"Fukushima tank springs major leak: 120 tons of radioactive water escape from underground facility"

Where did it go?: Workers examine an underground tank Saturday that leaked 120 tons of highly radioactive water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in the town of Okuma. | KYODOAs reported by Kyodo in the Japan Times, a water storage tank holding more than 13,000 tons of highly radioactively contaminated water was leaked 120 tons into the ground, and may leak another 47 tons before the remainder can be transferred to other tanks nearby. The amount of radioactivity already leaked is estimated to contain 710 billion becquerels of radioactivity.

The article reports: '“It is the largest amount of radioactive substances that has been leaked” since the crippled facility’s cold shutdown was declared in December 2011, Tepco official Masayuki Ono said.'

Blackout at Fukushima - continued peril at stricken nuclear plant

The Associated Press reports: "The operator of Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant says a power failure has left three fuel storage pools without fresh cooling water for hours. Tokyo Electric Power Co. says the blackout Monday night at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was brief at its command centre but continued for hours at three of the seven fuel storage pools and a few other facilities. TEPCO says the reactors were unaffected, and it plans to restore power to the pool cooling systems as soon as it determines the cause. It says the nuclear fuel stored in the pools will remain safe for at least four days without fresh cooling water. The March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami destroyed the plant's power and cooling systems, causing three reactor cores to melt and fuel storage pools to overheat. The plant is now using makeshift systems."

Weekly protest rallies continue despite new pro-nuclear government

The weekly antinuclear power rallies are still being staged outside the Japanese prime minister’s office in Tokyo, as evidenced by a gathering of some 3,000 people one recent cold February evening, but the crowds are getting smaller.

Part of this decline may be because two years have passed since the Fukushima nuclear disaster started. Another factor may be that the Liberal Democratic Party — the very promoter of nuclear energy over the past half-century — returned to power at the end of last year.

The demonstrations, organized by the Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes, a body made up of 13 groups as well as individual members, have been held every Friday in Nagata-cho since late last March, when the Democratic Party of Japan was in power and seemed receptive to calls to end nuclear power.

The movement that originally attracted 300 people grew drastically to draw some 200,000 participants of all ages within three months as the DPJ-led government moved toward restarting two reactors at the Oi nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture, coalition members said. A tent city, a makeshift gathering place set up by activists just outside the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, was set up on Sept. 11, 2011.

When the tent city was launched, about 1,000 people, many in their 20s and 30s, gathered daily from around the country to express their objections to METI’s efforts to restart nuclear plants without thorough investigations into why Fukushima No. 1 occurred. Some waged 10-day hunger strikes.

“The movement served as a catalyst for young people to take action back home,” said Takehiko Yagi, a spokesman for Tent Square.

Some of the original participants staged sit-ins at the Oi plant last July to try to prevent the reactor restarts. Others continue to confront other issues, including the disposal of radiation-contaminated debris that is being carried out in various parts of Japan.

New Greenpeace report shows Fukushima suffering continuing

The fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster continues for hundreds of thousands of victims in Japan still denied fair compensation from a regulatory system that allows the nuclear industry to evade its responsibilities and forces the public to pay for its disasters. A new Greenpeace International report, Fukushima Fallout: Nuclear business makes people pay and suffer, details how the serious flaws in nuclear regulations worldwide leave the public, not nuclear plant operators or suppliers of key equipment, to pay for the vast majority of the costs in the event of a nuclear accident. 

Where will the Japanese radioactive waste end up?

The Japanese government has unveiled plans to review the way it selects final disposal sites for radioactive waste.

It earlier decided that contaminated mud and incinerator ash from the 2011 nuclear accident in Fukushima would be disposed of in the prefectures where it was generated.

The Environment Ministry plans to bury the radioactive materials in final disposal sites to be built in 5 prefectures.

The Ministry earlier selected state-owned forests in Yaita, in Tochigi Prefecture, and Takahagi, in Ibaraki Prefecture, as possible sites.

But construction has yet to proceed there due to opposition from the host cities and surrounding areas.
Senior Vice Minister Shinji Inoue on Monday announced that the ministry would meet with local governments during the decision-making process. He said the previous government had failed to fully explain to local municipalities why they had been chosen as candidate sites.

He also disclosed a ministry plan to seek recommendations from a new panel of experts, and added that drilling surveys will be carried out to narrow down the choices for the final disposal sites.