A fight for homeland: ‘From Hiroshima to Fukushima’ illustrates the history of nuclear desecration via Beyond Nuclear International

Posted on 2022/03/14 by nfield

By Candyce Paul

Sam Kerson first approached us nearly a decade ago offering to share some linocut prints with us. At that time we, the Committee for Future Generations, were embattled by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. We are the Poplar/Aspen Tree Home Dene (English River First Nation).  The Nuclear waste management Organization was soliciting us to allow them to build a nuclear waste dump on our traditional territory.  

Our Committee for Future Generations was in a campaign to raise awareness across Saskatchewan, Canada, and the world about the serious risks we were facing. We had walked and talked, and used social media, camped and gathered, and brought in experts. Our idea was to show the people that we were struggling against the industrial military complex. Our very DNA was on the line. We stood to protect the next 7000 Generations of all living things.

[…]

Uranium mining began in Saskatchewan in the 1950s to fuel NATO nuclear weapons. Our people warned them not to touch the Black Rock, for we knew the spirit of this rock would cause sickness, death and destruction if it ever was allowed to surface from under the ground. They did not heed the knowledge of our Elders. For 70 years they have been bringing the Black Rock  into the light of day and it has wrought great havoc on this planet. 

[…]

These engineers and scientists that played god with the atom unleashed a terrible power which they arrogantly thought they would find a way to control. Seven decades later they have no solution to containing the power they have unleashed. Just because they have the knowledge and the ability to undo a piece of creation, does not mean they should. 

They are proposing undeveloped experimental technology they call Small Modular (Nuclear) Reactors as a response to climate change. This green-washing attempt in Canada is delaying any real effort to mitigate climate chaos as there will be no operational SMRs for at least 10 years. Again the nuclear industry is targeting remote Indigenous communities as a place where this falsely painted “clean energy source” will replace diesel generators. The only thing is, there is not one Indigenous community in this country that can afford an SMR. So this too is a lie.

What we see here  is a thinly veiled attempt to open access to resources that are on those First Nations and Inuit lands by offering an electricity source for resource extraction. Again they have no plan for containing the nuclear waste they generate except deep in a hole on some other First Nations’ territory.  

We will defend our generations, as in the image “LIAR LIAR”, a portrait of one of our Indigenous women from Committee for Future Generations, as she holds the imperious President of the nuclear regulator in Canada by the scruff of the neck, castigating him and holding him to account for perpetuating nuclear lies.

Long ago, a grandmother was walking in the forest with her granddaughter. Up ahead she saw a black rock protruding from the ground. She gasped and ran to it and sat down on it. With tears rolling down from her eyes, she told her grandchild to go back to the people and tell them never to come there. The Black Death Rock was never supposed to come up from the ground. The grandmother knew it was her duty to cover the rock with her own body to keep it from harming the people. 

[…]

Sam Kerson and Katah, have created a historical view of the nuclear industry from its inception of de-creating the uranium atom, to its use in atomic bombs and weapons. They have highlighted the hazards and disasters that have characterized the nuclear energy industry.  Their unique perspective stems from decades of responding to the often terrible and horrifying impacts of the nuclear experiment.

Masi cho Sam! Masi cho Katah! We welcome this book of your thought provoking art to share in our fight to preserve our homelands and that of every living being on this Earth. We salute you for all the many years you have endeavoured to do the same. Let the pictures speak for themselves. 

This essay serves as the introduction to the book, Hiroshima to Fukushima. The Road to Self Destruction, by Sam Kerson, published by his partner, Katah. Sam and Katah are also founders of Dragon Dance Theatre “where social issues, human rights, and collective creation are at the heart of each and every project.”

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日本の「原子力ムラ」がもくろむ原発再稼働 ウクライナ危機に便乗する“火事場ドロボー” via 日刊ゲンダイ

Posted on 2022/03/14 by yukimiyamotodepaul

千載一遇のチャンス──とでも考えているのか。ウクライナ危機に乗じて自民党が“原発再稼働”に蠢きはじめている。

　自民党の「電力安定供給推進議連」は10日、原発の早期稼働を求める決議を全会一致で採択。政府に提言を提出する予定だ。「原発ムラ」は、原発再稼働に自信を強めているという。電気料金の上昇が確実視されているからだ。

いまでも電気料金は、かなり高くなっている。大手10社の4月の電気料金は、過去5年間で最も高い。たとえば、東京電力の1月の電気料金は平均的な世帯で7631円だったが、2月は7961円、3月は8244円、4月は8359円と毎月上昇している。

理由は、火力発電の燃料であるLNG（液化天然ガス）の輸入価格が値上がりしているためだ。ロシアのLNG輸出量は世界1位だけに、ロシアからの輸出がストップしたら、さらに電気料金が上がるのは間違いない。

（略）

原発ムラは、自民党だけでなく野党の「日本維新の会」と「国民民主」が再稼働を推進していることにも意を強くしているという。

「計画停電」もあるのか

　原発再稼働は「計画停電」で決定的になるとも囁かれている。いまでも夏と冬になると電力危機が叫ばれている。ロシアからLNGが入ってこない今年の夏は、電力が逼迫する恐れがある。実際に「計画停電」が実施されなくても、計画停電が取り沙汰されるだけで「原発再稼働」を求めるムードが高まる可能性がある。

　しかし、ウクライナ危機に便乗するのは、火事場ドロボーもいいところだ。立正大名誉教授の金子勝氏（憲法）がこう言う。

「ロシア軍による原発攻撃を見て、原発を保有するリスクがいかに高いか分かったはずです。原発はコストも高い。日本は大急ぎで“自然エネルギー”の拡大に力を入れるべきです。自然エネルギーはコストも低く、地産地消だからエネルギーを他国に頼る必要もない。脱炭素にもなります」

全文は日本の「原子力ムラ」がもくろむ原発再稼働 ウクライナ危機に便乗する“火事場ドロボー”

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What nuclear energy has to do with nuclear war via Newsroom

Posted on 2022/03/14 by nfield

DR KARLY BURCH

Dr Karly Burch is a Research Fellow from the Centre for Sustainability at the University of Otago.

Branding initiatives have successfully separated nuclear weapons as ‘bad’ and nuclear energy as ‘good’, and it is impacting our abilities to notice the material threats Ukraine is facing amid Russia’s attack, argues Dr Karly Burch

As someone who has spent more than 10 years studying the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, I was puzzled by the initial framing of Ukraine as a “non-nuclear state” at the onset of Russia’s invasion.

The Chernobyl nuclear complex was seized by the Russian military on February 25, 2022. However, it wasn’t until the fire and Russian take-over at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant complex that most people started talking about, and preparing for, the potential for a war-induced nuclear disaster or nuclear war.

Even then, few are describing Russia’s nuclear energy aggressions or the potential for a war-induced nuclear disaster as constituting nuclear war. Why is this the case?

The symbolic weapons – energy split

Nuclear technologies play a major role in upholding our current global imperial order, what some refer to as nuclear imperialism.

In 1953, the United States-derived Atoms for Peace Program worked to actively separate the stigma of the “bad”, “murderous” and “military” nuclear weapon, from the “good”, “peaceful” and “civilian” nuclear energy.

These branding initiatives have proven to be incredibly successful, with nuclear energy maintaining its positive image as “peaceful”, “safe” and now “sustainable” even in the face of numerous nuclear disasters at nuclear power plants (e.g. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi), uranium mines, nuclear storage facilities, among other locations along the nuclear fuel cycle.

As we can see today, these positive brandings can also impact our abilities to notice the material threats Ukraine is facing amid Russia’s attack.

For example, in 1994 Ukraine signed the United Nations Budapest Memorandum with the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia agreeing to return the nuclear weapons it had inherited when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The memorandum assured that, in return for Ukraine becoming a non-nuclear weapon state, these nuclear imperial powers would “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” —words that were breached with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.

However, while Ukraine no longer had nuclear weapons in its possession, it was far from being non-nuclear. It had also inherited the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and a number of nuclear power plants. And, eventually, it started building more.

Putting a country with all this uranium-derived nuclear material in the category of non-nuclear because the nuclear technologies are considered peaceful is incredibly dangerous and does not prepare us for the vulnerabilities nuclear energy and its infrastructures could face in times of war.

The danger of trusting words over materials

Over the years, there have been many attempts to dispute the dominant branding of nuclear power as peaceful, even by leaders of nuclear (weapons and energy) nations.

In 2006, Mikhail Gorbachev (the final leader of the Soviet Union) described how the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl was “perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union”.

In 2015, Naoto Kan (the Prime Minister of Japan at the time of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster) described in an interview how, if Japan’s 2011 nuclear disaster “had been a bit more severe, we would have had to evacuate people within a radius of 250 kilometres for a long period of time … Such colossal damage usually occurs only after a crushing defeat in war”.

These words based on material experience did little to disrupt the powerful branding of nuclear energy as peaceful. Yet, as the events of the past week have shown, brandings of peaceful nuclear energy do not guarantee peaceful results.

At a press conference on March 4 to discuss the fire at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant complex, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi outlined the seven indispensable pillars of nuclear safety and security that need to be in place at all times to ensure nuclear reactors, nuclear fuel storage pools or nuclear waste storage facilities are not compromised.

And on March 9, another pillar was breached as the Chernobyl nuclear reactor site – also occupied by Russian military – lost power. Again, the focus on words over materials have made these potential war-induced nuclear disasters appear to be a surprise.

When it comes to dealing with some of the most dangerous materials on Earth, whether in the form of nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, nuclear waste storage facilities or uranium mines, we cannot wait for actions to speak louder than words. The consequences will be dire, not only for Ukraine, but globally.

While some argue the current crisis would not have emerged if Ukraine possessed nuclear weapons, more nuclear weapons cannot guarantee peace or erase the material vulnerabilities posed by nuclear energy.

If peaceful and safe nuclear energy can only exist under stable environmental, political and economic conditions, then perhaps it is not a technology we can rely on to promote global peace and stability in an increasingly unstable world. Our dependence on “peaceful” nuclear energy only becomes more questionable when maintaining this peace requires the possession of nuclear weapons.

This should be a wake-up call to people in New Zealand, since this country supports the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, while it works within the IAEA to “realise the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons”.

If we look at the current crisis in Ukraine, we can see how nuclear energy promotes, not prevents, the spread of nuclear weapons. Scholars have found this linkage be true before the current crises brought it to our awareness.

[…]

Read more.

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汚染水処理で出る放射性廃棄物、後始末は先送り　福島第一原発の保管現場で見たものは via東京新聞

Posted on 2022/03/13 by nfield

　東京電力福島第一原発（福島県大熊町、双葉町）で発生が続く高濃度の放射性物質を含む汚染水は、処理や貯蔵の過程で汚染廃棄物を生み出している。本紙取材班は2日、原発構内に入り、その保管現場を回った。東電や政府は2023年春にも、汚染水を浄化処理した後の水を海洋放出する計画だが、大量の放射性廃棄物の後始末は先送りされたままだ。（小野沢健太）

「どうやって処分していくか、正直に言って具体策はない」。1～4号機西側にある広大なタンクエリアの一角で、東電の広報担当者は苦しそうな表情で言った。眼前に、コンクリートの壁に囲まれた屋根付きの小屋。壁のすき間から横長の水色のタンクが見えた。持参の線量計はタンクエリアで毎時0・5マイクロシーベルト前後を示していたが、小屋近くで同4マイクロシーベルトにはね上がった。　

厚さ20センチほどのコンクリート越しに強烈な放射線を放っているタンクの中身は、事故直後に発生した「濃縮廃液」。津波の影響で塩分を含んだ高濃度汚染水を淡水化し、原子炉の冷却に再利用する過程で出た廃液の沈殿物だ。　

泥状で処理が難しい上、高線量で近づけない。20年1月に福島県が現地確認した際には、壁の内側で最大毎時800マイクロシーベルトあった。その場に1時間20分もいれば、一般人の年間被ばく限度に達するレベルだ。　泥状の廃液が200立方メートル、その上澄み水が9000トン。汚染水処理が安定し、これ以上は増えない。東電は23年度から試験的な処理を始める計画だが、手法の検証すら始まっていない。

泥状の廃液が200立方メートル、その上澄み水が9000トン。汚染水処理が安定し、これ以上は増えない。東電は23年度から試験的な処理を始める計画だが、手法の検証すら始まっていない。

◆「手をつけられない」貯水池の汚染プラスチック

[…]

◆たまり続ける廃棄物も

　海洋放出が計画されている処理水は、多核種除去設備（ALPS）で浄化した水だ。その処理過程でも泥状の廃棄物が発生し、HICと呼ばれるポリエチレン製の容器（直径1.5メートル、高さ1.8メートル、厚さ約1センチ）に入れて保管している。　敷地南側の保管場所では、コンクリート壁の内側にHICの上部が見えた。高線量汚泥が入ったHICは一部が既に耐用年数を超え、22年度末にその数が87基になる。劣化によって破れる恐れがあり、新しい容器への移し替えを迫られている。だが作業時の被ばく防護策を整えるのに時間がかかり、汚染が激しい容器の入れ替えは2月22日に始まったばかりだ。　処理水の海洋放出が始まれば、約1000基ある保管タンクは徐々に減る。ただ汚染水の発生をゼロにする計画はなく、浄化処理は続く。その間、処理で出る廃棄物はたまり続けるため、長期的な管理方法の検討を先送りすることは許されない。【関連記事】＜動画＞すぐそこに「4シーベルト」 手つかずの現場に記者が近づいた　事故から11年の福島第一原発

全文

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Mr Itakura Masao who returned to live in Tomioka Town, Fukushima Prefecture. via FoEJapan

Posted on 2022/03/13 by nfield

“If you haven’t seen Fukushima, you can’t possibly imagine this reality,” said by Mr. Itakura Masao, who returned to live in Tomioka Town, Fukushima Prefecture.

The evacuation orders for the town of Tomioka in Fukushima Prefecture were lifted in 2017. Mr. Itakura’s home is about six kilometres from the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and he has recently returned to live in Tomioka. We visited Mr. Itakura there, together with Ms. Muto Ruiko of Miharu Town, Fukushima Prefecture. 

Mr. Itakura told us of the situation in Tomioka today, formerly part of the evacuation zone. He doesn’t bring his grandchildren or children to visit because the radiation levels are still too high. Due to the limited availability of shops and services, despite being over 90 years old he still has to drive himself. 

English　  https://youtu.be/Kq5wj4e9Isw

French　  https://youtu.be/-0fME1tc-mc

Korean　  https://youtu.be/sRvLriNl1p0

Chinese (traditional)  https://youtu.be/MlcDxqJHnWY

Chinese (simplified)  https://youtu.be/5TwcYKCRBj0

German　  https://youtu.be/JWk2rL4Ysrg

Spanish　  https://youtu.be/Y1DfnfYLQjk

Japanese https://youtu.be/xHPEwMIKZIY

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福島ミエルカプロジェクト：福島県富岡町に帰還した板倉正雄さん　via FoE Japan

Posted on 2022/03/13 by nfield

「福島を見ていない人はこの現実を想定できないでしょう」

2017年に避難解除された福島県富岡町。東電福島第一原発からおよそ6kmのところに板倉さんの家があります。富岡町に帰還した板倉さんを福島県三春町に住む武藤類子さんと訪ねました。

放射線量が未だに高いことから、孫や子どもたちを呼ぶことはないと言います。利用できるお店やサービスが限られているため、90歳を超えても今なお車を運転しなければ生活ができないなど、旧避難指示区域の富岡町の様子を語ってくださいました。ぜひ、板倉さんのお話をおききください。

▼他の方のインタビューやDVD販売もございます。 http://www.foejapan.org/energy/fukush…

▼見える化プロジェクトの再生リストはこちら https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

▼FoE Japanについてはこちら http://www.foejapan.org/ ※インタビューは2019年2月に行いました

#311mieruka #fukushima

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I Was a Nuclear Missile Operator. There Have Been More Near-Misses Than the World Knows via The Guardian UK (Reader Supported News)

Posted on 2022/03/13 by nfield

As a 22-year-old I controlled a warhead that could vaporize a metropolis. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the public is waking up again to the existential dangers of nuclear weapons

From 2012 to 2017, I worked as a US air force nuclear missile operator. I was 22 when I started. Each time I descended into the missile silo, I had to be ready to launch, at a moment’s notice, a nuclear weapon that could wipe a city the size of New York off the face of the earth.

On the massive blast door of the launch control center, someone had painted a mural of a Domino’s pizza logo with the macabre caption, “World-wide delivery in 30 minutes or less or your next one is free.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, I’ve heard more discussions of nuclear war than I did in the entire nine years that I wore an air force uniform. I’m glad that people are finally discussing the existential dangers of nuclear weapons. There have been more near-misses than the world knows.

Greg Devlin was an airman assigned to an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) team in Arkansas in 1980. One night he responded to a leak in the missile’s fuel tank. A young airman working in an ICBM launch tube had accidentally dropped a socket from his toolkit; the socket fell down the silo, ricocheted, and pierced a hole in the stage-one fuel tank. The missile’s liquid fuel exploded. Devlin was thrown 60ft down an asphalt road and watched as a massive fireball rose overhead.

The ICBM had a nine-megaton warhead – the most powerful single nuclear weapon in American history – on top. When the missile exploded, the warhead was thrown into the woods, disappearing into the night.

“I was stunned and in pain but I knew the nuke hadn’t gone off,” Devlin told me, “because I remembered those stories from Hiroshima where people had been turned into little charcoal briquettes. I was alive. That’s how I knew the nuke didn’t detonate.” Although the nuclear warhead didn’t explode, the accident still claimed the life of one airman and injured 21 others, including Devlin.

When I was training as a nuclear missile operator, my instructor told me the story of what happened in Arkansas that night in 1980. It’s a famous story within the missile community. Stories like these were a way of impressing upon young officers the integrity required to be a good steward of these weapons and a warning of how quickly things can go wrong. That warning was very much on my mind as I began my first “alert” down in the claustrophobic underground missile silo that housed the launch control center.

But somewhere along my way to nearly 300 nuclear “alerts” – 24-hour shifts in command of a launch crew – I began to brush the story off as a scare tactic for rookies. Similarly, I think that after the end of the cold war, the general public allowed the threat of nuclear warfare to recede into the background. The threat simply didn’t feel real to new generations like it did to those who grew up huddling under their desks during nuclear attack drills in elementary school.

[…]

Greg Devlin has a different set of numbers from his experience with missiles. “Since that explosion I’ve had 13 spine surgeries and two spinal stimulators. I lived the last decade of my life on morphine,” said Devlin.

Nuclear weapons turn the most important parts of life into nothing more than numbers – which is exactly the thought process needed for a society that believes that launching a nuclear missile is a viable solution to conflict. Because in the wake of a nuclear attack there will be no individuals, only numbers.

Read more.

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A message to all people in the world concerned about the fate of the people of Fukushima　via Fukushima 311 Watchdogs

Posted on 2022/03/13 by nfield

By Ruiko Muto

Never in my life has a year seemed so severe as the one that followed, in 2021, the tenth anniversary of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear accident: I had the constant sensation of being bitten by the icy cold of an ever-lasting winter. I must start by saying that last year I lost five very close friends one after the other. All of them lived in Fukushima and were in their fifties at the time of the accident. I can’t prove that their deaths are related to the nuclear accident, but I can’t help but thinking that they were. And many people around me share the same doubts.

Since last year, the Japanese government, the Fukushima Prefecture and the media have decided to more radically pursue their course. It’s no longer a question of dealing with the dramatic reality caused by the ongoing nuclear accident, but of preaching for the “reconstruction” of the Prefecture and acting only for its implementation. Despite the spread of Covid-19, the Tokyo Olympic Games was imposed in an incredibly authoritarian way. The Torch relay started from Fukushima, more precisely J-Village Stadium, a sports complex which was an important base for the workers in the aftermath of the nuclear accidents. In addition, in April 2021, the government endorsed a plan to discharge into the sea huge quantities of radioactive water accumulated at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant site, despite the many voices in Japan itself, but also in other countries, which strongly protested this decision.

Yet, the most serious issue for me is the problems faced by the younger generation. The government, in order to replace the numerous evacuees who refuse to return to their commune of origin, allocated in 2021 a budget of 1.8 billion yen (13.9 million euros) to persuade newcomers to settle in the 12 municipalities formerly designated as mandatory evacuation zones after the accident. In concrete terms, a premium of 2 million yen (€ 15,500) will be granted to each household having recently moved into these 12 municipalities. In addition, at four kilometers from the crippled nuclear site, on the lawn of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum, a local tourism company organizes various activities to attract high school and university students as well as young working adults: meals, stargazing nights, yoga classes etc. Finally, at an increasing pace, “discussion meetings” for young people are organized by the Ministry of the Environment and other organizations, on topics such as the release of radioactive water into the sea or the reuse of contaminated soil. All these appear to me as a staging to manipulate the minds of the young people. As for the “Supplementary reader on radiation”, distributed from 2011, after the accident, to all primary and junior high schools in Japan by the Ministry of Education, its latest version considerably reduces the paragraphs devoted to the dangers of radioactivity and the question of responsibilities of the nuclear accident. On the other hand, there are some pages in the appendix that praise the harmlessness of the radio-contaminated water accumulated at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant.

On January 27 this year, six young people who were between 6 and 16 years old at the time of the accident, and who have been suffering from thyroid cancer, filed a lawsuit against TEPCO, the operator of Fukushima Dai-ichi. They demand that the causal link between the nuclear accident and the triggering of their thyroid cancer be investigated. Indeed, the Prefectural Oversight Committee for Fukushima Health Management Survey in charge of evaluating the prefectural health survey still refuses to recognize any cause-and-effect relationship between these two factors. The young plaintiffs hope that this causality, if recognized at the end of the trial, will lead to the establishment of a system of aid for all other post-accident thyroid cancer patients, who are experiencing the same suffering as they are. This would cast a small glimmer of hope on their future. The consequences of the accident are made less and less visible. At the same time, the “reconstruction” of Fukushima (repopulating the evacuation areas, creating high-tech industrial zones, managing experimental agricultural sites to grow edible crops, etc.) is pushed forward at all costs. In this context, it must have taken extraordinary courage for these young people to file such a lawsuit. I call on all adults to support them in every way possible.

As a Fukushima resident and victim of the nuclear accident, I was deeply shocked by the European Commission’s proposal earlier this year to include nuclear energy in the green taxonomy. Nuclear reactors, no matter how small they become or how peaceful their use is claimed to be, use the same technology developed to create the atomic bomb. And throughout all the stages, nuclear energy production leads to the exposure of workers and local residents to radioactivity. Privilege the conquest of great power without hesitating to sacrifice small people – this is, in my opinion, the state of mind that still governs the nuclear industry today. Moreover, humanity has not totally mastered safety and security in this domain, and is also unable to find a solution to the perennial problem of disposal of the toxic waste. Finally, it is clear that nuclear facilities do great harm to the environment. For all these reasons, we refuse to consider this energy as “green” or “clean”.

On a positive note, a growing number of countries are ratifying the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). So the time has also come to say farewell to nuclear energy production. 

Despite the troubled times we are going through, and all the difficulties we will still face in the future, let us continue to walk together step by step, supported by the solidarity of our fellow human beings who continue the struggle in the four corners of the world.

March 2022 in Fukushima

Ruiko Muto

Chair of the Complainants for the Criminal Prosecution of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

Member of Fukushima Women Against Nuclear Power

http://hidanren.blogspot.com

http://kokuso-fukusimagenpatu.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_5112.html

(Translated from Japanese by Nos Voisins Lointains 3.11)

Source

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11 years later, fate of Fukushima reactor cleanup uncertain via ABC

Posted on 2022/03/12 by nfield

By Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press

[…]

Workers were preparing for the planned construction of an Olympic pool-sized shaft for use in a highly controversial plan set to begin in the spring of 2023 to gradually get rid of treated radioactive water — now exceeding 1.3 million tons stored in 1,000 tanks — so officials can make room for other facilities needed for the plant’s decommissioning.

Despite the progress, massive amounts of radioactive melted fuel remain inside of the reactors. There’s worry about the fuel because so much about its condition is still unknown, even to officials in charge of the cleanup.

Nearly 900 tons of melted nuclear fuel remain inside the three damaged reactors, and its removal is an unprecedented challenge involving 10 times the amount of damaged fuel removed in the Three Mile Island cleanup following its 1979 partial core melt.

The government has set a decommissioning roadmap aiming for completion in 29 years.

The challenge of removing melted fuel from the reactors is so daunting that some experts now say that setting a completion target is impossible, especially as officials still don’t have any idea about where to store the waste.

Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Toyoshi Fuketa said recently that extra time would be needed to determine where and how the highly radioactive waste removed from the reactors should be stored.

Japan has no final storage plans even for the highly radioactive waste that comes out of normal reactors. Twenty-four of the country’s 60 reactors are designated for decommissioning, mostly because of the high cost needed to meet safety standards set up in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

[…]

Hideyuki Ban, the co-founder of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center who previously served on government nuclear safety panels, proposes the underground burial of solidified treated water for stable long-term storage, while entombing the three reactors for several decades — like Chernobyl — and waiting for radioactivity to decrease for better safety and access for workers instead of rushing the cleanup.

Since the disaster, contaminated cooling water has constantly escaped from the damaged primary containment vessels into the reactor building basements, where it mixes with groundwater and rainwater that seep in.

The water is pumped up and treated, partly recycled as cooling water, with the remainder stored in 1,000 huge tanks crowding the plant. The tanks will be full at 1.37 million tons by next spring, TEPCO says.

The government has announced plans to release the water after treatment and dilution to well below the legally releasable levels through a planned undersea tunnel at a site about 1 kilometer offshore. The plan has faced fierce opposition from local residents, especially fishermen concerned about further damage to the area’s reputation.

TEPCO and government officials say tritium, which is not harmful in small amounts, is inseparable from the water, but all other 63 radioactive isotopes selected for treatment can be reduced to safe levels, tested and further diluted by seawater before release.

Scientists say the health impact from consuming tritium through the food chain could be greater than drinking it in water, and further studies are needed.

At one of the water treatment facilities where radiation levels are much higher, a team of workers in full protective gear handled a container filled with highly radioactive slurry. It had been filtered from the contaminated water that’s been continuously leaking from the damaged reactors and pumped up from their basements since the disaster. Large amounts of slurry and solid radioactive waste also accumulate in the plant.

[…]

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Urgent Update from Chernobyl: Nuclear Facilities Lost Access to the Electricity Grid via DiaNuke.org

Posted on 2022/03/12 by nfield

Olga Kosharna

Due to combat actions, Emergency disconnection of high-voltage power transmission line 750kV “Kievskaya-ChNPP” occurred on 09.03.2022 at 11:22. ChNPP and all nuclear facilities inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone – SNFSF-1, SNFSF-2 and the New Safe Confinement – remain depowered.

SNFSF-1 is the wet-type storage facility for the spent nuclear fuel from ChNPP RBMK reactors. SNFSF-2 is the dry-type storage facility for the SNF from ChNPP.

Emergency diesel-generators have been put in operation to provide power supply for systems important for safety. Diesel fuel stored there will suffice for 48 hours of operation.

Over 20 thousand RBMK spent fuel assemblies are stored in the SNFSF-1 spent fuel pond (SFP). To remove the residual heat, cool-down of these FA’s is required; this was provided by operation of pumps. When pumps are not in operation, the residual heat is not removed and water can start boiling in the SFP, which would result in the radioactive steam arising and the FA’s further melting, which could cause a severe accident. Provided non-operating ventilation systems, personnel irradiation dose will increase and radioactive gases and effluents will be spread not only over the territory of Ukraine, but also over Byelorussia and the RF.

When ventilation is not assured inside the NSC, radiation level there will increase to a level hazardous for personnel.

Absence of power supply will not impact operation of SNFSF-2, as the concrete containers are installed inside the concrete modules and are cooled-down by natural ventilation.

Actions of Russian invaders are a crime and are subject to Clause 2 of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, as well as to Clause 7 of the Convention for the protection of Nuclear Material (RF is the Party to both these Conventions), which should result in imposing strict sanctions by the world community and, with regard to the gravity of the crime, the criminal prosecution of those who performed these actions and of the terrorist state – the Russian Federation. .

Unfortunately, IAEA demonstrates complete impotence in the situation when the nuclear facilities are captured in Ukraine and only limits its actions to appeals to the RF, not even calling the RF the nuclear terrorist state. It is necessary to initiate criminal proceedings in international courts and hold the RF accountable for crimes. It is also required to impose sanctions on Rosatom and expel the RF from all world-wide and European unions.

Catastrophe is close and we don’t have much time.

Nuclear specialists worldwide, unite and put pressure on your governments to prevent another Fukushima-type accident!!!

About the author

Dr. Olga Kosharna (olga_kosharna@ukr.net, tel +380673991102) is a nuclear power and safety expert, affiliated with Ukrainian nuclear Society, Kyiv

DiaNuke site

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