Fukushima: Two Years & Counting

[don]

the Chernobyl Syndrome . . .

Two years ago today, an earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan. Hundreds of thousands of people living near the plant were forced to flee. A single house remains at an area wiped out by the 11 March 2011 tsunami near Ukedo port in the town of Namie, in the Fukushima nuclear disaster exclusion zone




The destroyed Tomioka station in the town of Tomioka. The town is now open to residents for short visits but they are unable to return to live. Workers have begun attempts to clean up the town but public criticism of the slow pace of decommissioning, along with the stress of working at the site, has reportedly prompted several Tepco workers to quit. Others complain that, two years on from the triple meltdown, they lack motivation, raising the prospect of a shortage of technicians and other experts when the Fukushima clean-up reaches its most critical stage




Weeds grow through cracks in an earthquake-damaged road in the abandoned town of Naraha, which was once inside the nuclear exclusion zone surrounding the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, in Japan. Radiation levels in the abandoned communities have fallen 40% in the past year




Weeds grow around a seat in the abandoned town of Namie, in Futaba County, about 20 km from the plant. Though the town is outside the official exclusion zone, residents were forced to evacuate after radiation levels exceeded those inside the zone. The total amount of radiation released into the air after the colossal earthquake and tsunami was variously estimated to have been between 18 and 40% of the quantity released during Chernobyl in 1986




A deserted street in Namie. The town's 21,000 residents had to abandon their homes after the town was evacuated. Even if most of former Namie residents still hope to go back to their homes in the future, they are only allowed to return home for a few hours to minimise radiation exposure. Japan is about to embark on a clean-up that could cost at least £67bn, in addition to the cost of compensating evacuees and decontaminating their homes




Wearing white protective mask and suit, Yuzo Mihara looks at a collasped house in his neighborhood in the town of Namie. The tens of thousands of survivors living in temporary housing are yet to be resettled, a process that could take up to a decade, officials say. Social stigma attached to victims of radiation dates back to the aftermath Hiroshima and Nagasaki




Yuko Mihara inspects her beauty salon in Namie. On the evening of the disaster, an official spokesman told reporters there was no leak. When the hydrogen explosions began, the authorities continued to downplay the severity and misinform the public




Yuko Mihara cleans her kitchen covered with debris and putrefied foods two years after the 2011 earthquake. In the months following the crisis, government officials failed to alert the public to the radiation dangers. Three months later, radioactive cesium was found in the breast milk of one-third of the 27 women tested near Fukushima Prefecture and it was clear the radiation had entered the human food chain




Large black plastic bags containing contaminated soil and leaves are stocked in a temporary storage facility in the town of Naraha, Fukushima prefecture. In Fukushima prefecture alone, one-third of the land is contaminated. The region’s £2bn agricultural sector has been wiped out and the government still faces the seemingly impossible task of cleaning up the fallout over soil, forests, and waterways




Abandoned drinks and rice vending machines in Naraha. Hundreds of displaced people filed a lawsuit on Monday 11 March demanding compensation from the government and the now defunct plant's operator, Tepco




Bags belonging to children remain hanging at the abandoned Namie school. While there have been no clear cases of cancer linked to radiation from the plant, the upheaval, uncertainty about the future and long-term health concerns, especially for children, have taken an immense psychological toll on thousands of residents

[don]

at least it's contained, right?

Nuclear Cores and Spent Fuel Pools Have Both Lost Containment

Steven Starr – Director of the Clinical Laboratory Science Program at the University of Missouri/Senior Scientist at Physicians for Social Responsibility – said:

The Japanese basically lied about what happened with the reactors for months. They said they were trying to prevent a meltdown, when in fact they knew within the first couple of days Reactors 1, 2, and 3 at Fukushima Daiichi had melted down, and they actually melted through the steel containment vessels.

So there was a worst case scenario that they were trying to hide, they even knew that at that time enormous amounts of radiation were released over Japan and some of it even went over Tokyo [...]

The melted core cracked the containment vessel, there really is no containment. So as soon as they pump the water in it leaks out again.


Asahi Shimbum notes that the location of Fukushima melted fuel is unknown. It could be ‘scattered’ in piping, vessels … “we’ve yet to identify all hotspots” around plant.

While the Japanese government tried to cover up the lack of containment with “mission accomplished” type announcements of “cold shutdown“, the loss of containment has been known for years.

For example, AP wrote in December 2011:

The nuclear fuel moved as it melted, so its condition and locations are little known.

AP noted a couple of days later:

The complex still faces numerous concerns, triggering criticism that the announcement of “cold shutdown conditions” is based on a political decision rather than science. Nobody knows exactly where and how the melted fuel ended up in each reactor ….

We noted last year:

If the reactors are “cold”, it may be because most of the hot radioactive fuel has leaked out.
***
The New York Times pointed out last month:

A former nuclear engineer with three decades of experience at a major engineering firm … who has worked at all three nuclear power complexes operated by Tokyo Electric [said] “If the fuel is still inside the reactor core, that’s one thing” …. But if the fuel has been dispersed more widely, then we are far from any stable shutdown.”

Indeed, if the center of the reactors are in fact relatively “cold”, it may be because most of the hot radioactive fuel has leaked out of the containment vessels and escaped into areas where it can do damage to the environment.

After drilling a hole in the containment vessel of Fukushima reactor 2, Tepco cannot find the fuel. As AP notes:
The steam-blurred photos taken by remote control Thursday found none of the reactor’s melted fuel ….

The photos also showed inner wall of the container heavily deteriorated after 10 months of exposure to high temperature and humidity, Matsumoto said.

TEPCO workers inserted the endoscope — an industrial version of the kind of endoscope doctors use — through a hole in the beaker-shaped container at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant’s No. 2 reactor ….

New video of the inside of the torus room in Fukushima reactor 1 shows piles of sediment:

As nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen pointed out last year:

Tokyo Electric ran a probe into the basement of Unit 1. This is not inside the containment, this is outside the containment. On the top of the water surface they found lethal radiation, 1000 rem an hour.

But then they put the probe down into the water and what’s even worse is the bottom, the sediment on the bottom, was thousand of times hotter than that. And what that indicates is that fuel, nuclear fuel, has left the containment, as particles, and settled out on the bottom outside the containment. So, I think that’s a pretty clear indication that the containment was breached. It just makes decommissioning these plants… it was going too be hard already, but this information makes it worse.

Loss of containment of nuclear fuel also exists within the spent fuel pools at Fukushima.

For example, Chris Harris, former licensed Senior Reactor Operator and engineer says of new video released by Tepco showing extensive damage and debris in Fukushima spent fuel pool 3:

Plenty of heavy steel beams and refueling equipment that must be cleared out of the way in order to see how badly damaged each fuel assembly is.

There is little doubt that failed fuel exists, which is highly radioactive.

Asahi Shimbum notes:

The water [inside Fuel Pool 4] was muddy and brown.

The Fukushima fuel pools continue to be one of the main threats to Japan.

[jabberwocky]

Re: at least it's contained, right?

What? Me worry?



From Wolf Richter:

Catastrophic nuclear accidents, like Chernobyl in 1986 or Fukushima No. 1 in 2011, are very rare, we’re incessantly told, and their probability of occurring infinitesimal. But when they do occur, they get costly. So costly that the French government, when it came up with cost estimates, kept them secret.
But now the report was leaked to the French magazine, Le Journal de Dimanche. Turns out, the upper end of the cost spectrum of an accident at a single reactor at the plant chosen for the study, the plant at Dampierre in the Department of Loiret in north-central France, would amount to over three times the country’s GDP. Financially, France would cease to exist as we know it.
Hence, the need to keep it secret. The study was done in 2007 by the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), a government agency under joint authority of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Environment, Industry, Research, and Health. With over 1,700 employees, it’s France’s “public service expert in nuclear and radiation risks.” This isn’t some overambitious, publicity-hungry think tank.
It evaluated a range of disaster scenarios that might occur at the Dampierre plant. In the best-case scenario, costs came to €760 billion—more than a third of France’s GDP. At the other end of the spectrum: €5.8 trillion! Over three times France’s GDP. A devastating amount. So large that France could not possibly deal with it.
Yet, France gets 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. The entire nuclear sector is controlled by the state, which also owns 85% of EDF, the mega-utility that operates France’s 58 active nuclear reactors spread over 20 plants. So, three weeks ago, the Institute released a more politically correct report for public consumption. It pegged the cost of an accident at €430 billion.
“There was no political smoothening, no pressure,” claimed IRSN Director General Jacques Repussard, but he admitted, “it’s difficult to publish these kinds of numbers.” He said the original report with a price tag of €5.8 trillion was designed to counter the reports that EDF had fabricated, which “very seriously underestimated the costs of the incidents.”
Both reports were authored by IRSN economist Patrick Momal, who struggled to explain away the differences. The new number, €430 billion, was based on a “median case” of radioactive releases, as was the case in Fukushima, he told the JDD, while the calculations of 2007 were based more on what happened at Chernobyl. But then he added that even the low end of the original report, the €760 billion, when updated with the impact on tourism and exports, would jump to €1 trillion.
“One trillion, that’s what Fukushima will ultimately cost,” Repussard said.
Part of the €5.8 trillion would be the “astronomical social costs due to the high number of victims,” the report stated. The region contaminated by cesium 137 would cover much of France and Switzerland, all of Belgium and the Netherlands, and a big part of Germany—an area with 90 million people (map). The costs incurred by farmers, employees, and companies, the environmental damage and healthcare expenses would amount to €4.4 trillion.
“Those are social costs, but the victims may not necessarily be compensated,” the report stated ominously—because there would be no entity in France that could disburse those kinds of amounts.
Closer to the plant, 5 million people would have to be evacuated from an area of 87,000 square kilometers (about 12% of France) and resettled. The soil would have to be decontaminated, and radioactive waste would have to be treated and disposed of. Total cost: €475 billion.
The weather is the big unknown. Yet it’s crucial in any cost calculations. Winds blowing toward populated areas would create the worst-case scenario of €5.8 trillion. Amidst the horrible disaster of Fukushima, Japan was nevertheless lucky in one huge aspect: winds pushed 80% of the radioactive cloud out to sea. If it had swept over Tokyo, the disaster would have been unimaginable. In Chernobyl, winds made the situation worse; they spread the cloud over the Soviet Union.
Yet the study might underestimate the cost for other nuclear power plants. The region around Dampierre has a lower population density than regions around other nuclear power plants. And it rarely has winds that would blow the radioactive cloud in a northerly direction toward Paris. Other nuclear power plants aren’t so fortuitously located.
These incidents have almost no probability of occurring, we’re told. So there are currently 437 active nuclear power reactors and 144 “permanent shutdown reactors” in 31 countries, according to the IAEA, for a total of 581 active and inactive reactors. Of these, four melted down so far—one at Chernobyl and three at Fukushima. Hence, the probability for a meltdown is not infinitesimal. Based on six decades of history, it’s 4 out of 581, or 0.7%. One out of every 145 reactors. Another 67 are under construction, and more are to come....
Decommissioning and dismantling the powerplant at Fukushima and disposing of the radioactive debris has now been estimated to take 40 years. At this point, two years after the accident, very little has been solved. But it has already cost an enormous amount of money. People who weren’t even born at the time of the accident will be handed the tab for it. And the ultimate cost might never be known.
The mayor of Futaba, a ghost town of once upon a time 7,000 souls near Fukushima No. 1, told his staff that evacuees might not be able to return for 30 years. Or never, for the older generation. It was the first estimate of a timeframe. But it all depends on successful decontamination. And that has turned into a vicious corruption scandal. Read.... Corruption At “Decontaminating” Radioactive Towns

[don]

Re: at least it's contained, right?

So costly that the French government, when it came up with cost estimates, kept them secret.

But now the report was leaked to the French magazine, Le Journal de Dimanche. Turns out, the upper end of the cost spectrum of an accident at a single reactor at the plant chosen for the study, the plant at Dampierre in the Department of Loiret in north-central France, would amount to over three times the country’s GDP. Financially, France would cease to exist as we know it.

for nuclear power . . . against nuclear power - the above is nearly always left out of the equation . . .

(to be profitable, many nuclear plants are heavily subsidized. the 'waste disposal' question has never been adequately addressed as well. most agenda-free individuals share these concerns . . .)

[BadJuju]

Re: at least it's contained, right?

I am much more concerned about the waste from coal and other fossil fuels. At least nuclear waste can be contained, centralized, and kept from harming people entirely. Every oz of coal that burns goes into the environment and into the lungs of the people around it. Also, coal plants release more radioactive waste into the environment than nuclear plants do.

So really, what is the argument against nuclear power that is grounded in logic?

[jabberwocky]

Re: at least it's contained, right?

I am much more concerned about the waste from coal and other fossil fuels. At least nuclear waste can be contained, centralized, and kept from harming people entirely. Every oz of coal that burns goes into the environment and into the lungs of the people around it. Also, coal plants release more radioactive waste into the environment than nuclear plants do.

So really, what is the argument against nuclear power that is grounded in logic?

We should be worrying about all of it. We over-consume, and appear to be reaching the much derided "Limits of Growth". Global integration, lengthened supply chains, technology, and debt/credit based expansion does not mix well with our reptilian brain. Malthus was early!
Oh, BJ, I am not opposed to nuclear energy, for what it is worth. And, complex systems are NOT logic systems, so formal logic is inapplicable.
We are all trying!

[BadJuju]

Re: at least it's contained, right?

Ah, absolutely, my friend. I just particularly hate coal given this is in my back yard and that is only 1/6th of its size:



I would take being surrounded by 100 nuclear plants over living next to that.

[jabberwocky]

Re: at least it's contained, right?

I fully understand. But that impulse led to "NIMBY", led to off shoring industrial production, with WTO admission for China, led to much worse pollution for folks we can't see (so not our problem!), etc.......
Speaking for myself, if I can't bare the view, I need to reduce my embedded energy footprint. I know you are not a Christian, or religious, but I believe we must be our brothers keepers, wherever they are geographically, AND, through time. Future generations are being left with ashes as we have pearls. And, to recall, I am an agnostic, but the concept of being steward of our resources for the sheeple resonates deeply with me.

[c1ue]

Re: at least it's contained, right?

We should be worrying about all of it. We over-consume, and appear to be reaching the much derided "Limits of Growth". Global integration, lengthened supply chains, technology, and debt/credit based expansion does not mix well with our reptilian brain. Malthus was early!
Oh, BJ, I am not opposed to nuclear energy, for what it is worth. And, complex systems are NOT logic systems, so formal logic is inapplicable.
We are all trying!

Malthus was thoroughly wrong, and so has Ehrlich been.

World population is stabilizing, not accelerating.

The most effective way to get people to have fewer kids is to make them richer.

The most directly correlating factor to wealth is energy.

[shiny!]

Re: at least it's contained, right?

The most effective way to get people to have fewer kids is to make them richer.

The most directly correlating factor to wealth is energy.

Yep. To quote a very wise man, "There's enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed."

[don]

Re: at least it's contained, right?

Malthus was thoroughly wrong, and so has Ehrlich been.

World population is stabilizing, not accelerating.

The most effective way to get people to have fewer kids is to make them richer.

The most directly correlating factor to wealth is energy.

Its also the way to make them more secular.

(American exceptionalism noted . . .)

[jabberwocky]

Re: at least it's contained, right?

Let me see if I understand this. If all the world consumed like we in the "west", we would have fewer children. But The world already has a population of 7 billion. If we are at PCO, and energy=weath, something does not compute. Correlate population to fossil fuel use.
Malthus implicitly considered a natural, "constrained" world. Technology unfettered human reproductive effectiveness, at the expense of other life. If human nature abides, we are likely to overshoot, and, as the Bible mentions, our seven years of feasting will give way to seven of famine. Bankers need exponential growth, but exponentials are not sustainable.
Perhaps I am wrong.

[Polish_Silver]

Fatalities at Chernobyl

What? Me worry?

In Chernobyl, winds made the situation worse; they spread the cloud over the Soviet Union.

The Chernobyl radiation caused about 2500 cancer related deaths, based on known exposure information and statistical analysis. You cannot name the people who died. The radiation just increased the cancer risk for the population.

The risks of nuclear power have to be weighed against the social and environmental problems of fossil fuels, also quite significant. We just accept them without trying to compute a dollar value.

[c1ue]

Re: Fatalities at Chernobyl

Let me see if I understand this. If all the world consumed like we in the "west", we would have fewer children. But The world already has a population of 7 billion. If we are at PCO, and energy=weath, something does not compute. Correlate population to fossil fuel use.
Malthus implicitly considered a natural, "constrained" world. Technology unfettered human reproductive effectiveness, at the expense of other life. If human nature abides, we are likely to overshoot, and, as the Bible mentions, our seven years of feasting will give way to seven of famine. Bankers need exponential growth, but exponentials are not sustainable.
Perhaps I am wrong.

Correction - I never said everyone must live like an American, or even a European.

What I said was richer. Specifically this means an income of around $20,000 per year in present terms. There's been a lot of research on this subject - but this article gives you an idea of what the chasm looks like (i.e. 1/3 of humanity lives on $800 per year or less and burns wood for fuel):

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/1...ting-the-poor/



The problem with solar and wind right now and for the near foreseeable future is that it is extremely expensive. If in fact wealth is directly correlated with energy use, then expensive energy yields poverty.

Note that conservation isn't the issue here. Americans and Europeans are already so far over the $20K level that cutting back doesn't affect quality of living to any significant extent.

The point is - if we want those 2 billion people to stop having tons of kids, we should be trying to make them wealthier - by helping them get access to cheap energy.

Not 1970s era, American wood sided cars with 10 mpg type cheap energy - which is without a doubt wasteful (because Americans were already well over the $20K/year PPP level in the 1960s), but 1950s American style improvement of standard of living.

[c1ue]

Re: Fatalities at Chernobyl

Another fun graph:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/1...as/#more-82235



This graph is a double whammy: the position of the circle shows the relationship between child mortality and income, but the sizes of the bubbles are a function of birth rate.

Note how birth rate uniformly falls as income (which in turn is highly correlated to energy use) increases, as does child mortality.