Japanese authorities tried pouring water on overheated reactors from a helicopter but abandoned the effort because of radiation risks.
(Credit: NHK/screenshot by Stephen Shankland)
Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the collection of nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant suffering major problems after an earthquake and tsunami, hopes a new power line will alleviate cooling difficulties.
The plant has been without power since Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake, and backup generators to keep the nuclear fuel from overheating failed after the tsunamis. But the power company is working to connect new power lines, according to media reports, a move that could restore cooling systems.
The power line is almost complete, Canada's Globe and Mail quoted Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Naoki Tsunoda as saying. He didn't predict when it would be finished, though.
This illustration, based on a GeoEye satellite photo viewed through Google Earth, shows the locations of the six Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors.
(Credit: Photo from Google and GeoEye; graphic by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
High radiation levels prevented workers from connecting the lines to the power plant facilities using a "makeshift switchboard," NHK, Japan's state broadcaster, said Thursday. (NHK broadcasts over Ustream for those who want live updates from Japan.)
Wednesday's efforts at cooling reactor buildings included an aborted attempt to drop water from a helicopter. Another plan involves spraying water from a water cannon.
Fukushima Daiichi has six reactors. Numbers 1, 2, and 3 were operating when the earthquake struck, while numbers 4, 5, and 6 had been shut down for an inspection. All have cooling requirements, since even when not operating nuclear fuel can be extremely hot. Excess heat, if not removed with circulating water, can cause fuel rods to melt, leading to much greater risks of contamination.
Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake and its resulting tsunamis have killed thousands, with thousands more missing.
Steam rising from a nuclear reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
(Credit: NHK/screenshot by Stephen Shankland)
By Stephen Shankland who writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science.
The nuclear accident at Japan's troubled Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex appears to be heading from very bad to critical in the wake of the third explosion in four days, a fire in one of the plant's spent fuel ponds, and radiation readings spiking to deadly levels within the plant.
Authorities in Tokyo, 140 miles southwest of the plant, observed rising radiation levels yesterday, and anecdotal reports of residents leaving Tokyo are mounting. Meanwhile, iodine pills to ward off nuclear poisoning are selling out in some cities on the West Coast of the United States and Canada, despite assurances from nuclear safety authorities that the risk of harmful exposures in North America is minimal.
Whatever the immediate dangers to health, one clear victim is the growing confidence in nuclear energy internationally. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's announcement today was the most decisive turnabout in response to the crisis—she suspended her government's decision just last year to extend the operating life of Germany's nuclear power plants. She also ordered the immediate shutdown of seven plants built before 1980; officials say the plants will remain closed for safety evaluations through at least June.
Similarly doomed could be Italian utility Enel's plans to revive nuclear energy. Enel and France's Electricité de France have proposed the construction of four reactors that could provide a quarter of Italy's electricity, but they must first win a referendum that would overturn Italy's post-Chernobyl nuclear moratorium. The vote is set for this spring.
In an interview with Bloomberg News, the Indian Nuclear Power Corporation's chairman acknowledged that Japan's crisis could be "a big dampener" for his country's plans to invest in nuclear generation by 2030. China, however, was holding firm on its nuclear ambitions. The Chinese government issued a statement Monday affirming its massive shift toward nuclear power—with over a dozen reactors in construction.
The unfolding tragedy's impact on a nascent revival of reactor construction in the United States is too early to call, say experts. "It will be at least the end of the week before we will know enough about the progression of these accidents to assess policy outcomes," says Per Peterson, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. "Much will depend upon whether any radiation deaths or significant land contamination result."
So far, the Obama administration is standing by hopes for a nuclear renaissance. Daniel Poneman, the U.S. deputy secretary of energy, said at a White House news conference Monday that nuclear has a key role in the U.S. power mix: "We have 104 operating reactors—that's 20 percent of the electricity of this country; 70 percent of the carbon-free electricity in this country comes from nuclear power. We view nuclear energy as a very important component to the overall portfolio we're trying to build for a clean energy future."
However, some in Congress are pushing for a rethink. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and a longtime nuclear supporter, told CBS News this weekend that the U.S. should "quickly put the brakes" on reactor construction until the Japanese incidents are analyzed.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is expected to vote this year on the first of two construction permits; the most advanced is Southern Company's proposal to build two new reactors at its Vogtle, Georgia, nuclear power plant. Southern has conditional approval for an $8.3-billion federal loan guarantee to backstop its financing and has broken ground at the site.
Meanwhile, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts) has been critical of the NRC's decision-making on the Westinghouse AP1000—the reactor design for half of the 28 reactors proposed in the U.S., including Southern's. Markey sent a letter to the NRC last week criticizing its plan to approve the AP1000 this spring or summer despite a dissenting opinion from one of its senior engineers, who has raised doubts about the earthquake hardiness of the AP1000's concrete-steel hybrid containment building.
The earthquake concerns, ironically, undermine confidence in the passive safety system designed to make the AP1000 less vulnerable to the power blackout that sparked the Japanese crisis. The AP1000 holds a pool of water above the reactor, ready to flood it via gravity. But Markey's letter suggests that if the AP1000's containment building is compromised by an earthquake, the passive cooling system could fail.
Southern Company released a statement yesterday saying that its leadership "continues to monitor the recent events in Japan, and remains committed to completing the new Vogtle units on schedule and on budget." The statement argues that the site's seismic risk is "much lower" than Japan's, as is the risk of a tsunami 130 miles from the Atlantic coast and 220 feet above sea level.
The French nuclear engineering firm Areva also defended its EPR design, which is also pending NRC approval. While the EPR relies on active pumping to maintain reactor cooling, an Areva spokesman told Technology Review yesterday that it has extra backup generators for added redundancy. And the diesel tanks to fuel the EPR's generators would be protected by bunkers, unlike those that were washed away by Friday's tsunami in Japan.
David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and director for nuclear safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, is critical of the NRC's policing of safety at existing plants in the U.S. He wants the NRC to take a second look at critical vulnerabilities to power blackouts, including outdated fire-suppression equipment and battery-power backups that, at most U.S. plants, provide for only four hours of reactor cooling—half the capacity of batteries at Japanese plants. "We're light compared to what Japan had, and Japan came up short," says Lochbaum.
Just as serious is the U.S. nuclear operators' heavy reliance on cooling ponds rather than more expensive but safer dry-cask storage of their spent fuel. Lochbaum notes that the spent fuel ponds for 23 U.S. reactors are in the attic of their concrete reactor buildings—structures that were blown away by the first two hydrogen explosions at Fukushima.
Civil defence relief workers stand together after an earthquake and tsunami swept through Otsuchi, in the Iwate prefecture, eastern Japan March 15, 2011.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Another fire broke out on Wednesday at an earthquake-crippled Japanese nuclear plant that has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo and triggered international alarm, suggesting that the crisis may be slipping out of control.
Academics and nuclear experts agree that the solutions being proposed to contain damage to the Daiichi reactors at Fukushima, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, are last-ditch efforts to stem what could well be remembered as one of the world's worst industrial disasters.
While public broadcaster NHK said flames were no longer visible at the building housing the No.4 reactor of the plant, Japanese TV pictures showed smoke rising from the facility at mid-morning (1000 local, 0100 GMT).
Experts say spent fuel rods in a cooling pool at the No. 4 reactor could be exposed by the fire and spew more radiation into the atmosphere. Operator Tokyo Electric Power said it was considering using a helicopter to dump boric acid, a fire retardant, on the facility.
Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said two workers were missing after blasts at the facility a day earlier blew a hole in the building housing the No. 4 reactor.
In the first hint of international frustration at the pace of updates from Japan, Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he wanted more timely and detailed information.
"We do not have all the details of the information so what we can do is limited," Amano told a news conference in Vienna. "I am trying to further improve the communication."
Several experts said that Japanese authorities were underplaying the severity of the incident, particular on a scale called INES used to rank nuclear incidents. The Japanese have so far rated the accident a four on a one-to-seven scale, but that rating was issued on Saturday and since then the situation has worsened dramatically.
"This is a slow-moving nightmare," said Dr Thomas Neff, a research affiliate at the Center for International Studies, which is part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "This could be a five or a six -- it's premature to say since this event is not over yet."
France's nuclear safety authority ASN said Tuesday it should be classed as a level-six incident. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Tuesday urged people within 30 km (18 miles) of the facility -- a population of 140,000 -- to remain indoors, as authorities grappled with the world's most serious nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986.
Officials in Tokyo said radiation in the capital was 10 times normal at one point but not a threat to human health in the sprawling high-tech city of 13 million people.
The best advice experts could give them was to stay indoors, close the windows and avoid breathing bad air -- steps very similar to those for handling a smog alert or avoiding influenza.
While these steps may sound inconsequential, experts said the danger in Tokyo, while worrisome, is slight -- at least for now.
"Everything I've seen so far suggests there have been nominal amounts of material released. Therefore, the risks are generally low to the population," Jerrold Bushberg, who directs programs in health physics at the University of California at Davis, said in a telephone interview.
BEIJING — China's Premier Wen Jiabao rejected any comparison Monday between his country and the unrest-hit Middle East, but said Beijing faced a tough test dealing with inflation and other hot-button issues.
"We face extremely daunting tasks and complex domestic and international situations," Wen told reporters in an annual press briefing after the close of the nation's parliament session.
China's ruling Communist Party is grappling with a range of problems such as inflation, official corruption, huge environmental degradation, and land grabs by property developers who kick off existing residents.
The leadership has thus watched with concern the unrest that has hit several nations in the Middle East and North Africa, but Wen rejected any comparison between China and those countries.
"We have followed closely the turbulence in some North African and Middle Eastern countries. We believe it is not right to draw an analogy between China and those countries," Wen told reporters.
Beijing has targeted more balanced and sustainable development and fairer distribution of wealth under a new growth plan for the next five years that calls for a more moderate seven percent annual economic expansion.
The plan was approved by the congress on Monday.Wen said balanced development will remain the government's priority but admitted it will be a challenge keeping growth in the world's second-largest economy fast enough to create jobs, but moderate enough to prevent inflation worsening.
"It will not be easy to achieve the seven percent target while also ensuring a good quality of economic development," he said.
Decades of blistering export-dependent growth have made China's economy a force in the world, but Beijing has struggled to spread the wealth evenly among its 1.3 billion population.
"Over the next five years and for a long period of time to come in the course of China's development, we will make the transformation of China's economic development pattern our priority."
Inflation tops the government's agenda and while pledging further efforts to contain rising prices of food, housing and other essentials, Wen likened that battle to the challenge of corralling a tiger.
"Inflation is having a big impact on China, this is a factor that is not easy to control," he said.
"Inflation is like a tiger; once it gets free, it is difficult to put back in the cage."
Inflation has remained stubbornly high -- 4.9 percent in both January and February -- despite a series of policy steps including three recent interest rate hikes.
The consumer price index rose by a more than two-year high of 5.1 percent in November. Inflation has a history of sparking unrest in China, with its hundreds of millions of poor farmers and low-paid workers scraping to get by.
Wen took a swipe at monetary steps taken by the United States, which in November undertook massive stimulus spending known as "quantitative easing" in a bid to jump-start the weak American economy.
"Some countries have pursued a quantitative easing that has caused fluctuations in exchange rates of some currencies and affected global commodity prices," he said.
China has annually set an eight percent economic growth target -- considered the minimum required to keep the economy growing fast enough to stave off social unrest.
That goal is routinely surpassed each year. In 2010, the economy grew 10.3 percent.
Wen called corruption - another key factor inn the Middle East unrest - the "bigger danger" faced by China and said political reform was necessary to help combat it.
"Without political reform, economic reform cannot succeed and the achievements we have made may be lost" Wen said.
