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Fukushima's costly fix: Japan struggles to repair severely damaged nuclear plant

In March 2011, a massive earthquake struck off the nortreastern coast of Japan, producing an immensely destructive tsunami and damaging the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, causing a partial meltdown and a dangerous radiation leak. Since then, the country has made huge strides in rebuilding and recovering from a tragedy that claimed over 15,000 lives, but repairing the nuclear plant has proven to be far more difficult and costly than anyone would have hoped. Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the company in charge of the plant, has taken most of the blame for the delays.

  • Jun 18, 2014

    Colin Lecher

    Cosmic radiation will finally get us inside the Fukushima reactors

    Every second of every day, muons — tiny, electron-like particles — are raining down on the planet. Parted from the atmosphere through cosmic radiation, most pass through the earth like ghosts, never being detected. But occasionally, a handful will bounce off a substance, and as the New York Times reports today, that could be the key to safely looking inside the ruined nuclear reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant.

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  • Josh Lowensohn

    Dec 30, 2013

    Josh Lowensohn

    Fukushima cleanup exploits homeless laborers, investigation shows

    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)
    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)

    Reuters is back with more details on the Fukushima labor mess, and this time the focus is on the issues facing homeless laborers being recruited for work. In a follow-up to a wide-ranging report earlier this year, Reuters details how many homeless people are being picked up from train stations and carted out to go clean up nuclear waste and other debris from the 2011 tsunami that wreaked havoc on the region. Many of these people are not being paid even the minimum wage, the report claims, and end up with next to nothing after fees are taken out of their checks to pay for food and lodging by the myriad subcontractors involved in the $35 billion cleanup. Adding intrigue to it all, Reuters says many of those subcontractors are organized gangsters, and have found the massive cleanup operation to be lucrative, with big payouts from hazard pay and recruiting.

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  • Dec 11, 2013

    Vlad Savov

    Japan sets aside $1 billion for nuclear fallout storage

    Fukushima reactor control room, suit (Credit: TEPCO)
    Fukushima reactor control room, suit (Credit: TEPCO)

    The total cost of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown may never be known, but the country has at least put a number on how much it anticipates storing the radioactive debris will cost it. Asahi Shimbun reports that the 2014 Japanese budget includes a 100 billion yen provision (roughly $970 million) for the purchase and development of land for "intermediate storage facilities." Once construction and operation costs are also included, the total anticipated expense is calculated to be 1 trillion yen, or just under $10 billion. Though Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the disaster-stricken plant, was expected to handle all decontamination work, its financial struggles have delayed the cleanup and the government is now stepping in with public funds to speed things up.

    There are multiple candidate sites in the area around the Fukushima plant, though the report suggests that local authorities have been understandably reluctant to green-light a project that would deliver up to 28 million cubic meters of radioactive debris into their jurisdiction. The main worry appears to be that the chosen site would turn into a permanent disposal area, as opposed to the 30-year temporary storage facility that the government envisions. In any case, a long-term storage solution needs to be found, with the AFP noting that at the end of August there were already over 130,000 tons of contaminated debris collected, which are presently being stored in ill-suited facilities like waste incineration and sewage treatment plants.

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  • Katie Drummond

    Nov 20, 2013

    Katie Drummond

    Watch this: Fukushima engineers perform risky extraction of nuclear fuel rods

    Fukushima reactor control room, suit (Credit: TEPCO)
    Fukushima reactor control room, suit (Credit: TEPCO)

    A job at the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is notoriously dangerous: in the aftermath of a massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami, reports have emerged of low wages, steep risks, and shoddy management throwing the plant cleanup process into disarray and exacerbating onsite hazards. Now, some employees at Fukushima are encountering yet another precarious scenario, as they begin the gargantuan task of removing radioactive fuel rods from a cooling pool inside one of the plant's reactors.

    As shown in the video above, the process of removing one assembly of fuel rods — of which more than 1,500 need to be extracted — is an incredibly slow one. Six teams of workers take turns to operate a specially designed crane that slowly lifts the assemblies from the pool, at a rate of less than half-an-inch per second. Each team can only work for two hours at a time, in an effort to minimize exposure to radiation. And a single misstep during the process, which is expected to take around a year, could have disastrous consequences: estimates posit that the pool containing the rods carries the radioactivity of 14,000 "Hiroshima-sized" atomic bombs, according to CBC News.

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  • Katie Drummond

    Nov 15, 2013

    Katie Drummond

    After Fukushima, Japan backpedals on plans to curb emissions

    Fukishima
    Fukishima

    It's now been over two years since a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami caused critical damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex. And as Japan continues to struggle with prolonged and costly repairs, the devastating event has now spurred yet another consequence: officials say they'll no longer be able to meet goals for reduced greenhouse gas emissions as a result.

    In an announcement expected to seriously hinder ongoing UN climate change talks in Warsaw this week, Japanese leaders said that in light of the Fukushima disaster, they could no longer rely on nuclear power to curb emissions. The country, one of the biggest polluters in the world, had previously aimed to reduce greenhouse gasses by 25 percent compared to 1990 emissions levels. Now, leaders say that by 2020 they expect to see emissions increase by 3 percent over 1990 levels instead.

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  • Japan to remove nuclear fuel from Fukushima plant

    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)
    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)

    The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant's operator has gained permission to move forward with a plan that would transfer over 1,000 fuel rods to a new location on the site, potentially preventing massive radiation leaks in the future, reports The Wall Street Journal. Around 1,300 spent fuel rods and 200 new fuel rods have been sitting in a pool inside one of the plant's reactors, Unit 4, since it was damaged in March 2011. The four-meter-long rods (around 13 feet) will be pulled out of the plant one at a time by a crane that still needs to be constructed.

    "They must be handled one by one," says Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority, according to the Journal. Tanaka had warned that the process was potentially dangerous because debris from an explosion that had fallen into the pool could damage the rods. "Handling spent fuels involves huge risks. It would be a disaster if radioactive materials comes out of the metal rods during the work." Japan's NRA approved the plan this week, which was put forth by Fukushima's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

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  • Katie Drummond

    Oct 25, 2013

    Katie Drummond

    At Fukushima, 'nuclear gypsies' struggle with low wages and steep risks

    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)
    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)

    The massive 2011 earthquake that struck off the coast of Japan catalyzed meltdowns, explosions, and dangerous radiation leaks at the country's Fukushima power plant complex. More than two years later, the process of cleaning up that mess has become something of a disaster itself: an estimated 50,000 "nuclear gypsies" employed by the project are now grappling with poor wages, risky working conditions, and rampant labor violations.

    In a sweeping investigation, Reuters reports that a combination of factors like lax governmental regulations, sketchy contractors, and poor oversight is to blame for the fiasco. Some workers complain of having their wages skimmed by illegal labor rackets, while others say they were hired to do one job before being forced into a much more dangerous one. Unfortunately, the investigation notes that the Fukushima cleanup merely highlights problems that have long plagued the industry. "Working conditions in the nuclear industry have always been bad," Saburo Murata, deputy director of Osaka's Hannan Chuo Hospital, told Reuters. "Problems with money, outsourced recruitment, lack of proper health insurance — these have existed for decades."

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  • Dante D'Orazio

    Oct 4, 2013

    Dante D'Orazio

    Images of evacuated Fukushima communities reminiscent of Chernobyl

    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)
    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)

    The latest in The Atlantic's wonderful In Focus photo essay series explores the lost communities around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was the site of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl when it was devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. A 20-kilometer exclusion zone set around the facility remains in place, and last month Reuters photographer Damir Sagolj joined a group of residents visiting their lost homes to capture the state of the largely-abandoned area. Even after just two years, the images are all-too-similar to the ghostly shots from Chernobyl.

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  • Amar Toor

    Oct 3, 2013

    Amar Toor

    Another Fukushima mishap leaks highly radioactive water into Pacific

    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)
    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)

    Radioactive water leaked out of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant late Wednesday and has likely spilled into the Pacific Ocean, authorities announced today. As Reuters reports, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) discovered that contaminated water was overflowing from a storage tank yesterday, and officials estimate that more than 100 gallons may have leaked into the surrounding harbor.

    Today's announcement marks the second leak in less than two months at Fukushima, leading government officials to question whether TEPCO is capable of handling what has proven to be an extremely complex cleanup. The head of Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) lashed out at TEPCO after a leak was discovered in August, saying, "This is why you can't just leave it up to TEPCO alone." A massive tsunami and earthquake devastated the facility in 2011, unleashing the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl accident in 1986.

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  • Dieter Bohn

    Sep 7, 2013

    Dieter Bohn

    Tokyo to host 2020 Olympics with assurance that Fukushima radiation is 'completely blocked'

    japan tokyo shibuya stock
    japan tokyo shibuya stock

    Tokyo, Japan has just edged out Madrid and Istanbul to become the host of the 2020 Olympic games. Although Tokyo was considered to be the frontrunner for the games, many had expressed concerns that lingering radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant would scuttle its chances. Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, directly addressed those issues at length in his pitch to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). "Let me assure you the situation is under control. It has never done and will never do any damage to Tokyo," Abe said in response to IOC questions, "I make the statement to you in the most emphatic and unequivocal way." Japan recently adopted a plan to build a $320 million ice wall to limit the spread of radioactive water.

    Along with allaying concerns about radiation, Japan generally pushed a pitch about safety in its bid. "You’re in safe pair of hands with Tokyo" was its final rallying cry. Japan will build new waterfront venues for the event at the site of the 1964 Olympics, which it hosted, and says it has $4.5 billion in reserve for the games.

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  • Japan building mile-long ice wall around Fukushima plant to stop radiation leaks

    Japan is set to construct a nearly mile-long ice wall around the Fukushima nuclear plant in an attempt to stop the continuing leak of radioactive water. The plan was first proposed in May, and the Associated Press reports that it's now been adopted. The construction will place a series of thin pipes carrying coolant as cold as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the ground, which will freeze the earth down to nearly 100 feet beneath the surface. That should both prevent water from entering the nuclear plant's reactor and turbines, and prevent contaminated water from escaping the plant and contaminating the water supply.

    Contaminated groundwater was revealed to be leaking from the plant in July, over two years after an earthquake damaged it. The leaks were reported to be spilling 300 tons of radioactive water into the ocean each day, prompting officials to eventually call the issue an emergency. "The world is watching if we can properly handle the contaminated water but also the entire decommissioning of the plant," Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said after adopting the plan, according to the AP.

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  • Chris Welch

    Sep 1, 2013

    Chris Welch

    Radiation levels spike near contaminated Fukushima tank

    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)
    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)

    Radiation levels near a contaminated storage tank at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant spiked to new highs in readings taken this weekend. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) says it recorded the worrying levels — the highest of which reached 1,800 millisieverts per hour — in four new locations Saturday. It's a sobering reminder of the difficulties TEPCO has faced trying to rectify the ongoing crisis more than two years after the worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl. Readings taken from the same area on August 22nd showed much lower radiation of 100 millisieverts. However, TEPCO says this weekend's tests were the first to use new instrumentation capable of higher readings, which may explain the large spike. Other nearby tests yielded results ranging between 70 and 230 millisieverts, TEPCO said

    In July it was revealed that water from this tank was leaking, prompting Japan to label the worsening situation an "emergency." According to Reuters, TEPCO is now turning to foreign decommissioning experts for advice and ideas on how to get a handle on the leaks. Help may also come from Japan's government, which has indicated it may direct funds from the country's emergency reserve fund to help move the cleanup along.

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  • Japan raises Fukushima radioactive water leaks to 'emergency' status

    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)
    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)

    The troubles at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are far from over. On Monday, the nation's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) told Reuters that an "emergency" has arisen after it found that highly radioactive water had leaked from the plant and into the Pacific Ocean. The NRA said that the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which runs the Fukushima plant, has put in place temporary countermeasures to try and contain the leaks. But the scale of the problems posed by the Fukushima leaks are too big for TEPCO to handle on its own, the agency said. Shinji Kinjo, the head of the NRA, told Reuters that TEPCO's "sense of crisis is weak" and that "this is why you can't just leave it up to Tepco alone."

    So far, TEPCO has injected chemicals into the shoreline that harden the soil around the No. 1 reactor building, where the leak is taking place, Reuters said. The idea here is to turn the soil near the reactor into a barrier that will keep the contaminated water from leaking into the ocean or up to the plant's ground-level surface. But there are worries that the radioactive water will eventually flow over the top of the hardened soil, or even break through the barriers, and leak further into the ocean and even into nearby communities. Reuters said that Japanese newspapers have reported a timeline of about three weeks before such an expanded leak takes place. The NRA said that such estimates didn't line up with its calculations. However, the agency also declined to tell Reuters what its timeline for such a breach is.

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  • Carl Franzen

    Jul 24, 2013

    Carl Franzen

    Fukushima nuclear meltdown cleanup costs could rise more than five times to $58 billion

    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)
    Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (Credit: Tokyo Electric Power)

    It's been over two years since the northern coastal region of the main island of Japan was devastated by a powerful tsunami and suffered a subsequent nuclear reactor meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, located 150 miles north of Tokyo. In that time, the Japanese government and people have come a long way toward rebuilding massive property damage and ensuring the safety of the area around the nuclear meltdown site. Even the latest report on radiation levels in the plant looks much better than previous readings. But things are still far from normal: this week, the company that manages the plant, Tokyo Electric Power, on Wednesday confirmed that steam was observed in the building housing the plant's third nuclear reactor, a worrisome sign that could indicate another reaction or release of radioactive materials, though the company said that "no abnormality has been found," and that it would monitor the situation closely.

    Worse still, Tokyo Electric Power released a report indicating that contaminated groundwater was seeping from the plant. Beyond the issues of the plant's structural integrity is the matter of the ongoing cleanup and repair costs. While Japan's Ministry of the Environment originally estimated the cost of removing nuclear materials and decontaminating the site to be $11 billion (¥1.1 trillion) over 30 years, a new report from the country's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) estimated that the cost would be at least $31 billion (¥3.13 trillion) and climb as high to $58 billion (¥5.81 trillion ), according to the French newswire service AFP. However, the Japanese government has allocated only about $10 billion (¥1 trillion) to the cost of the cleanup, as the AFP explains.

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  • Jeff Blagdon

    Jul 23, 2013

    Jeff Blagdon

    Radioactive wastewater from Fukushima power plant leaking into ocean, say officials

    fukushima daiichi power plant (takuo kawamoto flickr)
    fukushima daiichi power plant (takuo kawamoto flickr)

    More than two years after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami devestated northeastern Japan, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced that contaminated groundwater appears to be leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. The Asahi Shimbun reports that TEPCO acknowledged the appearance of the leak at a Monday press conference, stressing that so far it appears confined to the man-made harbor surrounding the plant. Earlier this month, a TEPCO representative stated that "we strongly doubt that highly contaminated water is spreading into the open ocean." Until now, TEPCO hadn’t acknowledged the presence of the leak despite numerous independent findings of elevated radiation levels in the nearby seawater.

    TEPCO says it realized something was up when it noticed that the water level in the underground trench designed to hold wastewater from ongoing cooling operations at the site was rising and falling along with the tide. Earlier this month, Asahi reported on a nearly 100-fold increase in the level of radioactive cesium and strontium in groundwater at the site, which TEPCO said it was unable to explain.

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  • Nathan Ingraham

    Jun 19, 2013

    Nathan Ingraham

    Japan's nuclear power reactors set to reopen later this year under tighter regulations

    Nuclear Plant
    Nuclear Plant

    Back in March of 2011, Japan suffered its worst nuclear disaster ever as the Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered a series of equipment failures and meltdowns due to a massive earthquake. It was the largest-scale nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986 and caused the shutdown of all but two of Japan's 50 nuclear reactors. More than two years later, it looks like Japan's nuclear power plants will soon be coming back to life under tighter regulations. The AP is reporting that the country's nuclear regulation authority has approved new safety requirements which should lead to the eventual reopening of Japan's nuclear power plants later this year or early next year. The new requirements will go into effect on July 8th, at which point operators will be able to apply for inspections; assuming the plants pass, they'll be cleared to reopen.

    There's been significant interest in getting Japan's nuclear reactors back online to ease rising energy costs as the country's conventional thermal power plants have struggled to make up the shortfall — but there are also concerns that the new regulations were rushed through. Critics have cited several loopholes, such as a five-year grace period on installing new, mandatory safety equipment, as evidence that outside political or industrial pressure pushed these new regulations through despite the fact that the launch date for these updated safety rules is almost two weeks away.

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  • Sam Byford

    Mar 27, 2013

    Sam Byford

    Explore the Fukushima nuclear exclusion zone with Google Street View

    EMBARGO 13/3/27 google street view fukushima
    EMBARGO 13/3/27 google street view fukushima

    No-one has lived in the town of Namie, Japan for over two years since it was evacuated following the nearby Fukushima nuclear disaster, but you can visit for yourself today with Google Street View. Earlier this month, Google sent its camera-equipped cars into the exclusion zone at the request of Namie's mayor Tamotsu Baba, who wanted both to show the world the ongoing crisis facing his town, and give its 21,000 displaced residents a way to return home.

    "Many of the displaced townspeople have asked to see the current state of their city," says Baba, "and there are surely many people around the world who want a better sense of how the nuclear incident affected surrounding communities." The imagery has been uploaded to Google Maps and the "Memories of the Future" website.

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  • Aaron Souppouris

    Oct 12, 2012

    Aaron Souppouris

    Japan's TEPCO admits Fukushima disaster was avoidable, details shocking decisions that led to tragedy

    smoke plume (ss)
    smoke plume (ss)

    TEPCO, the utility in charge of the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, has admitted that it could have taken action to prevent last year's catastrophic triple meltdown. In a document laying out the groundwork for reform of its policies, TEPCO detailed the mis-management that led to the disaster. Aside from generalized statements pointing to a "lack of vigilance" in preparing for "low chance" events like tsunamis, the document contains some shocking admissions of guilt.

    The utility actually carried out tsunami risk studies and identified what it needed to do to improve the plant's readiness. However, it says that it feared that if its tsunami risk studies were disclosed it would have led to an immediate shutdown of its plant until additional safety measures were put in place. It was also concerned that implementing "severe accident measures" would cause "public anxiety and add momentum to anti-nuclear movements."

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