If you would like to learn more about the IAEA’s work sign up for our weekly updates containing our most important news The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) along with experts from the People’s Republic of China collected samples today of ALPS treated water that had been diluted with seawater ahead of its discharge into the sea at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) The activity is the latest mission carried out under the additional measures which focus on expanding international participation and transparency allowing hands-on independent measurements of the concentration level of the ALPS treated water which TEPCO – operator of the FDNPS – began discharging in August 2023 the IAEA agreed with Japan to implement additional measures third parties can independently verify that water discharge levels are in strict compliance and consistent with international safety standards The samples will be analysed by the IAEA laboratory, by laboratories in Japan and in the participating laboratories from China, Korea, Russia and Switzerland, all members of the IAEA's Analytical Laboratories for the Measurement of Environmental Radioactivity (ALMERA) network, which were selected for their high level of expertise and analytical proficiency. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. and irradiated cooling water began to be pumped to a storage building until it could be properly treated The Fukushima accident made it all too clear that another type of risk can arise from external events: earthquakes and tsunamis may not be two separate events but rather be two successive events in which an earthquake will cause structural damage to a reactor and will also initiate a tsunami The risk associated with an earthquake of plausible magnitude is minimized by building plants away from faults and by making use of earthquake-resistant mechanical design and construction features the addition of dikes and water barriers reduces the risk of damage by a tsunami Added construction features such as water barriers must be able to withstand both an earthquake and a tsunami The nuclear fuel cycle also is an integral step in the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons and the technologies of enrichment and reprocessing in particular have been key factors in the proliferation of these weapons around the world For this reason and also for a host of other political the various steps in the nuclear fuel cycle are closely regulated and frequently observed under terms of international treaties Conflicts between some countries’ nuclear ambitions and various international conventions have sometimes generated great controversy Today's print edition Home Delivery It used to be a common practice for employees at Japanese companies to meet their future spouses through introductions from their bosses who would often serve as matchmakers and then have a role at the couple's wedding are now a thing of the past.googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1499653692894-0'); }); With increasing public awareness of diversity and compliance it has become more difficult for companies to get involved in employees’ private lives In a time of both misinformation and too much information quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing Your subscription plan doesn't allow commenting. To learn more see our FAQ Sponsored contents planned and edited by JT Media Enterprise Division Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba attended a memorial service hosted by Fukushima Prefecture on Tuesday to mark 14 years since a devastating earthquake and tsunami rocked the country’s northeast triggering a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the exhaust stack shared by the Unit 1 and 2 reactors are seen at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) Workers carry out the dismantling work of the treated water tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant chief decommissioning officer at the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) holds model of nuclear fuel debris which was extracted from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant last year during an interview with the Associated Press Wednesday chief decommissioning officer at the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings(TEPCO) holds model of nuclear fuel debris which was extracted from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant last year A worker in hazmat suits take stairs at the damaged Unit 1 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant The Unit 3 reactor covered with protective housing at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant run by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) Workers in hazmat suits are seen at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant A worker in hazmat suit walks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant who both are members of the Fuel Debris Retrieval Program Department at the Fukushima Daiichi and supervisors on the ground during the debris removal last year speak during an interview with The Associated Press at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) spokesperson Masakatsu Takata speaks as they take AP journalists to the area under the Unit 5 reactor pressure vessel which survived the earthquake-triggered tsunami in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant A worker in hazmat suit walks at the area under the Unit 5 reactor pressure vessel Employees of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) take AP journalists to the area under the Unit 5 reactor pressure vessel at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Futaba town An employee of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) speaks at the area under the Unit 5 reactor pressure vessel An entry way similar to one at the damaged No 2 reactor for a melted fuel debris retrieval mission by a remote-controlled robot is seen at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant A cooling pool for nuclear fuel units and a clock that apparently had stopped when the time earthquake and tsunami struck the plant on March 11 is seen at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) employees speak as they take AP journalists to the area at the Unit 5 reactor pressure vessel The area under the Unit 5 reactor pressure vessel is seen at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen in Futaba town A bird flies within the premises of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant which recently visited the plant for a tour and interviews That first successful test run is a crucial step in what will be a daunting decades-long decommissioning that must deal with at least 880 tons of melted nuclear fuel that has mixed with broken parts of internal structures and other debris inside the three ruined reactors chief decommissioning officer at the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings says even the tiny sample gives officials a lot of information about the melted fuel to make the work smoother when bigger efforts to remove the debris begin in the 2030s Operators hope to send the extendable robot farther into the reactor to take samples closer to the center where overheated nuclear fuel fell from the core utility spokesperson Masakatsu Takata said He pointed out the target area as he stood inside the inner structure of the No which is one of two reactors that survived the tsunami Radiation levels are still dangerously high inside the No where the melted fuel debris is behind a thick concrete containment wall Earlier decontamination work reduced those radiation levels to a fraction of what they used to be small groups took turns doing their work helping the robot in 15- to 30-minute shifts to minimize radiation exposure but it has to be manually pushed in and out “Working under high levels of radiation (during a short) time limit made us feel nervous and rushed,” said Yasunobu Yokokawa Full-face masks reduced visibility and made breathing difficult an extra waterproof jacket made it sweaty and hard to move and triple-layered gloves made their fingers clumsy they taped around gloves and socks and carried a personal dosimeter to measure radiation Workers also rehearsed the tasks they’d perform to minimize exposure A camera on the robot also failed because of high radioactivity and had to be replaced The workers’ highest individual radiation dose was more than the overall average but still far below anything approaching a 100-millisievert five-year dose limit a growing number of workers are concerned about safety and radiation at the plant citing an annual survey of about 5,5,00 workers two workers splashed with contaminated sludge at a water treatment facility were hospitalized helped in the 2011 emergency and are team leaders today They say they want to make the job safer as workers face high radiation in parts of the plant workers are setting up equipment to remove spent fuel units from the cooling pool That’s set to begin within two to three years workers are putting up a giant roof to contain radioactive dust from decontamination work on the top floor ahead of the removal of spent fuel To minimize exposure and increase efficiency workers use a remote-controlled crane to attach pre-assembled parts 1 reactor and its surroundings are among the most contaminated parts of the plant Workers are also removing treated radioactive wastewater They recently started dismantling the emptied water tanks to make room to build facilities needed for the research and storage of melted fuel debris After a series of small missions by robots to gather samples experts will determine a larger-scale method for removing melted fuel Experts say the hard work and huge challenges of decommissioning the plant are just beginning There are estimations that the work could take more than a century The government and TEPCO have an initial completion target of 2051 but the retrieval of melted fuel debris is already three years behind is in a no-go zone because of nuclear contamination I would like to make sure the decommissioning work is done properly so that people can return home without worries,” he said This story has been corrected to remove erroneous reference to burns in the 2023 incident and other liquids including biofuels and natural gas liquids and projections integrated across all energy sources Financial market analysis and financial data for major energy companies and resources related to energy disruptions and infrastructure Regional energy information including dashboards Come test out some of the products still in development and let us know what you think Forms EIA uses to collect energy data including descriptions Sign up for email subscriptions to receive messages about specific EIA products Subscribe to feeds for updates on EIA products including Today in Energy and What's New Reports requested by congress or otherwise deemed important Retail prices for regular grade gasoline in California are consistently higher than in any other state in the continental United States often exceeding the national average by more than a dollar per gallon Several factors contribute to this high price crude oil prices generally decreased while U.S refinery margins initially increased before decreasing in the final month of the quarter we review petroleum markets price developments in 1Q25 and structurally lower debt needs have contributed to lower interest expenses for some publicly traded U.S despite the level of interest rates across the economy being relatively high imports of petroleum products decreased by 210,000 barrels per day (b/d) in 2024 to average 1.8 million b/d exports of total petroleum products increased to a record 6.6 million barrels per day (b/d) annual average petroleum product exports increased by 495,000 b/d as U.S while exports of total motor gasoline decreased decreased by 210,000 b/d in 2024 compared with 2023 The TIE was reposted to correct a data point In 2024, pipeline companies completed five pipeline projects to transport petroleum liquids in the United States, according to our recently updated Liquids Pipeline Projects Database The five projects consisted of three hydrocarbon gas liquid (HGL) pipelines and two petroleum product pipelines U.S. marketed natural gas production remained relatively flat in 2024, growing by less than 0.4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) compared with 2023 to average 113 Bcf/d, according to our latest Natural Gas Monthly Production growth in the Permian was offset by declining production in the Haynesville and relatively flat production in Appalachia U.S. crude oil production grew by 270,000 barrels per day (b/d) in 2024 to average 13.2 million b/d, according to our Petroleum Supply Monthly Almost all the production growth came from the Permian region U.S. energy consumption decreases in the next several years before increasing again in the early 2040s through 2050, according to our recently published Annual Energy Outlook 2025 (AEO2025) energy consumption in 2050 is lower than in 2024 in most of the scenarios we explore in AEO2025 but the range of outcomes varies significantly based on the underlying assumptions has hovered around 1.1 million barrels per day (b/d) since 2020 and we forecast it will remain about the same through 2026 crude oil exports in 2024 surpassed the previous record set in 2023 exceeding an annual average of 4.1 million barrels per day (b/d) crude oil export year-over-year growth slowed to 1% in 2024 Research shows that adding amino acids to soil can enhance the growth of rice reducing the need for phosphorus fertilizers It has been 14 years since the devastating triple disaster in Fukushima the country’s most powerful recorded earthquake rocked the Tohoku region which caused the world’s worst nuclear disaster of the 21st century The region has come a long way since then thanks to recovery efforts As part of its response to these challenges the Japanese government has set up a unique research centre — the Fukushima Institute for Research F-REI is aiming to help rebuild Fukushima prefecture and the wider Tohoku region Koetsu Yamazaki is leading the institute’s efforts to restore and revitalize Fukushima Its location holds particular significance — a mere 9 kilometres from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant three reactors of which underwent partial meltdowns after the tsunami flooded their cooling systems Establishing up a research institute in an area that was previously off-limits signals the community’s determination to tackle its most difficult problems But the centre’s mission extends beyond rebuilding — it also includes generating new ideas in areas ranging from agriculture and robotics to clean hydrogen power “F-REI aims to fulfil the hopes and dreams of Fukushima and Tohoku,” says F-REI chairman a former professor of materials and design engineering “It is seeking to become a base for creative reconstruction by strengthening Japan’s sci-tech competitiveness.” F-REI has four main areas of focus: research and development; industrialization; human resource development; and coordinating reconstruction initiatives in Fukushima and Tohoku One area that F-REI researchers are exploring is robotics since robots could help with efforts to decontaminate the nuclear power plant F-REI principal investigator Kouhei Ohnishi head of the Haptics Research Center at Keio University in Kawasaki is known for his pioneering work in haptics a technology that attempts to reproduce a sense of touch for users operating remote robots he has worked on haptics in response to demands for surgical robots with force–tactile sensation capabilities In pursuit of what he describes as ‘real haptics’ Ohnishi has focused on maximizing the speed and sensitivity of force-feedback systems that could help machines manipulate objects in the real world He developed remote-operated grippers that are sensitive enough to grasp delicate objects such as paper cups and strawberries without damaging them Kouhei Ohnishi is developing haptic robots for recovering nuclear waste from nuclear reactors an algorithm he developed was incorporated into a commercial chip that could be used for controllers and robotic manipulators in construction machinery “Conventional industrial robots can grasp an empty paper cup but they cannot pick up a cup full of coffee,” says Ohnishi “But that becomes possible with force–tactile sensation technology Real haptics make robots more adapted to the target object also allowing them to push or insert objects.” This ability opens many more application possibilities including an extremely challenging task — removing roughly 880 tonnes of highly radioactive nuclear-fuel debris from the reactors at the Daiichi plant zirconium and other metals are thought to have accumulated around the bottom of the primary containment vessels of the reactors the exact composition of the material is unknown in November 2024 operators managed to extract a tiny sample of debris which they are studying Ohnishi is now developing robot systems that can operate in the hazardous reactor environment F-REI’s is also focusing its R&D efforts on agriculture forestry and fisheries; energy; radiation science and drug development; and nuclear disaster knowledge dissemination Farmers in Fukushima were especially hard hit by the fallout in the disaster which contaminated millions of tonnes of soil an interim storage facility in the towns of Futaba and Okuma had processed enough soil to fill 11 baseball stadiums Naoto Nihei is surveying the growth of soybean plants crops can still absorb residual caesium in lower layers a professor at Fukushima University’s Faculty of Food and Agricultural Sciences Farmers have been encouraged to use more potassium than before the disaster as it can block the absorption of caesium overuse of chemical fertilizer increases the cost of farming and can lead to soil degradation The goal of Nihei’s research is to find ways to enrich soil that has been stripped and degraded to boost agricultural productivity Nihei has been pursuing a biology framework called multi-omics in which data from a plant’s genome microbiome and other sources are analysed to better understand the interactions between soil He has found that plants not only absorb inorganic nitrates and ammonium but also organic nitrogen as well as other components such as amino acids Nihei has achieved more robust growth in rice plants by applying to the soil only four amino acids: alanine “The agro-ecosystem contains many elements that were studied separately but we’re trying to integrate their analysis,” says Nihei “We’re using machine learning and digital twins to clarify the causal relationships between these elements with an eye to improving soil and predicting crop growth and quality.” F-REI is seeking to find positive opportunities amid the horrors of the 2011 disaster that could lead to growth scientific progress and the launch of new industries that can benefit people everywhere The institute now plans to add more principal investigators and nearly double the number of research units eventually bringing the number of researchers and technicians to around 500 it will take on increasingly complex challenges such as assisting in the greening of Japan’s energy supply using hydrogen and aiming to return the farmland of Fukushima to health Yamazaki’s vision for the region is for it to become a land of coastal vineyards and innovative companies “I want the region to be the California of Japan,” says Yamazaki “Many people are trying to make Fukushima one of the best places in Japan; a place that people will want to come and stay.” There is a very long way to go before such an idealistic vision could be realized but establishing F-REI is an important step towards a brighter future for Fukushima Japan – 14 years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster devastated the northeast region of Japan Greenpeace Japan extends heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families who are still suffering the aftermath of this devastating catastrophe.Sam Annesley Executive Director of Greenpeace Japan said:  “Today marks 14 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake and the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident I would like to once again express my condolences to those who lost their lives and my heartfelt sympathy to all those who lost loved ones and to the victims of the disaster the Japanese Government submitted its 2035 National Determined Contributions (NDC) to the United Nations and on the same day the Cabinet approved the Seventh Strategic Energy Plan and the Plan for Global Warming Countermeasures which form the basis for achieving its greenhouse gases emission targets Japan’s NDC aims for a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in FY2035 compared to FY2013 but this target is extremely low from the perspective of limiting global warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius and from the perspective of its responsibility as an industrially advanced country the phrase ‘reduce dependence on nuclear power as much as possible’ which had been included in the Fourth Strategic Energy Plan (2014) following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident increasing nuclear power will not be in time to avert a climate crisis as nuclear power plants have many challenges and require a long time from planning to the start of operation The risks of nuclear power plants increase with the length of time they have been in operation as does their vulnerability to natural disasters such as earthquakes The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident occurred at a nuclear power plant that had been in operation for more than 30 years and radiation levels remain so high that even 14 years after the accident it is still impossible for humans to directly inspect the damaged reactors the change of policy to promote nuclear power is unacceptable.[1] There is no prospect for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel while the existing storage facilities are already close to full capacity and many local authorities have yet to put in place an effective method for the safe evacuation of residents living near nuclear power stations in the event of an unforeseen emergency the Japanese Government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) have decided to start deliberately discharging contaminated water containing radioactive substances from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the environment This discharge is expected to continue for about 30 years until 2051 the then Government considered the possibility of evacuating 50 million people in the Tokyo metropolitan area water treatment plants in Tokyo even introduced temporary restrictions on the amount of water that infants should drink much of the released radioactive material was carried out to sea but a different wind direction would have resulted in a completely different outcome The Prime Minister secretly drafted a statement at that time which stated that the worst case scenario had occurred.  Have we stayed true to the feelings we had in our hearts at the time The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake 30 years ago the Great East Japan Earthquake 14 years ago the Noto Peninsula Earthquake a year ago and other earthquakes and floods across the country have occurred in rapid succession We can only prepare for these natural disasters as best we can Nuclear disasters are caused by our choice and use of nuclear power as a means of generating electricity in Japan there are many possibilities in Japan to pursue comfortable energy savings as the electricity supply can be replaced by renewable energies that use neither nuclear power nor fossil fuels.  whose vision is to preserve the bounty of the earth for our children 100 years from now believes that the only reasonable course to take is to stop nuclear power generation in order to prevent nuclear disasters from happening again The government should clearly state its policy to phase out the use of nuclear power and fossil fuels in order to ensure a stable energy supply and decarbonise the country They should make great strides in energy conservation in a way that promotes health and the use of renewable energy in a way that is in harmony with local communities and nature thereby aiming to make Japan an energy-saving and renewable energy powerhouse We will do our utmost this year to work towards this goal.” [1] Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry “Cabinet Decision on the Seventh Strategic Energy Plan” Natalia Emi Hirai, Communications Officer, Greenpeace Japan, +81 (0)80-6558-4446, [email protected] "Today on Remembrance Day the trauma of Bravo continues for the remaining survivors and their descendents — this is a legacy not only of suffering Like the resilient people of the Marshall Islands who refuse to give up Greenpeace stands in genuine and deep solidarity by elevating the voices and stories of the communities impacted by the testing of nuclear weapons  and the dangers it imposes The Greenpeace Ukraine team writes this blog on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine with a terrible sense of déjà vu we can help bring an end to this devastating war and forge a path towards a just peace and green reconstruction in Ukraine Please select which cookies you are willing to store These cookies are required for technical reasons so that you can visit our website and use the functions we offer These cookies are used to recognise you between successive visits and thus provide you with a better experience storing your consent preferences and the last Greenpeace.org website visited We use tracking and analysis tools to ensure continuous optimisation and demand-oriented design of our website These cookies will allow us to collect statistical and anonymised data such as how visitors use our website or which pages are accessed most frequently to ultimately improve Greenpeace.org and provide you with a better experience of our website In addition to the Performance cookies mentioned above we may also place in your browser cookies from third-party services (e.g Facebook or Google) to track the effectiveness of our online marketing strategies and to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests These cookies may also be used to serve advertising to you after you have left our site (retargeting cookies) The decommissioning process for the Fukushima Daiichi site and surroundings is scheduled to be completed by 2051 Here are some of the details outlined at an event at the International Atomic Energy Agency's General Conference in Vienna On 11 March 2011 a major earthquake struck Japan It was followed by a 15-metre tsunami which disabled the power supply and cooling of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and all three cores largely melted in the first three days More than 100,000 people were evacuated from the area as a precaution because of radioactive releases in the wake of the accident the three reactors were stable and official ‘cold shutdown condition’ was announced in mid-December there have been no deaths or cases of radiation sickness from the nuclear accident but there have been 2313 disaster-related deaths among evacuees from Fukushima prefecture which are in addition to the 19,500 killed by the earthquake and tsunami work has been taking place to safely decommission the reactors and the surrounding areas with large areas of the evacuated areas now back open for people to live in the Japan-hosted event Reconstruction and Decommissioning in Fukushima heard: It has meant that the evacuation area which covered 81,000 people's homes in August 2013 had been cut to 7000 people's homes by April this year and the intention is to lift all the evacuation areas "even if it will take many years to do so" The decommissioning of any nuclear power plant is a long process so it is no surprise that the timescales for decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi plant are lengthy with the completion currently scheduled to take place up to 40 years after cold shutdown - so by 2051. The different phases in the decommissioning roadmap start with the post-accident period to achieving cold shutdown in 2011 and then a two-year period to November 2013 when the start of fuel removal began began in September with the start of trial fuel debris removal in unit 2 The situation in each reactor is different Fuel removal from used fuel pools was completed for unit 4 in December 2014 and for unit 3 in 2021 The aim is to start fuel removal from unit 2 this year and for unit 1 from 2027/28 There is also the extremely complicated task of removing the fuel debris from the reactors with a fair amount of uncertainty about the distribution in each of the reactors: The plan is to sample granular fuel debris weighing 3 grams or less by lowering an end effector (gripper) with a camera mounted on it Before the start of the process in September the telescopic-arm-type equipment was tested in mock up facilities set up by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in Naraha explained that a few kilograms a day would be collected - but the process would also provide important information about how the accident progressed as well as information about the location of the fuel debris Head of the Decommissioning Strategy Office Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation (NDF) explained the options in the selection process for methods to further expand the scale of fuel debris retrieval “that will determine the success or failure to complete longterm decommissioning” NDF and Tepco are all involved in the process Full-scale fuel debris retrieval starts with unit 3 and he said the “property and distribution of fuel debris greatly varied depending on the accident progression” - and comprised a likely mix of fuel rods still in their original form melted and resolidified metal/ceramic materials and fission products stuck in narrow parts He said there were three methods considered - the partial submersion method: He said that this was the easiest method to understand but stressed that it would need a lot of planning and would need remote operation of equipment The second option was the submersion method. He described this method as "like making a big bathtub and sinking the reactor building into it - water is a very effective radiation shield and this method may be faster than the partial submersion method" However there was no engineering confirmation about whether it was possible to build such a huge structure and what would happen if there were leaks so this option has not been selected - although a method using water as a radiation shield could be required if the partial submersion method does not work The third option considered was the filling and solidification method. This method uses mortar/cement - this has been the least studied and there are on-going studies of which material could be used He said that more information was needed about the situation inside the reactors but the recommendation at this stage has been to start design studies and research and development utilising the partial submission method Micro-drones and endoscopic investigations would be used to build up a picture of inside the reactor vessels There would need to be a new cover on unit 3 for retrieval to ensure no release of radioactive material during the process and a new building constructed to store the fuel debris There would also need to be a number of nearby buildings demolished A further round of public explanatory sessions is planned to be held in Fukushima Prefecture in November and December to outline the fuel debris retrieval methods and how it would work Among the technological innovations that will be needed will be a way to investigate the inside of the reactor pressure vessel - how to drill a hole so as to be able to see inside and to improve the environment inside 100 municipalities in 8 prefectures had had full scale decontamination completed when it started as a small-scale pilot project approximately 13.76 million cubic metres of soil and waste had been removed and transported to the Interim Storage Facility The Interim Storage Facility was built to manage and store removed soil and waste arising from decontamination until final disposal outside Fukushima Prefecture which is stipulated in Japanese law to be completed within 30 years (by March 2045) The facility occupies about 1600 hectares: He stressed the importance of recycling the removed soil which was equivalent to the volume of 11 Tokyo Domes (the baseball stadium) showed the need for some form of volume reduction About 75% of the soil has relatively low radioactivity and is to be recycled in lower levels in public works projects There are a number of different demonstration projects taking place There have also been pot plants placed in national ministries using recycled soil as part of the efforts to build public understanding of its safety Studies have been taking place on selecting technology and from 2025 they will “proceed to processes for studies and coordination related to the selection of a final disposal site” The highest profile issue in the past few years relating to Fukushima has been the issue of the contaminated water - in part used to cool melted nuclear fuel - treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) which removes most of the radioactive contamination This treated water is currently stored in tanks on site. Japan announced in April 2021 it planned to discharge ALPS-treated water into the sea over a period of about 30 years It started to discharge the water on 24 August last year and has completed the release of eight batches with the ninth release beginning at the end of September With large areas of the previously evacuated area now decontaminated and open for people and businesses to move to initiatives have begun to encourage them to do so with a plan for "creative reconstruction: not simply reconstruction" The aim is to develop and build on specialist expertise and industries in areas such as robots as well as agriculture and the environment and research and development: To find out more: Tepco has produced an interactive video guide to the situation at Fukushima Daiichi and the decommissioning process Japanese radiochemist Satoshi Utsunomiya found that air samples from March 15 in Tokyo contained a very high concentration of insoluble cesium microparticles He immediately realized the implications of the findings for public safety but his study was kept from publication for years Autoradiography of soil samples from near the Fukushima nuclear plant revealed hotspots of radioactivity caused by cesium microparticles By François Diaz-Maurin 2011—three days after the Great East Japan Earthquake and its resulting tsunami hit the Fukushima nuclear power plant—explosions at two of the plant’s reactor buildings released a huge amount of invisible radioactivity These radioactive plumes were blown away by the wind descending over the surrounding area and into the ocean the radiation emitted from the Fukushima plants spread over the entire Northern Hemisphere Japanese researchers rushed to collect and study radioactive materials from the soil and the air to find out what had happened inside the reactors believed now to have melted down because their cooling systems failed the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Research Institute the agency responsible for measuring the air quality of particulate matter in the Tokyo area started to collect air samples more frequently This effort was part of the Tokyo metropolitan government’s emergency monitoring program for environmental radiation which aimed to detect gamma-emitting nuclides in airborne dust The filters revealed that at around 10 a.m a large plume of radioactivity reached Tokyo some 240 kilometers (149 miles) south of Fukushima All samples taken on March 14 and March 15 showed spikes in radioactivity A special premium issue on the enduring risks and new challenges of nuclear materials MORE FROM THIS ISSUE » The institute’s researchers published their first results in the journal of the Japan Radioisotope Association in June 2011 (Nagakawa et al 2011); they estimated the total exposure dose to humans from radioactive substances including iodine 131 and cesium 137 found in airborne dust and drinking water from the Setagaya ward in the old Tokyo City Extrapolating from their measurements from March 13 to May 31 they calculated the corresponding annual cumulative dose of radiation in that part of Tokyo as being 425.1 microsieverts which is less than half the annual dose limit to the public recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection In a second conference publication in English (Nagakawa et al the researchers extended their monitoring period to October and estimated that the total annual effective dose due to inhalation for adults in the Tokyo metropolitan area from the Fukushima radioactive plumes was far lower Japanese scientists discovered a new type of highly radioactive microparticle in the exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant which had been ejected from the Fukushima reactors contained extremely high concentrations of cesium 137—a radioactive element that can cause burns an environmental radiochemist from Kyushu University in southwestern Japan soon found that these particles were also present in air filter samples collected in Tokyo in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident The controversy surrounding his attempts to publish his findings nearly cost him his career and prevented his results from being widely known by the Japanese public ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.[1] Scientists still don’t know if these highly radioactive microparticles present significant danger to people and Satoshi is one of the very few scientists who is focused on trying to find out “We have the measurements now that tell that the particles did pass over population centers and were being deposited in places,” Gareth Law a radiochemist from the University of Helsinki A view of the Fukushima nuclear plant on March 14 Hydrogen explosions in units 1 and 3 may have contributed to the dispersal of cesium microparticles into the atmosphere Model of the radioactive plume from the reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Air filters gathered from this neighborhood in the hours and days after the March 11 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear reactors revealed a new kind of radioactive particle present in the capital city an accomplished environmental radiochemist then at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) visited Yoshiyasu Nagakawa at the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Research Institute Nagakawa was the first author of two TIRI studies on radiation exposure in Tokyo and Ohnuki asked Nagakawa if he could obtain some air samples for further analysis Ohnuki had already studied how radioactive cesium fallout from Fukushima reacted with components of contaminated soil he wanted to do the same with the airborne dust samples from Tokyo Nagakawa gave Ohnuki five small filters that had been collected from the Setagaya ward in old Tokyo City at different times on March 15, 2011—the day the radioactive plume reached Tokyo. Ohnuki received the samples without restriction on their use, and no written agreement was made.[2] Air filters collected in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward were provided to Toshihiko Ohnuki by Yoshiyasu Nagakawa at TIRI Imaging of the filters (bottom row) revealed a spike in the rate of ionizing radiation on the morning of March 15 The bulk radioactivity on each sample was measured in counts per minute (CPM) Back in his laboratory at JAEA, Ohnuki performed autoradiography of the five samples, revealing many radioactive spots on all of them. The bulk radioactivity on each sample was measured to be between 300 counts per minute for the filter that covered the midnight to 7 a.m. period and 10,500 counts per minute between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on March 15.[3] The radiation rate was so high that Ohnuki had to cut some of the filters into small pieces to keep from saturating the scanning electron microscope Ohnuki stored the unexamined filters for future analysis four researchers from the Meteorological Research Institute in Japan reported for the first time about a new type of spherical radioactive cesium-bearing particle that had been ejected in the early days of the Fukushima accident (Adachi et al The researchers had collected air samples on quartz fiber filters at their institute in Tsukuba located 170 kilometers southwest of the Fukushima plant were about to revolutionize the way environmental radiochemists understood the radioactive fallout from Fukushima the researchers placed the filters on an imaging plate and inserted them into a portable radiography scanner which indicated the presence of radioactive materials on the filters with a maximum radioactivity level measured on the sample at 9:10 a.m four days after the Fukushima accident began The researchers placed this sample under a scanning electron microscope and then into an energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer to directly observe the shape and composition of the radioactive materials on the filters The first electron microscope view of the previously unknown radioactive cesium microparticle from air filter samples collected in Tsukuba about 100 miles from the Fukushima nuclear plant The microscope images showed that the particles containing radioactive cesium were perfectly spherical one of them measured as having a diameter of 2.6 microns (millionths of a meter) Scientists had found spherical cesium-bearing particles already They were larger and contained other elements these particles appeared to be insoluble in water Japanese scientists did not know the exact physical and chemical properties of the radioactive materials ejected from the Fukushima nuclear plant “People thought that those hot spots [on soil samples] were just evidence of the very high concentration of water droplets but it was not a reasonable explanation because cesium was always known to be very soluble in water,” Satoshi said Kyushu University professor Satoshi Utsunomiya gathers soil samples with a colleague in the vicinity of the Fukushima nuclear plant Satoshi Utsunomiya and members of his research team used electron microscopes like this one to gather images of the newly discovered cesium microparticle The newly discovered entities were initially called spherical cesium-bearing particles but Satoshi and his co-workers coined the term cesium-rich microparticles which is now what researchers call them generally (Furuki et al CsMPs had not been noted in earlier major reactor accidents After Satoshi obtained four small pieces of the Tokyo air filters he designed what he calls “a very simple procedure” to find out whether the filters contained cesium-rich microparticles he took autoradiograph images of the four pieces confirming what Ohnuki had already seen with a digital microscope at JAEA Then Satoshi moved to characterize the structural and chemical properties of the particles using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) Although the procedure’s design was simple executing these steps would prove to be extremely difficult A page from Satoshi’s lab notes compares an autoradiograph he took in April 2015 (top) with a photograph of an air filter sample previously taken by Toshihiko Ohnuki (bottom) The red areas indicate positions of radioactive particles One of Satoshi’s graduate students found the first CsMP on July 14 2015—after four months of working “extremely hard” to establish an isolation protocol by trying different SEM methods “We were very excited by the successful isolation of CsMPs but we were even more excited by looking at the inner structure of these particles by TEM because there was no TEM data at the time,” Satoshi said He had a vision: Once they established the method of isolating CsMPs they could further investigate in detail and obtain important information on the reactor meltdown process and the properties of fuel debris remaining in the reactors Now that they knew how to isolate the microparticles Satoshi and his lab members divided their work into two separate efforts: Two filter pieces would be used to confirm under the electron microscope if these highly radioactive particles were indeed CsMPs and the two other pieces would be used for dissolution experiments to confirm if the particles were insoluble in water the team was able to produce high-resolution images of exceptional quality showing the shape and main elemental constituents of several CsMPs from the Tokyo air filters Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) enabled Satoshi’s team to capture atomic-resolution images of cesium microparticles (including these four particles) discovered on the Tokyo air filter samples provided by Toshihiko Ohnuki elemental maps of the major constituents of the particles visualized on secondary electron (SE) images obtained through high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (known as HAADF-STEM) as Satoshi was busy working on the Tokyo air filters in his lab at Kyushu University the TIRI researcher who had provided the samples asking him to return them so they could be reanalyzed Nagakawa did not specify the motive for his request which appeared innocuous: “Please return at least some of the materials we gave you for reanalysis … if the location is unknown Ohnuki immediately sent Nagakawa two filters from March 15 that had the highest level of radioactivity and contained the largest number of radioactive spots Ohnuki added that he had discarded the other three filters after he analyzed them in 2013 Nagakawa also asked Ohnuki whether he was planning to publish papers based on the samples. Ohnuki explained that he stopped analyzing them after his inconclusive attempts in 2013, but did not mention he had given Satoshi part of the filters for study.[9] Satoshi conducted dissolution experiments and quickly confirmed that the CsMPs were insoluble in water The experiments also showed that most of the cesium activity on these filters came from CsMPs up to 90 percent of the cesium radioactivity came from these microparticles not from soluble forms of cesium—meaning that most of the cesium radioactivity detected during the March 15 plume in Tokyo was from CsMPs Satoshi was now ready to publish his results in a scientific journal These were important findings that the scientific community needed to know But Satoshi also understood that they could create a public relations crisis in Japan because his findings contradicted previous statements that played down the implications for public health of Fukushima fallout in Tokyo Satoshi Utsunomiya delivers a plenary address at the 2016 Goldschmidt conference in Yokohama which covered his new findings on the Tokyo air filter microparticles caught the attention of international media a Kafkaesque sequence of events circled about Ohnuki the former JAEA researcher who gave Satoshi the Tokyo air filter samples Satoshi’s research paper was accepted for publication by a prestigious scientific journal after peer review—but the journal delayed publication of the paper for years eventually deciding not to publish it based on mysterious accusations of misconduct that Satoshi’s findings were not made widely known saving the Japanese authorities a possible public relations crisis as the summer Olympics in Tokyo neared Because of the controversy surrounding Satoshi’s paper and the lack of research on the health impacts of these particles it remains unclear to what extent Tokyo residents have been exposed to dangerous radiation levels as a result of the Fukushima accident I worked to reconstruct the sequence of events related to Satoshi’s research paper to find out whether the controversy over its publication was the result of some unethical practice on his part; competition between research laboratories; or attempted suppression of scientific results The account that follows is based on the review of dozens of e-mails and transcripts of phone conversations the Bulletin has obtained as well as on multiple interviews with people directly involved in the events the leader of Nagakawa’s research group at TIRI sent an e-mail to Ohnuki urging him to return filter samples he had earlier obtained from TIRI to the Tokyo Institute of Technology Ohnuki responded that the filters had already been sent but Sakurai maintained they had not received them Ohnuki had asked a staff member of the research group he used to work in at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency to send the samples he had left there Because the samples were studied in a controlled area theymay have been disposed of together with other Fukushima-related samples that had been stored at JAEA three years after giving Ohnuki the five air filters from Tokyo that Satoshi showed contained cesium microparticles TIRI’s Yoshiyashu Nagakawa asked for them back in part: “We are currently considering reanalyzing the filters collected at the time of the accident we would like to ask you to return the filters we gave you (if there are any left over).” titled “Caesium fallout in Tokyo on 15th March caesium-rich microparticles,” was co-authored by three graduate students from Satoshi’s lab—Jumpei Imoto who conducted the experiments—and three Japanese collaborators: Shinya Yamasaki from the University of Tsukuba who contributed to the measurement of samples; Kenji Nanba of Fukushima University who contributed to the collection of samples; and Toshihiko Ohnuki The paper included two international collaborators who were world experts in the study of radioactive materials Bernd Grambow of the French National Center for Scientific Research at the University of Nantes in France and Rodney C who contributed to the research ideas and participated in the analysis of the data pressing him to inform TIRI about the planned publication “This type of information makes government agencies very sensitive,” Moriguchi wrote “If the results obtained from these valuable sample collections conducted at a research institute under the administration were to incur the displeasure of government agencies and it becomes difficult to obtain cooperation from research institutions we are concerned that this could hinder future research using these types of samples.” Their meeting revealed differing interpretations of using the TIRI samples for research Moriguchi confirmed his concerns and said he had contacted Sakurai at TIRI after seeing the paper Moriguchi wrote: “Professor Onuki and his colleagues’ research is of great significance in terms of scientifically clarifying the effects of the accident and leaving a legacy for future generations so I wonder if some kind of compromise can be found The old headquarters of the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Research Institute (TIRI) This was the main headquarters at the time of the Fukushima accident in March 2011 not realizing the huge controversy it would generate Ohnuki sent a PDF file of the preprint paper to Sakurai informing him about the upcoming publication Sakurai was not happy: He anticipated the political implications of these new findings which came from samples that someone from his institute had given to another researcher Sakurai and his research group at TIRI had already analyzed these samples in 2011 and did not detect—let alone characterize—the microparticles (Nagakawa et al Should Ohnuki and Satoshi’s paper be published it could be a blow to his and his research group’s credibility according to e-mails obtained by the Bulletin the then-deputy managing editor of Scientific Reports wrote to Satoshi telling him that the journal had been contacted by a researcher raising concerns regarding the provenance of the air samples analyzed in the manuscript Marszalek gave Satoshi a couple of days to clarify how the samples were collected Scientific Reports first informed Satoshi on February 1 that the journal had received a complaint about the samples he used in the paper Satoshi had no idea what this complaint asserted or who the complaining researcher was who told him that he had sent the paper to TIRI E-mails show that Sakurai contacted Scientific Reports to inform the journal of TIRI’s concerns over the sample’s provenance As Satoshi was still trying to contain the controversy his second paper was published on February 15 Ohnuki explained to Satoshi that when he obtained the samples in 2012, it was understood that they were meant to be used for research to better understand the environmental behavior of radioactive cesium. There was no other reason to give a radiochemist samples that were known to contain radioactive material. So, according to Ohnuki, no formal agreement was needed.[14] Satoshi attempted to explain this to Scientific Reports but the editor was not convinced and told Satoshi that he could not verify if Nakagawa was authorized to share the samples with Ohnuki He therefore asked that Satoshi and Sakurai resolve the supposed provenance issue before publication The co-authors were skeptical that the journal would publish the paper even if they acknowledged TIRI had provided the sample or included some TIRI researchers as co-authors They felt trapped—and started to see a conspiracy Satoshi emailed Sakurai asking for details of the complaint Satoshi even wrote to the director of TIRI who also declined to disclose details of the accusation and explained that this was an issue between TIRI and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency where Ohnuki was working at the time of the experiments TIRI increased the pressure by sending a formal complaint to the Tokyo Institute of Technology In a letter that the researchers were not able to see until a year after it was sent TIRI accused Ohnuki of “suspected acts violating internal regulations researcher’s ethics and code of conduct” in providing Satoshi with samples from TIRI without the institute’s consent Toshihiko Ohnuki at a 2016 workshop on radioactive waste treatment and remediation hosted by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency As the issue became more political and involved more institutions Satoshi continued his research on CsMPs and presented two other papers about Fukushima at the next Goldschmidt Conference in Paris in August 2017 under pressure from the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Industrial Technology the Tokyo Institute of Technology opened a formal investigation of Ohnuki on suspicion of improper research activities with Satoshi “It was like a court,” Satoshi said of being called before the compliance committee he did not know the exact terms of what they were accused of “The team at TIRI didn’t even allow Kyushu University to show me this letter,” Satoshi said I didn’t understand what the problem was.” Satoshi thought that TIRI was complaining about the sample provenance: “I clearly said to the committee members that the sample they provided us was for research But they were claiming that they just lent us the sample.” For Satoshi The misconduct investigation occurred in the middle of a series of scandals involving several Japanese universities in the 2010s including a notorious stem cell scandal in 2014 during which researcher Haruko Obokata fabricated results that allowed her to claim to have developed a groundbreaking method to create stem cells easily the science and technology ministry in Japan issued a set of guidelines on research misconduct including penalties for researchers who engaged in falsification Satoshi and Ohnuki’s was one of the first cases in Japan to go through a trial-like investigation based on the guidelines Lawyers for a research study as simple as this.” which I have viewed and was sent by Tokyo Tech President Yoshinao Mishima to Kyushu University President Chiharu Kubo states that Ohnuki and Satoshi—referred to respectively as “the suspect” and “the co-author” in the report—had been found not guilty of scientific misconduct Although no written agreement between TIRI and JAEA clarified the conditions under which the samples were given to Ohnuki the use of the filters and the data extracted from them could not be considered the intellectual property of TIRI the case could not be considered as theft or plagiarism The investigation also concluded that both institutions had been “sloppy,” TIRI for not having clarified the conditions under which it supplied the samples and JAEA for not having adequate procedures for their storage and disposal Although Ohnuki and Satoshi were cleared of misconduct accusations the committee recommended that the two researchers be blamed by their universities for their mishandling of samples The Tokyo Tech investigation committee’s cover letter for the three-page report “on the suspicion of improper research activities.” The committee found that neither Ohnuki and Satoshi were guilty of scientific misconduct Satoshi almost gave up on publishing the paper based on examination of the filters in Tokyo He told the committee members that he would probably withdraw the paper Both the committee members and TIRI were pleased and we did something clever,” Satoshi explained They would not withdraw the paper; instead they would keep it “in press” until the investigation was over with the report from the investigation that cleared the two co-authors in hand Ewing asked the editor at Scientific Reports to release the paper for publication But the editor contacted TIRI again to confirm whether the issue was resolved they were very upset because they thought that the paper had already been withdrawn by me,” Satoshi said Tokyo Tech did not consider the issue resolved Satoshi had provided pictures of the four samples and the autoradiograph images he had made in 2015 Tokyo Tech could have easily compared the shape of the small pieces to their associated filters as well as their radioactive hotspot distribution from the images to confirm that these sample pieces were from the same Tokyo air filters Tokyo Tech initiated a pressure campaign against Ohnuki and Satoshi to get the samples back (TIRI seems not to have taken part.) Under direct pressure from the president of his institute Ohnuki returned the last samples he still had—the samples from which he had cut the small pieces that Satoshi had studied Satoshi was the last person to still have parts of these samples and Ohnuki was asking his collaborator to give them back Tokyo Tech said they needed to verify if the small pieces were the same samples as those that Ohnuki had obtained from TIRI Satoshi did not want to give the samples away “These are the only evidence to prove our article,” he said Satoshi feared that once Tokyo Tech had received the specimens it would claim they were not from the samples collected in Tokyo on March 15 relinquishing the samples would have been a violation of his own university’s rules that require preserving samples for possible reanalysis Since their discovery over a decade ago, CsMPs have generated a lot of interest from radiochemists who have studied their chemical and physical properties extensively. But while these new microparticles are now well understood, little is known about their fate in the environment and their impacts on human health. Continue reading the properties of the melted fuels mixed with reactor components and the conditions inside the reactors at Fukushima have remained poorly known The high-radiation field from the melted reactor fuel has prevented access to the reactors Everything researchers know about the reactions that occurred inside the reactors during the accident has been inferred from indirect evidence obtained in the environment outside the power plant Researchers believe that radioactive cesium—a byproduct of fission reactions happening in nuclear fuel—was released when fuel fractured and then melted after reaching a temperature of about 2,000 degrees Celsius when electricity powering the cooling systems for the reactors was cut off by flood from the tsunami the radionuclides volatilized and homogenized inside the reactor pressure vessel that contains the core researchers estimate that one percent to seven percent of the cesium inventory of the three reactor cores was released Indirect evidence suggests that cesium-rich microparticles resulted from a complex formation process, which Satoshi and his colleagues first described in the second paper submitted to Scientific Reports alongside the Tokyo paper and published in 2017.[1] Although CsMPs were initially found to be spherical and approximately two microns in diameter particles have now been found in various sizes and shapes researchers have also characterized many CsMPs that showed various chemical properties and included other radioactive elements such as uranium and plutonium Because CsMPs recorded the multiple reaction-process steps that happened during the reactor meltdown they act as important time capsules of these events “The CsMPs are just effectively acting like sponges and capturing information about what’s around them at the time,” Gareth Law because CsMPs don’t react easily with other chemical species in the environment their study has provided important insight into understanding the current state of the damaged reactors This understanding is critical for the decontamination efforts Last October, the Tokyo Electric Power Company collected a sample the size of a grain of rice believed to be fuel debris from Fukushima’s reactor no 2—the first such sample obtained after years of unsuccessful attempts Satoshi and other Japanese radiochemists hope the study of this sample will confirm their findings obtained over the last decade about what happened on March 11 “We don't know how many CsMPs in total have been actually characterized in detail—probably 100 or 200—and how representative that is of what you see in the reactor,” said Law CsMPs have generated a lot of interest from radiochemists who have studied extensively their chemical and physical properties Researchers are now even capable of simulating the molten core-concrete interactions to reproduce the formation mechanism of CsMPs and further study them But while these new microparticles are now well understood little is known about their fate in the environment and their impacts on human health [1] After the three reactors underwent partial core meltdowns the melted fuel accumulated at the bottom of each reactor pressure vessel eventually causing it to rupture significantly in units 1 and 3 The melted fuel then came into contact with the concrete pedestals of the primary containment vessel supporting the reactor vessel leading to reactions known as molten core-concrete interaction the core’s high temperature liberated silicon monoxide from the concrete material which then oxidized and condensed to form a glass matrix (silicon dioxide it incorporated various nanoparticles of fission products the editor of Scientific Reports asked Tokyo Tech once again if there was any update regarding the issue Tokyo Tech asked Kyushu University to respond to the journal not sure how longer he could keep both the samples and his job That’s when he decided to send the samples to Ewing at Stanford University “I sent all the samples to Stanford,” Satoshi said. Satoshi sent the air filter samples through regular postal services “in a UPS package.”[15] On September 13 Kyushu University’s executive vice president called Satoshi to his office and yelled at him Satoshi told Inoue that it was too late; he had already sent the samples to Stanford “for further investigation.” but Satoshi still needed his paper to be published Understanding that the matter had grown even more political Satoshi made an audacious effort of last resort sending a letter to then-Governor of Tokyo Yuriko Koike seeking her permission to publish the paper because the city of Tokyo controls the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Research Institute the governor could help settle the issue by allowing the paper to be published “It became very difficult for me to get research funding That was the biggest impact on me.” The controversial fate of this “very simple paper” was starting to take a toll on his scientific career As the paper remained “in press” at Scientific Reports a reporter from Scientific American who was preparing a piece about CsMPs for the eighth anniversary of the Fukushima disaster Ewing and Satoshi told the reporter about the controversy surrounding their paper Thomson contacted the editor of Scientific Reports to find out what was happening with the paper the editor told the authors that Scientific Reports had rejected the paper—more than two years after receiving the first complaint the editor explained that the journal had “now received further communication from TIRI regarding the sample ownership [and] related claims” and shared the claims with the co-authors: That was the first time they had seen the actual language of TIRI’s complaint to the journal TIRI had told the journal that it considered the issue not resolved the editor said the journal could not proceed to publication while there was an ongoing dispute regarding sample ownership and was therefore “formally rescinding the offer of publication.” The editor Thompson’s article in Scientific American was published on March 11 mentioning the fact that the paper had been rejected (Thompson 2019) Satoshi and his co-authors posted their paper on arXiv (Utsunomiya et al thereby making the findings public—two-and-a-half years after its acceptance by Scientific Reports Ohnuki’s name does not appear in the list of co-authors on the arXiv paper and Satoshi did not acknowledge TIRI for providing the samples ArXiv is an open-source online repository where researchers can post their not-peer-reviewed papers before they are published in a scientific journal a common practice in the fields of physics suggested that he upload the PDF of the article to arXiv himself to prevent Satoshi from being accused by some authorities of making the paper public Posting a paper on a repository is not ideal; researchers need publishers and peer review processes to ensure scientific quality and integrity the paper had already gone through the peer review process of a top journal and been accepted As Ewing had told Scientific American about the battle with Scientific Reports been concern about our scientific results.” Moriguchi tried to minimize the novelty of Satoshi’s findings “The fact that the plume containing these cesium microparticles arrived in Tokyo is not surprising at all for us We have known that factor for quite an early stage … The Meteorological Research Institute [had] published that cesium microparticles came to [the] Kanto area.” However Moriguchi and his research group published their study mapping the distribution of CsMPs over the Kanto region whereas Satoshi’s study was presented at a conference in 2016 and posted online in 2019 Moriguchi and his co-authors acknowledged the importance of Satoshi’s findings: “As first reported by Utsunomiya et al it is already-known fact that air parcels containing type A CsMPs passed over Tokyo City at some point on 15 March Our results strongly support their pioneering report.” After the paper was made public, the researchers received some attention, but not the visibility commensurate with the implications that the study had for public health in Japan.[16] The three institutions—TIRI and Kyushu University—were all “very happy,” Satoshi said Fukushima’s unit 3 reactor building explodes on March 14 Exposed rebar in a 2022 view of the submerged unit 1 reactor base Research suggests that the cesium microparticles were created when molten material in damaged units 1 and 3 impacted the reactor’s underlying concrete base In the early days after the Fukushima accident radiochemists thought that the situation was very different from Chernobyl The three reactor-core damage events at Fukushima were considered to be of low energy meaning that no actual explosion of the reactors had occurred This led radiochemists to assume that radioactive particles probably had not come out of the reactors or focused on the traditional environmental radiochemist approach of collecting soils and sediments It was only after scientists discovered the existence of cesium-rich microparticles that researchers realized that particles had actually been ejected from the reactors a radiochemist from the University of Helsinki who first met Satoshi at the Goldschmidt Conference in 2016 told me he was perhaps too naive at the beginning of his research into Fukushima Law came to this research from his background in environmental radioactivity in the United Kingdom “We’ve had a nuclear accident at the Windscale plant in the 1950s and we’ve had a long history of materials being discharged from Sellafield [the new name for the Windscale nuclear site] into the Irish Sea which have resulted in radioactive particles coming back to British beaches and salt marshes and so on.” Like many other radiochemists Law was interested in learning how his previous study techniques could apply to the Fukushima research and it was still unknown whether these had been produced in the reactors or if suspended cesium had simply condensed around already present airborne particles as researchers progressed in understanding the unique features and properties of CsMPs they came to realize that they are very different from the general concept of radioactive cesium released as soluble forms into the environment Characterizing the microparticles required different techniques you realize that it takes a lot of time to confirm these things,” Law said CsMPs pose new risks that are still underappreciated by the research community and public authorities Once formed, radioactive cesium 137 has a half-life of about 30 years, after which half of the nuclides will have decayed into stable barium 137, whereas the other half will remain radioactive. CsMPs tend to accumulate, forming hotspots that contain many of the particles.[17] Hotspots of the microparticles have been found inside and outside abandoned buildings in the Fukushima exclusion zone and in other places (Fueda et al “They’re actually there in great numbers in many places and then that's when the health questions start to come in,” Law said Despite their great numbers and potential risks hotspots of CsMPs have not been systematically mapped around Fukushima we could still see some hot spot occurrences on the roadside without any protection,” Satoshi said “We shouldn’t be able to access freely that kind of hot spots.” Satoshi takes radiation readings in the Fukushima exclusion zone Because CsMPs are so small, typically two microns or less in diameter, if humans breathe them, they could potentially reach the bottom of the lung, and be lodged into sacs known as alveoli, where the lung generally cannot expel them.[18] Scientists don’t know what would happen then a typical immune system response would consist of some kind of clearance mechanism that seeks out foreign bodies and tries to either envelop or dissolve them But it is still unknown how exactly CsMPs would dissolve in lung fluids CsMPs are much more radioactive than even spent reactor fuel Some researchers from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency have shown that cultured cells exposed to the radiation from suspended CsMPs display a stronger local impact compared to what is known from previous radiological simulation studies using soluble radionuclides (Matsuya et al Scientists are only now seeing some emerging evidence that the point-source nature of the radioactivity from CsMPs could lead to damage to cell systems This is qualitatively different from the conventional estimate of internal radiation dose at the organ level based on uniform exposure to soluble cesium Despite the new risks that CsMPs might pose the study of their impacts has received little interest it is not clear if Satoshi’s paper on the CsMPs on the Tokyo air filters has had any meaningful impact on the research conducted at Japanese universities and institutes “There is nobody really taking care of it,” Grambow said Everybody knows that there are lots of microparticles close to Fukushima But that’s not necessarily the case for the transport of [CsMPs] all the way to Tokyo But [Satoshi’s] was on real filters [from the city].” A lot of the CsMPs that arrived in the city of Tokyo on March 15 probably have now been washed away in rain draining into the city’s sewer system and then into the ocean But in the days and weeks that followed the Fukushima accident many citizens of Tokyo may have inhaled microparticles many hotspots of CsMPs are still spread across the Fukushima exclusion zone A close-up of the autoradiograph pictured at the beginning of this article Hotspots of radioactive cesium like this one appear in soil samples taken from the Fukushima exclusion zone Satoshi and Law are two of only a handful of scientists trying to find out the extent of the health impacts of CsMPs, despite their potential to be produced in any nuclear accident during which a molten core-concrete interaction occurs.[20] But they have encountered difficulty in funding their research “A problem in many countries is that funding agencies don't fund things that are very applied to the nuclear industry,” Law said “Funding agencies believe the nuclear industry should fund that type of research and you get caught between a rock and a hard place The nuclear industry probably doesn't want to fund things that are perceived to have a very low chance of an accident ever happening.” Satoshi and his collaborators are doing the research anyway “Once you start asking questions and making discoveries It is difficult to explain with certainty the motives behind the fierce controversy surrounding Satoshi’s paper on the Tokyo air filters Was Satoshi so driven by scientific curiosity that he skipped some of the basic principles of ethics and ownership Was Ohnuki too naive in showing the paper’s preprint to the two professors who were clear competitors Did Moriguchi genuinely want to resolve the dispute as he told me or did he want to stop this publication so his research group could be the first to report about cesium-rich microparticles on the Tokyo air filters Were Tokyo Tech and Kyushu University too zealous in investigating their own employees based on accusations made by another institution Was the editor of a scientific journal too cautious in not releasing the accepted paper for publication after Ohnuki and Satoshi were cleared of wrongdoing Was TIRI really concerned about ownership and origin of the Tokyo samples or was it more concerned about the huge public relations crisis that would have followed if the paper had been published ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo was it some form of conspiracy or just an unfortunate chain of events that prevented the true extent of the radiation fallout in Tokyo from being known to the public Maybe it includes a little bit of all of these considerations Patterson Award to Satoshi Utsunomiya at the Goldschmidt conference in Chicago in recognition of his contribution to the understanding of cesium microparticles Satoshi and Ohnuki continued to collaborate on research until Ohnuki retired from Tokyo Tech a few years later Ohnuki did not answer multiple requests for comment who initiated the complaint to the scientific journal transferred from TIRI to the Tokyo Metropolitan University and retired a few years later is still employed at the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Research Institute Sakurai and Nagakawa did not respond to my request for comment the prominent professor from the University of Tokyo who had visited Ohnuki and obtained the preprint of the paper on Tokyo and cesium-rich microparticles said during our conversation that he tried to resolve the issue between the TIRI and Satoshi’s group and have the paper published Even though Ohnuki and Satoshi have been officially cleared of misconduct Ohnuki’s attitude in handling of the filter sample provided by TIRI was against research ethics and if the paper had been published [in] Scientific Reports I wanted to prevent such unhappy process for Prof [Satoshi] Utsunomiya’s group.” Moriguchi retired from the University of Tokyo in 2021 He is now the vice president of Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba Satoshi continues to study CsMPs actively and regularly presents his results to the Goldschmidt Conference and publishes his results in scientific journals. He and his collaborators work relentlessly to understand better the fate of CsMPs in the environment and their impacts on human health. In 2024, Satoshi received the Geochemical Society’s Clair C. Patterson Award in recognition of his innovative contributions to the understanding of CsMPs.[21] “I feel like our persistence has paid off,” Satoshi told me “The Patterson Award is much more meaningful to me than the Nobel Prize Patterson’s research [on lead contamination] helped the world whereas Nobel’s invention [of dynamite] has killed millions of people.” [Back to top] [2] Obtaining samples was not out of the ordinary the radiochemist from Kyushu University who later studied the samples told me in an interview: “Just after the Fukushima accident People were trying to promote a lot of research regarding the Fukushima accident it was easy to get samples even from Tokyo.” [3] Counts per minute is a standard measure of the detection rate of ionizing radiation corresponding to the number of emitted particles detected per minute [4] Satoshi had learned this advanced technique during his postdoctoral years at the University of Michigan where he studied under nuclear materials expert Rod Ewing Ewing subsequently moved to Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and became a member of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board [5] Isotopic ratios are unique signatures used to track the origin of radiation plumes detected in the environment either coming from reactor accidents or nuclear weapon explosions Cesium 134 and 137 are two radioactive forms of cesium produced during the fission reactions in a nuclear reactor [6] A micron is one one-thousandth of a millimeter [7] An angstrom is a unit of length equal to a hundred millionth of a centimeter a hydrogen atom has a width of about 1.1 angstroms [8] These thin foils were made using a focused ion beam (FIB) a nanometer-scale precision technique in which a finely focused beam of ions is used to detect an area of interest in a sample [9] In November 2015 insisting that he return the missing samples Ohnuki explained again that he could not find them Ohnuki retired from the JAEA and became a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology [10] See, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPDvRYK_3pU (at 48:05) During the question and answer session after his presentation some researchers questioned whether Satoshi’s high-resolution methods to detect cesium were necessary “Aren’t existing methods good enough to detect these particles?” one attendee asked Satoshi explained that conventional electron microscopy would be enough to detect CsMPs But to understand their behavior in the environment—and the human body—sometimes at very low concentrations scientists needed these high-resolution techniques Satoshi emphasized the need for other research groups to use these new techniques by then a professor at Stanford University and collaborator of Satoshi would later say of Satoshi’s research about the CsMPs in Tokyo: “It is very difficult to find and characterize these particles Considering the full literature and efforts by others as well as our team It is rare to have both the TEM characterization and the isotopic data” (see Brown 2019) [11] The accepted article on the Tokyo air filters was given the manuscript number SREP-17-16385A [12] Moriguchi led a research group on atmospheric dispersion modeling and industrial ecology he was interested in the study of environmental radioactivity from the Fukushima disaster Moriguchi and a group of other researchers from Tokyo presented a paper mapping the spatial and temporal distribution of atmospheric radionuclides from the reactors using the air pollution monitoring network of eastern Japan including that of the Tokyo metropolitan area (Tsuruta et al Moriguchi’s group would report on the distribution of CsMPs in that area only in 2021 (Abe et al [13] Moriguchi explained that one is Satoshi’s group and the other group is composed of professors Nakai and Abe of the Tokyo University of Science as well as Adachi and Igarashi of the Meteorological Research Institute [14] Moriguchi disagrees that an agreement was not needed we need to get consent from the provider,” he said “I believe that is the common sense of researchers.” In 2003 a Japanese researcher proposed the systematic use in Japan of a Material Transfer Agreement a contract that handles the transfer of research materials that are the subject of further research by another institution (Hirai 2003) The agreement is meant to facilitate collaboration between industry although the author acknowledged that very few such agreements had been used so far in Japan [15] The one-by-one square centimeter pieces and TEM thin foils were not radioactive enough to need special shielding They contained only a small number of CsMPs each [16] Moriguchi said that the public had been informed about cesium-rich microparticles in Tokyo and even the NHK TV broadcasted such issues So the Tokyo residents also know about that fact but there is no strong reaction against that.” It is not clear what information Tokyo residents were given about the specific risks from CsMPs given their exact impact on health is still not well known [17] Because of their relatively large size CsMPs don’t easily migrate through the environment CsMPs have been found to stay in the top five centimeters of soil CsMPs don’t react easily with minerals in the environment because of their glassy [18] Hotspots of CsMPs could pose significant risks because they make large amounts of highly radioactive particles readily available for inhalation Particles below five microns can penetrate to the bottom of the lung it is extremely difficult for particulates to get back out again ciliated cells that make up the tissues of the upper parts of the lung cause one to sneeze or cough thereby ejecting these particles from the airways mucus-producing cells will try to push the material back up into the digestive system or up enough so the person can blow their nose or cough it out there is no such natural protection mechanism that can transport material out [19] Work with rats exposed to inhaled uranium dioxide particles has shown very long residence times are possible (Morris Research by Satoshi’s group on CsMP dissolution and simple modeling shows possibilities for multiyear existence (Suetake et al But “this work is simplistic in the grand scheme; more work in more realistic models is needed to say anything with confidence,” explained Law “The recipe for exposure and long residence times are there but the work to prove risk is yet to be properly done.” [20] In 2019 Moriguchi helped fund a study estimating the internal dose from CsMPs (Manabe and Matsumoto 2019) The study was based on Monte Carlo simulations of a stochastic model of the possible pathway of CsMPs throughout the human body to estimate the possible probability of internal doses The study did not include in vitro or in vivo experiments and was done before the physical and chemical properties of CsMPs came to be known Satoshi and Gareth Law’s research shows that the study of the health impacts of CsMPs requires a multidisciplinary effort by chemists as well as access to advanced techniques for characterization of CsMPs in biological models (Suetake et al [21] See https://www.geochemsoc.org/news/2024/02/19/satoshi-utsunomiya-named-2024-clair-c-patterson-medalist; also Utsunomiya 2024b Adachi, Kouji, Mizuo Kajino, Yuji Zaizen, and Yasuhito Igarashi. 2013. “Emission of Spherical Cesium-Bearing Particles from an Early Stage of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident.” Scientific Reports 3(1): 2554. doi:10.1038/srep02554 Brown, Azby. 2019. “Fukushima Cesium-Enriched Microparticle (CSMP) Update (Interview with Rod Ewing).” CISAC, Stanford University. https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/fukushima-cesium-enriched-microparticle-csmp-update-interview-rod-ewing Ebihara, M, Y Oura, N Shirai, Y Nagakawa, N Sakurai, H Haba, H Matsuzaki, H Tsuruta, and Y Moriguchi. 2017. “A New Approach for Reconstructing the 131I-Spreading Triggered by the FDNPS Accident in 2011.” In Goldschmidt Abstracts, 1022. https://goldschmidtabstracts.info/abstracts/abstractView?id=2017004623 Fueda, Kazuki, Tatsuki Komiya, Kenta Minomo, Kenji Horie, Mami Takehara, Shinya Yamasaki, Hiroyuki Shiotsu, et al. 2023. “Occurrence of Radioactive Cesium-Rich Micro-Particles (CsMPs) in a School Building Located 2.8 Km South-West of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.” Chemosphere 328: 138566. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.138566 Furuki, Genki, Junpei Imoto, Asumi Ochiai, Shinya Yamasaki, Kenji Nanba, Toshihiko Ohnuki, Bernd Grambow, Rodney C. Ewing, and Satoshi Utsunomiya. 2017. “Caesium-Rich Micro-Particles: A Window into the Meltdown Events at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.” Scientific Reports 7: 42731. doi:10.1038/srep42731 Hirai, Akihiko. 2003. “Material Transfer Agreement.” Information Management 45(12): 858–67. doi:10.1241/johokanri.45.858 Ikenoue, Takahito, Masato Takehara, Kazuya Morooka, Eitaro Kurihara, Ryu Takami, Nobuyoshi Ishii, Natsumi Kudo, and Satoshi Utsunomiya. 2021. “Occurrence of Highly Radioactive Microparticles in the Seafloor Sediment from the Pacific Coast 35 Km Northeast of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.” Chemosphere 267: 128907. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.128907 Kaneko, Makoto, Hajime Iwata, Hiroyuki Shiotsu, Shota Masaki, Yuji Kawamoto, Shinya Yamasaki, Yuki Nakamatsu, et al. 2015. “Radioactive Cs in the Severely Contaminated Soils Near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.” Frontiers in Energy Research 3. doi:10.3389/fenrg.2015.00037 Manabe, Kentaro, and Masaki Matsumoto. 2019. “Development of a Stochastic Biokinetic Method and Its Application to Internal Dose Estimation for Insoluble Cesium-Bearing Particles.” Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology 56(1): 78–86. doi:10.1080/00223131.2018.1523756 Matsuya, Yusuke, Nobuyuki Hamada, Yoshie Yachi, Yukihiko Satou, Masayori Ishikawa, Hiroyuki Date, and Tatsuhiko Sato. 2022. “Inflammatory Signaling and DNA Damage Responses after Local Exposure to an Insoluble Radioactive Microparticle.” Cancers 14(4): 1045. doi:10.3390/cancers14041045 Morris, K. J., P. Khanna, and A. L. Batchelor. 1990. “Long-Term Clearance of Inhaled UO2 Particles from the Pulmonary Region of the Rat.” Health Physics 58(4): 477. doi:10.1097/00004032-199004000-00010 Morris, K. J., K. M. S. Townsend, and A. L. Batchelor. 1989. “Studies of Alveolar Cell Morphometry and Mass Clearance in the Rat Lung Following Inhalation of an Enriched Uranium Dioxide Aerosol.” Radiation and Environmental Biophysics 28(2): 141–54. doi:10.1007/BF01210298 Nagakawa, Yoshiyasu, Takashi Suzuki, Yasuhito Kinjo, Noriyuki Miyazaki, Masayuki Sekiguchi, Noboru Sakurai, and Hiroaki Ise. 2011. “Measurement of the Ambient Radioactivity and Estimation of Human Radiation Exposure Dose in Tokyo with Regard to the Radioactive Substance Leakage Due to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident.” Radioisotopes 60(11): 467–72. doi:10.3769/radioisotopes.60.467 “Measurement of Radioactivity in Airborne Dust and Estimation of Public Dose in Tokyo after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident.” In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Environmental Monitoring and Dose Estimation of Residents after Accident of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Oura, Y, M Ebihara, N Shirai, H Tsuruta, T Nakajima, Y Moriguchi, T Ohara, et al. 2017. “129I/137Cs Ratios for Atmospheric Particular Matters Collected Just after TEPCO FDNPP Accident.” In Goldschmidt Abstracts, 3015. https://goldschmidtabstracts.info/abstracts/abstractView?id=2017005167 Suetake, Mizuki, Yuriko Nakano, Genki Furuki, Ryohei Ikehara, Tatsuki Komiya, Eitaro Kurihara, Kazuya Morooka, et al. 2019. “Dissolution of Radioactive, Cesium-Rich Microparticles Released from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Simulated Lung Fluid, Pure-Water, and Seawater.” Chemosphere 233: 633–44. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2019.05.248 Thompson, Andrea. 2019. “Radioactive Glass Beads May Tell the Terrible Tale of How the Fukushima Meltdown Unfolded.” Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/radioactive-glass-beads-may-tell-the-terrible-tale-of-how-the-fukushima-meltdown-unfolded/ Tsuruta, H, Y Oura, M Ebihara, T Ohara, Y Moriguchi, and T Nakajima. 2016. “Comprehensive Retrieval of Spatio-Temporal Distribution of Atmospheric Radionuclides Just after the Fukushima Accident by Analyzing Filter-Tapes of Operational Air Pollution Monitoring Stations.” In Goldschmidt Abstracts, 3198. https://goldschmidtabstracts.info/abstracts/abstractView?id=2016003632 Utsunomiya, Satoshi. 2016. “Challenging Radionuclides in Environment at the Atomic Scale: Issues in Waste Disposal and Fukushima.” In Goldschmidt Abstracts, 3238. https://goldschmidtabstracts.info/abstracts/abstractView?id=2016000095 Utsunomiya, Satoshi. 2024a. “Cesium-Rich Microparticles from Fukushima Daiichi: Tiny Ejecta Informing a Severe Nuclear Disaster - C.C. Patterson Award Lecture.” In Goldschmidt Conference 2024. https://conf.goldschmidt.info/goldschmidt/2024/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/21418 Utsunomiya, Satoshi. 2024b. “Acceptance for the 2024 C. C. Patterson Award to Satoshi Utsunomiya.” Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 388:318. doi:10.1016/j.gca.2024.10.034 Utsunomiya, Satoshi, Genki Furuki, Asumi Ochiai, Shinya Yamasaki, Kenji Nanba, Bernd Grambow, and Rodney C. Ewing. 2019. “Caesium Fallout in Tokyo on 15th March, 2011 Is Dominated by Highly Radioactive, Caesium-Rich Microparticles.” doi:10.48550/arXiv.1906.00212 Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value" The cover-up of Fukushima damage extends across the Pacific In the month following the reactor incident we had multiple instances of intestinal cancers in rabbits which also involved the abdominal wall in a facility which collected and filtered rainwater for drinking These results were dismissed as anecdotal and coincidental but never occurred again We at Safecast are glad to see this renewed interest in this important issue which we covered through interviews with Profs Utsunomia and Ewng in Aug and the politicized attempts to prevent publication are unforgivable Copyright © 2025 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. All rights reserved. Registered 501(c)(3). EIN: 36-2136497 Terms of UsePrivacy Policy 1307 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 | 773.834.3779 Engineers hope closer access to core will provide critical insights for full-scale decommissioning I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A robot has begun its second attempt to extract melted nuclear fuel from one of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan as part of a long and complex decommissioning effort following the 2011 nuclear disaster Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) launched the latest mission at the plant’s No 2 reactor aiming to retrieve a fresh sample of radioactive debris from closer to the core The effort builds on a first trial run conducted in November last year which successfully extracted a tiny amount of debris–less than a gram–for analysis and a gripping tool designed to function in high-radiation zones the device will manoeuvre up to 22m inside the reactor's primary containment vessel It is expected to take up to 12 days for the robot’s tip to reach the new target location This second operation is focused on retrieving material from one to two metres closer to the reactor’s centre where more of the molten fuel is believed to have accumulated during the triple meltdown caused by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 The disaster triggered one of the worst nuclear accidents in history, leaving around 880 tonnes of radioactive fuel debris across three reactors The sample from the previous mission, which was roughly the size of a raisin, revealed traces of uranium zirconium and other materials used in nuclear fuel scientists say further sampling is required to gain a fuller understanding of the debris composition and distribution inside the damaged reactors The ultimate aim is to develop the technology and techniques needed for large-scale fuel removal, set to begin in the 2030s at the No 3 reactor. Tepco says it may revert to collecting a sample from the previous location if the robot is unable to reach the deeper site due to obstructions Tepco last year confirmed that the telescopic retrieval system is being upgraded since its first use with a new camera to improve visibility and increased stability for the tip section Preparatory work in March included intensive worker training to check the order of the pipes and camera issues that delayed the earlier mission by several months The decommissioning process is expected to last decades, with some experts warning it could take more than a century due to the extreme radiation levels and technical complexity involved last month also began removing radiation-soaked sandbags from underground areas of two reactor buildings In 2023, Japan started releasing treated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean—equivalent to the volume of 540 Olympic-sized swimming pools. While the International Atomic Energy Agency backed the move, it prompted China and Russia to ban Japanese seafood imports. China has since reported no abnormalities in seawater or marine life near Fukushima, though it continues to enforce the ban pending further tests. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker The Fukushima Innovation Coast concept established a new industrial foundation along Fukushima’s Hamadōri with the aim of facilitating the coastal region’s recovery from the devastation of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear disaster The government project encompasses 15 municipalities and provides vital infrastructure for ambitious researchers and innovative startups in key sectors like robotics and the environment to develop their ideas Facilities like the Fukushima Robot Test Field and the Minamisōma Incubation Center are beginning to yield cutting-edge technologies ranging from constructions drones to a new type of urban ropeway to energy efficient ways of launching rockets The Robot Test Field (RTF) in Minamisōma The facility offers an environment for infrastructure inspection work and disaster drills along with proof-of-concept experiments for drones A display of drones and robots developed by companies based at RTF in the facility’s entrance hall The Minamisōma Incubation Center (MIC) offers startups rental offices and workspaces as well as support in raising capital and operating businesses One of the enterprises headquartered at MIC is Zip Infrastructure a firm developing an automated ropeway that it says offers a more convenient and efficient way for people to get around The company is now building a test course at RTF and is confident its product will alleviate traffic jams by offering an abundance of easily accessed stations in dense urban areas A prototype gondola of Zip Infrastructure’s Zippar Urban Ropeway at the company’s manufacturing facility at MIC Unlike a conventional ropeway with gondolas pulled along by cables gondolas on the Zippar ropeway travel independently along two fixed parallel wires in a fashion similar to a suspended monorail One way to picture the system is as a self-driving electric vehicle moving on wires This setup addresses a major disadvantage of ropeways and by using steel rails along curves or at junctions the carriages would be able to move in different directions allowing them to change course and take different routes the parallel wire system increases stability helping to minimize swinging and making for a smoother ride A visual representation of Zippar in an urban environment The gondolas weigh just two and a half tons and can be supported by light steel pillars that can be erected along sidewalks or on medians thus reducing the need for local authorities to acquire additional land lowing the cost and time for installing the system The company projects the ropeway could be put in place at a cost of ¥1.5 billion per kilometer which is one-fifth less than installing a monorail and 20 to 30 times less than building a subway a system can be erected and ready for service in around one year Although Zippar is still more expensive than establishing new bus lines Zip Infrastructure stresses that the system has the advantage of being smoother and more punctual than buses as there is no need to contend with heavy traffic or frequent traffic signals making it immune to driver shortages affecting bus companies while helping keep operating costs down The company says that running at a frequency of one arrival every 12 seconds a fleet of 12-person gondolas could transport 3,600 passengers per hour at a maximum speed of 40 kph A Zippar gondola negotiates a curve at a test track in Hadano With no need for a driver’s cab the interiors of gondolas are open and spacious Zip Industries is working toward a commercial rollout of its ropeway system and is slated to start safety and other tests at its large test track currently under construction at RTF in June 2025 explains that RTF offers the space and other support needed to bring their product to market “We need a very large area to run demonstration tests “With our development base close by at MIC and the availability of generous subsidies from Minamisōma and Fukushima Prefecture it has proved to be an ideal location.” The company has already inked preliminary agreements with several municipalities in Japan to introduce Zippar and hopes to get its first line up and running as early as 2027 Zip Infrastructure has also garnered attention from overseas and has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bases Conversion and Development Authority of the Philippines to conduct studies with the aim of adopting the Zippar system Zip Infrastructure COO Rebonquin poses with a prototype gondola A basic principle of rocketry is to launch rockets in an easterly direction to take advantage of the Earth’s rotation to gain speed Making maximum use of the area’s potential aims to make his company a leader in the space field is developing a method for launching rockets from balloons lofted to around 20 kilometers above the Earth’s surface which dubbed its system “rockoon,” touts the energy efficiency of transporting rockets via balloon to the cloud-free stratosphere for launch Conventional rockets consume vast quantities of energy to propel themselves through the troposphere the lowest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere where aerodynamic drag is the strongest would face less wind resistance and subsequently burn much less fuel reducing the need for equipment to shield instruments and cargo from damage The company says that these and other benefits would lower launch costs to below ¥500 million A visual representation of the rockoon launching system Astro X CEO Oda Shōbu (left) and CTO Wada Yutaka who is also a professor at Chiba Institute of Technology The rockoon method also provides greater flexibility for space programs by doing away with the need for huge tracts of empty land and enabling balloons to be launched from an array of locations allowing for smooth launches and fewer weather-related launch delays A model of a full-scale hybrid rocket on display at MIC AstroX faced numerous challenges in developing its rockoon system not least of which was controlling the orientation of rockets once they detached high in the stratosphere the firm developed an attitude control assembly that it successfully tested on its full-scale hybrid rocket it has been partnering with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on research and development of a suspended attitude control assembly for use on balloon platforms which they hope to commercialize beginning in 2029 AstroX’s attitude control assembly AstroX successfully conducted a test launch of a hybrid rocket on November 9 Aizawa Concrete Corporation is pioneering the mass production of self-healing concrete is already being adopted for infrastructure projects and other uses To encourage innovation in the concrete industry sympathetic to the aims of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework set up its Fukushima RDM Center in Namie in June 2023 In addition to manufacturing Basilisk and other products destined for infrastructure uses the company also engages in new research and development attracting human resources and fostering professional exchanges in the Hamadōri region The R&D building’s stunning façade was produced with a 3D concrete printer RDM stands for “Research,” “Development,” and “Manufacturing.” (© Hashino Yukinori) Deterioration of reinforced concrete often starts with small cracks less than 1 millimeter wide Water and oxygen infiltrate these fissures Regular inspections and maintenance are essential but even then concrete has a surprisingly short lifespan of just 50 to 60 years Roadside drains and other concrete infrastructure products at Aizawa’s manufacturing plant Basilisk is made by mixing a special type of bacteria and polylactide with ready mix concrete which gives it the ability to self-heal when cracks appear Water and alkaline materials in the ready mix concrete break down the polylactide producing calcium lactate that sustains the bacteria which can remain dormant inside the strongly alkaline concrete for over 200 years When cracks develop and let water and oxygen in The micro-organisms then multiply as they absorb the calcium lactate and oxygen releasing calcium carbonate that fills the cracks in the concrete The bacteria can repair a 1-mm-wide crack in around two weeks When water and oxygen are shut out of the concrete the alkalinity increases and the bacteria once again become dormant A catch basin made with Basilisk looks no different to one made with standard concrete Standard concrete with a crack (top right) and concrete repaired with Basilisk (top left) Below are the raw materials used for Basilisk costing nearly one and a half times standard concrete But over the long run it proves to be the more economic option as maintenance expenses are lower There is also less need to rebuild as the concrete can last for 100 years or more This longevity makes it more sustainable as cement manufacturing generates large quantities of CO2 The 3D concrete printer at the R&D building can easily handle Basilisk Aizawa is currently developing self-heating concrete capable of melting snow and ice and a variety that can store energy It is also working on a high-performance drone that can carry a 3D concrete printer making it possible to construct concrete buildings without having to assemble formworks or scaffolding A display of Aizawa’s energy-storing concrete Prototypes of Aizawa’s high-performance drones Hamadōri is continuing to transform itself from a disaster area to an innovation center capable of bringing the world a range of cutting-edge technologies Banner photo: RDM center of Aizawa Concrete Corporation in Namie © Hashino Yukinori of Nippon.com.) This aerial view shows the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima The extendable “Telesco” robot carries cameras and a tong to grip tiny nuggets of radioactive debris 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel Tuesday the company aims to send the robot further into the containment vessel to get a sample from an area closer to the center where more melted fuel is believed to have fallen It is expected to take several days before the front tip of the robot reaches the targeted area where it will lower a device carrying a tong and camera in a fishing-rod style Experts say the huge challenge of decommissioning the plant is just beginning and that the work could take more than a century Tokyo Electric Power Company has announced plans to start dismantling treated water tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site primarily to clear space needed to store nuclear fuel debris to be extracted from the damaged reactors contaminated water - in part used to cool melted nuclear fuel - is treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) About 1.3 million tonnes of water has so far been treated and is currently stored in about 1000 tanks on site Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said it is currently dismantling the flanged tanks in E area in order to make space to construct facilities for retrieving fuel debris from unit 2 and it also plans to build facilities to retrieve fuel debris from unit 3 in the J8/J9 areas near E area The dismantling will start with the J9 area tanks which will be emptied first in conjunction with the discharge of ALPS treated water into the sea such as treating the residual water in the J9 area tanks and removing obstructions in the vicinity and since 4 February we have been removing the connecting pipes between the tanks as part of preparations," Tepco said It noted that dose measurements have confirmed that radiation levels inside all of the J9 area tanks are equal to background levels The J8/J9 area tank dismantling implementation plan was approved on 3 February "Since the J8 area tanks are being used to store treated water to be re-purified this water needs to be transferred to another tank group that has been emptied so dismantling will commence after this water has been transferred," Tepco said The company said dismantling of the J9 area tanks will begin on 13 February at the earliest but first it will start removing the top lids of the tanks It expects tank dismantling to be completed around the end of FY2025 The top lids (including ladders) will be dismantled by removing the bolts and cutting them with gas cutting machines The sidewalls and bases of the tanks will be cut with gas cutting machines and the segments moved with a crane etc) will be cut into sizes that can fit inside a shipping container and stored in 20-foot full height containers Tepco plans to use about 3.5 20-foot full height containers for each tank - there are 12 tanks in total in the J9 area so approximately 42 containers will be used "Since these will be the first welded tanks to be dismantled and prioritise safety as we move ahead with dismantling while refraining from conforming to the schedule for schedule's sake," Tepco said International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi joined scientists from the People’s Republic of China as they collected seawater samples near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station as they collected seawater samples near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station (FDNPS) today The activity is part of the additional measures established after China and Japan agreed to extend the sampling and testing of ALPS treated water which TEPCO – operator of the FDNPS – started to discharge in August 2023 The IAEA agreed with Japan in September to implement additional measures to facilitate the broader participation from other stakeholder countries in the monitoring of ALPS-treated water “By welcoming countries to engage directly in sampling and analysis under the additional measures particularly in the region.” said Director General Grossi in strict compliance and consistent with international safety standards.” scientists from the Third Institute of Oceanography in China the Korean Institute for Nuclear Safety in Republic of Korea and the Spiez Laboratory in Switzerland collected seawater samples from a boat in the vicinity of the FDNPS Director General Grossi collected seawater samples from a boat in the vicinity of the FDNPS The samples will be analysed by the IAEA laboratories in Monaco, by laboratories in Japan and in the participating laboratories from China, Korea and Switzerland, each members of the IAEA's Analytical Laboratories for the Measurement of Environmental Radioactivity (ALMERA) network chosen to ensure a high level of proficiency and expert data “Additional measures focus on expanding international participation and transparency allowing hands-on independent measurements of the concentration level of the water,” said Director General Grossi “This work is conducted within agreed parameters set by the IAEA in its role as an independent Additionally, IAEA experts stationed at the Agency’s office at FDNPS conduct regular independent on-site analyses of the batches of treated water. The Agency has confirmed that the tritium level in the ten batches of ALPS treated water already released was far below Japan’s operational limit The IAEA initiated the first practical steps of the additional measures in October last year when Agency staff carried out marine sampling with international experts from China successfully removed approximately 0.7 grams of fuel rod debris from the Unit 2 reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in a November 2024 trial operation was delayed due to the time taken to build recovery equipment and make other preparations To understand just how the workers managed to remove the debris which has more or less the same design as the stricken Unit 2 reactor the Unit 5 reactor was shut down for scheduled maintenance which is why it managed to escape serious damage This relatively unharmed structure has proved useful as full-scale simulator that can be used in the development of recovery systems and the selection of the routes by which robots are deployed into the Unit 2 reactor Units 5 (left) and 6 are built on a high-lying coastal area in the town of Futaba Directly below the pressure vessel of the Unit 5 reactor including devices to drive the control rods that regulate reactor output A long shaft known as the “X-6 penetration,” which is normally used when replacing this equipment serves as an entrance through which recovery equipment can approach the containment vessel This space is used to perform maintenance on the control rod drive systems and other apparatus that hang from the Unit 5 pressure vessel The “X-6 penetration” conduit is visible at the bottom of this photo taken in the corridor encircling the containment vessel The “X-6 penetration” shaft with its hatch open The white semicircular area beyond that is the interior of the containment vessel The semicircle on the wall at right is the penetration conduit as seen from the inside of the containment vessel The X-6 penetration is 55 centimeters in diameter workers inserted a guide pipe through this shaft through which they passed a long contraption into the containment vessel they then lowered a claw-like device through a gap in the grating with which they retrieved a 0.7-gram sample of debris Because it is of course not possible for humans to enter the highly contaminated Unit 2 reactor the task is performed remotely while monitoring the camera feed When one looks through the grating in Unit 5 one can see the apparatus used to replace the drive mechanisms that operate the control rods it is believed that all this equipment was ripped out by the molten fuel rods and now lies at the bottom of the containment vessel The task of removing the debris is unimaginably difficult The grate in the workspace under the Unit 5 pressure vessel The bottom of the pressure vessel under the grating it is believed that the molten fuel rods that burned through the base of the pressure vessel ripped out the internal structure A model of the Unit 2 reactor in the new main building of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station The approach through the X-6 penetration and fuel rod debris are visible at bottom left CEO of the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination and Decommissioning Engineering Company describes the autumn trial as a “drop in the ocean.” “The first attempt might have only yielded a tiny drop of fuel is that we can recover larger and larger quantities We will be using the expertise gained through the trial for that purpose,” he explains Ono Akira CEO of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination and Decommissioning Engineering Company TEPCO will also attempt a second trial retrieval in the spring of 2025 To reduce the challenges presented by the fishing-rod type device Immediately before last year’s recovery trial engineers discovered that the pipe used to insert the retrieval device into the containment vessel had been assembled in the wrong order the camera attached to the tip of the device also stopped working just before the tip gripped the debris “The task of connecting the pipes together in the correct order should have been an extremely simple one,” recalls Ono “We therefore foresaw no safety issues because this job was performed in a highly radioactive area where workers wear protective clothing and full masks workers had difficulty hearing each other and communicating.” Ono notes that during the next trial including with regard to tasks performed by workers TEPCO also plans to commence another survey Compared to the fishing-rod type apparatus which effectively drops a line straight down through gaps in the grating the robotic arm has a wider range of movement Because the arm can also take radiation readings and capture footage at various points at the bottom of the containment vessel it is hoped that it will be able to gather much more useful information in preparation for full-fledged debris recovery The total amount of contaminated debris in Units 1 and there are likely to be unforeseen obstacles along the way we left training up to the contractors in charge of the decommissioning project this is a difficult and unprecedented work environment in which the required skills and knowledge are constantly changing TEPCO has to play an active role in training its people giving them the skills they need to take on this task The decommissioning of a reactor is a long I’d like to see decommissioning performed in a sustainable fashion with involvement from local businesses as well.” Units 1 to 3 seen from an observation deck: Around 880 tons of debris awaits collection (Originally written in Japanese by Kaida Naoe of Nippon.com Banner photo: The interior of the containment vessel of Unit 5 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Having more or less the same design as the melted-down Units 1 to 3 Unite 5 is used as a full-scale decommissioning simulator This photo shows the Onagawa nuclear power plant But it had to be shut down again five days after its restart due to a glitch that occurred Sunday in a device related to neutron data inside the reactor The reactor was operating normally and there was no release of radiation into the environment The utility said it decided to shut it down to re-examine equipment to address residents’ safety concerns The reactor is one of three at the Onagawa plant which is 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of the Fukushima Daiichi plant where three reactors melted following a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 The Onagawa plant was hit by a 13-meter (42-foot) tsunami triggered by the quake but was able to keep its crucial cooling systems functioning in all three reactors and achieve their safe shutdowns All of Japan’s 54 commercial nuclear power plants were shut down after the Fukushima disaster for safety checks and upgrades 2 was the 13th of the 33 still useable reactors to restart Japan’s government last year adopted a plan to maximize use of nuclear energy and is pushing to accelerate reactor restarts to secure a stable energy supply and meet its pledge to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 This photo released by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings shows a piece of melted fuel debris collected by a remote-controlled robot from inside of No 2 reactor is being placed inside of a canister before it was closed and taken out of an enclosed compartment for further analysis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma (Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings via AP) shows the melted fuel debris sample collected by a remote-controlled robot and enclosed inside of a primary canister is being placed into another container to be moved to another location of the reactor for additional primary analysis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma This photo released by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) clips a tiny gravel of what it believed to be melted fuel debris at the No 2 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma FILE - Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings the operator of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant reveals a robot to be used to retrieve debris at the power plant in Kobe A device to remove debris from a reactor at the damaged Fukushima Nuclear power plant demonstrates to pinch a stone according to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings It is being transported to a glove box for size and weight measurements before being sent to outside laboratories for detailed analyses over the coming months Plant chief Akira Ono has said it will provide key data to plan a decommissioning strategy develop necessary technology and robots and learn how the accident had developed The first sample alone is not enough and additional small-scale sampling missions will be necessary in order to obtain more data TEPCO spokesperson Kenichi Takahara told reporters Thursday but we will steadily tackle decommissioning,” Takahara said Despite multiple probes in the years since the 2011 disaster that wrecked the plant and forced thousands of nearby residents to leave their homes much about the site’s highly radioactive interior remains a mystery the first to be retrieved from inside a reactor was significantly less radioactive than expected Officials had been concerned that it might be too radioactive to be safely tested even with heavy protective gear and set an upper limit for removal out of the reactor That’s led some to question whether the robot extracted the nuclear fuel it was looking for from an area in which previous probes have detected much higher levels of radioactive contamination but TEPCO officials insist they believe the sample is melted fuel it clipped a sample weighting less than 3 grams (.01 ounces) from the surface of a mound of melted fuel debris sitting on the bottom of the primary containment vessel of the Unit 2 reactor whose radioactivity earlier this week recorded far below the upper limit set for its environmental and health safety was placed into a safe container for removal out of the compartment The sample return marks the first time the melted fuel is retrieved out of the containment vessel Fukushima Daiichi lost its key cooling systems during a 2011 earthquake and tsunami An estimated 880 tons of fatally radioactive melted fuel remains in them The government and TEPCO have set a 30-to-40-year target to finish the cleanup by 2051 which experts say is overly optimistic and should be updated Some say it would take for a century or longer Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said there have been some delays but “there will be no impact on the entire decommissioning process.” No specific plans for the full removal of the fuel debris or its final disposal have been decided International experts participated in the marine sampling which included hands-on activities to take samples for subsequent analysis in their own laboratories This follows last month’s announcements by China and Japan that indicated their mutual agreement to implement additional measures which will facilitate wider participation of other stakeholders under the framework of the IAEA The Agency confirms that this agreement is built on its existing sampling and monitoring activities in compliance with the IAEA statutory functions International experts from China’s Third Institute of Oceanography, the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety and Switzerland’s Spiez Laboratory — members of the IAEA's Analytical Laboratories for the Measurement of Environmental Radioactivity (ALMERA) network — participated in the marine sampling near FDNPS the Republic of Korea and Switzerland participated in the marine sampling near Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station “The Agency will continue to coordinate with Japan and other stakeholders to ensure that the additional measures are implemented appropriately under the framework of the IAEA maintaining the integrity of the process with full transparency to ensure that water discharge levels are in strict compliance and consistent with international safety standards,” said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi.  The IAEA will continue liaising at the technical level to ensure smooth implementation of the additional measures Japan's approach for recycling and disposing of soil and radioactive waste from decontamination activities after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) accident as currently planned is consistent with IAEA Safety Standards, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report released today says presented by the IAEA to Japan’s Minister of the Environment Shintaro Ito today were the result of a sixteen-month safety review The IAEA assessed the approach of the Ministry of Environment Japan (MOEJ) to date for the managed recycling and the final disposal of removed soil and radioactive waste against the IAEA Safety Standards These safety standards serve as a global reference for protecting people and the environment and contribute to a harmonized high level of safety worldwide “We appreciate the enormity of the challenge facing Japan in dealing with the aftermath of the 2011 FDNPS accident and we commend the country for requesting our impartial and technical review of its plans,” said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi “The recycling and disposal of the soil further contributes to the reconstruction of areas affected by the accident.” About 13 million cubic meters of soil and about 300,000 cubic meters of ash from incineration of organic material was removed as part of decontamination activities in Fukushima Prefecture and stored at an Interim Storage Facility (ISF) covering an area of 16 square kilometres spanning across the Okuma Town and Futaba Town The management of removed soil—enough to fill 11 Tokyo Domes—is governed by a Japanese law which permits the government to repurpose the soil both within and outside of Fukushima Prefecture and for final disposal of the remaining soil to take place outside of the Fukushima Prefecture by 2045 Japan plans to recycle roughly 75% of the removed soil – the soil which has low levels of radioactivity – by using it for civil engineering structures including embankments for roads The remaining soil which cannot be recycled will be disposed of permanently and Japan intends to confirm the site selection and disposal process in 2025 "The IAEA is confident that as the Ministry of the Environment (MOEJ) continues to explore solutions in line with our recommendations its evolving strategy for recycling and final disposal of removed soil and waste will remain consistent with IAEA Safety Standards," said Director General Grossi In response to Japan’s request in October 2022 for a safety review an IAEA team – comprised of five IAEA staff and six international experts from Belgium and the US - conducted three international expert missions in May 2023 The IAEA’s review included providing advice and support to Japan from both technical The team of experts recognised the many technical and social challenges facing the MOEJ if it is to implement the managed recycling of removed soil and secure final disposal outside Fukushima Prefecture by 2045 “The IAEA found the MOEJ's proactive approach to managing removed soil and waste arising from decontamination activities reflects a commitment to ensuring safety protecting public health and promoting environmental sustainability in Fukushima Prefecture and beyond,” said Director General Grossi “The IAEA is committed to engaging with Japan on the managed recycling and the final disposal of removed soil and waste through future follow-up assessments of the MOEJ's approach.” The dates displayed for an article provide information on when various publication milestones were reached at the journal that has published the article activities on preceding journals at which the article was previously under consideration are not shown (for instance submission All content on this site: Copyright © 2025 Elsevier B.V. Delegates during the fifth FACE project meeting at the ANL office in Illinois The FACE (Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Accident Information Collection and Evaluation) project’s US partners hosted the fifth project meeting at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont Illinois (United States) on 23-25 September 2024 12 countries and the European Commission gathered to discuss advances in investigations and analyses of the accident and remaining knowledge gaps Japanese partners presented recent investigation results that reduce uncertainties in the understanding of the accident progression including insights obtained from primary containment vessel (PCV) drone investigations participants provided results from analyses supporting MCCI benchmark calculations and efforts to quantify the composition and thermal properties of a unit 1 concrete sample experts shared updates on accident analysis considering thermal stratification and data obtained from water level reduction efforts formation mechanisms of U-bearing particles found in PCVs and efforts (using prototypic debris and debris from the Three Mile Island Unit 2 accident) to quantify the amount and behaviour of radioactive particles generated by candidate cutting methods during retrieval activities Progress was reported on the round-robin debris analysis activities (RRDAA) Several participants have received the simulant debris and started or completed their analyses A RRDAA symposium will be held in conjunction with the next FACE meeting to share the experience gained in debris analysis results from different laboratories Experts also reviewed remaining major knowledge gaps identified through Fukushima Daiichi accident analyses These relate to the understanding of the vessel ruptures and ex-vessel phenomena and of the sequence of events responsible for the radioactive releases Experts agreed that results of investigations and analyses should be discussed in the future with the perspective of proposing accident management enhancements in operating and future reactors These discussions will continue at the next project meeting press@oecd-nea.org Tokyo wants to drop attempts to lessen its reliance on nuclear power The document dropped a reference to “reducing reliance” on nuclear energy that had appeared in the three previous plans, and instead called for a “maximisation” of nuclear power which will account for about 20% of total energy output in 2040 based on the assumption that 30 reactors will be in full operation by then The plan envisages a share of between 40% and 50% for renewable energy – compared with just under a third in 2023 – and a reduction in coal-fired power from the current 70% to 30-40% The push to restart reactors idled since the plant was struck by a tsunami triggered by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake has been condemned by climate campaigners as costly and dangerous Read moreAgeing reactors – those at least 40 years old – make up 40% of those in operation around the world, but only 20% in Japan, according to a recent study by the Yomiuri Shimbun 64 of the country’s 94 reactors – 68% of the total – will have been operating for at least 40 years by the end of the year But unlike many other countries that use nuclear power Japan is vulnerable to powerful earthquakes and tsunami of the kind that wrecked Fukushima Daiichi and they could strike old or new reactors,” Smith says Retrofitting would mean spending huge sums of money on all those old reactors when the government could instead be putting its money into renewables.” Officials say reactors will need to be restarted if Japan is to meet an expected increase in demand for power, partly driven by AI-related data processing centres and semiconductor factories, as well as achieving net zero by the middle of the century. But campaigners say government plans to persist with ageing reactors would leave Japan vulnerable to another major accident. “Ageing in nuclear power plants is a highly complex subject that has the potential to fundamentally challenge the safety and integrity of a nuclear reactor,” says Hisayo Takada at Greenpeace Japan. “As reactors operate, they are subject to enormous pressures and temperatures, all of which contribute to major stresses. The prospect of Japan operating ever more reactors to 60 years and beyond is evidence of a major experiment being conducted on the country. It has the potential to be catastrophic.” Instead, Takada adds, the government should do more to promote renewables. Read more“The climate crisis demands the rapid decarbonisation of society with energy and the production of electricity a priority,” she says “The only technologies that exist today that can deliver on the short timescale we face with the climate crisis are improved energy efficiency and expanding renewable energy.” The triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi shook Japan’s confidence in nuclear power. Before the disaster, 54 reactors were in operation, supplying about 30% of the country’s electric power. Just 14 reactors have been restarted, while others are being decommissioned or awaiting permission to go back into service The accident caused a radiation leak, forcing more than 160,000 people living nearby to flee their homes and turning entire communities into ghost towns Decommissioning the plant is expected to cost trillions of yen and take four decades The post-Fukushima closures of reactors forced Japan to rely more heavily on imported fossil fuels; it is now the world’s second-largest importer of liquefied natural gas after China and the third-largest importer of coal In the 14 years since, utilities have restarted 14 reactors, including one in the region destroyed by the 2011 tsunami, despite opposition from local residents nuclear plants can remain in operation beyond the previous limit of 60 years provided they undergo safety upgrades Last year the No 1 reactor at Takahama nuclear plant in central Japan became the first to receive approval to operate beyond 50 years Four reactors have already been operating for more than 40 years with three more due to reach the milestone this year Sections of the media have reacted with horror at the prospect of a significantly bigger role for nuclear had promised to try to bring nuclear-power generation “to as close to zero as possible” during his campaign for the leadership of the ruling party last autumn the Asahi Shimbun said: “If the government’s abrupt and irresponsible about-face in the draft plan isn’t an act of betrayal against the public The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex said it retrieved the second sample of melted fuel Wednesday from one of the reactors hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami over a decade ago 2 reactor by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc out of the estimated 880 tons remaining in the Nos 1 to 3 units that melted down during the nuclear crisis that began in March 2011 TEPCO hopes to expand data on the solidity and components of the debris to come up with ways to remove the rest effectively and store it safely The retrieved sample is scheduled to be sent from Fukushima Prefecture to a research institute in neighboring Ibaraki Prefecture after its weight and radiation levels are measured "We hope it will further contribute to the accumulation of knowledge toward removing the debris among other works for decommissioning," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a press conference and grabbed the sample two days later with the gripper on its tip at a location 1 to 2 meters closer to the center than in the previous retrieval project After confirming that radiation levels were equivalent to 0.1 millisievert per hour at 20 centimeters from the sample workers completed the retrieval at 10:15 a.m Wednesday by collecting an aluminum container carrying the debris TEPCO retrieved the first melted fuel sample The sample analysis revealed that it contains uranium and zirconium China, Japan hold technical talks over seafood import ban China finds no abnormalities in samples taken near Fukushima plant Overseas visitors bringing new life to nuclear disaster-hit Fukushima To have the latest news and stories delivered to your inbox Simply enter your email address below and an email will be sent through which to complete your subscription Please check your inbox for a confirmation email Thank you for reaching out to us.We will get back to you as soon as possible The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was informed that on 9 August 2024 TEPCO found a water leakage at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Unit 2 involving an estimated 25 tons of water from the spent fuel cooling system pump room and the heat exchanger room The leaked water flowed into drain on the floor connected to the water collection pit (floor sump) located in a room of the first basement floor The Agency was also informed that TEPCO has not found any leakage spread to other rooms at this stage TEPCO stopped the spent fuel primary cooling pump in order to investigate the cause and evaluated the temperature level at the pool TEPCO confirmed that the temperature is within normal range and not above around 46 degrees Celsius This is below the 65 degrees Celsius limitation of operation The level of accumulated water in the room had stopped rising and therefore determined that the water leakage had stopped The leaked water was accumulated in the first basement floor as stagnant water The level of water was lower than the sub-drain water level around the building which means the leaked water remained inside the building TEPCO will treat the leaked water through its water treatment facilities TEPCO continues to monitor Unit 2 spent fuel pool and water level and will make an investigation into the leakage and the future countermeasure to decide the repairing plan utilizing a remote control robot It is important to highlight that this event is not related to the ALPS treated water discharge It happened inside the Reactor Building of Unit 2 The Agency was not informed about any breach of the radiation protection standards The Director General will continue to keep Member States informed of further developments A team of scientists from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will return to Japan next week to conduct marine sampling near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) This mission is part of the Agency’s extensive monitoring and assessment activities that support its ongoing safety review of the ALPS treated water discharges The IAEA conducts interlaboratory comparisons (ILCs) based on marine environment samples to verify the radiological data used by Japan in planning and implementing the water discharges The ILCs also facilitate assessments of the application of relevant international safety standards in establishing and implementing monitoring programmes to accurately evaluate public exposure by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) – operator of the plant – and the Government of Japan the IAEA team will observe the collection of seawater fish and seaweed samples from coastal waters in the vicinity of the FDNPS The mission will also include sampling at a local fish market and monitoring the preparation of samples for delivery to participating laboratories International experts from the Third Institute of Oceanography, China, the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, and the Spiez Laboratory, Switzerland—all members of the IAEA's Analytical Laboratories for the Measurement of Environmental Radioactivity (ALMERA) network - will participate in the mission to provide independent corroboration of Japan’s environmental monitoring capabilities the samples will be sent to all participating laboratories for analysis for a range of radionuclides The results of analyses from the IAEA Laboratories in Monaco and Vienna the ALMERA member laboratories as well as the participating Japanese laboratories will be submitted to the IAEA for evaluation with a focus on identifying any statistically significant differences The results of the analyses of the samples can also be compared with those from previous ILCs to assess any changes in radionuclide levels in the marine environment since the discharge of ALPS-treated water began in August last year The findings will be publicly released to ensure transparency by September 2025 This mission is part of the IAEA’s extensive monitoring and assessment activities for the safety review of ALPS-treated water. In the series of ILCs, the Agency has already published several reports evaluating TEPCO's capabilities for accurately measuring the radionuclides in the treated water stored on site and another analyzing radionuclides in seawater and seaweed samples collected in November 2022 totalling approximately 64 500 cubic meters of water Next week’s mission will also provide samples for the Agency’s ILC project initiated in 2014 to support the quality assurance of broader marine environmental monitoring by Japanese laboratories The results for this segment of the work will be released in June 2025 An official website of the United States government Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management leaders traveled to Japan to attend the two-day 8th International Forum on the Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station to engage with nuclear cleanup experts from Japan Office of Environmental Management JAPAN – Last week, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) leaders traveled to Japan to attend the two-day 8th International Forum on the Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS) to engage with nuclear cleanup experts from Japan hosted by the Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation (NDF) included over 600 attendees and provides an opportunity for the international community to learn about the latest progress of the Fukushima Daiichi NPS cleanup and other countries to share technical and communication best practices and lessons learned during decommissioning and remediation of nuclear legacy sites This year, leaders from DOE’s Office of Legacy Management (LM) joined EM at the forum perspective to span from cleanup to long-term surveillance and monitoring “Collaboration between our countries helps us navigate remaining cleanup challenges including all aspects of decommissioning nuclear facilities,” EM Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Jeff Avery said “It helps us achieve our respective missions by enabling the sharing of best practices allowing greater leverage of science resources and providing opportunities to innovate.” Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Jeff Avery Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination and Decommissioning Engineering Company for the tour of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station cleanup efforts The first day featured a panel with Japanese and international government and industry leaders and local community members engaging in a discussion focused on the Fukushima Daiichi NPS decommissioning and the future of the local community The objective of the discussion was to provide the local community with information and space for a robust dialogue The program for the second day gave technical experts the opportunity to discuss ongoing progress and the upcoming full-fledged debris retrieval process at the Fukushima Daiichi NPS as well as stakeholder engagement lessons learned and best practices “Building these relationships with international partners stakeholders and local communities is a priority for EM as we carry out our mission in the U.S,” said Avery “Over the past 35 years of EM’s operations we’ve built a wealth of knowledge through lessons learned and facility operations that provide valuable insights to our international partners just as their experiences provide the same for us.” EM and Japanese officials have been working together to address the Fukushima cleanup for more than a decade hosted Japan government officials and their technical organizations to DOE sites and supported key stakeholder engagement events Avery commended the NDF officials for their progress and ongoing initiatives to build transparency and collaboration with local and international stakeholders leaders toured the Fukushima Daiichi cleanup site and Rokkasho where Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited operates several nuclear facilities like those within EM’s portfolio To receive the latest news and updates about the Office of Environmental Management Plant’s owners hope analysis of tiny sample will help to establish how to safely decommission facility A piece of the radioactive fuel left from the meltdown of Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been retrieved from the site using a remote-controlled robot Investigators used the robot’s fishing-rod-like arm to clip and collect a tiny piece of radioactive material from one of the plant’s three damaged reactors – the first time such a feat has been achieved scientists hope the sample will yield information that will help determine how to decommission the plant Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) has said the sample was collected from the surface of a mound of molten debris that sits at the bottom of the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel with its frontal tongs still holding the sample returned to its enclosed container for safe storage after workers in full hazmat gear pulled it out of the containment vessel on Saturday But the mission is not over until it is certain the sample’s radioactivity is below a set standard and it is safely contained The Tepco robot that was used to retrieve the sample of the radioactive debris at the power plant in Fukushima Photograph: APIf the radioactivity exceeds the safety limit then the robot must return to find another piece but Tepco officials have said they expect the sample will prove to be small enough The mission started in September and was supposed to last two weeks A procedural mistake held up work for nearly three weeks designed to transmit views of the target areas for its operators in the remote control room That required the robot to be pulled out entirely for replacement before the mission resumed on Monday Fukushima Daiichi lost its cooling systems during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami causing meltdowns in three of its reactors An estimated 880 tons of fuel remains in them and Tepco has carried out several robotic operations Tepco said that on Wednesday the robot successfully clipped a piece estimated to weigh about 3 grams from the area underneath the Unit 2 reactor core from which large amounts of melted fuel fell during the meltdown 13 years ago said only the tiny sample can provide crucial data to help plan a decommissioning strategy develop necessary technology and robots and retroactively establish exactly how the accident had developed The Japanese government and Tepco have set a target of between 30 and 40 years for the cleanup No specific plan for the full removal of the fuel debris or its final disposal has been decided we present our projects and business activities in each country and region to show how they contribute to local communities and the world as a whole View More The Abukuma Wind Power Project (hereinafter "the Project") is being promoted by Fukushima Fukko Furyoku which was selected through a public tender process in 2017 under the Fukushima Renewable Energy Promotion Vision and the Fukushima New Energy Society Concept with financial support from Fukushima Prefecture in the form of assistance program subsidies The project is part of the prefecture's initiative to generate more than 100% of its energy demand from renewable energy sources by around 2040 The wind farm is Japan's largest onshore wind farm at the time of commencing operations installed on ridgelines in the Abukuma region Namie and Katsurao in Fukushima Prefecture The total generating capacity of the wind farm is approximately 147,000 kW with an expected annual generation equivalent to the electricity consumption of approximately 120,000 households the wind farm was planned to operate under the FIT (*4) system; however enabling direct transactions with power consumers The renewable energy and environmental credits generated by the wind farm will be purchased in full by the Sumitomo Corporation Group which will act as an aggregator (*5) and enter into corporate PPAs with electricity consumers By trading the entire annual generation of approximately 360 million kilowatt-hours per year this will contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions for many companies while also supporting Fukushima Prefecture's "Renewable Energy Promotion Vision," alongside continued efforts to support the prefecture's reconstruction and promote local energy production and consumption Ongoing discussions regarding specific initiatives for use of the project by companies and municipalities are detailed below Since the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 Fukushima Prefecture has made renewable energy promotion a pillar of its reconstruction efforts The Project will continue to contribute to these efforts through the stable operation of the wind farm and its returns to the local community Fukushima Prefecture aims to establish its position as a leading region for renewable energy by generating an amount of renewable energy equivalent to more than 100% of its total energy demand and this project plays a role in supporting that vision the Project will broaden its initiatives to include stakeholders in electricity demand and supply helping further advance reconstruction efforts Sumitomo Corporation is advancing the development and deployment of carbon-free energy and has set a mid-term target of providing over 5 GW of renewable energy by 2030 Through the operation of Japan's largest wind farm the company will accelerate efforts toward the reconstruction of Fukushima Prefecture and the promotion of local industry JR East Group company JED is responsible for the development of renewable energy sources and the operation of power plants to achieve JR East's long-term environmental goal By advancing projects in partnership with local communities they aim to create a source of new vitality in regional areas contributing to rejuvenation and rural development Fukushima Mirai Kenkyukai works under the slogan "A more vibrant Fukushima in 30 years!" and remains committed to contributing to the reconstruction and future development of Fukushima JWE played a key role in initiating development of the wind farm beginning with preliminary studies in 2015 Based on its wealth of experience gained through involvement in wind power projects over more than two decades the developer handles the entire range of processes from location selection to development Upholding a commitment to “valuing sincerity,” the company forms long-term relationships of trust with local communities and pursues locally oriented electricity project management Fukushima Electric Power is advancing initiatives to expand the use of renewable energy including solar and wind power projects and the establishment of a shared power grid operating company to contribute to the achievement of the Fukushima Renewable Energy Promotion Vision Shimizu Corporation has been involved in the construction of numerous renewable energy power plants and led the construction of this one As a member of the energy generation industry the company promotes renewable energy to realize a decarbonized society The project represents OBAYASHI CLEAN ENERGY's 36th renewable energy power plant bringing its total installed capacity to approximately 284,000 kilowatts of solar The company will continue to promote green energy and is committed to the development of a sustainable society under its Corporate Philosophy and Mission of "Creating green and sustainable energy systems for a better world" is committed to achieving a decarbonized society and collaborating with local communities through the operation of this onshore wind farm which is both a symbol of Fukushima's recovery and one of the largest in Japan Shinobuyama Fukushima Power is honored to be able to participate in this large-scale project especially given their strong belief that renewable energy will play a significant role in driving Fukushima's recovery The company will continue to work towards creating a safe and secure society through the promotion of renewable energy Related Information : Construction started for Onshore Wind Power Project in Abukuma, Fukushima | Sumitomo Corporation a Tepco employee found that the water level of the unit 2 used fuel pool skimmer surge tank - used to confirm that the used fuel pool is full of water - had decreased In order to investigate the cause of this decrease at 4.36pm on the same day the primary pump for the used fuel pool cooling system was intentionally shut down Tepco said it had evaluated that with the cooling shut off the temperature of the unit 2 used fuel pool water should initially rise about 0.06°C per hour and reach a maximum temperature of about 46°C remaining below the limited condition of operation of 65°C The leaked water flowed into a drain on the floor connected to the water collection pit located in a room of the first basement floor Tepco confirmed that the level of stagnant water in the room had stopped rising and therefore determined that the leak had stopped it confirmed that the level of stagnant water was lower than the subdrains in the vicinity of the building and that the leaked water has been contained within the reactor building "We will continue to monitor the unit 2 spent fuel pool (SFP) water level and its temperature and remain on standby so that we can implement SFP circulation cooling whenever necessary as we deliberate further investigations and countermeasures," Tepco said in a 13 August statement It added: "Based on field dose investigation results we will formulate an investigation plan that utilises the remotely operated robot (SPOT) we shall inject filtered water into the skimmer surge tank and examine water leaking from the equipment in the FPC [fuel pool coolant cleansing system] pump room/heat exchanger room Based on the results of the aforementioned investigations we shall deliberate countermeasures for the future." International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on 15 August that Tepco had informed the IAEA about the leak The agency said "it is important to highlight that this event is not related to the ALPS treated water discharge" adding that the IAEA  "was not informed about any breach of the radiation protection standards" and pledged to "continue to keep Member States informed of further developments I visited Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in late October 2024 I was the head of a Japanese newspaper team reporting on the situation but this was the first time I had entered the grounds of the facility Measures are in place at the site to prevent the dispersal of radioactive material The building and parts of the site are still designated as red or yellow zones where full-face masks and full-body protective clothing​ are required due to high radiation levels Workers at Fukushima Daiichi wearing full-body protective clothing on October 21 Such measures are still mandatory for entering areas with high radiation levels the site had received 7,594 external observers in fiscal 2024 by the end of August and is around 20 times more than the 913 visitors in fiscal 2011 Visitor numbers declined during the COVID-19 pandemic TEPCO restricted entry to the site due to the risks posed by high levels of radiation and debris but now they are encouraging observer visits to better inform people about the progress of the decommissioning work including the release of treated water into the ocean There is no record of the number of media visitors received but a TEPCO official advised us that it is increasing including members of foreign media organizations we could view the reactor building from above and it was easy to see that the work on units one to four of the power plant is at different stages The hydrogen explosion at Unit One tore apart its steel frame and it still is the clearest indication of the severity of the accident Its internal spent fuel pool still contains 392 nuclear fuel units but the structural debris and large crane still remain Construction of covers enclosing the buildings to prevent dispersal of radioactive material​ during the operation is progressing in other areas A dome-shaped roof built over Unit Three of the reactor for the removal of spent nuclear fuel at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station which suffered a meltdown but did not explode is surrounded by steel framework to facilitate work on the unit silver-domed roof to protect equipment used for removal of spent fuel which was undergoing regular maintenance at the time of the accident but suffered an explosion due to hydrogen entering through pipelines from Unit Three It is mostly hidden by structures built over it to enable the removal of its 1,535 fuel units From the windows of the microbus that transported us around the enormous site, we saw storage tanks filled with decontaminated water and areas crammed with containers of waste matter Most of the debris has been removed from where it fell during the disaster but water tanks and other facilities that were badly damaged by tsunami still testify to the accident Part of the shield machine used to excavate the tunnel to carry treated wastewater to the ocean has been preserved as a memento on the​ observation deck for units five and six Tanks used to temporarily store treated wastewater at Fukushima Daiichi immediately after the accident They are no longer required now that permanent tanks have been installed A vehicle used in cooling spent fuel pools in the reactor buildings immediately after the accident It was nicknamed kirin (giraffe) and was used to spray water from high up into the structures A part of the shield machine used to excavate the undersea tunnel used to carry treated wastewater to the ocean We alighted from the bus and walked from the sea side of Unit Four to the land side I looked up at the buildings and structures we had seen from the lookout: giant duct pipes they connected units one to four with exhaust towers Green chemical residue is still visible on Unit Three where it was applied to prevent radioactive material​ stuck to the structure from blowing away Enormous exhaust ducts cut off to allow access for the decommissioning work They once connected units one to four with exhaust towers The chemicals sprayed on Unit Three to prevent dispersal of radioactive material stuck to the structure are still visible the level of radiation rises as we approach Unit Two I was concerned by the reading on my personal dosimeter attached to my vest Unit Two is undergoing work to remove nuclear fuel debris comprised of fuel melted in the accident mixed with structural material Workers near the delivery exit are completely covered by protective clothing​ We head back towards the sea between Units Two and Three and the air dosimeter reading increases to 240 microsieverts per hour Before we can look closely at the damage to the building the reading was over 300 microsieverts a few years ago The level of radiation increased between Units Two and Three to 240 microsieverts per hour on October 21 On the ocean side we inspect the one-kilometer-long seawall completed in March 2024 to protect against tsunami The concrete block wall ranges from 13.5 meters to 16 meters in height It is designed to provide protection against even a major tsunami triggered by a quake along the Japan Trench whose occurrence is considered possible at any time TEPCO believes that the wall will reduce the risk of environmental pollution caused by leakage of contaminated wastewater The seawall constructed for tsunami protection is approximately a kilometer long TEPCO removed a piece of debris some five millimeters across from Unit Two’s containment vessel using specialized equipment This success will assist investigations into a full-scale debris removal process TEPCO estimates that the vessels in Units One to Three contain approximately 880 tons of highly radioactive debris which is considered the greatest challenge in the decommissioning deputy site superintendent of the Decontamination and Decommissioning Communication Center “We have finally made the first step in the decommissioning process more than thirteen years after the accident Removal of fuel debris from the containment vessel inside Unit Two using specialized equipment Work is making definite progress in all areas but there is still no concrete solution to dealing with the decontaminated water: a major obstacle in the decommissioning Some 60 tons of underground water and precipitation flows into the nuclear reactor building​ daily water is used continuously to cool the nuclear reactors producing 80 tons of contaminated water each day TEPCO uses an Advanced Liquid Processing System to treat the contaminated water The company began releasing water into the ocean in August 2023 with a total 78,285 tons of water released The most dangerous contaminants have all been removed a hydrogen isotope that is found naturally and is difficult to extract from water a total of approximately 14.8 trillion becquerels of tritium has also been released but TEPCO is continuously monitoring the surrounding ocean water and states that there are no abnormalities It is expected to take 30 years to release all of the treated wastewater currently in storage It is also difficult to prevent contamination of water that continues to enter the site meaning that this amount will keep increasing Unless the number of tanks being used for processing and storing water can be reduced the space they occupy cannot be used for installation of storage facilities needed for removal of debris impacting the overall decommissioning plan Dealing with water and debris poses a twofold challenge to the work Kimoto says that the volume of contaminated water remains an issue “If we can control the increase in volume we can set a firm goal for the decommissioning plan.” Looking out to the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station The outlet for the pipe carrying treated wastewater is approximately one kilometer out to sea Banner photo: The framework of Unit One of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station The cylindrical dome that can be seen is Unit Three TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Robots being used to gather sample that will give clues about conditions inside the reactors a step towards decommissioning plant hit by tsunami in Japan 13 years ago A difficult operation to remove a small amount of radioactive debris from Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant has begun after technical issues suspended an earlier attempt Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said in a statement on Tuesday that its “pilot extraction operation” had started The tiny sample will be studied for clues about conditions inside the reactors – a crucial step towards decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Read moreAbout 880 tons of extremely hazardous material remain 13 years after a tsunami caused by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents Removing the debris from the reactors is regarded as the most daunting challenge in the decades-long decommissioning project Tepco originally planned to start its first trial removal on 22 August aiming to collect just three grams (0.1 ounces) for analysis But the company had to stop the work at a preliminary stage after detecting a problem involving the installation of the necessary equipment Tepco deployed two mini-drones and a “snake-shaped robot” into one of the three nuclear reactors in February, as part of the preparations for the removal task. Read moreSeparately, last year Japan began releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima plant into the Pacific Ocean, sparking a diplomatic row with China and Russia Both countries have banned Japanese seafood imports although Tokyo insists the discharge is safe And in a Tepco initiative to promote food from the Fukushima area London department store Harrods on Saturday began selling peaches that were grown in the region Fukushima peaches are renowned for their juicy with one box of three reportedly going for £80 ($105) said it removed nuclear fuel debris left inside a reactor in a demonstration at its Fukushima power plant Radioactive debris was removed from unit 2 at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant and was placed inside a sealed container for transportation the power producer said in an emailed statement on Thursday [Dec The demonstration is part of Tepco’s clean-up plan for the site after a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 overwhelmed the Fukushima facility and led to the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl The whole process is expected to cost around 23 trillion yen ($149 billion) and take decades to complete are said to be stuck at the bottom of the three reactors at the plant which is decommissioning the plant alongside the Japanese government is using a robotic arm that looks like a fishing rod with a claw grip to remove a small sample of the nuclear debris The company had planned to remove just 3 grams as part of the demonstration The removed debris is set to be transported to Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s research facility for analysis The retrieval process began in September but faced challenges. A camera attached to the robotic arm stopped working forcing Tepco to suspend the demonstration to replace the camera Photograph: Storage tanks used for storing treated water at TEPCO’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Okuma Please tell us what we can do to improve this article International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi assisted in collecting seawater samples near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant for analysis This treated water is currently stored in tanks on site Japan announced in April 2021 it planned to discharge ALPS-treated water into the sea over a period of about 30 years It started to discharge the water in August 2023 and has so far completed the release of ten batches The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been monitoring the discharges of treated water and the collection of seawater samples since they began Japan and China reached an agreement that allows stakeholders monitoring and inter-laboratory comparisons at key stages of the discharge process Grossi joined scientists from the Third Institute of Oceanography in China the Korean Institute for Nuclear Safety in South Korea and the Spiez Laboratory in Switzerland as they collected seawater samples near the Fukushima Daiichi plant "By welcoming countries to engage directly in sampling and analysis under the additional measures particularly in the region," Grossi said in strict compliance and consistent with international safety standards." The samples will be analysed by the IAEA laboratories in Monaco by laboratories in Japan and in the participating laboratories from China each members of the IAEA's Analytical Laboratories for the Measurement of Environmental Radioactivity network "Additional measures focus on expanding international participation and transparency allowing hands-on independent measurements of the concentration level of the water," Grossi said "This work is conducted within agreed parameters set by the IAEA in its role as an independent impartial and technical organisation." The IAEA has confirmed that the tritium level in the ten batches of ALPS treated water already released was far below Japan's operational limit of 1500 Bq/litre The IAEA says it will have a presence on site for as long as the treated water is released Grossi also visited the Interim Storage Facility (ISF) where removed soil arising from decontamination activities is stored and also observed a road embankment demonstration project for managed recycling which is one of the measures to reduce the volume of removed soil towards its final disposal outside Fukushima Prefecture The ISF was built to manage and store removed soil waste arising from decontamination activities in Fukushima Prefecture until final disposal outside Fukushima Prefecture within 30 years from the start of transportation to the ISF Grossi visited Tokyo Electric Power Company's (Tepco's) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture He said: "I have reviewed the management and monitoring system for security and access at the power plant All measures have been taken over the past 15 years and I am convinced that there is a certain basis for restarting the plant "The restart of this power plant is symbolic it can be said that it will have a visible impact on Japan's energy environment." Tepco received permission from the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) to restart units 6 and 7 at the plant the company notified the NRA of malfunctions in intruder detection equipment on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa site it reported the unauthorised use of an ID card the NRA issued an administrative order to Tepco prohibiting it from moving nuclear fuel at the plant until improvements in security measures there have been confirmed by additional inspections This order was lifted in December 2023 after inspections confirmed that measures had been enhanced at the site Additional regulatory inspections will still be required before Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 7 - which has been offline since August 2011 - can resume operation consent must also be sought from the local governor This photo shows the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma This photo shows the Unit 2 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma In this photo released by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) TEPCO executives observe plant officials making final procedural checks from an operation room to monitor and remote control an extendable robot at Fukjushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma monitoring workers rearrange the push-in pipes into the right order TOKYO (AP) — A long robot entered a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant on Tuesday high-stakes mission to retrieve for the first time a tiny amount of melted fuel debris from the bottom Here is an explanation of how the robot works significance and what lies ahead as the most challenging phase of the reactor cleanup begins Nuclear fuel in the reactor cores melted after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s cooling systems to fail The melted fuel dripped down from the cores and mixed with internal reactor materials such as zirconium broken grates and concrete around the supporting structure and at the bottom of the primary containment vessels The reactor meltdowns caused the highly radioactive lava-like material to spatter in all directions The condition of the debris also differs in each reactor says an estimated 880 tons of molten fuel debris remains in the three reactors but some experts say the amount could be larger Workers will use five 1.5-meter-long (5-foot-long) pipes connected in sequence to maneuver the robot through an entry point in the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel The robot itself can extend about 6 meters (20 feet) inside the vessel it will be maneuvered remotely by operators at another building at the plant because of the fatally high radiation emitted by the melted debris will be lowered by a cable to a mound of melted fuel debris It will then snip off and collect a bit of the debris — less than 3 grams (0.1 ounce) The small amount is meant to minimize radiation dangers The robot will then back out to the place it entered the reactor a roundtrip journey that will take about two weeks The mission takes that long because the robot must make extremely precise maneuvers to avoid hitting obstacles or getting stuck in passageways TEPCO is also limiting daily operations to two hours to minimize the radiation risk for workers in the reactor building with each group allowed to stay maximum of about 15 minutes Sampling the melted fuel debris is “an important first step,” said Lake Barrett who led the cleanup after the 1979 disaster at the U.S Three Mile Island nuclear plant for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and is now a paid adviser for TEPCO’s Fukushima decommissioning While the melted fuel debris has been kept cool and has stabilized the aging of the reactors poses potential safety risks and the melted fuel needs to be removed and relocated to a safer place for long-term storage as soon as possible An understanding of the melted fuel debris is essential to determine how best to remove it according to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency Experts expect the sample will also provide more clues about how exactly the meltdown 13 years ago played out The melted fuel sample will be kept in secure canisters and sent to multiple laboratories for more detailed analysis If the radiation level exceeds a set limit the robot will take the sample back into the reactor long road ahead,” Barrett said in an online interview “The goal is to remove the highly radioactive material the robot’s small tong can only reach the upper surface of the debris The pace of the work is expected to pick up in the future as more experience is gained and robots with additional capabilities are developed TEPCO will have to “probe down into the debris pile so you have to go down and see what’s inside,” Barrett said the debris on the surface was very different from the material deeper inside He said multiple samples from different locations must be collected and analyzed to better understand the melted debris and develop necessary equipment such as stronger robots for future larger-scale removal Compared to collecting a tiny sample for analysis it will be a more difficult challenge to develop and operate robots that can cut larger chunks of melted debris into pieces and put that material into canisters for safe storage which are in worse condition and will take even longer to deal with TEPCO plans to deploy a set of small drones in Unit 1 for a probe later this year and is developing even smaller “micro” drones for Unit 3 which is filled with a larger amount of water hundreds of spent fuel rods remain in unenclosed cooling pools on the top floor of both Unit 1 and 2 This is a potential safety risk if there’s another major quake Removal of spent fuel rods has been completed at Unit 3 Removal of the melted fuel was initially planned to start in late 2021 but has been delayed by technical issues underscoring the difficulty of the process The government says decommissioning is expected to take 30-40 years while some experts say it could take as long as 100 years Others are pushing for an entombment of the plant to reduce radiation levels and risks for plant workers That won’t work at the seaside Fukushima plant and there are a lot of unknowns in those (reactor) buildings,” he said “I don’t think you can just entomb it and wait.” The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) returned to the Fukushima Prefecture on 27-29 July 2024 for the eighth NEA International Mentoring Workshop in Japan Organised in partnership with Japan’s Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation (NDF) and its President Hajimu Yamana the workshop gathered 43 secondary school students from Fukushima and 4 high school students from Illinois IV welcomed the workshop participants noting that each mentoring workshop is different because it is shaped by the students participating in it “You are in this room today to help shape the future skills and dreams to make the world a better place to humanity,” said Director-General Magwood Embracing the concept of Joshikai (a “girls’ gathering” in Japanese) the immersive workshop aimed to boost confidence through interactive discussions with female leaders in the nuclear sector in Japan the United States and the United Arab Emirates who shared inspiring stories about their experiences career paths and the personal and professional challenges overcome along the way they just need some help to understand what opportunities there may be and what confidence you need to create for yourself,” said workshop Co-Chair Fiona Rayment “Let’s get that talent pipeline started; let’s get more women into STEM some of them will choose the nuclear field and we will get to the situation where we will have much more gender balance moving forward Because diversity also equals better business better working environments and better profits.” NDF President Hajimu Yamana and workshop Co-Chair Fiona Rayment lead the roundtable discussion Leading a group of seven students from Japan and the United States Nuclear Safety Director at the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (United Arab Emirates) highlighted a wide range of career options in STEM “This workshop brings the students together to help them understand how they can help society The nuclear field is massive and offers many opportunities and this workshop is especially important here in Japan where the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant will require the skillset of the next generation,” said Sara Al Saadi engages with a group of Japanese and American students the 2024 edition of the workshop took place in Futaba town on Japan’s Pacific coastline which was hit by a tsunami in March 2011 following the strongest ever recorded earthquake in Japan The accident at the nearby Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant led to the complete evacuation of the 7 000 town residents Following an evacuation order lift in Futaba in August 2022 reconstruction initiatives are underway to rebuild local infrastructure revitalise commercial activities and attract both former and new residents participants of the mentoring workshop had a chance to learn more about the reconstruction efforts from Shiro Izawa as well as through visits to the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum and the nearby Asano Nenshi Factory A tour of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant provided an opportunity to learn more about the progress made and the next steps in the decommissioning process of the site The workshop also featured guest speeches from leading figures in the Japanese nuclear sector It included a poster session with young Japanese female researchers who presented their academic work and shed light on their research in STEM delivers a lecture at the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum in Futaba Junior researchers present their research during a poster session With 26 mentoring workshops held around the world and hundreds of workshop “graduates” the NEA continues to assist member countries in their efforts to ensure the future nuclear workforce is diverse and gender balanced nuclear power makes me a bit nervous,” Ken Sasaki told the Los Angeles Times at the height of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe Sasaki’s patriotic instinct turned out to have a longer half-life than his personal misgivings. Although the Fukushima plant was hit by a tsunami and underwent partial meltdowns, the emergency caused no cases of radiation sickness “There were no acute radiation injuries or deaths among the workers or the public due to exposure to radiation resulting from the [nuclear plant] incident,” the World Health Organization reported five years after the disaster The most intense exposures recorded as a result of the Fukushima incident were equivalent to radiation doses experienced in many medical treatments experts were warning of a permanent Chernobyl-style zone of alienation in the Fukushima Prefecture while Americans on the West Coast prepared for heavy radiation exposure What explains the disparity between the dire warnings and the thankfully mild result It’s a mindset that could be called “radiophobia,” a combination of legitimate concerns about radiation risks with a fundamental misunderstanding of how radiation works “[T]he average person in the U.S. receives an effective dose of about 3 mSv per year from natural radiation,” according to RadiologyInfo.org a website published by the American College of Radiology (A mSv or millisievert is one-thousandth of a sievert A sievert measures the effective dose of ionizing radiation.) In that context “[T]he average lifetime effective doses for adults in the Fukushima prefecture were estimated to be around 10 mSv or less,” reported the World Health Organization “[T]he average workers’ effective dose over the first 19 months after the accident was about 12 mSv,” according to Tokyo Electric Power Company reporting RadiologyInfo.org reports that a single computed tomography or CT scan of the abdomen and pelvic region repeated with and without contrast material has an approximate effective radiation dose of 15.4 mSv Despite the low-level doses of ionizing radiation received by people in the Fukushima area letting radiophobia run far ahead of the facts This knee-jerk move started a chain reaction that still haunts the Germans today After rapidly shuttering its nuclear generation Germany still needed to meet electricity demand The country reopened fossil fuel plants (mostly lignite — lower-rank coal) to replace the baseload role that nuclear once filled Committed to their carbon dioxide reduction goals the Germans also embarked on the Energiewende program a strident push toward a grid powered primarily by wind and solar power and devoid of nuclear and fossil-fueled electricity With the Russia-Ukraine War, Germany has had to rely even more heavily on low-rank lignite coal to ensure its citizens do not freeze to death All because environmentalists overreacted to the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s zero deaths the hysterics from the media and lawmakers over the Fukushima incident acted as the turning point toward a dangerous and foolish energy policy that holds up wind and solar as the only legitimate electricity generation options The stalling of nuclear power in the United States occurred due to a different sort of radiophobia The Fukushima incident was used to frighten people about nuclear energy Lost in the panic was that Fukushima was the site of an unprecedented and largely unpredictable disaster yet the non-lethal result amounts to a powerful argument not against nuclear power but for it The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami was the country’s largest magnitude earthquake ever recorded The subsequent tsunami flooded the plant’s backup generators (the company has been heavily criticized for not locating the generators on higher floors or in a protected location) and caused a partial reactor meltdown — generally recognized as the worst type of nuclear accident Looking back at the Fukushima story indicates there was far less harm caused during the accident than the public was led to believe was widespread and is still holding us back Get insightful commentary and the most reliable research on Michigan issues sent straight to your inbox The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a nonprofit research and educational institute that advances the principles of free markets and limited government Through our research and education programs we challenge government overreach and advocate for a free-market approach to public policy that frees people to realize their potential and dreams Please consider contributing to our work to advance a freer and more prosperous state Sasaki Kazuhito (27) has been involved in operating and maintaining ALPS at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station which removes radioactive substances from highly contaminated wastewater When the Great East Japan Earthquake struck in 2011 and he didn’t have to live in shelters was only about 40 kilometers away from Iwaki Some of his classmates evacuated to other prefectures and the fear of radioactive contamination was very real Fukushima Prefecture was stigmatized as if the entire area was contaminated News of the harmful rumors about its agricultural and livestock products along with the discrimination faced by evacuees “I wasn’t personally the direct target of any harmful rumors but it was painful to witness as a fellow Fukushima resident,” says Sasaki Sasaki Kazuhito the Fukushima National College of Technology a five-year institution Sasaki entered after junior high shifted its focus to training personnel for decommissioning work “Having taken classes related to nuclear decommissioning I started to consider Fukushima Daiichi as a potential workplace and my lab professor also suggested it,” he recalls my desire to be part of the reconstruction effort in Fukushima grew strong.” His parents were surprised to learn that he intended to work for TEPCO and initially opposed his choice They were not only worried about the public hostility towards the company responsible for the accident but were also deeply concerned about the safety of their son’s workplace “Many people have left Fukushima because of the earthquake and nuclear accident I don’t imagine it’s easy to get people from other prefectures to help with the decommissioning I can’t just ignore what’s happening in the place I was born and raised Many are involved in the decommissioning effort including those dispatched from partner companies “He overcame his parents’ opposition to work here He has a strong sense of purpose and it’s admirable,” says Satō Yōhei (48) who is in charge of maintaining ALPS-treated water tanks and other related equipment also had these words of encouragement to offer Sasaki: “This is a workplace where you have to have a lot of patience I’ve seen many who couldn’t handle it and quit I’d like to see you persevere.” Satō was working as an operator at Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Station during the 2011 disaster Located just 12 kilometers south of Fukushima Daiichi This severely damaged the nuclear reactor cooling facilities facing the ocean since the external power supply was maintained and the reactors could be cooled they were able to avert the type of catastrophe that unfolded at Daiichi Satō Yōhei the situation was chaotic for some time after the earthquake Satō sent his family to stay with relatives in another prefecture as he lived on-site at the power plant for about a month was in the news every day as a major story but Daini was also in a critical condition due to the tsunami damage,” he recalls “All I could do was focus on the work in front of me.” Fukushima Daiichi units 2 and 3 in preparation for upcoming fuel removal Two years after the earthquake, Satō was transferred to Fukushima Daiichi. Both Satō and Sasaki work in handling treated water, though their duties differ. The treated water stored in numerous tanks on the premises at Fukushima Daiichi both domestically from local fishermen and globally Both approach their work with a steady attitude his role is to build and maintain the necessary facilities “I just have to give it my all.” Meanwhile Sasaki seeks to accept a range of perspectives but I recognize that each person has their own viewpoint.” What unites these on-site workers is their deep pride in their commitment to the safe decommissioning process Tanks used for homogenizing ALPS-treated water before ocean discharge Now that 14 years have passed since the earthquake the time grows closer when TEPCO employees who experienced the earthquake and persevered through the challenging moments of the nuclear accident will reach retirement age “I want to see it through so that the decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi is completed in my generation,” says Sasaki Sasaki Kazuhito (at left) who was working at Fukushima Daini at the time of the earthquake are both involved in handling treated water at Fukushima Daiichi Opinion Can Overpriced Peaches Convince Us That Fukushima Is Safe Years after a nuclear disaster wiped out Fukushima’s agriculture peach growers are banking on Harrods to sell the area’s recovery story By Kate Graham-Shaw A customer tries peaches from Japan's Fukushima prefecture at the luxury department store Harrods in central London This is an initiative by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant that had a catastrophic accident in 2011 What if I told you that peaches grown around the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, site of Japan’s catastrophic nuclear accident, were on sale at Harrods, the luxury department store in London where Ronald Reagan once inquired about buying a baby elephant and how those peaches got there is as much a story of clever marketing as how the people of Fukushima prefecture are trying to disentangle their region from its nuclear legacy Most people in the U.S. associate peaches with Georgia. But before the nuclear accident earning the nickname “The Fruit Kingdom.” If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today According to the severity scale of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Fukushima emergency was a level 7, equivalent to Chernobyl. The Fukushima countryside was no longer a fruit kingdom and its farmers’ livelihoods were in tatters I saw photos of employees at Harrods’ food hall handing out samples of peaches grown in Fukushima to shoppers who were apparently willing to give them a taste If your gut reaction is probably something like “I wouldn’t try one of those radioactive peaches if you paid me,” no one would blame you; that was my initial reaction Questions started swirling in my head: How could fruit grown in this region possibly be safe How were these peaches allowed to be exported Could these radioactive peaches birth a new superhero A radioactive reputation can be difficult to shake If I offered you a peach grown in Chernobyl What about food grown at Three Mile Island both to symbolize their country’s technical expertise and in case the practical knowledge of nuclear fission ever came in handy in the future When the failures at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl happened, however, many of the wider public’s nuclear fears were confirmed. Research has shown that nuclear power has failed to shed its association with death I’ve met many physicists who are careful not to advertise they work in the nuclear field because of this lingering stigma which turned out to be the abundant and far-reaching contaminants of agricultural land instead of penetrating deep into the soil as feared the radioactive contamination had only seemed to affect about two inches of the top layer of soil the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog the government of Japan said that Fukushima foods were “safe and delicious” backing up the brusque statement with numerous data and endorsements from the U.N Food and Agriculture Organization and IAEA officials the main global bodies who have assisted the government in monitoring the contamination the food was safe for import and consumption The Japanese government and TEPCO—the owners of the devastated power plant—have been heavily pushing their reputation-building initiative a place the royal family is known to frequent an interesting snack to bring out at a dinner party They cost nearly $33 a piece—while an average Georgia peach in the U.S they might just be fast-tracking their fruit to a better reputation one which embraces the uniqueness of its origin the region is urging the world to not leave them in a ruinous past thank you.” But now I realize that Fukushima food has been tested within an inch of its life—and likely mine regardless of all the negative nuclear associations if they’re still giving out free samples—as $33 for a peach and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American *Editor’s Note (10/17/24): This sentence was edited after posting to correct the description of estimated deaths Kate Graham-Shaw is a journalist based in New York City She covers international news for Japanese media and also covers health and science topics as a freelancer Subscribe to Scientific American to learn and share the most exciting discoveries innovations and ideas shaping our world today Scientific American is part of Springer Nature which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us) Scientific American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers What if I told you that peaches grown around the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant site of Japan’s catastrophic nuclear accident the luxury department store in London where Ronald Reagan once inquired about buying a baby elephant Kate Graham-Shaw is a journalist based in New York City Megha Satyanarayana is chief opinion editor at Scientific American where she writes the column Cross Currents She is a former scientist who has worked at several news outlets a cohort member of Poynter’s Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media and a Maynard 200 Fellow Experts are optimistic about energy and drug production breakthroughs but also fear its potential misuse When better to hold a conference on artificial intelligence and the countless ways it is advancing science than in those brief days between the first Nobel prizes being awarded in the field and the winners heading to Stockholm for the lavish white tie ceremony Read moreScientists have worked with AI for years but the latest generation of algorithms have brought us to brink of transformation the chief executive officer of Google DeepMind it should be an incredible new era of discovery and a new golden age maybe even a kind of new renaissance,” he said researchers must identify the right problems build the right algorithms and apply them the right way Then there are the pitfalls. What if AI provokes a backlash, worsens inequality, creates a financial crisis, triggers a catastrophic data breach, pushes ecosystems to the brink through its extraordinary energy demands What if it gets into the wrong hands and unleashes AI-designed bioweapons nurses are trialling AI-assisted ultrasound scans for pregnant women uses AI to formulate 100% bio-based materials climate models and weather forecasts and is learning how to contain plasmas for nuclear fusion Hassabis and his colleague John Jumper won their Nobel for AlphaFold a programme that predicts protein structures and interactions are beefing up the algorithm and combining it with others to accelerate drug development and that would revolutionise the drug discovery process,” Hassabis said The Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has gone further reducing a potentially years-long process to months the company’s president of biomedical research said another tool helps with regulators’ queries “You can find out – have those questions been asked before – and then predict what’s the best answer to give that’s likely to give you a positive approval for your drug,” she said who shared a Nobel prize for the gene editing tool said AI would play “a big role” in making therapies more affordable Regulators approved the first Crispr treatment last year who founded the Innovative Genomics Institute in Berkeley said further AI-guided work at her lab aims to create a methane-free cow by editing the microbes in the animal’s gut A huge challenge for researchers is the black box problem: many AIs can reach decisions but not explain them through the equivalent of brain scans for AIs “I think in the next five years we’ll be out of this era that we’re currently in of black boxes.” The climate crisis could prove AI’s greatest challenge. While Google publicises AI-driven advances in flooding, wildfire and heatwave forecasts It can take 10 gigawatt-hours of power to train a single large language model like OpenAI’s ChatGPT enough to supply 1,000 US homes for a year “My view is that the benefits of those systems will far outweigh the energy usage,” Hassabis told the meeting citing hopes that AI will help to create new batteries room temperature superconductors and possibly even nuclear fusion “I think one of these things is likely to pay off in the next decade He sees positives in Google’s energy demand so the demand should drive investment into renewables and drive down costs a former director of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science adding that nothing raised the concern more than energy demand She called for ambitious sustainability goals “AI companies that are involved in this space are investing a lot in renewable energy and hopefully that will spur a faster transition away from fossil fuels “It actually has to lead to transformative change.” 5Space🚀Scientists aboard a plane with 26 cameras chase burning satellite and film its fiery fallChris Young17 hours ago 9Military🚀China deploys 5,000-ton torpedo frigate to hunt US nuclear submarines in open seasKapil Kajal19 hours ago 10Military🚀UK gets drone wingmen to make F-35 fighters invisible to even the smartest radarsJijo Malayil19 hours ago 4Culture🌟Trump’s secure messaging app hacked, deportation airline also hit by cyberattackAamir Khollam10 hours ago 5Energy🌟US scientists end 70-year fusion struggle, paving way for better reactorsAamir Khollam12 hours ago 7Science🌟In a first, protons in biological system seen following quantum rules: Study Mrigakshi Dixit13 hours ago 9Space🌟US orders NASA to build first lunar time zone to guide astronauts on the MoonAamir Khollam13 hours ago Kaif Shaikh around 880 tonnes of radioactive materials still remain on-site iStock Remotely operated robots are set to begin work in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s basements next week Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) announced on March 21 Their mission: remove sandbags heavily contaminated by radiation after the 2011 nuclear disaster.  These sandbags, used to absorb water laced with radioactive particles have remained in zones too hazardous for human intervention Measurements at the sandbags’ surface show exposure rates of 4.4 sieverts per hour.  as prolonged direct contact at these intensities can be deadly Japanese media report approximately 2,850 sandbags still on-site totaling around 41.5 tonnes of radioactive material though Tepco has yet to confirm these figures.  Once removed, the sandbags will be sealed in dedicated containers and then relocated to a temporary storage area beyond the immediate perimeter of Fukushima Daiichi Tepco installed two specially designed robots in the underground sections of the damaged reactor buildings this week One features a mobile claw specifically engineered for sandbag removal; technicians will operate both remotely The company aims to complete sandbag extraction by the close of Japan’s 2027 fiscal year The significance of robot intervention becomes clearer when one considers the overall cleanup conditions.  In a recent report, the Associated Press (AP) revealed the strenuous working conditions of the decommissioning project Workers who must venture into areas with melted reactor fuel debris often wear full protective gear High radiation zones limit human exposure times to mere minutes Tepco has also documented some worker injuries from contact with radioactive sludge heightening the urgency to deploy robotics for hazardous tasks Over 880 tonnes of radioactive materials remain on-site at Fukushima Daiichi and full decommissioning is expected to take decades Tepco collected a 0.7-gram sample of nuclear debris from inside one of the damaged reactors and plans another extraction soon.  offering valuable insight into the debris’ composition A subsequent mission is scheduled for the coming weeks radiation levels in reactor buildings like No The current deployment of robots to remove radioactive sandbags underlines the plant’s reliance on mechanical surrogates where human access poses life-threatening risks.  apprehension grows alongside the weight of lengthy decommissioning efforts Tepco’s commitment to robotic solutions highlights the priority of safeguarding on-site personnel while gradually reducing contamination.  the company moves closer to mitigating ongoing threats posed by legacy radioactive materials marking another incremental but vital effort in one of history’s most complex nuclear cleanups 0COMMENTABOUT THE AUTHORKaif Shaikh Kaif Shaikh is a journalist and writer passionate about turning complex information into clear Kaif's bylines can be found in Times of India Apart from the long list of things he does outside work By clicking sign up, you confirm that you accept this site's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Premium 2 reactor building of the Tsuruga nuclear power plant is seen in Tsuruga The Nuclear Regulation Authority said the Tsuruga No 2 reactor is “unfit” as its operator failed to address safety risks stemming from the presence of possible active fault lines “We reached our conclusion based on a very strict examination,” NRA chairperson Shinsuke Yamanaka told reporters The verdict comes after more than eight years of safety reviews that were repeatedly disrupted by data coverups and mistakes by the operator He called the case “abnormal” and urged the utility to take the result seriously The decision is a blow to Japan Atomic Power because it virtually ends its hopes for a restart which is decommissioning its other reactor but it would require an examination of dozens of faults around the reactor to prove their safety “The decision is extremely regrettable,” Japan Atomic Power said in a statement It said it will continue efforts to restart An NRA safety panel concluded three months ago it could not rule out the possibility of active fault lines about 300 meters (330 yards) north of the No 2 reactor stretching to right underneath the facility Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that safety is the prerequisite for nuclear plant operation and that the government respects the scientific and highly technical decision by the watchdog He said the government’s position to promote nuclear energy is unchanged directly above active fault lines is prohibited in earthquake-prone Japan Yamanaka said the NRA is not immediately ordering a decommissioning because the reactor which is offline and its spent fuel safely cooled it must address not only the faults issue but it also must implement adequate safety measures for the entire plant Providing scientific proof of the status of faults underneath key nuclear facilities is difficult but other operators that obtained restart permits all cleared the requirement 2 reactor first started commercial operation in February 1987 and has been offline since May 2011 The operator rejected the NRA panel’s 2013 on-site inspection results which concluded that the faults under the No 27 have applied for restarts and 17 of them have been approved so far under the post-Fukushima safety standard Delegates at the FRAME workshop at the ANL Conference Centre organised by the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and held at the ANL premises on 26-27 September 2024 The workshop was attended by 110 participants from 15 countries 45 national organisations and 3 international organisations technical support organisations and universities High-level representatives of these stakeholders were invited to present their views on major insights gained from the Fukushima Daiichi accident management and analysis knowledge gaps and emerging issues for accident management and analysis for operating and advanced reactors related research capabilities needs and stakeholder engagement and sustainable research funding The workshop facilitated exchanges between decision-makers and several NEA projects operating agents regarding potentials for future projects It was agreed that collaborative research efforts should continue to maximise the benefits of the Fukushima Daiichi accident analyses recognising that there are several remaining knowledge gaps about the accident ex-vessel phenomena and radioactive release that should be addressed by future investigations several emerging safety research topics related to advanced reactors were identified including related to the long-term reliability of passive safety systems the assessment of radioactive releases and emergency planning zones It was noted that international co-operation and stakeholder support are vital to safety research The current NEA joint projects frameworks are recognised as being pragmatic and efficient for managing collaborative research among a range of organisations with sometimes competing interest it was recommended that additional support from industry and government be sought by increasing awareness of NEA project benefits Long-term strategic plans could also be developed by incorporating research priorities from diverse stakeholders to foster broader engagement and to secure funding It was also noted that the co-ordination of collaborative projects in the thermal-hydraulic and severe accident areas should be enhanced with several new research capabilities becoming accessible for collaboration and offering the potential to address emerging issues This could be achieved by the NEA organising platforms with complementary facilities allowing benchmarking experiments and addressing scaling Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab , opens new tab Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. , opens new tabScreen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover 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All rights reserved The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex said Thursday it had retrieved a small amount of melted fuel from one of the disaster-stricken reactors in its first such attempt after the plant was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami over a decade ago The successful extraction of the debris from the No 2 reactor -- albeit a pebble-like substance less than 3 grams -- is seen as a key step toward the goal of completing the decades-old process of decommissioning the plant which suffered fuel meltdowns in three reactors in the nuclear crisis that began in March 2011 a mixture of melted fuel rods and other substances that later cooled and solidified "We believe we are approaching the stage of conducting full-scale decommissioning work," Japan's top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told a press conference workers collected an aluminum container carrying the debris which a remotely controlled device had earlier grabbed from the bottom of the No according to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc Radiation levels around the debris have been confirmed to be below 24 millisieverts per hour a threshold TEPCO has set for the safety of workers involved The debris sample was then transferred to a sealed piece of equipment called a "glovebox" at the building housing the No It will subsequently be sent for analysis at a research facility in neighboring Ibaraki Prefecture The whole process has been conducted as a trial and the analysis is expected to be utilized to come up with the best methods to conduct the retrieval work as well as store the fuel debris TEPCO had initially planned to begin the retrieval process in 2021 under the goal of completing decommissioning of the reactors by 2051 but it was postponed three times due to changes in the extraction methods 22 when there were problems in the preparation work before sending in the retrieval device 10 only for the operation to be halted on Sept 17 after cameras attached to the device stopped working 30 and placed just outside the reactor container for retrieval by workers TEPCO progressing in melted fuel extraction from Fukushima nuclear reactor Your browser does not support JavaScript, or it is disabled．Please check the site policy for more information National Report FUKUSHIMA—Police are investigating a report of a foreign man walking around a school building no longer in use due to the 2011 nuclear disaster as a trespassing case The video has caused an uproar among local officials and vigilance is being heightened to prevent copycats The town of Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture where the Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No had to evacuate about 7,000 residents due to the accident Since the evacuation order was lifted in 2020 people are now free to enter some parts of Futaba only about 100 residents have returned to the town the town office received a report about a suspicious video being posted on social networking sites The pertinent video showed what appeared to be a foreign man in a yellow protective suit walking around inside an elementary school building where students’ bags and school supplies have been left behind The man was posing and touching books in the school library and computers in the classroom Officials believe that the location is an old building of the town-run Futaba Minami Elementary School and that the man was not alone when breaking into the building The town office has planned to preserve the school and convert it to one of the relics of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami tragedy The school was apparently not the only target of videos In another video posted under the same account the man broke into a reception room of the former town hall building as well as the town assembly chairman’s office Both the elementary school and the town hall are located in areas that are no longer under evacuation orders But the buildings themselves are off-limits The town notified the prefectural police on July 16 the pertinent video was still available for viewing It showed a classroom footage with English subtitles describing that everything stopped on March 11 Other videos were posted under the same account in which the man ransacked a hospital and a private home in the town that are still in the same condition as immediately after the disaster said house demolitions have begun in the areas affected by the nuclear disaster and returning evacuees are beginning to reside in their homes so burglaries and break-ins are on the decline “If the locations featured in the video attract attention as a landmark including police officers and town officials as well as local crime prevention officials inspected the locks and interior conditions of the elementary school and the former town hall They confirmed that the front door of the school building has been locked but they agreed to strengthen measures to their response to suspicious persons in the future the act of breaking in is charged as trespassing and may be punishable by imprisonment for up to three years or a fine of up to 100,000 yen ($670) who heads the town’s administration division “The area is safe for residents to return to but the man is stirring up anxiety by wearing a mask and a protective suit.” Radiation levels in the vicinity of the elementary school have dropped to almost the pre-disaster level Post office in Fukushima open again 13 years after disaster Town signboard touting nuclear energy greets museum visitors 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster museum to open in Futaba town Information on the latest cherry blossom conditions Please right click to use your browser’s translation function.) A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II In-house News and Messages No reproduction or republication without written permission The operator of the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex was set to attempt to remove a small amount of melted fuel from one of its crippled reactors on Thursday but put the trial extraction on hold due to issues discovered during preparations has not said when it will try again after setup errors in the retrieval device forced it in the morning to suspend the first attempt to remove debris since the plant was devastated in the wake of a massive earthquake and tsunami over a decade ago "We are now looking into why there was a mistake in the sequence of setting up the pipes," a TEPCO official said at a press conference in the afternoon Efforts to extract the melted fuel in Fukushima Prefecture will not resume Friday numbered from one through five and each measuring 1.5 meters long and use them to push the debris retrieval device into the No 2 reactor's containment vessel to collect a debris sample But the pipes were mistakenly placed in the order of two Thursday's preparatory work began at 7:24 a.m The Fukushima prefectural government asked TEPCO to take measures to prevent similar incidents in the future saying it is an "elementary and man-made error that could make residents anxious." "It is better to carry on with the work safely and steadily rather than rushing," TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa told reporters in Niigata Prefecture where he was visiting to discuss another reactor operated by the company The trial will only seek to retrieve up to 3 grams of fuel debris from the No Methods of removing all the melted fuel remaining in the Nos leaving major challenges in the plant's decades-long decommissioning plan There is an estimated 880 tons of fuel debris in the Nos 2 reactor as the first to start the fuel debris retrieval work as the situation inside is understood more clearly than the others Among the three reactors that experienced core meltdowns in the accident 2 unit was the only one not to suffer a hydrogen explosion 2 unit was in operation when the emergency began and some fuel is believed to have melted through the reactor pressure vessel that holds the fuel and accumulated at the bottom of the outer primary containment vessel It is thought to have mixed with materials such as cement from the surrounding area TEPCO hopes to retrieve debris using a telescopic device equipped with a gripper tool The device can extend up to 22 meters and access the debris through a penetration point in the primary containment vessel Steps have been taken to limit radiation emissions from the stricken reactor with a valve system installed as a barrier It is expected to take around a week for the device to reach the debris The collected material will be taken to a facility in Ibaraki Prefecture for analysis the six-reactor plant on the Pacific coast was flooded by more than 10-meter-high tsunami waves triggered by the magnitude 9.0 quake causing the reactor cooling systems to lose their power supply 1 to 3 reactors subsequently suffered core meltdowns while hydrogen explosions damaged the buildings housing the Nos making it the world's worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster TEPCO had initially planned to start retrieving debris from the No 2 unit in 2021 but postponed its plans three times due to the coronavirus pandemic and technical difficulties Fukushima nuclear fuel debris retrieval to begin on Aug. 22 China willing to stabilize ties with Japan even after Kishida quits Japan regulator blocks plan to restart Tsuruga nuclear unit Japan's planned approach for recycling and disposing of soil and radioactive waste from decontamination activities after the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is consistent with IAEA Safety Standards a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded About 13 million cubic metres of soil and about 300,000 cubic metres of ash from incineration of organic material was removed as part of decontamination activities in Fukushima Prefecture and stored at an interim storage facility covering an area of 16 square kilometres spanning across Okuma Town and Futaba Town The management of removed soil is governed by a Japanese law which permits the government to repurpose the soil both within and outside of Fukushima Prefecture and for final disposal of the remaining soil to take place outside of the Fukushima Prefecture by 2045 Japan plans to recycle roughly 75% of the removed soil - the soil which has low levels of radioactivity – by using it In response to Japan's request in October 2022 for a safety review of its plans an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team – comprised of five IAEA staff and six international experts from Belgium and the USA - conducted three international expert missions in May 2023 The IAEA's review included providing advice and support to Japan from both technical The IAEA assessed the approach of Japan's Ministry of Environment for the managed recycling and the final disposal of removed soil and radioactive waste against the IAEA Safety Standards These safety standards serve as a global reference for protecting people and the environment and contribute to a harmonised high level of safety worldwide The team presented its report to Japan's Minister of the Environment Shintaro Ito on 10 September "We appreciate the enormity of the challenge facing Japan in dealing with the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident and we commend the country for requesting our impartial and technical review of its plans," said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi "The recycling and disposal of the soil further contributes to the reconstruction of areas affected by the accident." He added: "The IAEA found the Ministry of Environment's proactive approach to managing removed soil and waste arising from decontamination activities reflects a commitment to ensuring safety protecting public health and promoting environmental sustainability in Fukushima Prefecture and beyond The IAEA is committed to engaging with Japan on the managed recycling and the final disposal of removed soil and waste through future follow-up assessments of the Ministry's approach."