March 24, 2014

Mar 24, 2014 | Fukushima Accident Updates

  • Tepco announced that 528 fuel bundles have been successfully removed from #4 spent fuel pool. This is out of a total of 1533 that were in the pool before the operation began last year. To date, more than a third of the bundles have been transferred without incident. Unfortunately, the Japanese Press chooses not to report this good news and Tepco has not issued a Press release on the 33% milestone. http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/decommision/index-e.html
  • Separating the actual from the fantasy with Fukushima reports have Japanese scratching their heads. One researcher calls it playing “whack-a-mole” with hoaxes and misunderstandings. The Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan says, “Oddly, most of these recent stories seem to originate in the U.S., where mistrust of government in some circles has made people vulnerable to all sorts of fantastic and implausible conspiracy theories.” The FCCJ lists a number of “the most egregious ‘moles’ that have burrowed their way through the mediasphere and deserve a good whacking.” These include many of the prophecies of doom I’ve hammered in my Fukushima Commentaries, including numerous apocalyptic fantasies, “radioactive” California beaches, and the myth of spent fuel bundles burning.  http://www.fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun/item/301-the-fukushima-follies/301-the-fukushima-follies.html
  • Tepco has received another $660 million from the government to cover compensation payments to Fukushima evacuees for April. This brings the total that has been loaned to the company by the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund to $36.2 billion. http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/2014/1234970_5892.html
  • Some Fukushima fishermen accept Tepco’s groundwater bypass plan. Somafutaba Fisheries Cooperative has tentatively approved Tepco’s plan to release uncontaminated groundwater to the sea. It is expected to be formally approved at the regional Fukushima Prefectural Fisheries Cooperative on Tuesday. While the cooperative leaders expressed continued safety concerns, they agreed that there is nothing to gain by continuing to be disobliging. The Cooperative has included nine conditions for the discharges, including accurate consumer information and continuance of damages compensation to the fishermen. The Cooperative of Iwaki City has already approved Tepco’s plan. While awaiting fisheries’ approval, Tepco has dug twelve groundwater wells to the west side of the Fukushima Daiichi complex, upstream from the damaged buildings and wastewater storage tanks. The company says they can pump up 1,000 tons of uncontaminated ground water per day out of each well. The waters will be temporarily stored in unused tanks on-site, tested, and released once the tank’s contents are proven to be uncontaminated. It is anticipated that this plan will reduce groundwater flow into the four contaminated units’ basements by 100 tons per day. NHK World; Fukushima fishermen to accept water release plan; March 24, 2014 – NHK World; Details of groundwater bypass plan; March 24, 1024
  • The ALPS wastewater isotopic removal system has been restarted. Tepco resumed full operation on two of the three parallel units today. The operation of all three channel streams was halted last week when the B unit’s outlet activity suddenly showed a significant increase. The two unaffected channels were stopped as a precaution. The problematic line remains closed. Tepco continues to plan for full, continual operation of ALPS in April. NHK World; ALPS resumes partial operation after 6-day halt; March 24, 2014
  • Another community inside the 20km “no-go” zone will be allowed overnight home stays. Beginning April 26, residents of a portion of Kawauchi Town inside the evacuation zone can go home and stay all night. Currently, the government only allows them to return during the day. The relaxation of the restriction will affect ~300 people from more than 150 households (the exact number varies with the news source), and will last for three months before removing all further limits on the residents who agree to take advantage of the decision. The government says decontamination of the affected district is complete and radiation levels are low enough to relax restrictions. This is the second such restriction-easing inside the exclusion zone. The first was a part of neighboring Tamura City at the beginning of February. All remaining limits on the Tamura residents will be removed April 1.  http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2014/03/280746.html — NHK World; Fukushima villagers allowed to stay home overnight; March 23, 2014
  • A new device for compacting rural radioactive flora and fauna has been created. Osaka Prefecture’s Kinki University and a local machinery manufacturer have developed a device to compress plants, including trees, to one-tenth of their original volume. The mobile unit promises to greatly reduce the volume of debris generated by decontamination of rural areas in Fukushima Prefecture. This will also lower the number of trucks needed to move debris to temporary storage facilities. In May, the device will be demonstrated in Kawamata Town using uncontaminated plants. http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001148239 — http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2014032200220
  • The low level radioactive waste issue is emerging in Japan. On Friday, the National Resources and Energy Agency announced that the decommissioning of all currently-idled nukes would produce nearly 500,000 cubic meters of low level waste material. This would be in addition to all spent fuel bundles that would have to be disposed as high level waste. According to the Japan Times, the low level waste must be buried and “kept apart from residential settlements for up to 400 years.” The most hazardous materials, including dismantled reactor pressure vessels and control rods, must be buried at least 50 meters beneath the surface for the 400 year period. This is designated as L1 waste and would account for more than 7,600 m3 of the total. L2 waste, including filter media and some waste fluids, would total about 95,000 m3, and L3 would be about 393,000 m3. L1 would be the most radioactive of the three groupings and L3 would be the least. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/22/national/nuclear-waste-buildup-relentless/#.Uy22G6NOUdU  (comment – The Times article fails to mention that L3 materials are also produced by medical, research and university facilities.)
  • The mud at the bottom of some Fukushima dams and reservoirs are high in radioactive Cesium. The Agricultural Ministry says that 568 of 1,940 bottoms exceed 8,000 Becquerels per kilogram. 108 are inside the Fukushima exclusion zone and 460 are outside. One reservoir 58 kilometers from F. Daiichi has the highest reading at 370,000 Bq/kg. It is felt the radioactive material was carried to the water bodies by rain runoff, then it precipitated out. None of the agricultural locations using waters from the water bodies have rice or other produce exceeding Japan’s strict contamination limits. Officials say the only risk of radiation exposure is if the bodies of water dry up and expose the bottom mud to the air. The water in the dams and reservoirs effectively shield the radiation emitted by the bottom muds. NHK World; Radiation high in Fukushima reservoirs; March 23, 2014
  • Greenpeace says children in Fukushima should not be allowed to exercise in playgrounds without wearing facemasks. Greenpeace’s Japanese director Kumi Naidoo says the group’s surveys showed “radiation levels in Fukushima showed they were at dangerously high levels and that the decontamination work being done was not enough.” Naidoo also chastised the government for enacting a national security law, reducing “press freedom” for the second year in a row, and allegedly ignoring a petition with 19,000 signatures calling for not restarting any idled nukes. He concludes, “This leaves Japan’s government, and therefore the country, open to energy risks; risks that are not worth taking again and are unfounded.” He closed his guest editorial in Kyodo News with a provocative assertion, “Japan should not be a playground where politicians toy with nuclear energy.” http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2014/03/281010.html (comment – please keep in mind that Greenpeace believes that even the tiniest levels of radiation are “dangerously high”. Further, Naidoo neglects to acknowledge that the national security law only impacts the security system around nuke plants to protect them from unscrupulous groups like Greenpeace. Further, the mentioned petition was not ignored – in fact, it delayed the release of the national energy policy so that it could be revised to say that nukes should be eventually eliminated from Japan. He also ignored the fact that the nuclear moratorium has caused catastrophic harm to Japan’s balance of trade so much that the economy is in jeopardy. But such is the informational cherry-picking nature of groups like Greenpeace which are unconditionally bigoted against nuclear energy.)