# FUKUSHIMA: ALL THE DIRT

John Paull

► To cite this version:

John Paull. FUKUSHIMA: ALL THE DIRT. Nuclear Potential and Possible Threats to the Modern World, Wayscience, Oct 2024, Dnipro, Ukraine. pp.8-11. [hal-04740777](https://hal.science/hal-04740777v1)

HAL Id: hal-04740777

https://hal.science/hal-04740777v1

Submitted on 17 Oct 2024

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# FUKUSHIMA: ALL THE DIRT

Paull, John

PhD

University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

j.paull@utas.edu.au

The Fukushima catastrophe has generated over 14 million cubic metres of contaminated dirt [1]. It is presently in 'interim storage' at the Fukushima precinct of Japan (290 km north of Tokyo). What is to be done with it? IAEA experts propose potting mix, road base, and agricultural substrate.

The disposal of nuclear waste is a 'wicked' problem, a problem that lacks a ready solution but not for want of trying. Three quarters of a century of the nuclear industry have produced a steady stream of nuclear waste disposal propositions [2]. The quest for the 'holy grail' of an enduring and socially and environmentally acceptable nuclear waste solution marches forward on a diet of hope and hype.

The outcome of a nuclear catastrophe ups the ante on solving the problems of radioactive contamination and waste. For the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe of 1986, the 'solution' has been to slam the door shut on the 'contaminated zone' and build a massive dome, a radiation shield, over the failed reactor [3, 4] Forty years later and the exclusion zone, with a radius of 30 kilometres, remains a no-go zone for living or industry. Ukraine is a large country and abandoning, in perpetuity, the Chernobyl site, the nearby city of Pripyat, and surrounding areas is, perhaps, a tolerable impost.

The Fukushima nuclear catastrophe of 11 March, 2011, in the small and densely populated country of Japan, has generated a "non-habitable area" [5]. An enduring no-go zone will be a potent reiteration of the 'wickedness' of the problem of disposing of radioactive waste. Japan is pursuing a path of site "decontamination and remediation" [5, p.1] which is, in practice, socialising the harms and exporting the waste both within and without Japan.

The Fukushima catastrophe has generated 1.3 billion litres of radioactive liquid waste (viz. radioactive water) [6] and 14 million cubic metres of radioactive solid waste (viz. radioactive soil and ash) [1, 7]. Japan has pursued a bad-neighbour policy of dumping its radioactive liquid waste in the Pacific Ocean [6]. This is an irreversible 'solution' which exports Japan's problem beyond the shores of Japan and puts the radioactive waste beyond recall.

The Fukushima catastrophe has generated 13.79 million cubic metres of contaminated soil along with 300,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste ash [1]. That is enough dirt to fill 5,636 Olympic swimming pools*, but who has the spare five thousand Olympic swimming pools to host such problematic waste?

Alternatively, in a move worthy of the Monty Python script-writing team, the team of IAEA experts have, in their 'Final Report', come up with a novel solution to the Fukushima dirt problem - a potting mix proposal! From Monty Python it just might be funny, from the IAEA experts it reveals the paucity of solutions to nuclear waste, and just how far they have ventured from any citizen-reality and any prospective social-licence.

If the experts potty solution of nuclear potting mix is to be entertained, the waste could fill over 4 billion pot plants (at 5 kg per pot)** [1] (Fig.1). But who would be the happy recipients of this Fuku-dirt? Will they be knowing or unknowing recipients? Memo to self: 'Don't buy cheap potting mix from Japan'.

The IAEA experts propose two categories of nuclear waste dirt. Seventy five percent is to be "recycled", with proposals of potting mix, road-base, and farm substrate [1]. The remaining 25% awaits a "final disposal", proposed as in trenches "without liner", in trenches "with liner", and in a "concrete vault" [1, pp.52-53]. Such "final" solutions are to be implemented "within 30 years after the start of interim storage (by March 2045)" [1, p.51].
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.** IAEA experts propose nuclear waste as potting mix [source: 1, p.69]</figcaption></figure>

The Fukushima nuclear waste stockpile is presently stored as the 'Interim Storage Facility' (ISF), nearby the precincts of the Fukushima nuclear reactor complex (viz. the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station). The IAEA identifies that the objective is to eventually dispose of the waste (mostly) somewhere other than Fukushima [1]. Get Fukushima below an exclusion contamination level and 'bingo' it has been 'rehabilitated'. But how and where to distribute the Fukushima dirt?

Japan has a big problem named 'Fukushima'. Two dimensions of that problem are the 1.3 billion litres of radioactive water and 14 million cubic metres of radioactive dirt. The IAEA is the great proponent and apologist of nuclear power. Their endorsement of dumping Japan's radioactive liquid waste into the Pacific Ocean reveals that there is no mechanism to dispose of radioactive liquid waste - dumping it in the ocean does not warrant being called 'a solution'.

The IAEA potty proposal of radioactive potting mix highlights the reality that there is no solution to the disposal of radioactive solid waste - potting mix is hardly a solution.

Road-base is another 'solution' of the IAEA experts (Fig.2). For radioactive contaminated soil "with a radioactivity concentration of 8,000 Bq/kg or less are used for the foundation of a road embankment, then covered with soil, asphalt, concrete or similar materials to block radiation" [1, p.49]. According to the experts: "a top layer of 160 cm ... would eventually contribute to sufficient reduction of dose" [1, p.50].

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.** IAEA experts propose use of nuclear waste as road-base [source: 1, p.48]</figcaption></figure>

A further IAEA expert 'solution' is to bury Fukushima nuclear waste under agricultural land (Fig.3). The plan is that high dose contaminated soil is to be removed entirely from the Fukushima Prefecture and imposed elsewhere (than Fukushima), and within the next 30 years. Lower dose (8,000 Bq/m3 and below) waste, characterised as 'recycled soil', is to be distributed throughout the country (not excluding the Fukushima Prefecture) [1]. Such contaminated soil is proposed as road-
base walkways and roadways (Fig.2), and buried as farm substrate layered under agriculture and horticulture fields [1].

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.** IAEA experts propose nuclear waste as farm substrate [source: 1, p.46]</figcaption></figure>

IAEA experts urge “more emphasis on the benefits, not just the risks of the managed recycling projects would be helpful” [1. p.70]. The experts assert a “wider social benefit of ‘doing the right thing’ morally and environmentally for a sustainable future” [1. p.70]. Is this sarcasm, irony, cynicism, green-wash, patronising-twaddle, or what?

The nuclear industry needs to be called out about nuclear waste. After 75 years of an industry creating nuclear waste, both intentionally and incidentally, as artefacts of the technology, and accidentally, and as products of various techno-failures, a waste solution remains elusive. Safe disposal of nuclear waste is a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes. The raiment of ‘safe nuclear waste disposal’ remains all talk, all techno-babble, all obeisance to experts, where reality is sacrificed on the altar of the profits for the industry.

The bigger challenge of Fukushima will be the nuclear fuel of the failed Fukushima reactor and how it might be dealt with or disposed of. Is it in the ‘too hard’ basket? The task of the Fukushima ‘clean up’ is a task for decades, generations, likely centuries; the challenges will outlive the IAEA’s experts.

There is just not enough carpet on the planet under which to sweep nuclear waste. The onus is on the nuclear industry to solve the nuclear waste problems, present, past, and future, and to earn a social licence for the safe disposal of nuclear waste. If the challenge of safe and acceptable disposal of nuclear waste is beyond the whit of the nuclear industry to solve, then it’s time for the nuclear energy industry to go the way of the dodo, the Edison phonograph, and the CD player.

**References:**

1. IAEA, Final Report on the Experts Mission: IAEA assistance to the Ministry of the Environment, Japan on ‘volume reduction and recycling of removed soil arising from decontamination activities after the Accident of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station’. 2024, Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

2. WNA, Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste. 2024, London: World Nuclear Association (WNA).

3. Alexievich, S., Voices from Chernobyl. 1999, London: Aurum Press.

4. Borys, C., A vast new tomb for the most dangerous waste in the world. 2017, London: BBC News. (3 January).

5. IAEA, Off-site decontamination and remediation following the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident: Results elaborated in the Fukushima Prefecture and comparison with global experience. (September). Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Fukushima: Fukushima Prefecture.

6. Paull, J., Fukushima: Who will drink Japan's 1.3 billion litres of radioactive water? Proceedings: 2nd International Scientific and Practical Internet Conference, 2023. July: p. 19-23.

7. Yoshitomo, M., Progress in Off-Site Environmental Remediation in Japan. GC67, September. 2023, (GC67, September). Vienna: IAEA; Tokyo: Ministry of the Environment.
* An Olympic swimming pool of 50 m long, 25 m wide, and 2 m deep holds 2,500 m³.
14.09 million m³ of solid nuclear waste ÷ 2,500 = 5,636.

** (13.79 million m³ of soil x 1.5 tonnes/m³ = 20,685,000 kg) + (300,000 m³ of ash x 1 tonne/m³ = 300 million kg) = 20,985,000 kg. At 5 kg/pot = 4,187 million pots.