October 23, 2014

Oct 23, 2014 | Fukushima Accident Updates

  • Tokyo sent another $880 million to Tepco for evacuee compensation payments. The money came from the government’s Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation. Tepco recently submitted its 33rd request for compensation funds because there were not enough funds remaining to make anticipated disbursements through the end of November. The amount sent to Tepco by the NDF, to date, has been $43.76 billion. http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/2014/1243341_5892.html
  • Tepco demands that a woman repay $90,000 of her compensation monies. The 21-year-old had planned on going to college before the nuclear accident. She was among the residents forced to evacuate from the exclusion zone around F. Daiichi by government mandate. She enrolled in a Kanto nursing school in April of 2011, and made that her legal residence. She graduated this past spring. Tepco says she decided to enter the college before the nuclear accident, and her period of evacuation ended when she changed her address. In June, her family received a notice to return nearly all of the money for mental anguish, the cost of evacuation, and household effects payments made since she changed her residence. Her family went to Tepco to protest, and Tepco said they would crunch the numbers again. The final bill was received by the family in September. The woman believes she has been wronged and says, “I have no prospects of being able to return home, and my psychological pain continues.” The Education Ministry’s office on measures for nuclear damage compensation says that, in general, if a person can’t return home, then their period of evacuation does not end because of academic advancement. However, the nuclear damage response office within the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy under the Industry Ministry says this is a borderline case in defining whether or not compensation is warranted. http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20141023p2a00m0na013000c.html
  • The dismantling of unit #1’s temporary cover has started. The huge structure was erected some three years ago to stop the outflow of radioactive material into the atmosphere. F. Daiichi staff has begun drilling holes in the cover in order to spray in anti-dispersal chemicals. At the end of October, part of the cover’s roof will be removed to find out if radioactive dust is released. Data from surrounding atmospheric monitors will be posted on the Tepco website. When debris was removed from unit #3, locals feared that dust was stirred up and contaminated rice paddies outside the exclusion zone. The unit #1 cover removal has been delayed since July to insure this doesn’t happen with its debris removal.  http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20141022_16.html — http://photo.tepco.co.jp/en/date/2014/201410-e/141022-01e.html (Images of drilling the first hole)
  • The second pair of nukes to restart appears to be Takahama units #3&4. Both are Pressurized Water Reactor systems rated at 870 MWe. Unit #3 began using MOX (mixed oxide) fuel in 2011. MOX contains several percent fissionable Plutonium, in addition to fissionable uranium recovered through the recycling (reprocessing) of used nuclear fuel bundles. Station owner Kansai Electric Co. says they will submit completed tsunami calculations to the Nuclear Regulation Authority as early as next week, making it the most probable restart site after the Sendai nukes resume operation. The NRA has already cleared Takahama for earthquake structural integrity, and the upgraded tsunami data appears to be the only open technical issue remaining. Takahama is located on the Sea of Japan in Fukui Prefecture, more than 200 kilometers west of Tokyo and 5km from the Oi station which is home to the last two nukes to operate in the country. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclear.html
  • The adoption of a petition to restart the Sendai nukes has caused enough local debate to attract Japan’s Press. Many residents support the Satsumasendai assembly decision. One positive comment came from a woman who says the station is a pillar of the local economy. Another resident adds that Japan needs a steady power supply, and that he has toured the Sendai facility and was impressed with the attention to safety. Contrary opinions have also been posted. An elderly woman says officials should take more care so that future generations can live without worries. Another woman says the city assembly has acted too hastily and has not taken the feelings of other Fukui communities into account. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20141020_45.html
  • New Industry Minister Yoichi Miyazawa tries to avoid the local Sendai restart issue. He said it is not up to him to say what constitutes local community approval, and that “it is best decided themselves”. There are no laws or regulations to determine the matter. The host city, Satsumasendai, has been besieged by other communities around the plant site since the assembly’s decision. Two municipalities within 30 kilometers of the station submitted safety concerns to Satsumasendai in the form of 10 petitions, but the city’s Assembly rejected them. Miyazawa says his main concern is implementing responsible energy policy, but e does not believe he should intercede in local community disputes. Miyazawa recently replaced Ms. Yuko Obuchi after she resigned due to concerns about her use of funds from political supporter’s groups. http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/10/21/japan-industry-minister-leaves-key-term-unclear-in-nuclear-debate/
  • Tepco has begun “hot testing” of its new, improved water purification system. It is a “high performance” version of the pre-existing ALPS systems, and will process about 500 tons per day. When all three systems are operating, F. Daiichi will have a capacity of 2,000 tons per day. The new ALPS will be able to remove all radioactive isotopes to below detectability, including Strontium-90, except for non-hazardous Tritium. The hot tests will run contaminated water through the technology for six hours per day, increasing the duration of operation to 24 hr/day by next week. Also, the new ALPS will produce 90% less radioactive waste material than the two other systems. So far, 158,000 tons of wastewater has been processed by the two prior ALPS systems. For a detailed links explaining all three ALPS systems at F. Daiichi, go to… http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/2014/1243241_5892.html
  • Prosecutors must decide on criminal charges against Tepco executives by Friday. Legal experts say the judicial review is unlikely to send the executives to jail, but rehashing the nuke accident could amplify distrust of Tepco and damage Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s effort to restart Japan’s nuclear reactors. Last year, Tokyo’s prosecutor’s declined a criminal complaint filed by Japanese residents who said Tepco failed to protect the public. But, a citizen’s review panel reopened the complaint under the notion of criminal negligence. To date, there have been many civil complaints filed against Tepco, and legally rejected. This is the first one to have been reopened. Shin Ushijima, an attorney and former public prosecutor, said, “Prosecutors exhaust all means in their investigations and certainly would have in a special case like this, so if they were convinced they could not prosecute [former Tepco Chairman] Katsumata and the others earlier, they will not reach a decision to indict now. There is a 50 percent chance that some or all of the three ex-Tepco executives will be indicted and 99.9 percent chance those indicted will be found not guilty.” http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/22/us-japan-nuclear-prosecution-idUSKCN0IB05H20141022?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
  • Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi says Japan’s nuke regulations are not the best in the world. He told a Tokyo symposium, “The government says Japan has the world’s toughest safety standards for nuclear plants, but are they really tough compared with the United States, France or Finland? Not at all.” He added that the public will not cooperate in finding a final disposal site for nuclear waste unless Tokyo guarantees a total nuclear abandonment so as “not to increase nuclear waste any more.” This marks a major departure from Koizumi’s previous, albeit unsuccessful, attempts at criticizing PM Shinzo Abe’s regime. Now, he is attacking the Nuclear Regulation Authority, which Tokyo touts as having the toughest nuke safety standards in the world. http://www.4-traders.com/KYUSHU-ELECTRIC-POWER-COM-6491331/news/Kyushu-Electric-Power–Ex-PM-Koizumi-raps-Abes-aim-to-revive-nuclear-power-19236052/