nuclear-news

Japan orders Fukushima waste to be released into ocean after worker falls into tank of radioactive water and dies Sunday, February 15, 2015 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer (NaturalNews) With nowhere else to put it and workers constantly being exposed to it, radiation from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility in Japan has been ordered to be dumped into the ocean by Japanese regulators, according to new reports. This was just two days after a plant employee accidentally fell into one of the onsite storage tanks filled with radioactive water, resulting in his death.

………Following the incident, Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority met to discuss options for disposing of the radioactive waste, which continues to pose health threats at the facility. The Wall Street Journal reports that the regulatory body’s chairman isn’t pleased with the way the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has handled the disaster, which continues to wreak havoc……..

Japanese regulators suggest that TEPCO start disposing of radioactive water in 2017 A draft recommendation was made at the meeting that proposes a 2017 start date for discharging the water
But the power operator has yet to take action, which has resulted in massive contamination of local groundwater. Reports indicate that up to 400 tons of highly contaminated water is added to the site every day, an insurmountable level that will only make it that much worse to clean up in the future.

TEPCO’s water purification process can’t remove tritium; operator running out of room for storage tanksTEPCO is currently trying to remove radioactive material from the tainted water before dumping it into the ocean. But the system it currently has in place to do this is unable to remove radioactive tritium, which is why the power operator has begun moving the water into large storage tanks onsite.

There are currently about 1,000-and-counting storage tanks at the facility, but TEPCO is quickly running out of space to add more. Besides this, TEPCO is having to continue working towards removing spent fuel rods and replacing cooling equipment to prevent further problems at the plant, which show no signs of relent.

Worker injuries increasing at Fukushima, suggesting sloppier safety measuresThe plant’s decommissioning process, which is expected to take several decades, currently involves some 7,000 workers laboring day and night to get things under control. Between April and November of 2014, however, there were 40 injuries at the plant compared to 12 the year prior, suggesting that safety measures are degrading……..
http://www.naturalnews.com/048634_Fukushima_radioactive_waste_worker_death.html##ixzz3S43ma2hG

Growing Toxic Water Problem At Japan Nuclear Plant Worries IAEA http://leadership.ng/news/412242/growing-toxic-water-problem-at-japan-nuclear-plant-worries-iaea

Agency Report— Feb 17, 2015 A team of international experts on Tuesday expressed concern about increasing amounts of radiation-contaminated water at a crippled Japanese nuclear plant.

Spiegel Online International (Der Spiegel, German news magazine), Feb. 5, 2015 (emphasis added): [It’s] the worst accident in the history of civilian atomic power… The Fukushima catastrophe changed the world. Nuclear reactors melted down on live television and twice as much radioactive material was released as during the Chernobyl accident in 1986. The disaster… poisoned entire landscapes for centuries and killed hundreds of thousands of farm animals… Fukushima is more than just a place-name, it is an historical event…

Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Venice, and Nanjing University, Feb 6, 2015: The β radioactivity of snow-pit samples collected in the spring of 2011 on four Tibetan Plateau glaciers demonstrate a remarkable peak in each snow pit profile, with peaks about ten to tens of times higher than background levels. The timing of these peaks suggests that the high radioactivity resulted from the Fukushima nuclear… The released radioactive nuclear substances not only polluted Japan… but also spread to other areas of the Northern Hemisphere via atmospheric circulation and ocean currents, affecting the hemispheric and even global environment. As an overdose of nuclear radiation may seriously threaten human health and wildlife survival, this nuclear accident has caught the attention of the world. The radioactive fallout [was] detected in the atmosphere, soil, surface water, and pastures in the low-altitude regions of North America… Much of the radioactive material was transported by the westerlies, resulting in the fallout over North America… [T]o reach the Tibetan Plateau, material transported by the westerlies has to first circle much of the globe… In May 2011, snow-pit samples were collected on the Gurenhekou Glacier… Dongkemadi Glacier… Muztag Glacier and Yuzhufeng Glacier… In 2005 and 2007, we drilled ice cores… Tanggula ice core [and] Yuzhufeng ice core… Clearly, the peak β radioactivities in the snow pits… are much higher than that in the corresponding local ice cores, and even overwhelm the peak β radioactivities caused by past atmospheric thermonuclear tests in the early 1960s… The peak β radioactivities… are 11.0 and 92.4 times larger than their local average background levels… attributed to the Fukushima radioactive fallout… The Fukushima nuclear accident… created a radioactive horizon that can be used as independent age markers in snow and ice cores in the Northern Hemisphere… providing a direct record of the impacts of human activities on the Earth’s environment…

See also: VIDEO: New data shows Fukushima radiation release exceeds Chernobyl

Japan TV: Failure at Fukushima — Cement not stopping highly contaminated nuclear waste from flowing out of reactor buildings — IAEA: Radioactive releases from plant into ocean “a challenging issue” — Officials: Don’t know what to do next, or how this will affect whole ‘decommissioning’ project (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/japan-tv-failure-fukushima-cement-stopping-highly-contaminated-nuclear-waste-flowing-reactor-buildings-iaea-radioactive-releases-plant-ocean-challenging-issue-officials-dont-next-will-affect?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29

NHK World transcript excerpts, Feb. 9, 2015: Managers of Japan’s damaged nuclear plant are facing another delay in dealing with a major source of contamination. They’re working on blocking the flow of radioactive water from reactor buildings to underground tunnels. TEPCO officials met with members of the Nuclear Regulation Authority [which] approved a plan to delay the project… Workers were supposed to remove the highly radioactive water… and after that they would have filled in the tunnels with cement. However, efforts to block the flow of water failed. Engineers need to fill in some gaps that may be left in the area where the tunnels and reactor buildings meet. The setback will likely affect a second project to build an ice wall around the 4 damaged reactor buildings. Tepco officials say they’re already 2 weeks to a month behind schedule on that work.

NHK, Feb. 9, 2015: The workers poured cement into the tunnels while draining contaminated water. But blocking the water was not successful as it continued to flow through the buildings… They say they do not yet know how the latest delay will affect the whole decommissioning project. They are still studying the next steps they need to take.

Kyodo News, Feb 2, 2015: … the project to build a huge underground ice wall — a key measure to prevent radioactive water from further building up at the site — and other operations will likely be delayed by up to a month, it added…TEPCO initially planned to finish constructing the 1.5-kilometer frozen wall around the buildings housing the Nos. 1 to 4 reactors…by the end of next month.

Al Jazeera, Feb 9, 2015: The UN’s nuclear watchdog* says contaminated water leaking from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant is still “a challenging issue”. The IAEA is reviewing work to decommission the plant… Tepco is criticized with its handling of radioactive water leaks into the Pacific Ocean.

* IAEA the “UN’s nuclear watchdog”? CNN, ABC, Harvard researchers, and even the UN itself, say yes. Perhaps they should consult with the head of the IAEA on the matter: “I have tried to address some widespread misconceptions in the media about the IAEA’s role in nuclear safety… we are not a ‘nuclear safety watchdog’.” A Bloomberg report on the IAEA notes, “The agency’s safety division garnered little respect in US diplomatic cables that describedthe department as a marketing channel for countries seeking to sell atomic technology…The IAEA’s own mission [is] to promote atomic power.”

Watch: NHK | Al Jazeera | Tepco PR video