THE FUTURE OF FISSION NUCLEAR POWER

Tokyo Electric Power, operator of the damaged Fukushima nuclear facility, discharged 11,500 tons of untreated water into the Pacific Ocean.  That was way back on 5 April 2011, almost a month after that Great Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Cataclysm.  That chart is NOAA's accounting of where this radioactive fluid went two years later.

Wikipedia reported on the most recent discharge of radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant:

Discharge of radioactive water of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean began on 24 August 2023, following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster triggered by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011 in Japan. Due to the massive tsunami that disabled the cooling systems at the nuclear plant, three reactors experienced meltdowns, leaving behind melted fuel debris. Water used subsequently to cool the debris became contaminated with radioactive nuclides.^[3] The majority of these radioactive materials resulted in immediate atmospheric leaks, with 80% eventually depositing into the ocean and nearby rivers.^[4]

Leakage to groundwater had persisted since the disaster and was only first admitted by the nuclear plant in 2013.^[5] Since then, the contaminated water has been treated using the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) to eliminate most radionuclides,^[3][6] except tritium with a half-life of 12.32 years and carbon-14 with a half-life exceeding 5,000 years.^[7][8]

In 2021, the Japanese cabinet approved the dumping of ALPS-treated water, which after diluted has tritium and carbon-14 levels reportedly meeting safety standards, into the ocean over a course of 30 years.^[9] The move of discharging radioactive water of the nuclear plant into the ocean faces concerns and criticism from other countries and international organisations.

On this nostalgic Tuesday, I thus look back at those days more than a dozen years ago, for I landed in Tokyo the day after all that happened.  Read my ordeal, which continued on for another month.  Effectively, I described my blog efforts as THE CHICKEN AND CHICKEN LITTLE SCHOOL OF REPORTAGE. 

Almost seven months later, which takes me into October of 2011, I found myself re-living that terrible saga, that is, flying from Bangkok to Tokyo and commented on Fukushima:

  -  The Fukushima (Lucky Isle in Japanese) danger zone is 25 times smaller than Chernobyl's, but the prefecture where these nuclear powerplants are located had a population of 2 million and was half the land size of Belgium.

  -  Japan is excruciating as to how the radioactive debris will be treated and disposed.

  -  No matter how you spin it, Fukushima Prefecture:

      -  will for a long, long time be stigmatized by the fact anyone from this location might have radiation (jobs, marriage, whatever),

      -  agriculture and tourism will probably never recover,

      -  many will never be able to return home in their lifetime,

  -  I'll not try to explain it here, but click on "why Fukushima is more dangerous than Hiroshima and Nagasaki" to appreciate the dark implications of nuclear fission powerplants.

That was my Huffington Post article entitled:

Why Worry About Fukushima When Hiroshima and Nagasaki Are Safe?

You would have thought that fission nuclear power would then just go away, especially now with the fact that they cost more than renewable energy to produce a kilowatt of electricity.  The exact opposite is occurring:

• 440 nuclear plants in 32 countries plus Taiwan that provide 390,000 megawatts, or around 10% of the world's electricity.
• 60 reactors are today in construction in 15 countries.
• 100 new nuclear power reactors are on order or planned, with 300 more being proposed.
• The International Energy Agency sees an installed nuclear capacity growth of OVER 43% from 2020 to 2050, reaching a capacity of 590,000 MW.  Most of this new capacity will be in China and India.
• However, the IEA estimates that these nuclear power plants will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 13% in 2050. 
• At the current rate of lifetime extensions, future operating lifetime of fission nuclear powerplants is being increased to 60 years of life.

Sure there will be future accidents and natural disasters, but what worries me most is terrorism.  With the capability of remote drone missiles, the danger has increased.  Worse, even one person working in such a facility could trigger another China Syndrome.

My African Blood Lily season is nearing an end, three weeks after it began.

Hurricane Idalia will be at least a Category 3 when she makes landfall over Florida tomorrow.  Earlier today, she was not even a hurricane.  At last check, she was up to 100MPH and strengthening.  The good news is that Idalia's eye will miss population centers.  The bad is that there will be the surge of wind-driven seawater and the threat of tornadoes.  Depends on your source, Idalia is a female name with origins in Greece, Italy and or Spain.

Then there is Super Typhoon Saola in the West Pacific.  Yesterday, "only" 105 MPH.  Now, 155 MPH.  The good news, though, is that the path of the eye will move safely between the Philippines and Taiwan, then just before reaching Hong Kong as a Category 2, there will be a turn to the left, a weakening and a projection towards Hainan as a tropical storm.

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