- Tepco has now transferred 352 of 1533 spent fuel bundles from unit #4 spent fuel pool without news media-worthy incident. http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/decommision/index-e.html
- It is possible that no reactor safety checks will finish in time for summer restarts. A senior electric company official said, “To reactivate nuclear reactors this summer, the safety checks should be finished ideally in March.” But, with every week that passes it seems less likely that any of the safety inspections will be completed by then. Both sides of the issue are blaming each other for the delays. Meetings for the first nine units being inspected are taking about 10 hours each. The Nuclear Regulation Authority said last week that many applications do not fully account for the new regulations. NRA Chair Shunichi Tanaka says the utilities are not doing their part, “The inspections will move toward a close when appropriate responses have been made by the companies.” But, the utilities are saying the problem may lie with the NRA’s inspection program. One company source has said, “Even when we think the discussion has progressed on an issue, a new problem emerges on the same issue.” The utilities feel that the NRA is committed to coming up with as many new objections as they can at every meeting. As a result, there is a mutual lack of trust. Prof. Yoshihiro Nishiwaki of Tokyo Institute of Technology said, “Discussions will not progress if both sides remain distrustful of each other.” The bottom line question seems to be how good is good enough, which has yet to be answered. http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001033369
- One of 30 waste water tank barriers has leaked very low level radioactive water. Tepco says they have found seven places on the coffer dam at connections between steel plates used to raise the barrier’s height and where piping goes through the metal. Heavy rain last October overwhelmed the original concrete enclosures, so steel extensions were added. The company estimates that a bit over 19 tons of accumulated rainwater and melted snow have seeped out and were absorbed in the surrounding soil. The water still inside the dam contains 23 Becquerels per liter of Strontium, which is below the 30 Bq/liter national limit for release. It is, however, greater than Tepco’s self-imposed limit of 10 Bq/liter. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20140217_02.html
- Fukushima’s governor seems to be committed to resolving the rural waste storage issue. He has met with the mayors of the eight accident-affected community and created a revised plan that could satisfy everyone. Main objector Nahara Town will temporarily store incinerated ash reading between 8,000 and 100,000 Becquerels per kilogram. Nahara’s ash will be solidified and shipped to an existing facility in Tomioka Town for storage. The original plan was for the Tomioka facility to burn the contaminated materials and ship the ash back to Nahara for temporary storage. But, Nahara residents said they do not want the solidified material stored there. So, the governor reversed the roles and it seems to have paid off. Nahara could not reject any and all responsibility because the roads used by the trucks hauling the material from other municipalities run through the town. http://www.fukushimaminponews.com/news.html?id=307
- Decontamination of property outside Fukushima Prefecture is at 59%. Nearly 80,000 homes have been checked and those exceeding federal limits have been decontaminated. This is 13,000 more dwellings than had been finished four months ago. The sharp increase in the number is attributed to both increased clean-up efforts and finding that many homes did not need to be cleaned. All work is nearing completion in Gunma and Chiba Prefectures which are between 200 and 250 kilometers south of F. Daiichi. Miyagi and Ibaraki Prefectures, which lie adjacent to Fukushima to the north and south respectively, are at about 30% completion. The Environment Ministry says Gunma and Chiba work should be finished by the end of March, but cleaning will probably not be over in Miyagi and Ibaraki by that time. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20140217_03.html
- Former PM Naoto Kan is again preaching his gospel of nuclear energy apocalypse. This time, it has to do with the Hamaoka Station’s application for restart. Kan says this is “radically wrong”. Kan ordered the station to be shuttered two months after the Fukushima accident because he feared another crisis due to Hamaoka being in quake-prone Shizuoka Prefecture about 150 kilometers south of Tokyo. Kan told the Asahi Shimbun that emergency evacuation plans for the 30km radius have yet to be worked out, and Japan “cannot afford to take a risk that could compromise the very existence of the nation. An accident at the Hamaoka plant would require evacuating millions of people, and it would also deal a big blow to Japan’s major arteries, such as the Tokaido Shinkansen Line and the Tomei Expressway, as well as Japan’s auto industry [clustered in the region].” Later in the interview, Kan added, “Neither the government nor Chubu Electric has said no accident would ever happen. We cannot afford to take a risk that could compromise the very existence of the nation, even if that could occur only once in a century.” Kan firmly believes that a nuke accident at Hamaoka would force the evacuation of Tokyo, a point of view not shared by Japan’s citizens. Kan says, “A compelling sense of fright about Tokyo being rendered uninhabitable is, unfortunately, not shared among the general public.” http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201402150051 (comment – Kan had similar nightmare’s about the Fukushima accident which led him to meddle in staff actions at F. Daiichi and made the accident much worse than it should have been.)
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