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March 5, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Japan to Delay Ocean Dumping of Contaminated Waste Water from Fukushima

By John LaForge

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno announced in January that his government would delay its plan to pump over 1.37 million tons of watery radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean from the devastated six-reactor complex at Fukushima-Daiichi. With the country facing harsh international pressure to cancel the dumping, Matsuno acknowledged “the need to gain public support,” for the plan, the Associated Press reported January 12. The wicked water is now being collected in large tanks that were hastily built near the wrecked reactors.

Fierce criticism of the deliberate pollution scheme has come from China, South Korea, other Pacific Rim countries, scientists, environmental groups, UN human rights experts, and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), an alliance of 17 Pacific island nations. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also indicated that the government wants a postponement of the dumping operation — designed by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) — until it is “verifiably safe to do so,” Thomas Heaton reported February 16 for Civil Beat.

The PIF, independent states where according to Reuters up to half of the world’s tuna is sourced, was crucial in forcing Japan’s apparent retreat. The PIF warned that contaminating the Pacific could harm the fishing that its economies depend on. Mary Yamaguchi reported January 12 for the AP: “Some scientists say the impact of long-term, low-dose exposure to tritium and other radionuclides on the environment and humans is still unknown and the release plan should be delayed. They say tritium affects humans more when it is consumed in fish.” A scientific expert panel assembled by the PIF urged reconsideration of the dumping “because it was not supported by data and more information was needed,” Ken Buesseler, with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said in January.

Japan announced in April 2021 that it would allow Tepco to pump the nearly 1.4 million tons of liquid radioactive waste into the public commons of the Pacific Ocean beginning in spring 2023. Tepco says it intends dilute the material and pump it into the sea for the next 30 to 40 years using an underground tunnel now under construction. Media attention has focused on the tritium (radioactive hydrogen) in the waste water which cannot be removed by Tepco’s (failed) filtering system, and has generally ignored mention of the long-lived carbon-14 in the water, which likewise cannot be removed.

Often unreported about the plan is the failure of Tepco’s waste water filer system, dubbed the “Advanced Liquid Processing System,” which has not removed the dozens of long-lived radioactive substances — including ruthenium, cobalt-60, strontium-90, cesium-137, and even plutonium – that the company said it would filter.

The water becomes radioactively contaminated (150 tons more every day) after being poured over hundreds of tons of melted, ferociously radioactive uranium — and in reactor #3 plutonium — fuel, the hot wreckage amassed deep inside the foundations of the three destroyed nuclear reactors, units 1, 2 and 3. All three suffered catastrophic meltdowns following the Great Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. Some of the contaminated waste is groundwater reaches the melted fuel after pouring through cracks in the reactors’ foundations caused by the earthquake. Dr. Buesseler Science magazine in 2020, “Many other isotopes are in those tanks still, and over 70 percent [of 1.37 million tons] would have to be cleaned up further before they might consider even releasing….”

Moreover, reactor 3 which was packed with “mixed oxide” fuel made of combined uranium and plutonium, suffered a huge hydrogen explosion at 11 a.m. on March 14, and Tepco announced that on March 21 and 22, in soil collected on the Fukushima site, plutonium was detected. Hydrogen explosions also caused severe damage to reactors 1 and 2, and to the waste fuel pool of reactor 4. (Three additional hydrogen explosions caused severe damage: to reactor 1 on March 11, and to reactor 2 and to the waste fuel pool of reactor 4 on March 15.)

In April 2021, Cindy Folkers, a radiation and health hazards specialist at Beyond Nuclear in Maryland, told Brett Wilkins of Common Dreams, “TEPCO data show that even twice-through filtration leaves the water 13.7 times more concentrated with hazardous tritium — radioactive hydrogen — than Japan’s allowable standard for ocean dumping, and about one million times higher than the concentration of natural tritium in Earth’s surface waters.”

Secretary Matsuno said in his January statement that the delayed dumping plan “includes enhanced efforts to ensure safety.” This vague reassurance comes from the same authorities that caused the triple meltdown and consequently the worst radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean in history; it follows two years of iron-clad declarations from Tepco and government regulators that contaminating the ocean will be safe. The plan to add more radioactive poisons to the Pacific in order to save money has also been approved by the U.S. government and the UN International Atomic Energy Agency. ###

— Used by Counterpunch, March 3, 2023, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/03/japan-to-delay-ocean-dumping-of-contaminated-waste-water-from-fukushima/

 

Filed Under: Environment, Environmental Justice, Fukushima, Nuclear Power, Radiation Exposure, Weekly Column

January 22, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Fukushima’s Endless Crisis

By John LaForge
PhotoCredit:https://www.base.bund.de/EN/ns/accidents/fukushima/fukushima_node.html

International Objections to Japan’s Plan to
Dump Contaminated Wastewater in the Ocean

China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian has again urged Japan “to respond to the legitimate concerns of all relevant parties,” Telesur English (Venezuela) news reported November 11. Speaking April 23, 2021, Zhao Lijian had outlined China’s objections:

“As a close neighbor and stakeholder, the Chinese side expresses grave concern over this. The Fukushima accident is one of the most serious in world history. The leak of large amounts of radioactive materials has had far-reaching implications on the marine environment, food safety, and human health. Despite doubts and opposition from home and abroad, Japan has unilaterally decided to release the Fukushima wastewater into the sea before exhausting all safe ways of disposal. … This is highly irresponsible and will severely affect human health and the immediate interests of people in neighboring countries.”

Meanwhile on December 9, the Pacific Alliance of Municipal Councils’ meeting on Saipan adopted a resolution condemning “the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant and the Japanese government’s 30-year

plan to release approximately 1.1 [to 1.27] million tons (527,578 gallons per year for 30 years) of treated nuclear waste water into the Pacific Ocean.”

Environment Ministry to Experiment
with Dispersing Contaminated Soil

In Japan’s experimental trial-and-error mission to recover from the March 2011 reactor meltdowns, millions of tons of radioactively contaminated soil and debris — scraped up from surrounding lands and collected in 1-ton bags — have reportedly been “decontaminated.”

Japan’s daily Asahi Shimbun on December 7, reports that “the volume of decontaminated soil in Fukushima Prefecture … is about 14 million cubic meters.” Japan’s public TV network NHK reported December 9, “Soil exposed to radioactive fallout from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been decontaminated,” but neither report explained how or where the soil was decontaminated. Japan’s Environment Ministry has decided to experimentally use some of this waste soil — “which still contains low-level radioactive substances” — as a way “to reduce that volume before disposal.”

The plan is to use some of the waste in lawns, parking lots, and flower beds. The ministry reportedly promised that “tests will be conducted to verify changes in radiation doses in the air.” Radioactivity spread by rainfall to surface water or ground water was not mentioned in the news report. The story notes that the contaminated soil measuring less than “8,000 becquerels per kilogram … will be used in the trial runs.” The “becquerel” is a measure of radioactivity usually regarding the presence of cesium-137 which was dispersed in large amounts by the disaster.

Filed Under: Environment, Fukushima, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radioactive Waste

January 22, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Dangerous Nuclear Fantasies: Bill Gates and Techno-fix Delusions

Melted core of Experimental Breeder molten sodium reactor, Idaho, Nov. 29, 1955. In 2018, TerraPower reached a cooperation agreement with China’s National Nuclear Corporation to form a joint venture to co-develop the Traveling Wave Reactor, which is also a liquid sodium-cooled reactor like the failed one above. (Reddit)

Editor’s note: The excerpts below, edited for space, are reprinted from the article by M.V. Ramana and Cassandra Jeffery in the Sept/Oct 2022 issue of Against the Current. To read the full article with footnotes visit https://againstthecurrent.org/atc220/bill-gates-and-techno-fix-delusions/.

Bill Gates and TerraPower
[Bill Gates’ firm] TerraPower was founded in 2006, and Gates continues to serve as Chairman of the Board. The company has funded the development of three different nuclear reactor designs through a mix of venture capitalist investments from fellow billionaires, engineering and manufacturing corporations in the energy and military sector, and government grants. The company has research and development partnerships with the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex, both of which design and test nuclear weapons. In 2010, the company received $35 million from venture capital firms to develop the first of its “Traveling Wave” reactor[s] (TWR). In 2016, the firm received a $40 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE), followed by another $80 million in 2020, and $8.5 million in 2022. In 2021, [DOE’s] Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations … set aside $2.5 billion for nuclear projects and some of this funding will subsidize the TerraPower nuclear project. [Though TerraPower’s financial records are not available], government support [seems to] add up to nearly as much as private investment and almost certainly more than Gates has personally invested.

Technical Problems

TerraPower has three different reactor designs: the Natrium reactor; the molten chloride fast reactor; and the TWR. All of them are based on old reactor designs vexed with major problems. As its name suggests, the [molten chloride fast] reactor uses nuclear materials dissolved in molten chemical salts … so the inside of the reactor will be a chemically corrosive and highly radioactive environment. The last one to be built [in Oakridge, Tennessee] … operated intermittently from 1965 to 1969, and [was] interrupted [by] 225 [shutdowns] in those four years, only 58 [of which] were planned. Both the TWR and the Natrium use molten sodium … to transport the intense heat produced by the nuclear fission … such reactors have had numerous accidents: on November 29, 1955, the Experimental Breeder Reactor in Idaho had a partial core meltdown; in October 1966, the Fermi-1 fast reactor in Michigan suffered a partial core meltdown; in Japan, the [abandoned] Monju reactor suffered a series of accidents, produced almost no electricity [and was abandoned] after an expenditure of at least $8.5 billion.

The use of molten sodium makes reactors susceptible to serious fires, because the material burns if exposed to air. Almost all sodium-cooled reactors constructed around the world have experienced sodium leaks, likely because of chemical interactions between sodium and the stainless steel used in various components. Having to deal with all these volatile properties and safety concerns naturally drives up the construction costs of fast reactors, rendering them substantially more expensive than common thermal reactors. Sodium-cooled reactors … operat[e] at dismally low rates compared to standard reactors, the [fuel] load factor … for the Prototype Fast Reactor in the United Kingdom was 27%; France’s Superphenix reactor managed a mere 7.9%. The typical US reactor operates with a load factor of more than 90%.

Systemic Problems and Corruption

The [industrial lobby group] Nuclear Energy Institute [pushed] the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act [of 2019]. Publicly endorsed by Gates, the law makes it easier for “next-generation advanced reactors” of the sort that TerraPower promotes, to be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In the case of TerraPower, tens of millions of federal tax dollars have been donated to TerraPower without taxpayers ever being given an opportunity to provide or deny their informed consent.
The public — especially near sites [of] new reactor[s], areas where uranium will be mined and processed, and wherever the radioactive waste will go — will be subject to environmental contamination, paying far more than just a financial cost. Further, this obsession with nuclear power … diverts attention from the larger systemic drivers of the climate crisis: unabated capitalism and its need for never-ending economic growth. Pushing the nuclear agenda furthers the falsehood that … climate change can be solved using one more technology from the same toolbox. “Those most responsible for creating the problem [of climate change] will see to it that they profit from the solution,” wrote Arundhati Roy. People like Gates exemplify that observation.

Filed Under: Environment, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter

January 22, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Elementary School Contaminated by Nuclear Weapons Production

By Bob Mayberry

The US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) returned yet again to a Missouri elementary school in November to test for radioactivity on the playgrounds and in the classrooms. In 2018 and 2019, the Corps “identified an area of low-level radioactive contamination” in a heavily wooded area on the edge of the Jane Elementary School property in northern St. Louis. The school serves mostly Black students and sits in the flood plain of Coldwater Creek, contaminated during the 1940s and 1950s when waste from uranium processing for nuclear weapons was dumped nearby. For twenty-plus years, the Corps has been cleaning up the creek and testing for radioactive contamination in the area, but never within 300 feet of the school.
The 2018 tests, revealing low-level contamination nearby, prompted parents to request tests inside school buildings. The Corps declined. Community pressure finally compelled school officials to order third-party testing. According to a report released in October, the Boston Chemical Data Corp. discovered 22 times the expected levels of radioactive isotopes on the playground and more than 12 times expected levels in the gymnasium, resulting in the school’s shutdown in late October. The company found radioactive lead-210, thorium-230, polonium-210, and radium-226 “far in excess” of what the analysts expected.

Jana Elementary School in Florissant, Missouri, sits by Coldwater Creek, a waterway contaminated by improperly stored radioactive waste. Photo Credit: CNN

Corps program manager Phil Moser disagreed with the Boston Chemical findings, claiming the report was not consistent with “accepted evaluation techniques,” but promised the agency would reevaluate Boston Chemical’s report and methods. At the urging of local lawmakers, the Corps has agreed to conduct new tests at Jane Elementary School.

—The Guardian, Nov. 2; Huffington Post, Smithsonian, and NBC News, Oct. 18; Associated Press, and St. Louis Post Dispatch, Oct. 17, 2022

Filed Under: Environment, Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure

January 22, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Governor Vetoes Bill to Halt Radioactive Wastewater Dumping in Cape Cod Bay

Protesters gathered in front of Plymouth Town Hall before a public meeting Monday on Holtec Corp.’s plans for decommissioning the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant.MATTHEW J. LEE/GLOBE STAFF
By Matt Jahnke

Holtec International, the current owner tasked with decommissioning the Pilgrim nuclear reactor in Plymouth, Massachusetts, plans on dumping 1.1 million gallons of radioactive wastewater into Cape Cod Bay. The plan has met with fierce opposition from local activists, environmentalists, fishermen, and the restaurant and tourism industries. Furthermore, State Senators Susan Moran and Julian Cyr received unanimous approval from the State House and Senate for their proposed amendment — vetoed by Governor Charlie Baker on November 10 — to delay dumping for two years in order to form a commission to investigate potential economic and environmental impacts of the contaminated wastewater. Holtec appears poised to move ahead, maintaining it is legally allowed to do so, now with a clear signal from the governor that he will not stand in the way. Sen. Moran responded to the governor’s veto, saying, “At no time did anyone ever relay concerns with this important amendment. I am eager to press the administration for an explanation…. I will be refiling [the bill] at the earliest opportunity.” US Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and US Rep. Bill Keating have called on Holtec to respond to a June 17 letter from the Environmental Protection Agency reminding Holtec that any dumping in the bay would violate federal regulations and Holtec’s permits, and could result in civil, judicial, and administrative penalties.

 

— Old Colony Memorial, Nov. 17; Provincetown Independent, Nov. 9; and Markey, Warren, Keating, Letter to Holtec, Nov. 2, 2022

Filed Under: Environment, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radioactive Waste

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