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Gov't releases 40-year Fukushima nuclear plant cleanup plan

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Some people will really get old enough to pass away by then, including some current TEPCO officials.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

what's clean-up plan? a mere declaration by the govt that it's clean...and that can be done at anytime at govt's will.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

add three or four more zeros to the 40 and now we're talking about reality.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

The clean up plan is not technically feasible and is humanely impossible. The J govt knows that but since they have to answer to the population, they came up with a dubious plan. I guess they can't say Tepco screw the whole thing up because they will be blaming themselves.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

good god...40 fricken years!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Years later, "Grandpa, can we visit this place as shown in the 2010/2011 photograph?"

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Ah yes, more and more BS from Nagatacho! (for you all outside of Japan Nagatacho is like the White House for the Japanese Government kind of sort of) sure 40 years! Everything will be back to NORMAL?? Um, I for one and not holding my breath!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

40 years? Big courage, to finally admit things like that. Even when people making the promises won't be around nor capable of taking such responsibility. Are there elections coming or what?

So, when are they telling the evacuees that they are never going home? And when were they planning to prevent radiation from entering the food chain? Or is that part of the "waste disposal technology"? Food safety in Japan is just raising the legally acceptable limits?

Will they be able to put safeties back on inside one year of the accident? You see, russians encased the Chernobyl accident reactor in six months and continued to operate other reactors for several years after. Where is the much touted Japanese efficiency?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Hopefully humans won't forget history and will learn from the current events when building new plants or dealing with the current ones.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

melted fuel plus spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi plant was an “unprecedented project, and that the process was not totally foreseeable.

Ever thought the possibility of a worst case scenario?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

”making the entire process up to 40 years“ Shouldn't that be at least 40 years?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

This is a best case scenario, too. Like many of us have been saying, "Get the people out of that area and start over somewhere else at the expense of TEPCO." The area in question? Well, an 80km radius for starters. Mandatory relocation, period. No matter the kicking and screaming of stubborn families, it's time to go elsewhere.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Mandatory relocation, period. No matter the kicking and screaming of stubborn families, it's time to go elsewhere.

@jforce. That would be uncivilized and undemocratic.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I highly fear cesium and strontium spread by Fukushima and entering the food chain. They deposit in bones for 40 years and can trigger bone cancer and leukemia. That's the ugly truth. Poor kids in Japan!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Yakuza will have a 40 year contract and a new way to get people that own them money to pay up.

2 ( +1 / -0 )

Anybody recording radiation levels in Kansai/Hyogo area? When we were here visiting in August, 2011, the highest reading I got was a spike up to 0.24 uSv (polimaster 1703mo) walking around Nishinomiya; otherwise, it was pretty much around 0.07 uSv.

For this Christmas/New Years visit, I was expecting readings to be better or at least the same. Yesterday, we took the kids (K and 1st) to a theme park in Osaka. The house we are staying at in Nishinomiya 0.05-0.07 uSv. The drive there pretty much the same. Ticket booth around 2:45 PM higher 0.10 to 0.17 uSv with alarm beeping regulary. During our time there we got one or two readings in the 0.2+ range, but readings never really dropped below 0.1. As we were leaving around 6:30 PM walking back to the exit, the alarm started going crazy. I looked down at the detecor on my belt- 1.5+ uSv. Wholly crap. Then it got even more crazy, falshing, vibrating, audio as it spiked to 8.xx uSv. I hope I just misread it in my panic...(need to upload the history, but don't have an IR adaper). Anyway, WTF. Ran the kids inside one of the shops, 0.11 uSv. Walked back outside to check and it was back down to the 0.07-0.2x range. We quickly left. As we reached the pedestrian exit gate it spiked up one more time to 1.xx uSv. WTH!

We spent about a month here in August, 2011, and never saw readings this crazy high. Anybody else seeing unusually high readings in the Kansai/Hyogo area?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

More like a 40 year cover-up plan.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

@Rob Shibao, those WTH's were misreadings. It is extremely delicate instrument which probably doesn't have electronics to filter out noise and static. Even bumbs can produce spikes. Do not trust spikes. Trust only level, slowly varying readings, preferrably over several minutes.

And... the biggest damage from Chernobyl disaster came from psychological damage. Try to avoid that by avoiding panic, especially where kids can see or hear you.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

The sad truth is that it may takes more than 40 years. Oh well, I would never be able to see the end of it. I will be dead by then. Beautiful Fukushima is gone forever as far as I am concerned.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@Rob Shibao:

The spikes you saw were probably some glitch, as gaijinTechie said, or it might also be from a vehicle around you. The next time this happens, slowly guide your family towards the car then re-check. Take things smoothly, and don't panic.

About Fukushima, well, TEPCO has about 40 years to tell us (and our children and even grandchildren): "Oops, seems our educated guesses back then were not accurate, but with our modern technology, now we know."

0 ( +1 / -0 )

@gaijinTechie

I should have rephrased, these spikes were not single data point spikes to be expected with noise and static. They were sustained readings lasting more than a few seconds. What I meant by spiking was the rapid rise in the readings as it jumped from 0.1 to 0.4 to 0.8 etc.

As far as noise and static go, what do you typically observe with radiation detectors? I am not an expert on these and would appreciate your help. What criteria do you use to differentiate a real signal from noise? Is this a Standard method? For airborne particulates or surface contamination?

The 1703 has a duel detector with CsI and GM tube. Unlike a regular gieger counter, it has some kind of noise filtering algo where spikes above a certain threshold appear only as alarm beeps but the display reading will still register only background.

The kids didn't see any panic, nor did anyone else notice or care, and if I were a seriously prone to panic we would have never come here in the first place. I posted just to see if anyone else is observing higher readings now compared to the summer. I love this Country and want things to return for the better. I also noticed higher continuous readings at Itami versus last summer, but don't know what normal background pre-Fuku is.

As far as Chernobyl goes, I know for a fact a lot of people, unfortunately, suffered real damage.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

After reading a few days ago in the Tokyo Shimbun that the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency regards the situation at the Fukushima plant as a "state of emergency," which means that they define any leaks or intentional releases of radioactive water into the ocean as "zero," the revelation that the government has a 40-year plan for the Fukushima cleanup is just further evidence that the situation is still worse than TEPCO and the bureaucrats have let on, and they really have no clue as to how long it will take to resolve this terrible tragedy.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Rob Shibao

Did you measure what readings you got while in the plane here? 2.8uSv according to my counters, for several hours. Even at 8, its not something you need to run away from; but probably not something you want to stand around for hours on end.

Another very likely cause of those sorts of readings is from someone who has had radiation therapy, or some other medical procedure involving radiation. The FB group Tokyo Radiation Levels documented one incident where an old man on the train was giving off some crazy readings.

Or it could be buried vials of Radium like under the supermarket at Setagaya. Its unlikely any significant amount of radiation has made it from Fukushima all the way to Hyogo.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@Rob Shibao: Ok, not spikes. But there are plenty of normal radiation sources in the world, so it would be too early to connect them with Fukushima, I'd say.

As far as Chernobyl goes, I know for a fact a lot of people, unfortunately, suffered real damage.

They did indeed. I didn't mean imaginary damage, but real and not directly related to ionizing radiation (on top of the radiation damage). There were lots of mental depression, anxiety, fright (needless or otherwise), lost productivity, phobias, degradation of general well-being and a lot of suicides, even among those who did not suffer damage from ionizing radiation: http://tinyurl.com/3u6otc2

There are no grounds to claim that Japanese would be immune to these as well, since nothing is over yet.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

40 years- yep, nuclear energy, way of the future.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I am in Kobe and received my detector in April-I have yet to detect any levels higher than background so far......

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Do they have an estimate for how much taxpayer money will be spent on cleaning up this debacle over the next 10 years? I'm interested in a a figure for just the next 10 years...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

First off as a Canadian my condolences go out to the Japanese citizens for their future will be full of nothing but deceit and lies from their Government for at least the next century. Perhaps longer! There are times throughout history when a countries population can be guaranteed nothing but BS. One being during times of War, another being during elections. Now we have a third truthism, during nuclear Disasters. A 'WORD' which strangely enough never gets mentioned in the above article? "Accident" just doesn't do it it justice in my opinion. If a man can be placed on the moon and Mars is in the foreseeable future why couldn't these Engineers design a plant srong enough o hold during a tsunami? Could it be one is more popular than the other and glamorous? Me thinks so!!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@tom,

They're saving "disaster" for if/when the corium melts through the containment vessel and reaches the water table. THAT would be a disaster. As for right now, we can be thankful no one has died due to this radiation release. (please, don't try to include the clean-up worker who died of lymphoma a week after starting work there. It doesn't happen that fast.)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Fadamor

You may be right about them holding off for the ultimate disaster of all (the meltdown of the containment wall) before using the 'D' WORD. However this is no doubt a "disaster" at this stage. Anyone that would classify this an accident would likely also consider Hitler's movement nothing more than an uprising. Sorry for using such a stark comparison. But accidents don't normally require 40+ years before it gets cleaned up. "If they're lucky"

0 ( +0 / -0 )

At last, now the government is talking. 40 years man, 40 years. At last, after too many secrecy and lies, now it is open. I guess it's about time for Japan to study real hard replacing Nuke powered plants to reusable sources of energy. This 3/11 disaster is an eye opener about using Nuke powered plants. Japan is a country of earthquakes that I have experienced while living there.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Quick update. I think my meter is seriously malfunctioning as it has literally gone bizerk on a trip down South. Sorry for the likely false alarm folks, as the readings in Osaka were likely the start of this malfunctioning.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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