Perilous
Times
Fukushima nuclear meltdown� �Dead Zone� expands as Radiation
levels in Soil Soars
By Yuriy Humber and Stuart Biggs - June 02, 2011 3:47 AM PT
Bloomburg News
Radioactive soil in pockets of areas near Japan�s crippled nuclear
plant have reached higher levels than Chernobyl, where a �dead
zone� remains 25 years after the reactor in the former Soviet
Union exploded.
Soil samples in areas outside the 20-kilometer (12 miles)
exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant measured more than 1.48
million becquerels a square meter, the standard used for
evacuating residents after the Chernobyl accident, Tomio Kawata, a
fellow at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, said
in a research report published May 24 and given to the government.
Radiation from the plant has spread over 600 square kilometers
(230 square miles), according to the report. The extent of
contamination shows the government must move fast to avoid the
same future for the area around Tokyo Electric Power Co.�s
Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant as Chernobyl, scientists said. Technology
has improved since the 1980s, meaning soil can be decontaminated
with chemicals or by planting crops to absorb radioactive
materials, allowing residents to return.
�We need to finish this treatment as quickly as possible, within
three years at most,� Tetsuo Iguchi, a specialist in isotope
analysis and radiation detection at Nagoya University in central
Japan, said in a telephone interview. �If we take longer, people
will give up on returning to their homes.�
Soil Samples
Soil samples showed one site with radiation from Cesium-137
exceeding 5 million becquerels per square meter about 25
kilometers to the northwest of the Fukushima plant, according to
Kawata�s study. Five more sites about 30 kilometers from Dai- Ichi
showed radiation exceeding 1.48 million becquerels per square
meter.
When asked to comment on the report today, Tokyo Electric
spokesman Tetsuya Terasawa said the radiation levels are in line
with those found after a nuclear bomb test, which disperses
plutonium. He declined to comment further.
Japan�s government introduced a mandatory exclusion zone 20
kilometers around the plant following the March 11 earthquake and
tsunami that knocked out power leading to three reactor meltdowns.
Kawata�s study didn�t include samples from inside the exclusion
zone, where only government and Tokyo Electric staff may enter.
The government in April ordered the evacuation of towns including
Iitate, Katsurao and Namie that are outside the 20- kilometer zone
after finding high levels of radiation.
�As Soon As Possible�
�Basically, the way in which the current zones have been drawn up
aren�t a concern in terms of the impact on health,� said Chief
Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. �Using Mr. Kawata�s report as a
guide, we want to do what we can to improve the soil, so people
can return as soon as possible.�
While the area containing soil pockets over 1.48 million
becquerels a square meter is smaller than around Chernobyl --600
square kilometers compared with 3,100 square kilometers -- the
level of contamination means soil needs to be cleaned or removed
before residents can return, Kawata said in his report.
�It might take about one or two years for people to return to land
outside the 20-kilometer zone,� the University of Nagoya�s Iguchi
said. �If we replace the soil, it is possible for people to return
even inside the zone.�
The �dead zone� around Chernobyl remains at 30 kilometers, Mykola
Kulinich, Ukraine�s ambassador to Japan, said in Tokyo on April
26, the 25th anniversary of the disaster.
Chernobyl Fallout
Belarus, which absorbed 80 percent of the fallout from the
Chernobyl explosion, estimates that 2 million, or 20 percent of
the population, was affected by the Chernobyl catastrophe, while
about 23 percent of the country�s land was contaminated, according
to a Belarus embassy website. About a fifth of the country�s
agricultural land has been rendered unusable, which means some
$700 million in losses each year, according to the website.
Using crops was one solution being considered by Belarus with the
idea that grains harvested from contaminated areas could then be
processed to make ethanol. A study funded by a philanthropy arm of
Heineken NV (HEIA) found that radioactive elements do not transfer
into ethanol and this would allow Belarus to become a major
supplier of the liquid used to dilute gasoline to the European
Union.
Crop planting was planned in areas of �low-level� radiation,
Michael Rietveld, chief executive officer of Ireland�s Greenfield
Partners, which agreed with the Belarus government in 2007 to
develop an ethanol business project to decontaminate the soil,
said in an interview October 2009.
Crop Planting
�There are cows walking over this land now,� Rietveld said in
reference to Belarus. �People are living over there. It�s not a
dangerous venture to use crops in low-contaminated areas. Most of
the contamination is in the soil not the air.�
The global financial crisis hampered Greenfield�s fund raising and
the project closed last year after the Belarus government
expressed concerns about the Irish company�s ability to attract
financing.
Another solution for Fukushima may be chemical treatment of the
soil to allow cesium to be absorbed into porous crystals, such as
zeolite, which are more visible and simpler to remove, the
University of Nagoya�s Iguchi said.
Restoring the land may be more critical in Japan than Belarus,
where the population density is about 46 people per square
kilometer, according to United Nations data. That�s more than
seven times less than the metric for Japan, where 127.6 million
people live on about 378,000 square kilometers.
Restoring land use in Fukushima hinges on Tokyo Electric, known as
Tepco, ending the crisis at the nuclear station, where three
reactors went into meltdown following the earthquake and tsunami
that also left more than 23,000 people dead or missing.
The utility on April 17 set out a so-called road map to end the
crisis in six to nine months. Tepco said it expects to achieve a
sustained drop in radiation levels at the plant within three
months, followed by a cold shutdown, where core reactor
temperatures fall below 100 degrees Celsius.
The chance of Tepco achieving that goal is six or seven out of 10,
William Ostendorff, a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, said at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee earlier this week.
Tepco has yet to decide how to deal with the plant site, Megumi
Iwashita, a spokeswoman for the company said on May 26.
The most cost-effective solution may be to allow the cesium to
move down into the soil to decay, Kathryn Higley, a radiation
health physicist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, said in
a telephone interview. Cesium has a half-life of about 30 years,
according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
�They�re going to make decisions on an acre-by-acre basis as to
what�s going to happen to these facilities,� she said. �The area
around Chernobyl is now a nature park. When you move 100,000
people out of an area, nature does pretty well.�