Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has announced that the “ice wall” (formally known as the “Land-Side Impermeable Wall”) under construction at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan has been critically affected by rainfall from recent typhoons that have melted parts of the ice structure, allowing new pathways for highly contaminated water to […]
This week TEPCO officials at a meeting with officials from the Nuclear Regulation Authority in Japan admitted that the ice wall they promoted as an impermeable barrier to prevent groundwater from entering the crippled reactor buildings and mixing with highly radioactive water has failed to work as billed and is technically incapable of blocking off […]
The Japanese government has decided to work with the United States and France to develop new technologies to help operators decommission the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The Science and Technology Ministry of Japan will work together with the French National Research Agency and the United States Department of Energy. The United States will work […]
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) admitted last week that they should have declared a meltdown within days of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, instead of delaying the public announcement for months. “We apologize for the great inconvenience and worry the delay caused”, a representative for TEPCO […]
TEPCO released images this week of what appeared to be a fox that had entered the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 reactor. The animal pokes his head around and explores the contaminated structure. The images demonstrate how hard it is to keep animals out of sites like Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl. In September, I was at […]
Residents of Fukui Prefecture in Japan have announced that they will file a lawsuit with the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) to permanently shutdown the Monju fast breeder reactor. A breeder reactor generates more fuel than it consumes. The Monju reactor was not only supposed to process the nuclear waste generated at the operating nuclear reactors, […]
Before 2011, nuclear power generated nearly 18% of the electricity in Germany. After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, Germany elected to gradually shut down its nuclear reactors and stop generating electricity from nuclear power. In response, the biggest utilities in Germany sued the government for billions of Euros in compensation. E.ON and RWE, […]
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan used remote-controlled cameras to observe the current conditions inside of the Unit 3 containment vessel. The cameras were also equipped with radiation detectors and temperature monitoring sensors. On Tuesday, the work was focused on the upper areas of the containment vessel. Next, TEPCO will investigate […]
Kyushu Electric reported this week that it will restart the Unit 2 reactor at the Sendai nuclear power plant in Japan on Thursday. The Unit 2 reactor was taken offline in September 2011 and has remained shutdown for the last four years. The reactors at the Sendai nuclear power plant were the first two to pass […]
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), has signed an agreement to acquire robots that can withstand the critically high radiation levels in the Fukushima Daiichi reactor containment vessels with the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) of France. CEA, a government-funded organization, is experienced with decommissioning nuclear reactor facilities and reprocessing facilities. In order to […]
The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) typically begins its narrative on the “lessons learned” from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe with Japan’s March 11, 2011accident. Not surprisingly, the agency has avoided addressing the most critical lesson recognized in the accident’s official investigative report by Japan’s National Diet. In their finding, the unfolding radiological catastrophe […]
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is overwhelmed by the massive amounts of contaminated water piling up at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and 300 tons more is being generated every day. Groundwater passing underneath the nuclear facility is being continually contaminated as is moves through the site and the crippled reactor buildings. TEPCO’s “subdrain […]
In July 2014, Japan introduced the first increase in earthquake premiums in 18 years. Now, a group commissioned by the Japanese Ministry of Finance to study the issue has announced that insurance companies could add another 19% increase in earthquake premiums by January 2017 as they reassess risk following the magnitude 9 earthquake in March […]
Tokyo Electric has announced a new plan to attempt to retrieve the fuel handling machine that fell into the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 spent fuel pool. TEPCO has been working to remove the fuel handling machine from the spent fuel pool in parts. Previous attempts to retrieve debris from the spent fuel pool were halted […]
The Russian company Atomproekt has announced that in 2016 it will construct a treatment plant at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to demonstrate their ability to process contaminated water and remove tritium. The tritium processing demonstration facility will have a capacity of only 400 cubic meters per day. The project was first announced in […]
Tokyo Electric, the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, has released a document during a lawsuit brought by over 40 shareholders which reveals the utilities acknowledgment that tsunami defenses at the plant were not adequate. The internal document from 2008 noted that TEPCO executives had agreed that it would be “indispensable” to […]
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the utility that owns and operated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, has not used any uranium to produce electricity since the March 11th, 2011 nuclear disaster. None of the reactors owned by TEPCO have been restarted and remain offline. The utility has been struggling to stay ahead […]
The French Government has recommended that AREVA should sell its nuclear reactors to Electricite de France, a power utility who operates nuclear reactors in France which is also majority-state owned.[i] The nuclear industry in France has been struggling to deal with bad investment decisions and an international retreat on nuclear power after the Fukushima Daiichi […]
Engineers from Hitachi-GE revealed the latest robot designed to help engineers understand the conditions inside of the crippled nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan where high radiation levels prevent humans from physically accessing the reactor buildings for inspection. The remote-controlled snake-like robot is only 2 feet long with a lamp […]
Allison Macfarlane, the Chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced that she will resign her post effective January 1st, 2015, and will take a position at George Washington University. Macfarlane was initially sworn into position in 2012 after the resignation of former Chairman Jaczko. In June 2013, Chairman Macfarlane was nominated and […]