The Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is seen in this file photo taken from a Mainichi Shimbun helicopter on July 17, 2018.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) plans to require that highly radioactive waste generated when nuclear reactors are decommissioned be buried underground at least 70 meters deep for about 100,000 years until the waste becomes no longer hazardous.
Moreover, disposal sites for such waste should not be built in areas that could be affected by active faults or volcanoes.
The plan is part of the proposed regulatory standards on disposal sites for radioactive waste from dismantled nuclear reactors, which the NRA approved on Aug. 1. The NRA will hear opinions from power companies operating nuclear plants and other entities before finalizing the regulatory standards.
Low-level radioactive waste generated when reactors are dismantled is graded by three ranks in descending order from L1 to L3.
The proposed regulatory standards cover L1 waste, such as containers for control rods and fuel assemblies.
There have been no regulatory standards for L1 radioactive waste even though a growing number of nuclear reactors are bound to be decommissioned under the regulatory standards for nuclear plants that have been stiffened following the outbreak of the Fukushima nuclear crisis in March 2011.
Under the proposed regulatory standards for L1 waste, electric power companies would be required to build disposal sites on stable ground. Such facilities should not be built near faults at least 5 kilometers in length. Moreover, utilities would be mandated to confirm from records or geological surveys that there has been no volcanic activity over the past 2.6 million years or so near where they plan to build the disposal sites.
Power companies would also be obligated to avoid building disposal sites near oil or mineral deposits because areas with such natural resources may be excavated in the future.
Such radioactive waste must be regularly monitored over a roughly 300- to 400-year period following its disposal to see if the waste contaminates nearby groundwater. The owners of disposal sites would then be banned from digging areas surrounding the facilities without permission from the central government.
The proposed standards also require that additional radiation exposure dosages from disposal sites be limited to 0.3 millisieverts or less a year in accordance with international standards. It is also required to confirm whether radiation doses would be below that limit even if the functions for shielding radiation were partially lost, such as the container holding radioactive waste being broken, by analyzing doses under such scenarios.
Answer:”I guess it’s better than sitting unprotected in barrels on the school grounds for years until the national govt got around to classifying the sludge as radioactive waste. And burying it on school grounds has a precedent in Fukushima that everyone seems to think is OK. Why would Yokohama be treated any differently? (Please read in sarcastic tone of voice.)
An agency affiliated with the Japanese government is to study the possibility of burying nuclear waste at a depth of about 5,000 meters. That’s much deeper than proposed in the government’s current plan.
Researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, or JAMSTEC, will carry out a basic survey for the new disposal option after next April.
The survey will be conducted at Minamitorishima, a remote island above the geologically stable Pacific Plate.
JAMSTEC says it will use a research vessel to collect data on the topography and geology of the area.
No technology exists to bury nuclear waste 5,000 meters below ground as there are many technical challenges.
The Japanese government has been planning to bury high-level radioactive waste from nuclear plants at a depth of more than 300 meters in final disposal facilities. Officials are currently looking for candidate sites.
Nagasaki University Professor Tatsujiro Suzuki is a former member of Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission. He says it is too soon to discuss a technology that has yet to be developed, but he thinks basic research by the agency could help to create more options.
Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Authority pretends it will exist for 100,000 years!
A portion of low-level nuclear waste generated by nuclear reactors is to be buried at a depth of 70 meters underground until it is nearly no longer radioactive some 100,000 years from now, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said on May 25.
NRA officials announced the strategy as forming the organization’s key policy with respect to its regulatory standards.
The low-level nuclear waste materials to be buried are those with a high degree of contamination, including parts inside the reactor that are located close to the fuel rods.
According to the policy, reactor operators will be expected to oversee the waste for a total of 300 to 400 years after it is buried — at which time they will be expected to conduct regular inspections on potential leaks of radioactive materials into the groundwater.
In order to ensure that human beings do not come anywhere near the radioactive waste materials, the government also plans to implement policies restricting nearby excavations, as well as advising that the nuclear waste not be buried near spots that have the potential for large-scale damage — including volcanoes and active faults — for at least the next 100,000 years.
The NRA will begin soliciting opinions on May 26 for a period of around one month as it aims to formulate concrete regulatory standards in this regard.
Reluctantly, I have realised that the climate crisis is the most huge and urgent problem for humanity, now. This website is not able to do justice to this enormous topic. All that I can do is to pick out significant information as it arrives, and also note some, (not nearly enough) of the climate events happening.
Meanwhile, nuclear-news will focus on its original purpose, to reveal the disastrous effects of the nuclear industry, and to refute the propaganda lies from the nuclear lobby.
By Good News Network -Mar 26, 2019 Unlike Kickstarter which funds creative startups, or GoFundMe which addresses personal needs, Projects for Good was designed for people who want to support the greater good, not just with money, but with their talent and energy—and don’t know where to start.Patrick Furlotti is giving them that opportunity. Growing up in Santa Monica, California, Patrick learned at an early age that society could create a better world if people just worked together.
As a teen he volunteered with Heal the Bay, which was trying to clean up water pollution in 1980s Los Angeles. He folded, sealed, and mailed thousands of letters. The group scored a huge victory when a billion-dollar sewage treatment facility was erected right next to LAX airport.
I realized how valuable a campaign could be to the world, and that politicians weren’t all bad—they just didn’t know what to do. We provided momentum and direction.”
Beyond studying business at college, Furlotti began captaining ships for researchers who were studying human impact on coral and water quality around the Hawaiian islands.
At age 20, he was one of the youngest ever to captain a sailboat from California to Tahiti, gaining a deep respect for the natural forces that connect us to the planet. Now 37, he enjoys big wave surfing whenever he’s not launching or investing in social impact technology and environmental protection.
He also has attended many green tech conferences: “I saw all these people with great ideas—so many half-baked projects, but the world needs all these ideas.”
“I had seen firsthand how hard it is to get projects started, funded, and completed, and wanted to create a whole new model to help people with their ‘Projects for Good’.”
It took a year to design the web platform, and today they are adding new features all the time to make it “a complete project success ecosystem”.
‘Currently with Kickstarter and Gofundme, you can just give money. That’s cool, but what about if you’re really inspired and want to join the project? A lot of people don’t have any money, but they think, ‘I would really love to work for this cause.’”
“Our commitment is not to make money, but to build a community of like-minded individuals who are passionate about changing the world—not by featuring someone who is trying to build a robot that makes coffee and smoothies (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), but by focusing on projects that help the greater good,” Patrick told GNN.
“It’s about humans working together, and educating each other on what’s possible, that’s why I love partnering with Good News Network.”
PFG is trying to give project owners the tools they need—to make it cheaper to become a nonprofit, easier to find grants, and even make it free to crowdfund, so fees aren’t diverted from the money that is being donated. Patrick also believes there should be more transparency about where the money is going on these fundraising platforms.
The Community Center is where jobs can be posted, milestones recorded, and new members welcomed. These are some early success stories on the PFG platform:
Peter Gottesman is passionate about animal rights and has championed projects from saving cheetahs in Africa to rescuing bears in Laos through his non-profit Endangered Species Revenge. For him, Projects for Good offers exposure to caring people who want to support him. To date, he has raised over $6500 on PFG to help fund his animal causes.
Andrew Malais saw how badly Joshua Tree National Park needed a trash cleanup. He used PFG partially as a fundraising tool but mainly to list jobs and hire the perfect candidate or find volunteers. His project was a success, raising over 80% of its fundraising goal to purchase the supplies he needed and hire workers to cover the vast acreage.
Peter Fiekowsky raised money on Projects for Good to help develop patented technology that will capture excess CO2 in the atmosphere—and convert it into building materials. They are literally turning ‘air into concrete’. The founder of Foundation for Climate Restoration and partner in Blue Planet Ltd. praised Projects for Good for “helping the foundation raise the crucial seed funding needed to design our first Blue Planet prototype direct air capture machine.”
THE HUMAN EFFECTS OF THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY – theme for June 2019.
Fortunately, Chernobyl health records are now available to the public. They show that people living in the radioactive traces fell ill from cancers, respiratory illness, anaemia, auto-immune disorders, birth defects, and fertility problems two to three times more frequently in the years after the accident than before. In a highly contaminated Belarusian town of Veprin, just six of 70 children in 1990 were characterised as “healthy”. The rest had one chronic disease or another. On average, the Veprin children had in their bodies 8,498 bq/kg of radioactive caesium (20 bq/kg is considered safe).
Currently, policymakers are advocating a massive expansion of nuclear power as a way to combat climate change. Before we enter a new nuclear age, the declassified Chernobyl health records raise questions that have been left unanswered about the impact of chronic low doses of radioactivity on human health.
Chernobyl’s disastrous cover-up is a warning for the next nuclear age
