via Zero Hedge / Today (March 11, 2016), Japan marks the fifth anniversary of the tragic and catastrophic meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant. On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake and tsunami hit the northeast coast of Japan, killing 20,000 people. Another 160,000 then fled the radiation in Fukushima. It was the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, and according to some it would be far worse, if the … Continue reading →
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via The Japan Times / February 15, 2016 / The Nuclear Regulation Authority and Tokyo Electric Power Co. have broadly agreed to start operating the frozen underground wall at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in stages. The agreement, reached Monday, is on the frozen underground wall that officials hope will surround the buildings housing reactors 1 through 4 and reduce the amount of groundwater flowing into the facilities. The … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Citizens Nuclear Information Center / February 2, 2016 / State of the Plant Many of the measuring instruments installed in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) measuring system continue to malfunction as a result of the accident and there is no guarantee of the accuracy of values being measured. However, from the water temperature in the containment vessels and the spent fuel pools, and from the state of … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center / February 2, 2016 / 1) After 5 years, still very little is known about the causes and effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. A whole five years will soon have passed since the severe accident occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS). Nonetheless, the causes of the accident have not yet been clarified. Which was the main cause of the accident: the … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia CounterPunch.org / September 30, 2015 / The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant No. 2 nuclear reactor fuel is missing from the core containment vessel. (Source: Up to 100% of No. 2 Reactor Fuel May Have Melted, NHK World News, Sept. 25, 2015.) Where did it go? Nobody knows. Not only that but the “learning curve” for a nuclear meltdown is as fresh as the event itself because “the world … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia DW / July 21st, 2015 / In a bid seen by critics as aiming to speed up reconstruction, the Japanese government is preparing to declare sections of the evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant a safe place to live. The ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intends to revoke many evacuation orders by March 2017, if decontamination progresses as hoped, meaning that up to 55,000 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia sputniknews.com / July 8, 2015 / Russian experts will begin in early 2016 construction of a demo water treatment plant to decontaminate dangerous radioactive isotopes in Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, Atomproekt, the company in charge of the project said Wednesday. Atomproekt, part of Russia’s nuclear product and service provider Rosatom Corporation, has forwarded working construction documents on a demo tritium treatment plant to Rosatom and subsidiary RosRAO, the company said in a … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / April 8, 2015 / Tainted water from Fukushima nuclear plant storage may be evaporated or stored underground instead of following earlier plans to release it into the ocean. Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), which is responsible for cleaning up the crippled power plant, planned to release the tritium-laced water into the ocean. However, it suffered a setback following protests by local fishermen who are already struggling with … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Hajime Matsukubo / CNIC.jp / March 31, 2015 / Many of the measuring instruments installed in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) measuring system continue to malfunction as a result of the accident. Although there is no guarantee of the accuracy of values being measured, if the values from the measuring instruments are taken as the premise, from the water temperature in the containment vessels and the spent … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Julie Makinen / via latimes.com / March 11, 2015 / Neon pink and yellow banners flutter along the roadsides, their gentle flapping breaking an eerie stillness. The houses here are shut tight, the streets are nearly deserted, the fields that once sprouted rice, tomatoes and cucumbers are fallow. Shigeo Karimata dons a hard hat and a mask and prepares to get out of his car. “Some people say, ‘Oh, … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia mainichi.jp / March 3, 2015 / The planned completion of the purification of highly radioactive water stored at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is expected to be pushed back to sometime around May next year, more than a year later than initially planned, it has been learned. Naohiro Masuda, chief decommissioning officer at the Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination & Decommissioning Engineering Co., disclosed the anticipated delay during an … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia japantimes.co.jp / February 18, 2014 / Aichi Prefectural Police arrested a construction firm executive on Wednesday for sending a 15-year-old boy to help clean up radioactive waste outside the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant. The police said the boy, who is from Kitanagoya, Aichi Prefecture, was sent to Fukushima to cut contaminated leaves and scrape up dirt in the disaster zone last July. Japan’s labor law prohibits people under 18 … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Adam Justice / IBTimes.co.uk / February 9, 2015 / The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team that will review Japan’s decommissioning work at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant this week, said on Monday (9 February) that contaminated water leakage remains a challenging issue. Since the devastating March 2011 earthquake that caused triple meltdowns at the Fukushima plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has struggled with … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia phys.org / January 28, 2015 / A Virginia Tech professor is part of a team of scientists from Japan and the United States that may have discovered a way to remove radioactive cesium from the millions of gallons of contaminated water being held at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant following the 2011 disaster. “Radioactive cesium is the major radioactive component from the reactor,” said Barry Goodell, professor of sustainable … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia environmentalleader.com / December 12, 2014 / Nuclear and hazardous waste management company Kurion has been awarded a contract by Tokyo Electric Power Company for a second Kurion Mobile Processing System for deployment at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant site. The first system started operating at the site in early October 2014 and has exceeded its performance targets during this period, Kurion says. The second system (pictured), identical to … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia world-nuclear-news.org / November 4, 2014 / Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has awarded US-based waste management specialist Kurion a JPY 1 billion ($10 million) grant to demonstrate technology to remove tritium from contaminated water for possible deployment at Fukushima. Kurion’s technology is one of three selected by METI in August to go forward to the demonstration phase, alongside offerings from GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Canada and … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Eiji Noyori and Hiroyuki Oyama / the-japan-times.com / September 11, 2014 / Three and a half years after the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, efforts to contain water contaminated with radioactive substances at the plant are at a crossroads. Resolving the radioactive water issue is the first hurdle toward decommissioning the plant. However, despite the time that has passed since the beginning … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Asahi Shimbun / August 28, 2014 / Additional decontamination machines will be installed at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to treat the hundreds of tons of radioactive groundwater collected at the facility daily, the Nuclear Regulation Authority said Aug. 27. The multi-nuclide removal equipment, called ALPS (advanced liquid processing system), began operating in late March 2013 and has handled 127,000 tons of contaminated water to date. … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / August 26, 2014 / A groundwater bypassing operation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has yet to produce significant results in preventing groundwater from flowing into the basements of reactor buildings, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. By last Thursday, about three months after the effort was launched, a total of around 25,000 tons of water had been pumped from underground and released into the sea. … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / August 26, 2014 / The Japanese government picked three overseas companies Tuesday to participate in a subsidized project to determine the best available technology for separating radioactive tritium from the toxic water building up at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. Tokyo Electric Power Co. is currently test-running a system it says is capable of removing 62 types of radioactive substances from the contaminated water, but … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / August 21, 2014 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it expects to finish transferring all the fuel rods from the spent-fuel pool perched atop reactor 4 at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant by November — one month ahead of the initial schedule, according to Tepco President Naomi Hirose. Hirose made the comments in a meeting with assembly members from Fukushima Prefecture. Hazardous … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Lucas W Hixson / Enformable.com / August 12, 2014: Tokyo Electric has determined that it will cease use of AREVA’s decontamination system, which uses chemicals to remove radioactive materials from water, as it has not lived up to expectations since it was installed. The utility will file an application with the Nuclear Regulation Authority in order to scrap the system. The decontamination system was set up in June 2011, … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia channelnewsaisa.com / August 7, 2o14 / The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant on Thursday (Aug 7) unveiled a plan to dump scrubbed water directly into the ocean, sparking concerns over whether it would be properly decontaminated. The plan, which still needs approval from the nuclear agency and local residents, comes as workers are locked in a daily struggle to safely store radioactive water used to cool reactors … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / July 25, 2014 / Work to pump up groundwater to keep it from flowing into the contaminated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is apparently having limited effects. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, reported the results of the operation so far at a meeting of experts at the industry ministry on Friday. TEPCO began the so-called groundwater bypass operation in May. It involves draining water … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Japan Times / June 28, 2014 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. can’t confirm whether the groundwater bypass operation at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant is working, Tepco officials said. The operation is intended to reduce the tons of radiation-tainted water being generated by the plant each day. The melted reactor fuel at the plant, which was heavily damaged by three core meltdowns after the March 2011 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Enformable.com / June 23, 2014 / Tokyo Electric announced that it has resumed full operation of the ALPS system used to decontaminated radioactive water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The ALPS system is designed to process up to 750 tons of radioactive water per day when operating at full capacity. It is the first time that all three lines of the ALPS system have been in operation … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / June 9, 2014 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. will use a truck-mounted filtration system to extract strontium from water stored at the damaged Fukushima No. 1 power plant as the utility struggles to overcome technical problems with its existing water-processing facility. Tepco has signed a contract with Kurion Inc. to remove strontium from more than 340,000 metric tons of radioactive water stored at the wrecked plant … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia EX-SKF / June 8, 2014 / Confusion and misunderstanding ensue, following the reporting on the Ministry of the Environment’s plan (yet to be officially announced) to raise the radiation target level after decontamination in Fukushima from the current 0.23 microsievert/hour to 0.4-0.6 microsievert/hour. The Ministry of the Environment (supposedly) says the additional exposure from the radiation under the new target level will be still under 1 millisievert per year. The … Continue reading →
Continue readingfrom EX-SKF / May 19, 2014 / The entire ALPS multi-nuclide removal system is down again, as Line C has just been stopped as the water sample from Line C is found with high calcium content. Line A was stopped three days ago, and Line B has been idle since March this year, when the water treated in Line B was found with high beta (in the order of 10 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia TEPCO / March 25, 2014 / We have been preparing for establishing a new company on April 1, 2014, which will be a new internal entity of the function dealing with decommissioning and contaminated water within TEPCO, for the purpose of clarifying the responsibilities allocation and focusing solely on handling of decommissioning and contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Now the company outline is decided, and … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Press TV / March 25, 2014 / Officials at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant say they have switched off a key decontamination system used to clean radiation-tainted water after workers discovered leaks. This comes as the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) spotted the defect just hours after the system came back online. The firm has repeatedly switched off the system over a series of glitches since trial … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Times of Oman / The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant said Monday it has switched on a key decontamination system that cleans radiation-tainted water used to cool the site’s damaged reactors. Last week, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said it had discovered a defect in its Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) and switched it off for repairs. The embattled firm said two of three lines that clean the … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / March 20, 2014 / Treatment of radioactive water at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant might be indefinitely suspended after malfunctions crippled the water purification process and recontaminated thousands of tons of partially purified water, Japanese media reported. The failure in the system, known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), is the latest setback in Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO) uphill battle to stockpile radioactive water, which … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Enformable / March 18, 2014 / According to labor officials in Fukushima Prefecture, nearly 70% of the companies hired to conduct decontamination work after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster have been found to be in violation of multiple labor laws. In July 2013, the Fukushima Labor Bureau found that between January and June 2013, 68% of companies and firms engaged in decontamination work were violation labor laws. The labor … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Graham Land / Asian Correspondent / March 11, 2014 / Three years on and the extent of the environmental, human and economic repercussions of the Fukushima incident continue to reveal themselves. Fukushima “fallout” is both literal in terms of radioactive materials, and figurative on a global scale. The politics and opinions around the nuclear issue are far from settled. In Japan anti-nuclear sentiment runs high, with protesters recently marking … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia spectrum.ieeee.org / February 28, 2014 / A radiation-proof superhero could make sense of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in an afternoon. Our champion would pick through the rubble to reactor 1, slosh through the pooled water inside the building, lift the massive steel dome of the protective containment vessel, and peek into the pressure vessel that holds the nuclear fuel. A dive to the bottom would reveal the … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / February 28, 2014 / The radioactive water clean-up system at the stricken Fukushima plant was hit by another issue as its alarm went off. The warning alerted that one of the two clean-up pumps had stopped functioning. After the alarm, a pump for sending tainted water into equipment where radioactive materials are absorbed stopped working, the facility’s operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said. The damaged line … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Yomiuri Shimbun / It will be difficult for Tokyo Electric Power Co. to reach the target for completing the purification of water contaminated with radioactive substances in storage tanks at its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in fiscal 2014, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. According to TEPCO’s estimates, 1,960 tons of contaminated water per day must be processed from October to purify about 350,000 tons of polluted … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Stephen Adkins / UniversityHerald.com / January 13, 2014 / Microalgae and aquatic plants could help remove radioactive pollution from waters around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Japanese researchers claim. A powerful earthquake and devastating tsunami caused heavy damage to the Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011. The plant suffered multiple meltdowns and subsequently released large quantities of radioactivity into the atmosphere. “The volume of radio-polluted water … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / January 9, 2014 / The operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) has stopped using its systems to decontaminate radioactive water at the facility, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. The Advanced Liquid Processing System, or ALPS, has been utilized to liquidate radioactive substances from contaminated water stored at the plant. The crane to get rid of the container from the ALPS ceased working … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Today / December 27, 2013 / Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara said Thursday that decontamination of areas around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will most likely be completed by the end of March 2017, rather than the initial deadline of March 2014 set by the previous government. Ishihara told a news conference that the government had to revise the schedule because it was not realistically possible to … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Reuters / November 28, 2013 / Japan is considering more than $100 million in extra government spending to handle contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, boosting the budget allocation by at least a fifth, government officials familiar with the matter said. The additional budget allocation of between 10 billion and 15 billion yen aims to accelerate work on containing leaks and decontaminating the water, said the officials, … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Associated Press / November 19, 2013 / It’s costly, risky and dependent on technologies that have yet to be fully developed. A decades-long journey filled with unknowns lies ahead for Japan, which took a small step this week toward decommissioning its crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. Nobody knows exactly how much fuel melted after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems. Or where exactly the fuel … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia CommonDreams.org / November 5, 2013 / Preparations to begin the potentially catastrophic decommissioning of the crippled Reactor 4 at the Fukushima nuclear power plant will begin this week with a test run. The test, which could push back the beginning stages of fuel rod removal by two weeks, includes moving a “protective fuel cask” into and out of the No. 4 storage pool with a crane—before attempts are made … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Guardian / November 7, 2013 / A video animation by the operators of the Fukushima plant, the Tokyo Electric Company, shows how 1,534 damaged fuel rods will be removed from the site. A robotic crane will move the rods from a storage pool damaged by March 2011′s earthquake and stored more securely in an on-site facility.
Continue readingvia Arirang News / October 22, 2013 / Japan’s Environment Ministry was forced to acknowledge Monday that the decontamination of six towns around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant will have to be delayed by up to three years. The clean-up was originally due to be complete by next March, but has been pushed back mostly due to lack of storage for contaminated cooling water from damaged reactors. The Fukushima plant … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / Sep 25, 2013 / The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says it will soon test a filtration system that could remove most radioactive substances from accumulated wastewater at the site. The Advanced Liquid Processing System (pictured) is the key to Tokyo Electric Power Company’s plans to purify radioactive-contaminated water that keeps accumulating at the plant. The company hopes to completely decontaminate the stored waste … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Japan Times / Sep 19, 2013 / Wearing a protective suit to guard against radioactive contamination, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe entered the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant Thursday to inspect the desperate effort to stop tainted water from entering the soil and the Pacific. Abe visited the site in an apparent publicity stunt to demonstrate his determination to get the water crisis under control. An estimated 300 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Daily Press / Sep 16, 2013 / In addition to TEPCO’s problem with how to manage the radioactive water from the defunct Fukushima nuclear plant, it was found that there still remain about 150,000 tons of radioactive waste that has not been properly stored. Besides contaminated soil, among those collected were contaminated branches and leaves, accounting for about 30 percent of waste that resulted from the reactor meltdowns. … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Wall Street Journal / Sep 13, 2013 / Two and a half years after the disastrous nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan is finally reaching out to the international community for help in grappling with a challenging cleanup operation and improving its response to global fears over contaminated water leaking from the stricken power plant. Tepco invited a U.S. nuclear expert this week as outside adviser for the decommissioning process. … Continue reading →
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