Mental health measures for the staff of nuclear research and development institution mobilized in dealing with residents during the nuclear disaster caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake

Tomotsune, Yusuke; Yajima, Mayumi; Okuno, Hiroshi; Yamamoto, Kazuya

Rodo Anzen Eisei Kenkyu, 16(1), p.29 - 43, 2023/02

https://doi.org/10.2486/josh.JOSH-2021-0017-JI

During the first year of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, a total of about 45,000 employees of Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) left their original workplaces to engage in telephone counseling, assistance of temporary return, and environmental monitoring. In particular, the staff who worked on the telephone counseling service, which directly contacted the residents, suffered from the stress associated with emotional labor. Systematic mental health care to the staff who engaged in these tasks was provided them in the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Engineering Laboratories of the JAEA. This paper considers this activity as a concrete example of "support for supporters" and discusses the mental health of the staff who provide support to the residents in a nuclear disaster.

High-temperature gaseous reaction of cesium with siliceous thermal insulation; The Potential implication to the provenance of enigmatic Fukushima cesium-bearing material

Rizaal, M.; Nakajima, Kunihisa; Saito, Takumi*; Osaka, Masahiko; Okamoto, Koji*

ACS Omega (Internet), 7(33), p.29326 - 29336, 2022/08

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.2c03525

Contamination processes of tree components in Japanese forest ecosystems affected by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident Cs fallout

Ota, Masakazu; Koarashi, Jun

Science of the Total Environment, 816, p.151587_1 - 151587_21, 2022/04

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151587

In forests affected by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, trees became contaminated with Cs. However, Cs transfer processes determining tree contamination (particularly for stem wood, which is a prominent commercial resource in Fukushima) remain insufficiently understood. This study proposes a model for simulating the dynamic behavior of Cs in a forest tree-litter-soil system and applied it to two contaminated forests (cedar plantation and natural oak stand) in Fukushima. The model-calculated results and inter-comparison of the results with measurements elucidated the relative impact of distinct Cs transfer processes determining tree contamination. The transfer of Cs to trees occurred mostly ( 99%) through surface uptake of Cs directly trapped by leaves or needles and bark during the fallout. By contrast, root uptake of Cs from the soil was unsubstantial and several orders of magnitude lower than the surface uptake over a 50-year period following the accident. As a result, the internal contamination of the trees proceeded through an enduring recycling (translocation) of Cs absorbed on the tree surface at the time of the accident. A significant surface uptake of Cs at the bark was identified, contributing 100% (leafless oak tree) and 30% (foliated cedar tree; the remaining surface uptake occurred at the needles) of the total Cs uptake by trees. It was suggested that the trees growing at the study sites are currently (as of 2021) in a decontamination phase; the activity concentration of Cs in the stem wood decreases by 3% per year, mainly through radioactive decay of Cs and partly through a dilution effect from tree growth.

Characterization of radiocesium-bearing microparticles with different morphologies in soil around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Hagiwara, Hiroki; Funaki, Hironori; Shiribiki, Natsu*; Kanno, Marina*; Sanada, Yukihisa

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 331(1), p.415 - 426, 2022/01

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-021-08061-8

Comparison of dose rates from four surveys around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant for location factor evaluation

Sanada, Yukihisa; Ishida, Mutsushi*; Yoshimura, Kazuya; Mikami, Satoshi

Journal of Radiation Protection and Research, 46(4), p.184 - 193, 2021/12

https://doi.org/10.14407/jrpr.2021.00171

no abstracts in English

Preparation of carbonate slurry simulating chemical composition of slurry in overflowed high integrity container and evaluation of its characteristics

Horita, Takuma; Yamagishi, Isao; Nagaishi, Ryuji; Kashiwaya, Ryunosuke*

JAEA-Technology 2021-012, 34 Pages, 2021/07

JAEA-Technology-2021-012.pdf:2.1MB
JAEA-Technology-2021-012(errata).pdf:0.15MB

Waste mainly consisting of carbonate precipitates (carbonate slurry) from the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) and the improved ALPS at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station of Tokyo Electric Power Holdings, Inc. have been storing in the High Integrity Container (HIC). The supernatant solution of carbonate slurry contained in some of HICs were overflowed in April of 2015. The all of level of liquid in the HICs were investigated; however, almost of the HICs were under the level of overflow. The mechanism of overflow suggested to be depending on the difference of the properties of the carbonate slurry such as the retention/release characteristics of the bubbles. Therefore, in order to clarify the mechanism of leakage, the repeatability experiment was carried out by using simulated carbonate slurry. The simulated carbonate slurry was perpetrated by using the same cross-flow filter system of the actual ALPS. Moreover, the preparative conditions for the simulated carbonate slurry were the same as Mg/Ca concentration ratio in inlet water of the ALPS (raw water) and the ALPS operating conditions. The chemical characteristics of simulated carbonate slurries were revealed by ICP-AES, pH meter, etc. The density of the settled slurry layer tended to increase depending on the calcium concentration in the raw water. The bubble injection test was conducted in order to investigate the bubble retention/release behavior in the simulated carbonate slurry layer. The simulated carbonate slurry with high settling density, which was generated by high calcium concentration solution was revealed to retain the injected bubbles. Since the ratio of concentration calcium and magnesium during the carbonate slurry generation is assumed to affect the retention of bubbles in the slurry layer, the information on the composition of raw water is one of important factor for overflow of HICs.

Microparticles with diverse sizes and morphologies from mechanical and laser cutting of fuel debris simulants and geopolymer as a covering material

Zhou, Q.*; Saito, Takumi*; Suzuki, Seiya; Yano, Kimihiko; Suzuki, Shunichi*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 58(4), p.461 - 472, 2021/04

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1869623

The Study of oxidative stress status in the organs exposed to low dose/low dose-rate radiation (Contract research); FY2019 Nuclear Energy Science & Technology and Human Resource Development Project

Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science; Tohoku University*

JAEA-Review 2020-048, 49 Pages, 2021/01

JAEA-Review-2020-048.pdf:4.38MB

The Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science (CLADS), Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), had been conducting the Nuclear Energy Science & Technology and Human Resource Development Project (hereafter referred to "the Project") in FY2019. The Project aims to contribute to solving problems in the nuclear energy field represented by the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TEPCO). For this purpose, intelligence was collected from all over the world, and basic research and human resource development were promoted by closely integrating/collaborating knowledge and experiences in various fields beyond the barrier of conventional organizations and research fields. The sponsor of the Project was moved from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to JAEA since the newly adopted proposals in FY2018. On this occasion, JAEA constructed a new research system where JAEA-academia collaboration is reinforced and medium-to-long term research/development and human resource development contributing to the decommissioning are stably and consecutively implemented. Among the adopted proposals in FY2019, this report summarizes the research results of the "The study of oxidative stress status in the organs exposed to low dose/low dose-rate radiation". This study investigates the biological effects of low dose/low dose-rate radiation exposure, which is of great social interest, on the oxidative stress status of individual organs and will contribute to the collection of scientific data in a dose range to be required. An interdisciplinary collaborative study discussed the correlation between radiation dose and the biological effect by analyzing the samples of wild Japanese macaques exposed to radiation due to the accident of Fukushima nuclear power station and of animal experiments.

Criticality configuration design methodology applied to the design of fuel debris experiment in the new STACY

Gunji, Satoshi; Tonoike, Kotaro; Clavel, J.-B.*; Duhamel, I.*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 58(1), p.51 - 61, 2021/01

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1798825

The new critical assembly STACY will be able to contribute to the validation of criticality calculations related to the fuel debris. The experimental core designs are in progress in the frame of JAEA/IRSN collaboration. This paper presents the method applied to optimize the design of the new STACY core to measure the criticality characteristics of pseudo fuel debris that simulated Molten Core Concrete Interaction (MCCI) of the fuel debris. To ensure that a core configuration is relevant for code validation, it is important to evaluate the reactivity worth of the main isotopes of interest and their k sensitivity to their cross sections. In the case of the fuel debris described in this study, especially for the concrete composition, silicon is the nucleus with the highest k sensitivity to the cross section. For this purpose, some parameters of the core configuration, as for example the lattice pitches or the core dimensions, were adjusted using optimization algorithm to find efficiently the optimal core configurations to obtain high sensitivity of silicon capture cross section. Based on these results, realistic series of experiments for fuel debris in the new STACY could be defined to obtain an interesting feedback for the MCCI. This methodology is useful to design other experimental conditions of the new STACY.

Key factors controlling radiocesium sorption and fixation in river sediments around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, 1; Insights from sediment properties and radiocesium distributions

Tachi, Yukio; Sato, Tomofumi*; Akagi, Yosuke*; Kawamura, Makoto*; Nakane, Hideji*; Terashima, Motoki; Fujiwara, Kenso; Iijima, Kazuki

Science of the Total Environment, 724, p.138098_1 - 138098_11, 2020/07

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138098

To understand and predict radiocesium transport behaviors in the environment, highly contaminated sediments from Ukedo and Odaka rivers around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant were investigated systematically focusing on key factors controlling radiocesium sorption and fixation, including particle size, clay mineralogy and organic matter.