Today, Japan marks the fifth anniversary of the tragic and
catastrophic meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant. On March 11, 2011,
a massive earthquake and tsunami hit the northeast coast of Japan,
killing 20,000 people. Another 160,000 then fled the radiation in
Fukushima. It was the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl,
and according to some it would be far worse, if the Japanese government
did not cover up the true severity of the devastation.
At least 100,000 people from the region have not yet returned to
their homes. A full cleanup of the site is expected to take at least 40
years. Representative of the families of the victims spoke during
Friday’s memorial ceremony in Tokyo. This is what Kuniyuki Sakuma, a
former resident of
Fukushima Province said:
For those who remain, we are seized with anxieties and uncertainties
that are beyond words. We spend life away from our homes. Families are
divided and scattered. As our experiences continue into another year, we
wonder: 'When will we be able to return to our homes? Will a day come
when our families are united again?'
There are many problems in areas affected by the disaster, such as
high radiation levels in parts of Fukushima Prefecture that need to be
overcome. Even so, as a representative of the families that survived the
disaster, I make a vow once more to the souls and spirits of the
victims of the great disaster; I vow that we will make the utmost
efforts to continue to promote the recovery and reconstruction of our
hometowns.
Sadly, the 2011 disaster will be repeated. After the Fukushima
nuclear meltdown, Japan was flooded with massive anti-nuclear protests
which led to a four-year nationwide moratorium on nuclear plants. The
moratorium was lifted, despite sweeping opposition, last August and
nuclear plants are being restarted.
Meanwhile, while we await more tragedy out of the
demographically-doomed nation, this is what Fukushima's ground zero
looks like five years later. As Reuters sums it up best, "
no place for man, or robot."
The robots sent in to find highly radioactive fuel at
Fukushima's nuclear reactors have “died”; a subterranean "ice wall"
around the crippled plant meant to stop groundwater from becoming
contaminated has yet to be finished. And authorities still don’t know
how to dispose of highly radioactive water stored in an ever mounting
number of tanks around the site.
Five years ago, one of the worst earthquakes in history triggered a 40-metre high tsunami that crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power station causing multiple meltdowns. Nearly 119,000 people were
killed or left missing and 160,000 lost their homes and livelihoods.
Today, the radiation at the Fukushima plant is still so
powerful it has proven impossible to get into its bowels to find and
remove the extremely dangerous blobs of melted fuel rods.
The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power has made some progress,
such as removing hundreds of spent fuel roads in one damaged building.
But
the technology needed to establish the location of the melted fuel rods
in the other three reactors at the plant has not been developed.
“It is extremely difficult to access the inside of the nuclear
plant," Naohiro Masuda, Tepco's head of decommissioning said in an
interview. "
The biggest obstacle is the radiation.”
The fuel rods melted through their containment vessels in the reactors, and no one knows exactly where they are now.
This part of the plant is so dangerous to humans, Tepco has been
developing robots, which can swim under water and negotiate obstacles in
damaged tunnels and piping to search for the melted fuel rods.
But as soon as they get close to the reactors, the radiation
destroys their wiring and renders them useless, causing long delays,
Masuda said.
Each robot has to be custom-built for each building.“It takes two years to develop a single-function robot,” Masuda said.
IRRADIATED WATER
Tepco, which was fiercely criticized for its handling of the
disaster, says conditions at the Fukushima power station, site of the
worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in Ukraine 30 years ago, have
improved dramatically. Radiation levels in many places at the site are now as low as those in Tokyo.
More than 8,000 workers are at the plant at any one time, according
to officials on a recent tour. Traffic is constant as they spread across
the site, removing debris, building storage tanks, laying piping and
preparing to dismantle parts of the plant.
Much of the work involves pumping a steady torrent of water into the
wrecked and highly radiated reactors to cool them down. Afterward, the
radiated water is then pumped out of the plant and stored in tanks that
are proliferating around the site.
What to do with the nearly million tonnes of radioactive water is one
of the biggest challenges, said Akira Ono, the site manager.
Ono
said he is “deeply worried” the storage tanks will leak radioactive
water in the sea - as they have done several times before - prompting
strong criticism for the government.
The utility has so far failed to get the backing of local fishermen to release water it has treated into the ocean.
Ono estimates that Tepco has completed around 10 percent of the work
to clear the site up - the decommissioning process could take 30 to 40
years. But until the company locates the fuel, it won’t be able to
assess progress and final costs, experts say.
The much touted use of X-ray like muon rays has yielded little information about the location of the melted fuel
and the last robot inserted into one of the reactors sent only grainy images before breaking down.
ICE WALL
Tepco is building the world’s biggest ice wall to keep groundwater
from flowing into the basements of the damaged reactors and getting
contaminated.
First suggested in 2013 and strongly backed by the government, the
wall was completed in February, after months of delays and questions
surrounding its effectiveness. Later this year, Tepco plans to pump
water into the wall - which looks a bit like the piping behind a
refrigerator - to start the freezing process.
Stopping the ground water intrusion into the plant is critical, said Arnie Gunderson, a former nuclear engineer.
“The reactors continue to bleed radiation into the ground water and thence into the Pacific Ocean,” Gunderson said. "When Tepco finally stops the groundwater, that will be the end of the beginning.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-11/fukushima-five-years-later-fuel-rods-melted-through-containment-and-nobody-knows-whe
