Farming in FukushimaANS Nuclear CafeWaste ManagementFebruary 12, 2021, 11:57AM|ANS StaffScreenshot of the video from Vice. Vice News has published a video on YouTube that follows two farmers from the Fukushima Prefecture, Noboru Saito and Koji Furuyama. Saito, who grows many different crops on his farm, says that the rice grown in the area is consistently rated as the best. Furuyama specializes in peaches and explains his strategy to deal with the stigma of selling fruit from Fukushima: grow the best peaches in the world.The video opens with views of the bucolic rice fields of Saito’s farm, about 50 km (about 30 miles) from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site. The narrator of the video informs us that the farm has been in the family for eight generations and is run by Saito and his 82-year-old mother.The good: Fifteen percent of Fukushima’s 96,000 farmers evacuated after the tsunami, and some never returned. Saito says that some people stopped farming following the nuclear accident, but he “stayed to fight” and is shown monitoring the farm with a Geiger counter. It is difficult to see the full reading, but after Saito places the detector on the ground, it appears to show 0.263 µSv/hr. That is basically just background levels of radiation: For reference, eating a banana would expose one to 0.1 µSv.Saito then discusses some of the precautions he takes in order to make sure his produce is completely safe to consume. He monitors the radiation on a regular basis and tests all of his produce using a radiation tester. All of his produce tests lower than the government regulations, and we learn from the narrator that two years after the accident, only 1.5 percent of food products were over the radiation limits set by the Japanese government, and that by 2017, that number dropped to 0.05 percent of food from Fukushima Prefecture.The video then follows Furuyama at his peach orchard. The narrator says that Furuyama’s luxury peaches have a much higher sugar content than regular peaches. The average supermarket peach has a sugar content of 13 brix (the unit of measurement for sugar content), but Furuyama’s peaches measure at over 30 brix, and even his “more affordable peaches” sell for more than $100 each.The Tokyo Olympic Games are scheduled to be held this summer, a year late due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the baseball and softball events will be hosted in Fukushima. The farmers are excited to reintroduce the world to their community and commodities. Furuyama says that the world is stuck with the image of danger when thinking of Fukushima. He hopes, however, that people will come to watch the Olympic Games and see for themselves that Fukushima is safe.The bad: There are some points in the video where the narrator incorrectly characterizes the radiation risk from the continued cleanup of the nuclear site. The narrator states that the earthquake and the deadly tsunami that followed damaged more than a million buildings, including the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, “which is still leaking radiation today.” The first part of the statement is correct, but to say that the nuclear site is still leaking radiation, while true, does not characterize the radiation exposure at the site.Lake Barrett, an ANS member and consultant to Tokyo Electric Power Company regarding its cleanup efforts, said, “No water is leaking from the basements [at the damaged nuclear site], but when it rains hard, there are storm drains that do have some very low levels of cesium. [It’s] very very small, but not zero.” Barrett continues, “[The levels of radiation] are all thousands of times below regulatory standards and not a real health risk at all. Being on an airplane for a few minutes gives more radiation exposure [than being at the Fukushima site].”The ugly: Then the video mentions the very important issue of wastewater currently being stored in hundreds of tanks on-site. This issue has been talked about since 2013 and has been met with fierce opposition from the fishing industry lobby in Japan—an important part of the Japanese economy. The video states, “By 2022, the nuclear plant will run out of storage facilities for radioactive wastewater. Experts have advised the government to release the water into the ocean, which could impact fishing and raise concerns for local produce.” Again, this statement is partly true, but it does not provide the whole picture.TEPCO uses several water treatment systems: initial cesium removal systems named Kurion and SARRY, which remove 99.99 percent of cesium, followed by a desalination system that purifies the water to be reused as coolant. The waste from the desalination process is then moved to storage tanks to be processed by the advanced liquid waste processing system (ALPS). These advanced systems remove 62 radionuclides, such as cesium-134, cesium-137, strontium-90, and iodine-129, from the highly radioactive water. The process is so effective that the levels of these radionuclides in the water are well below the current international regulatory standards.The problem that officials have to deal with is tritium levels in the water. According to TEPCO, tritium levels in the treated storage tank water are at levels higher than regulatory limits allow. However, it is common practice by nuclear power plants all over the world to sufficiently dilute and discharge tritiated water into the environment over a period of time under the strict supervision of regulatory bodies.Paul Dickman, ANS member and study director for the ANS Special Committee on the Fukushima Diaiichi accident, said that while the level of radioactivity is high, “The United States discharges almost double that amount from our nuclear reactor fleet every year, and South Korea annually discharges an amount equal to about 40 percent of the stored tritium at Fukushima.”Tags:alpsfukushimafukushima daiichijapanradiationradioactive watervice newswaste waterShare:LinkedInTwitterFacebook
Calming fears about low-dose radiationMary Lou Dunzik-GougarDuring my time as vice president and president of ANS, I have been advocating for a new approach to implementing dose limits across the nuclear industry. A lack of understanding and an unfounded fear of radiation has resulted in widespread efforts to minimize dose, rather than to optimize radiation protection in a holistic sense. I want to put the “reasonably” back into ALARA (“as low as reasonably achievable”). Such a paradigm shift, from minimization to optimization, while easily said, equates to a major cultural change spanning international government agencies, industry, nongovernmental organizations, professional societies, and even academia. It is essential to have the active participation of all stakeholders in a transparent process to effect such a change. This process will not only lead us toward a more level playing field for nuclear, it will also greatly impact public perception of nuclear and radiological technology.Go to Article
The Economist: Independent regulators needed for strong nuclear powerNuclear power is an important component in the fight against climate change, but independent regulation is needed to gain the public’s---and governments'---trust, according to a March 6 article in The Economist, “Nuclear power must be well regulated, not ditched.”The article reviews the negative effect that the Fukushima Daiichi accident had on the worldwide nuclear industry following the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. Japan’s direct economic cost, estimated at more than $200 billion, was larger than that of any other natural disaster the world has seen, according to the article.Go to Article
Fukushima Daiichi: 10 years onThe Fukushima Daiichi site before the accident. All images are provided courtesy of TEPCO unless noted otherwise. It was a rather normal day back on March 11, 2011, at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant before 2:45 p.m. That was the time when the Great Tohoku Earthquake struck, followed by a massive tsunami that caused three reactor meltdowns and forever changed the nuclear power industry in Japan and worldwide. Now, 10 years later, much has been learned and done to improve nuclear safety, and despite many challenges, significant progress is being made to decontaminate and defuel the extensively damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactor site. This is a summary of what happened, progress to date, current situation, and the outlook for the future there.Go to Article
China on course to lead in nuclear by 2030, says IEAChina will have the world's largest nuclear power fleet within a decade, an International Energy Agency official noted during a session at the High-Level Workshop on Nuclear Power in Clean Energy Transitions, World Nuclear News reported on March 3.The workshop was held jointly by the IEA and the International Atomic Energy Agency.The IEA official, Brent Wanner, head of Power Sector Modelling & Analysis for the agency's World Energy Outlook publication, said that as nuclear fleets in the United States, Canada, and Japan reach their original design lifetimes, decisions will have to be made about what will happen after that. Absent license renewals, the contribution of nuclear power could decline substantially in those countries while China’s reactor building program will boost it into the first position.Go to Article
ANS webinar updates progress at FukushimaThe accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011, has sparked many safety improvements in the nuclear industry over the past decade. Lessons from the accident and its aftermath will influence firms and regulators as they consider the future design, construction, operation and decommissioning of nuclear reactors.An American Nuclear Society webinar, “Nuclear News Presents: A Look Back at the Fukushima Daiichi Accident,” held yesterday was attended by more than 1,550 viewers and generated about 150 questions to the panelists. The attendance was the largest ever for an ANS webinar.The panelists were Mike Corradini, emeritus professor, University of Wisconsin; Dale Klein, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Joy Rempe, principal, Rempe and Assoc. LLC; Lake Barrett, senior advisor, Tokyo Electric Power Company and Japan’s International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID); and Paul Dickman, senior policy fellow, Argonne National Laboratory.The webinar’s recording and slides are available here, along with an e-version of the March issue of Nuclear News, which features a cover story on the Fukushima Daiichi accident.Go to Article
Earthquake has impact on Fukushima Daiichi plantThe black star represents the epicenter of the February 13 earthquake. Image: USGSThere has been no off-site impact from the February 13 earthquake that struck off the east coast of Japan near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) reported on February 19. The earthquake, however, has caused a water leakage from two of the site's primary containment vessels (PCVs).A nuclear alert order was issued by the plant about 20 minutes after the earthquake, and the water treatment and transfer facilities were shut down. Inspections after the event revealed no anomalies and the nuclear alert order was rescinded on February 14.The nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture in northeastern Japan is now undergoing decommissioning.Go to Article
The Toxic Pigs of Fukushima kicks off an online documentary seriesA film titled The Toxic Pigs of Fukushima gets top billing as part of The Short List with Suroosh Alvi, an online documentary series curated by the founder of the media company Vice. The film, which first aired on Vice TV on January 31, follows local hunters who have been enlisted to dispose of radiated wild boars that now roam abandoned streets and buildings in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear accident there.Go to Article
U.K., Japan to research remote D&D, fusion systemsThe LongOps project will develop innovative robotic technologies. Photo: UKAEABritain and Japan have signed a research and technology deployment collaboration to help automate nuclear decommissioning and aspects of fusion energy production. According to the U.K. government, which announced the deal on January 20, the £12 million (about $16.5 million) U.K.–Japanese robotics project, called LongOps, will support the delivery of faster and safer decommissioning at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan and at Sellafield in the United Kingdom, using long-reach robotic arms.The four-year collaboration on new robotics and automation techniques will also be applied to fusion energy research in the two countries.Funded equally by U.K. Research and Innovation, the U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company, the LongOps project will be led by the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority’s (UKAEA) Remote Applications in Challenging Environments (RACE) facility.Go to Article
Japan should revive its nuclear industry, says new reportThe Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center has issued a report, Japan’s Nuclear Reactor Fleet: The Geopolitical and Climate Implications of Accelerated Decommissioning, contending that Japan’s reaction to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident has led to an increased dependence on carbon-emitting energy sources that ultimately undermine the country’s recently announced climate goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.Recommendations: Released just a few months prior to the 10-year anniversary of the accident on March 11, 2011, the report recommends that Japan:Use its existing nuclear fleet in the near and long term to 2050,remain involved in global civil nuclear trade,develop a role for advanced nuclear technologies, including small modular reactors, which it should deploy as soon as feasible,rebuild its nuclear energy workforce and public trust in nuclear power, andregain its leadership position in the climate battle.Go to Article
LA Times asks, “How safe is the water off SONGS?”A California surfer. Photo: Brocken Inaglory/WikicommonsThe Los Angeles Times published an article on December 1 about a recent collaboration between the Surfrider Foundation and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to determine how safe the water is off the coast of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).Go to Article