Fukushima Update News from Japan
Last edited Thu Mar 31, 2016, 12:02 PM - Edit history (1)
TOKYO —
TEPCO starts freezing soil around Fukushima nuclear plant
Tokyo Electric Power Co said Thursday it has started freezing soil around damaged nuclear reactor buildings at the disaster-hit Fukushima plant, aiming to reduce the flow of groundwater into the highly contaminated facilities.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority on Wednesday gave the utility, known as TEPCO, permission to create a coolant-filled ice wall and start freezing soil on the east side facing the sea first and then 95 percent of the west side facing the mountains.
The work is expected to take more than three months to complete.
TEPCO began installing equipment needed to establish the ice wall in June 2014 around the Nos. 1 to 4 reactors at the plant, crippled by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011, and completed the work last month. The government provided about 35 billion yen ($309 million) for the project.
The power company plans to seek permission to extend the wall to cover the entire west side as well as the south and north sides after collecting data.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/tepco-starts-freezing-soil-around-reactors-at-fukushima-nuclear-plant
Chubu Electric completes 22-meter-high seawall to protect Hamaoka nuclear plant
SHIZUOKA —
Chubu Electric Power Co said Thursday it has completed construction of a seawall to protect its Hamaoka nuclear plant in Shizuoka Prefecture.
The seawall, which rises 22 meters above sea level, is 1.6 kilometers long, and along with other safety measures at the plant, cost about 400 billion yen, Fuji TV reported. Construction began in November 2011.
The Hamaoka plant, which is said to be above a major faultline, is just 100 meters away from the Pacific Ocean and sits in the Tokai region, southwest of Tokyo, where seismologists have long warned that a major quake is overdue because two major continental plates meet here in the Nankai Trough.
Chubu Electric said it is also working on other measures to prevent flooding inside the plant, and programs to safeguard cooling systems that bring reactors to safe shutdown in case of severe accidents. Those measures are expected to be completed on the No. 4 reactor building in September this year and on the No. 3 reactor building in September 2017.
Chubu Electric has applied to the Nuclear Regulation Authority for a safety check of the two reactors. However, the inspection has been on hold pending the investigation of a geologic fault under the plant. Chubu Electric said its own geological survey in the area found no active faultlines.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/chubu-electric-completes-22-meter-high-seawall-around-hamaoka-nuclear-plant
5 years after Fukushima meltdowns, wild game animals still show cesium contamination
Concentrations of radioactive cesium from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in wild game animals in nine eastern Japanese prefectures have been dropping, but remain higher than the government-mandated limit for shipment to market in many areas
The upper limit for cesium concentrations in meat is 100 becquerels per kilogram. Shipments of seven types of wild game from areas of Fukushima, Miyagi, Yamagata, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Chiba and Niigata prefectures have remained restricted since the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant as cesium contamination has yet to fall consistently below the government-set maximum.
For example, wild boar meat examined at a processing plant in Nakagawa, Tochigi Prefecture, registered as much as 1,100 becquerels per kilo in fiscal 2012, and a high of 340 becquerels in fiscal 2015.
According to ecology expert and Chiba University associate professor Masashi Murakami, the cesium fallout was deposited on fallen leaves by repeated rainfall. However, as time passes the radioactive element will be absorbed by clay particles in the forest soil, removing it from animals' food sources. As such, says Murakami, cesium levels in wild game animals will fall faster than the element's natural decay rate.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160331/p2a/00m/0na/016000c
700,000 people could be trapped in Tokyo in case of major earthquake
As many as 700,000 people could have no place to go in case of a major earthquake striking right beneath the Tokyo metropolitan area, according to a recent government estimate.
The government on March 29 announced an emergency response plan in case of a major earthquake hitting directly beneath the capital -- a disaster that is estimated to occur with a 70 percent probability in the next 30 years.
It is estimated that up to 8 million people in the metropolitan area of Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures will have difficulty returning home in case of a large earthquake right beneath Tokyo. While the government's plan urges urban dwellers and workers to try not to go home simultaneously at the time of a disaster, not much progress has been made in securing temporary shelters for them, and it is estimated that about 700,000 people in Tokyo alone will have nowhere to go when a major earthquake hits the metropolis.
In addition, the number of casualties by fire is estimated to total about 16,000, or 70 percent of the total number of losses projected in a major disaster in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160331/p2a/00m/0na/009000c
N-reactor research facility unveiled
The Yomiuri Shimbun: A research facility equipped with a life-size model of a nuclear containment vessel was unveiled Wednesday in the town of Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture.
The facility was built in preparation for the decommissioning of reactors in Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. An inauguration ceremony was held on the same day, and the new facility starts full operations from Friday.
The steel-frame facility with a 40-meter-high open ceiling is a laboratory building of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s (JAEA) Naraha Remote Technology Development Center. Its floor space is about 5,670 square meters.
Inside they have built an 18-meter-high, 20-meter-deep, 18-meter-wide model that replicates the lower part of the containment vessel that houses the plant’s No. 2 reactor. It was built to study methods to repair containment vessels destroyed by the nuclear accident.
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002844227
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