GREG RAY: Beware nuclear village

...One of the many points of interest about  Macfadyen’s story was that, when he arrived in Hawaii, an academic asked him to join a group of racing yachtsmen surveying marine pollution. In particular, the yachtsmen were asked to help monitor plumes of radiation from Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear reactors. (FULL ARTICLE--LINK)

Fukushima Watch: Individual Radiation Monitoring Spurs Debate

...“They want evacuees to go home sooner. Safety is not a priority!” a blog by anti-nuclear organization Protecting Children from Radiation declared. “Individual Monitoring Covers Up Slow Cleanup Progress,” a headline in the Tokyo Shimbun read in the paper’s Thursday’s morning edition. (FULL ARTICLE--LINK)

TEPCO Begins Relocating Fuel At Fukushima Unit 4

The ticklish operations involved in decommissioning Tokyo Electric’s ruined nuclear power plant at Fukushima began on Monday. Workers at the plant began removing unused nuclear fuel from the fourth-floor storage pool at the damaged Reactor Unit 4. As planned, they lowered a special fuel transport container by crane into the storage pool, which holds 1,533 rods of uranium pellets in secondary containment. Careful transferof the first four fuel rods took about three and a half hours.

According to televised reports, teams of six people are working two-hour shifts–the upper limit of allowable radiation exposure–to maneuver the cranes used to move the rods. The container cask can hold 22 units of fuel at a time. The first set of transfers from the pool is either still under way or completed by now. Over the next week, TEPCO employees will move the cask cautiously by truck and place the fuel in a safer and larger ground-level storage pool a short distance away. About 10 iterations of this process will clear the clean fuel rods from Unit 4. (FULL ARTICLE--LINK)

Profit Before Safety: Engineer Exposes Coverup of Reactor Flaw

America’s Fukushima?

...Last year, nuclear scientist Donald H. Alexander, formerly of the DOE, likened Hanford to the doomed 1986 Challenger mission, a disaster arising from an excess of confidence.

Speaking of the cosmos: Some have suggested we launch our nuclear waste into space, to be swallowed by the sun. That may sound insane, but spend a little time sorting through the Hanford morass, and just about anything other than the status quo will seem appealing. (FULL ARTICLE--LINK)

UK nuclear safety review finds 38 cases for improvement Government review concludes UK's nuclear industry is broadly safe but lessons from Fukushima must be implemented

UK nuclear safety review finds 38 cases for improvement

Government review concludes UK's nuclear industry is broadly safe but lessons from Fukushima must be implemented

A review of nuclear safety in the UK has found 38 areas where safety could be improved, in lessons drawn from the Fukushima incident in Japan early this year.

The review, ordered by the government following the Japanese experience, pinpointed critical areas for concern, including risks associated with flooding, the layout of plants, and the state of preparedness for emergencies. Ministers and the relevant regulators will be asked to look at these as a matter of urgency.  (FULL ARTICLE  --LINK)

Fukushima: High-Risk TEPCO Work at Reactor 4 Has Started (Great to date synopsis)

Fukushima: High-Risk TEPCO Work at Reactor 4 Has Started

UPDATE: The process of removing the fuel rods at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan has so far been successful. The first of the 22 rod assemblies planned for removal (which contain unspent fuel) have been removed. See this Bloomberg News article for more. Also in the same article, a description of what “criticality” would mean for Reactor 4, if the spent rods go critical.
________

It’s difficult to get consistent news out of Japan about the Fukushima nuclear plant, but it appears, after a rumored delay on Friday, work at Reactor 4 is now under way.  (FULL ARTICLE--LINK)

Whistleblowers in Jeopardy as Nuclear Industry Looks for Shortcuts

Whistleblowers in Jeopardy as Nuclear Industry Looks for Shortcuts

In sworn testimony in Monroe, Michigan, the NRC admitted that it has stripped whistleblower protection from the licensing of new nuclear power plants. (FULL ARTICLE AND VIDEO-LINK)

Nuclear Energy: Profit Driven Industry “Nuclear Can Be Safe Or It Can Be Cheap … But It Can’t Be Both”

Nuclear Energy: Profit Driven Industry

“Nuclear Can Be Safe Or It Can Be Cheap … But It Can’t Be Both”

Nuclear Power Is Unsafe Because the Operators are Pinching Pennies and Cutting Corners

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen was said in a recent interview that nuclear power can be made safe, but not at a competitive price:

[Interviewer] With air transport, it’s incredibly safe. Could nuclear power ever reach that level of safety?

[Gundersen] I have a friend who says that nuclear can be safe or it can be cheap, but it can’t be both.

***

It boils down to money. If you want to make nuclear safe, it gets to the point where it’s so costly you don’t want to build the power plant anyway … especially now with plummeting renewable costs. (FULL ARTICLE--LINK)

Nuclear Overseers Are “Fake” Agencies Funded and Controlled by the Nuclear Power Industry

Nuclear Overseers Are “Fake” Agencies Funded and Controlled by the Nuclear Power Industry

The Christian Science Monitor noted recently:

Just as the BP oil spill one year ago heaped scrutiny on the United State’s Minerals Management Service, harshly criticized for lax drilling oversight and cozy ties with the oil industry, the nuclear crisis in Japan is shining a light on that nation’s safety practices.

***

[Russian nuclear accident specialist Iouli Andreev, who as director of the Soviet Spetsatom clean-up agency helped in the efforts 25 years ago to clean up Chernobyl ] has also accused the IAEA of being too close with corporations. “This is only a fake organization because every organization which depends on the nuclear industry – and the IAEA depends on the nuclear industry – cannot perform properly.”

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is no better.

As nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, Duane Peterson (president of VPIRG & coordinator for the campaign to retire Vermont Yankee nuclear plant), investigative reporter Harvey Wasserman and Paul Gallay (executive director of Riverkeeper) point out in a roundtable discussion: (FULL ARTICLE--LINK)

TEPCO risks all at Fukushima

TEPCO risks all at Fukushima


..Experts are unanimous that the engineering challenges are on a scale unseen to date, given that the fuel pool was damaged in a fire caused by a cooling failure and a subsequent explosion during the meltdowns. If the fuel rods, some of which may be damaged, come too close to each other, there is a chance that the nuclear
chain reaction would resume, which would be catastrophic in the presence of so much fissile material, as well as extremely difficult to stop. 

If, on the other hand, a fuel rod breaks or is exposed to air and ignites, this would release into the atmosphere a massive amount of radiation, likely necessitating the evacuation of the plant. The total amount of radiation present in the pool is estimated at 14,000 times that released by the atomic bomb dropped at Hiroshima, or about the same as in the combined cores of the three reactors that melted down. 

"[F]ull release from the Unit-4 spent fuel pool, without any containment or control, could cause by far the most serious radiological disaster to date," states The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2013, compiled by two independent nuclear energy consultants. [1]  (FULL ARTICLE--LINK)

TEPCO clean-up boss says Fukushima's radioactive water will be dumped into Pacific Ocean

The man in charge of the clean-up at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant says growing stores of contaminated water from the site will eventually have to be dumped into the sea.

In an exclusive interview with the ABC, the chairman of the Fukushima Monitoring Committee, Dale Klein, has also admitted there are likely to be more blunders and slip-ups at the plant in the months and years to come. (Continued-LINK)

Fukushima fallout damaged thyroid glands of California babies

Fukushima fallout damaged thyroid glands of California babies

A new study finds that radioactive Iodine from Fukushima has caused a significant increase in hypothyroidism among babies in California, 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean.

A new study of the effects of tiny quantities of radioactive fallout from Fukushima on the health of babies born in California shows a significant excess of hypothyroidism caused by the radioactive contamination travelling 5,000 miles across the Pacific. The article will be published next week in the peer-reviewed journal Open Journal of Pediatrics.  (LINK--CONTINUED)

Radiation And Risks At Fukushima

Radiation And Risks At Fukushima

The mess at Fukushima, Japan’s deeply-wounded nuclear plant. It’s worse than we’ve been told. We look at the risks for Japan and the world.

In this photo provided by Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), NRA commissioners inspect storage tanks used to contain radioactive water at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), in Okuma in Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan, Friday, Aug. 23, 2013. (AP/Nuclear Regulation Authority)

What a nightmare at Japan’s deeply wounded Fukushima nuclear power plant.  Two years and counting after the plant was rocked by earthquake and tsunami, it remains a giant, lethal mess on Japan’s northeast coast.

Hundreds of tons of water being pumped through every day to keep it from boiling over.  Hundreds of tons of radioactive water leaking.  A new plan approved today to freeze a huge swath of shore to keep a radioactive river from despoiling the sea.  And it’s always worse than we’re told.

This hour, On Point:  the lethal nuclear mess at Fukushima, and how far it could spread.

- Tom Ashbrook

---LISTEN TO FULL RADIO SHOW HERE---

45 Minutes

UN nuclear experts to revisit Fukushima to review shutdown plan

Vienna (AFP) - UN nuclear experts will visit Japan again next week to review government efforts to shut down the devastated Fukushima nuclear plant and prevent further worrying leaks, the IAEA said Tuesday.

"An IAEA expert team will visit Japan this month at the request of the Japanese government to review the efforts and plans to decommission TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.

The 19-strong mission will take place from November 25 to December 4, it said.

Tokyo has drawn up a long-term roadmap towards decommissioning the Fukushima plant, which saw the world's worst nuclear disaster in a generation when it went into meltdown after being hit by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

"The IAEA mission will assess that plan and, in particular, efforts to manage contaminated water at the accident site and to remove fuel assemblies from the Spent Fuel Pool in Reactor Unit 4, the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog said.

Removing the fuel rods is a tricky operation but essential in decommissioning the complex, which is expected to take decades. (CONTINUED--LINK)

Fukushima nuclear disaster is warning to the world, says power company boss

Exclusive: UK government must learn from Japan's catastrophe as it plans a new generation of plant, nuclear chief claims

• Simon Tisdall in Tokyo
• The Guardian, Tuesday 19 November 2013 13.10 EST
• Jump to comments (452)

An aerial image of reactors 3 and 4 at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station as decommissioning work continues. Photograph: The Asahi Shimbun/Getty

The catastrophic triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011 was "a warning to the world" about the hazards of nuclear power and contained lessons for the British government as it plans a new generation of nuclear power stations, the man with overall responsibility for the operation in Japan has told the Guardian.

Speaking at his Tokyo corporate headquarters , Naomi Hirose, president of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the stricken Fukushima plant, said Britain's nuclear managers "should be prepared for the worst" in order to avoid repeating Japan's traumatic experience. "We tried to persuade people that nuclear power is 100% safe. That was easy for both sides. Our side explains how safe nuclear power is. The other side is the people who listen and for them it is easy to hear OK, it's safe, sure, why not?

"But we have to explain, no matter how small a possibility, what if this [safety] barrier is broken? We have to prepare a plan if something happens … It is easy to say this is almost perfect so we don't have to worry about it. But we have to keep thinking: what if …"

British ministers recently agreed a commercial deal with the French state-owned energy company EDF Energy to build the UK's first new nuclear reactor in a generation at Hinkley Point in Somerset. The agreement included the UK government providing accident insurance.

Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi facility on the coast about 124 miles (200km) north-east of Tokyo, comprising six nuclear reactors, was hit by a giant tsunami with waves peaking at 17 metres high caused by the Great East Japan earthquake on 11 March 2011. In what quickly became one of the world's worst nuclear disasters, operators lost control of the plant when the power supply, including emergency back-up, failed amid massive flooding. As cooling systems malfunctioned, reactors 1, 2 and 3 suffered meltdowns.

Reactor 4 was closed for routine maintenance at the time. But one of several hydrogen explosions blew the walls and roof off the reactor building. This week a delicate and lengthy operation to remove fuel rods from that reactor began.

Radiation leakage following the explosions forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from the surrounding area. An exclusion zone roughly 11 miles by 19 miles remains in force around the plant two and half years later. The entire facility is now being decommissioned, but Tepco's clean-up, which has been strongly criticised by environmentalists, is expected to take up to 40 years.

Hirose said that although the situation facing Fukushima Daiichi on 11 March was exceptional, measures could have been adopted in advance that might have mitigated the impact of the disaster. Tepco was at fault for failing to take these steps, he said.

"After I became president [in 2012], we formed a nuclear safety review committee. We focused mainly on what we could do, what we could learn. We had a lot of data by then. Three other reports, one from the Diet [Japan's parliament], one from government. We had a lot of information. Tepco's own report, too. We concluded that we should have avoided that catastrophic accident, and we could have. We could see what we should have done."

Preventative measures included fitting waterproof seals on all the doors in the reactor building, or placing an electricity-generating turbine on the facility's roof, where the water might not have reached it. In addition, wrong assumptions were made, he said.

"I don't know if I could have seen or thought this before the accident … Probably I assumed that people had discussed counter-measures to avoid a huge tsunami by something very special like a complete shutdown."

It transpired that the huge cost and technical complexity of a multiple shutdown, in what was considered the unlikely event of an abnormally large tsunami, had led managers to discount such a scenario as implausible and inefficient, he said.

"What happened at Fukushima was, yes, a warning to the world," he said. The resulting lesson was clear: "Try to examine all the possibilities, no matter how small they are, and don't think any single counter-measure is foolproof. Think about all different kinds of small counter-measures, not just one big solution. There's not one single answer.  (LINK)

Removal of nuclear fuel begins at Fukushima (ADDITIONAL REPORT)

Removal of nuclear fuel begins at Fukushima

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has begun removing nuclear fuel from a storage pool at a damaged reactor building.

Workers placed a special fuel transport container in the storage pool of the Number 4 reactor building.

The pool holds 1,533 units of nuclear fuel, of which 1,331 are highly radioactive spent fuel. The rest are unused.

At around 3PM on Monday, the workers started to hoist the unused fuel units into the steel container, which can store 22 units of fuel. The utility decided to remove these units first as they do not release high levels of radiation and heat. A TEPCO official said that the first fuel unit was moved into the container by 4PM, and that the workers had encountered no problems.

The first 22 units will be transferred into the container through Monday night. (continued) (LINK)

TEPCO starts removing fuel from Fukushima No. 4 pool

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant started a yearlong mission Monday to remove fuel from a pool at a damaged reactor building, in a move to address one of the major hazards remaining at the accident-stricken plant.

While the process of removing fuel assemblies from the spent fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor unit is a milestone toward the decommissioning of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima plant, the work will require careful attention so as not to result in another radiation-leaking incident.

The Nos. 1 to 4 units lost their cooling systems during the 2011 nuclear crisis, as huge quake-triggered tsunami waves knocked out most of the emergency diesel power generators at the site.

The No. 4 unit suffered damage to the building due to a hydrogen explosion, but avoided a reactor meltdown, unlike the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors, as all of its fuel was stored in the spent fuel pool due to the reactor undergoing periodic maintenance work at that time.

However, the condition of the spent fuel pool on the highest floor of the crumbling building was a major source of concern in the early days of the crisis, as the water level was suspected to have dropped low enough to expose the fuel. TEPCO later said the fuel of the No. 4 unit was unlikely to have sustained major damage.

To ensure radioactive substances will not spread outside during the fuel removal work, TEPCO has created a huge cover, supported by steel frames, to blanket the reactor building.  (CONTINUED) (LINK)

Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant begins fuel rod removal

The delicate operation is seen as a necessary step in stabilising the site.

It will take about two days to remove the first 22 fuel rod assemblies, plant operator Tepco says.

Overall, more than 1,500 assemblies must be be removed in what correspondents describe as a risky and dangerous operation set to take a year.

Experts say hydrogen explosions after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 have made the current storage facility vulnerable to further tremors.

The fuel rod assemblies are four-metre long tubes containing pellets of uranium fuel, and the fear is that some may have been damaged during the disaster.

Removing fuel rods

• The fuel rods - 4m-long tubes containing pellets of uranium fuel - are in a precarious state in the Unit Four storage pool
• The rod assemblies will be lifted out in batches of 22 in casks filled with water, using a crane - each batch will take 7-10 days
• Two critical issues are whether the rods were damaged during the disaster and so are likely to leak, and whether the casks remain watertight so the rods have no contact with air
• The fuel rods will be deposited into a new "common" pool with a cooling system

• (continued)  (LINK)

Operator at Japan's Fukushima starts hazardous year-long fuel removal

TOKYO (Reuters) - The operator of Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant took the first step on Monday in the long and hazardous process of decommissioning the facility, extracting four fuel rods from their container for later removal.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, known as Tepco, said it transferred the rods to a steel cask within the same cooling pool in a badly damaged reactor building, beginning the delicate and unprecedented task of removing 400 tonnes of highly irradiated spent fuel from that reactor.

"We will continue with the work from tomorrow and proceed, paying close attention to safety," Tepco said in a statement.

While battling leaks of radiation-contaminated water around the plant, which was knocked out by Japan's mammoth March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Tepco has embarked on decommissioning four reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. That task is likely to take decades and cost tens of billions of dollars.

The company must carefully pluck more than 1,500 brittle and potentially damaged assemblies from the unstable reactor No. 4. Tepco estimates that removing all the rods from the reactor will take a year, although some experts say that is an ambitious target.

The cask holds 22 rods. Transferring this first batch will take about two days and it will take about a week to get the cask to the common storage pool in another building, a Tepco spokesman said.

Moving them is urgent because they are being stored 18 metres (59 feet) above ground level in a building that has buckled and tilted and could collapse if another quake strikes. (continued)  (LINK)

Remove TEPCO Before Removing Fuel

Remove TEPCO Before Removing Fuel

Remove TEPCO Before Removing Fuel

Fairewinds has fielded a number of questions regarding the removal of the fuel rods from the spent fuel pool in Unit 4 at Fukushima Daiichi. Today’s video shows Arnie debunking TEPCO’s animated film point by point, and highlights the issues TEPCO will have removing the fuel rods. TEPCO needs to be removed as the organization overseeing the cleanup of the site prior to the removal of the fuel rods.

Nuclear watchdog describes Fukushima contaminated water leaks as a 'state of emergency'

Mark Willacy

Source: AM | Duration: 2min 59sec

Topics: nuclear-accident, nuclear-issues, japan

Transcript

TONY EASTLEY: As the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant struggles to plug leaks of radioactive water, workers at the plant have told the ABC that contaminated water has most likely been seeping into the sea ever since the disaster two-and-a-half years ago.

Japan's nuclear watchdog has described the leaks as a "state of emergency".

Workers have told AM they don't have much faith in TEPCO's ability to handle the situation and they claim another accident is inevitable.

The workers gave our North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy a rare insight into the working conditions at the plant.

MARK WILLACY: Fujimoto-san is 56 years old, and the proud grandfather of two young boys. But he has to hide his real job from them, because Fujimoto-san fears they'll shun him if he tells them he's a decontamination worker at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

"We work at the most dangerous place in Japan," Fujimoto-san tells me. "Not only that, I work 12 hour shifts and only get paid 11,000 yen," he says.

That's $125 a shift, or $10 an hour for working inside the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

And if TEPCO caught Fujimoto-san speaking to me, he'd pay a much higher price than that.

"If TEPCO knew I was meeting with you, I'd be fired for sure. Speaking out is an act of suicide," he says.

I'm meeting Fujimoto-san after one of his 12 hour shifts, and I want to know how TEPCO is faring at trying to stop the leak of 300 tonnes of radioactive groundwater every day.

Fujimoto-san just shakes his head.

"Steam came out of the Reactor 3 building the other day," he tells me. "When it came out, TEPCO didn't even tell us. I found out about it on the TV news after I got home from work," he says.

Fujimoto-san isn't the only nuclear worker who believes TEPCO is struggling to cope with the crisis at the Fukushima plant.

Suzuki-san is a 12-year TEPCO veteran and a former Fukushima site foreman, and he says the leaks of contaminated water into the Pacific are nothing new.

"I believe it's been leaking into the ocean from the start of the crisis two-and-a-half years ago," Suzuki-san tells me. "TEPCO probably knew this but did nothing because they didn't want to cause an outcry," he says.

While many in Japan worry about another disaster at the Fukushima plant, the welfare of workers there isn't often raised.

And for proud grandfather Fujimoto-san, there's a nagging fear that something could go wrong at any time.

"There are still reactor buildings we haven't gotten into yet," he tells me. "So there's always the possibility of another explosion, and if that were to happen, we - the workers - would be the first victims. I fear that a lot," he says.

Our interview over, Fujimoto-san peels off his work overalls; he's heading to his grandkid's house and he doesn't want his secret to slip out.

This is Mark Willacy in Fukushima for AM.