Hopeless battle?

May 17, 2014

Outcome of battle against radioactive water at Fukushima plant in doubt

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20140517p2a00m0na006000c.html

We are facing a problem so large it's impossible to see all its dimensions. Eventually, we'll be able to grasp what's happening, but for now, no. The radioactively contaminated water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant is but one, relatively small part of the greater cleanup at the disaster-stricken facility, and yet in absolute terms it is enormous.

There is the relentless flow of the groundwater, a massive amount of it gushing into the plant's basements every day. There are plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and the central government, both desperate to make the water stop somehow. And there are the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) and the mass media, surveying the contaminated water countermeasures with a dubious eye. Such is the disposition of the combatants in the battle to contain the toxic water building up every day at the Fukushima plant.

The enemies in this battle are high radiation levels and the ceaseless flow of groundwater. If this water pours into the reactor buildings and touches the atomic fuel inside, it picks up high concentrations of radioactive material, turning toxic. At the moment, this radioactive water is impossible to deal with.

The battle plan calls for contaminated water already pooling in the buildings to be pumped out and stored temporarily in tanks on-site before being put through the ALPS decontamination system, which filters out radioactive elements. To prevent yet more water from coming into the buildings, an ice wall is to be created beneath the ground that will block further incursions.

However, serious doubts have been raised over the feasibility of this battle plan. The water tanks that now cover much of the plant grounds have sprung leaks, and the ALPS system is plagued by seemingly endless breakdowns. Meanwhile, experts have questioned both the safety and effectiveness of the proposed subterranean ice wall. The sheer number of news reports of "yet another leak" and countermeasures that were "unreliable" risks numbing the public to their significance, but the battle at the plant continues nonetheless.

I talked to one source with first-hand experience of the Battle of Fukushima; someone close to TEPCO itself. When I asked why measures to deal with the water were so far behind, the source responded by displaying a sense of distrust in the NRA.

"Do you know why starting up the ALPS system is more than six months behind schedule? Because it took so much time just to check if the (filtered radioactive material) canister would be all right if dropped at a certain angle," the source said. "It's true that these procedures have to be followed under the law, but this canister is never going to be transported off the plant grounds anyway. Don't you think that there might be a few higher priority problems at the Fukushima plant than that?

"Everyone at the plant is working desperately to move the contaminated water, being told all the while that they have to stay under the 1 millisievert radiation dose per year (set by international standards)," the source continued. "The fact is, efforts at the plant are not being concentrated on dealing with the contaminated water, which is actually the most important task."

The NRA, the primary target of my source's tongue-lashing, was formed in 2012. Before then, both the operation and the regulation of nuclear power plants came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. These functions were split during the taking-stock that followed the Fukushima meltdowns. However, if you asked TEPCO, it would say the NRA lacks the flexibility to deal effectively with emergencies.

When I asked one person connected with the NRA for thoughts on this, the person replied, "TEPCO's failed to get a firm grip on the management of the plant site. The company has no clear view of what constitutes progress in its work."

On April 25 this year, the NRA submitted 24 questions on the safety and effectiveness of the ice wall plan to TEPCO and the national government, and it now looks like the operation -- scheduled to commence in June -- will be delayed.

Some critics have said that a concrete wall would be better than ice. TEPCO, however, has pointed out that the ice barrier requires only that holes be drilled into the ground, limiting workers' exposure to the high radioactivity on the site. The national government, meanwhile, wants to see the contaminated water problem solved before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The plan, however, could fail, and there is a further risk that the excavation work could disturb the crust around the reactors.

All this has created a sense of tension within the government, as a result of which some aspects of the situation at the Fukushima plant are becoming clearer there is as yet no politician willing to take the lead on the project as a whole.

As I went from place to place and person to person asking questions for this column, I remembered the afterword from the historical novel "A Record of the Battle of Leyte" by the late Shohei Ooka. Ooka wrote that one's own experience of combat cannot define an entire war, and that he had written the novel from his own reminiscences combined with prolonged research.

Ooka finished "A Record of the Battle of Leyte" in the 26th year after the end of World War II. We are now three years into the Fukushima nuclear crisis. We still cannot see everything that's going on. What we can say for certain, though, is that neither the radiation nor the contaminated water at the plant is getting any less, and there is no guarantee that the battle against them will turn in our favor. (By Takao Yamada, Expert Senior Writer)