Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Japan's nuclear crisis

Japan's nuclear crisis

In hot water

by H.T. | TOKYO

FRUSTRATION is mounting once again about the dangers emerging from the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. This is partly due to new evidence: that there may have been a partial melting of nuclear fuel within the reactors’ protective structures and that radiation, including small doses of plutonium, has since leaked into the surrounding area. But fanning this anxiety is a grave new worry: that it may take months, rather than days or weeks, to bring this poisonous situation under control.

In the simplest terms, the latest bad news is that traces of plutonium have been found in soil samples near the stricken reactors. If fears of radioactive iodine-131, which loses half its potency every eight days, are bad, imagine how people may feel about plutonium-239, which has a “half-life” of 24,000 years. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the private monopoly that owns Fukushima, cannot say where the plutonium comes from: it may be from reactors No. 1 or 2, as a by-product of spent uranium, or from reactor No. 3, which has plutonium in its mixed-oxide fuel. That is the first indication of just how little the authorities know for certain about the situation.

It is a similar story with the pools of radioactive water that have been found sloshing around turbines near the reactors; it is not clear where these came from either. The worst case, near reactor No. 2, is 100,000 times more radioactive than water at a nuclear power plant is supposed to be. Wherever the excess radiation came from, and that is not clear, it has hampered ongoing efforts to hook up power supplies to the plant. Electricity is needed for cooling and monitoring systems, so that TEPCO can keep the nuclear fuel rods from overheating. By keeping work crews at bay, the radiation also stymies TEPCO’s ability to tell how badly pipes, pressure vessels and fuel rods have been damaged since the earthquake and tsunami on March 11th, which in turn makes it impossible to know how much more radiation can be expected to leak out. Then there are the pools for spent fuel rods, near the reactors. TEPCO cannot see whether these have been the site of any sort of meltdown, because there is too much debris piled on top.

For now, the authorities are partially reassured by the fact that what TEPCO can measure—heat and pressure within the reactors—has, by and large, remained stable, indicating there has been no meltdown of the potentially catastrophic sort. But the temperature in the first reactor rose to 323 degrees centigrade on Tuesday March 29th, which was not a good sign. Workers are having to balance the need to keep water flowing over the fuel rods, to prevent their overheating, against the risk of radioactive spillage into the sub-soil—and potentially the sea beyond. Making their work more complicated still, when a pool of water is suddenly found with potentially lethal doses of radiation, the other measurements are thrown into doubt.

To be fair to TEPCO, which has been getting all the bad press lately, it at least appears to be aware of how serious the threats are. When asked when the cooling systems might be brought under control, a spokesman says: “We just don’t know how long it will take.” That sounds like an honest assessment.

But candour at this stage will only get TEPCO so far. Its relationship with the government, which is directing disaster efforts from within the utility’s darkened headquarters in Tokyo, is about as tainted as Fukushima’s turbine water. On Tuesday Koichiri Gemba, the minister for national strategy, left open the possibility of nationalising TEPCO (or at least its nuclear arm). Presumably, that is partly to reassure potential claimaints from the vicinity of Fukushima, who may have lost everything as a result of radiation. TEPCO is already now under intense scrutiny to see whether it cut corners on safety prior to the disaster. Its president, Masataka Shimizu, is being lambasted for falling ill (some say going AWOL) during the emergency; the company has yet to explain his absence. And its emergency staff (some of them poorly paid outside contractors) are suffering miserable conditions on-site to carry out some of the most dangerous work on the planet; not only do they have insufficient food, they have to sleep on the floor under a single blanket.

With all these problems, it is no wonder TEPCO’s shares fell to a 47-year low on Tuesday. But the problem is not just TEPCO’s; it is Japan’s. The longer this crisis drags on and the more radiation spews out, the more the area around the plant may be irretrievably damaged and the higher the costs will mount—in psychic and physical terms. That bodes ill for the government. According to a Kyodo opinion poll this week, 58.2% of those surveyed do not approve of the government’s handling of the nuclear disaster. Naoto Kan’s administration has taken the reins from TEPCO to assert its authority over the disaster. It may have to raise its crisis response to a new level—probably involving international experts—to get ahead of the relentless cycle of bad news.

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