Russia Offers Fukushima Cleanup Help as Tepco Reaches Out
Stock Chart for Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc (9501)
Russia repeated an offer first made two years ago to help Japan clean up its accident-ravaged Fukushima nuclear station, welcoming Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501)’s decision to seek outside help.
As Tokyo Electric pumps thousands of metric tons of water through the wrecked Fukushima station to cool its melted cores, the tainted run-off was found to be leaking into groundwater and the ocean. The approach to cooling and decommissioning the station will need to change and include technologies developed outside of Japan if the cleanup is to succeed, said Vladimir Asmolov, first deputy director general of Rosenergoatom, the state-owned Russian nuclear utility.
“In our globalized nuclear industry we don’t have national accidents, they are all international,” Asmolov said. Since Japan’s new government took over in December, talks on cooperating between the two countries on the Fukushima cleanup have turned “positive” and Russia is ready to offer its assistance, he said by phone from Moscow last week.
After 29 months of trying to contain radiation from Fukushima’s molten atomic cores, Tokyo Electric said last week it will reach out for international expertise in handling the crisis. The water leaks alone have so far sent more than 100 times the annual norms of radioactive elements into the ocean, raising concern it will enter the food chain through fish.
‘Last to Realize’
The latest leak of 300 metric tons of irradiated water prompted Japan’s nuclear regulator to label the incident “serious” and question Tokyo Electric’s ability to deal with the crisis, echoing comments made by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier this month. Zengo Aizawa, a vice president at Tepco, as the Tokyo-based utility is known, made the call for help at a press briefing in Japan’s capital on Aug. 21.
In addition to the leak, Tepco today announced that one of its two filters treating contaminated water was taken offline on Aug. 8 because of corrosion and will be shut until at least next month. The lost layer of filtration adds to the contamination levels of water in the storage tanks.
“It was clear for a long time that Tepco was not adequately coping with the situation,” Asmolov said. “It looks like Tepco management were the last to realize this,” he said. “Japan has the technologies to do this, but they lacked a system to deal with this kind of situation.”
The Fukushima accident of March 2011 is the world’s biggest nuclear disaster since the Soviet Union faced the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986.
So far, Tokyo’s solution to cooling melted nuclear rods at Fukushima that otherwise could overheat into criticality, or a self-sustained nuclear chain reaction, has been to pour water over them. That’s left more than 330,000 tons of irradiated water in storage tanks at the site so far. The water is treated to remove some of the cesium particles in it, which in turn leaves behind contaminated filters.
‘Vast Volumes’
The sheer quantity of water used is the most at a nuclear accident since the 1972 London convention banned the dumping of waste and radioactive water into the sea, said Peter Burns, formerly Australia’s representative on the United Nations scientific committee on the effects of atomic radiation.
“Until they figure out how to deal with such vast volumes of water, how to manage it, the problem” including of leaks will persist, Burns, a retired radiation physicist, said from Melbourne.
Retaining thousands of tons of radioactive water in tanks was the wrong strategy from the start and Tepco’s handling of the task is a “textbook picture of a failure of management,” Michael Friedlander, who has 13 years of experience running nuclear stations in the U.S., said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in Hong Kong.
Pumping Water
The idea of pumping water for cooling was never going to be anything but a “machine for generating radioactive water,” Asmolov said. Other more complex methods such as the use of special absorbents like thermoxide to clean contaminated water and the introduction of air cooling should be used, he said.
Russia’s nuclear company, Rosatom, of which Rosenergoatom is a unit, sent Japan a 5 kilogram (11 pound) sample of an absorbent that could be used at Fukushima almost three years ago, Asmolov said. It also formed working groups ready to help Japan on health effect assessment, decontamination, and fuel management, among others, Asmolov said. The assistance was never used, he said.
“Since the arrival of the new Japanese government, the attitude’s changed,” he said. “So far the talks have been on a diplomatic level, but they are much more positive. And we remain open to working together on this issue. To follow developments I monitor Fukushima news every morning.”
Tap Experts
Japan can tap experts in France and the U.S. as well as Russia to help it tackle the situation at Fukushima, he said.
The U.S.’s long history with atomic research, including the nuclear weapons site at the Hanford Engineer Works in Washington state, has provided expertise in cleaning up contaminated sites, said Kathryn Higley, who heads the nuclear engineering and radiation health physics department at Oregon State University in Corvallis.
“We have individuals that are working on groundwater contamination and using technology and developing new technologies to clean up strontium in groundwater, for example, at the Hanford site,” she said. “So there are individuals around the world that have been doing this and certainly they would be more than willing to help in this process.”
France’s Areva SA (AREVA) had designed a radiation filtration system that was used for several months at the Fukushima site as temporary cover before Tepco installed its own facilities. Japanese delegations have also visited U.S. nuclear waste sites together with CH2M Hill Cos., an engineering company based in Englewood, Colorado.
Experienced Hands
This month a group of 17 Japanese companies including Toshiba Corp. (6502) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (7011) formed an association, called International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning, to support Tepco’s efforts.
The association, which aims to research removal of spent fuel from reactor pools and clearance of debris, plans to liaise with international organizations such as the U.S. Department of Energy on its work, Hajimu Yamana, head of the association, told reporters in Tokyo on Aug. 8.
Tepco is in talks with a team of retired U.S. government officials, who worked on water management after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, according to Dale Klein, the chairman of an advisory panel to Tepco and a former head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Klein said the officials had served in the Department of Energy and the NRC, declining to identify them.
“It will be beneficial for Tepco to get people who have real live experience in dealing with contaminated water from nuclear events,” Klein said.
An announcement on a deal with the contractors could come within a month, Klein said.
Tepco’s “experience should be in being a safe, reliable electricity generator,” said Klein. The company’s “core competencies have not been having to deal with the massive cleanup that is now facing them.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Yuriy Humber in Tokyo at yhumber@bloomberg.net; Jacob Adelman in Tokyo at jadelman1@bloomberg.net
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*#1254 経済成長論の終焉 Oct.24, 2010
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2010-10-24-1
#1460 「原子炉圧力容器損傷か?:写真で検証」
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2011-04-03-1
#1462 「裸の王様:原子炉圧力容器は破損している 論より証拠、よく写真を見てごらん 」
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2011-04-05
#1463 「福島第1原発3号炉はもう無い:東京電力社員退去要請の意味」
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2011-04-06
#1607 児玉龍彦国会で告発(2):(書き起こし) July 31, 2011
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2011-07-31
#1611 児玉龍彦教授(3):息子さんからのエール Aug. 3, 2011
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2011-08-02-1
#1655 あらら、何を隠そうとしているの?:原子炉建屋にコンクリートの覆い Sep.21, 2011
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2011-09-21
#2237 過剰富裕化論提唱者の福島原発事故処理構想:遺稿 Mar. 4, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-03-04
#2323 次の原発事故のために(1):甲状腺癌と情報操作?:U.N. experts see no increase risk of cancer … Jun. 6, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-06-06
#2324 次の原発事故のために(2) :福島県で12人が甲状腺癌 Jun. 7, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-06-07
#2325 次の原発事故のために(3):Tyroid cancer hits 12 kids in Fukushima: Jun. 8, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-06-08
#2340 米国の現実:核廃棄物は管理不能 Jun. 25, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-06-25
#2377 次の原発事故のために(4):小児甲状腺癌18人に Aug. 21, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-08-21
#2379 次の原発事故のために(5) 8000万ベクレル/ℓ 高濃度汚染水漏洩 Aug.22, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-08-22
#2381 次の原発事故のために(6): 超高濃度汚染水と浄化システムALPS Aug. 25, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-08-24
#2383 次の原発事故のために(7): 漏洩はセシウムとストロンチウム合計で30兆Bq Aug. 26, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-08-27
#2387 次の原発事故のために(8):トリチウムの問題 Aug. 29, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-08-29
#2390 サンマのI-131の濃度から放射能汚染水の大量流出は分かっていた Sep. 1, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-09-01
#2394 次の原発事故のために(9):ついにロシアと米国の助けを借りることに Sep. 3, 2013
http://nimuorojyuku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-09-03
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にほんブログ村
◆業務連絡◆
16:29のトラックバックが誤解を招く表現になっています。
お手数ですが、削除くださるよう御願い致します。
by Hirosuke (2013-09-03 16:53)
返◆業務連絡◆
23時26分にご要望どおりに当該トラックバック削除処理をしました。
by ebisu (2013-09-03 22:37)
ご対応ありがとうございます。
新記事です。
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◆8つの提言◆ 汚染水の海洋放出を回避せよ!
[英文テクニカルライターとして]
http://tada-de-english.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-09-04
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先の提言と合わせれば、
継続的な効果を上げられると目しています。
by Hirosuke (2013-09-04 00:24)
「提言」読みました。
対策を考えましたね。
たくさんの日本人が智慧を絞るべきですね。
人智の限りを尽くして考え、行動してみる。
そしてとことんやってから分かることがある。
予防が一番いい。
だとすると、これからは新規の原発をつくらないこと。
つくってしまった原発の廃炉はセシウムだけでも千分の一になるまで300年かかる、そういうスパンで保管に万全の体制をとる。プルトニウムは2万4千年が半減期だから無理ですね。24万年保管しなくてはならない。どんな容器をもってしても無理です。ウランを掘り出して精製し、原発でウランを燃やして、再処理し、プルトニウムを精製してはいけなかったのでしょう。
人類はやってはならぬことをしてしまった。
小出裕章氏の考えも訊いてみたいですね。
by ebisu (2013-09-04 00:57)