nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Ex-Tepco execs’ lawyers make final plea for acquittal over negligence in Fukushima nuclear crisis

The trial, which began in June 2017, ended on Tuesday. The court is expected to deliver its sentence on September 19.

March 12, 2019
Lawyers for three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. called for their acquittal in their final defense plea on Tuesday in a negligence case stemming from the Fukushima nuclear crisis in 2011.
The defense team said that it was impossible for them to foresee the massive tsunami that engulfed the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and caused fuel meltdowns following a 9.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked the coastal Tohoku region.
The day after the nation marked the eighth anniversary of the March 11, 2011, disasters, the lawyers for Tsunehisa Katsumata, 78, Tepco chairman at the time of the crisis, and Ichiro Takekuro, 72, and Sakae Muto, 68, both vice presidents, told the Tokyo District Court they “do not recognize any predictability in the disaster.”
The three men have been indicted for allegedly failing to take measures against the massive tsunami and causing the deaths of 44 hospital inpatients and injuries to 13 others during the evacuations prompted by fuel meltdowns and hydrogen explosions at the plant.
Court-appointed lawyers acting as prosecutors have called for five-year prison terms for the three, claiming they could have prevented the nuclear disaster had they fulfilled their responsibilities in collecting information and taking safety measures.
Read more :
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/12/national/crime-legal/ex-tepco-execs-lawyers-make-final-plea-acquittal-negligence-fukushima-nuclear-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR2diwN8B9xxWiBJU5dy6WbXrgx8tSoW32lwWTqR5Vi6gRuwf04Pmi8Ziq8#.XIhZmMn7Tcs

March 18, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , , , | Leave a comment

Radioactive Glass Beads May Tell the Terrible Tale of How the Fukushima Meltdown Unfolded

177889_web (1).jpgAn autoradiograph image of a radioactive cesium microparticle, which shows the relatively high levels of radioactivity contained in the particle. Credit: Dr. Satoshi Utsunomiya

 

March 11, 2019

The microscopic particles unleashed by the plant’s explosions are also a potential environmental and health concern

On March 14 and 15, 2011, explosions unleashed invisible radioactive plumes from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, crippled three days earlier when the strongest recorded earthquake in Japan’s history triggered a massive tsunami. As the plumes drifted over the neighboring countryside, their contents—including radioactive cesium, a by-product of the plant’s fission reactions—fell to the ground and over the ocean.

What no one knew or expected was the fallout also contained bacteria-size glassy beads, with concentrations of radioactive cesium that were far higher than those in similar-size motes of tainted dust or dirt.

Since these particles were discovered in 2013, scientists have plucked them from soil samples and air filters throughout the contamination zone, including filters as far away as Tokyo. The beads could pose an under-recognized heath risk, researchers say, because they are tiny enough to be inhaled deep into the lungs—and their glassy makeup means they may not easily dissolve or erode. They also present an opportunity to conduct what one researcher called “nuclear forensics”: By analyzing the particles’ composition, scientists can piece together a clearer image of what happened during the white-hot violence inside the plant itself, and of the current condition of the debris in the three reactors that experienced meltdowns. This could help inform the strategy for cleaning up the ruins of the plant.

Researchers say a picture of the unusual beads is coming into focus against a backdrop of the Japanese public’s general nuclear wariness, and the government’s desire to put the Fukushima incident behind it—particularly with Tokyo poised to host the 2020 Olympics. “I think, unfortunately, the reaction to this discovery [of the beads] has been not very welcomed in Japan,” says Rod Ewing, a mineralogist and nuclear materials expert who co-directs the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

Read more :

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/radioactive-glass-beads-may-tell-the-terrible-tale-of-how-the-fukushima-meltdown-unfolded/

March 18, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , | 1 Comment

8 years on, contaminated water remains big problem for Fukushima clean-up

n-fukushima-a-20190308-870x580.jpg

March 10, 2019

Okuma – Eight years after the Fukushima nuclear crisis, a fresh obstacle threatens to undermine the massive clean-up: 1 million tons of contaminated water must be stored, possibly for years, at the power plant.

Last year, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said a system meant to purify contaminated water had failed to remove dangerous radioactive contaminants.

That means most of that water – stored in 1,000 tanks around the plant – will need to be reprocessed before it is released into the ocean, the most likely scenario for disposal…

…. Fanning out across the plant’s property are enough tanks to fill 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Machines called Advanced Liquid Processing Systems, or ALPS, had treated the water inside them.

TEPCO said the equipment could remove all radionuclides except tritium, a relatively harmless hydrogen isotope that is hard to separate from water. Tritium-laced water is released into the environment at nuclear sites around the world.

But after newspaper reports last year questioned the effectiveness of ALPS-processed water, TEPCO acknowledged that strontium-90 and other radioactive elements remained in many of the tanks.

TEPCO said the problems occurred because absorbent materials in the equipment had not been changed frequently enough.

The utility has promised to re-purify the water if the government decides that releasing it into the ocean is the best solution. It is the cheapest of five options a government task force considered in 2016; others included evaporation and burial…

….Another option is to store the water for decades in enormous tanks normally used for crude oil. The tanks have been tested for durability, said Yasuro Kawai, a plant engineer and a member of Citizens’ Commission on Nuclear Energy, a group advocating abandoning nuclear energy.

Each tank holds 100,000 tons, so 10 such tanks could store the roughly 1 million tons of water processed by ALPS so far, he said.

The commission proposes holding the tritium-laced water, which has a half life of 12.3 years, in tanks for 123 years. After that, it will be one thousandth as radioactive as it was when it went into storage…

Read more :

https://japantoday.com/category/national/Eight-years-on-contaminated-water-remains-big-problem-for-Fukushima-clean-up

 

March 18, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , | Leave a comment

Eight years after Fukushima nuclear meltdown, workers still facing radiation risk

safe_image.php.jpg
Workers at the Fukushima plant still don’t know how long they have to stay behind cleaning up the mess from the 2011 nuclear meltdown.
February 22, 2019
TEPCO officials recently said to Akahata that high-risk zones in the Fukushima Daiichi plant have become smaller and that now workers do not need to wear a full-face mask and a protective suit in 96 percent of the plant premises. This is because the level of radioactive materials in the air has decreased as a larger area of the site is now covered with concrete, according to officials. At the crippled nuclear power plant, the number of workers coping with the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear accident, though, is still more than 4,000 per day.
However, the hidden reality regarding contamination risks seems to differ from the impression the utility wanted to create by citing the figure “96 percent.” In a recently published survey of Fukushima workers conducted by TEPCO, of the respondents who are anxious about their exposure to radiation, nearly half feared that their health would be damaged in the future. In another question in the same survey, more than 40 percent were concerned about working at the nuclear power plant.
The most common reason for their concern was that they have no idea how long they need to work at the plant because it is unclear how much work remains to be done. They are also worried about the risk of radiation-induced health damage in the future with no guarantee of a stable income. Without a worker-friendly environment, the decommissioning of the crippled reactors will be extremely time-consuming.
The storage of radiation-contaminated water is another major issue. Around 100-150 tons of polluted water is produced every day at the plant, which means that a 1,000-ton tank is filled up in seven to ten days. Currently, around 1.1 million tons of radioactive water are stored on the plant premises, but under TEPCO’s plan, the maximum planned storage capacity is only 1.37 million tons.
Read more:

March 1, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , | 1 Comment

Fukushima The Seal of the Sun 太陽の蓋

February 24, 2019

This February 20th I was invited by my friend Kolin Kobayashi in Paris to the avant-première of the movie Fukushima The Seal of the Sun, followed by a short debate, then to the private reception where Japan ex-prime Minister Naoto Kan was present.

Watching this movie brought to my mind the words of Gregory Jaczko, the former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2011, in his recently released book titled Confessions of a rogue nuclear regulator :

« And what about the problems that no engineer, scientist, or safety regulator can foresee. No amount of planning can prepare a plant for every situation. Every disaster makes its own rules – and humans cannot learn them in advance ».

« Generations of nuclear professionals have never experienced the confusion of a nuclear accident as it is happening. So it is essential that we remember and teach the lessons of Three Mile Island, chernobyl and Fukushima, for reviewing these accidents shows common themes of missed opportunities, human failings, and technological overconfidence. No amount of forgetting can change these simple facts. »

« As I learned in the wake of the Fukushima accident, crises on this scale are often characterized by incoherent communication and conflicting information. Both the Three Mile island and the Fukushima disasters featured contradictory assessments of the state of the reactor, a limited appreciation of the fact that the damage to the reactor had occured very early, and rapidly changing statements from elected officials. To the public, these statements can appear to suggest prevarication or incompetence. But when government officials – imperfect human beings like everyone else – try to make sense of the complicated physics of a nuclear reactor, they will invariably make mistakes in communication. »

Especially as in the Fukushima accident where TEPCO was not straightforward in giving the true facts to the Japanese government, but always prevaricating.

 

52020914_2088480991230396_1239132227065872384_o.jpg

 

Synopsis of the movie Fukushima The Seal of the Sun
On March 11, 2011, Japan is rocked by an earthquake, followed by a tsunami and the triple nuclear disaster of Fukushima. Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s team is trying to cope with this situation. What really happened at the Prime Minister’s residence at the time of the worst crisis in the country’s history? Has the truth been fully revealed?

3 questions to the director – Futoshi Sato

How did you arrive on this project and how did you work with the producer and actors of the film?

Born in the area that was devastated by the 2011 earthquake, I wanted to talk about it, but I was wondering what might be the approach to make it a movie. For his part, Mr. Tamiyoshi Tachibana wondered about the possibility of adapting the book written by Tetsuro Fukuyama, Deputy Director of the Cabinet of Naoto Kan. “The Nuclear Crisis – A Testimony from the Residence of the Prime Minister” is a fundamental work that tells the truth of the events that occurred on those days at the Residence.

If this project was able to start and be realized, it is thanks to the total and complete implication of Mr Tamiyoshi Tachibana. The entire project team has been involved in the discussions around the script and during our debates, we thought it was necessary to make a choral film with in the center, the members of the Cabinet, but also with the journalists on the lookout for scoops, the workers of the power plant, as well as the inhabitants of the surrounding villages. As for casting, we managed to bring together actors who were completely convinced of the importance of the subject. We gave them all the information so that they thoroughly understand the issues of the film and their characters.

Was it important to you that the events would be experienced in a balanced way through the politicians and the people directly at the forefront of the disaster?

According to the people who experienced these events, their feeling completely varies. To make it a film capable of witnessing this story in all its diversity, we decided to adopt the different points of view of the protagonists. It was not possible to convey this reality to the public otherwise.

I remember that Naoto Kan told us: “If you represent the truth about the nuclear accident with firmness in the film, you can choose any method of expression.” He wanted the facts to be well presented. I started filming in a direction that was not meant to be easy. Instead, it was necessary to treat with audacity, an atmosphere of crisis due to a management and consequences quite unknown.

Which part of the movie is truth and which part is fiction?

The information, as to the reactions and attitudes of TEPCO following the nuclear accident, and those that have been passed on to the government are all true. We also had to do some research to recreate some scenes. In addition, about what had happened during these 5 days, it was impossible to extract and reproduce the huge amount of data.

For these reasons, and in order to stay true to the facts and to make a fiction easier to understand, we created a fictional character unfolding the story. We have made this journalist a kind of guide, to follow this whole story. The words and situations of certain scenes have been created to cover all events. On the other hand, the politicians, who are public figures, appear in the film under their true identities. Their dialogues and actions are also based on true facts.

3 questions au producteur – Tamiyoshi Tachibana

In 2011, you were close to Naoto Kan, the Japanese Prime Minister. Through this film, was it your intention to restore a truth that the latter experienced during this crisis?

At the time, I was simply a friend, one of his cadets in politics. It was only after the earthquake that I became a real member of his support group. It is not to reproduce the experience of the crisis experienced by Naoto Kan that I produced this film. The media and public opinion, manipulated by the latter, were totally hostile to the Prime Minister, accusing him of having aggravated the accident and amplified the damage. Faced with this rejection, I was plagued by anger and disgust as they led me to make this film to put things in order.

The reactors’ accident could, in the worst case, have caused the evacuation of the entire population living within a radius of 250km, including Tokyo, a total of 50 million people. Naoto Kan was the only one to have guessed the extreme gravity of the accident and to have realized that we were one step away from the collapse of Japan. If he had not been Prime Minister, if the crisis had to be managed by another in his place, the country could have been completely destroyed.

You have kept the real names of the various protagonists. What were the reactions of the people implicated, in particular the leaders of TEPCO, the company that managed the Fukushima power station?

Four politicians appear under their real names. In the history of Japanese cinema, this is the first time that characters, in a fiction film, take the true identity of people who really exist. Thus Naoto Kan is still present in the political life of Japan.

As for the other members of the government, as well as the officials and employees of TEPCO (TOBI in the film), these are not their real names, but we can easily imagine who they are!

However, there was no protest or legal proceedings on their part. I do not know if they saw the movie … or not. If they saw it, they did not want to talk about it publicly. I hope that today, they are a little ashamed of this catastrophic situation of which they are, in part, responsible.

What was the impact of the film when it was released in Japan? Has it sparked a real public debate as Japanese nuclear power resumed its place in the country, as if nothing had happened in 2011?

The accident at the Fukushima nuclear power station inspired the authors of “Shin Godzilla” (the new Gozilla), a movie released in Japan on July 29, 2016. That movie was designed by two of the largest film production companies for a total budget of 13 million euros. Thanks to this film, the producers have earned more than 64 million euros!

On our side, our film was screened in independent theaters. Obviously, this has not been the same success, especially in terms of financial benefits.

Citizens continue to organize weekly independent screenings. It should be noted that the 54 nuclear reactors, distributed among the 18 Japanese plants, were shut down in September 2013.

7 years after the disaster, 9 units restarted. The film has become a powerful vector for citizens who speak out against the restart.

Aujourd’hui, environ 70 % de la population est en effet opposée à l’énergie nucléaire.

Sources :

Synopsis of the movie, provided by Destiny Films, translated by Hervé Courtois (D’un Renard)

Confessions of a rogue nuclear regulator by gregory B. Jaczko, published by Simon & Schuster, New York, 2019

February 24, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , , | Leave a comment

Probe shows challenges posed by melted fuel at Fukushima plant

jhhll.jpg
The rod-like probe outfitted with a tong-like pinching device that was used to touch melted nuclear fuel debris at the bottom of the No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant
February 18, 2019
A specially designed, remotely controlled probe touched melted nuclear fuel debris at the bottom of a ruined reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the first successful operation to inspect radioactive debris through direct contact.
The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), lowered the rod-like probe outfitted with a tong-like pinching device into the primary containment vessel of the No. 2 reactor at the crippled plant and used the machine to successfully lift pieces of the debris several centimeters.
The removal of the fuel debris is the biggest challenge in the long process of decommissioning the reactors, which will take at least three to four decades. The lifting of debris is a ray of hope in the grim battle to overcome the formidable challenge.
But the success was tempered by the fact that there were large chunks with slick surfaces the robot’s pinchers were unable to grab. The probe found that deposits in various conditions lie scattered about the bottom of the vessel. Some pieces are apparently entangled in the surrounding equipment.
Tasks in and around the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors at the nuclear plant cannot be carried out by humans because of dangerously high radiation levels. Nuclear fuel in the core of these reactors overheated and melted down after towering tsunami triggered by an epic earthquake knocked out vital cooling systems on March 11, 2011.
Read more:
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201902180019.html

February 23, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , , | Leave a comment

TEPCO finds some debris in Fukushima N°2 reactor could be removed

safe_image.php.jpg
February 14, 2019
TOKYO (Kyodo) — The operator of the disaster-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant said Wednesday its latest probe has found that debris inside one of the reactors can be lifted, raising hopes for progress in its bid to remove melted fuel and decommission the complex.
During the around eight-hour examination on Wednesday, TEPCO inserted the probe, equipped with a camera, radiation meter and tong-like grips to hold objects, through a penetration hole that provides access to the primary containment vessel.
Of the six locations that were surveyed, the probe, which is 30 centimeters tall and 10 cm wide, successfully moved gravel and a stick-like structure in deposits in five areas. The tong-like grips were able to lift up to 5 cm of some of the deposits, according to TEPCO.
In the remaining area that resembled clay, however, the probe could not pick up any of the deposited material, indicating it was relatively hard.
“As we have found that we can move (the deposits), we proved that extracting fuel debris is possible. But for objects that cannot be grasped, we need to develop new equipment,”
Read more:
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190214/p2g/00m/0na/002000c

February 23, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , | Leave a comment

Fukushima Daiichi: probe touched suspected fuel debris in reactor#2

Images have been released of the reddish-brown amorphous mass. But its level of radioactivity is still unknown, which means that TEPCO has not even reached the earliest stage of its reactor decommissioning process.
I am acutely reminded again of the magnitude of this irreversible mess.
The technology we are left with is an out-of-control monster. And so long as nuclear power plants remain in operation, there is no guarantee that the same nightmare will not recur–even as we speak.

TEPCO: Probe touched suspected fuel debris
February 13, 2019
The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says a probe made direct contact with substances believed to be fuel debris at one of the plant’s reactors.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, conducted its first contact survey of suspected fuel debris at the Number 2 reactor on Wednesday.
TEPCO has already confirmed the existence of deposits believed to be a mixture of molten nuclear fuel and structural parts at the bottom of the reactor’s containment vessel.
In Wednesday’s survey, a pole that can extend to 15 meters was sent under the reactor, and the probe was lowered from the end of the pole.
TEPCO plans to take out a small amount of the deposits with a different device in the latter half of the next fiscal year to use them as samples for study.
Officials say the probe was able to touch the deposits without any major trouble.
This is a key survey for devising a way to remove radioactive deposits.
They say they looked into the deposits’ hardness and whether they can be moved.
 
1st contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant
February 14, 2019
“The probe lifted pebble-like nuclear fuel debris and structural parts up to 8 cm in diameter at five spots in the 2,500-square-cm area that was investigated. It failed to pick up debris at one spot.
TEPCO said the probe could not lift clay-like debris likely because it had adhered to the bottom of the containment vessel.
The probe also touched nuclear fuel debris lying at several spots on the lattice-shaped scaffold for workers directly below the reactor’s pressure vessel.
The previous investigation of the No. 2 reactor in 2017 located melted fuel debris on the scaffold. But a robot deployed for a further investigation broke down on its way to the debris.
In a survey last year, the utility used the rod-like probe to take images of the inside of the reactor.
TEPCO is expected to remove a small amount of nuclear fuel debris in the second half of fiscal 2019 as part of preparations for full-scale retrieval.”

February 18, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , , | Leave a comment

IAEA Urges Patience For Fukushima Nuclear Cleanup

IAEA-Mission-Nov-18-Fukushima-Daiichi-1.jpg
February 8th, 2019
 
“Despite these achievements, many challenges remain to be tackled in the decommissioning process, and ensuring safety in this complex situation requires sustained daily attention.” The new report follows up on original analysis presented to Japanese authorities in November and finds that the “risk reduction strategy is being implemented at a pace commensurate with the challenges of the site-specific situation.” That being said, however, “the IAEA Review Team continues to identify water management as critical to the sustainability of decommissioning activities” and has urged for a decision for the disposition of contaminated water to “be taken urgently engaging all stakeholders.” Specifically, the IAEA Review Team determined that it is necessary to determine an end-game for the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) sooner rather than later, considering that “the volume of ALPS treated water [is] expected to reach the planned tank capacity of 1.37 million [metres-cubed] within the coming three to four years, and considering current site facility plan for space allocations, and that further treatment and control of the stored water before disposition would be needed for implementation of any of the five solutions considered by the Japanese Government.” (For more on TEPCO’s contaminated water treatment, see here.) Further, but regarding the retrieval and end-game of radioactive fuel debris, the report’s authors state that “there should be a clear implementation plan defined to safely manage the retrieved material” and that “TEPCO should ensure that appropriate containers and storage capacity are available before starting the fuel debris retrieval.” There is therefore need for immediate decisionmaking but long-term patience and goals in place to thoroughly address the large amount of radioactive and contaminated waste.
 
The full report can be read here (PDF) https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/19/01/missionreport-310119.pdf
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/08/iaea-urges-patience-for-fukushima-nuclear-cleanup/

February 11, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , | Leave a comment

TEPCO to survey suspected fuel debris in reactor

 

February 7, 2019
 
The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it will conduct the first contact survey on suspected fuel debris inside one of the reactors. The device has a maximum length of 15 meters, making it possible to reach the area directly below the reactor core where the suspected fuel debris is located.
 
TEPCO says it can plan a sampling survey if the debris may be moved. TEPCO says the tip of the device will touch and pinch the debris. The company says it hopes to assess how hard the debris is and whether it can be moved.
 
TEPCO says it will begin a comprehensive debris retrieval operation in 2021. The firm adds that the information obtained will be used to assemble removal equipment even if the debris cannot be moved.
 
Tokyo Electric Power Company said on Thursday that it will insert the measurement device into the containment vessel of the No.2 reactor next Wednesday.
 
The firm plans to decide by March of next year which reactor it will first work on.
 

 

February 11, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , | Leave a comment

The State of Nuclear Emergency Declared after the Fukushima Meltdown is Still On Today!!!

medical situation
1. Radioactive contaminated water still keeps accumulating:
2. High-level radiation from Fukushima plant is still being emitted daily.
3. Unfairness of forcing Fukushima residents to live with radiation up to 20 mSv/year.
４．Termination of housing allowance for “voluntary” evacuees from Fukushima, a serious violation of human rights.
５． The number of children with thyroid cancer is increasing although the government refuses to recognize the accident as its cause.
６．Recommendations from the UN Human Rights　Council to the Japanese government (UNHRC, Oct. 2018)
The government is obliged:
6.1. to prevent and minimize, as much as possible, children from being exposed to radiation;
6.2. to change back from “20 mSv” to “1 mSv” per year standard before retracting evacuation orders, especially for children and women of childbearing age;
6.3. to not pressurize families to return to Fukushima by terminating housing allowance. (United Nations Human Rights Council, October 2018)
Source: The Fukushima Collective Evacuation Trial

February 11, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , , | 1 Comment

IAEA urges Japan to take ample time in Fukushima cleanup

cleaning fuk.jpg
By Mari Yamaguchi
January 31
TOKYO — The International Atomic Energy Agency urged Japan on Thursday to spend ample time in developing a decommissioning plan for the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant and to be honest with the public about remaining uncertainties.
In a report based on a visit by an IAEA team to the plant in November, the agency urged the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., to secure adequate space and finish plans for managing highly radioactive melted fuel before starting to remove it from the three damaged reactors.
The cores of the three reactors melted after a massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Utility and government officials plan to start removing the melted fuel in 2021, but still know little about its condition and have not finalized waste management plans.
“The IAEA review team advises that before the commencement of the fuel debris retrieval activities, there should be a clear implementation plan defined to safely manage the retrieved material,” the report said. “TEPCO should ensure that appropriate containers and storage capacity are available before starting the fuel debris retrieval.”
The report also urged the government and TEPCO to carefully consider ways to express “the inherent uncertainties involved” in the project and develop “a credible plan” for the long term. It advised TEPCO to consider adopting contingency plans to “accommodate any schedule delays.”
Dale Klein, a former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman who heads a TEPCO reform committee, said in a recent interview that the decommissioning should not be rushed, even if the government and TEPCO have set a schedule and people want to see it move faster.
“It’s much better to do it right than do it fast,” he said, adding that it’s also good not to rush from a health and safety perspective. “Clearly, the longer you wait, the less the radiation is.”
He said he would be “astounded” if the current schedule ends up unchanged.
In order to make room in the plant compound to safely store the melted fuel and for other needed facilities, about 1 million tons of radioactive waste water currently stored in hundreds of tanks will have to be removed. The IAEA team, headed by Xerri Christoph, an expert on radioactive waste, urged the government and TEPCO to urgently decide how to dispose of it.
Nuclear experts, including officials at the IAEA and Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority, have said a controlled release of the water into the Pacific Ocean is the only realistic option. A release, however, is unlikely until after the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in order to avoid concerns among visitors from overseas.

February 3, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , | Leave a comment

One more expensive robot to go probe in and to get fried

gallery_xlarge1.jpg
Toshiba Corp.’s energy systems unit group manager Jun Suzuki shows a remote-controlled melted fuel probe device at its facility in Yokohama, near Tokyo, Monday, Jan. 28, 2019. Toshiba unveiled the device carrying tongs that comes out of a long telescopic pipe for an internal probe in one of three damaged reactor chambers at Japan’s
gallery_xlarge.jpg
A remote-controlled melted fuel probe device is unveiled by Toshiba Corp. at its facility in Yokohama, near Tokyo, Monday, Jan. 28, 2019. Toshiba unveiled the device carrying tongs that comes out of a long telescopic pipe for an internal probe in one of three damaged reactor chambers at Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant – this time to touch chunks of melted fuel.
Toshiba unveils robot to probe melted Fukushima nuclear fuel
Jan. 28, 2019
YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — Toshiba Corp. has unveiled a remote-controlled robot with tongs that it hopes will be able to probe the inside of one of the three damaged reactors at Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and manipulate chunks of melted fuel.
The device displayed Monday is designed to slide down an extendable 11-meter (36-foot) long pipe and grip highly radioactive melted fuel inside the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel.
An earlier robot captured images of pieces of melted fuel in the reactor last year, but other details of the fuel’s status remain largely unknown.
Toshiba’s energy systems unit said experiments with the new probe planned in February are key to determining the technologies needed to remove the fuel debris, the most challenging part of the decades-long decommissioning process.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/toshiba-unveils-robot-probe-melted-fukushima-nuclear-fuel-60673515
 
Robot to examine fuel debris in Fukushima unit
29 January 2019
Toshiba has developed a remotely-operated robot to investigate debris in the bottom of the primary containment vessel (PCV) of unit 2 at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.
The device developed by Toshiba for examining debris in unit 2’s PCV (Image: Toshiba)
A pre-investigation of the area directly below the pressure vessel – known as the pedestal – was carried out in January 2017 at Fukushima Daiichi 2 using a remotely operated camera on a telescopic probe. Photos taken during that investigation showed a black mass and deposits near a grating in the pedestal area, possibly melted nuclear fuel.
The following month, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) sent a “scorpion-shaped” robot – developed jointly by Toshiba and the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID) – into the PCV of unit 2. Although the robot was unable to reach the part of the vessel directly under the reactor pressure vessel, the company said the information it gathered would help it determine how to decommission the unit.
In January 2018, an internal investigation of the PCV of unit 2 using a suspended pan-tilt camera attached to a telescopic guiding pipe identified deposits and fuel assembly components at the bottom of the pedestal area.
Yesterday, a robotic device developed by Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation was unveiled that will be used to explore these deposits. The device – approximately 30cm in length and 10cm in width – features a camera, LED lighting, a pan-tilt mechanism, finger drive mechanism (tongs), radiation dosimeter and a thermometer.
“Using know-how cultivated through previous investigations at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Toshiba ESS added a finger drive mechanism for touching the deposits to investigate their condition to the telescopic guiding pipe developed last January,” the company said.
“Until now we have only seen those deposits, and we need to know whether they will break off and can be picked up and taken out,” Jun Suzuki, a Toshiba ESS group manager for the project, told Japan Today. “Touching the deposits is important so we can make plans to sample the deposits, which is a next key step.”
The robotic device is scheduled to be deployed to investigate the interior of unit 2’s PCV next month.
Tepco has also carried out robotic surveys of the PCVs of units 1 and 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
In March 2017, Tepco carried out an investigation of the PCV of unit 1 using the PMORPH robot developed by Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy and IRID. Equipped with a dosimeter and waterproof camera, it took radiation readings and digital images at ten different measurement points within that unit’s PCV.
In July that year, it inserted a screw-driven submersible robot developed by Toshiba and IRID into unit 3’s PCV.
Goro Yanase, vice president of Toshiba ESS’s Nuclear Energy Systems & Services Division, said: “We will continue to advance technology development and contribute to investigation of the interior of the Fukushima reactors.”
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Robot-to-examine-fuel-debris-in-Fukushima-unit

February 3, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , | Leave a comment

TEPCO failed to spot leak of contaminated water

 
 
Like they always say… “there is no impact on the environment.”
 
January 24, 2019
 
Tokyo Electric Power Company says it has determined that water containing radioactive substances leaked from a tank at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for more than two years. The company says there is no impact on the environment.
 
The utility says workers discovered water from an unknown source in an underground tunnel on January 10th at the plant.
 
The reactor complex was heavily damaged by the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
 
Officials later found that the water level of a nearby tank had dropped since around November 2016. They say about 300 tons of water leaked from the tank.
 
The officials say the water contained 120,000 becquerels of tritium per liter. That is twice the allowable level for the release of contaminated water at a nuclear plant operating normally.
 
The officials report that the tritium level of the water found in the tunnel was below the standard.
 
They believe the water flowed into the turbine building for the number four reactor through pipes.
 
The officials say the tank’s water level declined by about 1.7 meters during the period, but measurements conducted four times each day failed to detect the tiny difference from the previous check.
 
The company will now work to uncover the cause.
 
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190124_02/?fbclid=IwAR3wRVIRQDjCkDd2oDEmsRyol6sl9eHAlzf6uadfiQuyd2felzLUzwMMSBI

January 25, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , | Leave a comment

Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear regulator: nuclear is dangerous, a failed technology, not a safe bet for combating climate change

“Jaczko headed the NRC from 2009 to 2012 under former President Barack Obama. During his tenure, he oversaw several of nuclear’s worst battles and disasters, including Yucca Mountain, the proposed nuclear waste depository, and the Fukushima meltdown in Japan. He writes that what he witnessed was an agency overpowered by the agenda of the nuclear industry. Decisions were based on politics, not safety or the public’s best interests. After witnessing several close calls with plants and the aftermath of Fukushima, he’s come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as safe nuclear power.”

 

confessions-of-a-rogue-cover

Former NRC head disagrees with Bill Gates, says nuclear not a safe bet for combating climate change

How much do you think about nuclear power?
 
If you’re like most Americans, the answer is likely “not often.” Unless you work in the industry, you don’t hear too much about nuclear power these days, as Big Oil and coal face off against solar and wind.
 
The former head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants to change that. In his latest book, Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator, Dr. Gregory Jaczko says that we not only should be thinking more about the consequences of nuclear power, we should be way more concerned about it than we are.
 
The former head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants to change that. In his latest book, Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator, Dr. Gregory Jaczko says that we not only should be thinking more about the consequences of nuclear power, we should be way more concerned about it than we are.
 
Jaczko headed the NRC from 2009 to 2012 under former President Barack Obama. During his tenure, he oversaw several of nuclear’s worst battles and disasters, including Yucca Mountain, the proposed nuclear waste depository, and the Fukushima meltdown in Japan. He writes that what he witnessed was an agency overpowered by the agenda of the nuclear industry. Decisions were based on politics, not safety or the public’s best interests. After witnessing several close calls with plants and the aftermath of Fukushima, he’s come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as safe nuclear power.
 
Why did you decide to write a book?
 
I’d had a unique experience. I learned a lot in the job about the process of how nuclear power plants are regulated. I think it’s important for people to understand the influence that the industry has, that Congress has, and these are lessons that are true in any safety-sensitive industry.
 
The more pressing issue for me right now has developed the last couple years, and it’s the recognition that a lot of people are turning to nuclear as the savior of climate change. I have two kids and I’m extremely worried about climate change, but I’m even more worried that nuclear is a solution that people are pushing.
 
It’s a bad solution. It’s not the cheapest, and it’s a very expensive way to reduce carbon. And it’s an unreliable partner for climate change. You can have accidents and that can shut down plants, and that comes with all the environmental issues with nuclear itself.
 
That brings us to Bill Gates’ end of 2018 letter, in which he says that nuclear is essential for combating climate change.
 
Yeah, I think I actually saw that article, and I worry because I do think the history of nuclear technology shows that it’s not reliable. If you look today at the cheapest ways to generate electricity, it’s solar, it’s wind, it’s geothermal. These methods are a lot cheaper and only getting cheaper.
 
The biggest argument against them is the dispatch problem — you can’t always have them when you want them, but battery storage is also rapidly dropping in price. I look at those kinds of stories, and I scratch my head. I don’t really understand where those new nuclear technologies are coming from. His [Gates/TerraPower’s] technology is unproven and at least one decade, if not more realistically two, out, and they’re strategizing based on tech from China, and because of Trump policies they had to pull back on that project.
 
It’s not there. It’s not a solution. That’s just putting our head in the sand.
 
You are now working in renewable energy projects yourself?
 
I started in the offshore wind space about three or four years ago. Lo and behold, last month, three companies each bid $135 million just for the right to build offshore wind farms off Massachusetts. They think they can produce that power at almost competitive wholesale electricity prices. Even three years ago, we were not predicting that.
 
What’s happening in that clean energy space is dramatic. The tech is advancing so fast and the cost reductions are happening so fast, that’s really where the input should be going.
 
Why do you think Bill Gates and others are still pursuing nuclear?
 
Well, I’ve never met Bill Gates, and I would certainly ask him if we met [laughs].
 
I started my career as a scientist, and there are a lot of technical features to nuclear that make it very attractive. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying to come up with better nuclear fission technology, but it’s not going to combat climate change. In the short term, we could work on better nuclear, but if it comes to spending money on nuclear or other renewable energy sources, it would make more sense to invest in the other.
 
We have one of the biggest examples in Fukushima [2011], and my experiences dealing with the accident there. One by one, the Japanese shut down all their nuclear power plants, and you have a country of the Kyoto Protocol with very aggressive climate goals, and they hinged on this fleet of nuclear reactors. And you have one accident, and all this human suffering aside, and this technology has torn apart your goals for climate change.
 
There was certainly the immediate harm, but you’ve damaged your longer-term goals for saving the planet. Their carbon went up as they had to turn to all these dirty fossil fuels, and now they’ve started to come down. And they’ve done a tremendous amount since in energy efficiency. If they’d one this 20 years ago, they wouldn’t be in that situation today.
 
Before stepping into the role, did you have any idea how messy politics in the agency were?
 
I spent time working on the Hill for a congressman and a senator, and I’d had my taste for politics always as a staffer. There is always a difference between a staffer and principal. When I became chairman I was the principal. Then I realized the power that was at stake, the influence that was at stake, and the stakes were so high, it was going to be intense.
 
The nuclear power industry is tens of billions, and electrical utilities are some of the most powerful in the country. My first encounter with [Obama’s chief of staff] Rahm Emanuel, it was a very direct communication style, and it certainly made an impression on me. I realized what was at stake then, all the idealistic aspirations I hoped I maintained were going to run up against some practical and political powers.
 
I was trying to strike balance between public safety and the industries that operate. It was a delicate balance. The Fukushima accident is when I crossed that threshold that my job was foremost health and public safety and that was it. If we weren’t going to do it, who was? And the accident really galvanized that for me.
 
How do you see the future of nuclear power progressing under the Trump administration?
 
Well the thing the president has tried to do the most, coupled with the strategy to keep coal plants operating, has been comparable. He hasn’t gotten as much attention to subsidize nuclear power plants, and thankfully those efforts have been unsuccessful because I think those are mistakes.
 
Coal plants and nuclear plants are just too expensive to operate, and the focus has been on preserving them, but they’re being replaced by solar, wind, some gas, which is not ideal but I think other technologies will catch up and replace gas.
 
To me, the best thing anybody can do in the government, despite what the president says about climate change, is to just stay out of it. In many parts of the country, the market is doing the right thing. In many cases, the right pocketbook approach is the environmental approach. This is one place where the government needs to step out of the way and let the market take over.
 
Knowing what you know now, would you have still taken the job?
 
Absolutely. It was a great privilege to have the job. There was one moment when I was sitting across from my counterpart in Japan [during the Fukushima aftermath], and we both looked at each other and realized that we were both relatively young [around 40]. In that moment, I knew there was a reason we were there, if for no other reason than I could relate to this individual.
 
It was a great experience. It was hard, but at the end of the day, I got up knowing what I was doing and why I was doing it, and I was doing something to help people. And those jobs don’t come often.
 
 
Other interviews of Greg Jaczko to watch and to listen to:

“Nuclear: Dangerous, A Failed Technology” – Former Nuke Regulatory Chief Greg Jaczko Goes Rogue

Greg Jaczko, the former Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has published an explosive new book: Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator.  In it, he gets honest with the American people about the dangers of nuclear technology, which he labels “failed,” “dangerous,” “not reliable.”  He particularly comes down against nuclear as having any part in mitigating the problems of climate change/global warming.  In this extended Nuclear Hotseat interview, Jaczko brings us inside the NRC’s response to Fukushima, the “precipice” on which nuclear safety balances, his own growing doubts about how safe nuclear reactors are in the United States, and how, ultimately, it was that concern with safety that probably brought him down.

http://nuclearhotseat.com/2019/01/16/rogue-nuclear-regulator-jaczko/?fbclid=IwAR2TKb2v-WdWmcwNZ8RhiB8DYjoOxbhBc__xLdTgqJ0wrJVk8AIFw9FXhPo

 

Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator

Gregory Jaczko recounted his time with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for which he served as chair from 2009-2012.

January 25, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »