March 30, 2015

Mar 30, 2015 | Fukushima Accident Updates

  • F. Daiichi unit #2 will have high-resolution Muon tomography. Scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Toshiba showed the new device to the Tokyo news media on Friday. Muon detectors, each measuring 64m2 will record muons before and after they pass through the reactor. Some of the muons will alter their paths due to the high-density materials inside the primary containment, and the differences between the before and after detectors will provide an image inside the structure. The scientists say resolution with the new device is three times greater than with the much smaller one currently installed on unit #1. It is planned to set up and operated the technology on unit #2 later this year. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclear.html
  • Tepco discovers fuel pool gate doors out of position in unit #3. Officials say that both iron doors in the Spent Fuel Pool gate have shifted, probably because the fuel handling bridge falling into the pool due to the explosion in March, 2011. Part of the machine continues to rest on the gate. There is no leakage out of the SFP. Tepco says that before the machine can be removed to facilitate transfer of the 566 used fuel bundles from the pool, they must be sure that its movement will not cause leakage from the SPF. Whether or not this will delay the start of fuel removal by the end of June is speculative. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclear.html — http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/27/national/debris-poses-risk-spent-fuel-pool-gate-fukushima-1s-reactor-3-tepco/#.VRVvFaMcQdV
  • Tepco says it will disclose all data on radiation levels at F. Daiichi. In addition, all of it will be reviewed regularly by a third party. This could double the already-considerable amount of data posted to date. http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2015/03/344361.html
  • Two experts find that radiation exposures from Fukushima isotopes in the Pacific will not cause health damage. Researchers Pavel Povinec and Katsumi Hirose found that exposures from the ingestion of Pacific Ocean seafood, shellfish, and seaweed are “below levels when any health damage of the Japanese and world population could be expected.” They explained that exposure from ingestion of radio-cesium and radio-strontium with fish caught in the Pacific Ocean in 2012–2013 is considerably more that pre-Fukushima levels for cesium and strontium, but it is actually equivalent to the consumption of natural Polonium-210 in fish, and 10-times lower than with the consumption of natural Po-210 in shellfish. http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150312/srep09016/full/srep09016.html#/introduction
  • An exclusion zone town holds a community festival. Nahara, which actually south of Fukushima Daini and lies between 10-to-20 kilometers south of F. Daiichi, held the large-scale event in the town proper on March 21st. Organizers said they wanted residents to see the progress of recovery as a group, rather than when individuals came for home visits. It is hoped the festival will encourage residents to move back. http://www.fukushimaminponews.com/news.html?id=487 (Comment – Nahara has a roughly 10 kilometer stretch of coastline that was surely devastated by the tsunami of 2011. However, there has been no mention of the condition of the tsunami-destroyed part of the community, and I can find no pictures of it. Yet another example of the invisible, hypothetical aftermath of the Fukushima accident taking precedent over the actual aftermath of the quake/tsunami.)
  • A recent Fukushima 4th anniversary article contains an important graphic on protective measures along the Pacific shoreline. Nippom.com ran a comprehensive review of the contaminated water situation at F. Daiichi last Thursday with the headline “Contaminated Water Prevents Decommissioning: No Fundamental Solution in Sight”. By scrolling about half-way down the attached link, we find a graphic entitled “Contamination Countermeasures at Fukushima Daiichi”. The depiction clearly shows where the future underground frozen wall will be located, and the existing impermeable wall that has been built along the shore, inside the inner port area (quay). It shows that all groundwater drains the Press routine reports as release points to the sea are inside the impermeable off-shore wall. http://www.nippon.com/en/features/h00100/
  • The Japan Times calls for punishment of Tepco for the recent rainwater runoff issue. The editorial says Tepco admitted they did not report the mildly radioactive runoff for nearly a year, and should be held accountable for it. The Times says, “In the 15 days since Tepco finally confessed, have investigators raided its Tokyo headquarters? Have regulators demanded that heads roll? Has Prime Minister Shinzo Abe used his bully pulpit to demand accountability from the company that gave the world its worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl?” Because none of this has happened, the newspaper goes on to say, “It was all for show. Abe’s government never intervened, and Tepco stayed in charge. Four years to the day since the earthquake, Fukushima is still leaking; 120,000 people remain displaced; and Tepco’s opacity and incompetence are unchanged.” The Times calls for “at the very least” senior management to be fired without pensions and face legal charges. In addition, “The Company should also be nationalized” since taxpayers are already “bearing the costs of Tepco’s negligence anyway”. Finally, the Prime Minister should bring this “egregious offender to justice”. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/03/13/commentary/japan-commentary/its-time-to-punish-tepco/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=its-time-to-punish-tepco#.VRmA_KMcQdX (Comment – It should be noted that Tepco has already been nationalized, for all intents and purposes. The government is the majority shareholder of the company, Tokyo loans nearly more than $200 million per month to cover the generous evacuee compensation payments, and Tepco can literally do nothing in their nuclear division withourt getting formal approval from the Nuclear Regulation Authority.)