Bound to give confidence! Ask Hanford for advice!
Nagasaki
Bomb Maker Offers Lessons for Japan’s Fukushima Cleanup
Hanford
Engineer Works produced the 20 pounds of plutonium for the bomb
dropped on Nagasaki. It’s among the most toxic nuclear waste sites
and the place Japan is turning to for help dealing with melted
reactors in Fukushima.
16
August, 2013
Tokyo
Electric Power Co. (9501) has sent engineers on visits to the Hanford
site in Washington state this year to learn from decades of work
treating millions of gallons of radioactive waste. Hanford also has a
method to seal off reactors known as concrete cocooning that could
reduce the 11 trillion yen ($112 billion) estimated cost for cleaning
up Fukushima.
Hanford
stretches over 586 square miles of scrubland southeast of Seattle
where thousands of technicians are decommissioning the nine reactors
in operation from 1944 to 1987. Its laboratories and plutonium
facilities were integral to the Manhattan Project to make the first
atomic bomb.
“The
U.S. has vast experience in nuclear technology with their military
activity, including decontaminating soil and managing river
contamination,” Masumi Ishikawa, general manager of Tokyo
Electric’s radioactive waste management, said in an interview.
“There’s a lot we can learn from them.”
Japan
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed with that last week when he told his
fellow citizens for the first time that Tokyo Electric alone isn’t
able to handle the disaster at the Dai-Ichi plant. He promised more
government funds for the cleanup without saying how they’d be used.
Hanford
Leaks
Abe’s
comments followed a long series of mishaps by the utility known as
Tepco, resulting in its admission last month that hundreds of tons of
radioactive water is flowing into the Pacific Ocean more than two
years after three reactor cores melted down at the plant.
Hanford
has its own share of containment challenges. Six underground tanks
leaking radioactive waste may offer lessons to Tepco in dealing with
substances that contaminate everything they come in contact with. The
tanks are among 177 buried at Hanford, about 200 miles (320
kilometers) southeast of Seattle along the Columbia River.
The
U.S. Department of Energy has spent more than $16 billion since 1989
to clean up Hanford. The weapons production generated 56 million
gallons of radioactive waste, enough to fill a vessel the size of a
football field to a depth of 150 feet, according to a December report
by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Fukushima
Fifty
Tepco’s
Ishikawa said visits by him and other company engineers to Hanford
are part of an agreement with the Department of Energy to evaluate
the technology for possible use at Fukushima.
Ishikawa,
46, studied nuclear engineering at Tohoku University in Sendai City,
northeast Japan, and is one of the Fukushima Fifty.
The
name refers to a group of engineers who stayed in the Japanese plant
to fight the disaster as power was lost and reactor buildings
exploded. Ishikawa was the right-hand man of Masao Yoshida, who led
the group. Yoshida died on July 9 of esophageal cancer. He was 58.
At
Hanford, the energy department finished a $65 million cocooning
project in June last year, the DOE said in a statement. That involved
demolishing the last one of the nine reactor buildings down to the
four-foot- (1.2 meter) thick concrete shield around the reactor core.
More
concrete was added to the shield, along with a new concrete roof to
put the reactor into so-called safe storage for 75 years. This allows
radiation levels to decay to safer levels in the core and gives the
operator time to determine the final disposal method, according to
the statement.
Cocooning
Reactors
There
are three ways to decommission nuclear reactors, said Ishikawa. One
is immediate dismantling. Another, used at the wrecked Chernobyl
plant in Ukraine, entombed the whole building in concrete. The third
is cocooning used at Hanford. Entombing and cocooning cost less than
immediate dismantling as it reduces the expense for handling and
moving highly radiated material, Ishikawa said.
Tepco
is talking with the DOE on whether cocooning could work for the
crippled reactors in Fukushima. Sealing them off in concrete for 75
years would allow more focus on cleaning up surrounding areas so that
residents could return, said Ishikawa.
Around
160,000 people were forced to evacuate from towns and villages when
the Dai-Ichi plant released clouds of radiation after it was hit by
an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
“Decommissioning
is vital for the areas around Fukushima Dai-Ichi to move ahead with
restoration,” Ishikawa said.
Visiting
Fukushima
Officials
from the DOE involved with Hanford have visited the Fukushima
Dai-Ichi plant three times as part of a six-month agreement with
Tepco to investigate the conditions there and what solutions they can
offer, he said.
“We
identified seven areas of U.S. expertise that can be tapped,” said
Ishikawa. “That includes decommissioning, nuclear waste disposal,
removal of melted fuel, and restoration of surrounding areas.”
Ishikawa
said talks with the DOE continue and he couldn’t provide a date on
when any agreement may be reached for using expertise and technology
developed at Hanford.
“The
United States remains committed to working with Japan in their
remediation efforts and believes that Japan can continue to leverage
U.S. knowledge and experience in the environmental management area,”
said Lindsey Geisler, a DOE spokesperson.
“The
Energy Department’s environmental cleanup mission is one of the
world’s largest programs of its type,” Geisler said in an e-mail
response to questions.
Ishikawa
said in his visits to Hanford he’s seen decontaminated areas coming
back to life, noting for example a winery that’s been built. That,
he said, is what he wants to see in Fukushima.
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