Egypt presses ahead with nuclear power via Al-Monitor

Posted on 2019/04/30 by nfield

By Rasha Mahmoud

Egypt’s Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA) has approved the site of al-Dabaa in the first step of the licensing process required to build a nuclear station. The ENRRA oversees nuclear activities in Egypt to ensure the safety and security of people, property and the environment from the risk of radiation.

The nuclear power station at al-Dabaa will be built by Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA), which is affiliated with the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy, in cooperation with a Russian contractor.

NPPA head Amjad al-Wakeel told Al-Monitor that the ENRRA license means that al-Dabaa site meets Egyptian and International Atomic Energy Agency standards. […]

In 2008, Russia and Egypt signed an agreement of cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear power. In 2015, the two countries signed another agreement to build a nuclear station at al-Dabaa and in December 2017, they signed a deal to begin work on the site.

The project will be completed in eight stages, with the four reactors constructed by early 2020. All eight stages are scheduled to be completed by 2025. The project’s first stage is projected to cost $10 billion, and the overall project will cost $25 billion. A Russian loan will cover 85% of the project cost, and the Egyptian government will cover the rest. According to the head of the Nuclear Power Plants Authority, Mohammed Khayat, the interest on the loan after settlement is estimated at $5 billion, but that could increase if the Egyptian pound drops against the dollar.

[…] Egypt’s aspiration to build a nuclear power station dates to the 1950s, during the days of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the Russians were strongly supportive of the idea. Moscow cooperated with Cairo to establish the first nuclear reactor for research and training in Inshas northeast of Cairo in 1961. Other nuclear projects were proposed during Nasser’s days and then during Mohammad Anwar al-Sadat’s rule in cooperation with the United States until the early 1980s, but none came to fruition.

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Israel’s Nuclear Power Plant Is Back on the Table via the algemeiner

Posted on 2019/04/30 by nfield

Israel is reviving an old plan to build at least one nuclear power plant in the country. The Israeli Ministry of Energy has recently approached the Ministry of Finance with a request to approve the contracting of international radiation protection expert Jean Koch, according to several people familiar with the matter who spoke to Calcalist on condition of anonymity. The request defined the project as one of strategic value to Israel.

Plans for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Israel have been on and off the table for over 25 years. In 2017, Minister of Energy Yuval Steinitz conducted a survey to gauge public opinion regarding the possibility of building one in an urban area. Seventy percent of responders were not in favor of living near a nuclear power plant, but were generally supportive of the idea of one being built in Israel.

Previous plans delegated the construction of a nuclear power plant to the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC), the largest supplier of electrical power in Israel. Planned to be set up in Israel’s southern Negev area, the plant was to have an output of 1,300 megawatts. However, a November legal reform determined that the IEC will no longer have a monopoly on power generation in Israel, meaning if a plant is greenlit the contract will go to a private entity.

[…]

Today, 70 percent of Israel’s electricity originates from natural gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea. Government plans are to bring that number up to 80 percent and supplement the rest by renewable energy sources. A nuclear plant will diversify electricity sources in the country, reduce the need for gas-based power plants, and enable Israel to export more gas.

[…]

Read more.

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As Nuclear Waste Piles Up, Private Companies Pitch New Ways To Store It via WBEZ 91.5

Posted on 2019/04/30 by yukimiyamotodepaul

JEFF BRADY

Congress is once again debating how to dispose of the country’s growing inventory of nuclear waste. Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso is proposing legislationthat would jump start licensing hearings for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site in Nevada. The Trump administration also is asking Congress for money to resume work on that decades old project.

But that may not end local opposition or a longstanding political stalemate. And in the meantime, nuclear plants are running out of room to store spent fuel.

[…]

Running out of room
The Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in South Central Pennsylvania illustrates the problem. It’s one of 80 sites, across dozens of states, where nearly 80,000 metric tons of waste from power plants is stored where it was generated, at taxpayer expense.

Spent fuel removed from the Peach Bottom reactor is first stored in racks in a big pool. It’s surrounded by a bright yellow plastic barrier and signs that read Caution: Radiation Area.

[…]

The spent fuel stays here for seven to 10 years while it cools.

Once it’s safe to remove the spent fuel from the pool, it’s stored outside in white, metal casks that look like big hot water heaters. They are lined up on a concrete base, behind razor wire and against a hillside near the power plant.

[…]

“When the opportunity comes for these to be sent somewhere else than these will double as a shipping container as well,” he says.

Private companies propose their own storage plans

As the waste piles up, private companies are stepping in with their own solutions for the nation’s radioactive spent fuel. One is proposing a temporary storage site in New Mexico, and another is seeking a license for a site in Texas.

[…]

“Institutions go away,” says Edwin Lyman, acting director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “There’s no guarantee the owner will still be around for the duration of time when that waste remains dangerous, which is tens of hundreds of thousands of years.”

Read more at As Nuclear Waste Piles Up, Private Companies Pitch New Ways To Store It

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The Madness of Nuclear Deterrence via the Wall Street Journal

Posted on 2019/04/30 by yukimiyamotodepaul

The dangers have only become more acute in the decades since I tried to convince Thatcher.

By Mikhail Gorbachev

‘Deterrence cannot protect the world from a nuclear blunder or nuclear terrorism,” George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn recently wrote. “Both become more likely when there is no sustained, meaningful dialogue between Washington and Moscow.” I agree with them about the urgent need for strategic engagement between the U.S. and Russia. I am also convinced that nuclear deterrence, instead of protecting the world, is keeping it in constant jeopardy.

[…]

Yet nuclear weapons are like a rifle hanging on the wall in a play written and staged by a person unknown. We do not know the playwright’s intent. Nuclear weapons could go off because of a technical failure, human error or computer error. The last alarms me the most. Computer systems are now used everywhere. And how many times have computers and electronics failed—in aviation, in industry, in various control systems?

[…]

Those who believe nuclear weapons can save the world from war should recall the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. A dispute over the placement of Soviet nuclear weapons put the world on the brink of war. Recently published documents show how close the world came to the fateful line. It was not nuclear weapons that saved the world, but the sobering up of the two countries’ leaders, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. I am sure they thought long and hard, then and afterward, and their perception of nuclear weapons changed a great deal. 

What’s more, they reached agreement on ending nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water, thus slowing the qualitative weapons race as well as protecting the air from the deadly products of nuclear explosions.

The opportunity to continue progress in nuclear arms control was then squandered. The military-industrial complex won out over common sense. Only much later, toward the end of the 1980s, were we able to stop the arms race. Today, the U.S. and Russia are at a perilous crossroads. They must stop and think. The veterans of the Cold War have spoken. It is now up to our nations’ leaders to act.

Read more at The Madness of Nuclear Deterrence

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福島原発廃炉に外国人労働者、「使い捨て」の声 via 論座

Posted on 2019/04/30 by yukimiyamotodepaul

構内はほとんどが放射線管理対象区域、人手不足解消に新しい在留資格を利用
青木美希　朝日新聞社会部記者

「貧しいから出稼ぎに来ているのに、ここで働いて持って帰る金は、その後の治療費にも満たないだろう」

あるベトナム人男性はネットに書き込んだ。東京電力が福島第一原発の廃炉作業に特定技能の外国人労働者を受け入れると決めたことに対してだ。ベトナム人らからは「使い捨てにされる」との声が上がっている。

（略）

外国人労働者の受け入れを拡大するため、政府は技能実習生から移行できる新たな在留資格「特定技能」を4月に始めた。外国人労働者の廃炉作業は、2つの大きな問題をはらんでいる。

一つは、技能実習生が置かれている最低賃金割れや不当な残業、外出制限などの劣悪な環境が、そのまま特定技能に移行して引き継がれる恐れがあることだ。廃炉作業の現場は、ゼネコンの多重下請けによって下請け作業員が搾取される構図にある。53％の業者が労働関係法令に違反しているという調査結果が出ている。もともと日本語で声を上げづらい人たちが、さらにつらい立場におかれかねない。

もう一つは、廃炉作業の安全性だ。1日約４千人が働く現場だが、全面マスクをつけた上での高線量の現場がある。昨年9月の東電のアンケートでは1185人が「全面マスクで見にくい、聞こえにくい」と回答した。日本語が母国語の人同士ですら会話が難しいのに、言葉が不十分な外国人に的確な指示を伝えられるかどうか。4月24日には衆議院で「安全管理教育が多言語化対応できていない」と指摘された。帰国後に被曝の影響でがんを発症しても、労災申請のハードルは高い。医療が整っていない国も多い。

ベトナムの20代の男性が「建設機械・解体・土木」を学ぶために、盛岡市の建設会社に技能実習生として来たが、福島県郡山市で除染と知らずに作業につかされた。2015〜16年のことだ。その後、川俣町や飯舘村など住民が立ち入れない線量の高い現場で解体工事に従事し、危険手当1日2千円が渡されるようになったという。「自分は危険な仕事をしているんですか」と尋ねたところ、こう言われたという。「いやなら帰れ」

　男性ら実習生を支援してきた労働組合書記長の佐々木史朗さんは「危険手当は6600円あったが本人には2千円しか渡らず、放射線管理手帳も渡されていなかった。実習生たちからは『残業代未払い』『長時間労働』『休憩がとれない』『暴言暴力』『労災隠し』『強制帰国の脅かしにあった』という相談ばかり。人権が守られていない」と訴える。法務省はこの業者を実習生受け入れ停止5年の処分とした。

ほかにも3社が実習生に除染作業をさせていたことが明らかになり、うち１社を受け入れ停止3年とした。鉄筋施工や型枠施工の名目で実習生を受け入れながら除染地域の表土のはぎ取りなどをさせていたという。佐々木さんは福島第一原発について、「一瞬で高線量を被曝する可能性があり、除染よりさらに過酷な現場だと思う。被曝限度は法で決められ、いつまで働けるかもわからない」と警鐘を鳴らす。

（略）

福島第一原発では18年5月、敷地内の焼却炉工事に実習生6人が従事していたと東電が明らかにした。放射線管理対象区域外だったものの、確認が不十分だったという。法務省はこのとき、第一原発内で東電が発注する事業について「全て廃炉に関するもので、一般的に海外で発生しうるものではない」とし、国際貢献を目的とする技能実習生が従事することはできないと発表した。

　だが特定技能について東電が法務省に問い合わせた結果、「新資格は受け入れ可能。日本人が働いている場所は分け隔てなく働いてもらうことができる」（東電広報担当）と判断したという。法務省は「建設など特定技能の対象職種14種に該当すれば問題ない」としている。構内は現在、ほとんどが放射線管理対象区域だ。

（略）

4月14日、安倍晋三首相は東京電力福島第一原発を約5年半ぶりに視察した。記者団に対し「現場の皆さんの大変な御努力によって廃炉作業が一歩一歩着実に進んでいます」と語った。「スーツ姿でマスク無し」の姿がテレビや新聞写真に登場し、「初めて防護服やマスクを着けずに視察」「廃炉に向けた作業が進んでいることを国内外にアピール」と報じられた。

　しかし東電によると、首相がマスク無しでいたのは、見学や移動の際にマスクを不要とした一部地域。構内の大部分は使い捨て防塵マスク以上の装備が必要で、作業が多い建屋内や建屋周辺の高線量の現場は半面マスクや全面マスクとなっている。

2014年から15年まで下請け作業員として廃炉作業に従事し、「福島原発作業員の記」の著書がある池田実さん（66）は「いろいろ心配です」と話す。最初は建屋の中のごみを集める作業だった。そのあと消火器の解体やごみを小さくする作業と次々にかわった。その都度、紙で説明があった。「装備が作業のたびに変わる。エプロンをつけたり、化学防護手袋をつけたり。紙の説明を理解できるか、ですよね」

雇用条件についても心配だという。池田さんはハローワークから申し込んだ。求人票には「健康保険、厚生年金加入」とあったが、社長に「社会保険はどうなっていますか」とおそるおそる尋ねると「給料が多い方がいいでしょう」と加入しないことを告げられた。それまでは除染作業の二次下請けで1日1万7千円（危険手当1万円）を得ていた。第一原発では三次下請けで、1日1万4千円（危険手当4千円）と少なかった。池田さんは「どうしてより線量の高い現場で危険手当が減るんだろう」と疑問に思った。上の会社の人に給料を言うと驚かれ、「よほど中抜きされているんだと思った」。

被曝によるがんの労災基準は、白血病で年5mSv（ミリシーベルト）以上となっている。池田さんは7mSv以上を浴びた。仕事をやめてからも健康が心配だ。東京電力は昨年9月、福島第1原発の作業員約5千人にアンケートを実施。42％が第1原発で働くことに「不安を感じている」と回答した。健康への影響や収入の不安定さを挙げた人が多い。福島労働局が昨年、廃炉作業をする290業者を調べたところ、賃金の支払いや労働条件の明示などの違反が53％にあった。被曝量を遅滞なく知らせていなかった違反もあった。

2018年度に第一原発で放射線業務に従事した作業者は1万1306人。この期間に876人が10～20mSv、939人が5～10mSvの被曝をしている。1年の平均線量は東電社員が1.04mSvなのに対し、下請けを含む協力企業は2.64mSvと2.5倍多く被曝していた。原発労働者の被曝限度は「5年で100mSvかつ年間50mSv」と法令で定められている。これまで第一原発で働いた作業員6人が被曝によるがんで労災認定された。昨年は肺がんで死亡した男性が労災認定されている。

外国人労働者が帰国後に発症して亡くなった場合、遺族が日本語をまったくわからなくても労災申請ができるのか。政府は被曝による労災について伝えるリーフレットを日本語版しか作成していない。

全文は福島原発廃炉に外国人労働者、「使い捨て」の声

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甲状腺サポート事業「全員甲状腺がん」は誤りと謝罪〜実態は不透明via OurPlanet-TV

Posted on 2019/04/29 by nfield

福島県が実施している甲状腺検査で、治療が必要となった患者に支給している「甲状腺サポート事業」をめぐり７日の常任委員会で、県の佐藤宏隆保健福祉部長は「医療費を交付した２３３人は全て甲状腺がん（または疑い）」との１２月議会の答弁が誤りだったと謝罪した。

また１２日の委員会でも、佐藤部長は、「極めて重要な検査の数値の答弁を誤った」のは、「決して小さくない」「本来あってはなならいこと」と弁明した。一方、医療費を交付している２３３人のうち、手術を受けた８２人以外が、どのような患者なのかについては明らかにしなかった。

甲状腺検査サポート事業の交付実態、不透明なまま
１２月議会で、「２３３人全てが甲状腺がん」と回答した鈴木陽一保健福祉課課長。議会終了後のOurPlanetTVの取材に対し、「甲状腺サポート事業は、福島県民健康調査の甲状腺検査とセット。検査が、甲状腺がんのみを対象としている以上、交付対象も甲状腺がん疑いに限定しているのは当然。それは最初から変わっていない」と述べていた。

[…]

また、OurPlanetTVが、日本甲状腺学会誌に掲載された論文「甲状腺結節取り扱い診療ガイドライン」に掲載された「甲状腺結節の組織学的分類」を示しながら、交付対象となる内容を確認した際も、手術後の病理診断まで確定診断が難しい「濾胞腺腫」を除き、「悪性腫瘍」以外には交付されないと回答していた。

全文

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Does the nuclear industry have a back door into its regulator? via Beyond Nuclear International

Posted on 2019/04/29 by nfield

By Linda Pentz Gunter

[…]

In December 2017, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) released a report  which it posted on its website, and that of the Office of Science and Technical Information (OSTI) — a division within the Department of Energy. The abstract was posted to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) website where the links to the PNNL and OSTI report postings are now dead.

In its report, PNNL said that the “autopsy” of a closed nuclear power plant should be “required.” The idea is that when a nuclear power plant is permanently shut down, the decommissioning process provides access to key reactor safety systems, structures and components. With the reactor closed, these parts can — and should — be materially examined to assess the condition and reliability of those same parts in still operating reactors. Indeed, PNNL concluded that such strategic “harvesting” of actual aged samples was a “high priority,” if the government was to continue issuing extensions to reactor operating licenses.

The PNNL report —Criteria and Planning Guidance for Ex-Plant Harvesting to Support Subsequent License Renewal — was then abruptly removed from both the PNNL and OSTI websites. But not before Paul Gunter at Beyond Nuclear had downloaded it.

Why was it removed? Beyond Nuclear learned in our pre-hearing oral argument before the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board on March 27, 2019, that the PNNL report was “just a draft.” NRC counsel, Kayla Gamin, told the court that PNNL posted the report on its website “by mistake.” Presumably the DOE and IAEA made the same error.

Beyond Nuclear was arguing its case against the Second License Renewal of Exelon’s Peach Bottom nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, two reactors that are the same GE Mark I boiling water reactor design as those at Fukushima-Daiichi. As part of our arguments against extending the Peach Bottom operating license out to 80 years, Beyond Nuclear says that closed GE Mark I reactors, such as Vermont Yankee and Oyster Creek, should be autopsied during decommissioning, and laboratory analysis should be conducted on the effects of aging and degradation on safety systems. This would provide essential information when considering whether reactors like Peach Bottom should continue to operate at all, let alone for a total of 80 years, twice as long as the original license anticipated.

Just days after Beyond Nuclear raised objections in court to the PNNL report’s removal, (having already flagged its disappearance in our written statement), a revised version of the reportmagically reappeared, dated March 31, 2019, and this time on the NRC’s public information site known as ADAMS — but not on the PNNL or OSTI sites.

Paul immediately did a side-by-side comparison of the two reports, and the real reason for taking down the original quickly emerged. Paul found that the NRC had gone through and removed every reference to “required”, “may require”, or “likely require”. The revised report was considerably condensed, down from 52 pages to 42. There was also substantial removal or replacement of the term “knowledge gap,” which appeared 18 times in the December 2017 report and only once in the March 2019 version.

The report is still in PNNL’s name with the same five authors listed. There is no mention of editing by the NRC but a disclaimer at the beginning says “This document supersedes and replaces the previous harvesting criteria and planning guidance (PNNL-27120), which was inadvertently released while still under development.”

This isn’t a redaction, it’s tampering with someone else’s work to suit the NRC’s  — or rather the nuclear industry’s — agenda.

The PNNL had apparently prematurely decided that reactor autopsies should be “required” and then the NRC decided that they shouldn’t.

Read more.

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The even madder plan to build a new nuclear plant on the beach via Beyond Nuclear International

Posted on 2019/04/29 by nfield

By Linda Pentz Gunter

In December 2018 we ran an article — The mad plan to store nuclear waste on the beach— which has become one of our most read stories. Now, as the climate crisis worsens, here comes a possibly even madder plan — a new nuclear power plant on a beach with a shifting coastline famous for erosion.

[…]

The Sizewell reactors sit on a windswept beach just yards from a sea that has already consumed ancient villages as the coastline changed and eroded over the centuries. Now the sea level rise that will come with climate change promises in time to drown a few more, most likely including the Sizewell nuclear site. Undeterred, the French government nuclear company, EDF, insists it will build a new reactor at Sizewell — one of its ill-fated EPR design that is already struggling at Flamanville, Olkiluoto and Hinkley. Just from a climate change point of view, it is an exercise in insanity. But there is so much more at stake.

The local activist group, Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) has been challenging the EDF plan for years, even as Sizewell sits permanently second in the queue behind the ever more delayed and ever more exorbitant sister site at Hinkley C in Somerset, where EDF is attempting to build two EPRs. Despite the technical problems, cost over-runs and the obscene strike price EDF scored off the UK government — which would almost triple current electricity rates — the company insists in can build Sizewell C more cheaply than Hinkley C and that construction could start within the next three years. It’s a pretty tall order and, arguably, total French farce.

[…]

Read more.

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Climate Change Could Unleash Long-Frozen Radiation via Popular Mechanics

Posted on 2019/04/29 by nfield

Atomic bombs, Chernobyl, Fukushima—radiation has traveled and frozen all over the world. Global warming is changing that.

By David Grossman

[…]

[…]

The international team studied 17 icy locations across the globe, including the Arctic, the Antarctic, Iceland, the Alps, the Caucasus mountains, and British Columbia. While radiation exists naturally, the scientists were looking for example of human-made radiation. It was common to find concentrations at least 10 times higher than levels elsewhere.

“They are some of the highest levels you see in the environment outside nuclear exclusion zones,” says Caroline Clason, a lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of Plymouth, speaking in a press statement.

When human-made radiation is released into the environment, be it in small amounts like the Three Mile Island accident of 1979 or larger quantities like the Chernobyl disaster of 1986and the Fukushima Daichii accident of 2011, it goes into the atmosphere. That includes elements like radioactive cesium, which have been known to make people sick to the point of death across the globe.

After Chernobyl, clouds of cesium traveled across Europe. Radiation spread without regard for borders, reaching as far as England through rains. But when rain freezes, it takes the form of ice. And within ice, it can lay trapped. 

“Radioactive particles are very light so when they are taken up into the atmosphere they can be transported a very long way,” Clason tells the AFP. “When it falls as rain, like after Chernobyl, it washes away and it’s sort of a one-off event. But as snow, it stays in the ice for decades and as it melts in response to the climate it’s then washed downstream.”

What does that response look like? Humanity is starting to find out, Clason says. She points to wild boar in Sweden, who in 2017 were found to have 10 times the levels of normal radiation.

Traces of human-made radiation last a famously long time. Ice around the globe contains nuclear material not just from accidents involving nuclear power plants, but also man’s use of nuclear weapons.

“We’re talking about weapons testing from the 1950s and 1960s onwards, going right back in the development of the bomb,” Clason says. “If we take a sediment core you can see a clear spike where Chernobyl was, but you can also see quite a defined spike in around 1963 when there was a period of quite heavy weapons testing.”

Elements within radiation have different life spans. Perhaps the most notorious of these, Plutonium-241 has a 14 year half-life. But Americium-241, a synthetic chemical element, has a half life of 432 years. It can stay in ice a long time, and when that ice melts will spread. There isn’t much data yet on its ability to spread into the human food chain, but Clason called the threat of Americum “particularly dangerous”.

A term popular in science these days is the Anthropocene, which refers to the idea that humans have permanently altered the very core of how the Earth functions as a living ecosystem. Looking for radiation buried within icy soil and sediment could offer stronger proof of those changes.

[…]

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Japan’s nuclear horror relived as people return to Fukushima’s ghost towns via Mirror

Posted on 2019/04/29 by yukimiyamotodepaul

It is eight years since a devastating tsunami caused three reactors to meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station on the north-east coast of Japan

ByEmily RetterSenior Feature Writer

[…]

Radiation leaking in fatal quantities forced 160,000 people to evacuate immediately, and most to this day have not returned to their toxic towns and villages.

[…]

The government is keen residents return as soon as it is safe, and this month around 40% of the town of Okuma, which sits just west of the plant, was declared safe for habitation thanks to ongoing decontamination efforts carried out on an superhuman scale.

The official mandatory evacuation order was lifted, and while reports reveal just 367 residents of Okuma’s original population of 10,341 have so far made the decision to return, and most of the town remains off-limits, the Japanese government is keen this be seen as a positive start to re-building this devastated area.

“This is a major milestone for the town,” Toshitsuna Watanabe, mayor of Okuma, told Japanese news outlets, as six pensioners locally dubbed ‘The Old Man Squad’, who had taken it upon themselves to defy advice and keep their town secure, finally ceased their patrols.

“It has taken many years to get to where we are now, but I am happy that we made it.”

[…]

The government is particularly keen to show progress before the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Six Olympic softball games and a baseball game will be staged in Fukushima, the capital of this prefecture, which is free of radiation.

The torch relay will even begin at J Village, which was once the base for the crisis response team. Hearteningly, it is now back to its original function, a football training centre.

But the truth is, it is mainly older residents who have decided to return to their homes.

[…]

Work to make the rest of Okuma safe is predicted to take until 2022. The area which was its centre is still a no-go zone.

In the years following the disaster, 70,000 workers removed topsoil, tree branches, grass and other contaminated material from areas near homes, schools and public buildings.

A staggering £21billion has been spent in order to make homes safe.
Millions of cubic metres of radioactive soil has been packed into bags.
By 2021 it is predicted 14million cubic metres will have been generated.

[…]

But residents understandably want it moved out of Fukushima for good.

As yet, no permanent location has agreed to take it, but the government has pledged it will be gone by 2045.

At Daiichi itself, the decontamination teams are battling with the build up of 1m tonnes of radioactive water.

[…]

Decommissioning the plant entirely is expected to take at least four decades.

Read more at Japan’s nuclear horror relived as people return to Fukushima’s ghost towns

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