Fukushima - the continuing saga

[Jlaw]

Well, I do remember back in 2009, Russian government actually advised the Japanese government that as a last resort solution, a high yield thermonuclear explosion can be used to clean up the mess.

It is actually not as ridicules as it sounds, thermonuclear explosions leave behind relatively smaller amount of radiation and whatever elements it produced all have fairly short half-life. The large amount of neutron released during the explosion will breakdown heavier radioisotopes into smaller ones with short half-life. In theory, with a thermonuclear clean-up, Fukushima area would be inhabitable again within the decade.

but yet so many Chinese still want to go to Japan for tourism.

 

[terranMarine]

Well, I do remember back in 2009, Russian government actually advised the Japanese government that as a last resort solution, a high yield thermonuclear explosion can be used to clean up the mess.

It is actually not as ridicules as it sounds, thermonuclear explosions leave behind relatively smaller amount of radiation and whatever elements it produced all have fairly short half-life. The large amount of neutron released during the explosion will breakdown heavier radioisotopes into smaller ones with short half-life. In theory, with a thermonuclear clean-up, Fukushima area would be inhabitable again within the decade.

i don't know about this theory but that is one hell of a risky gamble if things doesn't go the way you predict

but yet so many Chinese still want to go to Japan for tourism.

Yeah i know, it seems tourists from Mainland has started to rise in Japan. I'm not that optimistic about Japan, just look at how they are still struggling with the plant. Even a large chunk area near the Chernobyl plant is radioactive to this day and uninhabitable. Tourists risking their lives eating radioactive sushi

To add more salt to the wound, clean up workers are complaining about unpaid work

BBC News - Fukushima workers sue Tepco over unpaid hazard pay

 

[Jlaw]

i don't know about this theory but that is one hell of a risky gamble if things doesn't go the way you predict



Yeah i know, it seems tourists from Mainland has started to rise in Japan. I'm not that optimistic about Japan, just look at how they are still struggling with the plant. Even a large chunk area near the Chernobyl plant is radioactive to this day and uninhabitable. Tourists risking their lives eating radioactive sushi

To add more salt to the wound, clean up workers are complaining about unpaid work

BBC News - Fukushima workers sue Tepco over unpaid hazard pay

Japan is radiated in the south and the north. The only 'safe' area is Tokyo, but the water u drink and fish you eat is most likely have a high level of radiation.

 

[Kolaps]

People love to say bad about Chinese people.

But when Japan in trouble, Chinese people are silent.


If Fukushima happened in China.

Japan and the West will celebrate it everyday in their media to prove their bad Chinese image is right.

 

[tranquilium]

i don't know about this theory but that is one hell of a risky gamble if things doesn't go the way you predict

Hence the last resort thing. This is really the measure to use when things are screwed up beyond saving and is an immediate danger to everyone else...which in some sense, Fukushima is getting there. This whole thing could have been avoided if the Japanese would have sent someone (or remote controlled robot) to the facility within the four days leading up to the hydrogen explosion.

 

[senheiser]

Russia to develop system to filter radioactive Fukushima water
Published time: August 28, 2014 23:09
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RosRAO, a subsidiary of Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, is among the three companies selected to build a system to filter radioactive tritium out of the contaminated water collected at the stricken power plant – a task that has so far defied engineers.

Fukushima Daiichi operator TEPCO, which has resorted to erecting thousands of water tanks to contain the toxic run-off from the plant, is already trialing a system that filters 62 radioactive materials. But the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) does not filter tritium, a mildly radioactive byproduct of nuclear generation, which nonetheless means that water cannot be safely discharged into the Pacific Ocean.

RosRAO, which was built on the foundations of Soviet-era waste disposal research institutions, won the TEPCO tender for a filtration system - alongside US firm Kurion Inc, and GE Hitachi Canada, a joint project between the Japanese and US corporations - beating 26 other companies.

Each of the three contractors will be given 1 billion yen – about $9.5 million – to present a working filter prototype by the March 2016 deadline, and the final value of the contract, which could last for decades, could run into hundreds of million dollars.

“We are offering a unique combined filtering technology, unlike our Western colleagues, which allows it to be more cost-efficient,” said project manager Sergey Florya in an interview with RIA Novosti news agency.

The official added that the level of tritium in Fukushima water is 10,000 times higher than the norm allowed by the WHO.

TEPCO faces an estimated bill of over $105 billion to clear up the consequences of the earthquake and tsunami that caused multiple meltdowns at the partially-antiquated plant in March 2011.

While all reactors have been stabilized, cooling water disposal has been a prime issue. The multi-nuclide removal equipment, called ALPS (advanced liquid processing system) was installed in March 2013, but its functional usefulness has been hampered by problems, such as pipe corrosion, leaks, operator errors and design imperfections, which have forced constant shutdowns. At one point its filters were failing to decontaminate the water at all, despite purportedly working as designed.

To this day, ALPS remains in “trial mode”, despite the government ordering a $150 million expansion to the system, tentatively scheduled to begin operating in October.

Latest statistics show that there are currently 367,000 tons of contaminated water, stored in tanks inside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

“This is the first time this much radioactive water has been collected in any single place in the world – the scale of this project in unprecedented,” said Florya.

 

[xesy]

With Russia experiences from the Chernobyl accident, sure they will be a great help to Japanese in fixing the damage of the Fukushima incidents. The problem is whether the US will jump in and stop Japan from shaking hand with Russia.

 

[DragonEmpire]

This is why Japan is arming themselves. To transfer their population elsewhere. I guess displacing the Viets or Pinoys is not a bad idea.

 

[Aepsilons]

An artist's impression of the floating power plant by IHI Corp., Sevan Marine ASA and Siemens AG. The vessel would be one of the first of its kind, bobbing on a 106-meter (350-foot) in diameter cylindrical platform offshore.


One of the biggest hurdles to building new power plants in Japan is finding a place that’s safe from earthquakes and tsunamis. That place may turn out to be 30 miles at sea.

Sevan Marine ASA (SEVAN), a Norwegian builder of offshore oil-drilling vessels, is proposing a $1.5 billion natural gas-fired power plant that will float on a cylindrical platform bigger than a football field moored off the Japanese coast.

It’s one of several innovative efforts Japan is considering for generating electricity after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 prompted widespread public concern over how the country will produce electricity -- and where. Already, plans are being made to dot the coast off Fukushima with some of the largest floating wind turbines in the world.

“We are now focusing on mainly floating offshore wind, but we want to push various types of technical development and research” for floating power stations, said Toshimitsu Motegi, a member of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the former minister of economy, trade and industry.

The Sevan proposal has won supporters within the transport ministry, which has encouraged Japanese companies to expand into offshore equipment after losing ground to Chinese and South Korean rivals in shipbuilding.　

The ministry “is very interested in the floating power project, and we’d like to support marketing of the facility both at home and abroad,” according to an e-mail from the transport ministry.

The gas-fired project will have 700 megawatts of capacity, about two-thirds the capacity of a modern nuclear reactor.

Fukushima Disaster
“The power situation in Japan after the Fukushima disaster has encouraged us to propose this solution,” Fredrik Major, Sevan’s chief business development officer, said in an e-mailed response to questions.

Sevan envisions building a cylindrical platform 106 meters (348 feet) across, and would install power equipment including turbine generators from Siemens AG, according to planning documents from the Arendal, Norway-based company.

IHI Corp. (7013), co-owner of Japan’s second-largest shipbuilder, may supply storage tanks for liquefied gas and may also build the hull.

“We will consider any types of facilities floating on the sea,” Akinori Abe, president of IHI’s offshore projects and steel structures operations, said in an interview. “We intend to lead Japan in the field.”

Site Selection
The floating platform could be anchored to the seabed anywhere from 5 kilometers (3 miles) to 50 kilometers from shore in water deep enough to mitigate the affect of a tsunami, Major said.

Shipping lanes, traditional fishing areas and whether the platform would be visible from shore would all play a role in selecting a site. Power would be delivered to land by an undersea transmission cable.

While Sevan says the concept can work anywhere, the company decided this year to focus on Japan, Major said. The company submitted its proposal to the country’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in May, and executives expect to return to Japan this year for additional meetings.

While the Sevan group’s platform would produce electricity by burning liquefied natural gas, the move offshore could eventually see nuclear power generated on the oceans, where they’d be more immune to earthquakes and the kind of giant wave that overwhelmed Fukushima more than three years ago.

Floating Reactors
It’s an idea outlined by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in April. And Russia’s state-run nuclear power company, Rosatom Corp., laid the keel in 2007 for a vessel that’s expected to house two nuclear reactors. The ship, Akademik Lomonosov, is scheduled for delivery in 2016.

Meanwhile, Israel’s IDE Technologies Ltd. is designing a floating water desalination vessel and Turkey’s Karadeniz Holding AS runs a fleet of ‘Powerships’ that carry thermal power plants. The Karadeniz vessels are designed to meet urgent electricity needs and are more akin to traditional ships than floating platforms. The seven ships in Karadeniz’s existing fleet have combined capacity of about 1,000 megawatts.

Solar is also heading beyond Japan’s shores. Kyocera Corp. (6971) and Century Tokyo Leasing Corp. said in August that they plan to build two solar power stations designed to float on the surface of reservoirs. The plants will be installed in Hyogo prefecture in western Japan.

Nuclear Opposition
Floating power stations promise to overcome some of the drawbacks to land-based plants in Japan, where a majority of the population largely opposes nuclear stations in their communities. Fifty-seven percent of respondents to a poll conducted Aug. 2 and Aug. 3 by the Kyodo news service oppose nuclear restarts, while 35 percent are in favor.

Sevan believes the floating platforms can be cost competitive with land-based plants, Major said by e-mail. Still, others are skeptical.

“The technological hurdles to make such a facility will be high, and even if they clear those hurdles, cost issues would remain,” said Hiroshi Takahashi, an energy research fellow at the Fujitsu Research Institute.

Critics say floating power plants would also face obstacles winning approval in local communities with economies based on fishing. And safety concerns remain.

“At issue is when something unpredictable happens on the sea and then the question arises of how the situation can be controlled,” said Shinji Sato, a professor at the University of Tokyo who specializes in coastal engineering. “In terms of tsunamis, it’s safer to be away from the coast but it’s also more dangerous when you consider the action of waves in general the further you get from land.”

Black Ships
IHI, which traces its history to 1853 when predecessor Ishikawajima Shipyard was founded with the arrival of Admiral Perry’s black ships at the end of the samurai era, is already retooling for an offshore future. The heavy-equipment maker remodeled its Aichi yard in central Japan in 2010 as a manufacturing base for offshore structures.

Japan’s new Basic Energy Plan, released in April by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, calls on the nation’s energy industry to more aggressively promote the development of new resources through technologies such as floating production, storage and shipment facilities for liquefied natural gas.

Though the University of Tokyo’s Sato doubts offshore nuclear generation will ever come to Japan, Sevan’s proposal may hold some appeal off the coast of Fukushima as a symbol representing efforts to revitalize the region, he said.

“It’s easier to accept such a facility in a site with specific circumstances like Fukushima,” Sato said.


Power Plants Heading Out to Sea in Post-Fukushima Japan - Bloomberg

 

[Levina]

A combination of floating wind turbines and floating gas fired power plants sounds interesting.

 

[xesy]

I doubt everyone will like this idea. I am personally against it, the risk is too high. A similar accident like Chernobyl will damage the whole world, not a country alone.

 

[Aepsilons]

I doubt everyone will like this idea. I am personally against it, the risk is too high. A similar accident like Chernobyl will damage the whole world, not a country alone.

Its not going to be a nuclear power plant.

 

[xesy]

Its not going to be a nuclear power plant.

Oops, sorry. I just saw the title and the image, and thought it is going to be another nuclear plant.
Still Japan might become the first floating country with this kind of technology. First floating city, then floating power plant. Won't be long before floating farm, floating mining platform appear, right?

 

[Aepsilons]

Oops, sorry. I just saw the title and the image, and thought it is going to be another nuclear plant.
Still Japan might become the first floating country with this kind of technology. First floating city, then floating power plant. Won't be long before floating farm, floating mining platform appear, right?

The plan is to use this for NG acquisition.

 

[senheiser]

October 30, 2014, 10:35 AM
After Fukushima, a glut of green energy in Japan - CBS News

This photo taken on July 1, 2012 shows the large-scale solar power plant at a startup ceremony in Kyoto. KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

• world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and encouraged by the highest rates for renewable energy in the world, Japan has been undergoing a green boom. It's now rapidly turning into a fiasco as the cost proves prohibitive and utilities anticipate putting some nuclear reactors, shuttered since the March 2011 Fukushima disaster, back online. The unfolding green glut in Japan echoes similar experiences in Germany and Spain.
  
  
  
  In an interview with CBS News last year, Takuju Nakamura, the founder of alternative energy company Modec, called the powerful earthquake and resulting tsunami that destroyed parts of the Fukushima Dai-Itchi nuclear power plant a wake-up call.
  
  "After the earthquake, it was a very big shock for the people like us in Japan," he explained to CBS' Seth Doane, adding that his nation -- and its energy infrastructure -- had been inadequately prepared for a disaster of such a magnitude. The disaster moved him, like others, to invest in wind and other green energy projects.
  
  The number of applications for solar facilities with Kyushu Electric jumped to 72,000 in March, about the same for the entire previous year. People were trying to beat the April 1 lowering of the government-set tariff that utilities pay renewable energy producers to 32 yen (30 cents) a kilowatt hour from 36 yen (34 cents). The regular cost of electricity in Japan is about 23 yen per kilowatt hour.
  
  If all the planned solar panels in Japan were installed, their capacity would equal 8 percent of overall energy demand. At the 32 yen tariff, a whopping 3 trillion yen ($30 billion) would be added to electricity bills.
  
  Experts debating policy at a government committee are pushing for an immediate end to the guaranteed rates for solar power.
  
  Oba is not alone in being worried his green energy income will evaporate. Most Japanese who invested in solar had hoped the higher rates for renewable energy would continue for 10 years or longer. Oba fears some green outfits may go bankrupt. Even individual families that put solar panels on their roofs to provide green electricity for their own homes could see the perks they had counted on disappear.
  
  Before the nuclear disaster set off by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, atomic power had provided about a third of Japan's energy needs. Resource-poor Japan imports almost all its oil and natural gas. With all 48 working nuclear reactors now idled, the costs of such imports have weighed heavily on the world's third largest economy.
  
  
  
  
  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's conservative pro-business government is determined to restart at least some of the reactors, and that plan is beginning with Kyushu Electric's two Sendai reactors, which the government says have cleared revamped, post-Fukushima safety standards.
  
  Japan's energy policy, rewritten after the Fukushima crisis, set a goal for renewable energyincluding solar, wind, water and geothermal power to provide about 20 percent of energy needs by 2030.
  
  Before Fukushima, renewable energy in Japan had been virtually zero.
  
  Abe still professes a commitment to green energy but the recent developments raise doubts that also affect foreign investors and local corporations.
  
  U.S. solar companies have aggressively and nimbly set up shop in Japan, including First Solar Inc. and SunPower, in a reversal of the usual history of Japan Inc. being relatively closed to foreign businesses.
  
  Softbank Corp., a Japanese telecommunications and Internet company, which has bought Sprint Corp. of the U.S., also moved into the solar business after Fukushima.
  
  Softbank's founder and CEO Masayoshi Son turned against nuclear power and became an advocate of renewables after his mobile networking went dead in the absence of electric power from the nuclear accident.
  
  The company has built or is planning 20 solar and wind-power facilities in Japan, and is even working on wind generation in the Gobi desert, confident that electricity will become deregulated and decentralized.
  
  Hiroaki Fujii, who heads Softbank's renewable business, SB Energy Corp., said Japan needs to define the overall master-plan of what it sees as the "best mix" for energy including wind, solar and others, instead of blindly heading into a renewable push.
  
  In the future, he believes communities will form around decentralized energy sources, instead of going to a giant utility.
  
  He lamented the mishandling by the Japanese government on the initiatives, and demanded a more open debate.
  
  "We did not learn from the mistakes of Germany," he said.
  
  In Germany, as a result of green policies that began about 2010, and its decision to scale back its dependence on nuclear power after Fukushima in 2011, electricity bills skyrocketed and some people had their power turned off because they couldn't afford to pay.
  
  Yasuhiro Goto, deputy director at the government's New and Renewable Energy Division, acknowledged that some serious sorting out was needed on solar applicants and the tariff system, and that would mean some people interested in the solar business would have to be turned away.
  
  A limited approach had been considered from the start, he said, but the government opted for no limits because it wanted to encourage widespread participation in the green initiative.
  
  Goto urged those who were exasperated, like Oba, to calm down, although he said a solution such as expanding grid access would take time.
  
  "Wait and be patient," he said. "Our plan is going very well. It just went too fast."