​Fukushima radiation fight an uphill task

On the second anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the nightmarish task of cleanup is just about beginning. Experts working on the site say that it may take 30 to 40 years to just clean up the Daiichi nuclear plant. How long it will take to clean the 20 km radius prohibited zone around the plant is anybody's guess. "It's like going to war with bamboo sticks," Takuya Hattori, president of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum and a 36-year veteran of Fukushima plant operator Tepco, according to Reuters. What he means is that no technology exists to enter, leave aside work in, a highly contaminated zone like the Fukushima nuclear plant. Radiation levels are fatally high around the damaged nuclear reactors. A Tepco report said that radiation levels were equivalent to 9379 millisieverts per year near reactors 1 and 2. On the ocean side outside reactor 3, the level was 14,989 millisieverts per year. The annual legal limit set by the Japanese government is 50 millisieverts per year. Last Wednesday, a tour of the stricken plant was organized for media persons. Radiation inside the bus carrying them was reported at 1.7 millisieverts per hour. And all this is outside the reactor buildings. Nobody has yet gone in. In October 2011 a robot called Quincy priced at $6 million was sent in but contact was lost. It's delicate electronics may have succumbed to radiation. Since then, other remote controlled devices are being tried out. A giant remote controlled crane is trying to remove highly radioactive debris from the top of the spent fuel pool inside building that housed reactor 3. Tepco says that they will carry out an endoscopic inspection of the interiors of the reactor containment vessels later this year. This involves using optical fibre and laser technologies. Earlier surveys inside the containment vessels of reactors 1 and 2 found radiation levels high enough to kill a human within one hour, reported the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun on February 21. Up to 11 sieverts per hour was detected inside reactor 1 and up to 73 sieverts per hour was detected inside reactor 2. Groundwater contamination, and its leakage into the sea is another gigantic problem confronting the company. Every day about 400 cubic meters of groundwater seeps into the reactor buildings swirling around highly radioactive debris inside. Tepco is fighting a battle on two fronts: one, containing this water and two, preventing it from leaking into the sea. The water is being pumped into 930 huge storage tanks with a capacity of 260,000 cubic meters. On the sea front, a 2500-feet long steel sheet is planned to be inserted and made watertight to prevent the contaminated water in the complex from leaking into the sea. Immediately after the disaster in 2011, Tepco had allowed huge quantities of radioactive water to be released into the sea. Over the past two years, several reports of contaminated fish have been coming in. In January this year, a murasoi fish caught at a port inside the plant was found to have a staggering radioactivity of 254,000 becquerels per kilogram. That's 2500 times the legal limit. According to a plan developed jointly by the Japanese government and Tepco, transfer of 11,417 new and used fuel rods lying in seven storage pools will begin sometime later this year. Only around 2022 will removal of molten fuel debris - considered a very dangerous operation - begin. Experts say decommissioning the reactors will cost $100 billion, while decontaminating the surrounding areas and compensating the evacuated residents would cost up to $600 billion. "It's a pipe dream," Michio Ishikawa, former chief adviser at the Japan Nuclear Technology Institute had said, referring to the 40-year plan. Source: TOI