Updates
Russia Will Help Japan Clean Up Fukushima Disaster
Russian President Putin made the announcement at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Sept 7.
“Officials say the decommissioning of the wrecked Fukushima reactors will take several decades, and according to some estimates, the cost could reach $200 billion.”
Navy Families Sue Fukushima Operators for Wrongful Death
Families of five Navy service members who died after responding to the Fukushima nuclear meltdown have sued Tokyo Electric Power Co., blaming the deaths on radiation illnesses contracted from the March 2011 disaster.
The families will join a lawsuit from 152 other members or survivors of members of the 7th Fleet who performed humanitarian response from March 11, 2011 until March 14, when the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier was moved away from Fukushima due to detection of nuclear radiation in the air and on helicopters returning to the ship.
Fukushima Robot Finds Potential Fuel Debris Hanging Like Icicles in Reactor Three
TEPCO plans to decide on the procedure for removing the melted fuel from each unit this summer; it will confirm the procedure for the first reactor during fiscal 2018 ending in March 2019, with removal slated to begin in 2021. Decommissioning the reactors will cost $72 billion.
Fishermen Express Fury as Fukushima Plant Set to Release Radioactive Material into Ocean
777,000 tons stored in 580 tanks at the Fukushima plant, which is quickly running out of space… Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, has been urging Tepco to release the water. Tepco chief Kawamura says he feels emboldened to have the support of the NRA chairman.
Despite the objections of local fishermen, the tritium-tainted water stored at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant will be dumped into the sea, a top official at Tokyo Electric says.
“Astoundingly High” Radiation Levels Detected at Fukushima Unit 2
The radiation level in the containment vessel of reactor two has reached as high as 530 sieverts per hour, Tokyo Electric Power Co, or Tepco as it’s known, said last week.
Are levels rising?
Azby Brown reporting on Safecast’s website, February 4th:
No, radiation levels at Fukushima Daiichi are not rising
“It must be stressed that radiation in this area has not been measured before, and it was expected to be extremely high. While 530 Sv/hr is the highest measured so far at Fukushima Daiichi, it does not mean that levels there are rising, but that a previously unmeasurable high-radiation area has finally been measured. Similar remote investigations are being planned for Daiichi Units 1 and 3. We should not be surprised if even higher radiation levels are found there, but only actual measurements will tell.” (see more at Safecast)
Feb. 8, Denver Post: Could the radiation level be even higher? Possibly. The 530 sievert reading was recorded some distance from the melted fuel, so in reality it could be 10 times higher than recorded, said Hideyuki Ban, co-director of Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center.
Playing Pass the Parcel With Fukushima
“The defilement of Fukushima wasn’t just the result of a natural catastrophe. It was also the aftermath of a manmade disaster caused by a slapdash approach to nuclear safety. Five years on, the Japanese government isn’t handling these issues any more responsibly.”
Read more at Peter Wynn Kirby, NYTimes OpEd
High Radiation Forcing a Rethink of Robot Strategy
TEPCO and its network of partner companies at Fukushima Daiichi have yet to identify the location and condition of melted fuel in the three most seriously damaged reactors. Removing it safely represents a challenge unprecedented in the history of nuclear power. Quantities of melted fuel are believed to have accumulated at the bottom of the damaged reactors’ containment vessels, but dangerously high radiation has prevented engineers from accurately gauging the state of the fuel deposits.
TEPCO is now worried that the scorpion robot will not be able to reach the space beneath the pressure vessel, and like its predecessor, will not be able to work for very long in the damaged plant (the scorpion is designed to handle 1,000 total sieverts). The high level of radiation may force TEPCO, a nationally-owned company, to rethink its robot-based strategy for locating the molten fuel. The firm is currently in the early stages of a cleanup that’s expected to last decades. Until TEPCO knows the precise location of the melted fuel, and until it’s able to ascertain the structural damage in each of the three reactors affected, the company won’t be able to decommission the plant and remove the fuel.