panic among those aware of what was happening, Fukushima’s Units 1, 2, and 3 experienced full-scale core meltdowns. Over 150,000 people within an 18-mile radius had already been forced to evacuate, and radiation plumes would take two weeks to spread across the northern hemisphere, although the Japanese government wouldn’t admit publicly that any meltdown had occurred until June 2011, three months later.

The only good news for the 13 million people living 150 miles south in Tokyo was that, during and immediately after the meltdowns, prevailing winds carried much of Fukushima’s radioactive material away from the smoldering reactors and out to sea. It’s estimated that 80% of the fallout from Fukushima ended up in the ocean, meaning most of it headed east rather than toward population centers to the south and west. The other fortunate news was that the spent fuel containers had somehow survived it all. If their water levels in the pools had been drained, far more radiation would have been released.

But Tokyo wasn’t completely spared. After years of research, scientists discovered that cesium-rich microparticles had blanketed the greater Tokyo area, an unpopular discovery that drew backlash and threats of academic censorship. Areas around the Fukushima exclusion zones recorded the highest radiation levels. Japanese government officials continually downplayed the dangers of the accident and were reluctant to even classify the event as a Level 7 nuclear disaster, the highest rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale, which would have placed it on a par with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Japanese officials have also failed to conduct long-term epidemiological studies that would include baseline measurements of cancer rates, which has cast doubt on thyroid screenings that found troubling incidents of cancer far higher than researchers expected.

Radioactive Fish

Prior to the earthquake, the ocean’s cesium-137 levels near Fukushima were 2 Becquerels (a unit of radioactivity) per cubic meter, well below the recommended drinking water threshold of 10,000 Becquerels. Just after March 11, 2011, cesium-137 levels there spiked to fifty million before decreasing as sea currents dispersed the radioactive particles away from the coast. The ocean, however, had been poisoned.

In the years that followed the Fukushima nuclear disaster, researchers documented a frightening, yet predictable trend. Radioactive isotopes in seawater were taken up by marine plants (phytoplankton), which then moved up the food chain into tiny marine animals (zooplankton) and, eventually, to fish.

Cesium-137 consumed by fish can reside in their bodies for months, while Strontium-90 remains in their bones for years. If humans then eat such fish, they will also be exposed to those radioactive particles. The more contaminated fish they eat, the greater the radioactive buildup will be.

In 2023, over a decade after the incident, radiation levels remained sky-high in black rockfish caught off the Fukushima coast. Other bottom-dwelling species have been found to be laden with radioactivity, too, including eel and rock trout. Further concerns have been raised about the treated radioactive water that TEPCO continued to release into the ocean, prompting China to suspend seafood imports from Japan. Aside from those findings, there have been very few studies examining the effects of Fukushima’s radiation on ecosystems or on the people of Japan.

“Japan has clamped down on scientific efforts to study the nuclear catastrophe,” claims pediatrician Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. “There is hardly any literature, any publicized research, on the health effects on humans, and those that are published come from a small group of researchers at Fukushima Medical University.”

Recognizing such levels of radiation, even if confined to the waters near Fukushima, would cast the country’s nuclear industry as a significant threat — not only to Japan but globally. Any admission that Fukushima’s radiation is linked to increased cancer rates would raise broader concerns about nuclear power’s future viability. Radiation exposure is cumulative and, although Fukushima didn’t immediately cause mass casualties, it wasn’t a benign accident either. It took decades before it was accepted that Chernobyl had caused tens of thousands of excess cancer deaths. It may take even longer to completely understand Fukushima’s full effects. In the meantime, the still ongoing cleanup of the burned-out facilities may cost as much as 80 trillion yen ($500 billion).

It’s been 15 years since Fukushima’s reactors experienced those meltdowns and we still don’t fully understand their long-term repercussions. Nuclear power advocates will argue that Fukushima wasn’t a serious incident and that nuclear technology is still safe. They’ll minimize radiation threats, remain optimistic that new reactor designs will never falter, dismiss the fact that there’s simply no permanent solution for radioactive waste, and overlook the inseparable connection between nuclear power and atomic weapons. After all, among other things, we’ll undoubtedly need nuclear energy to help power the artificial intelligence craze, right?………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. With nine nuclear-armed nations and roughly 12,000 nuclear warheads on this planet, worries about nuclear war are unavoidable. However, the danger of a nuclear disaster at a seemingly “peaceful” nuclear facility is often ignored. The future of atomic energy remains uncertain, but it is our duty to eliminate this hazardous energy source before another Fukushima triggers a war-like catastrophe all its own.mhttps://scheerpost.com/2026/03/20/searching-for-solace-in-a-nuclearized-world/

Joshua Frank, a TomDispatch regular, is co-editor of CounterPunch and co-host of CounterPunch Radio. He is the author of Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America, and the forthcoming Bad Energy: AI Hucksters, Rogue Lithium Extractors, and Wind Industrialists Who are Selling Off Our Future, both with Haymarket Books. 

March 24, 2026 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

Drone video from inside a Fukushima reactor shows a hole in pressure vessel, likely fuel debris

Daily Mail. By ASSOCIATED PRESS, 20 March 2026 

TOKYO (AP) – A video taken by tiny drones sent into one of three damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant showed a gaping hole in the thick-walled steel container of the core, with lumps of likely melted fuel debris hanging from it, in a first sighting of a pressure vessel bottom since the meltdown 15 years ago.

The rare footage was taken by micro-drones – measuring 12 by 13 centimeters (4.7 by 5.1 inches) and weighing only 95 grams (3.3 ounces) each – deployed for a two-week mission to collect visual, radiation and other data from inside the Unit 3 reactor. It was released late Thursday.

The March 11, 2011 massive quake and tsunami destroyed cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing meltdowns at reactors No. 1, 2 and 3.

The three reactors contain at least 880 tons of melted fuel debris with radiation levels still dangerously high. Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which manages the plant, successfully took tiny melted fuel samples from the Unit 2 reactor last year, but internal details remain little known.

TEPCO plans more remote-controlled probes and sampling to analyze melted fuel and to develop robots for future fuel debris removal that experts say could take decades more.

Sending drones as close as possible to the pressure vessel’s bottom was an important goal of the latest probe, according to the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings……………………………..

TEPCO spokesperson Masaki Kuwajima said officials confirmed there was a hole at the bottom of the vessel and that those hanging objects, lumps and deposits are believed to be melted fuel debris…….

The latest drone mission came nearly a decade after an earlier underwater robot probe provided a less clear picture of the inside of the Unit 3 reactor.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-15663749/Drone-video-inside-Fukushima-reactor-shows-hole-pressure-vessel-likely-fuel-debris.html

March 23, 2026 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

U.S. and Japan Ponder Nuclear Energy Project in Massive $550 Billion Deal

By Michael Kern –  Oil Price 4th March 2026, https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-and-Japan-Ponder-Nuclear-Energy-Project-in-Massive-550-Billion-Deal.html

The United States and Japan have been considering the inclusion of a nuclear power project involving Westinghouse in the $550-billion package of investment that Japan has pledged in the U.S. under the bilateral trade deal, sources familiar with the plans told Reuters on Wednesday.  

Last year, as part of the U.S.-Japan trade agreement, Japan pledged to buy $8 billion worth of American products per year. The Government of Japan has also agreed to invest $550 billion in the United States, the White House said.

At the time, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, hailed the deal as “historic” and said that the U.S. would use the $500-billion Japanese investment “to build our energy infrastructure, chip manufacturing, critical minerals mining, and shipbuilding to name a few.”  

The plan for a nuclear power project, as well as a copper refining facility, is being discussed and could be talked into details later this month when Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is due to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on March 19, according to Reuters’ anonymous sources.    

Westinghouse, which could be involved in the nuclear power project, was named as a company that has expressed interest to launch projects in the energy sector, according to a joint fact sheet for the Japan-U.S. Investment. 

March 9, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, USA | Leave a comment

TEPCO planning to send probe into Fukushima nuke reactor

By TOMOYUKI SUZUKI/ Staff Writer, March 4, 2026 ,
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16341286

Tokyo Electric Power Co. will soon launch a probe, the first of its kind, into the pressure vessel at one of the hobbled reactors at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to scope out the current conditions.

The effort is part of TEPCO’s long-standing goal of retrieving melted nuclear fuel debris, left in the aftermath of the triple reactor meltdowns following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.

TEPCO officials said they are planning to insert a camera-equipped fiberscope into the plant’s No. 2 reactor to shoot footage and measure radiation levels during the first half of fiscal 2026 between April and September.

An estimated 880 tons of fuel debris remain inside the No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

TEPCO plans to approach the contaminated debris, which remains in the pressure vessels, from the tops of the reactor buildings and pulverize the debris to reduce the volume and collect it by sucking it from the side or by other means.

TEPCO officials are hoping, during the planned probe, to monitor the interior of the pressure vessel visually and ascertain the radiation levels on a location-by-location basis to help work out concrete methods for retrieving the fuel debris.

The fiberscope to be used in the probe, which resembles an endoscope, will be inserted into the pressure vessel from the side through piping.

The officials said they will be probing not the core part of the vessel but the outer side of a shroud of stainless steel, which has been installed to surround nuclear fuel, to determine, among other things, if the shroud has been deformed and if there is any debris in sight.

They said they will conduct mock-up drills in the days and months to come. They added that they will take measures to block air from leaking from the pressure vessel’s interior so workers will not be exposed to radiation.

The probe was initially scheduled to begin in fiscal 2024, but the work has been delayed because the development of a dosimeter-equipped fiberscope and other processes have turned out to be more time-consuming than expected.

“When the distribution of dose levels is known, that could, depending on the circumstances, help give an estimate of the amount of residual fuel (which has yet to turn into debris),” said Akira Ono, president of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination & Decommissioning Engineering Co., which is overseeing the corresponding processes at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

TEPCO plans to start large-scale retrieval of the Fukushima No. 1 plant’s debris at its No. 3 reactor in fiscal 2037 or later.

The dose levels and circumstances of the areas surrounding the reactor buildings are not the same for the No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors.

TEPCO officials said they have set a target date of 2027 for studying the design of debris removal equipment and other specifics for those reactors.

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March 8, 2026 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, wastes | 1 Comment

Japan Eyes Pacific Island for Nuclear Waste Disposal Site

  Tokyo, March 3 (Jiji Press)
https://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2026030300561
–The Japanese government is considering Minamitorishima, a remote Tokyo island in the Pacific, as a possible site for the final disposal of highly radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, it was learned Tuesday.
   At a press conference on the day, industry minister Ryosei Akazawa said that the government will submit a request for a related literature survey to the Tokyo village of Ogasawara, where the island is located, as early as later in the day.
   “Minamitorishima is considered to be an area with favorable conditions (for a nuclear waste disposal site),” Akazawa said.
   Similar surveys have so far been conducted in the town of Suttsu and the village of Kamoenai, both in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, and the southwestern town of Genkai, Saga Prefecture.

March 6, 2026 Posted by | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

TEPCO removing empty tanks to advance Fukushima plant decommissioning work

FILE PHOTO: Storage tanks for radioactive water are seen at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan February 18, 2019. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo

February 28, 2026 (Mainichi Japan) https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260228/p2g/00m/0na/010000c

TOKYO (Kyodo) — The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant continues to demolish tanks emptied by the release of treated radioactive water into the sea, aiming to use the freed-up space to build facilities to advance decommissioning work.

Nearly 15 years after the nuclear accident triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. is still coping with radioactive water generated in the process of cooling melted reactor fuel, although the daily buildup is on track to be the smallest in the current fiscal year.

The discharge of treated water into the Pacific Ocean began in August 2023, as more than 1,000 tanks installed at the site to store the wastewater were deemed to be taking up too much space and hindering progress in decommissioning work.

The first tank dismantling following the water release took place in February 2025 in an area known as J9. After workers finished removing a dozen tanks there by September, they moved on to the adjacent area known as J8, where nine tanks stand.

Each of the nine tanks is 12 meters tall and 9 meters wide, with a capacity of 700 tons. Removing the tanks in the two sections will free up about 2,900 square meters.

The utility plans to use the land to build facilities to store melted fuel debris to be retrieved from the No.3 reactor and to conduct maintenance for debris removal devices.

Some 880 tons of debris are estimated to remain in the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors that suffered core meltdowns in the world’s worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Hydrogen explosions damaged the buildings housing the Nos. 1, 3 and 4 units.

TEPCO and the government plan to start full-fledged removal of debris at the No. 3 reactor no earlier than fiscal 2037, pushing back the early 2030s target due to the time needed for preparation.

Radiation levels inside the empty tanks have been confirmed to be lower than the average air dose level outside, indicating that contamination was relatively low, according to the operator.

Disassembled tank parts will be cut into small pieces using gas cutting torches and stored in cargo containers on the power plant premises.

March 3, 2026 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, wastes | Leave a comment

Harrowing six final words of nuclear worker as his skin fell off during 83 days of agony

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT Nuclear plant worker Hisashi Ouchi suffered the highest radiation dose in history after 1999 Japan accident, enduring 83 agonising days before death.

Edward Easton and Jane Lavender Associate Editor, 18 Feb 2026, https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/harrowing-six-final-words-nuclear-36730407

What You Need to Know

Hisashi Ouchi, a 35‑year‑old nuclear plant worker, survived a 1999 criticality accident that delivered the highest recorded radiation dose to a human, enduring 83 days of severe medical complications before dying of multiple organ failure. A government probe later blamed inadequate supervision, safety culture, and training, leading to negligence charges against six plant officials.

Key points:

On September 30, 1999, a criticality accident at a Japanese nuclear fuel processing plant exposed worker Hisashi Ouchi to an estimated 17,000 millisieverts of radiation.

The dose Ouchi received was about 850 times the annual occupational limit for nuclear workers and roughly 140 times higher than the exposure of residents near Chernobyl.

Ouchi was hospitalized at the University of Tokyo Hospital, where he underwent experimental treatments for 83 days, during which his skin sloughed off, his eyelids fell off, and his digestive system collapsed.

Medical staff administered up to ten blood transfusions daily, and painkillers were reported to be ineffective; Ouchi reportedly said, “I can’t take it anymore. I am not a guinea pig.”

He died on December 21, 1999, and the official cause of death was recorded as multiple organ failure

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A nuclear facility worker suffered what many consider to be the most agonising death ever recorded after a routine procedure went catastrophically wrong.

Hisashi Ouchi, 35, was exposed to an incomprehensible level of radiation when colleagues accidentally added excessive uranium to a processing vessel, sparking an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction on September 30, 1999.

The unfortunate Ouchi was positioned nearest to the vessel, consequently subjecting him to 17,000 millisieverts of radiation – equivalent to 200,000 X-rays.

The exposure he received was 850 times the safe yearly limit for nuclear facility workers, 140 times greater than what Chernobyl residents experienced after the 1986 catastrophe, and the most severe dose ever documented in human history.

Within seconds and minutes of his exposure, Ouchi became violently sick. Whilst most individuals subjected to such levels would die within days, Ouchi survived, reports the Mirror.

He was taken to hospital alert but in critical condition, as his white blood cell count had been virtually eliminated, leaving him completely without an immune system.

Medical staff moved him to the University of Tokyo Hospital, where they tried various experimental procedures in a frantic bid to preserve his life.

What ensued was 83 days of torment for the nuclear facility worker.

Radiation had completely obliterated Ouchi’s capacity to heal and regenerate cells, causing his skin to gradually slough away, his blood vessels to fail, and his eyelids to fall off.

Fluids seeped relentlessly from his ravaged flesh and accumulated in his lungs, compelling medics to maintain him on life support.

Making his ordeal even more harrowing, his digestive system collapsed entirely, inflicting excruciating agony and causing litres of fluid to drain from his body daily. Despite numerous skin grafts and stem cell treatments, his body remained unable to recover.

Breathing became impossible without mechanical assistance, and nourishment could only be administered via feeding tube.

The agony became so unbearable that, two months into his treatment, Ouchi’s heart ceased beating, yet medical staff chose to revive him.

His wife reportedly held onto hope that he would survive until at least January 1, 2000, so they could welcome the new millennium together.

During lucid moments, he remained fully aware of his deteriorating condition.

According to accounts, Ouchi eventually reached breaking point and spoke six chilling words to hospital staff: “I can’t take it anymore. I am not a guinea pig.”

Medical professionals were compelled to administer up to ten blood transfusions daily merely to sustain his life. Painkillers appeared utterly ineffective, and at one stage, he reportedly pleaded for the treatment to cease.

Ouchi passed away on December 21, 1999, from multiple organ failure, nearly three months following the incident. Multiple organ failure was recorded as the official cause of death.

Four months afterwards, in April 2000, his colleague Shinohara also died from multiple organ failure at the age of 40.

Supervisor Yokokawa, who had been seated at his workstation when the criticality incident unfolded, managed to survive.

A probe by the Japanese government determined that the accident was due to a lack of regulatory supervision, a deficient safety culture, and insufficient training for employees.

Six officials from the company running the plant were subsequently charged with professional negligence and breaches of nuclear safety laws. In 2003, they received suspended prison sentences for their deadly neglect.

February 21, 2026 Posted by | health, Japan, Reference | Leave a comment

Fukushima review – a devastating account of disaster and denial in 2011 nuclear catastrophe

A tense return to the disaster foregrounds the heroism of the ‘Fukushima 50’ while raising questions about corporate secrecy and nuclear safety.

Peter Bradshaw, Wed 18 Feb 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/feb/18/fukushima-review-2011-nuclear-disaster-japan

The terrifying story of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear accident of 2011, caused by a cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami, is retold by British film-maker James Jones and Japanese co-director Megumi Inman. The natural disaster left 20,000 dead, and 164,000 people were displaced from the area around the nuclear plant, some with no prospect of return. The earthquake damaged the cooling systems that prevent meltdowns and caused three near-apocalyptic explosions, bringing the nation close to a catastrophe that would have threatened its very existence. Incredibly, the ultimate calamity was finally staved off by nothing more hi-tech than a committed fire brigade spraying thousands of tons of water on the exposed fuel rods.

The film plunges us into the awful story moment-by-moment, accompanied by interviews with the chief players of the time – prominently nuclear plant employee Ikuo Izawa, a shift supervisor and de facto leader of the “Fukushima 50” (actually 69 people) who became legendary in Japan and beyond for their self-sacrificial courage, staying in a nightmarish reactor when everyone else had been evacuated.

Perhaps we could have been given more context and less immediate drama, particularly more background about the plant’s dismal corporate owners, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, which had closed a nuclear plant in 2007 after an earthquake, with a resulting loss of profits. But to skimp on the drama might be obtuse, given the pure hair-raising shock of events. The archive footage of the tsunami spreading across the fields and farmland of Japan is deeply disturbing; “nightmare” is a word casually used, but appropriate here.

The Japanese soul had been uniquely traumatised by the nuclear issue in 1945 and Fukushima was the opening of an old wound; Barack Obama’s offers to help were received warily and the film hints that some of a certain age might have even suspected a kind of opportunistic emergency takeover, like the Douglas MacArthur rule that followed the war. There is something chillingly military in the company’s need for volunteers for a so-called “suicide squad” to vent the reactors to forestall a pressure buildup.

And as far as comparisons with the Chornobyl disaster go, that involved a single reactor; Fukushima had six ready to blow. Before I watched this film, I assumed that Japan’s modern democracy would at least have meant more transparency than the sclerotic and malign Soviet apparatchiks. But maybe not. Tepco has still not released a full history of exactly what went wrong and what discussions took place at the time. And in any case, politicians were themselves dismally eager to cover themselves by tentatively blaming Tepco.

The most robust witness here is the New York Times’s Tokyo bureau chief Martin Fackler, who gives us a crisp account of the official chaos and bungling – and the fact that Tepco had already received a report indicating the Fukushima plant was vulnerable to an earthquake and did nothing. He is interesting on corporate obeisance to the “safety myth”, an industry article of faith which does not result in vigilant and innovative efforts to improve safety, but rather icy disapproval of anyone who questions existing safety provisions. Doing so was disloyalty to the industry and could damage your career.

Perhaps inevitably, the larger questions are left open. Fossil fuels cause slow-motion catastrophe to the planet – in fact, not so slow – while nuclear fuel does not cause climate change, but could cause instant calamity. So is the answer simply what the industry says it is? More and better safety? Or can other renewables fill the gap? Either way, this is a gripping film.

 Fukushima is out in the UK and US from 20 February.

 This article was amended on 19 February 2026 to clarify that the death toll relates to the natural disaster alone.

February 20, 2026 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, media, Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

Japan Restarts Nuclear Power at Kashiwazaki Kariwa After 14 Years

By Alex Kimani – Feb 11, 2026, 
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Japan-Restarts-Nuclear-Power-at-Kashiwazaki-Kariwa-After-14-Years-in-the-Dark.html

Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has restarted Unit 6 of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, following a 14-year shutdown following the 2011 Fukushima disaster. The 1,360 MW reactor is the first unit to come online since the nuclear accident that saw Japan halt operations at all its nuclear plants pending regulatory changes. 

The accident was caused by the 9.1-magnitude T?hoku earthquake – the third-largest in the world since 1900 – that triggered a tsunami, resulting in electrical grid failure and damage to nearly all of the power plant’s backup energy sources. With a total capacity of roughly 7,965 MW, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant is the largest in the world.

TEPCO has implemented extensive, multi-layered safety enhancements at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant to prevent accidents, particularly focusing on tsunami, earthquake, and terrorism risks. The company has constructed a 15-meter-high reinforced concrete seawall (extending 1,000 meters) to protect against tsunamis far exceeding the predicted maximum of 7-8 meters; critical buildings, including reactor and turbine buildings, have been fitted with heavy, watertight doors and barriers to prevent water from entering during a flood while essential equipment and emergency diesel generators have been moved to higher ground (up to 35 meters) to remain operational if the site floods.

Similar to many Western nations, Japan is doing a 180 on nuclear power after virtually ditching the power source as it looks to enhance energy security, reduce heavy reliance on expensive imported fossil fuels, meet rising electricity demand (including for AI data centers), and achieve 2050 carbon neutrality goals. Japan imports 60-70% of its electricity resources. In 2024, the country spent nearly $70 billion on liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal imports, with nuclear power offering a [?] cheaper, [?] home-grown alternative. 

February 15, 2026 Posted by | Japan, politics | Leave a comment

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