International edition of the Japanese echo-news journal with exclusive in-depth reports, and summaries of what the other Japanese medias are saying.

Q:Martin Colleen from the German Financial Daily Handlesplot.
I have on follow up situation and a question is regarding the nuclear plant situaion in Fukushima. Regarding this frozen wall, I heard this ice wall also could work as neutron reflector and basically increase the risk of criticality in the reactor core, have you heard about this concern and what do you think about it? maybe to two or three participants.

And that my other question is about Fukushima. How big do you think the regional impact of this accident will enlarge in the future, will this be still be a wide scale risk for a large area, or a local problem?

Jazcko: I’ve not heard of the issue of neutron reflection. And my gut reaction says that it would not necessary be an issue. You have water at the site. So, I would be skeptical about that to be an issue to be concerned about. But certainly I’m sure it is something that should be looked at it. There is a possibility that I would not initially think that it is something to be concerned.

In terms of the overall impact of the accident, ultimately I think it’s a question of , a kind of questions of resources. So in principle, you can clean up and you can decontaminate and decommission everything a century back to the reactor buildings predominantly. It’s simply becomes a question of cost. You can remediate soil, you can remove soil, you can clean the contaminated buildings, you can remove all these material. So it just becomes a question of how much cost you want to incur, and how much dose you want to incur. That is a very very difficult question. But that will determine the extent really this accident will have in the future.

And I think my expectation will be that it’s likely to continue to be somewhat of causal original impact for decades to come. Once you disturb a community, it’s really difficult to repopulate a community. People have moved on and they have to take new jobs, develop and create new communities. To then, say, ten years from now, why don’t you go back to your home that you had ten years ago is just not realistic. Because maybe none of their friends want to go back, none of the doctors want to go back, none of the car dealers want to go back… you can’t recreate the community that easily after such a long court of time. So I think you’ll see it will be difficult to recreate those communities that were evacuated because of the long jeopardy of evacuation.

Q. My question is… what is your assessment, Dr Jaczko, of the state of the Fukushima accident. Is it an ongoing crisis? Is it…Japan declared it cold shutdown in 2011. Yet, everyday they are still pumping the water under the ground and in June, radioactive steam was caught coming from the ground. Is it really cold shutdown, or is there still some ongoing nuclear reaction happening? What would you assess the situation in Fukushima is right now?

A. I would say it’s an ongoing challenge. It’s not an ongoing crisis, it will be an ongoing challenge for decades. In terms of the reactor safety itself, there does appear to be sufficent cooling. Recriticallity heating does not appear to be a problem or an issue of concern. But that in itself creates a problem because it needs to continualy provide water cooling creates this issue of continualy contaminating water. So you create this environmental contamination problem that you’ll have to deal with the very significant skill. These difficult issues that immediate crisis is over. But these issues will go on for decades. I mean that there is no solution that makes this go away tomorrow.

Q. How long will it take pump water to cool down?

A. Years. Before they get to a point of being to air cool it. It depend to some extent on the fuel configuration depending on how much… depending on how the fuel has melted to what extend it can be cool by air. So you just won’t know these things for how long years to come. There is just no simple answer. That is I think the difficult issue to confront, is that to some extent cold shutdown. I actually came out here in December 2011 as they reach the cold shutdown phase. And that was a very significant milestone. Because it definitely reduces the concerns from the fuel and the airborne contamination when you get to cold shutdown. But it did not end the ongoing accident to some extent. That really put an end of crisis but the accident will continue for decades really.

Q. My name is Crowell from Nuclear Intelligence Weekly. Would you recommend to the Japanese that they set up something similar to the United Kingdom, decommissioning authority, to take in ahead not only the Fukushima units but the several other units that have already been announced for slightly decommissioning Hamaoka 1 and 2, 5 and 6 in Fukushima, some other plants in Fukui prefecture that are all sitting on possibly active faults?

A. From what I’ve seen, the government has engaged more in the direct clean up activities. Ultimately in my view TEPCO is the responsible party for this accident and TEPCO needs to be held accountable. The part of the accountability means being responsible for the clean up activities. Now I think there need to be strong overside element on the part of the regulators and on the part of the government to ensure that the way that they will ensure the safety. But my personal philosophy is you need to hold accountable and particular private sector entities that have accidents like this. And turning to a government corporation to assume the responsibility for clean up absolve I think the private corporation in responsibility to do that. It’s not something that I think you would… you would be consistent with that principle. But clearly TEPCO has had challenges, clearly they need to be the significant overside of the work they do. So ultimately, public health and safety is assured. And if in the end it’s determined that TEPCO cannot be, then, there may need to be a new entity to take over specifiicly those decommissioning activities.

Q. Par Norben again from Real Politica. I wonder what’s your reaction to Mr. Abe’s talks about everything is alright, everything is no problem etc. and the question is for the three of you.

A. Tsutsui: I believe this is a very wrong expression.

(Laugh)

Jaczko: Yeah, there is in a context lot of these statements were made in the context of Tokyo Olympics. There is no immediate impact from the contamination issues at the moment in Fukushima Daiichi plant on Tokyo. It is an ongoing challenge. It is to some extent what was unlreached was a force beyond human control. What you can do is trying to mitigate that. But you can’t really control it. You cannot control ground water. You can try and do things to mitigate the impact of the ground water on the site. But whatever whether it is tonight whether Mr. Tsuitsui’s proposal, whatever system you build, the ground water will find away around it, and into an end, affect it. Any of you have homes and you probably have had leaks in your homes. Water is a terrible poor entity in that regard. So to talk about control or not controling, I think it is the words in terms but clearly there are ongoing challenges, clearly they need to be continuous monitoring.

And I think the good thing about some of these leaks is it’s reengaged the awareness of the issue that the attention and focus will be back on this activity. And it’s hard to stay focused on something like this for decades. But that’s what’s needed. There is very risks significant activities happening next several months with attempts to remove fuel from unit 4 spent fuel pool. That’s a very significant activity and it is also unprecedent. There are significant structural damages to the unit 4 spent fuel pool, new structures have to be created. They are going to have to lift significant debris from the pools. These are all very very unprecedented activities. There will be challenges without activity I’m sure. So there needs to be a lot of focus and there’re needs to be a lot of conservatism, people need to think about these things with safety first and foremost in mind and take these activities solely. At the end of the day I don’t think there is any impact certainly in Tokyo. But there is need for greater overside for sure.

(Probably you would have said that better than I did… laugh) (to Mr. Tsuitsui & his interpretor)

Q. Thank you very much. This is Masa Ota, This is a Japanese wire news, Kyodo News.

Dr. Jaczko, I would like to ask a you a question on the nuclear waste disposal problem in this country. You have your own problem in your backyard. We have in Japan 40 petrolic tons to separate the plutonium already but the ongoing process of nuclear power plants are going to be accumulating plutonium in the future. Would you have any good prescription for Japanese public and the Japanese government to deal with this nuclear waste problem of this country? Maybe a temporary storage or a direct diposal would be a good option for the future . Could you make any comment on that? Thank you very much.

A. I think there are 2 issues. One, you have to spend fuel issue in the management of the spent fuel which generally can be done safely for periods of at least a hundred years or so with active management and strong oversight. To separate plutonium is a different issue and that needs to be protected not only from the safety perspective by platform 4 from security perspective because of the concerns of that material poses for use in the nuclear weapons. That is very significant issue and I think going forward is certainly and in particularly if the reactor problem is going to shut down obviously, there is very little reason to continue to separate plutonium and reproduce mox fuel. And given the uncertainty right now with the reactor problem, I would think that it’s proven to reexamine the need for the separation and going forward.

The program host:We have time for 2 more questions gentlemen. Otherwise I’m gonna ask questions.

A. Torgen Johnson: I just want to respond to your question. There is 2 ways to look at the problem. The problem within facility is one question. But then there is the answer to the surrounding communities and their reality is not OK. It hasn’t been resolved. So it depends on how you frame this problem and I think that was the point of coming here was to expand the definition of the problem. Their communities and they are primarily impacted and there are people still living there is radiologically considered as hotzone and children living there. I think those are the issues when the comment generallisation and everything is fine. It’s perhaps an insult to the people who are confronting this reality and are generally now ignored.

Q. My name is Maria Meguchi with AP.

I would like to ask Dr Jaczko a question related to the contaminated water situation. You mentioned a little bit earlier there were some discussion how much water should be put in to the reactors at the very beginning between the US and Japan. Was there clear awareness of the situation like this happening right now on both sides, was there dicussion about how it should have been or should be handled at the beginning? How do you evaluate the situation or the handling taken by the japanese side at the time?

A. Jaczko: The short answer is Yes. This was known from the beginning that there would potentially be this contamination problem until large volumes of water were be put into the reactor buildings to essentially, to ultimately cool the reactors. It wasn’t known the extent of the leakage that would develop from that. But it was always a possibility that was considered. There were early plans to drive metal plates into the ground to kind of form a sea wall to prevent the ground water migration. We believe those plans were never implemented because of the inability to properly put those plates in without causing any damage. So it’s been known for a long time that this would be an issue. My biggest surprise is to some extent how it’s been allowed to deteriorate a little bit and how it’s almost become a surprise again that there are contamination problem that there is leakage out to the sea. So that’s really the bigger concern to my mind, how the focus was lost, on the need to continue to address this ground water contamination problem.

Q. I am Rick Quesper, I have a Scientific Editing and Translation Service. It’s clear that invest interest has a very big voice on decision making on these issues. And even in the United States and in Japan, it’s difficult to come to consensus about what to do. At the same time, we have major export of nuclear technology and build nuclear energy in a lot of country that have much less of a democratic tradition. Can you say anything about what the future looks like in the countries where there may be more authoritarian control over decisions about energy? And the consequences of building an energy in such societies? Thank you.

A. Torgen Johnson,: From my personal experience, in the United States, from citizen’s perspective, it was very hard to have a say in any of the decisions. About something as simple as decommissioning of a power plant that basically reach the end of its useful life. The other issues that you have just mentioned is a much major issue. We are talking about proliferation of certain material, plutonium and so forth. This is a much larger question. One of the reasons why I have 3 small children I would like to see us here all in this room, open up this dialogue much wider. So my kids aren’t addressing this issue. 25 years from now. And I think it’s… this is a larger public discussion that number of people in Japan will have right now. It’s a turning point. This energy paradigm shift has with it also weapons component to it which is bigger discussion beyond myself. The public needs to be at the see absolutely. I don’t think that the public wants to see this technology proliferating in a way that we lose control of. These materials weighing up in the hands of unstable governments. This is a kind of discussion that Japanese have asked to expand on. Here the Japanese public has evastated. They don’t want to see these decisions be made by industry that’s excluding the public from those discussions.

The program host: Normally we take more questions, but the gentlemen have to get to the airport.I’d like to thank all three of them for coming today. From CCJ. Here is a honorary membership, come back to Japan anytime, and feast on delicious cesium-free fish and chips that we have at the bar. Let’s get them some applause.

【Yumi Onodera, Takanori Eto & Hayato Ishii 】