Radioactive trash problem accelerates in Japan , with latest nuclear reactor restart
Third reactor restart spurs fears over shaky Kansai evacuation plans BY ERIC JOHNSTON STAFF WRITER , JAPAN TIMES, TAKAHAMA, FUKUI PREF 29 JAN 16 . “……The restarts also mean Kepco must once again confront the question of what to do with spent fuel, an issue that is rapidly becoming one of local and national concern.
The spent-fuel storage pools for the Takahama No. 3 and 4 reactors are expected to be full in about eight years. Kepco plans to remove the fuel and nuclear waste to a mid-term storage facility for a half century before transporting them somewhere else for final storage.
In a recent meeting with Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa, Kepco President Makoto Yagi said Kepco wants to begin operating a mid-term storage facility outside the prefecture by around 2030. The utility aims to choose a site for the facility by 2020.
That presents a problem. Kepco promised Nishikawa that spent fuel from the Takahama reactors will not be stored within the prefecture but in one of the utility’s other service areas. This means Shiga, Kyoto, Nara, Hyogo, Osaka, Wakayama, Mie or Gifu.But there are certain conditions a potential storage site has to meet. For transportation reasons, Kepco wants it located in a prefecture with port facilities. That eliminates Nara, Shiga, and Gifu prefectures. Second, Yagi says that local consent to build and store the waste is crucial.
That is potentially an even bigger problem. Kyoto Gov. Keiji Yamada has strongly opposed building a facility in his prefecture. Osaka Gov. Ichiro Matsui appears opposed as well, saying he does not want Kepco in charge of the facility. Mie and Hyogo prefectures have said they are not considering hosting a facility at present.
Only Wakayama appears to be a possibility at the moment. In 2009, the port city of Gobo hinted it might be interested in hosting a mid-term facility. Kepco did a survey and agreed it was possible to build there, but nothing has happened since then.http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/29/national/third-reactor-restart-spurs-fears-over-shaky-kansai-evacuation-plans/#.VqvMftJ97Gg
UK nuclear power project a bonanza for Japanese companies, Hitachi-GE and others
Hitachi sees over 1tn yen in business for Japan companies http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Deals/Hitachi-sees-over-1tn-yen-in-business-for-Japan-companies
TOKYO — A nuclear power project in the U.K. will generate more than 1 trillion yen ($8.42 billion) in orders for Japanese businesses, it was learned Sunday, giving a shot in the arm to exports by an industry suffering from a lack of orders at home since the Fukushima accident of 2011.More than 3 trillion yen is budgeted for the project if joint venture Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy constructs four advanced boiling water reactors — and an even higher sum if six reactors get the nod. Hitachi has invited 40 or so Japanese companies to a meeting at the British Embassy here to explain details.
Also expected are water supply pump manufacturer Ebara as well as Kurita Water Industries and Kubota. Shimizu and Kajima, which have experience building housing structures for nuclear plants in Japan, will also likely go.
While Hitachi-GE will handle the reactor core, Japanese companies are expected to undertake key technologies for operating the nuclear plant, giving Japan about 40% of the project total.
(Nikkei)
Japan: secret use of consumer’s money to fund pro nuclear political campaign
Utilities secretly buy tickets for pro-nuclear minister’s fund-raisers http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201401270057 January 27, 2014 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
Using money paid by consumers, nuclear plant operators have secretly bought tickets worth several million yen a year for fund-raising parties of Akira Amari, a pro-nuclear Cabinet minister, since 2006, The Asahi Shimbun learned.
The utilities have kept each ticket purchase at 200,000 yen ($2,000) or less to prevent their names from appearing in the political fund reports of Amari, the minister in charge of economic revitalization, sources said.
It was already reported that directors of electric power companies have made individual donations to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, but the utilities were found for the first time to have bought fund-raising party tickets with electricity fees paid by consumers.
Amari, an LDP lawmaker with economic and industrial interests, exerts strong influence on energy policy and advocates reactivating idled nuclear reactors.
In July, he sought Niigata Governor Hirohiko Izumida’s approval of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s application for safety screening in preparation for restarting two reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant.
Amari’s office told The Asahi Shimbun it handles and reports political funds appropriately. It declined to discuss details beyond those entered in reports.
Nine regional utilities that operate nuclear plants bought tickets for Amari’s parties in 2006, when he became minister of economy, trade and industry, according to senior officials of electric power companies. The electric power industry falls under the jurisdiction of that minister.
The companies together spent about 1 million yen for each party. Their share was determined based on the size of company operations, the sources said.
The arrangement was maintained for the following years, and affiliates of the utilities sometimes joined.
TEPCO dropped out of the framewor
Risky Plutonium-Mixed Fuel used in Japan’s new nuclear reactor restart
Japan Restarts Nuclear Reactor Using Plutonium-Mixed Fuel http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/japan-restarts-nuclear-reactor-plutonium-mixed-fuel-36593509, By MARI YAMAGUCHI, ASSOCIATED PRESS, 29 Jan 16, Japan on Friday restarted a nuclear reactor that uses riskier plutonium-based MOX fuel, the first of that type to resume operations under stricter safety rules introduced after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
Japan’s large stockpile of plutonium has raised international nuclear security concerns, and the government has come up with the idea of burning it in reactors to reduce the amount.
The No. 3 reactor at Takahama nuclear plant in western Japan, operated by Kansai Electric Power Co., went back online Friday. Dozens of people protested outside the plant in Fukui prefecture, where preparations for a restart of another reactor, No. 4, are also underway.
Fukui has more than a dozen reactors, the biggest concentration in one prefecture, causing safety concerns for neighbors including Kyoto and Shiga, whose Lake Biwa is a major source of drinking water for western Japan.
Two reactors that use conventional uranium fuel were restarted last year in southern Japan. Japan started burning MOX, a plutonium-uranium hybrid fuel, in some of its conventional reactors in 2009. Experts say conventional reactors can safely burn MOX for up to one-third of their fuel, but it emits more radiation and could interfere with control rods when they are needed to suppress the nuclear chain reaction.
Japan has enough plutonium, mostly from reprocessed spent fuel, to make 6,000 bombs.
Nearly five years since a massive earthquake and tsunami caused meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, about 100,000 people still cannot return to nearby areas. Workers at the plant continue to struggle with its decommissioning, which will take decades.
Aiming to help business by generating energy, Japan’s government is pushing to restart as many reactors as possible after they are deemed safe. Forty remaining workable reactors are still offline for safety checks.
Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at twitter.com/mariyamaguchi
Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/mari-yamaguchi
Community and environmental impact of the Jaitapur nuclear power project
France Peddles Unsafe Nuclear Reactors to India, Drawing Protest , 29 January 2016 By Kumar Sundaram, Truthout | News Analysis “………the concerns of the local community in Jaitapur go beyond the cost of the project. Jaitapur is located in the stunningly beautiful Konkan region, replete with verdant plateaus, magical mountains and undulating hills, lagoons, creeks, the open sea and infinite greenery. The NPCIL has labeled nearly 65 percent of the land as “barren,” despite the fact that Konkan is one of the world’s 10 “biodiversity hotspots,” sheltering over 5,000 species of flowering plants, 139 of mammals, 508 of birds and 179 of amphibians, including 325 globally threatened species.
Altogether, the nuclear park would jeopardize the livelihoods of 40,000 people. The annual turnover of Jaitapur’s fishing villages is about $2.2 million. In Nate Village alone, there are 200 big trawlers and 250 small boats. Nearly 6,000 people depend directly on fishing and over 10,000 are dependent on ancillary activities.
The community is apprehensive that the elaborate security arrangements around the project would block the fisherfolks’ use of the two creeks of Jaitapur and Vijaydurg. The fish population will also be affected since the nuclear plant would release a massive 52 billion liters of hot water into the Arabian Sea daily, raising the local sea temperature by 5 to 7 degrees Celsius.
Jaitapur has highly fertile land, which produces rice and other cereals, and arguably the world’s most famous mango, the Alphonso. Cashews, coconuts, kokum, betel nuts, pineapples and other fruits are found in abundance. The land is also quite productive in terms of its use for cattle-grazing and rain-fed agriculture.
The environmental impact assessment (EIA) for Jaitapur, conducted by the government-run National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), did not even look into the crucial aspects of radiological releases, decommissioning and nuclear waste, besides summarily neglecting the vital issues of ecosystems and livelihoods, terrestrial ecosystems and farming, mangrove forests and the fragile marine ecology and fisheries in the region.
NEERI admits it does not have any expertise in radiation-related issues and it just mentioned in its report that all the stipulations of the government’s nuclear regulator would be followed. The then-minister for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh, had himself termed these EIA assessments a joke. Even that environmental clearance, granted on 35 absurdly weak conditions, was given only for a period of five years, which lapsed as of November 2015. Citizens groups and independent experts have demanded a fresh EIA in place of an extension……… http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34627-france-peddles-unsafe-nuclear-reactors-to-india-drawing-protest
Anxieties over safety in the region, as Japan restarts 3rd nuclear reactor
Third reactor restart spurs fears over shaky Kansai evacuation plans BY ERIC JOHNSTON STAFF WRITER , JAPAN TIMES, TAKAHAMA, FUKUI PREF 29 JAN 16 . – Kansai Electric Power Co. on Friday restarted its Takahama No. 3 reactor, the nation’s third unit to go back online under new safety regulations but the first to run on mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, which contains plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel.
The restart has revived concerns, especially in neighboring Kansai, about the feasibility of plans to evacuate residents within 30 km of the plant in the event of an accident. It is also unclear where the spent fuel from the reactors will eventually be stored.
The restart was largely welcomed by local businesses and the town of Takahama, which rely on the subsidies and service industry trade that nuclear power brings…….
In the neighboring port city of Maizuru in Kyoto Prefecture, Mayor Ryozo Tatami said Kepco needs to make sure that restarting the reactor won’t lead to an accident. He also called on Tokyo to strengthen its disaster planning for such an event. The Takahama plant’s No. 4 reactor is expected to be restarted next month.
The Takahama plant lies on the Sea of Japan coast in southern Fukui Prefecture, with only a few access roads in and out of the area. About 180,000 people live in 12 towns and cities within 30 km of the site, in Fukui, Kyoto and Shiga.
While plans exist on paper to evacuate some Fukui residents to Hyogo, Kyoto, and Tokushima prefectures, many municipalities there don’t have detailed plans for receiving evacuees. This could possibly mean the only relief might come from Maizuru, which hosts the Japan Coast Guard and a Maritime Self-Defense Force base within 30 km of Takahama…….
the plans assume people will have the physical ability to flee. “There is no evacuation plan in place for the tens of thousands of people with special needs — inpatients and outpatients at hospitals and various facilities, those in day care, and those with handicaps living at home. When others can flee, there are no vehicles to transport these people nor medical care prepared at the evacuation site,” said Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of the antinuclear group Green Action.
“Restart of the Takahama plant is a human rights injustice toward children and those with handicaps,” she said.
Kansai officials critical of the restart include Kyoto Gov. Keiji Yamada, who said Thursday he did not feel adequate local consent had been obtained due to concerns about evacuation issues. That same day, Shiga Gov. Taizo Mikazuki said there was a lack of sufficient disaster planning.
On Friday, Osaka Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura added his voice to the opposition, saying the rules for disposing spent nuclear fuel — the lack of mid-term and final storage facilities — remained unclear. The city of Osaka owns about 9 percent of Kepco’s stocks.
Fukui hopes the two restarts will translate into more central government subsidies for hosting the plant. The prefecture received ¥30.6 billion in nuclear related subsidies in fiscal 2014. The latest available figures for Takahama show it received over ¥35 billion between 1974 and 2013……..
anti-nuclear activists say it is not just a matter of price, and that many people may choose to go with suppliers of electricity from renewable energy or other nonnuclear sources.
“The household electricity market will open up to more competition, especially from firms selling non-nuclear generated electricity. Customers will move away from Kepco if it tries to sell power from its nuclear plants, and the company won’t be able to survive,” said Kiyoko Kubo of Wakasa Net, an antinuclear group based near Takahama.http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/29/national/third-reactor-restart-spurs-fears-over-shaky-kansai-evacuation-plans/#.VqvMftJ97Gg
Japan’s Nuclear Regulator – a toothless body
France Peddles Unsafe Nuclear Reactors to India, Drawing Protest , 29 January 2016 By Kumar Sundaram, Truthout | News Analysis “…….India’s nuclear regulator, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), is itself a toothless body, which depends on the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) for its finances and human resources, an agency, which it is supposed to supervise. India’s newly proposed nuclear regulator – the Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority – would be an even weaker body than the AERB, according to the former head of AERB, Dr. A K Gopalakrishnan. In fact, India is the only country to further dilute its already lax safety regulation under the AERB to accommodate foreign-imported reactors, as Areva’s EPR might not even pass the licensing procedures of the existing AERB.
Safety concerns at Jaitapur are legitimate and extremely serious. The EPR design has come under severe criticism from the French nuclear regulator, ASN. In April 2015, the ASN warned Areva about some very crucial vulnerabilities in its design. It has found the reactor pressure vessel (or the core of the reactor) to be vulnerable. Yet two days after the publication of ASN’s report, Prime Minister Modi reaffirmed the commitment to buy the EPRs during his visit to Paris.
Independent experts and the government’s own institutions have also cautioned about active seismic fault lines in the region passing exactly beneath the proposed reactor site. There have been 92 earthquakes in Jaitapur over the past 20 years……..http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34627-france-peddles-unsafe-nuclear-reactors-to-india-drawing-protest
In politically unstable regions, nuclear power faces special cyber attack danger
Report: Nuclear plants in unstable regions vulnerable to cyberattacks, UPI By Allyson Chiu, Medill News Service WASHINGTON, D.C., January 28, 2016 — Nuclear power plants need to improve security systems to safeguard against non-traditional terrorist attacks, but that’s challenging for developing countries, experts said Thursday…….
a report released Thursday by the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank, said many nations do not have the resources to adequately protect their nuclear facilities from insider or cybersecurity attacks.
“In particular countries in close proximity to terrorist groups with vulnerable or unstable economies, the potential for incidents is much higher,” said Debra Decker, the report’s co-author and Stimson Center senior adviser.
West African nations like Nigeria are battling terrorist groups including Boko Haram. In the Middle East, territory in Syria has been taken by the Islamic State. Both countries are considering nuclear power programs, according to the World Nuclear Association.
Attacking a nuclear power plant can disrupt power grids or even cause a nuclear meltdown. Kathryn Rauhut, co-author of the Stimson report, said the Fukushima power plant in Japan — destroyed by a meltdown caused by a tsunami — could also have been vulnerable to cyberterrorism.
“Rather than the tsunami taking out backup power supply, you could just have that engineered through a cyberattack,” she said. “We hope that nobody would ever use planes or weapons of mass destruction again, but you don’t need to do that, you can wreak the same amount of havoc through cyber intrusions.”
Unlike American nuclear power plants, which are strictly monitored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, international plants do not have any binding safety standards, Decker said…….. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2016/01/28/Report-Nuclear-plants-in-unstable-regions-vulnerable-to-cyberattacks/2321454019965/
Solar business India: coal develop makes the switch to solar
India Coal Plant Developer Switches to Solar for Site in Punjab, Bloomberg Business, Anindya Upadhyay 29 Jan 16
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RattanIndia to convert 800-acre site to PV instead of coal
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Company to raise 6 billion rupees for current solar projects
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A prominent developer of coal-fired power plants in India is seeking to switch to solar for an 800-acre (324-hectare) site in Punjab it had earmarked for another thermal plant, saying the economics of photovoltaics are more attractive.
RattanIndia Power Ltd. which has 1.6 gigawatts of thermal capacity in central India, asked government permission to install solar panels at the site in Punjab instead of the coal plant it was planning, said Rajiv Rattan, chairman of RattanIndia Group.
“In the next three to four years, you will see the entire 800 acres getting used for solar,” Rattan said in an interview.
The decision highlights increasing interest in India’s solar program after Prime Minister Narendra Modi set out a target to install 100 gigawatts of capacity by 2020 at an estimated cost of $100 billion. Incentives and regulations designed to draw finance from companies to help meet the target have attracted a handful of overseas developers to bid in auctions for power contracts in India, reducing the cost of solar electricity to a record low.RattanIndia is the only domestic firm to take on large foreign companies in Indian government auctions for solar contracts, which were dominated by SunEdison Inc. of the U.S., SoftBank Group Corp. from Japan, Fortum OYJ of Finland and Solairedirect Group from France.
RattanIndia has made a bold statement by making aggressive bids and competing with foreign companies in large government solar tenders where most Indian corporates were out, the solar research firm Bridge to India said……….
- The cost of solar power touched a record low of 4.34 rupees (or 6 cents) a kilowatt-hour for contracts awarded on Jan. 19 in the sunny southern state of Rajasthan, where a total of 420 megawatts of capacity was granted…….http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-29/india-coal-plant-developer-switches-to-solar-for-site-in-punjab
Fukushima ice wall near completion
An underground ice wall designed to curb the buildup of radioactive water at the Fukushima Daiichi plant will see near completion on Friday. But it’s not yet clear when it can be put into service as the nuclear regulator has not yet given a green light to its use.
The barrier will almost be finished Friday. Only the last procedure, which involves filling underground pipes with coolant, remains.
The wall made of frozen soil stretches about 1.5 kilometers around 4 reactor buildings.
Tokyo Electric Power Company aims to cut the amount of groundwater that seeps into the buildings and then becomes contaminated. The utility expects the barrier to reduce the inflow to 10 tons a day. That’s less than one tenth the current level.
The project to build the wall began in June 2014 at a cost of about 290 million dollars from the national coffers. The plan is to start operation by the end of March.
But the Nuclear Regulation Authority has not given its approval. It fears radioactive water could leak from the reactor buildings if the wall makes the level of groundwater lower than that of contaminated water.
TEPCO says it will closely monitor groundwater levels and inject water if the levels fall too far.
But the regulator insists changes in groundwater levels could cause unintended consequences.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20160129_04.html
Fukushima nuclear crisis far from over, Kan says
WASHINGTON – Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant is not over five years since a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered the meltdowns.
“There is no doubt” radioactive materials have been seeping into the sea after mixing with groundwater, Kan, who has been a vocal critic of nuclear energy since the crisis started, told the National Press Club in Washington.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly said the issue of water contaminated with radioactive substances at the Fukushima plant is “under control,” including when he was making a pitch for Tokyo as host of the 2020 Olympic Games.
Kan disputes this. “The accident is still unfolding,” he said.
Kan was prime minister when the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl occurred following the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
Kan, a lawmaker of the Democratic Party of Japan, also criticized Abe’s decision to raise the ratio of electricity produced by atomic energy to 20-22 percent of the nation’s total output by 2030.
“The goal is not achievable” unless Japan extends the maximum legal period of reactor operations or builds a new nuclear plant, Kan said.
Most nuclear reactors remain off line in Japan, but various operators are seeking restarts.
Kansai Electric Power Co. is set to reactivate a reactor at its Takahama plant in Fukui Prefecture on Friday, in what would be the third restart since new safety standards were put in place.
Japan starts work on ‘world’s largest’ floating solar farm
Japan begins work on ‘world’s largest’ floating solar farm, Guardian, Adam Vaughan, 28 Jan 16
Electronics firm builds floating solar farm on a reservoir due to a scarcity of land for utility-scale solar in Japan. The Japanese electronics multinational Kyocera has begun work on what it says will be the world’s biggest floating solar farm.
The power plant is being built on a reservoir in Japan’s Chiba prefecture and is anticipated to supply enough electricity for nearly 5,000 households when it is completed in early 2018.
Space-starved Japan has already seen several floating solar farms built as part of the country’s drive to exploit more renewable energy in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster……..
In the UK, water company United Utilities started work last year on a floating solar farm on a Greater Manchester reservoir, which will be Europe’s largest once complete. Kyocera said it was turning to water because of a scarcity of land for utility-scale solar in Japan……
Kyocera has already built three floating solar farms, which are much smaller than the new one, which was first announced in October 2014.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/27/japan-begins-work-on-worlds-largest-floating-solar-farm
Fukushima fishermen to expand operations off crippled nuclear plant
FUKUSHIMA – Fishermen in Fukushima Prefecture said Wednesday they plan to scale down their self-imposed fishing ban in waters off the damaged nuclear power plant due mainly to a substantial decline in radioactive cesium levels.
The Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations is considering narrowing the area subject to the ban to a 10-kilometer radius from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant from the current 20-kilometer radius.
The move comes as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. last autumn completed the construction of a shielding wall to prevent leaks of contaminated groundwater into the sea. Since the completion, radiation levels in sea waters at the plant’s port have been declining.
In addition, prefectural research shows the radioactive cesium levels of marine products caught in coastal areas have dropped substantially.
The proportion of marine products with cesium levels exceeding the state standards of 100 becquerels per kilogram fell to less than 0.1 percent last year from some 40 percent between April and December 2011, soon after the nuclear accident at the plant in March that year. No products have surpassed the level in checks since last April.
The federation is scheduled to make a final decision late next month. “The environment of the seas of Fukushima has improved, and conditions for reviving fisheries are being laid out,” federation leader Tetsu Nozaki told reporters.
After the tsunami-triggered triple meltdown at the nuclear plant, the federation voluntarily halted all of its coastal fishing. In June 2012, it started trial operations in a limited area, which has since expanded in steps.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/27/national/fukushima-fishermen-to-expand-operations-off-crippled-nuclear-plant/#.VqmtzVLzN_m
Japan considering building network of tunnels beneath seabed to store thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste
Government agencies are discussing the plan as a ‘long-term solution’ while environmentalists have dismissed it as an expensive ‘pipe dream’.
A team of experts from Japan’s Nuclear Waste Management Organisation is examining the possibility of storing thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive nuclear waste in tunnels deep beneath the Pacific Ocean.
Japan already has a stockpile of some 40,000 units of vitrified nuclear waste, with each of the stainless steel containers containing around 500kg of radioactive material, with more waste being produced.
Two of Japan’s 55 nuclear reactors resumed operations last year, after their operations were subjected to detailed scrutiny as a result of the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant, caused by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
A number of additional reactors have applied to restart operations, while dozens of the older plants will now have to be decommissioned as they have reached the end of their operational lives. Japan has never before decommissioned a reactor and does not have a dedicated storage facility for high-level nuclear waste.
“We are presently looking for a site and one of the options being considered is for tunnels beneath the seabed,” Kenichi Kaku, a spokesman for the agency, told the South China Morning Post.
“We are looking for a long-term solution to the issue that also meets the terms of the law on the storage of high-level waste,” Kaku explained.
A preliminary report suggests that tunnels could be excavated from the land to a distance of several kilometres offshore. The final disposal chamber would need to be in bed rock at a depth of at least 300 metres below the seabed.
The tunnels would need to be within 20km of a port, which would be required to transport vitrified waste over long distances, and the containers would be taken to the sub-seabed storage chamber by remote-controlled vehicle.
As well as being more secure from human interference, storage chambers beneath the seabed are less affected by the movement of groundwater and fluctuation in sea levels.
The experts, appointed to complete a full study by the ministry of industry, will now carry out a study of the technical issues that will need to be overcome. They will start by examining geographical features to identify possible seismic fault zones.
Kaku admitted that one result of the 2011 disaster at Fukushima is that “the Japanese public has lost confidence in science and we need to rebuild our credibility”.
Key considerations will be ensuring security in the transportation phase of highly radioactive waste, he said, while a great deal of work needs to be done to ensure that the storage chamber cannot be breached after the tunnel has been closed off.
“We need to identify active faults and volcanic regions so the waste is not affected in any way and we are looking to the experience of other countries for our plans,” Kaku said.
Environmental organisations have been quick to condemn the plan, however, with Aileen Mioko-Smith, an activist with Kyoto-based Green Action Japan, telling the Post that the proposal is “a pipe dream”.
“They talked about an ‘ice wall’ that was meant to stop ground water at the Fukushima plant becoming contaminated with radiation, but that was a pipe dream,” she said. “This is another one. It may look good on paper but how could it ever be achieved at a reasonable cost?
“And that’s before we even consider the safety of putting high-level nuclear waste beneath the seismically active seabed off Japan. It just doesn’t make sense.”
http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1906306/japan-considering-building-network-tunnels-beneath-seabed-store
NRA’s data shows contamination level in Tokyo tap water higher than Fukushima by 24 percent
According to NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority), Cs-134/137 density in Tokyo tap water is 24% higher than Fukushima.
The report was released on 10/30/2015, titled as “Readings of radioactivity level in drinking water by prefecture” to cover from July to September in 2015.
From this report, only 0.0015 Bq/Kg of Cs-137 was detected in Fukushima drinking water. Cs-134 was not supposed to be detected. On the other hand, 0.00036 Bq/Kg of Cs-134 and 0.0015 of Bq/Kg were detected from Tokyo drinking water.
The measurement of Cs-134 is due to Fukushima accident.
NRA comments each data is based on the reports from prefectures.
It is not mentioned by Fukushima prefectural government why Cs-134 was not detected in their drinking water.
Click to access 194_20151030.pdf
NRA’s data shows contamination level in Tokyo tap water higher than Fukushima by 24 percent
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