Tepco is being loaned more interest-free money to cleanup after the Fukushima disaster:
Japan will increase an interest-free loan to the operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power (9501.T), by more than a third to 14 trillion yen ($123 billion), a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The increase in the loan from 9 trillion yen is to cover the costs for compensation and decontamination areas around the plant, according to the source.
[...] The disaster is likely to cost 22.6 trillion yen ($199 billion), more than double an earlier government estimate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday December 09 2016, @01:39PM
radioactive water is stored in tanks that are leaking. Why don't they dispose of it the way the US nuclear Navy does?
They make concrete out of it, then bury the concrete as well as the mixer at hanford.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday December 09 2016, @06:09PM
When the Japanese mix that much concrete, it's typically to build useful infrastructure. Before Fukushima, they just didn't have a lot of spare useless land to store junk in.
I'm still a proponent of burying nuclear waste in wells at the edge of subduction zones, and letting tectonic motion take care of the problem permanently.
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Friday December 09 2016, @08:58PM
When you raised the same question in a previous topic, there were responses.
/comments.pl?sid=15254&cid=395113#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 09 2016, @09:28PM
Making concrete is a very energy-intensive process.
Now, multiply this by the 70,000 TONS of nuclear waste worldwide.
Now, add in all the reactors/ancillary equipment/superstructure that has been irradiated.
The scope gets very large, very fast.
The decision to build lots of nuclear plants was typical Cold War stupidity.
Allowing for-profit corporations do it was just moronic.
For-profit corporations are notoriously tight-fisted with money; the military gets money thrown at it like there's no tomorrow, so the example of the US Navy is an extreme outlier.
.
France has a vitrification process for spent fuel where they embed the stuff in large glass ingots--but, again, it's NOT a *permanent* solution.
Here's where we point to the Brazilian medical facility [wikipedia.org] where they just walked away from the building and left the radioisotope therapy machine sitting there.
The folks who stumbled on it and tried to salvage it got radiation poisoning/burns and died as a result.
This stuff needs to be thought out for the LONG-term.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]