TEPCO rejected requests for anti-tsunami steps before nuclear crisis

 

Japan Today

 

National Sep. 26, 2015 - 06:34AM JST ( 15 )

A crane works on the building covering No. 1 reactor (L) at the TEPCO's tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in this file photo. Reuters

TOKYO —

Tokyo Electric Power Co turned down requests in 2009 by the nuclear safety agency to consider concrete steps against tsunami waves at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which suffered a tsunami-triggered disaster two years later, government documents showed Friday.

“Do you think you can stop the reactors?” a TEPCO official was quoted as telling Shigeki Nagura of the now-defunct Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, who was then assigned to review the plant’s safety, in response to one of his requests.

The detailed exchanges between the plant operator and regulator came to light through the latest disclosure of government records on its investigation into the nuclear crisis, adding to evidence that TEPCO failed to take proper safety steps ahead of the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

According to records of Nagura’s accounts, Nagura heard TEPCO’s explanations of its tsunami estimates at the agency office in Tokyo in August and September 2009 as it was becoming clear that the coastal areas of Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures were hit by massive tsunami in an 869 earthquake.

TEPCO said the height of waves was estimated to be around 8 meters above sea level and will not reach the plant site located at a height of 10 meters, they show.
But Nagura said he remembered thinking pumps with key cooling functions, which are located on the ground at a height of 4 meters, “will not make it” and told TEPCO, “If this is the outcome, you better consider concrete responses.”

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Just when you thought Fukushima was the only game in the nuclear nightmare the truth about Taiwan enters the Arena

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Reporters inspect an observation well which is dug to take underground water samples near Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant Unit 1 of Tokyo Electric Power Co., in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, northeastern Japan.

Kyodo News/AP/File

More Bad News for the Pacific - Taiwanese NPP Leaking Radioactive Water

By John Daly | Tue, 13 August 2013 00:01

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Water is an essential ingredient for the operation of most nuclear power plants, from providing the liquid that is flashed to steam to drive turbines to providing coolant for storage of spent fuel. In most NPPs, water is drawn from nearby rivers or from the ocean.
Unfortunately, that reliance can also prove to be a liability.
In reviewing the 11 March 2011 catastrophe that overwhelmed Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s six reactor Fukushima Daiichi NPP, few people remember that it was not the Richter 9.0 earthquake, the fifth largest in modern history, that devastated the facility, but the massive tsunami subsequently generated by the undersea tremor.
Which incidentally killed 25,000 people.
Fukushima Daiichi NPP’s seawall was not high enough to stop the tsunami, which destroyed the facility’s backup diesel generators and fuel tanks upon which keeping the nuclear fuel cool now depended, as the earthquake had severed the facility’s connections to the national electric grid. Nine tsunami generated waves battered the shore.

Related article: The Key to Advancing Nuclear Energy

Two years on, the crippled NPP has yet to be stabilized and its radioactive contents are being spread by – water. On 22 July TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono told a regular news conference that plant officials believed that radioactive water that leaked from the wrecked reactors probably seeped into the underground water system and accordingly was likely leaking contaminated water into the sea, acknowledging for the first time a problem long suspected by experts.
How much?
The Japanese government’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy estimates that 400 tons of groundwater contaminated with radioactive materials are now leaking into the ocean daily from the crippled plant. The Japanese government is now sufficiently alarmed that on 7 August Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a meeting of the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters, "The problem of contaminated water is the most pressing. Rather than leave it up to TEPCO, the central government will come up with the measures to deal with it. The industry minister will instruct TEPCO in order to implement swift and multilayered measures."
Moving southwards, Taiwan’s First Nuclear Power Plant on the island’s northern coast, operating since 1979, has spent fuel rod storage pools that have leaked since December 2009.
How much?
According to the Taiwanese government’s watchdog, Control Yuan, the pools of the two reactors leaked 15,370 milliliters and 4,830 milliliters respectively, with the water containing radioactive materials including Caesium-137, Cobalt-60, Manganese-54, and Chromium-51. The most ominous aspect of the report notes that the NPP operator Taiwan Power Co had failed to find the causes and the leaks continue.


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Environment Pollution - Japan, Prefecture of Fukushima, [Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant] : High levels of a toxic radioactive isotope have been found in groundwater at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant

Earth Watch Report  -  Environmental Pollution -  Radiation

Image Source
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19.06.2013

Environment Pollution

Japan

Prefecture of Fukushima, [Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant]

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Environment Pollution in Japan on Wednesday, 19 June, 2013 at 08:07 (08:07 AM) UTC.

Description

High levels of a toxic radioactive isotope have been found in groundwater at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator says. Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said tests showed strontium-90 was present at 30 times the legal rate. The radioactive isotope tritium has also been detected at elevated levels. The plant, crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, has recently seen a series of water leaks and power failures. The tsunami knocked out cooling systems to the reactors, which melted down. Water is now being pumped in to the reactors to cool them but this has left Tepco with the problem of how to safely store the contaminated water. There have been several reports of leaks from storage tanks or pipes. Strontium-90 is formed as a by-product of nuclear fission. Tests showed that levels of strontium in groundwater at the Fukushima plant had increased 100-fold since the end of last year, Toshihiko Fukuda, a Tepco official, told media. Mr Fukuda said Tepco believed the elevated levels originated from a leak of contaminated water in April 2011 from one of the reactors. "As it's near where the leak from reactor number two happened and taking into account the situation at the time, we believe that water left over from that time is the highest possibility," he said. Tritium, used in glow-in-the-dark watches, was found at eight times the allowable level. Mr Fukuda said that samples from the sea showed no rise in either substance and the company believed the groundwater was being contained by concrete foundations. "When we look at the impact that is having on the ocean, the levels seem to be within past trends and so we don't believe it's having an effect." But the discovery is another set-back for Tepco's plan to pump groundwater from the plant into the sea, correspondents say. Nuclear chemist Michiaki Furukawa told Reuters news agency that Tepco should not release contaminated water into the ocean. "They have to keep it somewhere so that it can't escape outside the plant," he said. "Tepco needs to carry out more regular testing in specific areas and disclose everything they find." The Fukushima power plant has faced a series of problems this year. Early this month, radioactive water was found leaking from a storage tank. The plant also suffered three power failures in five weeks earlier this year. A leak of radioactive water from one of the plant's underground storage pools was also detected in April.

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Cancer-causing isotope found in Fukushima groundwater – plant operator

Published time: June 19, 2013 12:45

A water pump draws groundwater from a well in front of Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant's unit 4 reactor building, in Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture (AFP Photo / Pool / Toshifumi Kitamura)

Elevated levels of cancer-causing radioactive isotopes have been discovered in the groundwater of the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, the plant’s operator has revealed. Highly toxic strontium-90 was present at 30 times the allowable rate, tests showed.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the owner of the wrecked plant, said that tests showed levels of strontium in groundwater had increased by 100 times since the end of last year, TEPCO official Toshihiko Fukuda told reporters. Strontium-90 is a byproduct of nuclear fission, and if ingested can cause bone cancer.
Tests also detected tritium at around eight times the permitted level, TEPCO added. The substance is usually used in glow-in-the-dark watches. "From groundwater samples we collected, we detected 500,000 becquerels per liter of tritium, that is very high," Fukuda told a press conference.
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant suffered a reactor meltdown and released radiation following the 9.0-magnitude Tokohu earthquake – the most powerful earthquake ever to hit Japan – which struck off the coast of the country on March 11, 2011.
The earthquake unleashed a tsunami with waves of up to 14 meters high (Fukushima was designed to withstand up to 5.7-meter waves) that knocked out the emergency generators required to cool the reactors.

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High levels of toxic strontium found in Fukushima groundwater

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Faith Aquino 

 

With another radioactive substance found in the groundwater of Fukushima nuclear power plant, releasing water into the ocean has become even more unlikely for the Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO). Strontium, described by Britannica as “the principal health hazard in radioactive fallout,” was found to be abundant in the groundwater of the Fukushima nuclear facility, said its utility on Wednesday.
The increase of Strontium-90 level from December last year until last month was discovered after a test of groundwater outside power plant No. 2 was done. The test revealed the increase to be 100 times within the five-month period. Toshihiko Fukuda, a general manager at TEPCO, believed that Strontium-90 got mixed with the groundwater and through the turbine building, the substance has leaked out.

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articles

• Strontium in groundwater at No. 1 soars (japantimes.co.jp)
• Japan finds highly toxic strontium-90 in Fukushima groundwater (rawstory.com)
• Japan Finds Highly Toxic Strontium in Fukushima Groundwater (thejakartaglobe.com)
• TEPCO confirms Fukushima Daiichi groundwater contaminated with strontium and tritium (enformable.com)
• High Levels of Radioactive Strontium-90 Detected in Fukushima Groundwater [VIDEO] (natureworldnews.com)
• National › TEPCO finds highly toxic strontium in Fukushima plant groundwater (japantoday.com)
• High levels of toxic strontium found in Fukushima groundwater (japandailypress.com)
• Toxic Radiation Soars in Fukushima Groundwater (commondreams.org)
• High levels of radiation found in groundwater at Fukushima (syndicatednewsservices.com)
• More radioactive leaks at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (enformable.com)