And Tepco is going to pull this off ?
http://enenews.com/nuclear-expert-fuel-rods-are-in-a-jumble-at-fukushima-unit-4-pool-unclear-if-they-are-cracked-us-pressing-japan-on-removal-fears-terrorist-activity-at-plant-video
and....
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-11-04/tepco-tore-down-natural-seawall-which-would-have-protected-fukushima-tsunami
Fukushima Diary.....
( A neat summary of why it's a fool's errand to trust Tepco with the spent fuel removal job..... )
Submitted by George Washington on 11/04/2013 17:42 -0500
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/04/national/tepco-to-conduct-fuel-removal-test-at-reactor-4/#.UngIH2fYGTd
Kurion?
So what's the trick?
Reading the Bloomberg article linked below, the trick seems to be that Kurion wouldn't be liable under the ratified treaty even if Kurion's patented system to remove TRITIUM (really?) doesn't work or fails to deliver or causes damage. Only the plant operator, in this case TEPCO, would be held liable.
Kurion's cesium absorption system was sold by then-US Energy Secretary and Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu in 2011, right after the start of the Fukushima nuclear accident. As with any system installed at the plant after the accident, Kurion's cesium absorption system was plagued with problems from the beginning (too many to list here, but browse through these posts) and sub-par performance. TEPCO stopped using it when Toshiba's SARRY came online in October 2011.
A quick check on Kurion's website shows the current CEO of the company from France's AREVA with close ties with the US Department of Energy, and two people whose career was with the Department of Energy, and one former researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The company was founded by a venture capital in 2008.
Now the new Secretary of Energy is trying to peddle a new system from the same company - tritium removal system. Just like the cesium absorption system, Kurion and the US Department of Energy probably want to use Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant as a test site for unproven or prototype technology, with liability safely on TEPCO, a clueless, technologically-blind plant operator.
From Bloomberg News (11/3/2013; emphasis is mine):
http://enenews.com/nuclear-expert-fuel-rods-are-in-a-jumble-at-fukushima-unit-4-pool-unclear-if-they-are-cracked-us-pressing-japan-on-removal-fears-terrorist-activity-at-plant-video
Telegraph, Nov. 6, 2013: “Did you ever play pick up sticks?” asked a foreign nuclear expert who has been monitoring Tepco’s efforts to regain control of the plant. “You had 50 sticks, you heaved them into the air and than had to take one off the pile at a time. “If the pile collapsed when you were picking up a stick, you lost,” he said. “There are 1,534 pick-up sticks in a jumble in [sic] top of an unsteady reactor 4. What do you think can happen? I do not know anyone who is confident that this can be done since it has never been tried.” Even now, it is not clear whether any of the rods, containing transuranic and transplutonic elements, are cracked, he said. [...] Others have issued even more dire warnings, with Charles Perrow, a professor emeritus at Yale University, warning: “The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas, including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site, the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years.”
NHK WORLD, Nov. 6, 2013: Explosion weakened the building’s structure [...] They planned to lift the rods out with a crane, but the building was too weak to support it [...] The job is far from straightforward, the workers have to maneuver the rods underwater to prevent any radiation from escaping [...]
http://enenews.com/former-ambassador-to-president-obama-major-global-catastrophe-if-the-worst-happens-at-fukushima-unit-4-this-is-the-most-pressing-global-security-issue
http://enenews.com/former-ambassador-to-president-obama-major-global-catastrophe-if-the-worst-happens-at-fukushima-unit-4-this-is-the-most-pressing-global-security-issue
Excerpts from Former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland Mitsuhei Murata’s Letter to U.S. President Barack Obama, Published Oct. 28, 2013:
- Much reported contaminated water problem at Fukushima Daiichi is overshadowing the Unit 4 crisis which is the most pressing global security issue
- If the worst happens, the total evacuation will be imposed and it will be, as top scientists of the world warn, the beginning of a major global catastrophe
- It is urgently needed to set up an international task force
- Conditions of unprecedented complexity
- This requires the establishment of a new system based on the full assumption of responsibilities by the Government of Japan
- This is the crisis of Japan as a nation, not the crisis of the management of TEPCO
and....
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-11-04/tepco-tore-down-natural-seawall-which-would-have-protected-fukushima-tsunami
Fukushima Diary.....
Fukushima Worker “Removed fuel can produce hydrogen gas inside of the cask”
Posted by Mochizuki on November 5th, 2013 · No Comments
Note : If you are from the international mass media, Don’t read this site before taking a contact with me.
Tepco is soon going to start removing the fuel from reactor4 pool.
The actual Fukushima worker, Happy11311 commented on Twitter that the spent fuel can produce hydrogen gas inside of the cask because there is water in the cask.
In the ordinary occasion of fuel removal, spent fuel produces hydrogen gas too. However, in this case Tepco is to carry the fuel to common usage pool by the cask.
There is a slope in front of the entrance of the common pool building. The worker is also concerned the truck with the fuel may not be able to drive up the slope in case of snow.
Towing boat rolled up the seawater fence by the screw in Fukushima plant port
Posted by Mochizuki on November 5th, 2013 · 1 Comment
Note : If you are from the international mass media, Don’t read this site before taking a contact with me.
According to Tepco, a towing boat screwed up the seawater fence in Fukushima plant port on 11/5/2013. The fence is called silt fence, which was situated at the water intake of reactor1~4 to stop the contaminated sediment traveling.
Japanese Prime Minister Abe stated to IOC sea contamination is stopped by the fence.
The boat was towing the ship to carry the cask. Tepco stated there is another silt fence so the contamination is safely stopped. However, they are still researching the effect of this accident.
IAEA to send experts to Fukushima for review Japan’s sea monitoring
Posted by Mochizuki on November 5th, 2013 · No Comments
Note : If you are from the international mass media, Don’t read this site before taking a contact with me.
Related to this article.. IAEA strongly requested JP Gov to found the international system to evaluate the Pacific contamination [URL]
On 11/5/2013, IAEA announced they are going to send the experts to Fukushima on marine monitoring to Japan.
The experts are from the Marine Environment Laboratories in Monaco including Mr. David Osborn, Director of Monaco Environment Laboratories and Mr. Hartmut Nies, Head of Radiometrics Laboratory.
At the request of Japanese government, they will visit Japan from 6 to 12 November to observe sea water sampling and data analysis in Fukushima and also will meet officials of relevant Japanese authorities in Tokyo to collect detailed information about the marine monitoring conducted by Japan.
NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority) also expects IAEA’s visiting Japan and Fukushima to increase the credibility of their marine monitoring system.
JP Gov hasn’t decided how to supervise fuel removal of reactor4 pool
Posted by Mochizuki on November 5th, 2013 · 1 Comment
Note : If you are from the international mass media, Don’t read this site before taking a contact with me.
Having stated they are going to inform the people promptly if Tepco drops fuel assemblies, NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority) has not decided the supervising system for the fuel removal task. NRA commented this in their regular press conference of 11/5/2013.
For the purpose of “protection of the nuclear material”, it is not broadcast to the world when they actually remove the fuel.
Currently only 10 members of NRA stay in Fukushima plant. It’s not clear how and how many of them supervise the removal task in reactor4.
Fuel removal from reactor4 pool was postponed for additional demonstration
Posted by Mochizuki on November 5th, 2013 · No Comments
Note : If you are from the international mass media, Don’t read this site before taking a contact with me.
Following up this article..[Column] Fuel removal of Reactor4 pool to start next week – No quake is allowed for 13 months [URL]
Fuel removal from reactor4 was postponed for the additional test. Removal is estimated to start after mid November but the specific date is not decided yet.
According to NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority), it is because they decided to add the further demonstration to the training that started at the end of October.
( A neat summary of why it's a fool's errand to trust Tepco with the spent fuel removal job..... )
Tepco Tore Down the Natural Seawall Which Would Have Protected Fukushima from the Tsunami
The Wall Street Journal noted in 2011:
When Tokyo Electric Power Co. broke ground on the now defunct Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power station 44 years ago, the utility made a fateful construction decision that raised the plant’s vulnerability to the tsunami that ultimately crippled its reactors.In 1967, Tepco chopped 25meters off the 35-meter natural seawall where the reactors were to be located, according to documents filed at the time with Japanese authorities. That little-noticed action was taken to make it easier to ferry equipment to the site and pump seawater to the reactors. It was also seen as an efficient way to build the complex atop the solid base of bedrock needed to better protect the plant from earthquakes.But the razing of the cliff also placed the reactors five meters below the level of 14- to 15-meter tsunami hitting the plant March 11, triggering a major nuclear disaster resulting in the meltdown of three reactor cores.***At the time, a 35-meter seaside cliff running the length of the property was a prominent feature of the site.But Tepco outlined its intention toclear away about two-thirds of the bluff in its official request for permission from the government to build its first nuclear plant, according to a copy of the application reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.“While the tsunami countermeasures at Fukushima Daiichi were considered sufficient when the plant was constructed, the fact that those defenses were overwhelmed is something that we take very seriously,” said Kouichi Shiraga, a public-affairs official at Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.***The destruction of that natural tsunami barrier at the Fukushima Daiichi site contrasts starkly with later decisions in the 1970s to build the nearby Fukushima Daini and Onagawa nuclear-power plants at higher elevations. Despite being rocked by the massive March earthquake, both of those plants’ reactors achieved “cold shutdowns” shortly after the tsunami struck and thereby avoided the damage wreaked upon the crippled Daiichi plant.Both of those plants, located along the same coastline as Daiichi, survived primarily because they were built at higher elevations, on top of floodwalls that came with the landscape. As a result, the tsunami didn’t result in an extended loss of power at those plants, allowing their operators to quickly cool active reactors and avoid meltdowns.Tepco’s 1966 application for permission to start construction at Daiichi … did review tsunami history in a three-page list of seismic activity dating from 1273. In that chart, Tepco does reference a tsunami of unspecified height that struck the immediate area of Daiichi in 1677. It destroyed 1,000 homes and killed 300 people.The application cites typhoons as the bigger threat, noting an 8-meter-tall wave generated in 1960. “Most large waves in this coastal area are the product of strong winds and low pressure weather patterns, such as Typhoon No. 28 in February of 1960, which produced peak waves measured at 7.94 meters,” it stated.A former senior Tepco executive involved in the decision-making says there were two main reasons for removing the cliff. First, a lower escarpment made it easier to deliver heavy equipment used in the plant, such as the reactor vessels, turbines and diesel generators, all of which were transported to the site by sea. Second, the design of the plant required seawater to keep the reactor cool, which was facilitated by a shorter distance to the ocean.“It would have been a very difficult and major engineering task to lift all that equipment up over the cliff,” says Masatoshi Toyota, 88 years old, the former top Tepco executive who helped oversee the building of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. “For similar reasons, we figured it would have been a major endeavor to pump up seawater from a plateau 35 meters above sea level,” he said in a telephone interview.***“Of course there is no record of big tsunami damage there because there was a high cliff at the very same spot” to prevent it, said Mr. Oike, the seismologist on the investigation committee.And Daiichi’s lower elevation contrasted with plants that were built in the following years along the same coast.***The Onagawa site, 60 miles north of Daiichi, was selected in large part because of its height beyond the reach of any recorded tsunami, according to a former executive at a Japanese manufacturer involved in the work.
Many Other Negligent Or Criminal Errors
Tepco has made many other negligent orcriminal errors:
- Engineers warned Tepco and the Japanese government many years before the accident that the reactors were seismically unsafe … and that an earthquake could wipe them out. For example, the team of engineers sent in to inspect found that most of these components could “completely and utterly fail” during an earthquake. But Tepco covered this up
- The Fukushima reactors were fatally damaged before the tsunami hit … the earthquake took them out even before the tidal wave hit
- Tepco admitted to repeatedly falsifying safety tests. Tepco covered up cracked reactor core containment vessel and other serious problems for decades
- An official Japanese government investigation concluded that the Fukushima accident was a “man-made” disaster, caused by “collusion” between government and Tepco and bad reactor design
- Tepco knew right after the 2011 accident that 3 nuclear reactors had lost containment, that the nuclear fuel had“gone missing”, and that there was in fact no real containment at all. Tepco has desperately been trying to cover this up for 2 and a half years … instead pretending that the reactors were in “cold shutdown”
- Tepco just admitted that it’s known for 2 years that massive amounts of radioactive water are leaking into the groundwater and Pacific Ocean
- Tepco – with no financial incentive to actually fix things – has only been pretending to clean it up. And see this
- Tepco has been directly hiring Yakuza gang members from criminal shell companies as a regular, ongoing practice
- Tepco’s recent attempts to solidify the ground under the reactors using chemicals has backfired horribly. And NBC News notes: “[Tepco] is considering freezing the ground around the plant. Essentially building a mile-long ice wall underground, something that’s never been tried before to keep the water out. One scientist I spoke to dismissed this idea as grasping at straws, just more evidence that the power company failed to anticipate this problem … and now cannot solve it.”
Letting Tepco remove the fuel rods is like letting a convicted murderer perform delicate brain surgery on a VIP.
Top scientists and government officials say that Tepco should be removed from all efforts to stabilize Fukushima. An international team of the smartest engineers and scientists should handle this difficult “surgery”.
Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear (who sent us the Wall Street Journal article) sums it up pretty well:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/04/national/tepco-to-conduct-fuel-removal-test-at-reactor-4/#.UngIH2fYGTd
Tepco to conduct fuel removal test at reactor 4
KYODO
The utility had intended to start removing the fuel rods from the unit’s packed cooling pool as early as Friday.
The test was requested by the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization. The government-affiliated agency called for an initial test that would include transporting a protective fuel cask from the No. 4 storage pool to another pool in a different building about 100 meters away, to provide more stable conditions for cooling spent fuel, the sources said.
The agency has already inspected the equipment to be used in the operation on behalf of the Nuclear Regulation Authority. It has also urged Tepco to have its work evaluated by a group of Japanese and overseas experts formed by the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning, a Tokyo-based organization founded by Japanese government agencies, nuclear facility manufacturers and electric power companies.
Of the four reactors in use at the time of the March 2011 disasters, only the No. 4 unit avoided meltdown because it had been defueled for maintenance and all its rods were sitting in its spent fuel pool.
The building housing the No. 4 reactor and the storage pool, however, was hit by fires and a hydrogen explosion after the station lost power, disrupting the pool’s cooling system. More than 1,300 spent fuel assemblies and more than 200 fresh ones, including some containing plutonium-infused mixed-oxide fuel, remain in the pool.
A crane has been installed to carry a protective cask into and out of the pool. The spent fuel will be placed in the cask and moved to a nearby storage pool by trailer.
The work at unit 4 will mark a new stage in the decommissioning process for the four damaged reactors.
In the meantime, efforts continue to secure the massive amount of highly radioactive water accumulating at the plant from the perpetual cooling operations at the reactors. Ground water creeping into the premises has been compounding the problem, with leaky storage tanks raising public fears of ocean contamination.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. will conduct a fuel removal test at the No. 4 reactor building of the stricken Fukushima No. 1 power plant, delaying the start of the actual operation by up to two weeks, sources close to the matter said Monday.
Energy News ......
Simply Info........
NRA Suspends Fuel Removal At Unit 4 Fukushima For Two Weeks
Kyodo News is reporting that the NRA is suspending the start of fuel removal from unit 4 at Fukushima Daiichi in order to do more tests. This could delay the start of fuel removal by up to 2 weeks. Part of the additional testing includes a dry run of moving a fuel cask from a spent fuel pool to the common pool. NRA cited using another reactor to do the test run. This would likely … Read entire article »
New Fukushima Radiation Release Estimates Compiled
Fukushima Radiation Release Estimates This is one of the questions we are asked the most, “how much radiation was released from Fukushima”. Many of the estimates out there are old initial estimates of the meltdown phase and do not include radiation releases over the years. In our effort to answer this question we found a wide variety of research and estimates. With … Read entire article »
Japan To Turn TEPCO Into Holding Company, May Join International Nuclear Liability Treaty
The Japanese government has announced they will turn TEPCO into a holding company. This would shift the decommissioning work into its own entity. The government would also increase involvement in the new decommissioning authority while TEPCO would still have some ownership. It is not clear how this would impact the potential restart of Kashiwazaki Kariwa after the NRA tied any … Read entire article »
Ex SKF ......
The company says it now needs time to conduct a test run.
(So......, test runs were not originally scheduled ......)
From Kyodo News (11/5/2013):
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2013
#Fukushima I NPP: TEPCO to Delay Start of Fuel Assembly Removal from Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool by 1 to 2 Weeks
The company says it now needs time to conduct a test run.
(So......, test runs were not originally scheduled ......)
From Kyodo News (11/5/2013):
福島原発４号機、実証試験を追加 燃料取り出し延期へ
Removal of fuel to be delayed at Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 4, to add a test run
東京電力が福島第１原発４号機の使用済み核燃料プールからの燃料取り出しを前に、実際の燃料輸送容器を使って作業の安全性を確認する実証試験を追加し、４号機内で近く実施することが４日、関係者への取材で分かった。実証試験には準備を含めて数日かかる見込みで、早ければ８日にも始まる予定だった燃料取り出しは１～２週間延期となる見通し。
Kyodo News found out on November 3 by talking to people involved thatTEPCO will conduct a test to verify the safety of the work using the actual container to transport the fuel [assemblies] before they start removing the fuel [assemblies] from the Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 4 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. The test will take several days including preparation, and the removal of fuel which was slated to start as early as November 8 will be delayed by one to two weeks.
燃料取り出しに向け、クレーンを備えた４号機の建屋カバーは既に完成しているが、実証試験は行われていなかった。
The building cover for Reactor 4 with the crane for removing the fuel has been completed, but no test run has been done.
I can't really blame TEPCO other than to say they should grow some backbone to say no to the meddling by the national government and LDP.
LDP politicians including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Minister of EconomyToshimitsu Motegi have made a lot of noise demanding TEPCO do everything "ahead of schedule" and "accelerate".
Removal of fuel assemblies, first unused (new) fuel assemblies then used fuel assemblies, was not scheduled to start until 2014. The LDP government, installed after the Lower House election in December 2012, has been eager to give the impression to the gullible portion of the populace and to the world outside Japan that it is totally in charge, that things are going so well under their leadership. One of the ways they used to give that impression was to unilaterally declare, out of the blue, that the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident would be now dealt with at an accelerated pace, with everything being done ahead of schedule, including removing the corium from the broken reactors.
Despite huge misgivings of the workers at the plant and people who have followed the accident, TEPCO headquarters dutifully obliged. Plant safety and worker safety be damned.
But it is not just test runs that were missing. Independent journalist Ryuichi Kinotweeted a horror two days ago:
LDP politicians including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Minister of EconomyToshimitsu Motegi have made a lot of noise demanding TEPCO do everything "ahead of schedule" and "accelerate".
Removal of fuel assemblies, first unused (new) fuel assemblies then used fuel assemblies, was not scheduled to start until 2014. The LDP government, installed after the Lower House election in December 2012, has been eager to give the impression to the gullible portion of the populace and to the world outside Japan that it is totally in charge, that things are going so well under their leadership. One of the ways they used to give that impression was to unilaterally declare, out of the blue, that the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident would be now dealt with at an accelerated pace, with everything being done ahead of schedule, including removing the corium from the broken reactors.
Despite huge misgivings of the workers at the plant and people who have followed the accident, TEPCO headquarters dutifully obliged. Plant safety and worker safety be damned.
But it is not just test runs that were missing. Independent journalist Ryuichi Kinotweeted a horror two days ago:
がれき撤去は夕方から翌日午前中まで深夜完徹の作業。たいへんさは想像に余りある。
Removal of debris will be done through the night, from the evening till the morning of the next day. What an enormous task it will be.
That means TEPCO hasn't removed debris that fell inside the Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool, even though they have created a detailed SFP debris map. Compared to Reactor 3's SFP, Reactor 4's SFP looks relatively clean, and not a whole lot of huge, awkward pieces of debris are in the pool. But if what Kino says is true, TEPCO will have the workers clear the debris from the pool all night, enough to carry out the removal of fuel assemblies next morning. And repeat this day in and day out.
In other words, TEPCO continues the accident cleanup haphazardly, as it has been doing since the day 1 of the accident.
But TEPCO cannot say no to the authorities stronger than them. They could have said to the government, "No we are not going to accelerate the removal of fuel assemblies. We will first remove the debris completely from the pool, then we will carry out dry runs to make sure things will go smoothly. Only then we will start removing the fuel assemblies."
But back in March 2011, TEPCO couldn't even take much-needed car batteries from the stores, and they couldn't bring the batteries made for the plant because they didn't have a government permit to travel on the highway (see my post from October 2012). So it is too much to ask, I know.
In other words, TEPCO continues the accident cleanup haphazardly, as it has been doing since the day 1 of the accident.
But TEPCO cannot say no to the authorities stronger than them. They could have said to the government, "No we are not going to accelerate the removal of fuel assemblies. We will first remove the debris completely from the pool, then we will carry out dry runs to make sure things will go smoothly. Only then we will start removing the fuel assemblies."
But back in March 2011, TEPCO couldn't even take much-needed car batteries from the stores, and they couldn't bring the batteries made for the plant because they didn't have a government permit to travel on the highway (see my post from October 2012). So it is too much to ask, I know.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2013
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to Japanese Government: "Ratify the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, and We Will Send Kurion to Help TEPCO"
Kurion?
So what's the trick?
Reading the Bloomberg article linked below, the trick seems to be that Kurion wouldn't be liable under the ratified treaty even if Kurion's patented system to remove TRITIUM (really?) doesn't work or fails to deliver or causes damage. Only the plant operator, in this case TEPCO, would be held liable.
Kurion's cesium absorption system was sold by then-US Energy Secretary and Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu in 2011, right after the start of the Fukushima nuclear accident. As with any system installed at the plant after the accident, Kurion's cesium absorption system was plagued with problems from the beginning (too many to list here, but browse through these posts) and sub-par performance. TEPCO stopped using it when Toshiba's SARRY came online in October 2011.
A quick check on Kurion's website shows the current CEO of the company from France's AREVA with close ties with the US Department of Energy, and two people whose career was with the Department of Energy, and one former researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The company was founded by a venture capital in 2008.
Now the new Secretary of Energy is trying to peddle a new system from the same company - tritium removal system. Just like the cesium absorption system, Kurion and the US Department of Energy probably want to use Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant as a test site for unproven or prototype technology, with liability safely on TEPCO, a clueless, technologically-blind plant operator.
From Bloomberg News (11/3/2013; emphasis is mine):
U.S. Says Japan Signing Liability Pact Would Aid Nuclear Cleanup
Japan will receive international help with the cleanup at the Fukushima atomic station once it joins an existing treaty that defines liability for accidents at nuclear plants, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said.
The treaty, known as the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, assigns accident liability to plant operators rather than equipment and technology vendors, Moniz said in a Nov. 2 interview in Tokyo. The treaty includes setting up a fund for victims of nuclear accidents and a standard for compensation claims.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trade Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and other officials showed an “eagerness” during meetings last week for expertise from abroad to decommission the Fukushima plant, Moniz said. Such help will be easier to secure once Japan ratifies the treaty, he said.
“As one gets into the real work, then these liability conventions become quite important,” Moniz said. “Certainly Prime Minster Abe and Minster Motegi both emphasize that the importance of moving on this in 2014 is to a large extent driven by their openness and their desire to get as much international help as they can.”
...
The Compensation for Nuclear Damage treaty was adopted in 1997 under the International Atomic Energy Agency and had 16 signatories as of June 24 this year, including the U.S., India and Italy.
At least five signatories must ratify the treaty to enact it. So far, the U.S., Romania, Morocco and Argentina have ratified. So Japan joining would bring it into force, Moniz said.
Legislation ratifying the convention could be introduced to parliament early next year, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters on Nov. 1, Kyodo news reported.
Under the pact, a company such a Irvine, California-based Kurion Inc., which possesses technology for removing the radioactive isotope tritium from contaminated water, could deploy its technology at the Fukushima plant, Moniz said.
Liability would rest with Tepco, as the plant’s operator is known, he said.
(Full article at the link)
If the Abe administration is indeed "eager" for the international (read United States here) expertise that will come by ratifying the treaty, it will probably be not particularly for the expertise, as far as I see it.
It will be for the fund to be set up for the victims and a set standard for compensation, I think, which must be more advantageous to the government than what (sort of) exists currently (i.e. saving tons of money for the government).
It would be amazing, to me, if the countries who have already ratified the treaty actually allows Japan to join them, after the fact (=nuclear accident).
Kurion's press release on their tritium-removing technology is copied below. (Please let me know if there is more to it than meets the eye, as I cannot picture a system from the press release that will treat over 100,000 tonnes of water that are in the storage tanks and turbine building basements at Fukushima I Nuke Plant...)
It will be for the fund to be set up for the victims and a set standard for compensation, I think, which must be more advantageous to the government than what (sort of) exists currently (i.e. saving tons of money for the government).
It would be amazing, to me, if the countries who have already ratified the treaty actually allows Japan to join them, after the fact (=nuclear accident).
Kurion's press release on their tritium-removing technology is copied below. (Please let me know if there is more to it than meets the eye, as I cannot picture a system from the press release that will treat over 100,000 tonnes of water that are in the storage tanks and turbine building basements at Fukushima I Nuke Plant...)
Press Releases
Kurion Introduces Tritium Removal Technology to Limit Release of Radionuclides into Environment
Originally Published on 09/30/2013
Patent-pending Modular Detritiation System™ Strengthens Clean, Safe Value of Nuclear Power
Kurion, Inc., an innovator in nuclear and hazardous waste management, announced a breakthrough in the treatment of the historically difficult to capture isotope with the introduction of its patent-pending Modular Detritiation System™ (MDS™) to decontaminate tritiated water. The ability to perform light water detritiation (i.e., the removal of tritium from water) enables the safe release of purified water into the environment or recycling of reactor cooling water. The technology has applications for light water reactors, which are the dominant nuclear plant designs worldwide.
The decontamination of tritium (T) is particularly problematic: it is a special form of hydrogen that forms tritiated water (HTO vs. H2O), which does not lend itself to removal by conventional technologies. This is because instead of the contaminant being carried along in water in suspended or dissolved form, the water molecule itself is modified. As a result, tritiated water is particularly difficult to treat and can spread easily if it escapes into the environment.
“Preventing the release of tritium into the environment represents one of the last remaining environmental challenges for nuclear energy,” said Bill Gallo, chief executive officer of Kurion. “The key value of Kurion’s patent-pending detritiation technology is that it offers an economical alternative to releasing tritium into the environment and bolsters the appeal of nuclear power as a clean, safe energy source.”
John Raymont, Kurion founder and president of international operations, added, “Historically, nuclear power plants were forced to release tritium into the environment because there was no method to remove it economically. Kurion’s new detritiation system now offers a technology-based alternative with the benefit of addressing the public's concern over environmental release.”
The industrial process of removing tritium from water has historically focused on cleaning highly contaminated “heavy water” for recycling back into nuclear reactors, such as for the CANDU design. However, this technology is prohibitively expensive for use with light water reactors. The Kurion MDS™ builds upon proven heavy water solutions and makes advances in throughput and efficiency where the tritium removal occurs. Kurion has developed an economical solution that – for the first time – would allow for recycling or clean release of reactor cooling water for light pressurized water reactors.
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