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New Public TV Documentary on Fukushima: Meltdown: Cooling Water Crisis

A shocking new 49-minute documentary from Japan’s public television broadcaster NHK titled “MELTDOWN: Cooling Water Crisis,” reveals new information on how corporate policy undermined efforts to keep the three destroyed Fukushima-Daiichi reactors stable one week after the triple reactor meltdown disaster began. See video here. Hear an interview related to the film here.

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Fukushima Wastewater & Cleanup Costs Pile Up

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2020
By John LaForge

At Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan, the triple disasters of earthquake, tsunami and three reactor meltdowns have caused the deaths of 15,899 people and left 2,529 unaccounted for, mostly in the three hardest-hit prefectures, according to the National Police Agency.

The ferociously radioactive melted fuels that burned into the hard foundations of the three reactors are also extremely hot thermally and must be continually cooled with water which is poured into the wreckage.

This cooling water also becomes highly radioactive after coming in contact with the molten reactor fuel and so is being collected in large, hastily built tanks on the coastal reactor site. Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, has collected nearly 1.2 million metric tonnes (2,204.6 pounds) of contaminated water in about 1,000 tanks. The collected waste water also includes rain and groundwater that runs across the melted cores after pouring through earthquake-caused cracks in reactor foundations.

Tepco says it will run out of space for more tanks in two years, and is lobbying vigorously to win permission to dump the waste water into the Pacific Ocean.

South Korea, the fishing community and other near Pacific neighbors have raised strenuous objections to any such dumping, especially after Tepco admitted it lied about its water filtration system which turns out had not removed dangerous cesium, strontium and other radionuclides from the water.

Nevertheless, Japan’s government, the International Atomic Energy Agency and industry lobbyists appear willing to reject public opinion and the concerns of allies in order to save Tepco from financial collapse. Last January 31 a panel of experts picked by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry recommended that the pollution be piped into the Pacific Ocean.

In March this year Tokyo Electric Power Co. estimated that 1.37 trillion yen ($12.9 billion) will be needed over 12 years to remove the melted reactor fuel just from units 2 and 3.

The wrecked fuel in unit 1 presents such a vexing complex of problems that the firm didn’t venture a guess at its removal cost.

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Nuclear Reactors & the Quaky, Rising Sea

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2020

Forty percent of the world’s nuclear reactors sit on coastlines, vulnerable to multiple climate catastrophes. With sea levels expected to rise 3.28 feet or more by 2100, reactors like St. Lucie in Florida, don’t have a chance. Operators of Florida’s Turkey Point reactor intend to run it for 80 years. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission claims that rising sea levels and their effect on Turkey Point are “outside the scope of the agency.” Thus, in granting an extended operating license to Turkey Point, rising sea levels don’t even figure.

Fukushima stands as the case study of Reactors v. Ocean. Site of the world’s only triple meltdown, caused by an earthquake and its follow-on tsunami, Fukushima still spews radiation into the Pacific daily, nine years after it began. According to the Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity, coastal areas report an increase in cesium-137 from Fukushima, first detected 100 miles off the California coast in 2014. Today, of the 56 reactors currently under construction, 93% face the fury of rising tides and ever-more-severe hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons. Unfortunately, China, Indonesia, and East Asia continue to build and host the reactors most at risk, since these regions are the most and first affected by the Earth’s warming.

As the nuclear industry continues to blunder ahead building new reactors and operating old ones on vulnerable seafronts, coastal communities continually face Fukushima Roulette.

—Climate News Network, Feb. 14, 2020; Bloomberg, Apr. 19, 2019; Beyond Nuclear, Sept. 19, 2019; Woods Hole Oceanographic, <cmer.whoi.edu>

 

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Japan’s Failed Water Filtration System Praised by IAEA

By John LaForge
Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2020

An official review by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of Japan’s efforts to manage nearly 1,000 million gallons of radioactive wastewater at Fukushima says that a team of its experts “welcomed progress” made by Japan on choosing how to dispose of 1.37 million cubic meters of radioactive wastewater left from cooling the extremely hot mounds of melted uranium fuel cores under the three melted and exploded nuclear reactors.

The IAEA reported on April 2, 2020 that, “Contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station is treated through a process known as Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) to remove radionuclides except tritium and then store it on site.”*

The IAEA went as far as to declare that “The ALPS multi-nuclide removal system continues to operate stably and reliably.”

Remarkably, the glowing report on Japan’s efforts ignored the spectacular and widely-reported failure of ALPS to separate deadly radioactive isotopes other than tritium on August 18, 2018.**

Vast quantities of highly radioactive particles were not caught by the ALPS and are now stored in giant tanks on the coastal Fukushima-Daiichi site. This coastline is still subject to regular and potentially severe earthquakes that could see the tanks ruptured and on-site workers and the Pacific Ocean highly contaminated in the event of another quake.

The gross failure of the ALPS is reportedly being addressed by “re-filtering” the highly contaminated wastewater through the same system, but this “do over” by the on-site operators is not mentioned by the IAEA expert panel.

The report notes instead that, “With the volume of ALPS-treated water expected to reach the planned tank capacity of approximately 1.37 million m3 around the summer of 2022, and taking into account that further treatment … would be needed for implementation of any of the solutions considered by the Government of Japan, a decision on the disposition path should be taken urgently engaging all stakeholders.” The panel also said, “The IAEA Review Team also notes that the ALPS-treated water will be further purified as necessary to meet the regulatory standards for discharge before dilution.”

The panel’s “specific advisory point one” is that, “The injected water used to cool the fuel debris mixes with ingressed water and contributes to the generation of contaminated water.”

The phrase “ingressed water” is a veiled reference to the tons of ground water steadily pouring into the wrecked reactor buildings through earthquake-caused cracks in foundations, broken pipes, and smashed ductwork. This groundwater also floods the melted masses of uranium fuel and becomes highly contaminated.

Tepco (operator of the Fukushima reactor), the Japanese government and the IAEA want to dump the vast volume of radioactive wastewater into the ocean.

The Japan Times reported March 25 that the company has drafted a plan to spend 20 to 30 years draining the large tanks into the Pacific.

Any dumping would add the wastewater’s extremely long-lived radioactive materials, to that already poured into the Pacific by the 2011 disaster, and the nine continuous years of the sites releasing between 200 and 400 tons per day of contaminated water.

Radioactive materials littering the ocean and the ocean floor can be consumed by sea life where the isotopes bio-accumulate and bio-concentrate as they climb the food chain and find their way into seafood, pet food and fertilizer.

Several countries on the Pacific Rim still refuse to import fish from the area. Taiwan is demanding a cease to the pollution of the water. Consequently, Japan’s fishing community fiercely opposes any ocean dumping of Tepco’s private wastewater problem.

* “IAEA Follow-up Review of Progress Made on Management of ALPS Treated Water and the Report of the Subcommittee on Handling of ALPS treated water at TEPCO’s Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.”

** “ALPS System at Fukushima No. 1 Plant Failing to Remove More Than Tritium From Toxic Cooling Water,” Kyodo News Service, The Japan Times, Aug. 19, 2018, ; “Fukushima Plant’s ALPS Treatment System In Trouble,” Water Technology.com, Aug. 27, 2018; Citizen’s Nuclear Info Center, (Tokyo) “Current State of Post-Accident Operations at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.” April 3, 2020

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Over a Million Tons – Failed Fukushima Water Treatment

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2020

In August 2018, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), admitted that the “Advanced Liquid Processing System” or ALPS filters had failed to remove deadly radioactive materials from waste cooling water, putting the lie to its repeated assurances that ALPS would remove everything but tritium—the radioactive form of hydrogen.

News services noted, “The tritium-tainted water piling up at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear [reactor site] has been found to contain other radioactive substances, defying the defunct plant’s special treatment system, Kyodo News has learned.”

Nine years since the disaster began, tons of cooling water are still constantly poured over the amassed (melted) uranium fuel underneath destroyed reactors 1, 2, and 3 at Fukushima. Three mounds of thousands of tons hot, molten uranium fuel wreckage have to be cooled constantly to prevent new fires, explosions and major radiation releases.

Tepco told the public that iodine-129, ruthenium-106 and technetium-99 failed to be filtered by ALPS. Unlike the cesium-137 and strontium-90 that have reportedly been captured by the system and which have radioactive half-lives of roughly 30 years, iodine-129 has a half-life of 15.7 million years and persists in the environment for 15.7 million years (ten half-lives). Ruthenium-106 has a half-life of 373 days and persists for 10 years; technetium-99’s half-life is 211,000 years and it persists for 2.11 million years.

Tepco said in 2018 it had not checked the levels of radioactive materials in each tank. As of Jan. 23, 2020, there were over 680 tanks on site holding 1,184,858 cubic meters—over a million tonnes—of the liquid radioactive waste.

—JL

— Citizen’s Nuclear Information Center (Tokyo), “Current State of Post-Accident Operations,” April 3, 2020; BBC, “Fukushima: Radioactive water may be dumped in Pacific,” Sept. 10, 2019; Water Technology.com, “Fukushima Plant’s ALPS Treatment System in Trouble,” Aug. 27, 2018; and Japan Times, “ALPS System at Fukushima No. 1 Plant Failing to Remove More Than Tritium from Toxic Cooling Water,” Aug. 19, 2018

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Contamination & Radioactive “Hot Spots” in Fukushima Endanger Returnees, Olympic Games

One of the 70,000 workers involved in cleanup efforts after the Fukushima disaster indicates bag placement of radioactive waste from Fukushima.
Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2020

A March report by Greenpeace Japan, “Radioactivity on the Move 2020,” is a stark reminder of the daunting and endless radiation hazards caused by the triple reactor meltdown of 2011 at the Fukushima-Daiichi complex.

In Fukushima Prefecture, spring snow melt and heavy rains remobilize stocks of radio-cesium in forests, hill slopes, and floodplains that were heavily contaminated by the radiation disaster, and that then contaminate areas downstream—frustratingly, even areas that were already decontaminated. “… as a result of the contamination in 2011, these uphill forests serve as a long-term source of radioactivity for the areas below. The principle radioactive source, cesium-137, has a half-life of 30 years, and therefore will remain a hazard for around ten half-lives, or 300 years.

Conducted soon after the October 2019 Typhoon Hagibis, which was one of the most powerful typhoons in 100 years, the group’s survey “observed concentrated radiation levels throughout Fukushima Prefecture, including significant radiation hotspots….” Building on its 2016 report “Radiation Reloaded,” Greenpeace’s extensive radiation survey raises alarms about the re-contamination caused by Hagibis, “which released radioactive cesium [downhill] from the forested mountains of Fukushima prefecture which make up 70% of the region, and which cannot feasibly be decontaminated.”

The report paints an accusatory picture of Japan’s government, “Which continues to push its propaganda of normalization in Fukushima,” in order to convince the public in general and evacuees in particular that it is safe to return to their houses. The report notes that “the Japanese government remains committed to policies which aim to pressure tens of thousands of Japanese Internally Displaced Persons  to return to their former homes.”

The government’s resettlement push is also motivated by the huge economic investment in hosting the postponed summer Olympics. The games have been put off until July 23, 2012, not because of the radioactive dangers documented and presented to the government by Greenpeace Japan, but because of the coronavirus pandemic.

One example of the government’s recklessness, is its arbitrary setting of radiation exposure allowances. Global standards for radiation exposure are set by the International Commission on Radiation Protection, and the maximum exposure for the general public in Japan was one (1) milliSievert per year (mSv/y) until 2012.

But in April 2012, the government increased the maximum annual exposure twenty-fold, to 20 milliSieverts per year (20 mSv/y). This eye-popping increase of allowable exposure applies across-the-board to infants and children, while girls and women are all known to be more vulnerable to the harmful effects of radiation than adult men. Greenpeace says this was done “as part of its strategy to lift evacuations orders.”

The typhoon’s recontamination and resulting levels of potential radiation exposure have caused a “… radiological situation in Fukushima prefecture, specifically in both the open and exclusion zones of Namie, Iitate, and Okuma, [that] leads Greenpeace Japan to conclude that levels remain too high for the safe return of thousands of evacuees to these areas,” the report says. “Namie, Iitate, Okuma and Futaba remain highly contaminated.”

In its consideration of areas where evacuation orders have already been lifted, the report is highly critical. “Japanese government maintains that exposure to 20 mSv/y is acceptable in these lifted evacuation order areas. This is despite clear scientific evidence of the cancer risks from low dose radiation exposure in the 1-5 mSv/y range, which the Japanese government continues to disregard.”

Decontamination efforts have been a large part of the government’s strategy of returning people to areas hit with radioactive fallout. Yet decontamination has been less effective around houses located close to hillside forests, “where decontamination is not possible.”  Unfortunately, the report notes, “radioactivity from the non-decontaminated forest might re-contaminate the already decontaminated area below and closer to houses.”

In addition, radioactive particles and organic matter carried down from forests and fields with heavy rains and typhoons “will create continuing, subsequent influxes of radio-cesium in lakes and coastal ecosystems for years and decades to come,” the report notes. “In particular, typhoons cause significant increases in cesium discharges into the Pacific Ocean.”

The survey also discovered high levels of radiation and multiple radiation “hotspots” in Fukushima City, the J-Village sports complex and along the route of the Olympic Torch run. These findings directly challenge the government’s “propaganda narrative” leading up to the Olympic Games, and endanger athletes and everyone else involved with the games.

—JL

 

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