March 26, 2012

Mar 26, 2012 | Fukushima Accident Updates

  • NISA has released a comprehensive set of slides on the current status of Fukushima Daiichi, including technical causes of the accident and “countermeasures” taken to maintain cold shutdown. http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20120321.pdf
  • TEPCO is making a second endoscopic examination inside the unit #2 containment structure (PCV). The first such inspection was in January, but was limited by the length of the fiber-optic line. Today’s inspection will be using a longer line which should allow for a closer look at the water pooled in the bottom of the PCV and take radiation readings. TEPCO says they hope the new inspection will allow them to better understand containment conditions and whether or not there is any melted-through material from the reactor core. (NHK World)
  • About 25% of the psychiatric patients hospitalized after the Fukushima accident suffer from fear of radiation. A psychiatric team headed by Akira Wada of Fukushima Medical University has researched data from 27 prefectural hospitals and found that 30% of all psych. in-patients came in due to stress caused by the accident itself, with more than 80% of them wracked by radiation fears. Most of the radiophobia cases came from the communities near the power plants – Futaba, Soma, and Iwaki. 13% of those complaining of radiation fears had never sought psychiatric help before. Another university team headed by Fukushima Medical University professor Itaru Miura surveyed 57 prefectural hospitals from March to May, 2011, and found that 32% of the psych. in-patients suffered depression, acute stress and/or post-traumatic stress disorder due to the accident. 40% of these suffered of fear of radiation. This may be the first study in the world to look at the immediate psychiatric health effects of a nuclear accident, and the impact of radiophobia on the afflicted. Similar studies with Chernobyl did not begin until ten years after the accident. (Mainichi Shimbun)
  • It’s official. The new Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NSA) will not begin April 1st. The Noda administration excluded debate on the bill authorizing the new agency for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends March 31. This will certainly delay any possible local approval of nuke restarts. Mayor Kazuharu Kawase of Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture said Thursday, “If the regulatory agency is not launched, we can’t enter talks on whether to allow reactivation.” This seems to be the case with all municipalities hosting nuclear power stations. What exacerbates the situation is that all top officials in the current watchdog body, NISA, wish to step down on April 16 when their terms of office expire. Although member’s terms can be extended, one observer asked, “Can members who don’t want to stay conduct safety checks diligently?” (Yomiuri Shimbun)
  • There will actually be two new nuclear regulatory bodies – Nuclear Safety Investigative Committee (NSIC) and Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA). It is planned that NSIC will analyze information concerning nuclear accidents, potential accident precursors and nuclear research, then send the information to the NRA with recommendations for new regulations. The NRA will take the NSIC recommendations and create binding regulations for the nation’s nuclear power plants. The NRA regulations will be backed by the legal authority of the prime minister’s cabinet. While both groups will be organizationally positioned inside the Ministry of the Environment, its funding and operation will be entirely independent of the ministry itself. (NISA, March 2012)
  • Another possible nuke restart issue may be emerging. It has to do with the current 10km emergency planning zone being expanded to 30km for each power station. This could mean many, many more municipalities must be persuaded to approve nuke restarts than is now the case. Industry Minister Yukio Edano plans on visiting the local governments within 10km of the Oi power station the first week of April to outline the 30-point guideline for new safety regulations. He hopes this will satisfy the local officials sufficiently to allow restart of Oi units #3 & 4. If the “local entities” needed to approve restarts expands to 30km, it will not only mean more municipalities in Fukui Prefecture, but also a few in neighboring Shiga Prefecture. Shiga Prefecture has previously said they want to be part of the final decision on the Oi restarts. (Yomiuri Shimbun)
  • Today, Shiga Prefecture has unilaterally expanded the nuclear preparedness zone to 43 kilometers. This is the first prefectural government to stretch the 30km Tokyo-mandated zone that will take effect on April 1st. This unprecedented move is intended to give Shiga some say on whether or not the Tsuruga nuclear power station in neighboring Fukui Prefecture can restart. Shiga says they ran their own computer simulations on a worst-case accident at Tsuruga and how contamination might spread. Governor Yukiko Kada said the Fukushima accident taught her that the central government cannot be trusted and local governments are thus obligated to take nuclear safety matters into their own hands. (NHK World)
  • The second-to-last operating nuke was shut down today for a planned outage. TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa unit #6 began its shuttering on Sunday and was taken completely off the grid this morning. To compensate for the loss of generating capacity, TEPCO is restarting additional retired thermal (fossil-fueled) plants. Many retired thermal units do not have modern pollution-control systems to remove particulates and carbon from their exhausts. In addition, pulling old thermal plants out of mothballs showed them to be quite unreliable last winter. TEPCO also plans to ask businesses and households to further reduce consumption below the minimum levels currently being experienced. (JAIF)
  • Eiji Hayashida, chairman of the Japan Iron and Steel Federation, says the nation’s society and economy cannot function without nuclear power. He told reporters Friday that once reactor safety is confirmed, the government should give a full explanation to appropriate localities. Without the hard work needed to obtain local understanding, restarts of idled nukes will be difficult or impossible. (NHK World)
  • Two top industry leaders say expansion of nuclear energy is the only realistic way to effectively reduce global warming. Director-general John Rich of the World Nuclear Association (WNA) and Luc Oursel, chief executive of the French nuclear reactor builder Areva, addressed an industry summit in Seoul, South Korea on Friday. Rich said nuclear power is “uniquely able to deliver on a global scale” both energy security and environmental protection. Climate change and the danger it foretells need “nothing less than a global clean-energy revolution. Those with a mind for real-world solutions know that this transformation can be attained only with nuclear power in a central role,” he said. Oursel said that while last year’s disaster raised concerns about the safety of nuclear power, countries around the world have resumed reactor building. A total of 60 new nukes are being built world-wide, which shows that the industry is doing very well. The summit was attended by some 200 experts and leaders from 36 countries to discuss ways to ensure safety and security of nuclear material and nuclear power plants, while safeguarding sensitive nuclear information from terrorists. (Japan Today)
  • Aichi Prefecture has committed to assisting in tsunami debris clean-up. They will build incineration and storage facilities on an artificial island previously used for local industrial waste treatment. Aichi will take up to one-half million tons of debris. “The central government should normally take the initiative in building waste disposal facilities in disaster-hit areas, but it’s not doing anything,” Aichi Gov. Hideaki Omura said at a press conference Saturday. “As Japan’s top industrial prefecture, Aichi wants to do everything it can to contribute to reconstruction.” (Yomiuri Shimbun)
  • Gunma Prefecture’s governor Masaaki Osawa has visited the temporary debris storage site in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. He is personally investigating the possibility of his prefecture assisting in tsunami debris disposal. He also toured a debris treatment site under construction near the storage site. During his visit, Osawa used a dosimeter to measure radiation levels of some of the debris. After the dosimeter showed a reading of 0.05 microsievert per hour, Osawa said: “It’s not an alarming figure. I don’t think there’s any need to be concerned over the risk of radiation.” (Yomiuri Shimbun)
  • Kawauchi Village has resumed regular village office operations in the hope of drawing evacuated residents to return. Kawauchi is located inside the Futaba District which was totally evacuated in March-April, 2011. This is the second municipality inside the evacuation zones to resume services. Shinroku Igari, 82, who came to the office for help with health insurance procedures, said, “It’s nice that there are a lot of people at the office again.” Recent surveys show that radiation levels in the village are very low, but the exact numbers will not be released before April 1 when the new zone designations will be published. So far, 230 of the village’s ~3,000 residents have returned. (Mainichi Shimbun)
  • The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) has compiled a basic plan for training nuclear plant operators to prevent serious accidents beyond anything assumed probable. It calls for general measures at each stage of a severe accident, such as damage to nuclear fuel rods and the release of a large amount of radiation. It also includes measures against risks such as terrorist attacks and aircraft accidents. Government regulators are directed to continuously raise safety requirements to reflect lessons learned from nuclear accidents. This plan will become a basis of the new two-part watchdog organization reporting to the Prime Minister’s cabinet, beginning some time later this spring. (NHK World)