Yet another safety bungle in South Korea’s nuclear power
Bungling Nuclear Safety – Fire at Kori Nuclear Power Plant Goes Undetected for Over an Hour Employees couldn’t hear audio alarm, couldn’t see visual alarm, Business Korea, 19 NOVEMBER 2014 Jung Yeon-jinA fire occurred in the nuclear fuel storage facilities of the Kori Nuclear Power Plant located in Kijang County, Busan City, but none of the workers was aware of it for over an hour.
According to the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Corporation, the fire occurred at 4:26 p.m., Nov. 11, at Kori Power Plant Unit 4, burning up a waste dryer along with some gloves and towels. It is assumed that the dryer overheated and started the fire while drying wet gloves……….
Power Plant Attempts to Cover Up Reactor Shutdown
But this fire is only the latest incident at the Kori Nuclear Power Station this year.
This past summer was a busy time for Kori Nuclear Power Plant, as Unit 2 was shut off because of heavy rainfall. On Aug. 25, a localized torrential downpour of over 100 mm per hour in Busan City resulted in rainwater infiltrating one of its annexes, and the corporation had to close the facilities.
At that time, the corporation covered up the incident by saying, “We shut down the facilities just in case, and this has nothing to do with the safety of the power station.” However, the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission’s following report read, “The manual shutdown of the reactor was because of the malfunctioning of four of the circulation water pumps, attributable to the heavy rain.”
Radioactive water keeps entering Fukushima Daiichi tunnels while water is pumped out
Radioactive water to tunnels unlikely stopped http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20141118_03.html Nov. 17, 2014 The officials overseeing the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant say a barrier designed to prevent radioactive water from entering underground tunnels is likely not doing its job.
The decommissioning work includes a plan to remove highly-radioactive water from tunnels under the facility grounds and then fill them with concrete to prevent leaks to surrounding soil.
A barrier to hold out water during this process was under construction until November 6th.
On Monday, workers removed 200,000 liters of water, estimating that water levels in the tunnels would drop by 80 centimeters.
However, the levels went down by only 20 centimeters. This led officials to conclude that more water was likely entering the tunnels from the reactor building while water was being pumped out.
The officials considered the effects of radioactive water on ground water, and decided on a plan to fill tunnels in with cement before they are completely drained.
They say the operation will require carefully handling to prevent any overflow of contaminated water.
India being dudded by Westinghouse, GE and Areva on nuclear power program?
Globally, nuclear power is set to face increasing challenges due to its inability to compete with other energy sources in pricing. Another factor is how to manage the rising volumes of spent nuclear fuel in the absence of permanent disposal facilities. ……. nuclear power is in no position to lead the world out of the fossil fuel age.
False promise of nuclear power, THE HINDU, BRAHMA CHELLANEY 19
Nov 14
“…….Westinghouse, GE and Areva also wish to shift the primary liability for any accident to the Indian taxpayer so that they have no downside risk but only profits to reap. If a Fukushima-type catastrophe were to strike India, it would seriously damage the Indian economy. A recent Osaka City University study has put Japan’s Fukushima-disaster bill at a whopping $105 billion.
To Dr. Singh’s discomfiture, three factors put a break on his reactor-import plans — the exorbitant price of French- and U.S.-origin reactors, the accident-liability issue, and grass-roots opposition to the planned multi-reactor complexes. Continue reading
Japan’s Prime Minister Abe is banking on getting a new voter mandate
Abe is banking on getting a new voter mandate BY REIJI YOSHIDA, JAPAN TIMES 18 NOV 14 “…….Abe would never admit in public what is widely believed to be the real reason for the snap election: A campaign as early as next month will likely strengthen the ruling camp and Abe himself.
The prime minister plans to submit controversial bills to the Diet in the spring, including those based on his reinterpretation of the Constitution to expand Self-Defense Forces’ missions overseas.
Next year, Abe also plans to reactivate some of the nuclear reactors that have mostly sat idle since the Fukushima meltdowns, a hotly contested move that would likely sap support from the Liberal Democratic Party in a national election next year……..
There is little doubt that the LDP-Komeito ruling camp will retain power, and Abe could even strengthen his political base within the LDP.
“An (early) election will basically give an advantage to the ruling parties,” Sasaki said.
The situation, however, might not be as good as Abe thinks………http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/11/18/national/politics-diplomacy/abe-dissolve-lower-house-friday-dec-14-election/#.VG0mpzTF8nl
Tepco unable to halt tainted water flowing into tunnels at Fukushima
Nov 18, 2014
Tokyo Electric Power Co. appears unable to stem the flow of radioactive water from the No. 2 reactor building to underground tunnels at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, officials said.
Tepco has injected cement into the joints that connect the tunnels, which are used to run cables, and the building to halt the flow of contaminated water and remove accumulations from the tunnels.
But water levels suggest the effort has remained unsuccessful so far, the officials said. The company began the cement injections after failing to create an “ice wall” over the summer by freezing water inside the joints that would have blocked the flows.
After the cement injections, Tepco pumped 200 tons of tainted water out of the tunnels Monday, causing levels inside to fall around 20 cm, the officials said.
However, if the joints were completely sealed, water levels would have fallen roughly 80 cm, the officials said, indicating the possibility that contaminated water is still flowing into the tunnels.
The officials also noted the possibility that groundwater may be flowing into the tunnels. However, recent data has shown that the amount of radioactive materials in the tunnel water was very high, an official in the Nuclear Regulation Authority said.
“Concentrations should have been lower if large amounts of groundwater are really flowing in,” the official noted.
If the cement injections end in failure, too, Tepco plans to remove radioactive water while injecting cement into the tunnel — an operation that could put plant workers at greater risk of radiation exposure.
The tunnels are believed to contain some 5,000 tons of tainted water. Some observers believe the water may be leaking into the ground and reaching the Pacific.
Source: Japan Times
Op-Ed: Fukushima disaster — Ignorance is bliss despite the dangers
The Sendai nuclear power plant will become the first of Japan’s 48 commercial reactors to be restarted after they were all shut down since the Fukushima disaster in 2011
Little is reported in the media about the clean up after the Fukushima Power Plant disaster. After three years of cover-ups and misleading information, released to quell public fears, there is still reason to be wary. The danger is still very real.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2011 is still impacting lives today. Over 120,000 people from the area are living in a nuclear limbo, according to the guardian. Once close-knit families are now forced to live apart in temporary housing complexes, many of the homes hastily thrown up in an effort to get people out of radiation “hot-spots.”
Japan’s population has been inundated with half-truths and sometimes, outright lies, concerning the progress being made in the clean-up efforts in Fukushima. For the thousands of workers tasked with the laborious details of doing the actual work, just knowing their efforts are inadequate must be mind-numbing.
Fukushima Daiichi’s manager, Akira Ono is the man in charge of the clean up efforts, and he admitted to the Guardian that there is little cause for optimism. No matter what the workers do, there is still a huge problem with contaminated water. Over 400 tons of groundwater flow every day from the hills outside the plant and into the basements where the three stricken reactors are located.
There, the water mixes with the coolant water being pumped in to keep the melted fuel from overheating and causing another nuclear accident. TEPCO says “most of the water” is pumped out into holding tanks, but ever-increasing amounts end up seeping into maintenance trenches, and then into the ocean. This has to be depressing for Ono and the men and women walking into the facility every day.
While Americans have been sitting back and ignoring the ongoing disaster that is Fukushima, other countries have taken notice. Germany and Italy are looking at the viability of continuing to depend on nuclear power, and are opting instead for other more eco-friendly sources. And surprisingly, the news media in other countries is also paying attention to what has been going on at the Fukushima power plant.
Arnold Gunderson, a former high-level nuclear industry executive, was cited in an article written in Al-Jazeera English, entitled “Fukushima: It’s much worse than you think,” in June, 2011. In the story, Gunderson is quoted as saying, the Fukushima disaster was “the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind. Twenty nuclear cores have been exposed at Fukushima.” Gunderson also points out that the site’s many spent-fuel pools give Fukushima 20 times the radiation release potential of Chernobyl.
If people on the North American coast think they are safe from the effects of radiation from the Fukushima disaster, not only are they dreaming, but they are going to be in for a rude awakening. Yes, there were a few stories telling us the radiation levels reaching our west coast were “tiny amounts,” But how many additional infants are going to die, and how many more people, children and adults are going to end up with unexplained cancers before someone wakes up to what is happening?
And the American public needs to wake up right now. We have nuclear disasters just waiting to happen in our own back yard. From the Diable Canyon power plant in California, to the Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville, Nebraska that was almost inundated with floodwaters in June, 2014, the list is getting longer and longer. The Nuclear Regulatory Committee has been forced to ease up on some regulations or just ignore them when it comes to helping power plants in the U.S. to meet what officials call “unnecessarily conservative” standards. Yes, ignorance is bliss. That is scary, folks,
Source: Digital Journal
Contaminated water swamps Fukushima No. 1 cleanup
The Advanced Liquid Processing System of the Fukushima No. 1 plant is seen Wednesday
Nov 16, 2014
More than three years into the massive cleanup of the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, only a tiny fraction of the workers are focused on key tasks such as preparing for the dismantling of the wrecked reactors and removing radioactive fuel rods.
Instead, nearly all the workers at Fukushima No. 1 are devoted to a single, enormously distracting problem: coping with the vast amount of contaminated water, a mixture of groundwater running into recycled water that becomes contaminated and leaks after being pumped into the reactors to keep their melted cores from overheating.
A number of buildings housing water treatment machines and hundreds of huge blue and gray industrial storage tanks to store the excess water are rapidly taking over the grounds at the plant, which saw three of its six reactor cores suffer meltdowns from the 3/11 quake and tsunami. Workers were still building more tanks during a visit to the complex Wednesday by a group of foreign media.
“The contaminated water is a most pressing issue that we must tackle. There is no doubt about that,” said Akira Ono, head of the plant. “Our effort to mitigate the problem is at its peak now. Though I cannot say exactly when, I hope things start getting better when the measures start taking effect.”
The numbers tell the story:
6,000 workers
Every day, about 6,000 workers pass through the guarded gate of Fukushima No. 1, located on the Pacific coast, two to three times more than when it was actually generating electricity.
On a recent workday, about 100 workers were dismantling a makeshift roof over one of the reactor buildings, while about a dozen others were removing fuel rods from a cooling pool. Most of the rest were dealing with contaminated water-related work, said Tatsuhiro Yamagishi, a spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.
The work threatens to exhaust the supply of workers for other tasks, since they must stop working when they reach annual radiation exposure limits. Experts say it is crucial to reduce the amount and radioactivity of the contaminated water to decrease the risk of exposure to workers and the environmental impact before the decommissioning work gets closer to the highly contaminated core area.
40 years
The plant has six reactors, three of which were offline when disaster struck on March 11, 2011, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake that triggered huge tsunami that swept into the plant and knocked out its backup power and cooling systems, leading to core meltdowns in the three active reactors.
Decommissioning and dismantling all six of the reactors is a delicate, time-consuming process that includes removing the melted fuel from a highly radioactive environment as well as all the extra fuel rods, which sit in cooling pools situated at the top of the reactor buildings.
The entire job still requires finding out the exact conditions of the melted fuel debris and developing remote-controlled and radiation-resistant robotics to deal with them, and the work is expected to take at least 40 years.
500,000 tons
The main problem is an abundant inflow of groundwater into the contaminated water that doubles the volume and spreads it to vast areas of the compound. Workers have jury-rigged a pipe-and-hose system to continuously pump water into the reactors to cool the clumps of melted fuel inside.
The water becomes contaminated upon exposure to the radioactive fuel, and much of it pours into the reactor and turbine basements, and maintenance trenches that extend to the Pacific Ocean. The plant recycles some of the contaminated water as cooling water after partially treating it, but groundwater is also flowing into the damaged reactor buildings and mixing with contaminated water, creating a huge excess that needs to be pumped out.
So far, more than 500,000 tons of radioactive water have been stored in nearly 1,000 large tanks that workers have built, which now cover most of the sprawling plant premises. After a series of leaks from the storage tanks last year, they are now being replaced with costlier welded tanks.
That dwarfs the 9,000 tons of contaminated water produced during the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in the United States. In that incident, it took 14 years for the water to evaporate, said Lake Barrett, a retired U.S. nuclear regulatory official who was part of the early mitigation team there and has visited Fukushima No. 1.
“This is a much more complex, much more difficult water management problem,” Barrett said.
¥10 trillion
An estimated ¥2 trillion will be needed just for decontamination and other mitigation of the water problem. Altogether, the entire decommissioning process, including compensation for area residents, reportedly will cost about ¥10 trillion.
All this for a plant that will never produce a kilowatt of energy again.
The work threatens to exhaust the supply of workers for other tasks, since they must stop working when they reach annual radiation exposure limits. About 500 workers are digging deep holes in preparation to build a taxpayer-funded ¥32 billion underground “frozen wall” around the four reactors and their turbine buildings to try to keep the contaminated water from seeping out.
Tepco is developing systems to try to remove most radioactive elements from the water. One, the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), has been trouble-plagued, but utility officials hope to achieve a daily capacity of 2,000 tons when it enters full operation next month. Officials hope to be able to treat all contaminated water by the end of March, but that is far from certain.
Source: Japan Times
Fukushima nuclear plant: 40,000% increase in radiation below ground between Units 1 & 2 this month
Massive radiation spike at Fukushima: 40,000% increase below ground between Units 1 & 2 this month — Order of magnitude above record high set last year http://enenews.com/massive-radiation-spike-fukushima-40000-increase-month-below-ground-between-units-1-2-order-magnitude-higher-previous-records?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
TEPCO: Monitoring at the East Side of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1-4 Turbine Buildings:
Groundwater pumped up from the well point (between Unit 1 and 2)
- Cs-134 @ 920 Bq/L
Up over 40,000% in 10 days
Previous record @ 110 Bq/L
- Cs-137 @ 3,000 Bq/L
Up over 40,000% in 10 days
Previous record @ 250 Bq/L
- Mn-54 @ 110 Bq/L
Up over 2,000% in 10 days - Gross β @ 3,200,000 Bq/L
Up over 1,000% in 10 days
- Cs-134 @ ND (MDA=2)
- Cs-137 @ 6.3 Bq/L
- Mn-54 @ 5 Bq/L
- Gross β @ 230,000 Bq/L
Underground water observation hole No.1-17 (near well point between Unit 1 and 2)
- Nov 13, 2014: Gross β @ 280,000 Bq/L
Up over 10,000% in 3 days - Nov 10, 2014: Gross β @ 2,700 Bq/L
An embarassment to Shinzo Abe if anti nuclear candidate wins Okinawa election
Anti-nuclear critic of US base set to win key Japan election http://www.euronews.com/2014/11/16/anti-nuclear-critic-of-us-base-set-to-win-key-japan-election/ In Japan a former mayor opposed to nuclear power and the presence of a US military base in his region is on course to win a key local election.
Takeshi Onaba’s likely victory in Okinawa according to opinion polls will embarrass Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s party.
There have been plans to relocate the base on the island but many residents want it removed entirely.
Radioactive water from Fukushima to Pacific Ocean increasing by 400 tons daily
TV: Attempt to stop flow of highly radioactive liquid at Fukushima “in doubt” — AP: Much of it is pouring in trenches going out into Pacific — Experts: Amount entering ocean “increasing by 400 tons daily” — Problem “so severe” it’s consuming nearly all workers at site — Top Plant Official: “Little cause for optimism” (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/tv-attempt-stop-flow-highly-radioactive-liquid-fukushima-doubt-ap-pouring-trenches-pacific-ocean-experts-amount-entering-sea-increasing-400-tons-daily-video?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
NHK, Nov. 13, 2014 (emphasis added):
Radioactive water may still be entering tunnels — [TEPCO] faces another challenge in its effort to address radioactive water at the complex. It says highly contaminated water may still be flowing from reactor buildings into adjacent underground tunnels even after a work to stem the flow ended. The water in the tunnels is believed to be leaking into the sea… the firm began work in April to stem the flow of radioactive water between the reactor buildings and the tunnels… TEPCO finished the work on November 6th. But workers found that water levels in the reactor buildings and the tunnels are still linked…
ITAR-TASS, Nov 14, 2014: Radioactive water discharge from Fukushima Daiichi NPP into ocean continues; According to specialists, the volume of contaminated liquid that is leaking into the ocean is increasing by 400 tons daily— The repair operations… aimed at preventing radioactive water discharges into the ocean have yielded no result, the NPP operator [TEPCO] reported on Friday. The water… is still leaking into the NPP drainage system even after last week’s operations to stop the leak… [D]ue to the major damage of the plant’s infrastructure most of the water that is poured in… leaks into the drainage system and gets into the ground waters and then into the Pacific Ocean… The radioactive contamination level in the ground waters, according to TEPCO, is very high…
AP, Nov 12, 2014: Japan’s nuclear cleanup stymied by water woes… nearly all the workers are devoted to a single, enormously distracting problem: coping with the vast amount of water that becomes contaminated after it is pumped into the reactors to keep the melted radioactive fuel inside from overheating… The water becomes contaminated upon exposure to the radioactive fuel, and much of it pours into the reactor basements and maintenance trenches that extend to the Pacific Ocean.
The Guardian, Nov. 13, 2014: The man in charge of cleaning up the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has admitted there is little cause for optimism… The water problem is so severe that [Tepco has] enlisted almost all of their 6,000 workers… to bring it under control… “ I have no intention of being optimistic” [Fukushima Daiichi’s manager Akira Ono] told the Guardian… large quantities [of contaminated water] find their way to other parts of the site, including maintenance trenches connected to the sea… “The contaminated water is the most pressing issue – there is no doubt about that,” Ono said… “I cannot say exactly when, I hope things start getting better when the measures start taking effect.”
Japan’s utilities want to open new controversial nuclear plant, and prolong life of others
Nuclear operators push to open new plant, extend life of aging reactors THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, 14 Nov 14 Across Japan, utilities are backing the Abe administration’s support of nuclear power generation by continuing construction of a new facility and seeking to extend the life of reactors that have been operating for about 40 years.
Electric Power Development Co. (J-Power) announced Nov. 13 that it will apply to the Nuclear Regulation Authority for safety screenings to start operations at its Oma nuclear power plant, which is currently under construction.
The announcement came at a town assembly meeting at Oma, Aomori Prefecture, where J-Power President Masayoshi Kitamura said the company will submit the application by the end of the year and plans to have the new facility fully operational in fiscal 2021.
If everything proceeds as scheduled, the Oma plant will be the first instance in which power companies applied for the start of operations at new reactors that are still under construction.
While the No. 1 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Higashidori plant in Aomori Prefecture and Chugoku Electric Power Co.’s Shimane plant No. 3 reactor in Matsue are also currently under construction, the utilities have not submitted applications to start the reactors.
Although the central government’s basic energy plan states that dependency on nuclear power should be reduced as much as possible, it does not clearly mention the construction of new nuclear facilities.
The government does not deem nuclear plants as “new or additional” if their construction started before the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, which set off the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Forty percent of the construction of the Oma plant had been completed prior to the disaster.
However, there is no guarantee that the screening process will proceed smoothly because the structure and operation procedures of the Oma facility are different from those of conventional nuclear plants.
The Oma plant will be the world’s first 100 percent MOX nuclear facility, where only mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel, consisting of plutonium and uranium, is used at reactor cores for the purpose of consuming plutonium produced in processing spent nuclear fuel………
“No full MOX facility has so far gone online around the world,” NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka said at a Nov. 12 news conference. “We will examine extremely carefully (if countermeasures are sufficient).”…….
PROLONGING LIFE OF AGED REACTORS
Elsewhere, with the Abe administration supporting the restarts of the nation’s idle reactors after they pass NRA safety screenings, Kansai Electric Power Co. is making efforts to prolong the operating lives of aged reactors……..http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201411140068
Overwhelming public opposition is ignored by Japan’s government in pushing for nuclear power
Energy plan overlooked flat-out opposition to nuclear power, analysis shows Asahi Shimbun, November 12, 2014 By ATSUSHI KOMORI/ Senior Staff Writer The government’s compilation of its basic energy plan ignored an overwhelming call from the public to move away from nuclear energy, according to an analysis by The Asahi Shimbun.
More than 90 percent of the comments submitted to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in response to the government’s proposed plan were against nuclear power, the analysis showed.
Yet nuclear energy was described as an “important base-load electricity source” in the plan approved by the Abe Cabinet in April.
The Asahi received a total of 18,711 comments from the ministry after submitting an information disclosure request.
Among them, 17,665, or 94.4 percent of the total, expressed opposition to restarting operations at nuclear power plants or called for decommissioning them.
Only 213 comments, or 1.1 percent, were in favor of maintaining or further promoting nuclear energy……….
The ministry disclosed 2,109 of the comments in May, with the remainder made available to the Asahi………
In 2012, when the Democratic Party of Japan held the reins of government, it called for a national debate on what rate of power generation nuclear energy should account for in 2030.
About 89,000 public comments were received, with about 90 percent of them in favor of a move away from nuclear energy.http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201411120044
Nuclear evacuees seek rise in TEPCO compensation
Nov 14 2014
More than 2,800 evacuees from a village near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are seeking state arbitration for a rise in compensation from Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant’s operator.
Iitate Village is still an evacuation zone three years and eight months after the nuclear accident at the power plant. But decontamination work is proceeding across the village, which is located about 40 kilometers from the plant.
About half the village’s population, or 2,837 evacuees, filed for arbitration with the Center for Settlement of Fukushima Nuclear Damage Claims on Friday.
They say their prolonged evacuation is splitting local communities and families and threatening generations of the village’s history.
The evacuees are seeking increased compensation and an apology from TEPCO. They want the current monthly evacuation compensation per capita more than tripled to 350,000 yen, or roughly 3,000 dollars per month. They also call for around 172,000 dollars per evacuee in compensation for ruining their village lives.
The representative of the evacuees, Kenichi Hasegawa, explained why they filed for the class-action arbitration. He said the evacuees decided they must express their anger as their lives have not improved since the nuclear accident. He added that the evacuees want their village lives back.
TEPCO said in a statement it has yet to learn the details of the documents. But the company pledges a sincere response to the arbitration in line with settlement procedures
Source: NHK
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20141114_34.html
Download Radioactive water may still be entering tunnels
Nov 13 2014
The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant faces another challenge in its effort to address radioactive water at the complex.
It says highly contaminated water may still be flowing from reactor buildings into adjacent underground tunnels even after a work to stem the flow ended.
The water in the tunnels is believed to be leaking into the sea. Tokyo Electric Power Company plans to pump the tainted water out of the tunnels and fill them with cement.
To prepare for the process, the firm began work in April to stem the flow of radioactive water between the reactor buildings and the tunnels. It involved freezing some of the water as well as plugging the gaps with filler materials.
TEPCO finished the work on November 6th. But workers found that water levels in the reactor buildings and the tunnels are still linked. They note this suggests that the flow of radioactive water between them may not have been stopped.
TEPCO officials say that if the situation doesn’t improve, they may start filling the tunnels with cement even before they finish removing contaminated water.
Source: NHK
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20141114_05.html
Study: Fukushima health risks underestimated
A Greenpeace radiation monitoring team checks contamination in Fukushima City
13 Nov 2014
Tokyo, Japan – “Hot spots” of nuclear radiation still contaminate parts of Fukushima Prefecture, according to findings from the latest Greenpeace radiation monitoring mission near the Daiichi nuclear power plant that experienced a melt down after an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
Experts from the environmental organisation also claim that authorities have consistently underestimated the amount of contamination and the health risks involved.
Greenpeace will use these results to try to persuade local governments with nuclear power plants in their districts to resist lobbying from the central government to have them reactivated. All 50 of Japan’s remaining nuclear plants were shut down following the 2011 disaster.
Greenpeace began independently monitoring radiation in Fukushima within a few days of the nuclear accident, and it has conducted field trips each year since then. The latest such trip took place from October 24-27.
Heinz Smitai, a nuclear physicist, Greenpeace campaigner and participant in the radiation monitoring mission, told foreign journalists at an October 30 press conference in Tokyo that radiation hot spots exist as far as 60 kilometres from the site of the disaster.
For instance, one street in front of a hospital in Fukushima City “is quite contaminated”, Smitai said, measuring 1.1 microsieverts of radiation per hour. Although this was one of the highest readings, Greenpeace found 70 other places in the city where the amount of radiation recorded exceeded the Ministry of Environment’s long-term target of 0.23 microsieverts per hour.
A sievert is the standard unit for measuring the risk of radiation absorbed by the body. A millisievert is equal to one-thousandth of a sievert, while a microsievert is one-millionth of a sievert. A typical CT scan can deliver from 2 to 10 millisieverts of radiation, depending on the area being scanned.
Source: Al Jazeera
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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