Home » Posts tagged 'daiichi nuclear plant'

Tag Archives: daiichi nuclear plant

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Fukushima To Dump 1 Million Tons Of Radioactive Water Into Pacific

October 19, 2020

Fukushima To Dump 1 Million Tons Of Radioactive Water Into Pacific

Tokyo Electric Power’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station is expected to release more than one million tonnes of treated radioactive water from the destroyed nuclear power plant into the ocean after the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, according to the Asian Nikkei Review.

More than one thousand storage tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi site are lining the property and store upwards of 1.23 million tonnes of treated radioactive water. In recent years, we’ve pointed out (see: here & here) how storage tank capacity has been running out and battles fume over the prospects of releasing the tainted water.

The water in question has had radioactive isotopes removed through a complex filtration process – except for tritium. Even with existing technology, tritium cannot be removed. In large quantities, the tritium-mixed water could pose severe risks for wildlife and humans. The expected release would occur after 2022.

The decision to end several years of debate over releasing the tritium-mixed water appears to be coming to an end. But, in 2019, South Korea raised concerns to the International Atomic Energy Agency about the planned release.

Earlier this year, a Japanese government panel contemplated multiple release strategies: the first was to dump the tritium-mixed water into the ocean; the second was to allow the water to evaporate. The decision appears to be a controlled release into the Pacific Ocean.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said Friday, without commenting directly on Fukushima’s planned release of treated radioactive water, that:

“We can’t postpone a decision on the plan to deal with the… processed water, to prevent delays in the decommission work of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant,” Kato said. 

Environmental activists have not been thrilled with the upcoming release. Fisherman, farmers, and ordinary citizens have voiced concerns that releasing the tainted water could trigger an “environmental shock” and damage the surrounding ecosystem.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Radioactive Fukushima Particles Found In Alaska’s Bering Strait

April 1, 2019

Radioactive Fukushima Particles Found In Alaska’s Bering Strait

Radioactive particles from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have drifted as far north as a remote Alaskan island in the Bering Strait, according to scientists at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. 

Seawater collected last year near St. Lawrence Island contained a slight elevation in levels of cesium-137, a man-made radioactive isotope formed during nuclear fission. 

According to Reuters, the levels of cesium found in Alaska are far too low to pose a health hazard – as humans have been “cleared” to consume levels some 3,000-times higher than those found in the Bering Sea, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Water was sampled for several years by Eddie Ungott, a resident of Gambell village on the northwestern tip of St. Lawrence Island. The island, though part of the state of Alaska, is physically closer to Russia than to the Alaska mainland, and residents are mostly Siberian Yupik with relatives in Russia.

Fukushima-linked radionuclides have been found as far away as Pacific waters off the U.S. West Coast, British Columbia and in the Gulf of Alaska.

Until the most recent St. Lawrence Island sample was tested by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the only other known sign of Fukushima radiation in the Bering Sea was detected in 2014 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. –Reuters

In 2014, trace-amounts of Fukushima radiation was found in the muscle tissue of fur seals on Alaska’s St. Paul Island in the southern Bering sea, however there was no testing of the water at the time, according to Gay Sheffield, a Sea Grant marine advisory agent based in Nome, Alaska. 

Three of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant melted down in March 2011 after a 9.0-magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami knocked out the plant’s backup generators, disabling the pumps required to cool the reactors. 

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Shape Shifting Robot To Inspect Damaged Fukushima Reactor

February 11, 2015

Shape Shifting Robot To Inspect Damaged Fukushima Reactor

Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which suffered three reactor meltdowns from an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, can’t be decommissioned until its ruined reactors are inspected. But because of deadly radiation, no human can get close to the facility to survey the damage.

So the Japanese electronics giant Hitachi and an affiliate, Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, have designed a snaky-looking, remotely controlled robot to do the job, perhaps as soon as April, to gather information about the state of the No. 1 reactor building to prepare for the removal of its radioactive rubble.

The utility that operates the power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), intends to repair and seal off all damaged chambers in the facility, then fill them with water as a step toward eventually removing the melted remains. That is expected to take place in about 10 years.

Hitachi and Hitachi-GE demonstrated the shape-shifting robot on Feb. 5 at a plant owned by Hitachi-GE. It showed that the slinky, 2-foot-long robot can morph a bit depending on the space it needs to occupy and the work it needs to do.

In the demonstration, the robot, equipped with a camera and a lamp on its “nose,” snaked its way through a pipe with a diameter of only 4 inches. When it emerged from the other end of the pipe, it expanded to a U shape, then crawled around, taking live images of the immediate area and capturing temperature and radiation levels.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress