30 Years To Clean Up Fukushima Dai-Ichi

0WaitState writes "Damaged reactors at the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant may take three decades to decommission and cost operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. more than 1 trillion yen ($12 billion), engineers and analysts said. Relatedly, Japanese officials and power plant operators are now working on the problems involved with disposing of 55,000 tons of radioactive water. '... international law forbids Japan from dumping contaminated water into the ocean if there are viable technical solutions available later. So the plant operator is considering bringing in barges and tanks, including a so-called megafloat that can hold about 9.5 megalitres. Yet even using barges and tanks to handle the water temporarily creates a future problem of how to dispose of the contaminated vessels.'" Yesterday's 7.1 aftershock caused brief power losses at three other nuclear facilities, and small volumes of contaminated water spilled, but no significant radiation leakage occurred before the problems were resolved.

Comments

Nuclear economics

[mspohr]

Nuclear power has never been economic. It has only existed because of massive government subsidies (research, fuel, insurance, waste disposal, etc.). Also, unlike other technologies, the cost per watt of installed power keeps increasing, not decreasing. This latest disaster will only make it more expensive. Already wind and solar are cheaper per watt of installed power without all the nasty nuclear uncertainties. I doubt that you will see any new nuclear plants in the US solely because of the cost. No sane investor would fund a nuclear power plant now.

I rather think that this is a good thing.

Re:Nuclear economics

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it wont replace base power load generation UNTIL PEOPLE LIKE YOU GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND WE START DEPLOYING IT MASSIVELY!

But we wont. You just keep repeating your talking points.

Whole fucking country could be on 100% clean renewable energy by now. If we shot a few of the first people to start spouting shit like "will never completely replace base load power generation such as nuclear plants".

Just keep repeating it until it's true.

The same is true of other sources

[wiredog]

Consider the costs of coal. The radiological problem of the coal ash. The excess CO2. That cost, right there, is not being accounted for.