Antinuclear

Fukushima four years after the catastrophe

All fouled up – Fukushima four years after the catastrophe Jim Green, 11th March 2015, The Ecologist Four years ago today the world’s biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl took place at Fukushima, Japan. Total clean-up costs are estimated around $0.5 trillion, writes Jim Green – but work to defuse the dangers has barely begun, the site is flooded with radioactive water making its way to the sea, and underpaid and illegally contracted workers are suffering a rising toll of death and injury.

Four years have passed since the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan. Around 160,000 people were relocated because of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and very few have returned to their homes. Apart from the radioactive contamination, there is little for them to return to.

The clean-up and decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi site will take decades to complete – but no-one knows how many decades. There is little precedent for some of the challenges TEPCO faces, such as the robotic extraction of damaged nuclear fuel from stricken reactors and its storage or disposal … somewhere.

Last October, TEPCO pushed back the timeline for the start of the damaged fuel removal work by five years, to 2025. Dale Klein, a member of TEPCO’s Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee, said the decommissioning schedule is pure supposition until engineers figure out how to remove the damaged fuel.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report

The IAEA completed its third review of the Fukushima clean-up operations in mid-February. The 15-member IAEA team released a preliminary report and the final report will be released by the end of March. The report does not consider contamination and clean-up operations outside the Fukushima Daiichi site.  ………http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2782207/all_fouled_up_fukushima_four_years_after_the_catastrophe.html

March 12, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized