Jim Green is the national anti-nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and Australian coordinator of the Beyond Nuclear Initiative.
Four years ago, on 11 March 2011, 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.
"Japan has made significant progress since our previous
missions," said
IAEA
team leader Juan Carlos Lentijo. "The situation, however, remains
very complex, with the increasing amount of contaminated water posing a
short-term challenge that must be resolved in a sustainable manner. The
need to remove highly radioactive spent fuel, including damaged fuel and
fuel debris, from the reactors that suffered meltdowns poses a huge
long-term challenge."
The preliminary report notes that the safe decommissioning of Fukushima
Daiichi "is a very challenging task that requires the allocation of
enormous resources, as well as the development and use of innovative
technologies to deal with the most difficult activities."
Achievements since the last IAEA mission in 2013 include the complete
removal of nuclear fuel from reactor #4 (1,533 new and spent fuel
assemblies); progress with the clean-up of the site; and some progress
with water management.
Challenges include persistent underground water ingress and the
accumulation of contaminated water; the long-term management of
radioactive waste; and issues related to the removal of spent nuclear
fuel, damaged fuel and fuel debris.
Water management alone will cost $16.7 billion
A large majority of the 7,000 workers at Fukushima Daiichi are working
on problems
associated with contaminated water
- groundwater that becomes contaminated, and cooling water that becomes
contaminated.
An estimated US$16.7 billion (€14.8b) will
be spent on water management
alone, which is 20% of the estimated cost of decommissioning the entire
site. In 2012, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers provided a "rough
estimate" of US$500 billion
(€447b) for on-site decommissioning costs, clean-up of contaminated
lands outside the Fukushima plant boundary, replacement power costs, and
compensation payments.
The IAEA report states that achievements since the last IAEA mission in
2013 include:
* Improved and expanded systems to clean contaminated water;
* The installation of new, improved tanks to store contaminated water
(fully welded tanks replacing bolted flange type tanks),
construction of dykes around the tanks with enhanced water holding
capacity, and provision of covers to deflect rainwater from the
dykes; and
* The installation and operation of a set of pumping wells to reduce
the flow of groundwater towards the reactor buildings, sealing of
sea-side trenches and shafts, and the rehabilitation of the subdrain
system. Groundwater ingress has been reduced by about 25% or 100,000
litres per day.
The installation of additional measures to reduce groundwater ingress,
such as a frozen ice wall, is ongoing. The partially-built ice wall will
enclose the area around reactors #1-4 on both the sea-side and the
land-side. Whether the ice wall will effectively prevent the ingress and
contamination of groundwater has been the subject
of debate and scepticism.
According to the IAEA report, the rehabilitation of subdrains (wells
built around reactor buildings) and the construction of a treatment
system for pumped subdrain water, are nearly complete. As the subdrains
are placed in operation, they are expected to further reduce the
groundwater ingress by about 150,000 litres per day, and to near zero
following the installation of the land-side ice wall (if it works as hoped).
As of February 2015, around 600 million litres of contaminated water
were stored on-site, of which more than half has already been treated to
remove some radionuclides (including most caesium and strontium, but not
tritium) and TEPCO expects to complete the treatment of the remaining
water in the next few months.
Nevertheless the situation remains "complex", the IAEA report
states,
due to the ingress of about 300,000 litres of groundwater into the
Fukushima Daiichi site each day, and the ongoing use (and contamination)
of water to cool stricken reactors.
The IAEA report states that not all of the large number of water
treatment systems deployed by TEPCO are operating to their full design
capacity and performance. One of the many remaining challenges for TEPCO
will be to seal leakages in reactor and turbine building walls, which it
plans to tackle after controlling groundwater ingress.
Leaks and spills continue as groundwater pours through the site
Leaks and spills are still occurring. On February 22, sensors detected a
fresh
leak
of radioactive water to the ocean. The sensors, rigged to a gutter that
directs rain and groundwater to a nearby bay, detected contamination
levels 50-70 times greater than normal, falling to 10-20 times the
normal level later that day.
On February 24, TEPCO acknowledged that it had failed
to disclose leaks
to the ocean of highly contaminated rainwater from a drainage ditch even
though it was aware of the problem 10 months ago. The ditch receives
run-off from the roof of the #2 reactor building.
TEPCO said it recorded 29,400 becquerels of caesium per litre in water
pooled on the rooftop, and 52,000 becquerels per litre of beta-emitting
radionuclides such as strontium-90.
The governor of Fukushima Prefecture, Masao Uchibori, said the incident
was "extremely regrettable". Masakazu Yabuki, head of the Iwaki
fisheries cooperative, said
he had been "betrayed” by TEPCO. "I don't understand why [TEPCO] kept silent even though they
knew about it. Fishery operators are absolutely shocked," Yabuki said.
The National
Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations said: "The anger among local fishermen who have been waiting to resume their
business is immeasurable."
Fishing industry and ocean dumping
A Fisheries
Agency survey
released in February revealed that the fishing industry has been slow to recover in coastal prefectures affected by the 3/11 triple-disaster.
Only 50% of the surveyed companies in five prefectures said their
production capacities have recovered to 80% or more of the levels before
the disaster, with Fukushima Prefecture recording the lowest figure of 25%.
Selling the catch has also been problematic. In the Fukushima, Iwate and
Miyagi Prefectures, only 28% of the fish processing businesses have seen
their sales
rise
to 80% or more of the pre-disaster levels.
In January, the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative
Associations called
on the government not to allow the release of contaminated water into the sea. Yet the IAEA report reiterates earlier advice to do just that.
According to the IAEA, TEPCO's present plan to continue storing
contaminated water in tanks, with a capacity of 800 million litres, is
/"at best a temporary measure while a more sustainable solution is
needed."
Meanwhile, subsidiaries of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom are
working on plans
to build a demonstration plant
to test technology for tritium removal from contaminated water. However
the demonstration plant would not be operational until early 2016 and it
is doubtful whether it could be deployed before the existing tank
storage capacity is full.
William, Prince of nuclear PR
The IAEA's latest report is one part substance, one part public
relations. It is silent about the miserable situation faced by evacuees,
sub-standard working conditions at Fukushima, the government's
disgraceful
secrecy law,
and much else besides.
Prince William's visit to Japan in late February was used for more
pro-nuclear PR by the Japanese government. Escorted by Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe, Prince William visited Fukushima prefecture, ate local
produce and went to a children's playground.
However they drove straight past a village where some of the Fukushima
evacuees are still living as refugees.
Tokuo Hayakawa, a Buddhist
priest who lives near the Fukushima plant,
said: "I think Abe is using him. It's true that you can find children playing
outside, and you can eat some Fukushima food. But to take that as the
overall reality here is totally wrong. If I could, I would take him to these abandoned ghost towns, and to the temporary houses where people
still live, so he could see the reality that we are facing."
A rising toll of worker accidents and deaths
Shortly after the third anniversary of the triple-disaster, Fukushima workers
rallied outside the Tokyo headquarters of TEPCO, complaining that they were
forced to work in dangerous conditions for meagre pay. Little
has
changed
over the past year.
The number of serious work-related accidents at Fukushima Daiichi
doubled in 2014. Nine
serious accidents
occurred between March 2014 and January 2015, resulting in two deaths
and eight serious injuries. The total number of accidents at Fukushima
Daiichi, including heatstrokes, has almost
doubled
to 55 this fiscal year (which ends on March 31).
"It's not just the number of accidents that has been on the
rise," said labour inspector
Katsuyoshi Ito. "It's the serious cases, including
deaths and serious injuries that have risen."
On January 19, a worker died at Fukushima Daiichi after falling into an
empty rainwater tank, and the following day a worker at the nearby
Fukushima Daini plant died after being hit on the head by a piece of
heavy equipment in a waste treatment facility. In March 2014, a worker
died at Fukushima Daiichi after being buried by gravel while digging a
ditch.
Just one week before the two deaths in January, labour
inspectors warned
TEPCO about the rising frequency of accidents and ordered it to take
measures to deal with the problem. The rising accident rate is partly
due to the increased number of workers involved in the clean-up of
Fukushima Daiichi - now around 7,000, more than double the 3,000 or so
that worked there in April 2013.
But other factors are at work. TEPCO
acknowledged
after the deaths in January that there has been a "lack of continuous
safety enhancement activity, such as listing up danger zones and
eliminating them."The company also noted that "because of strong
pressure to comply with the schedule, accident recurrence prevention
activity was not thorough, and the range of inspection and measures was
restricted."
Illegal labour practices - workers abused, under-paid
TEPCO President Naomi Hirose announced in late 2013 that the daily
hazard payment for Fukushima Daiichi clean-up workers would be doubled
to about US$180 (€161). But many workers are not receiving the promised
pay increase. TEPCO has declined to disclose details of its legal
agreements with the 800 contractors and subcontractors who employ almost
all of the Fukushima workforce.
Only one of the 37 workers interviewed
by Reuters
from July-September 2014 said he received the full hazard pay increase
promised by TEPCO. Some got no increase. In cases where payslips
detailed a hazard payment, the amounts ranged from US$36-90 (€32-80) per
day.
Two former and two current workers have initiated legal
action
against TEPCO to reclaim unpaid wages, in particular unpaid hazard
payments. The four workers are seeking a total of US$543,000 (€485,000).
In November 2014, TEPCO acknowledged that that the number of workers
on
false contracts has increased in the past year. Survey results released by TEPCO showed
that around 30% of those workers polled said that they were paid by a
different company from the contractor that normally directs them at the worksite, which is illegal under Japan's labour laws. A similar survey
in 2013 found that about 20% of workers were on false contracts.
Yet another controversy emerged on February 18 when a construction firm
executive
was arrested
for sending a 15-year-old boy to help clean up radioactive waste outside
the Fukushima plant. Japan's labour laws prohibit people under 18 from
working in radioactive areas. The boy was ordered to lie about his age.
He said he was paid just US$25.1 (€22.4) per day and was hit when he did
not work hard enough.
As a New
York Times editorial in March 2014 stated: "A pattern of shirking responsibility permeates the decommissioning
work at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. ... It was
the Japanese government, which had been leading the promotion of nuclear
power, that made the Fukushima cleanup TEPCO's responsibility.
"The government kept TEPCO afloat to protect shareholders and bank
lenders. It then used taxpayer money to set up the Nuclear Damage
Liability Facilitation Fund, which provided loans to TEPCO to deal with
Fukushima. This arrangement has conveniently allowed the government to
avoid taking responsibility for the nuclear cleanup."
The government passes responsibility to TEPCO, and TEPCO passes
responsibility to a labyrinth of contractors and subcontractors. The government and TEPCO shirk responsibility for the Fukushima clean-up,
just as they shirked responsibility for the March 2011 nuclear disaster.
Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the
Earth Australia and editor of the Nuclear Monitor newsletter,
where this
article was originally published (March 5, 2015 | No. 799). Nuclear
Monitor is published 20 times a year. It has been publishing deeply
researched, often strongly critical articles on all aspects of the
nuclear cycle since 1978. A must-read for all those who work on this issue!
See also
Four years after Fukushima disaster, long term health implications dominate concerns
Fukushima four years on – what lessons has Australia learnt?
'Nuclear power and humans cannot co-exist' - video
Our Path to a Nuclear-Free Japan - Policy Outline for a Nuclear Phaseout
Microbial Soil Cleanup at Fukushima