My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.

             Yesterday I blogged about problems with nuclear accident evacuation plans in Japan. Many of the cities that are supposed to host evacuees cannot afford the facilities and supplies demanded (but not funded) by the Japanese national government. All the Japanese reactors were shut down following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March of 2011. Now Prime Minister Abe is trying to get the reactors started again. However, the majority of the Japanese public would rather not have the reactors restarted. A new nuclear regulatory agency called the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) created after Fukushima has been strengthening regulations based on the problems at Fukushima. These new regulations have been making it harder to restart the reactors.

         Now the Abe government is trying to decide whether it should offer “written guarantees” of reactor safety in order to persuade the citizens to support the restart. The Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry who oversees the nuclear power industry has said that different local governments have requested that the government guarantee the safety of specific nearby nuclear reactors in writing.

       Two nuclear power reactors at Sendai have met the new stricter regulation passed since Fukushima. They have applied for permission to restart and, if granted, will be the first Japanese reactors to be restarted. There seems to some confusion in the Japanese government about which agency within the  government has the final authority to OK the restart of the Sendai reactors. Government officials have said that the conclusions of the Nuclear Regulatory Authority are sufficient and no other permission is needed. With respect to safety, the NRA points out that its job is to insure compliance with regulation and that it is impossible to prove that anything is completely safe.

         In Japan, local governments have a lot of power to decide whether or not they want to host an operational reactor. Because the Japanese government provides funds to communities that host reactors, there are poor communities that, desperate for money, might be tempted to accept the government’s offer if safety is guaranteed.

       The whole idea of a guarantee in writing is silly. Government officials can write anything they want, but that does not make it true. If they are not in the NRA, they don’t have the knowledge to rule on reactor safety. If they are in the NRA, they are too intelligent to write something that is obviously false. But, for the sake of argument, let us say that someone in the government is willing to write such a guarantee. So what? Unless the guarantee includes specific remedies in case of nuclear accidents, it’s not worth the paper that it is written on. And even if guaranteed compensation is written into the guarantee, enforcing it is an entirely different matter. Future governments might repudiate the guarantee once the reactors are operating again.

       Anyone who would request a guarantee that a nuclear reactor is completely safe or who would write such a guarantee is an idiot or a cynical liar.

Sendai reactors:

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Scientists say that a clear plan is needed for Fukushima decontamination. en.ria.ru

Experts say that plutonium and uranium are flowing into the Pacific  Ocean from Fukushima as melted fuel releases hundreds of different radioactive materials. enenews.com

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has issued a ‘request for action’ to licensees of uranium mines and mills with tailings facilities in response to a tailings dam breach earlier this month at the Mount Polley open pit copper and gold mine in British Columbia. world-nuclear-news.org

An internal audit revealed that hackers infiltrated the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at least three times in as many years. nuclearstreet.com

My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.

             My last post was about an old evacuation plan for the Seattle area in case of nuclear war. Although the danger of nuclear war is increasing, most of the current concern about evacuation relating to nuclear issues has to do with evacuation of populated areas in case of an accident at a nuclear power plant. Since the Fukushima disaster, there has been increased concern about evacuation. In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has set evacuation standards for evacuation in case of accident.

         The NRC requires populated areas near U.S. nuclear plants to have evacuation plans. Initially, the NRC calls for evacuation of a two mile radius around a nuclear power plant with an additional three miles downwind of the accident site. If the accident is very serious, there may be an evacuation of the area five miles from the plant with an additional five miles downwind. When the Fukushima disaster hit in Japan, the U.S. advised an evacuation of Americans within fifty miles of the power plant.

         Japan shut down all of its nuclear power reactors after the Fukushima accident in March of 2011. The current Prime Minister of Japan is committed to restarting the reactors in spite of wide-spread public opposition. Part of the plan to restart the reactors concerns the drafting of evacuation plans in case of another severe accident like Fukushima. Creating and implementing realistic evacuation plans has proven to be more difficult than anticipated.

         Minamata City is about twenty five miles from the Sendai nuclear power station. The evacuation plan calls for Sendai to create and maintain twenty eight facilities with hot water, supplies, staff and decontamination facilities to deal with evacuees coming from areas closer to the Sendai plant. Minamata City is not being offered any funds from the Japanese national government. It does not qualify for any regional or local subsidies. It is not close enough to the Sendai plant to be considers a “host” city and, therefore, cannot expect any financial assistance from the operators of the nuclear plant. Officials there say that they do not have the money that would be required for the twenty eight facilities.

        Only thirteen percent of Japanese cities that are expected to be ready to receive evacuees from a nuclear accident currently have an evacuation plan. One hundred and seventy nine of the cities that are required to have an evacuation plan have reported that they do not have such a plan and are not working on drafting one. One city said that the national government expected their city to be ready to accept so many evacuees that they would be equal to about forty percent of the current population of the city.

        Most of the cities near nuclear power plants that are slated for restart do have plans for evacuating their residents in case of nuclear accidents. However, when practice drills were held to test the evacuation plans, serious problems were found. In addition, as mentioned above, the cities that are supposed to accept those evacuees either cannot or simply will not make the preparations that would be necessary to house the refugees. Lack of funds is the most important reason given.

      The inadequacy of evacuation planning and funding is one of the main reasons that a majority of the Japanese public is so against restarting the Japanese nuclear power reactors.

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Japanese Government says that the level of radiation forty miles from Fukushima is as high as the most contaminated areas in Chernobyl. enenews.com

Radiation levels on US West Coast spiked to over 1,000,000 times normal after Fukushima explosions. enenews.com

Jordan has made “notable progress” in developing its nuclear infrastructure, a mission led by the International Atomic Energy Agency has found. world-nuclear-news.org

Unit 2 at California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant powered down Thursday night when inspections revealed two faulty screws in emergency diesel generators.  nuclear street.com

My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.

Scientists say that Fukushima radiation is causing “serious biological effects”. enenews.com

Injecting water into Fukushima reactor accelerated the core meltdown. enenews.com

Ukraine nuclear fuel plant equipment is ready for delivery from Russia.  nucnet.org

Westinghouse Electric Company has won a contract from Teollisuuden Voima Oyj, operator of Finland’s Olkiluoto nuclear power station, for the delivery of 12 advanced reactor internal pumps for the Olkiluoto-1 and -2 boiling water reactor (BWR) units, Westinghouse has said. nucnet.org

My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.

My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.