Fukushima Update

May 9th, 2012
Kyodo News
By Miya Tanaka

Ailing Tokyo Electric Power Co. is expected to expedite its restructuring by receiving 1 trillion yen in public funds, but uncertainties remain over the utility’s future and Japan’s drive to overhaul the whole power industry.

The capital injection into Japan’s largest utility known as TEPCO will increase the government’s responsibility in steering the owner of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, as the move will lead to it getting a majority ownership stake, giving the government power to intervene in management.

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May 4th, 2012
AlterNet
Brad Jacobson

Experts say acknowledging the threat would call into question the safety of dozens of identically designed nuclear power plants in the U.S.

More than a year after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the Japanese government, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) present similar assurances of the site’s current state: challenges remain but everything is under control. The worst is over.

But nuclear waste experts say the Japanese are literally playing with fire in the way nuclear spent fuel continues to be stored onsite, especially in reactor 4, which contains the most irradiated fuel — 10 times the deadly cesium-137 released during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. These experts also charge that the NRC is letting this threat fester because acknowledging it would call into question safety at dozens of identically designed nuclear power plants around the U.S., which contain exceedingly higher volumes of spent fuel in similar elevated pools outside of reinforced containment.

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May 2nd, 2012
The Wall Street Journal
Mari Iwata and Eleanor Warnock

TOKYO—Japan is grappling with the question of whether older nuclear reactors are more prone to spinning out of control when a disaster hits, as the nation pushes to restart units for the first time since last year’s accident in Fukushima.

The Japanese government, which has held a series of hearings on the matter this year with an expert panel, concluded age wasn’t a factor in the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant following the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. All three reactors went online in the 1970s. The government said bolts, pipes and other important parts used in safety equipment such as cooling systems had been regularly replaced, making the age of the reactors less relevant.

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May 2nd, 2012
Japan Times

Radioactive cesium was detected in 51 food products from nine prefectures in excess of a new government-set limit in the first month since it was introduced April 1, according to data released by the health ministry Tuesday.

The limit was exceeded in 337 cases, or 2.4 percent of 13,867 food samples examined by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

Cesium exceeding the previous allowable limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram was detected in 55 cases, while the new limit of 100 becquerels was exceeded in 282 cases.

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April 25, 2012
Japan Times Online

Groundwater is seeping into the damaged reactor buildings at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, and Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to build about a dozen wells to redirect and halve the flow.

Groundwater from precipitation is mixing with highly radioactive cooling water gathering in the reactor buildings, turbine buildings and basements, increasing the volume of tainted water at the complex.

The utility thus wants to use the wells to direct some of the groundwater into the Pacific Ocean — likely about 1,000 tons per day — before all of it seeps into the reactor buildings and elsewhere.

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