Confirmed effectsEffects to be confirmed

[Breaking] 18 Fukushima children diagnosed with thyroid cancer / 44 malignant cases reported

On 8/20/2013, the investigative committee of Fukushima prefecture announced 18 Fukushima children were diagnosed with thyroid cancer (papillary cancer) by 7/31/2013.

It was 12 on 5/27/2013. 6 more children were diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2 months.

They all had surgery already.

Also, 26 children are diagnosed with potential malignant thyroid problems.

It was 16 on 5/27/2013. 10 more children were diagnosed with potential malignant thyroid problems.

 

↓ 7/31/2013

[Breaking] 18 Fukushima children diagnosed with thyroid cancer / 44 malignant cases reported

 

↓ 5/27/2013

2 [Breaking] 18 Fukushima children diagnosed with thyroid cancer / 44 malignant cases reported

 

 

http://www.pref.fukushima.jp/imu/kenkoukanri/250820siryou2.pdf

http://www.pref.fukushima.jp/imu/kenkoukanri/250605siryou2.pdf

 

 

You can ignore the truth but the truth won’t ignore you.

_____

Français :

See also

[Breaking] 18 enfants de Fukushima diagnostiqués avec un cancer de la thyroïde : 44 cas de tumeurs malignes

 

Le 20 août 2013, la commission d’enquête de la préfecture de Fukushima déclare qu’au 31 juillet 2013, 18 enfants de Fukushima ont été diagnostiqués porteurs d’un cancer de la thyroïde (cancer papillaire).

Il n’y en avait que 12 le 27 mai 2013. 6 enfants de plus ont été diagnostiqués avec un cancer de la thyroïde en 2 mois.
Ils ont tous déjà été opérés.
En outre, 26 enfants ont été diagnostiqués avec des problèmes thyroïdiens potentiellement malins.
Ils étaient 16 au 27 mai 2013. 10 enfants de plus sont diagnostiqués avec des problèmes thyroïdiens potentiellement malins.

↓ 31 juillet 2013

[Breaking] 18 Fukushima children diagnosed with thyroid cancer / 44 malignant cases reported

↓ 27 mai 2013

2 [Breaking] 18 Fukushima children diagnosed with thyroid cancer / 44 malignant cases reported

http://www.pref.fukushima.jp/imu/kenkoukanri/250820siryou2.pdf
http://www.pref.fukushima.jp/imu/kenkoukanri/250605siryou2.pdf

Vous pouvez ignorer la vérité mais la vérité ne vous ignorera pas.

Mochizuki
Mochizuki
The writer of Fukushima Diary.
Related
Previous [Mystery] Water gauge is situated 4 tanks away from the officially leaking tank / “How did they measure?”
Next [300m3 leakage] Fukushima nuclear plant has 350 more tanks of the same type / Rubber sealing instead of welding

6 Comments

  4. Enenews was just so depressing yesterday had to take the day off…

    “the concerns were dismissed as ‘depressing'”

    The Beginning of The End

    =

    ‘a place so radioactive the name per-mutated’

    British nuclear plant needs 90 years for decommissioning after 26 years in operation

    Preparations are under way to tear down the wall on the top floor of a nuclear reactor building at the Trawsfynydd Power Station in western Wales in Britain. (Mainichi)

    GWYNEDD, Wales — The Trawsfynydd Power Station in western Wales in Britain is one of the world’s most advanced nuclear power plants when it comes to decommissioning work. It had two gas-cooled reactors with a combined output capacity of 235,000 kilowatts.

    The operator of the power station started decommissioning the power plant in 1993. A senior official in charge of the decommissioning work says 99 percent of radioactive materials have been removed. But it will still take 70 more years for the operator to finish decommissioning the nuclear plant.

    The Mainichi witnessed firsthand the ongoing decommissioning operation of the plant in Wales, which is taking a lot of time and at huge cost, and got a reminder of the tough road ahead for Japan to decommission the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.

    Two concrete buildings cover the nuclear reactors in Wales, which sit by a manmade lake.

    Magnox Ltd. instructed us to wear helmets and special eyeglasses to protect our eyes. The Mainichi Shimbun was the first Japanese news organization to be admitted to this power station since the March 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima power plant, which is owned by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO).

    As we entered the nuclear reactor building, there was a huge dark brown container, which officials say is a portion of a boiler to produce vapor for hydroelectric turbine operations. On the top floor of the building, scaffolding was in place along the wall, and workers were preparing to carefully dismantle upper portions of the building. The structure’s height will be trimmed from about 53 meters to about 30 meters to maintain the safety of the concrete wall until the power station is decommissioned.

    The Trawsfynydd Power Station started operations in 1965 and was shut down in 1991. Spent nuclear fuel (fuel rods) were removed from the nuclear reactors in 1995, but the radiation dose of low-level radioactive substances around pressure vessels and inside interim storage facilities is still high. Accordingly, Magnox will temporarily halt decommissioning work in 2026 before embarking on the final phase of the decommissioning campaign such as the permanent disposal of nuclear waste in 2073.

    Vic Belshaw, programme delivery manager at Magnox, said nuclear power plants built in the initial phase of nuclear power generation were not designed with future decommissioning in mind. Workers are encountering many new things and feeling their way in their decommissioning operations.

    Decommissioning work was under way at a contaminated water purification installation (33 meters in length, 5 meters in width and 6 meters in height) adjacent to the nuclear reactor building. Contaminated water caused by the cooling of fuel rods and decontamination work has already been cleared. Three machine tools (weighing 5 metric tons each), remotely controlled by workers in a separate room, are slowly scraping off contaminated walls.

    Because of radiation exposure fears, workers are only allowed to work inside the buildings for a short period of time and many are engaged in remote control operations. Radioactive substances were collected and sealed and later taken to the interim storage facilities on the premises.

    About 800 people are engaged in decommissioning work, outnumbering those who had operated the nuclear power plant. Because the initial phase of the decommissioning operation takes more than 30 years, recreational facilities and other buildings have been built on the premises. All facilities will be dismantled in 2083 after the decommissioning work is suspended and resumed. Decommissioning the power plant thus takes far longer than the 26 years of the plant’s operations.

    The Trawsfynydd Power Station was relatively small in size and started decommissioning smoothly after going offline thanks to the absence of any major accidents. But it will take 90 years to decommission the plant and the final price tag will come to about 600 million pounds (about 90 billion yen).

    Robin Phillips, an environment, health, safety, and security manager at Magnox, predicted that Japan has to utilize many robots to decommission the ill-fated Fukushima nuclear plant because workers have limited mobility, as compared to the Trawsfynydd plant. It is certain the Fukushima decommissioning task will be unimaginably tough, he added.

    While decommissioning the British power plant appears to have progressed smoothly, there are many challenges facing the plant, and the biggest issue is finding a location to permanently store radioactive materials.

    In October 2006, Britain decided to bury the radioactive substances deep in the ground. Two cities in Cumbria County signaled their willingness to accommodate the substances. But the Cumbria County Council in January this year rejected the plan for fear of potential adverse effects on the tourism-oriented Lake District.

    The British government says it is possible to open a permanent storage facility by the middle of 2070 because there are many places that will offer help due to the potential economic benefits. But so far there is no place to build a permanent storage facility while decommissioning work is under way.

    The Trawsfynydd station plans to temporarily store mid-level radioactive waste on the premises but whether or not all of the facilities can be dismantled depends on the location of a permanent storage facility.

    Meanwhile, British taxpayers are shouldering a heavy burden due to the decommissioning campaign. The British government decided to halt old nuclear power plants with poor output rates at an early date because they could not be privatized. It has decided to nationalize such old reactors and pay for decommissioning them. The government is expected to shoulder about 59 billion pounds (about 8.85 trillion yen) in total but the total cost may further rise.

    Decommissioning the Trawsfynydd station was originally estimated to cost about 300 million pounds (about 45 billion yen) in 2005 but fiscal 2012 estimates put the cost at about 600 million pounds (about 90 billion yen). A reserve fund set aside while the plant was in operation was not sufficient because some of the money was diverted to the construction of new nuclear power plants. The decommissioning costs will thus be shouldered by taxpayers’ money.

    The employment of workers after dismantling the power station is another headache. About 500 subcontractors, many of them local residents, work at the power station. There will be no work for contractors at the plant in 2026, and there is no industry in the area to hire them. Magnox initiated a job-training and mediating program for the workers last year, but David Finchett, operations manager at Magnox, says it is not easy for them to find employment locally. It is tough for them to continue working without knowing where their next job will come from, he said.

    The British government established the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) in 2005 to dismantle nuclear power plants. The agency has 19 nuclear facilities to decommission and to dispose of their radioactive substances. Adrian Simper, the NDA’s strategy and technology director, said power generation comes with certain risks and costs. It’s unreasonable for anyone to say they do not want to pay for the electricity they use. The official also added that Japan probably needs a public entity to dismantle the Fukushima power plant and Britain is willing to help Tokyo with its technical know-how.

    (By Takayasu Ogura and Takayuki Sakai, Europe General Bureau)

    August 19, 2013 (Mainichi Japan)

    mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130819p2a00m0na019000c.html

    —————————————————————————————————-
    how much more Human sacrifice will it take? Savage Mother of Earth?

    =

    Death toll from Kyoto fireworks festival accident rises to 3

    KYOTO (Kyodo) — A 35-year-old man died Monday from severe injuries following explosions at a summer fireworks festival last Thursday in western Japan, raising the death toll to three, police said.

    Naoki Kuroda died in a hospital in the city of Kyoto after suffering major burns all over his body when two explosions occurred at one of the festival’s stalls around 7:30 p.m. Thursday, just before the start of the fireworks display in the city of Fukuchiyama, Kyoto Prefecture, the police said.

    Earlier Monday, Sora Yamana, 10, who was receiving medical treatment in an intensive care unit of a local hospital after the accident, was confirmed dead, the police said.

    The fifth grader in elementary school had gone to the festival beside a river with Hiromi Takeuchi, 44, an acquaintance of his grandparents, who died Saturday after also suffering major burns, according to the police.

    In addition to the three fatalities, 57 people were injured, including the 38-year-old stall operator who is believed to have taken a can of gasoline to the site for a power generator and caused the fire by opening the can near a cooking plate, the police added.

    August 20, 2013(Mainichi Japan)

    http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130820p2g00m0dm034000c.html

    ——————————————————————————————–
    and to think Kyushu Atomic is probably the first in line for their petty Nuclear Reactor restarts…. i say line em up at the top & kick em all in!

    =

    500 eruptions in 231 days?! Japan volcano coats city with ash — again

    By MARI YAMAGUCHI
    updated 8/19/2013 1:34:18 AM ET

    Kyushu — Residents in a southern Japanese city were busy washing ash off the streets Monday after a nearby volcano spewed a record-high smoke plume into the sky.

    Ash wafted as high as 5 kilometers (3 miles) above the Sakurajima volcano in the southern city of Kagoshima on Sunday afternoon, forming its highest plume since the Japan Meteorological Agency started keeping records in 2006. Lava flowed about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the fissure, and several huge volcanic rocks rolled down the mountainside.

    Though the eruption was more massive than usual, residents of the city of about 600,000 are used to hearing from their 1,117-meter (3,664-foot) neighbor. Kagoshima officials said in a statement that this was Sakurajima’s 500th eruption this year alone.

    Residents wore masks and raincoats and used umbrellas to shield themselves from the falling ash. Drivers turned on their headlights in the dull evening gloom, and railway service in the city was halted temporarily so ash could be removed from the tracks.

    Officials said no injuries or damage was reported from the volcano, which is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of the city.

    By Monday morning, the air was clearer as masked residents sprinkled water and swept up the ash. The city was mobilizing garbage trucks and water sprinklers to clean up.

    “The smoke was a bit dramatic, but we are kind of used to it,” said a city official who requested anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media.

    JMA says there are no signs of a larger eruption but similar activity may continue. It was maintaining an earlier warning that people not venture near the volcano itself.

    Japan is on the “Ring of Fire,” the seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean, and has frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity.

    Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
    This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/19/20087725-500-eruptions-in-231-days-japan-volcano-coats-city-with-ash-again?lite

  5. Enenews was just so depressing yesterday had to take the day off…
    (srry this will become a double-post due to unedited active link awaiting moderation)

    “the concerns were dismissed as ‘depressing'”

    The Beginning of The End

    =

    ‘a place so radioactive the name per-mutated’

    British nuclear plant needs 90 years for decommissioning after 26 years in operation

    Preparations are under way to tear down the wall on the top floor of a nuclear reactor building at the Trawsfynydd Power Station in western Wales in Britain. (Mainichi)

    GWYNEDD, Wales — The Trawsfynydd Power Station in western Wales in Britain is one of the world’s most advanced nuclear power plants when it comes to decommissioning work. It had two gas-cooled reactors with a combined output capacity of 235,000 kilowatts.

    The operator of the power station started decommissioning the power plant in 1993. A senior official in charge of the decommissioning work says 99 percent of radioactive materials have been removed. But it will still take 70 more years for the operator to finish decommissioning the nuclear plant.

    The Mainichi witnessed firsthand the ongoing decommissioning operation of the plant in Wales, which is taking a lot of time and at huge cost, and got a reminder of the tough road ahead for Japan to decommission the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.

    Two concrete buildings cover the nuclear reactors in Wales, which sit by a manmade lake.

    Magnox Ltd. instructed us to wear helmets and special eyeglasses to protect our eyes. The Mainichi Shimbun was the first Japanese news organization to be admitted to this power station since the March 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima power plant, which is owned by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO).

    As we entered the nuclear reactor building, there was a huge dark brown container, which officials say is a portion of a boiler to produce vapor for hydroelectric turbine operations. On the top floor of the building, scaffolding was in place along the wall, and workers were preparing to carefully dismantle upper portions of the building. The structure’s height will be trimmed from about 53 meters to about 30 meters to maintain the safety of the concrete wall until the power station is decommissioned.
    An official in a monitor room at the Trawsfynydd Power Station in western Wales in Britain checks work on removing contaminated water. (Mainichi)
    拡大写真

    The Trawsfynydd Power Station started operations in 1965 and was shut down in 1991. Spent nuclear fuel (fuel rods) were removed from the nuclear reactors in 1995, but the radiation dose of low-level radioactive substances around pressure vessels and inside interim storage facilities is still high. Accordingly, Magnox will temporarily halt decommissioning work in 2026 before embarking on the final phase of the decommissioning campaign such as the permanent disposal of nuclear waste in 2073.

    Vic Belshaw, programme delivery manager at Magnox, said nuclear power plants built in the initial phase of nuclear power generation were not designed with future decommissioning in mind. Workers are encountering many new things and feeling their way in their decommissioning operations.

    Decommissioning work was under way at a contaminated water purification installation (33 meters in length, 5 meters in width and 6 meters in height) adjacent to the nuclear reactor building. Contaminated water caused by the cooling of fuel rods and decontamination work has already been cleared. Three machine tools (weighing 5 metric tons each), remotely controlled by workers in a separate room, are slowly scraping off contaminated walls.

    Because of radiation exposure fears, workers are only allowed to work inside the buildings for a short period of time and many are engaged in remote control operations. Radioactive substances were collected and sealed and later taken to the interim storage facilities on the premises.

    About 800 people are engaged in decommissioning work, outnumbering those who had operated the nuclear power plant. Because the initial phase of the decommissioning operation takes more than 30 years, recreational facilities and other buildings have been built on the premises. All facilities will be dismantled in 2083 after the decommissioning work is suspended and resumed. Decommissioning the power plant thus takes far longer than the 26 years of the plant’s operations.

    The Trawsfynydd Power Station was relatively small in size and started decommissioning smoothly after going offline thanks to the absence of any major accidents. But it will take 90 years to decommission the plant and the final price tag will come to about 600 million pounds (about 90 billion yen).

    Robin Phillips, an environment, health, safety, and security manager at Magnox, predicted that Japan has to utilize many robots to decommission the ill-fated Fukushima nuclear plant because workers have limited mobility, as compared to the Trawsfynydd plant. It is certain the Fukushima decommissioning task will be unimaginably tough, he added.

    While decommissioning the British power plant appears to have progressed smoothly, there are many challenges facing the plant, and the biggest issue is finding a location to permanently store radioactive materials.

    In October 2006, Britain decided to bury the radioactive substances deep in the ground. Two cities in Cumbria County signaled their willingness to accommodate the substances. But the Cumbria County Council in January this year rejected the plan for fear of potential adverse effects on the tourism-oriented Lake District.

    The British government says it is possible to open a permanent storage facility by the middle of 2070 because there are many places that will offer help due to the potential economic benefits. But so far there is no place to build a permanent storage facility while decommissioning work is under way.

    The Trawsfynydd station plans to temporarily store mid-level radioactive waste on the premises but whether or not all of the facilities can be dismantled depends on the location of a permanent storage facility.

    Meanwhile, British taxpayers are shouldering a heavy burden due to the decommissioning campaign. The British government decided to halt old nuclear power plants with poor output rates at an early date because they could not be privatized. It has decided to nationalize such old reactors and pay for decommissioning them. The government is expected to shoulder about 59 billion pounds (about 8.85 trillion yen) in total but the total cost may further rise.

    Decommissioning the Trawsfynydd station was originally estimated to cost about 300 million pounds (about 45 billion yen) in 2005 but fiscal 2012 estimates put the cost at about 600 million pounds (about 90 billion yen). A reserve fund set aside while the plant was in operation was not sufficient because some of the money was diverted to the construction of new nuclear power plants. The decommissioning costs will thus be shouldered by taxpayers’ money.

    The employment of workers after dismantling the power station is another headache. About 500 subcontractors, many of them local residents, work at the power station. There will be no work for contractors at the plant in 2026, and there is no industry in the area to hire them. Magnox initiated a job-training and mediating program for the workers last year, but David Finchett, operations manager at Magnox, says it is not easy for them to find employment locally. It is tough for them to continue working without knowing where their next job will come from, he said.

    The British government established the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) in 2005 to dismantle nuclear power plants. The agency has 19 nuclear facilities to decommission and to dispose of their radioactive substances. Adrian Simper, the NDA’s strategy and technology director, said power generation comes with certain risks and costs. It’s unreasonable for anyone to say they do not want to pay for the electricity they use. The official also added that Japan probably needs a public entity to dismantle the Fukushima power plant and Britain is willing to help Tokyo with its technical know-how.

    (By Takayasu Ogura and Takayuki Sakai, Europe General Bureau)

    August 19, 2013 (Mainichi Japan)

    mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130819p2a00m0na019000c.html

    —————————————————————————————————-
    how much more Human sacrifice will it take? Savage Mother of Earth?

    Death toll from Kyoto fireworks festival accident rises to 3

    KYOTO (Kyodo) — A 35-year-old man died Monday from severe injuries following explosions at a summer fireworks festival last Thursday in western Japan, raising the death toll to three, police said.

    Naoki Kuroda died in a hospital in the city of Kyoto after suffering major burns all over his body when two explosions occurred at one of the festival’s stalls around 7:30 p.m. Thursday, just before the start of the fireworks display in the city of Fukuchiyama, Kyoto Prefecture, the police said.

    Earlier Monday, Sora Yamana, 10, who was receiving medical treatment in an intensive care unit of a local hospital after the accident, was confirmed dead, the police said.

    The fifth grader in elementary school had gone to the festival beside a river with Hiromi Takeuchi, 44, an acquaintance of his grandparents, who died Saturday after also suffering major burns, according to the police.

    In addition to the three fatalities, 57 people were injured, including the 38-year-old stall operator who is believed to have taken a can of gasoline to the site for a power generator and caused the fire by opening the can near a cooking plate, the police added.

    August 20, 2013(Mainichi Japan)

    mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130820p2g00m0dm034000c.html

    ——————————————————————————————–
    and to think Kyushu Atomic is probably the first in line for their petty Nuclear Reactor restarts…. i say line em up at the top & kick em all in!

    500 eruptions in 231 days?! Japan volcano coats city with ash — again

    By MARI YAMAGUCHI
    updated 8/19/2013 1:34:18 AM ET

    TOKYO — Residents in a southern Japanese city were busy washing ash off the streets Monday after a nearby volcano spewed a record-high smoke plume into the sky.

    Ash wafted as high as 5 kilometers (3 miles) above the Sakurajima volcano in the southern city of Kagoshima on Sunday afternoon, forming its highest plume since the Japan Meteorological Agency started keeping records in 2006. Lava flowed about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the fissure, and several huge volcanic rocks rolled down the mountainside.

    Though the eruption was more massive than usual, residents of the city of about 600,000 are used to hearing from their 1,117-meter (3,664-foot) neighbor. Kagoshima officials said in a statement that this was Sakurajima’s 500th eruption this year alone.

    Residents wore masks and raincoats and used umbrellas to shield themselves from the falling ash. Drivers turned on their headlights in the dull evening gloom, and railway service in the city was halted temporarily so ash could be removed from the tracks.

    Officials said no injuries or damage was reported from the volcano, which is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of the city.

    By Monday morning, the air was clearer as masked residents sprinkled water and swept up the ash. The city was mobilizing garbage trucks and water sprinklers to clean up.

    “The smoke was a bit dramatic, but we are kind of used to it,” said a city official who requested anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media.

    JMA says there are no signs of a larger eruption but similar activity may continue. It was maintaining an earlier warning that people not venture near the volcano itself.

    Japan is on the “Ring of Fire,” the seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean, and has frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity.

    Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
    This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/19/20087725-500-eruptions-in-231-days-japan-volcano-coats-city-with-ash-again?lite

    1. “There are those who see decommissioning work as less attractive than power plant construction, but if society can show it as a field where young people can challenge themselves, people will want to do the work”

      yuh as much as they want a glowing green thumb up their butt…

      =(

      How will Japan prepare for age of decommissioning reactors?

      Currently, there are 17 nuclear reactors in Japan that were first activated 30 or more years ago. Among them, three were started 40 or more years ago. Under the principle of operating for 40 years that was included in the revised Nuclear Reactor Regulation Law that went into effect in July, 11 reactors will be shut down in the next five years, and the number will climb to 17 in the next 10 years. Add in the other reactors from Fukushima Prefecture, which has declared it will get rid of its nuclear plants, and the number rises to 20.

      Meanwhile, after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, an uncertain future awaits other nuclear reactors like the No. 2 reactor at the Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant, said to have an active quake fault directly beneath it, and reactors at the Oi, Mihama and Shika nuclear power plants, which are suspected of also having active faults. In any case, it is certain that reactors will need decommissioning in the future.

      Decommissioning will not only occur in Japan, but other countries as well. According to the Nuclear Safety Review 2013, put together in July by the International Atomic Energy Agency, out of the 437 nuclear reactors in the world, 162 of them, or nearly 40 percent, are at least 30 years old. Analysis also exists that says the average lifespan for the 153 reactors in the world that have already been shut down has been 24 years. If, like those reactors, others do not last for the full 40-year period, we will see a sharp jump in the amount of reactor decommissions.

      How should Japan prepare for this age of reactor decommissioning? Lately, topics that come up regarding this problem are the creation of an organization to dismantle reactors and the possibilities of reactor decommissioning as a business. Different knowledge from that needed for nuclear plant construction is required for decommissioning reactors, like radiation management, waste disposal, and decontamination. It is also a long and expensive process.

      Makoto Hasegawa, head of a department of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency dealing with reactor decommissioning, says, “If we assume a decommission rate of around 20 reactors every 10 years, we need a coordinating organization that will gather the needed skills and keep down costs while doing efficient work.”

      An example of such an organization that has gathered attention is Britain’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). It was set up as a national organ to deal with the decommissioning of old reactors after plants in that country were privatized in 1990. As of January 2013, it had taken control of around 30 reactors and set a plan for decommissioning them. The NDA puts the management of decommissioning up for international bidding, with private companies working under the bid winners on the actual decommission work. An independent supervisory committee watches over the decommissioning companies.

      The system is set up so the national government takes on the property and debts of nuclear plants, while using private competition to decommission the reactors and process the nuclear waste.

      Would a Japanese version of the NDA be possible? Hasegawa has imagined a variety of versions, such as a nationally-led organization, a private sector-led one, and a mixture of the two. In the case of a nationally-led body, challenges include securing the organization’s independence and getting enough help from the private sector. Even in a private sector-led version or a mixed form, though, if power companies or independent administrative corporations became the parent companies in decommissioning work, it could stunt competition.

      In the United States, meanwhile, there are cases where a company specializing in decommissioning is given temporary ownership of a nuclear reactor destined for dismantling. That company is involved in decommissioning in other countries as well and is participating in plans for treatment of contaminated water at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. Such activities could serve as a source of reference for Japan as it plans its own decommissioning business.

      At any rate, since decommissioning work stretches over dozens of years, talented personnel who will pass on their skills will be needed. “There are those who see decommissioning work as less attractive than power plant construction, but if society can show it as a field where young people can challenge themselves, people will want to do the work,” says Hisaki Mori, who is a representative of an environmental information network and knowledgeable on the reactor decommission issue.

      The ruling Liberal Democratic Party won the House of Councillors election by a landslide, and focus has gathered on restarting Japan’s idled nuclear power plants. However, the decommissioning of reactors and the processing of nuclear waste require urgent attention.

      (By Yuri Aono, Expert Senior Writer)

      August 18, 2013(Mainichi Japan)

      mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130818p2a00m0na002000c.html

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About this site

This website updates the latest news about the Fukushima nuclear plant and also archives the past news from 2011. Because it's always updated and added live, articles, categories and the tags are not necessarily fitted in the latest format.
I am the writer of this website. About page remains in 2014. This is because my memory about 311 was clearer than now, 2023, and I think it can have a historical value. Now I'm living in Romania with 3 cats as an independent data scientist.
Actually, nothing has progressed in the plant since 2011. We still don't even know what is going on inside. They must keep cooling the crippled reactors by water, but additionally groundwater keeps flowing into the reactor buildings from the broken parts. This is why highly contaminated water is always produced more than it can circulate. Tepco is planning to officially discharge this water to the Pacific but Tritium is still remaining in it. They dilute this with seawater so that it is legally safe, but scientifically the same amount of radioactive tritium is contained. They say it is safe to discharge, but none of them have drunk it.

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