Still 960,000Bq Cs-134/137 and 2,336,000,000Bq noble gas discharged from reactors to the air every single hour
On 5/25/2015, Tepco reported still 960,000 Bq / hour of Cesium-134 and 137 is assumed to be discharged from Reactor 1 -4 to the air this April.
This is 2.7 times much as their provisional figure published in the end of April.
Tepco states the difference is caused by the change of calculation method. It strongly suggests the entire historical discharged volume of Cs-134/137 has been underestimated since 311 however they did not disclose the recalculated discharged volume before April of 2014.
Comparing to May of 2014, the discharged volume of Cs-134/137 increased to 180% this April. Tepco however states this is lower than 10% of the set point of “discharge control”, and they haven’t made any explanation on this increase.
Especially in Reactor 3, the discharged volume increased 78 times much as May. 2014. Also, 95,000 Bq / hour of Cs-134/137 is discharged from Reactor 4 building though it does not contain nuclear fuel.
Regarding noble gas (such as Kr-85), PCV (Primary Containment Vessel) gas control system detected 2,336,000,000 Bq of gas discharged from Reactor 1-3 every hour this April. Tepco states noble gas passes by as radioactive cloud to cause only external exposure so the exposure dose caused by the discharged noble gas should be significantly small.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/f1/smp/2015/images/additional_amount_150525-j.pdf
http://www.tepco.co.jp/life/custom/faq/images/d150430_08-j.pdf
Source: Fukushima Diary
Report: Nuclear fallout is Japan’s top environmental problem
A Japanese government report says the release of massive amounts of radioactive materials is still the country’s top environmental problem 4 years after the nuclear accident in Fukushima Prefecture.
This year’s white paper on the environment says high levels of radiation are still detected in some areas. It says affected areas face a number of problems, such as depopulation and ungrounded rumors.
The report calls for the introduction of renewable energy in such areas. It proposes using part of earnings from green energy generation to help residents to return to their communities http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclear.html
Burnout and stress in Fukushima’s 7,000 nuclear cleanup workers
Stress on The Front Lines of Fukushima Cleanup, NHK, 12 March 2015 Four years ago, crews at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan were racing to keep the nuclear plant from spiraling out of control following the earthquake and tsunami. Today, that sense of urgency has dissipated. But the situation remains serious as workers juggle a host of problems as they decommission the facility. Given the risks involved, health concerns and other worries weigh heavily on their minds……Every day about 7,000 workers help decommission the reactors. In heavy protective clothing, they carry out such tasks as collecting and storing contaminated water. However, the decommissioning work is expected to take up to 40 years to complete. Keeping stress levels down and morale up is proving difficult.
Maeda says a change of mood has definitely come over his staff. He also says it’s getting harder to find new skilled workers. His company now has only one-third the number of experienced workers it had before the accident. “If it carries on like this, we’ll go out of business,” he says.
Four years after the disaster, the decontamination of land around the plant continues. But it is hard to predict when places like Maeda’s hometown of Namie will be habitable again. He says many residents are losing hope of returning home……… http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclearwatch/20150312.html
A Marine Food Web Bioaccumulation model for Cesium 137 in the Pacific Northwest
July 2, 2014
The Fukushima nuclear accident on 11 March 2011 emerged as a global threat to the
conservation of the Pacific Ocean, human health, and marine biodiversity.
On April 11 (2011), the Fukushimanuclear plant reached the severity level 7, equivalent to that of the 1986-Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
This accident was defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency as “a major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures”.
Despite the looming threat of radiation, there has been scant attention and inadequate radiation monitoring.
This is unfortunate, as the potential radioactive contamination of seafoods through bioaccumulation of radioisotopes (i.e. 137Cs) in marine and coastal food webs are issues of major concern for the public health of coastal communities.
While releases of 137Cs into the Pacific after the Fukushima nuclear accident are subject to high degree of dilution in the ocean, 137Cs activities are also prone to concentrate in marine food-webs. With the aim to track the long term fate and bioaccumulation of 137Cs in marine organisms of the Northwest Pacific, we assessed the bioaccumulation potential of 137Cs in a North West Pacific foodweb by developing, applying and testing a simulation time dependent bioaccumulation model in a marine mammalian food web that includes fish-eating resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) as the apex predator.
The model outcomes showed that 137Cs can be expected to bioaccumulate gradually over time in the food web as demonstrated through the use of the slope of the trophic magnification factor (TMF) for 137Cs, which was significantly higher than one (TMF > 1.0; p < 0.0001), ranging from 5.0 at 365 days of simulation to 30 at 10,950 days.
From 1 year to 30 years of simulation, the 137Cs activities predicted in the male killer whale were 6.0 to 182 times 137Cs activities in its major prey (Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). Bioaccumulation of 137Cs was characterized by slow uptake and elimination rates in upper trophic level.
Source :
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/268982476_A_Marine_Food_Web_Bioaccumulation_model_for_Cesium_137_in_the_Pacific_Northwest
Compensation to Fukushima businesses hurt by nuke accident to end in fiscal 2016
Six years after the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. plan to pull the plug on compensation to business operators for losses they incurred due to the forced evacuation.
The plan will be included in a new compensation policy to be worked out as early as this month.
Though the new policy also will include support measures for reconstruction of the businesses, the termination of compensation payments will likely be met with a backlash from business owners who have halted operations or suffered a decline in revenues.
The total compensation TEPCO paid to individuals or businesses due to the nuclear accident in March 2011 stood at nearly 5 trillion yen (about $39.8 billion) as of the end of April. Under the new plan, the total amount is likely to be kept below 6 trillion yen.
About 8,000 business operators have evacuated from the evacuation zones. They have received compensation for financial damages they have suffered for the four years until fiscal 2014, which ended in March 2015.
Under the new policy, they will also receive compensation for an additional two years that will continue until fiscal 2016. However, the lump-sum compensation payments will end then.
Business operators outside the evacuation zones have also received compensation if they have suffered financial damages due to rumors of radioactive contamination. The operators have included those operating tourism-related companies or food processing firms.
Until fiscal 2014, they have received compensation based on the financial damages they have incurred in each fiscal year. The annual amount of compensation has been calculated by subtracting the profits of each fiscal year from those of the pre-nuclear accident year.
Under the new policy, they will receive compensation for the additional two years in a lump-sum payment. The amount of the compensation will be calculated based on the gap between the profits of fiscal 2014 and those of the pre-nuclear accident year.
Before the termination of compensation payments, the government and the private sector will jointly set up an organization to support business operators to reconstruct their operations, change their businesses or find new jobs for them or their employees.
The government will start discussions with economic organizations in Fukushima Prefecture later this month for the establishment of the new organization.
Compensation payments to farmers, fishermen and workers engaged in forestry are expected to continue even after fiscal 2016.
As for compensation payments to evacuees, 14.5 million yen has been paid to each evacuee from the difficult-to-return zones where radiation levels remain high. In the non-residence zones and the zones being prepared for lifting of the evacuation order, 100,000 yen has been paid to each evacuee per month.
The monthly payments will be terminated in March 2018, which is the end of fiscal 2017. At the conclusion, each evacuee in non-residence zones and zones being prepared for the lifting of the evacuation order will have received a total of 8.4 million yen for the seven-year period from fiscal 2011 to fiscal 2017.
Source : Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506070028
Radiated Fukushima Prefecture soil disposal facility to be nationalized
FUKUSHIMA – Environment Minister Yoshio Mochizuki told Fukushima Prefecture leaders Friday that the central government plans to nationalize a private facility intended for the disposal of relatively low radioactive waste in the prefecture.
In a meeting with Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori and others, Mochizuki also said the government plans to launch a new subsidy program for revising the local economy.
The ministry was to utilize the facility, which handles industrial waste, for the final disposal of such radioactive waste under an outsourcing contract, but it accepted the local demand for the nationalization.
Uchibori said in the meeting that he welcomes the ministry’s policy.
Koichi Miyamoto, mayor of the town of Tomioka where the facility is located, was understanding of the ministry’s move.
The facility will be used for the final disposal of waste tainted with radioactive materials released from Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant damaged in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
It will accept waste with radioactivity levels of up to 100,000 becquerels per kilogram.
Waste and soil with higher radioactivity levels are to be kept at an interim storage facility, which will be constructed at a site straddling the towns of Okuma and Futaba.
Source : Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/06/national/radiated-fukushima-prefecture-soil-disposal-facility-to-be-nationalized/#.VXPAaUZZNBS
Fukushima youths ready to desert irradiated hometowns, survey finds
FUKUSHIMA – In 30 to 40 years from now, a majority of the young people living in 12 radiation-contaminated municipalities in Fukushima do not plan to be living in the same place where they experienced the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, it has been learned.
A survey by a panel from the Reconstruction Agency found that more than 50 percent of those respondents between the ages of 10 and 29 stopped short of choosing their prefectural hometowns as the place where they want to be living three or four decades from now.
The 12 municipalities were tainted by fallout from the triple core meltdown that crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s poorly protected Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station in March 2011 — a man-made disaster triggered by the quake and tsunami.
Many of the locales are partially or entirely within the evacuation zone designated around the power plant.
Based on the survey results, the panel plans to draw up proposals on the future of the 12 municipalities as early as this summer, informed sources said.
The survey, conducted in February and March, covered members of some 13,000 households randomly selected from the 77,600 still remaining in the 12 municipalities. Valid answers were only obtained from about 5,100 of the households.
The survey said the proportion of respondents willing to stay in the municipalities where they were residing at the time of the disaster topped 60 percent among those in their 30s or above. For those between 10 and 29, including elementary and junior high school students, the share dropped below 50 percent.
While a majority of those between their 30s and 60s expressed hope of working in their hometowns in the future, the ratio was less than 40 percent for younger people.
“The results are very shocking,” said Satoshi Endo, mayor of the town of Hirono, adding that the town, one of the 12 municipalities listed, needs to create a future vision that appeals to children.
About 60 percent of those who evacuated Hirono have not yet returned.
The Fukushima Prefectural Government will present a clear vision so young people can have hope about their hometowns, a senior official said.
The Reconstruction Agency established the panel last December to discuss the future of the 12 evacuated municipalities.
The proposals will be reflected in the agency’s budget request for fiscal 2016.
The remaining 11 municipalities were the cities of Tamura and Minamisoma, the towns of Kawamata, Naraha, Tomioka, Okuma, Futaba and Namie, and the villages of Kawauchi, Katsurao and Iitate.
Source : Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/05/national/fukushima-youths-ready-desert-irradiated-hometowns-survey-finds/#.VXHhGkZZNBS
Recovery, remediation, decommissioning at Fukushima
Managing contaminated water involves removal of the sources of contamination and isolating ground water from sources
Full remediation and decommissioning of reactors at Fukushima may take a long time. Hasty schedules are not possible or expected as they clash with the safety of people. Water flowing over the melted cores of Units 1, 2 & 3 stricken by the earthquake and tsunami carries a cocktail of radio-nuclides. The integrity of the primary containment vessels of these reactors is not known. They have to develop the needed technologies to handle the cores; it may face its own trials and tribulations.
Fukushima now witnesses a beehive of activity. In April 2013, exactly two years after the accident, the site engaged 2950 workers in various remediation tasks. By February 2014, the work force grew steadily to 7150.
Mr. Naohiro MASUDA, chief decommissioning officer and president of Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination and Decommissioning Engineering Company presented updates of the progress thus far, and the future plans at an international conference organized by the Japanese Atomic Industrial Forum on April 13-14, 2015 at Tokyo.
He covered, among other topics: the present status of the plants; measures against contaminated water; fuel removal from the spent fuel pool and fuel debris removal.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) maintains the reactors at cold shutdown stage by continuously injecting water into them. The operators removed spent fuel rods from the spent fuel pool at Unit 4 by Dec 22, 2014. Now they plan to remove fuel debris from Units 1, 2 and 3.
Maximum dose rate at the site boundary is only 0.03 mSv per year, as against allowed limit of one mSv per year.
Managing contaminated water is a humongous challenge. It involves removal of the sources of contamination, isolating ground water from sources and prevention of water leakage.
TEPCO uses 16 specially designed pieces of equipment each of which can remove one or more of the sixty-two different radio-nuclides including caesium-137 and strontium-90 from water. Each may process 250 to 1200 cubic metres per day. Tritium is a major issue. TEPCO is reportedly discussing with fishermen for its gradual release into sea.
Daily, about 400 tonnes of ground water enter the building. As this water gets contaminated, it has to be stored and decontaminated. Besides other methods, TEPCO plans to construct a frozen soil impermeable wall on the land side to prevent entry of ground water. The wall will use refrigerated coolant at minus 30 degree Celsius, running through pipes that have been placed vertically in the ground, to freeze the surrounding soil.
“There are many underground pipes and other structures associated with each of the four generating units. Building a watertight physical structure around all those obstacles would be nearly impossible and, even if it could be done, the construction would be more complex, time consuming, and disruptive.
It likely would also generate much more potentially contaminated excavated soil that would need to be safely disposed of,” TEPCO stated at its website…
The wall will be in place for six years, the period needed to drain and clean the contaminated water from the buildings and make them watertight.
According to Hiroshi Kainuma, Fukushima University, the yield of rice in Fukushima came down from 4, 45, 700T in 2010 to 3, 53,600 T in 2011. In 2013, it rose to 3, 82,600T closer to earlier years.
In 2012, 71 bags of food had radioactivity above the legal reference value. In 2013, 28; in 2014, no such bag was found.
Neither abortions nor abortion rates have increased in Fukushima. Divorce rate has not increased.
Birth rates lowered. Kainuma noted that the number of direct deaths caused by earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima was 1612; the number of disaster-related deaths due to evacuation was higher at 1793!
Decontamination specialists, with unenviable tasks assigned to them used, on large industrial scales, technologies which were successfully deployed on small scales. There were failures. Diligent auditors did not condone such ‘aberrations.’ You may express empathy or sympathy or hostility on that action depending on which side of the isle you are in!
The reactor owners, regulators and others responsible to operate the Fukushima Daiichi plants safely managed to melt the cores of three of them, throwing nuclear industry world-wide into disarray! Ultimately, the Japanese ingenuity and their expertise in robotics, miniature electronics, and precision engineering will win the day. Japan needs nuclear power; many plants will start operation, though presently only energy specialists look at them benignly.
Source : The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/recovery-remediation-decommissioning-at-fukushima/article7278520.ece
2 Fukushima waste storage sites to be built
Japan’s environment ministry will soon start building two more temporary stockyards to store radioactive waste from decontamination work in Fukushima Prefecture. A nuclear accident took place there in 2011.
The stockyards are facilities to temporarily store contaminated soil and other waste before it goes to a main storage facility that has yet to be built.
The ministry already has two such stockyards in the region of Futaba and Okuma towns. The two towns host the damaged nuclear plant. The stockyards can store 20,000 cubic meters of waste.
With the two new stockyards to be built in the same region, the ministry has now nearly secured enough land to carry out its plan to transfer more than 40,000 cubic meters of waste gathered from 43 municipalities in the prefecture in a year.
Work to transfer radioactive waste to the existing stockyards began in March. But the ministry has only transferred 3,000 cubic meters of waste. That’s less than a tenth of the planned annual total amount.
As for the entire site of the main storage facility planned for the same area, the Environment Ministry faces the challenge of negotiating with more than 2,300 landowners. Only a few have so far agreed to sell their land.
The planned main storage facility is for intermediate storage until a site is secured for final disposal. Legislation obliges the government to ensure the waste stored in the main storage facility is moved to a final disposal site outside Fukushima Prefecture within 30 years.
Source : NHK
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150604_23.html
Still 12 μSv/h detected in Minamisoma city
On 6/2/2015, a Japanese citizen posted his radiation test video on Youtube. The measurement was implemented on the same day.
This person has been posting his measurement videos since 2 years ago.
The location is Haramachi-ku, Minamisoma city (map attached below). The radiation level was 1.1 μSv/h at about 1m above the ground (estimated) but it jumps up to over 12 μSv/h on the ground.
A city nursery school is only 200m from the measurement place. It is not known if the school is still open.
According to the municipal government, 2 of 5 public nursery schools are still open and 5 of 8 public kindergartens are also still open.
About 50,000 of 72,000 residents are still living in Minamisoma city. Financial institutions are in the normal operation.
From the live monitoring data of NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority), the radiation level is only 0.093 μSv/h (50cm from the ground) at a near elementary school, where is approx. 1km from the measuring point.
http://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal/26-3.html
Issues of Incineration Disposal of Agricultural and Forestry Radioactive Wastes in Fukushima Prefecture by Toshikazu Fujiwara
Makeshift incineration facilities in Minamisoma City, Fukushima Prefecture
June 2, 2015
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident released radioactive substances across a wide area of the environment. Currently, not only decontamination operations but also people’s everyday lives generate wastes that include high concentrations of radioactive substances. The Japanese government terms radioactive wastes from 8,000 to 100,000 becquerel per kilogram (Bq/kg) designated wastes. They are today stored temporarily at various locations, while at some point in the future, after reducing their volumes, the government plans to bury them in the prefectures where they were generated. In this article, Toshikazu Fujiwara, who is well-versed in the volume reduction of these contaminated designated wastes, discusses the issue. (Nobuko Tanimura)
Introduction
In Fukushima Prefecture, the Japanese Ministry of the Environment is promoting the Waste Volume Reduction Project, which, by means of makeshift incineration facilities, incinerates the combustible wastes that are specifically designated according to the level of contamination (at or over 8,000 Bq/kg) attributed to the radioactive substances emitted from the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The combustible designated wastes include agricultural and forestry byproducts such as paddy straw, feed crops, fallen leaves, and manure; sewage sludge; and wastes from home cleaning.
According to the project, the construction of 24 makeshift incinerators is being carried out in 19 municipalities in the prefecture, most of which are already in service.
The first of these incinerators to be constructed is located in Samegawa Village, Fukushima Prefecture. Having been built as a demonstration incinerator, it has the following formal purposes: 1) reducing volumes of wastes; 2) checking safety and associated factors as well as accumulating knowledge concerning the incineration of radioactive contaminated wastes exceeding 8,000 Bq/kg; and 3) determining the environmental impacts of radioactive cesium and other substances after incineration. However, the incinerator constructed in Samegawa was presumably a preliminary project in preparation for subsequent large-scale waste incineration projects.
Problems of the waste volume reduction project
(1) Deceitfulness concerning the project’s purpose
The waste volume reduction project states as its purposes improvement of the living environment for the restoration of the region and for the encouragement of the return of the people who used to live there, and making contributions to the progress of decontamination programs and the recovery of Fukushima Prefecture. Nevertheless, the waste volume reduction project totally ignores the risk of accidents, such as explosions associated with the incineration of radioactive contaminated wastes (the Samegawa makeshift incineration facilities exploded on the ninth day after the commencement of full-scale incineration services), environmental contamination, and health impacts on the people living in the neighborhood.
(2) Defects and procedural contraventions in the Special Measures Act
The legislation on which the wastes are designated and waste volume reduction programs are promoted is the Act on Special Measures Concerning the Handling of Environment Pollution by Radioactive Materials Discharged by the Nuclear Power Station Accident, established on August 30, 2011. This Act has the following fundamental defects: 1) while the procedure for designating wastes is stipulated, the procedure for removing wastes from the designation is not included; 2) the Act specifies that wastes exceeding 8,000 Bq/kg should be treated as designated wastes and wastes exceeding 100,000 Bq/kg should be stored in interim storage, but these radioactivity criteria are not scientifically persuasive; 3) the amounts of the designated wastes are overestimated because they were not determined by proper investigation; 4) the Act does not oblige Tokyo Electric Power Company, the company responsible for the emissions, to perform countermeasures, such as the prevention of radioactive substance discharge and the collection, disposal, and storage of contaminated wastes; and 5) the Act includes no procedural stipulation for information disclosure and accountability to, or the agreement of, local residents, all of which should be preconditions for waste incineration.
(3) Probability of environmental pollution and health risks
I assume that no country has so boldly promoted the incineration of radioactive wastes attributed to a nuclear power plant accident as in the Fukushima case presented in this article. Furthermore, the Ministry of the Environment has been mixing the designated wastes exceeding 8,000 Bq/kg with less contaminated wastes before incineration in order to reduce ash contamination per unit volume and thus prevent the ashes from exceeding 100,000 Bq/kg, over which they would need to be stored in interim storage facilities. The Ministry has repeatedly explained that the incineration of designated wastes exceeding 8,000 Bq/kg by means of the makeshift incineration facilities is safe, because the facilities are provided with bag filters that capture 99.99% of radioactive substances (mainly radioactive cesium particles) in the exhaust gas emitted through the incinerator funnels, reducing them to an undetectable level. However, gaseous substances and microparticles such as particulate matter 1.0 are known to be emitted through the filters, and bag-filter applications in conventional incinerators confirm that the filters break down easily. According to the makeshift incineration facilities test project commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment and performed by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in Okuma Town and Iitate Village, Fukushima Prefecture, the mass balance analysis that compared the amounts of cesium in the wastes loaded into the incinerators and those in the output indicated that the whereabouts of 30% to 40% of radioactive cesium were unknown. The missing amounts of cesium may reside in the incinerator, ducts or funnels, or may be leaking from seals and other leak-susceptible locations in the facilities. If this is the case, incineration is highly likely to cause the spread of radioactive substances in a radius of several kilometers around the facilities, resulting in ground fallout and thus contamination of the land, increasing the health risks to locals. The Ministry of the Environment has performed no risk assessment in this regard.
(4) Financial unhealthiness
The budget the Japanese government has appropriated for this series of waste volume reduction projects is abnormally large. Overseas observers have previously regarded the huge spending by Japanese municipalities on the construction and maintenance of waste incineration facilities as extraordinary. The total cost of just the construction projects for makeshift incineration facilities that we know about, and which are planned to be used for as little as three months to three years, amounts to 400 billion yen. This amount does not include most of the cost of incinerator dismantling or site decontamination. The entire waste volume reduction project is an abuse of an enormous amount of tax revenue. If methods other than incineration were used, a considerable amount of expenses could undoubtedly be saved.
Let’s stop incineration and burial by proposing alternative methods, and establish a Fundamental Law on Radioactive Contamination Prevention!
In consideration of environmental loads and accident risks, the incineration and ash burial of radioactive wastes cannot be the optimal disposal system, no matter if the wastes are those generated anew by the Fukushima nuclear plant accident or the high-level radioactive wastes resulting from conventional nuclear power facilities such as reactors. We must come up with and propose alternative systems to put an end to incineration as quickly as possible.
Source: Citizens’ Nucleat Infomation Center
NRA not informed of tainted water transfer
NRA not informed of tainted water transfer: Tepco caught mixing in highly contaminated basment water, claiming it is “rainwater.”
Tepco is transferring wastewater that is more radioactive than it originally stated. The company failed to notify Japan’s nuclear regulator of the change :
In May, officials found that water sampled at 4 sites at the plant’s port exceeded levels of radioactivity seen previously in the 2 years since monitoring began.
It’s believed the contaminated water came from a cracked and leaking hose inside the plant. The water from the hose flowed into a channel that led to the port.
Initially, Tepco said the hose contained wastewater that was a “byproduct of treating contaminated rainwater.”
But on Wednesday it was revealed at a meeting of the NRA that the utility had begun adding other highly radioactive wastewater to the water since mid-May.
Tepco says that as a result the wastewater in the hose was “likely more radioactive than it initially declared.”
Some of the water in the hose was groundwater mixed with extremely highly contaminated water that had pooled in the plant’s basement.
The hose cracked from being bent beyond the operational limit set by the maker. The utility had also failed to replace the hose despite questions about its durability.
NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka condemned the utility for its “utter failure to control the wastewater.” He ordered the company to continue monitoring and reporting on its handling of wastewater.
Source : NHK
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150603_37.html
Wow! Fukushima Leak Could Cause an Explosion?
Paul Gunter seemed to be talking about the Hi-test radioactive sludge sitting at the bottom of the tanks. I thought this was about what soaked into the ground below the tank farm :
Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear, joins Thom Hartmann. Another day, another ominous development in Fukushima. According to new numbers from the Tokyo Electric Power Company – or Tepco – the plant’s Operator – as many as 10 percent of the nuclear facility’s containers may be leaking radioactive waste. And while the release of toxic chemicals into the environment is bad enough – this new problems comes with an added risk: it could cause a violent explosion. As one nuclear official told the Telegraph – since the leak was thought to be caused by a hydrogen build-up “If the concentration level is high, a spark caused by static electricity could cause a container to explode.”
Source:
Japan’s government’s optimism on nuclear power future doesn’t ring true- finance analysts
Japan Government Too Bullish on Nuclear Role by 2030, BNEF Says, Bloomberg, by Chisaki Watanabe , 2 June 15 Japan’s expectation that nuclear generation will account for as much as 22 percent of its electricity in 2030 is overly optimistic, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said.
Factoring in costs and the regulatory hurdles required to extend the life of operating reactors beyond the typical 40 years, atomic power will probably supply no more than 10 percent of electricity in 2030, an analysis by BNEF shows.
The discrepancies between the London-based researcher’s findings and the official view on nuclear’s contribution highlight a looming question for Japan as it considers the composition of its energy mix following the Fukushima disaster more than four years ago.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has said in a draft report on energy policy that nuclear will account for 20 percent to 22 percent of electricity generation in 15 years. Though nuclear reactors supplied more than a quarter of Japan’s electricity before Fukushima, none are currently operating.
The government’s outlook, unveiled in April and reaffirmed by a consultative committee on Monday, is also too bearish on the roles for gas and clean energy, BNEF said……http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-02/japan-government-too-bullish-on-nuclear-role-by-2030-bnef-says
Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) official warns on hydrogen explosion risk at Fukushima
Gas buildup under Fukushima threatens hydrogen explosion, warn nuclear officials, June 01, 2015 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer (NaturalNews) It is estimated that at least 130 storage containers holding radioactive waste at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility in Japan are now leaking, according to new reports. The result is a continuous hydrogen gas buildup that nuclear experts say could one day trigger a cascade of devastating explosions potentially unlike anything the world has ever seen.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) discovered the leaks during a recent inspection, observing that hydrogen and other gases are accumulating in the sediment at the bottoms of many of the storage tanks onsite. The buildup from this is causing contaminated water inside the tanks to expand, blowing off their lids and spilling their contents.
An official from the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), which was given the bad news during a recent study group meeting with TEPCO, reportedly told the media that this constantly accumulating gas buildup is an imminent danger and that something needs to be done to contain it.
“If the concentration level is high, a spark caused by static electricity could cause a container to explode,” stated one unnamed government official about the situation, as quoted by the news source The Asahi Shimbun.
Many of Fukushima’s storage containers are faulty; some are missing gas venting holes
In early April, many of the containers identified as leaking radioactive waste were found to be leaking the fluid through their gas venting holes, which are supposed to prevent this very thing from occurring. It was also later discovered that some of the storage tanks weren’t even properly outfitted with gas venting holes, exacerbating the problem…….http://www.naturalnews.com/049910_Fukushima_nuclear_waste_hydrogen_explosion.html
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