1 reactor at Fukushima No. 2 plant, others – not certain
TEPCO to decommission 1 reactor at Fukushima No. 2 plant, mulling fate of 3 others http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170317/p2a/00m/0na/024000c
March 17, 2017 (Mainichi Japan) Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (TEPCO) has informally decided to decommission the No. 1 reactor at its Fukushima No. 2 Nuclear Power Plant, it has been learned.
TEPCO had avoided stating a clear position on the No. 2 plant’s reactors, but there had been pressure from the government and ruling coalition for it to make a decision. The company accordingly decided to decommission the plant’s No. 1 reactor, which suffered the most damage, and will consider what to do with the other three reactors in the future.
The No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No. 2 plant began operating in 1982. It was flooded by tsunami on March 11, 2011, and all four reactors at the plant remain idled. The No. 2 plant suffered less damage than the No. 1 plant, and if it passed screening by the Nuclear Regulation Authority, its reactors could be restarted. But the Fukushima Prefectural Government and all 59 local assemblies have asked TEPCO and the government to decommission all reactors in the prefecture.
TEPCO has remained busy handling compensation claims relating to the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the disaster cleanup. If it were to decommission all of the No. 2 plant’s reactors, they would lose value and it would have to write down huge losses. Company president Naomi Hirose has therefore avoided taking a clear position on the issue, saying, “I would like to consider it and make a decision as a business operator.”
Last year, however, officials decided to create a fund to cover the huge cost of handling the nuclear disaster, which is expected to reach 21.5 trillion yen, nearly double the original prediction. There was accordingly pressure from the government for TEPCO to reach an early decision on the fate of the No. 2 plant’s reactors.
The No. 1 reactor at the No. 2 plant is the oldest of the plant’s four reactors. It temporarily lost its cooling functions in the March 2011 disaster, and suffered the most damage among the four reactors. TEPCO believes that by limiting decommissioning to one reactor for the time being, it will be able to hold the decommissioning cost below 100 billion yen, minimizing the impact on company finances and on decommissioning work at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. However, a decision to decommission only one reactor at the No. 2 plant is unlikely to win public approval.
Toshiba might have to pay the buyer, to take failed nuclear unit off its hands.
Toshiba pushes sale of nuclear unit Westinghouse as crisis deepens, Reuters, | TOKYO, 14 Mar 17
Toshiba Corp (6502.T) is ‘actively considering’ a sale and other strategic options for U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse, the group said on Tuesday, as it expanded a probe into problems there that caused it to miss an earnings deadline for a second time.
The Japanese conglomerate said it believed it could find buyers for a majority stake in Westinghouse despite the potential for future losses as the unit had a stable fuel and services business.
But Chief Executive Satoshi Tsunakawa sidestepped questions about a potential Chapter 11 filing for Westinghouse, saying only there were various options. Sources have said bankruptcy lawyers have been hired as an exploratory step.
A sale would represent the latest in a series of drastic steps as Toshiba grapples with a multibillion dollar financial maelstrom stemming from Westinghouse’s ill-fated purchase of a U.S. nuclear power plant construction company in 2015.
It has already put up most or even all of its prized memory chip business for sale to cope with an upcoming $6.3 billion writedown for the nuclear business and to create a buffer for potential losses down the road.
Westinghouse has been plagued by huge cost overruns at two U.S. projects in Georgia and South Carolina and liabilities related to those projects mean it is unlikely to be an easy asset to sell, despite attractive technology.
Tsunakawa emphasized that the projects were only a small part of Westinghouse’s business.
“Around 80 percent of Westinghouse’s revenues come from stable businesses in services and fuel-related businesses so I think that will be taken into consideration too,” he told a news conference.
He added, however, that it was not yet clear yet whether Toshiba would be paid by the buyer or would have to pay the buyer to take Westinghouse off its hands.
Toshiba aims to have Westinghouse off its consolidated accounts by the end of the next financial year in March 2018, he said.
South Korea’s KEPCO is seen by industry executives as the only potential buyer, as it expands in nuclear after a successful deal in the United Arab Emirates……..http://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-idUSKBN16L02X
Toshiba Corp will miss its second deadline to report third-quarter earnings,
Toshiba misses earnings deadline again, faces delisting risk, Straits Times, 14 Mar 17, TOKYO (BLOOMBERG) – Toshiba Corp will miss its second deadline to report third-quarter earnings, delivering another blow to investor confidence and moving a step closer to being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The company applied for an extension until April 11 with authorities, citing the need for more time to complete an auditor review of the results for the period ended Dec 31, it said in a statement on Tuesday (March 14). If the application is rejected, the company has an eight-day period until March 27 to submit earnings to the TSE or face delisting.
Toshiba shares fell as much as 5.1 per cent during morning trading…….
Even if Toshiba clears these hurdles, there is a longer-term threat to stakeholders. The nuclear business writedown has pushed Toshiba’s liabilities beyond its level of assets. If the company can’t reverse the situation by the end of the fiscal year in March, it could face demotion to the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. In turn, that would force an automatic selloff by some index funds……..http://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/toshiba-asks-again-to-extend-deadline-for-q3-earnings-filing
Abolish nuclear power worldwide – call from Japan’s bishops
Japanese bishops want nuclear power abolished worldwide http://www.ucanews.com/news/japanese-bishops-want-nuclear-power-abolished-worldwide/77758 They released a statement urging people to learn from the experience of the Fukushima disaster ucanews.com reporter, Tokyo Japan December 1, 2016
The bishops’ conference of Japan has issued a statement calling for the worldwide abolition of nuclear power, five and a half years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan (CBCJ) issued their statement, On the Abolition of Nuclear Power Generation: A Call by the Catholic Church in Japan, on Nov. 11.
That same day, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and signed an agreement that would allow Japan to export nuclear power technology to India.
“We, the CBCJ, appeal to all people who share a common home called Earth that we join hands, rise together and act in solidarity to end nuclear power generation,” the statement said.
“For that purpose, we turn first to the Catholic Church throughout the world, seeking cooperation and solidarity. While it may be unusual for the bishops’ conference of a single country to direct a statement to the entire world, what Japan has experienced in the five and a half years since the Fukushima disaster convinces us that we must inform the world of the hazards of nuclear power generation and appeal for its abolition.”
The CBCJ published English, German and Korean translations of the message on its website. They also condemned the Japanese government’s pro-nuclear stance.
The bishops also published a 290-page book in October that demonstrates the philosophical basis of their opposition.
Their outreach comes soon after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit the same area as the 2011 meltdown on Nov. 22. It caused a tsunami as high as two meters. A cooling system in a nuclear power plant in Fukushima was knocked out of service for over an hour.
The 2011 Fukushima disaster was the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. A huge tsunami hit the facility causing three reactors to melt down and release nuclear material. Up to 640 people could die from radiation-related cancer, according to one study.
Six years on, Japan struggles with Fukushima’s nuclear wastes
Struggling With Japan’s Nuclear Waste, Six Years After Disaster https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/world/asia/struggling-with-japans-nuclear-waste-six-years-after-disaster.html?_r=0 by MOTOKO RICH
400 Tons of Contaminated Water Per Day,The Tokyo Electric Power Company is pumping water nonstop through the three reactors to cool melted fuel that remains too hot and radioactive to remove. About 400 tons of water pass through the reactors every day, including groundwater that seeps in. The water picks up radiation in the reactors and then is diverted into a decontamination facility.But the decontamination filters cannot remove all the radioactive material. So for now, all this water is being stored in 1,000 gray, blue and white tanks on the grounds. The tanks already hold 962,000 tons of contaminated water, and Tokyo Electric is installing more tanks. It is also trying to slow the flow of groundwater through the reactors by building an underground ice wall.
Within a few years, though, and no one is sure exactly when, the plant may run out of room to store the contaminated water. “We cannot continue to build tanks forever,” said Shigenori Hata, an official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The authorities are debating whether it might be acceptable, given the relatively low radioactive levels in the water, to dilute the contaminated water and then dump it into the ocean. But local fishermen are vehemently opposed. Many people still do not trust Tokyo Electric because of its bungled response to the disaster, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
3,519 Containers of Radioactive Sludge
The process of decontaminating the water leaves radioactive sludge trapped in filters, which are being held in thousands of containers of different sizes.
Tokyo Electric says it cannot quantify the amount of radioactive sludge being generated. But it says it is experimenting with what to do with it, including mixing it with cement or iron. Then it will have to decide how to store it.
64,700 Cubic Meters of Discarded Protective Clothing
The estimated 6,000 cleanup workers at the site put on new protective gear every day. These hazmat suits, face masks, rubber gloves and shoe coverings are thrown out at the end of each shift. The clothing is compressed and stored in 1,000 steel boxes stacked around the site.
To date, more than 64,700 cubic meters of gear has been discarded, the equivalent of 17 million one-gallon containers. Tokyo Electric says it will eventually incinerate all this contaminated clothing to reduce the space needed to store it.
Branches and Logs From 220 Acres of Deforested Land The plant’s grounds were once dotted with trees, and a portion was even designated as a bird sanctuary. But workers have cleared about 220 acres of trees since the meltdown spewed radiation over them.
Now, piles of branches and tree trunks are stacked all over the site. Officials say there are about 80,000 cubic meters of this waste, and all of it will have to be incinerated and stored someday.
200,400 Cubic Meters of Radioactive RubbleExplosions during the meltdown filled the reactors with rubble. Workers and robots are slowly and carefully trying to remove this tangled mass of crushed concrete, pipes, hoses and metal.
Tokyo Electric estimates that more than 200,400 cubic meters of rubble — all of it radioactive — have been removed so far and stored in custom-made steel boxes. That is the equivalent of about 3,000 standard 40-foot shipping containers.
3.5 Billion Gallons of SoilThousands of plastic garbage bags sit in neat rows in the fields and abandoned towns surrounding the Fukushima plant. They contain soil that was scraped from land that was exposed to radiation in the days after the accident.
Japan’s Ministry of the Environment estimates that it has bagged 3.5 billion gallons of soil, and plans to collect much more. It will eventually incinerate some of the soil, but that will only reduce the volume of the radioactive waste, not eliminate it.
The ministry has already begun building a massive, interim storage facility in Fukushima prefecture and negotiating with 2,360 landowners for the thousands of acres needed to complete it. And that is not even a long-term solution: The government says that after 30 years it will need another site — or sites — to store radioactive waste.
1,573 Nuclear Fuel Rods
Hundreds of spent fuel rods are in cooling pools inside the reactors, and the company hopes to have cleared away enough rubble to begin removing them next year. The much bigger challenge will be removing the fuel that was in use in the reactor core at the time of the meltdown.
The condition and location of this molten fuel debris are still largely unknown. In one reactor where a robot was sent in January, much of the melted fuel is believed to have burned through the bottom of the inner reactor vessel and burrowed into the thick concrete foundation of the containment structure.
The plan is to completely seal the containment vessels, fill them with water and use robots to find and remove the molten fuel debris. But the rubble, the lethal levels of radiation and the risk of letting radiation escape make this an exceedingly difficult task.
In January, the robot sent into one of the reactors discovered radiation levels high enough to kill a person in less than a minute. Another had to be abandoned last month after debris blocked its path and radiation disabled it.
Tokyo Electric hopes to begin removing fuel debris from the reactor cores in 2021. The entire effort could take decades. Some say the radioactive material may prove impossible to remove safely and have suggested leaving it and entombing Fukushima under a concrete and steel sarcophagus like the one used at Chernobyl.
But the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric say they are committed to removing all the waste and cleaning the site, estimated at a cost of $188.6 billion.
“We want to return it to a safe state,” said Yuichi Okamura, general manager of the company’s nuclear power and plant siting division. “We promised the local people that we would recover the site and make it a safe ground again.”
Tepco has paid only 6% of compensation needed by municipalities for Fukushima nuclear disaster
Only 6% of Fukushima nuclear disaster compensation paid by TEPCO, Japan Today, MAR. 11, 2017 TOKYO —
The operator of the crippled nuclear complex in Fukushima Prefecture has only paid 6% of the compensation sought by municipalities in connection with the 2011 nuclear crisis, according to a recent prefectural tally.
The delay in payments to the 12 municipalities, designated by the government as evacuation zones, highlights the continuing challenge to their reconstruction efforts six years after the nuclear disaster, triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011.
The tally found that Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc (TEPCO) had by the end of 2016 paid around 2.6 billion yen ($22.5 million) of the 43.3 billion yen demanded by the 12 local governments.
As some municipalities have been forced to shoulder most of the costs for TEPCO, local residents have raised concerns that the situation could delay reconstruction…….
Among the municipalities, the town of Futaba, where the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is located and all of its residents remain evacuated, has received no compensation despite its demand for around 19.3 billion yen.
The town of Namie, where part of its evacuation order will be lifted at the end of the month, has received around 460 million yen, 4% of the amount demanded……
The delay in paying compensation is fueling concern about the future. “If compensation (for local governments) does not move forward, it will spark concern among residents over the town’s reconstruction efforts,” said Futoshi Hirono, who heads a residents’ association in Kawamata. https://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/only-6-of-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-compensation-paid-by-tepco
Former PM Koizumi again calls for ‘zero nuclear power in Japan
Ex-PM Koizumi repeats call for ‘zero nuclear power plants’ http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170312/p2g/00m/0dm/056000c March 12, 2017 (Mainichi Japan) SAPPORO (Kyodo) — Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Saturday repeated his call for Japan’s complete departure from nuclear energy as the country marked the sixth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The group is seeking the decommissioning of nuclear reactors at Hokkaido Electric Power Co.’s Tomari power station on Japan’s northernmost main island.
“(Japan) can become a much better country with zero nuclear power plants, harnessing natural energy,” Koizumi said, adding it will not be so difficult to replace nuclear energy with renewable energy if technological innovation advances.
After his speech, Koizumi criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policy which promotes restarting nuclear plants most of which remain offline and exporting nuclear reactors.
“If the prime minister said ‘zero (nuclear power),’ the situation will greatly change. I don’t know why he can’t understand this,” Koizumi said.
Tokyo Olympics supposed to bring in Y32.3 tril to Japan
What could possibly go wrong?
Tokyo 2020 Olympics seen having Y32.3 tril economic impact https://www.japantoday.com/category/sports/view/tokyo-2020-olympics-seen-having-y32-3-tril-economic-impact TOKYO —The 2020 Tokyo Olympics are expected to give an overall 32.3 trillion yen boost to the Japanese economy, according to the Tokyo city government.
Euphoria surrounded the award of the Games to Tokyo in 2013 but scandals and cost overruns have overshadowed the hosting of the event.
The original design for a new stadium was scrapped to curb soaring costs and there were allegations of bribery to secure the winning bid.
Former Olympic host cities have frequently suffered an economic hangover after the event as venues become white elephants and maintenance costs mount.
But if done right, economic benefits can accrue. The British government said in 2013, a year after the 2012 London Games, that it expected a positive economic impact of 41 billion pounds ($50.2 billion) up to 2020.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government predicted in a report late Monday that the overall impact for Japan would be positive.
During the period from 2013, when the Games were awarded, to 2030, it expects total Olympic-related economic benefits of about 5.2 trillion yen ($46 billion), citing its own research. That includes construction of facilities and spending on operational costs related directly to the Games as well as purchases of admission tickets to events and corporate marketing.
Indirect benefits, such as tourism and infrastructure spending on transport, would total 27.1 trillion yen, it said.
The indirect impact would include, for example, an increase in the number of people joining health clubs and taking part in sports as well as “higher numbers of tourists who visit Japan, and related spending”, Tokyo official Tsutomu Kozaka told AFP Tuesday.
The hosting of the Games is also expected to generate 1.94 million jobs nationwide, Tokyo officials said.
“We looked at estimates of the London Games as a reference in calculating the increase in the number of tourists visiting Tokyo,” Kozaka said.
In December 2015 the Bank of Japan said Tokyo 2020 could boost the size of the economy by as much as one percent, with construction and tourism helping to fuel growth.
It estimated that gross domestic product (GDP) in the world’s number three economy in 2018—the high point of Olympic-related impact—would get a boost of as much as six trillion yen, resulting in a one percent increase compared with overall GDP in 2014.
But that uptick would gradually fade by 2020, the central bank said, warning that the country must create new demand so that the economic impact of the Olympics can continue after the event ends.
Transgender-friendly toilets planned for 2020 Olympics in Tokyo
Tokyo’s city government is planning on installing gender-neutral bathrooms in at least seven of the 11 Olympic venues it is constructing for the 2020 Games, Guardian, Bryan Armen Graham, 7 Mar 17, Tokyo’s metropolitan government is seeking to install gender-neutral public restrooms in the venues it is constructing for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics…….https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/01/tokyo-2020-olympics-transgender-friendly-toilets
Tokyo 2020 Olympics’ Main Venue Costs Expected To Reach $87M
March 10, 2017A source with the 2020 Games organizers said Thursday that temporary structures for the new National Stadium that will serve as the main venue for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics are “expected to cost more than double the estimate presented during the bidding,” according to KYODO. …(subscribers only) https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Global/Issues/2017/03/10/Olympics/2020-National-Stadium.aspx
No, despite the propaganda, Fukushima nuclear clean-up not under control
Dying robots and failing hope: Fukushima clean-up falters six years after tsunami
Exploration work inside the nuclear plant’s failed reactors has barely begun, with the scale of the task described as ‘almost beyond comprehension’, Guardian, Justin McCurry at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, 9 Mar 17. B
Barely a fifth of the way into their mission, the engineers monitoring the Scorpion’s progress conceded defeat. With a remote-controlled snip of its cable, the latest robot sent into the bowels of one of Fukushima Daiichi’s damaged reactors was cut loose, its progress stalled by lumps of fuel that overheated when the nuclear plant suffered a triple meltdown six years ago this week.
As the 60cm-long Toshiba robot, equipped with a pair of cameras and sensors to gauge radiation levels was left to its fate last month, the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), attempted to play down the failure of yet another reconnaissance mission to determine the exact location and condition of the melted fuel.
Even though its mission had been aborted, the utility said, “valuable information was obtained which will help us determine the methods to eventually remove fuel debris”.
The Scorpion mishap, two hours into an exploration that was supposed to last 10 hours, underlined the scale and difficulty of decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi – an unprecedented undertaking one expert has described as “almost beyond comprehension”.
Cleaning up the plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl after it was struck by a magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami on the afternoon of 11 March 2011, is expected to take 30 to 40 years, at a cost Japan’s trade and industry ministry recently estimated at 21.5tr yen ($189bn).
The device, along with other robots, may also have been damaged by an unseen enemy: radiation. Before it was abandoned, its dosimeter indicated that radiation levels inside the No 2 containment vessel were at 250 sieverts an hour. In an earlier probe using a remote-controlled camera, radiation at about the same spot was as high as 650 sieverts an hour – enough to kill a human within a minute.
Robotic mishaps aside, exploration work in the two other reactors, where radiation levels are even higher than in reactor No 2, has barely begun. There are plans to send a tiny waterproof robot into reactor No 1 in the next few weeks, but no date has been set for the more seriously damaged reactor No 3………
‘The situation is not under control’
On the surface, much has changed since the Guardian’s first visit to Fukushima Daiichi five years ago. Then, the site was still strewn with tsunami wreckage. Hoses, pipes and building materials covered the ground, as thousands of workers braved high radiation levels to bring a semblance of order to the scene of a nuclear disaster.
Six years later, damaged reactor buildings have been reinforced, and more than 1,300 spent fuel assemblies have been safely removed from a storage pool in reactor No 4. The ground has been covered with a special coating to prevent rainwater from adding to Tepco’s water-management woes.
Workers who once had to change into protective gear before they approached Fukushima Daiichi now wear light clothing and simple surgical masks in most areas of the plant. The 6,000 workers, including thousands of contract staff, can now eat hot meals and take breaks at a “rest house” that opened in 2015.
But further up the hill from the coastline, row upon row of steel tanks are a reminder of the decommissioning effort’s other great nemesis: contaminated water. The tanks now hold about 900,000 tons of water, with the quantity soon expected to reach 1m tons.
Critics of the clean-up note that 2020 is the year Tokyo is due to host the Olympics, having been awarded the Games after Abe assured the International Olympic Committee that Fukushima was “under control”.
Mitsuhiko Tanaka, a former Babcock-Hitachi nuclear engineer, accuses Abe and other government officials of playing down the severity of the decommissioning challenge in an attempt to win public support for the restart of nuclear reactors across the country.
“Abe said Fukushima was under control when he went overseas to promote the Tokyo Olympics, but he never said anything like that in Japan,” says Tanaka. “Anyone here could see that the situation was not under control.
on 5th anniversary of Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, the global nuke industry is in decline
Terminal decline? Fukushima anniversary marks nuclear industry’s deepening crisis, Ecologist, Nuclear Monitor 10th March 2017 With the sixth anniversary of the Fukushima disaster falling on 11 March , nuclear lobbyists are arguing over solutions to the existential crisis facing nuclear power, writes Jim Green. Some favour a multinational consolidation of large conventional reactor designs, while others back technological innovation and ‘small modular reactors’. But in truth, both approaches are doomed to failureSaturday March 11 marks the sixth anniversary of the triple-disaster in north-east Japan – the earthquake, tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
And the news is not good. Scientists are wondering how on earth to stabilise and decontaminate the failed reactors awash with molten nuclear fuel, which are fast turning into graveyards for the radiation-hardened robots sent in to investigate them.
The Japanese government’s estimate of Fukushima compensation and clean-up costs has doubled and doubled again and now stands at ¥21.5 trillion (US$187bn; €177bn).
Indirect costs – such as fuel import costs, and losses to agricultural, fishing and tourism industries – will likely exceed that figure.
Kendra Ulrich from Greenpeace Japan notes in a new report that “for those who were impacted by the worst nuclear disaster in a generation, the crisis is far from over. And it is women and children that have borne the brunt of human rights violations resulting from it, both in the immediate aftermath and as a result of the Japan government’s nuclear resettlement policy.”
Radiation biologist Ian Fairlie summarises the health impacts from the Fukushima disaster: “In sum, the health toll from the Fukushima nuclear disaster is horrendous. At the minimum:
- Over 160,000 people were evacuated most of them permanently.
- Many cases of post-trauma stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety disorders arising from the evacuations.
- About 12,000 workers exposed to high levels of radiation, some up to 250 mSv
- An estimated 5,000 fatal cancers from radiation exposures in future.
- Plus similar (unquantified) numbers of radiogenic strokes, CVS diseases and hereditary diseases.
- Between 2011 and 2015, about 2,000 deaths from radiation-related evacuations due to ill-health and suicides.
- An, as yet, unquantified number of thyroid cancers.
- An increased infant mortality rate in 2012 and a decreased number of live births in December 2011.”
Dr Fairlie’s report was written in August 2015 but it remains accurate. More than half of the 164,000 evacuees from the nuclear disaster remain dislocated. Efforts to restore community life in numerous towns are failing. Local authorities said in January that only 13% of the evacuees in five municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture have returned home after evacuation orders were lifted.
As for Japan’s long-hyped ‘nuclear restart’: just three power reactors are operating in Japan; before the Fukushima disaster, the number topped 50……….http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988749/terminal_decline_fukushima_anniversary_marks_nuclear_industrys_deepening_crisis.html
Investors worried about bankruptcy risk in Toshiba’s troubled nuclear business Westinghouse
Toshiba’s troubled nuclear business Westinghouse is bringing in bankruptcy lawyers, City AM, Courtney Goldsmith, 9 Mar 17, Toshiba’s US nuclear business, Westinghouse, has hired bankruptcy attorneys, signalling to investors it is serious about the potential of a Chapter 11 filing.
The Japanese conglomerate brought in law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges to explore the option, but it had not yet taken a decision on a bankruptcy filing, sources told Reuters.
Toshiba’s shares closed down 7.2 per cent today.
The firm unexpectedly delayed its financial update last month as it announced it needed more time to probe its US nuclear business after revealing a multi-billion pound hole. It’s due to report earnings Tuesday, but a source has told Reuters the likelihood of Toshiba meeting this deadline was “fifty-fifty”.
If the firm fails to meet that deadline, it has until 27 March to file or could be delisted.
Although the troubled firm said it’s not aware of any intention for Westinghouse to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, sources have said it is one of several options being considered. The nuclear business faces cost overruns at two projects.
Toshiba has also hired a Japanese law firm to help estimate the how a US bankruptcy will impact the broader group, sources said…..
one issue may be financing guarantees given by the US government to help fund the construction of reactors at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, one of the two projects at the core of Westinghouse’s woes.
A 2014 statement on the US department of energy’s website says the loan guarantees totaled $8.3bn (£6.8bn)
Toshiba is also pursuing the sale of most, or even all, of its prized flash memory chip business, which will help protect it against future financial problems. Bids on the company, which Toshiba values at least 1.5 trillion yen, are due at the end of the month. http://www.cityam.com/260648/toshibas-troubled-nuclear-business-westinghouse-bringing
Radiation Spikes At Fukushima
Juan Carlos Lentijo of the International Atomic Energy Agency looks at tanks holding contaminated water and the Unit 4 and Unit 3 reactor buildings during a February 2015 tour of the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Almost six years after a tsunami caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the facility’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) faces overwhelming problems to clean up the site. Tepco now reports radiation in reactor 2 that would kill a worker in thirty seconds, and even destroys robots. Arjun Makhijani, the President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and host Steve Curwood discuss the implications of this new report and the challenges of cleanup.
Arjun Makhijani is the President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.
Transcript
CURWOOD: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Steve Curwood.
Six years after an earthquake and resulting tsunami devastated Fukushima, Japan and led to the meltdown of three nuclear power reactors there on the coast, radiation levels have reached a staggering 530 sieverts an hour, many times higher than any previous reading. Tepco, the plant’s operator, claims that radiation is not leaking outside reactor number two, site of these readings, but concedes there’s a hole in the grating beneath the vessel that contains melted radioactive fuel.
Joining us now to explain what it all means is Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Welcome back to Living on Earth Arjun.
MAKHIJANI: Thank you, Steve. Glad to be back.
CURWOOD: So, this report from TEPCO seems serious, maybe even ominous. What what exactly is going on?
MAKHIJANI: Well, they are exploring the molten core of the reactor in reactor number two with robots, and the robot called Scorpion went farther into the bottom of the reactor in an area called “the pedestal” on which the reactor kind of sits and measured much higher levels of radiation than before. The highest level was 73 Sieverts per hour before and this time they measured a radiation level more than seven times higher. It doesn’t mean it’s going up. It just was in a new area of the molten core that had not been measured before.
CURWOOD: Still, it sounds to me like it’s problematic, that six years after this meltdown there’s such a high reading.
MAKHIJANI: It is a very high reading; they may encounter even higher readings. The difficulty with this high reading is that the prospect that workers can actually go there, even all suited up, becomes more and more remote. Robots are going to have to do all this work – That was mostly foreseen – but the radiation levels are so high that even robots cannot survive for very long. So now they’re going to have to go back to the drawing board and redesign robots that can survive longer or figure out how to do the work faster, and it’s going to be more costly and more complicated to decommission the site.
The lid of Unit 4’s Primary Containment Vessel lies close to the reactor building. The reactor was shut down for maintenance at the time of the accident.
CURWOOD: Remind us, Arjun, please, of the human impact of this kind of radiation. What’s toxic to humans?
MAKHIJANI: Right. So, if you get high levels of radiation in a short period of time, four Sieverts is a lethal dose for about half the people within two months. So, in 530 Sieverts per hour would give you a lethal dose in less than 30 seconds.
CURWOOD: Wow.
MAKHIJANI: So, it’s a very, very, very high level of radiation. That’s why people cannot go into the reactor and work there. That’s not the end of the bad news, but that’s quite a bit of it.
CURWOOD: OK. All right, there is more bad news. I’m sitting down. Tell me.
MAKHIJANI: Yes, so the bottom of the reactor under the reactor there is a grating and then under the grating there’s the concrete floor, and what this robot discovered — It was supposed to go around the grating and survey the whole area, but it couldn’t because a piece of the grating was deformed and broken. So, now it appears that some of the molten fuel may have gone through the grating and maybe onto the concrete floor. We don’t know because even robotic surveys are now difficult, and a high radiation turns into heat, so the whole environment around the molten fuel is thermally very hot, and so whether it is going through the concrete, whether it is under the concrete, I don’t know that we have a good grip on that issue.
CURWOOD: So, Arjun, what’s going on with the reactors one and three? There have been published reports that TEPCO, Tokyo Electric Power Company that has these reactors, hasn’t really taken a good look at those reactors. What do you know?
MAKHIJANI: Well, they have to develop the robots, and I think that developing them, by looking at reactor two, and they’re finding these surprises, radiation levels much higher than previously measured. It shouldn’t actually be unanticipated. The big surprise here was that a part of the grating was gone, and so that the molten fuel would possibly have gone through the grating. So, I think similar surprises will await reactors one and three because each meltdown will have a different geometry.
Storing contaminated water in tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi site presents an ongoing risk, says Makhijani.
URWOOD: So, now what about the decay products here? We’re starting with the Uranium family, but we wind up with Cesium and Strontium – Strontium 90. What risk is there of Strontium 90 getting into groundwater there?
MAKHIJANI: Yeah, so the peculiar thing about a nuclear reaction is the initial fuel, Uranium, is not very radioactive. It’s radioactive but you can hold the uranium fuel pellets in your hand without getting a high dose of radiation. After it’s gone through the nuclear reaction – Fission, that’s what generates the energy – the fission products which result from splitting the Uranium atom are much more radioactive than Uranium, and Strontium 90 and Cesium 137 are two of the products that last for quite a long time, half-life 30 years, and are quite toxic. So, Strontium 90 is specially a problem when it comes in to contact with water. It’s mobilized by water. It behaves like calcium, so if it gets into like sea water and get into the fish, the bones of the fish, or human beings, of course, it gets into the bone marrow and bone surface, increases the risk of cancer, leukemia. So it’s a pretty nasty substance, and Strontium 90 has been contacted with water. You know, rainwater goes and contacts the molten fuel. Groundwater may be contacting the molten fuel. So, we have had Strontium 90 contamination and discharges into the ocean. They also collect the water. They’ve got about more than 1,000 tanks of contaminated water stored at the Fukushima site. By my rough estimate may be about 100 million gallons of contaminated water is being stored there.
CURWOOD: What happens if there’s an earthquake?
MAKHIJANI: That’s exactly right. So about a week into the accident, I sent a suggestion to the Japan Atomic Energy Commission that they should buy a supertanker, put the contaminated water into the supertanker, and send it off elsewhere for processing. They do have a site in the north of Japan which was supposed to be for plutonium separation, but it could be used to support the cleanup of Fukushima. But they rejected that proposal more than once and decided to build these tanks instead. They have a decontamination process on-site, and there are a very vast number of plastic bags on the site filled with contaminated soil. Nobody wants the stuff and nobody knows what’s going to happen with it.
CURWOOD: It’s six years after the original meltdown. How much of a disaster is Fukushima today?
MAKHIJANI: Well, Fukushima is possibly the longest running, continuous industrial disaster in history. It has not stopped because the risks are still there. This is going to take decades to decommission the site, and then what is going to happen with all this highly radioactive waste, ‘specially the molten fuel? Nobody knows.
CURWOOD: Arjun Makhijani is President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Thanks for taking time with us today, Arjun.
MAKHIJANI: So good to be back with you, Steve.
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=17-P13-00007&segmentID=6
Town mayor gives nod to restart Genkai nuclear plant in Saga Pref.
The Genkai Nuclear Power Plant is seen from a Mainichi Shimbun helicopter in Genkai, Saga Prefecture
SAGA, Japan (Kyodo) — A mayor in southwestern Japan approved a plan Tuesday to restart two nuclear reactors in his town, a step toward the resumption of a third atomic power plant in Japan since the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
“While taking the assembly’s approval seriously, I decided to accept the government’s policy,” Hideo Kishimoto, the mayor of Genkai in Saga Prefecture, told a press conference.
Now the restart of the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors at the Genkai plant operated by Kyushu Electric Power Co. depends on consent by seven other municipalities within a 30-kilometer radius of the plant amid lingering safety concerns about nuclear power plants.
The Japanese government is pushing for reactors to be restarted as nuclear power is regarded as a key energy source even after the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the days after a massive earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan.
The Nos. 3 and 4 reactors at the Genkai plant passed in January tougher safety requirements introduced in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. A majority of the town assembly members voted in favor of the restart on Feb. 24.
Kishimoto told Saga Gov. Yoshinori Yamaguchi and Kyushu Electric Power President Michiaki Uriu of his approval Tuesday by phone.
The Saga governor will make a judgment on the matter after hearing from all mayors in the prefecture at a meeting March 18.
All four reactors at the Genkai plant had halted operations by December 2011 in the wake of the Fukushima catastrophe. Kyushu Electric decided to decommission the aging No. 1 reactor.
Of Japan’s 45 commercial reactors nationwide as of Tuesday, only three are now operating — the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at Kyushu Electric’s Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture, and the No. 3 reactor at Shikoku Electric Power Co.’s Ikata plant in Ehime Prefecture, western Japan, according to the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170307/p2g/00m/0dm/080000c
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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