Fukushima Chiefs: The Technology Needed To Decommission 3 China-Syndromed Reactors Doesn’t Exist ... Maybe In 200 Years?

Preface: As you read this post, please keep in mind:

• The reactors didn’t just suffer a melt down, or even a China syndrome type melt-through, but a series of melt OUTS. Scientists have no idea where the cores of the nuclear reactors are. Well actually, maybe they have found them … scattered all over kingdom come.

• In response to the Fukushima crisis, Japan banned journalism, and Japan has once again gone fascist.  If the heads of Fukushima are publicly telling mainstream media such as NHK that things are bad - and the government is letting them do it - you know things are really bad ...

We reported in 2012 that top nuclear experts say that the technology doesn’t yet even exist to clean up Fukushima.

Now, the head of the Fukushima nuclear plant and the head of decommissioning at Fukushima both say that the technology doesn’t exist to clean up Fukushima, and it may not exist for hundreds of years … if ever.

The Times of London reported last month:

The chief of the Fukushima nuclear power station has admitted that the technology needed to decommission three melted-down reactors does not exist, and he has no idea how it will be developed.

In a stark reminder of the challenge facing the Japanese authorities, Akira Ono conceded that the stated goal of decommissioning the plant by 2051 may be impossible without a giant technological leap. “There are so many uncertainties involved. We need to develop many, many technologies,” Mr. Ono said.

EneNews notes:

NHK ‘Nuclear Watch’ transcript, Mar 31, 2015 (emphasis added):

• NHK: The people trying to decommission the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have been hit by setback after setback… and faced accusations of misconduct. It’s lost them a lot of public trust… [Naohiro Masuda, president of Tepco’s decommissioning company] revealed he’s not sure if he can comply with the government set plan [for] removing the fuel…
• Naohiro Masuda, president of Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning Company: We have no idea about the debris. We don’t know its shape or strength. We have to remove it remotely from 30 meters above, but we don’t have that kind of technology, it simply doesn’t exist... We still don’t know whether it’s possible to fill the reactor containers with water. We’ve found some cracks and holes in the three damaged container vessels, but we don’t know if we found them all. If it turns out there are other holes, we might have to look for some other way to remove the debris.
• NHK: Asked [about the gov’t target to begin by 2020], his answer was surprisingly candid.
• Masuda: It’s a very big challenge. Honestly speaking, I cannot say it’s possible.

Dale Klein, Tepco Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee chair, Mar 31, 2015 (at 24:00 in):

• Richard Lloyd Parry, The Times: I was at the plant last week on the tour and we talked Mr. Ono, the boss. He made no bones about the fact that the technology… to remove the molten or semi-molten fuel doesn’t exist yet… I asked him how can you be sure that it will be, and he said, “Well, 200 years ago people would never have dreamed of bullet trains or mobile phones, but they exist.” That seems to be the scale of the leap… that’s going to be required. So there must be immense uncertainties around that… There must surely be a chance that it won’t work out, and that the eventual solution will be something like the Chernobyl solution… a sarcophagus of some kind sealing in the 3 plants…
• Klein: This is something that has never been done… Units 1, 2, and 3… molten fuel penetrated the bottom of the vessel… We don’t know… how much and where it moved. ***

Akira Ono, chief of Fukushima Daiichi, Mar 28, 2015: “There are so many uncertainties… For removal of the debris, we don’t have accurate information… or any viable methodology… I believe human beings have the capability to develop technologies…

It may take 200 years.”

Watch: NHK ‘Nuclear Watch’ | Klein Press Conference

In related news, Fukushima radiation just arrived on the West Coast of North America.

We explained in 2012:

[Airborne] radiation from Japan’s nuclear accident has turned up in seaweed on the coasts of California, Washington and other parts of the West Coast of North America.

***

A 1955 U.S. government report concluded that the ocean may not adequately dilute radiation from nuclear accidents.

MIT says that seawater which is itself radioactive may begin hitting the West Coast within 5 years.

And government experts measured "astounding" levels of radiative xenon in the U.S. from Fukushima.

Comments

[Bumbu Sauce]

http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/issues/nuclear/five-surprising-publ...

Beware FUDpuppies.

[BGO]

This is one of the most bullish for real estate stories I've read all week.

[ersatz007]

and this, my friends, is how Godzilla is created.

[nah]

So nuclear power is in its infancy

.

and we will not all die like Russian gulag

[Dick Gazinia]

 “The Master said / beauty in all things, / but Plutonium? I ask.”

[Victory_Garden]

Greatest stuxnet rothschild/zionist/satanic evil assault on humankind ever in the history of the planet! The slow kill of the oceans and west coast people first, and then eventually all the worlds people continues unabated on purpose.

The secondary plan is to use HAARP to dehydrate the west coast so the food does not get contaminated by keeping the radioactive moisture off the west coast. It was either people die sooner eating the veggies from california, or they die later from the slow kill of the ever increasing never ending poisonous radiation that will eventually be the death of us all.

Meh, who cares. What does the i-satan phone say and by golly, what's on TV!!!

[Handful of Dust]

Fukushima-Area Cancer Risks Are Higher Than Normal After Japan Nuclear Disaster, WHO Reports (2013)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/fukushima-cancer-rates-risks_n_...

Higher cancer rates after Fuki radiation exposure....

It's paradoxical!

[Chauncey Gardener]

GE--"we bring good things to life."

or, is it, GE--"we bring the end to life."

[radish-like]

Dana Durnford has alone been sailing a zodiac raft-boat along the coast of British Columbia and islands for months, and for thousands of kilometers. He reports that the vast majority of former resident species are missing - thousands of species gone - flora and fauna, and the small fraction that remain are in bad shape. Where once there were billions of snails, countless mollusk, sea anemones, thriving kelp, there is nothing or next to nothing. The bird life is mostly gone, a bird life that was legendary for its prolific presence, and great variety. Many interviews with Durnford are archived at Rense.com, and his own websire is nuclearproctologist.org.

[blowing winter]

I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.globe-report.com

[SnatchnGrab]

I'm glad the gay porn thing worked out for you.

[dexter_morgan]

The blatant ignoring of this since shortly after the meltdown led me to believe it was much worse than was being reported. Apparently it was.

[q99x2]

Concrete Tomb time bitchez.

[Shitgum Suicide]

GW- I reply to you all the time and you don't answer, you attack. After a while I get tired of your non-response that I then antagonize you to no avail.

Like I said, why don't we just have our own post where we each post our facts then answer them so everyone can see who answers the question with real facts and not speculation about someone think they said or believe something that you happened to post on your blog claiming it as irrefutable proof.

Hmmmmmmmmm?

[bunnyswanson]

Fuck off dickhead.  You are ruining the thread.

[Yes_Questions]

Dammit! Not making sending my kid back to Cali' any easier these days..

[Shitgum Suicide]

Getting a little sensitive hey george? I thought you were looking forward to my posts? You know the solution. Now implement it and the pain will stop.

Come on George. Just change the avatar to it's true form. Your inner Goebbels is just desiring to get out. I promise I won't harass you as much if you just change it. You can continue being your lying self just be who you've always know you were. Show your true nature.

Then again you could be just some bot right?

[Ex-MislTech]

I had an idea for a hydraulic controlled scoop made of hybrid ceramics.

I am not a top level engineer in the field, so I leave it to those who are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-temperature_ceramics

Hydraulic controls would not be affected by the radiation in the

manner that electronic controls would be.

Perhaps a crane to hold the snake like hydraulic boom could

be outfitted with radioactive shielding.

Graded Z shielding looks like the best bet, but again

 I defer to the experts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_protection#Shielding

Oddly a Thorium LFTR would actually take the molten mess

and use up over 90% of it as fuel and make electricity from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ9Ll5EX1jc

[Andre]

Sounds kinda cool. You make me think I should rough up a drawing for an idea I had.

Frame allowing 2 axis travel, set on legs to operate above the chosen structure. Traveller has head capable of accepting multiple types of heads including picker, water jet (for cutting), etc. and raise/lower machinery. Travel on one axis allows heads to be stored in a trough outside the structure. Travel on other axis allows waste to be dropped for disposal. We now have 12 GIGapixel cameras - no need to get close to see. Run the whole thing through hard lines running to a shielded bldg.

We can build 300 story skyscapers in  the desert, why not a "frame crane"?

[Yes_Questions]

ugh:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a11907/is-the-superfuel-t...

[HamSandwich]

Yeah...somebody is going to come in, separate out the protactinium 233, while not being irradiated themselves, place said material in a containment vessel of some sort, carry it out of the building and go build a bomb. This is almost as absurd as someone unscrewing the top off a pressure reactor to get to the plutonium. Pigs flying sheep they trained with the help of alligators is about as probable as this nonsense scenario.

[Ex-MislTech]

I only suggest thorium as a way to get rid of 90% of the nuclear waste in the world

as they have it stacked on reactor roofs in the US currently in spent fuel pools.

[Yes_Questions]

was only lamenting, not your idea.  Sorry if that came across wrong.

I'm optimistic this crisis is an opportunity for GOOD ideas to be manifested.

hell, this and other crises.

[Mr. Ed]

"...crisis is an opportunity for GOOD ideas to be manifested." ??

I am NOT optimistic.  Fukushima has been a visible example of weak problem solving ability, unsteady purpose and lack of imagination almost from the beginning.

I have witnessed this directly in the last 20 years through business dealings and seen many examples of poorly conceived research and funding requests from the scientific community.

An ever-present loss of purpose seems to have settled over Japan that shows itself in everythring Japanese from Abe's insaneonomics, to young adults in their 20's and 30's who have no interest whatever in sex to the Hikikomori phenomenon to the loss of interest in family and having children.

The Japanese aren't stupid - they just seem to have lost the capacity for directed effort.  It's very saddening.

Japan was and still is an automation/robotics powerhouse... and yet no one saw the need to get busy (VERY BUSY) with robots from the get go (and there are ways to deal with intense radiation and Japan has no lack of scientists and engineers to think it through, so that's a false issue.)

What Japan really seems to have lost is the will to live.

I am not optimistic about Japan's future.

[Sambo]

                   S

                E

             P

          P

      U

   K

U

[parker284]

Prompt flooding of the reactors with seawater could have cooled the reactors quickly enough to prevent meltdown. Salt water flooding was delayed because it would ruin the costly reactors permanently.

Flooding with seawater was finally commenced only after the government ordered that seawater be used, and at this point it was already too late to prevent meltdown.

As the water boiled away in the reactors and the water levels in the fuel rod pools dropped, the reactor fuel rods began to overheat severely, and to melt down, In the hours and days that followed, reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced FULL MELTDOWN, I believe this means their SFP also! Each reactor building has its own SFP situated high above the containment vessel.

FYI ALL REACTORS IN THE US ALSO HAVE THEIR SFP SITUATED IN THE SAME MANNER!

Reactor 3, being the exaust for 1 and 2 apparently,  experienced a hydogen explosion which blew the buiding and its MOX laiden SFP SKY HIGH spewing plutonium and uranium pellets miles into the atmosphere and onto Honshu Island. (MOX plutonium fuel used in Fukushima's Unit 3 reactor two million times more deadly than enriched uranium), the complex is 300 kilometers from tokyo! The explosion also damaged reactor 4 to the point of destabalizing and cracking the SFP, which immediatly started leaking water.

My point is this:

The Corium (melted nuclear fuel) has penetrated the ISLAND and ground water is surrounding it and flowing into the PACIFIC OCEAN! EVERY SECOND OF EVERY HOUR OF EVERY DAY FOR THE NEXT 200 YEARS apparently!!!!

FUBAR

[Jack Burton]

The three cores, or what remains of them are indeed in direct contact with ground water. This flows back into the underground channels and also directly into the sea.

Remember this. "Nobody has proposed one valid clean up plan."

There is none, because there is no way in the year 2015 to go in and contact the core material to move it into some type of storage.

More earth quakes will hit over the next 100 years, and the cores will probably still be underground in 100 years. The Spent Fuel is alos a major disaster, seldom mentioned, but a potential major nuclear disaster.

[Buster Cherry]

I believe it will be half-fucked fin the next 240 centuries. Isn't that the half-life of plutonium?

I knew when the tsunami hit that sucker that it was a doomsday situation and promptly told the wife to stock up on tuna, because beginning next week, we're never eating it again.

Hopefully I'll be dead before I have to give up eating speckled trout.

[Yes_Questions]

No.  Not FUBAR because no one's ever going to find out they're melted down!

oh wait

[pndr4495]

I am thinking that there is a direct relationship between Fukushima and the worsening U.S. drought conditions.  The U.S. has an obligation at some point to protect its citizens on their own shores , and if the federal government doesn't protect U.S.citizens then the state militias in each state should inherit that obligation.

[George Washington]

If the drought really gets bad, the West Coast will need to desalinate seawater.

But that seawater will become more and more radioactive.

Clusterfukushima!

[trulz4lulz]

Desalination plants? Haha good one George! We spent all that money on the war machine! Radiation is good for you!!

[George Washington]

Shitgum, It's annoying

[George Washington]

that you usually post NEW comments

[George Washington]

instead of actual REPLIES to the actual comments which you are replying to ...

[George Washington]

so your comments will appear at the top ... to disrupt the flow of conversation.

It's REALLY ANNOYING, isn't it? (And a blatant #9)

</Demonstration>

[Duc888]

Hey, anyone remember the GE commercials?

"GE, we bring good things to light."

Ohhhh, fuck yeaaaaaaaaaaa

[Shitgum Suicide]

Hungry Dweller- "Old George here is always early to the sensationalism table."

You ain't just whistling Dixie.

[Quantum Nucleonics]

While the site cleanup is a mess and will take forever, the fear mongering is just absurd.  The radiation along the west coast of North America is barely detectible, less than 20 bq/m3.  By comparison, seawater containts 11,000 bq/m3 of naturally occurring potassium 40.

[George Washington]

Sir, that is fake science!  The EPA explains:

The human body is born with potassium-40 [the type of
radiation found in seawater] in its tissues and it is the most common
radionuclide in human tissues and in food. We evolved in the
presence of potassium-40 and our bodies have well-developed repair
mechanisms to respond to its effects. The concentration of potassium-40
in the human body is constant and not affected by concentrations in the environment.

Wikipedia notes:

The amount of potassium (and therefore of ⁴⁰K)
in the human body is fairly constant because of homeostatsis, so that
any excess absorbed from food is quickly compensated by the elimination
of an equal amount.

It follows that the additional radiation exposure due to eating a
banana lasts only for a few hours after ingestion, namely the time it
takes for the normal potassium contents of the body to be restored by
the kidneys.

BoingBoing reports:

A lot of things you might not suspect of being
radioactive are, including Brazil nuts, and your own body. And this fact
is sometimes used to downplay the impact of exposure to radiation via
medical treatments or accidental intake.

***

I contacted Geoff Meggitt—a retired health physicist, and former
editor of the Journal of Radiological Protection—to find out more.

Meggitt worked for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and its later commercial offshoots for 25 years. He says there’s
an enormous variation in the risks associated with swallowing the same
amount of different radioactive materials—and even some difference
between the same dose, of the same material, but in different chemical
forms.

It all depends on two factors:

1) The physical characteristics of the radioactivity—i.e, What’s its half-life? Is the radiation emitted alpha, beta or gamma?

2) The way the the radioactivity travels around and is taken up by
the body—i.e., How much is absorbed by the blood stream? What tissues
does this specific isotope tend to accumulate in?

The Potassium-40 in bananas is a particularly poor model isotope to
use, Meggitt says, because the potassium content of our bodies seems to
be under homeostatic control. When you eat a banana, your body’s
level of Potassium-40 doesn’t increase. You just get rid of some excess
Potassium-40. The net dose of a banana is zero.

And that’s the difference between a useful educational tool and propaganda.
(And I say this as somebody who is emphatically not against nuclear
energy.) 

[Shitgum Suicide]

Aha ha ha ha. You crticize someone for using fake science and
the.go on to site Wikipedia and some place called BoingBoing.

Boy you really are unabashed in your propaganda aren't you. But please keep it up as discrediting you gets easier by the day. Seeing how you are your own biggest discreditor.

[George Washington]

EPA.

Boing Boing.

[Shitgum Suicide]

Yeah and the EPA believes in AGW from CO2 which is laughable. The "science"of global warming caused by man is based off of computer models not actual science. Just plug in the numbers to get the desired result. Last I checked that wasn't science. Plus science is not a concensus.

The EPA is as corrupted in their facts as you are about yours. No wonder you site them.

[MEAN BUSINESS]

Idiot.[^cited] Why don't you do us all a favour and go read the entire AR5 and all of the 30,000+ published science articles it's based on AND the 150,000+ professional comments, and then interview every author in the four working groups and, once you are finished, publish  summaries of those interviews on Zero Hedge?

Idiot.

[espirit]

It's ok to say NuKuFuKu, really it is.

Just say it once and you'll get it right.

[Cautiously Pess...]

Every minute of every day for the last 4 years Fuku has been poisoining the Pacific and the atmosphere.  No way to stop it.  And the criminals at the EPA and the NRC are complicit.  I hope it is their families that get cancer first.

[GreatUncle]

When the base level of cancer on the west coast of the USA starts to rise will Japan be made to pay compenation?

The leap in technology required to clean iup this mess will also enable a better "understanding of how much it affected the population"!

So good luck on finding a solution then wait for the claims to start.

[screw face]

Hey Bra......zerohedge #FUKU

[IndianaJohn]

An interesting but short video about old women who returned to Chernobyl shortly after the disaster.

http://thebabushkasofchernobyl.com/

[Duc888]

Indiananajohn: An interesting but short video about old women who returned to Chernobyl shortly after the disaster..

Check this out

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/