2297. Ecological Impacts of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Meltdown 5 years Later

By Greenpeace-Japan, April 3, 2016

For free PDF copy click here. 

The report is based on a large body of independent scientific research in impacted areas in the Fukushima region, as well as investigations by Greenpeace radiation specialists over the past five years. It exposes deeply flawed assumptions by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Abe government in terms of both decontamination and ecosystem risks. It further draws on research on the environmental impact of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe as an indication of the potential future for contaminated areas in Japan.

The environmental impacts of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster will last decades to centuries, due to man-made, long-lived radioactive elements are absorbed into the living tissues of plants and animals and being recycled through food webs, and carried downstream to the Pacific Ocean by typhoons, snowmelt, and flooding.

Greenpeace has conducted 25 radiological investigations in Fukushima since March 2011. In 2015, it focused on the contamination of forested mountains in Iitate district, northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Both Greenpeace and independent research have shown the movement of radioactivity from contaminated mountain watersheds, which can then enter coastal ecosystems. The Abukuma, one of Japan’s largest rivers which flows largely through Fukushima prefecture, is projected to discharge 111 TBq of 137Cs and 44 TBq of 134Cs, in the 100 years after the accident.

2296. Trampling Science to Boost Nuclear Power

By Jim Naurkeckas, FAIR, April 21, 2016 

When the Washington Post and New York Times are making the same corporate-friendly point, it’s safe to assume that some PR agency somewhere is earning its substantial fees.

In this case, the subject is the need for nuclear power—and, for the Posteditorial board (4/18/16), for fracking as well. Standing in the way of this in the Post’s version is favorite target Bernie Sanders, while the Times business columnist Eduardo Porter (4/19/16)  blames the “scientific phobias and taboos” of “progressive environmentalists.”

“While campaigning in New York, Mr. Sanders has played up his opposition to nuclear power,” the Post editorialists wrote, citing his contention that the Indian River nuclear plant, 25 miles from Manhattan, is a “catastrophe waiting to happen.” Sanders’ “criticism came as little surprise,” the Post declared; “he had already promised to phase out nuclear power nationwide by steadily retiring existing reactors.”

“If we are serious about global warming, we will ignore Mr. Sanders’ sloganeering,” the paper urged. “Nuclear accounts for about a fifth of the country’s electricity, and it is practically emissions-free.”

In reality, nuclear power is not emissions-free; the process of mining and enriching uranium fuel, along with constructing nuclear plants, operating backup generators during reactor downtime, disposal of nuclear waste and eventual decommissioning of plants all contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. According to an analysis published by the journal Nature (9/24/08), nuclear power does produce 14 times less in greenhouse gas emissions than coal, and seven times less than natural gas—but twice as much as solar cells and seven times as much as onshore wind farms. For halting climate change, in other words, there are more serious options than nuclear.

The Post went on:

Shutting down that much clean electricity generation would put the country into a deep emissions hole. Mr. Sanders argues that he will invest heavily in renewables. Yet every dollar spent to replace one carbon-free source with another is a dollar that could have been spent replacing dangerous and dirty coal plants. Under Mr. Sanders’ vision, either the country would fail to maximize emissions cuts, or it would waste huge amounts of money unnecessarily replacing nuclear plants.

Sanders actually favors “a moratorium on nuclear power plant license renewals in the United States”—in other words, as the Post had earlier described it more accurately, “phas[ing] out nuclear power nationwide by steadily retiring existing reactors.” So it’s not a question of using money to replace a nuclear plant that could have gone to replacing a coal plant; the nuclear plants need to be replaced with something when they reach the end of their useful lives.

And if you put that money into renewables rather than into a new nuclear plant, you can reduce emissions more quickly. The investment bank Lazard analyzes the “levelized cost of energy”—the cost of building and operating an electrical plant per unit of electricity produced. In its latest report (11/15), the bank found that nuclear’s LCOE ranged from $97 to $136 per megawatt-hour, while wind costs between $32 and $77; utility-scale photovoltaic solar was priced between $50 to $70. Note that these costs for nuclear do not include the decommissioning of obsolete plants, which can add $1 billion–$4 billion to the lifetime cost, nor the cost of accidents like the Fukushima meltdown, which is expected to cost Japan some $300 billion (Renewable Energy World, 4/28/16).

The Post concluded that the best bet would be to put a tax on carbon, then “let the market find the fastest and most efficient road to slowing the warming of the planet.” The irony is that if you had a truly market-driven energy system, there’d be no need for a moratorium on nuclear licenses; if you didn’t have the Price-Anderson Act capping industry liability for nuclear accidents—requiring it to pay less than 2 cents on the dollar of the projected costs—it’s unlikely that another plant would ever be built.

Meanwhile, at the New York Times, Eduardo Porter was defending nuclear power—“the only technology with an established track record of generating electricity at scale while emitting virtually no greenhouse gases,” as we’ve debunked above—against an even scarier foe than Bernie Sanders: “the left” as a whole and its “scientific and technological taboos.”

Brought in as an expert witness to make this case is the internet entrepreneur who once complained that “anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades”:

“The left is turning anti-science,” Marc Andreessen, the creator of Netscapewho as a venture capitalist has become one of the most prominent thinkers of Silicon Valley, told me not long ago. He was reflecting broadly about science and technology. His concerns ranged from liberals’ fear of genetically modified organisms to their mistrust of technology’s displacement of workers in some industries. “San Francisco is an interesting case,” he noted. “The left has become reactionary.”

So far, the major achievement of GMO technology has been to boost 15-fold the use of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide—which Monsanto’s seeds are engineered to be resistant to. Since the active ingredient in Roundup has been declared by the World Health Organization’s cancer researchers to be a probable human carcinogen, fear is not necessarily an unscientific reaction.

As for technology’s displacement of workers in San Francisco, that’s where one of Andreessen’s fellow tech entrepreneurs wrote an open letter complaining, “I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day.” To be revolted by such attitudes is not “reactionary,” and you don’t need to be “anti-science” to be concerned that the soaring profits of the high-tech industry are pricing workers out of their homes.

But wrapping political and ethical choices in the mantle of “science” is what Porter’s column is all about—comparing to climate change denial the left’s failure to accept the “scientific consensus” on nuclear power, meaning that 65 percent of scientists favored building more nuclear plants in a Pew poll. The difference between an actual scientific consensus on the physical fact of global warming and a political preference expressed by two out of three scientists for a particular energy policy ought to be obvious; conflating the two is doing the opposite of what Porter claims to be advocating for, which is “somehow disassociating the scientific facts from deeply rooted preferences about the world we want to live in.”

The Times column offered some pre-emptive criticism of its own analysis: “Highlighting the left’s biases may seem like a pointless effort to apportion equal blame along ideological lines.” It’s not pointless at all, though: It’s a great way to sell pro-corporate policies under the guise of objective truth.

1932. Nuclear Plant Closing Reflects Overhaul of German Energy Production

By Melissa Eddy, The New York Times, July 12, 2015

Nuclear plant at Granfenheinfeld, Germany

GRAFENRHEINFELD, Germany — In one of this country’s most popular novels for young readers, the nuclear reactor on the edge of this Bavarian town melts down, spewing a radioactive cloud that threatens all of Germany and robs a 14-year-old girl of her family and her hope for the future.

Last month, that nuclear power plant in Grafenrheinfeld, responsible for meeting the energy needs of industry-heavy Bavaria since 1981, came to a less dramatic but equally symbolic end. The plant became the first active reactor to be decommissioned since 2011, following Chancellor Angela Merkel’s about-face on nuclear power after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant catastrophe in Japan.

Taking Grafenrheinfeld offline is a milestone in Germany’s push to establish a nuclear-free energy system by 2022, but also one made possible by its determination to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020. The plant can be closed because it has already been replaced by alternative energy sources like solar and wind.

But while Germany has made substantial progress in its energy transformation policy, its aspiration is being put to the test by new political, technological and economic challenges as it moves into the next phase of the effort.

How it deals with the obstacles could go a long way in determining whether the country becomes a model for moving toward a reduced- or even post-carbon economy.

“The exit is taking place at a pace that is breathtaking, even for those of us who were always for it, and the transition to a decarbonized economy is not without great challenges that only come at a price,” Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s minister for energy and the economy, told industry leaders last month.

Current projections indicate that Germany needs to speed up the pace of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions if it wants to meet its 2020 goals.

Shifts in the energy market, including the persistently high price of natural gas in Europe and economic and political disincentives to move away from coal, have resulted in higher emissions than originally predicted. Europe’s failure to set up an effective carbon market that would encourage emission reductions has also contributed.

At the same time, under political pressure, the government was forced to back down from a proposal to impose fees on the oldest, and dirtiest, power plants, to encourage their phaseout.

Yet Grafenrheinfeld is a good example of how Germany’s efforts have already transformed its energy picture.

The plant, nestled in the Main River valley, generated roughly 14 percent of the electricity for the state of Bavaria, home to companies including Siemens and the carmakers BMW and Audi, as well as nearly six million households.

But now renewable energy sources, predominantly solar and hydro power, contribute electricity roughly equivalent to that produced by the nuclear plant, and officials said they were confident that was sufficient to maintain stability on the electricity grid.

“We have made substantial progress with expansion of renewable energy in Bavaria, to the extent we will be able to cover most of the capacity lost through renewables,” Ilse Aigner, Bavaria’s minister for energy and the economy, said before the plant was taken offline.

Even greater progress has been made across Germany. Renewable energy sources accounted for 26 percent of its gross electricity production last year, double the 13 percent of the United States but lagging neighboring Denmark, which is generating more than 30 percent of its electricity through wind power alone.

Even in the town of Grafenrheinfeld, solar panels glint from the roofs of homes and that of the local horseback riding club’s indoor arena, as distinct a part of the skyline as the bulbous church spires and the reactor’s twin cooling towers.

The expansion of alternative energy has led to a decline in the price of raw power, rendering nuclear power plants like the one in Grafenrheinfeld, once the cash cows of the energy industry, unprofitable. The Grafenrheinfeld plant was not scheduled to be shut until December, but E.On, the utility that owns it, decommissioned the reactor ahead of schedule to save on costs.

Still, the most recent projections show Germany will need to cut an additional 22 million metric tons of carbon emissions within the next five years if it is to meet its targets. Germany’s energy ministry in December proposed closing the gap by imposing penalties on the oldest lignite coal-fired power plants that are the prime emitters.

In response, 15,000 miners traveled in buses to the German capital in late April, blowing whistles and waving banners to denounce the proposal, which union leaders said would mean a loss of thousands of jobs.

Officials in Berlin recently adopted an alternative, drawn up in consensus with unions and industry leaders. Instead of being required to cover the full gap of 22 metric tons, the industry will be expected to reduce carbon emissions by about half that.

The difference is to be made up largely through subsidies to improve efficiency in heating generation and consumption, which could prove more costly to consumers.

The alternative plan comes as Germany looks to the next chapter of its emissions reduction program: cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 55 percent of 1990 levels by 2030, while at the same time increasing renewable sources to about 50 percent of energy production.

“We are now headed into a more challenging phase of the energy transition,” said Patrick Graichen, who heads Agora Energiewende, a research center in Berlin devoted to explaining the energy transition program. “Reaching the first 25 percent went swiftly, as they were largely absorbed by the existing system. But now reaching the 50 percent mark will mean transforming the system.”

Shutting the nuclear plants, which do not emit carbon but have other risks, would seem to be contradictory at such a time. Ms. Merkel surprised many in 2012 when she reversed an earlier policy, announcing the immediate closing of eight nuclear power plants and plans to shutter the remaining nine by 2022.

But Ms. Merkel faced political pressure on that front as well — powerfully illustrated in Gudrun Pausewang’s 1987 best seller “The Cloud,” read by generations of German high school students. Its depiction of a catastrophic meltdown helped raise public support for alternative energy sources.

Gaby Gehrold, who lives five miles away in Schweinfurt, was one of thousands of demonstrators who had sought an end to nuclear power.

“I think that we have set an example that we are serious about the energy transformation and our desire to see it continue, to ensure that all nuclear reactors need to be shut off,” she said.

Not everyone feels that way. Gerhard Riegler, a self-described “dyed-in-the-wool” Grafenrheinfelder who has worked at the reactor since its beginning, said the closing means a loss of jobs and tax revenue, but most of all a loss of pride.

“It is like having a car that for years you have cleaned and maintained and kept in running condition, but suddenly someone comes along and says you have to get rid of it. Just like that,” said Mr. Riegler, who is also the town’s deputy mayor. “It hurts.”

Every part of the country’s energy transition has had winners and losers. Yet while Germans have seen electricity prices rise to finance renewable sources — a three-person household now pays 29.13 euro cents per kilowatt-hour, including a renewable-energy surcharge of 6.17 euro cents — they have expressed deep and lasting support for the change.

In an October 2014 nationwide survey by TNS Emnid for the Agency for Renewable Energies, 92 percent of Germans said they supported the expansion of renewable energy sources.

“In Germany we are now seeing the brakes put on, out of a need to protect coal, as they used to protect nuclear,” said Hans-Josef Fell, a former lawmaker for the Green Party who fought Grafenrheinfeld from its start, but has now shifted his attention to fighting efforts to restrict the expansion of wind farms in Bavaria. “That will continue for a bit, but not for much longer. It is not sustainable for much longer.”

1925. Switzerland to replace Nuclear Power With Clean Renewable Energy by 2034

By Science Daily, July 7, 2015

Switzerland to phase out nuclear power and replace it with clean renewable energy

Switzerland has a long history of trying to be as self-sufficient and energy independent as possible. Although its energy supply system has served it well in the past, the country is now looking to turn away from its reliance on nuclear power and seeks to compensate for the energy lost from hydropower as a result of climate change. In the latest issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE, Dominic Notter of Empa discusses how the country aims to address this transition, finding a new supply mix that combines energy conservation, greater efficiencies, alternative energy sources, the "smart grid," and the introduction of new technologies, so that Switzerland can secure its energy independence for the future.

In the article, Notter outlines: "Switzerland has a long tradition of using nuclear energy. With no reserves of coal, oil, or natural gas of its own, the country has to turn to other sources to meet its energy needs [...] All told, nine percent of Switzerland's total energy is met by nuclear power- a figure triple that of the United States (World Nuclear Association, 2015a) [...] But after Fukushima, the Swiss government decided to close down all its nuclear power plants, without a clear vision of what will take their place- a pressing concern in a time of ever- increasing demand.”

Notter discusses how the government is examining how best to replace the energy generated from nuclear power. Switzerland could buy its energy from neighboring countries but prefers to be as self-sufficient and energy-independent as possible after being surrounded by hostile powers in World War II and relying on them for supplies in a time of great scarcity. He states:

"The goal is to gradually phase out of nuclear power and into renewables by 2034, and to be largely independent of fossil fuels. Reaching it is based upon the idea of combining highly efficient energy production processes with substantial reductions in energy consumption.”

Notter concludes: "Over the next four decades Switzerland faces a restructuring of its entire energy supply system. The new supply mix will be free from nuclear power, rather low in carbon intensity, and resting upon much higher efficiencies based on the newest and the most energy- efficient technologies- along with the developments of smart grids, decentralized power suppliers, hydropower, wind power, photovoltaics, biomass, wood, and the rigorous use of burning waste to generate energy whenever materials cannot be recycled [...] A single "magic bullet" suitable for every purpose is not available. 

Switzerland most likely has to find its own energy supply mix, with the biggest sustainability potential."

Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by SAGE Publications. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

/story_source

Journal Reference:

1 D. A. Notter. Small country, big challenge: Switzerland's upcoming transition to sustainable energy. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2015; 71 (4): 51 DOI: 10.1177/0096340215590792

1578. E.U. Approves Plan for New Nuclear Power Station in Britain

By Stanley Reed, The New York Times, October 8, 2014

EDF Energy will build the new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point. Photo: Warrick Page for The New York Times

LONDON — The European authorities on Wednesday approved construction of Britain’s first nuclear power station since the mid-1990s, in a ruling that could clear the way for other European countries to plan nuclear plants as part of their energy future.

The decision, by the European Union’s competition regulator, removes one of the final obstacles for the plant, at Hinkley Point in southwest England, which would produce about 7 percent of Britain’s current power supply but would not start operating before 2023.

Although the British government had already approved the power station, Brussels needed to sign off to make sure the financing plan did not constitute unfair state aid.

The plant would be built by EDF Energy, the British subsidiary of the French state-controlled utility, which already operates nearly all the nuclear power plants in Britain.

EDF has spent more than 1 billion pounds on design work and preparation for the site, which overlooks the Severn Estuary. Under the arrangement, government-guaranteed rates for the power eventually generated from the plant is guaranteed to give EDF a return on its investment.

Policy makers and energy executives elsewhere are closely watching Hinkley Point as a test case of whether new nuclear plants can be built in the West given the high costs and the environmental risks.

While valued by proponents as a cleaner-energy alternative to carbon-fueled power plants, the radioactive risks of nuclear power were vividly illustrated by the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011, an event that helped prompt Germany’s decision to abandon all future plans for nuclear power stations.

The Hinkley Point project is running years behind schedule, with mounting costs. Centrica, a British utility, walked away last year from its 20 percent share in the project, citing frustration over delays and costs.

To share in the costs, EDF has said it wants to bring in two Chinese state-backed companies, the China General Nuclear Corporation and the China National Nuclear Corporation, and, potentially, other investors.

The British government is nonetheless pressing on with the project, as it worries about future sources of energy. Britain’s current nuclear plants, which generate around 20 percent of the country’s electricity, are approaching the ends of their lives. Meanwhile, the country’s North Sea oil and natural gas reserves are dwindling, and coal-fired plants are being retired to reduce carbon emissions.

Britain’s determination to go ahead with a new nuclear power station at a large cost accentuates the divisions that are opening among European countries over nuclear power. The government wants to build not only Hinkley Point but also several more plants to replace its aging collection of nuclear reactors.

Meanwhile, Germany is easing out of the nuclear power business, forcing utilities to rely more on highly polluting coal to generate the kind of steady flows of electricity that cannot yet be supplied by renewable energy sources like solar and wind.

Despite the problems, other nuclear providers from around the world are eyeing Britain as a potential market. Toshiba and Hitachi of Japan have been studying British projects, while EDF is also contemplating building another plant on Britain’s east coast at Sizewell. But how many new plants will be built in Britain or other European countries now considering such a move — including Hungary, Lithuania and Poland — remains a big question.

A few countries voted against the decision. That includes Austria, which opposes the use of nuclear power and is threatening to go to court to try to block Hinkley Point.

Of the main European economies, only France has long remained committed to nuclear power.

"You will have a lot of discussion about how expensive these projects are,” said Roland Vetter, an analyst at CF Partners, an energy trading firm in London. “I don’t know how many more companies will want to build more nuclear plants in Britain.”

The specter of future power outages and the pressures to meet climate change goals have pushed the British government to intervene once again in a power sector that was privatized decades ago. The government, which also built all of Britain’s nuclear plants in the past, is now getting actively involved in the energy business, offering generous subsidies not only for nuclear power but also for renewable energy installations like giant offshore wind farms and even projects using tidal power.

Joaquín Almunia, the European official in charge of competition policy, who announced Wednesday’s decision, had been investigating since last year whether Hinkley Point violated European Union rules against state aid.

Those subsidies would take two main forms. The government had proposed a guaranteed wholesale price of 92.50 pounds a megawatt hour for the electricity the new plant will generate. That is about double current electricity rates in Britain. In a second form of subsidy, the British government also agreed to provide financial guarantees for the projects estimated at 17 billion pounds in financing.

Brussels’ state-aid concern would focus on whether Britain was giving unfair advantages to EDF over other industry players — or whether the government subsidies would distort energy markets.But Mr. Alumunia said his office had been persuaded by Britain’s argument that the Hinkley project could not proceed without the government’s subsidies and so had agreed not to oppose it after London agreed to some modest changes.

Analysts say that there was tremendous pressure on the European regulators to approve the deal because two big players in the 28 nation group, Britain and France, were behind it and because the British government portrayed the power station as necessary to keep the lights on — not to mention creating around 25,000 jobs during the decade-long construction phase.

“This is an important next step on the road to Britain’s first new nuclear power station in a generation,” Ed Davey, Britain’s energy and climate change minister, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Although Mr. Almunia said that the Hinkley Point approval did not necessarily create a precedent, analysts say the go-ahead given to the project should encourage other operators interested in building new nuclear facilities in Britain as well as in other European countries to think that they, too, might be able to use government financial support.

“Any other countries in the E.U. that want nuclear power will take heart from this decision,” said Antony Froggatt, a nuclear analyst at Chatham House, a London-based research organization.

Mark Johnston, a senior adviser to the European Policy Center, a research organization in Brussels, said the opposition to the Hinkley Point decision by a number of countries, which appeared to include Austria, Denmark, Slovenia and Luxembourg, showed that skepticism about the project had different strands.

“Austria is against nuclear power, full stop,” said Mr. Johnston. “But some of the others don’t like the idea that market disciplines are broken to fund nuclear construction, while others may worry that fewer emissions in Britain will just make coal cheaper for other parts of Europe like Poland, and do little to reduce greenhouse gases overall.”

1355. Unskilled and Destitute Are Hiring Targets for Fukushima Cleanup

By Hiroko Tabuchi, The New York Times, March 16, 2014

Workers boarding bus for clean up

NARAHA, Japan — “Out of work? Nowhere to live? Nowhere to go? Nothing to eat?” the online ad reads. “Come to Fukushima.”

That grim posting targeting the destitute, by a company seeking laborers for the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, is one of the starkest indications yet of an increasingly troubled search for workers willing to carry out the hazardous decommissioning at the site.

The plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, known as Tepco, has been shifting its attention away, leaving the complex cleanup to an often badly managed, poorly trained, demoralized and sometimes unskilled work force that has made some dangerous missteps. At the same time, the company is pouring its resources into another plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, that it hopes to restart this year as part of the government’s push to return to nuclear energy three years after the world’s second-worst nuclear disaster. It is a move that some members of the country’s nuclear regulatory board have criticized.

That shift in attention has translated into jobs at Fukushima that pay less and are more sporadic, chasing away qualified workers. Left behind, laborers and others say, is a work force often assembled by fly-by-night labor brokers with little technical or safety expertise and even less concern about hiring desperate people. Police and labor activists say some of the most aggressive of the brokers have mob ties.

Regulators, contractors and more than 20 current and former workers interviewed in recent months say the deteriorating labor conditions are a prime cause of a string of large leaks of contaminated water and other embarrassing errors that have already damaged the environment and, in some cases, put workers in danger. In the worst-case scenario, experts fear, struggling workers could trigger a bigger spill or another radiation release.

“There is a crisis of manpower at the plant,” said Yukiteru Naka, founder of Tohoku Enterprise, a contractor and former plant engineer for General Electric. “We are forced to do more with less, like firemen being told to use less water even though the fire’s still burning.”

That crisis was especially evident one dark morning last October, when a crew of contract workers was sent to remove hoses and valves as part of a long-overdue upgrade to the plant’s water purification system.

According to regulatory filings by Tepco, the team received only a 20-minute briefing from their supervisor and were given no diagrams of the system they were to fix and no review of safety procedures — a scenario a former supervisor at the plant called unthinkable. Worse yet, the laborers were not warned that a hose near the one they would be removing was filled with water laced with radioactive cesium.

As the men shambled off in their bulky protective gear, their supervisor, juggling multiple responsibilities, left to check on another crew. They chose the wrong hose, and a torrent of radioactive water began spilling out. Panicked, the workers thrust their gloved hands into the water to try to stop the leak, spraying themselves and two other workers who raced over to help.

Although the workers received significant exposures, Shigeharu Nakachi, an expert in the health effects of pollution, said it was not enough to cause radiation sickness. Still, he said such exposures were “something that should be avoided at all cost.”

Tepco has refused to say how experienced these workers were, but according to regulatory filings, the company that hired them signed a contract for the work a week before the leak. Tepco also refused to say whether the contractor procured them from labor brokers, which is an often illegal if widely accepted part of hiring at nuclear plants. In a written reply to questions, Tepco said it was “not in a position to comment on the employment practices” of its contractors.

Similarly, Tepco has refused to divulge a full accounting of a recent leak at the plant — the worst spill in six months — which occurred when workers filling storage tanks with contaminated water remotely diverted it into the wrong tank. But even the scant information available points to confusion by workers. They ignored alarms warning of an overflow because so many tanks are near capacity, alarms ring all the time. No one noticed that water levels in the tank that was supposed to be receiving the water never rose.

“It’s an extremely elementary mistake,” Toyoshi Fuketa, a commissioner at the Nuclear Regulation Authority, said at a recent hearing. “If a fire alarm went off in your house, you’d be worried, let alone a nuclear power plant.”

Tepco’s deputy nuclear chief, Masayuki Ono, later explained that “it did not occur to us to actually go to the scene to check.”

At the heart of the plant’s problems is a multitiered hiring system in the nuclear industry that critics have long said allowed the large utilities that run the plants to distance themselves from troubles that arise. Under the system, it hires contractors who parcel out work to several layers of subcontractors. At the bottom, subjected to the dirtiest work, are the so-called “nuclear Gypsies” — itinerant laborers lured by the industry’s generally good wages.

The accident has only magnified the problems the system allows. According to company records, contract workers at Fukushima Daiichi receive, on average, more than twice the radiation exposure of Tepco employees. The layered system, many say, also allows for relatively little oversight by Tepco.

In a recent interview, a Tepco spokeswoman said that the company regularly evaluated its contractors and required them to provide their workers with a class on the basics of radiation. (She denied charges of widespread cheating made by some workers.)

But at a news conference last month, the chief nuclear regulator, Shunichi Tanaka, said, “There is a subcontracting structure that means even workers from third- or fourth-level contractors work at the site, and Tepco does not have a clear picture of what’s happening on the ground.”

Mr. Naka, the contractor who talked of a manpower crisis, said many of his best engineers — including those who battled explosions and fires in the early days of the crisis — have either quit, or cannot work at the plant because they have reached legal radiation limits for the year.

Yoshitatsu Uechi is one of the people who has stepped in for more experienced workers. A former bus driver and construction worker, Mr. Uechi has never before worked at a nuclear plant.

He was paid about $150 a day to work on one of the plant’s most pressing jobs: building tanks to store the vast quantities of contaminated water at the site. He describes hurried days, saying he was told at one point by his contractor to continue sealing the seams of the tanks despite rain and snow that made the sealant slide off.

He believes such slipshod work eventually compromised the tanks, some of which have since leaked.

“I spoke out many times on the defects, but nobody listened,” said Mr. Uechi, a father of four who says he left Okinawa and its depressed economy for Fukushima to provide a better life for his children. He said he rarely saw Tepco managers while on the job.

He said he expressed his worries not only to his immediate bosses, but to Tepco. (Asked about the complaints, Tepco said it could not discuss individual workers out of privacy concerns.)

Tepco has promised to increase pay to make up for the risky and unstable nature of the work. Still, workers eating dinner at a dormitory near the plant were skeptical, especially over whether they would receive any extra money.

“Once the many levels of contractors skim off their share, there’s not very much left for us,” one worker in his 40s said, as he and two colleagues washed down a simple meal of chicken, eggplant and rice with beer and whiskey.

Each of the men — who feared being fired if their names were used — were housed in tiny rooms with a bed and a desk. The area around the dormitory is mainly deserted since many people refused to move back after the accident.

Workers say there is little to do at night other than watch TV, play roulette at a tiny game center, and drink. A store inside “J-Village” — Tepco’s base outside the plant — sells beer, whiskey and sake. According to several accounts, alcoholism is rampant, and one worker said he and his colleagues sometimes showed up for work hung over.

Struggling to maintain 3,000 workers at the plant — compared with 4,500 at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant — labor brokers are getting desperate. Mostly chased away by labor activists from urban areas where day laborers and homeless people congregate, the brokers have increasingly taken their pleas online and made clear their standards are low.

One ad, for work involving radiation monitoring, said, “You must have common sense, and be able to carry out a conversation.”

Although it is unclear if any workers were living on the streets before they came to the plant, laborers and others familiar with the work force say many people there are living on the edge.

“We’re talking people who are basically living hand-to-mouth.” said Hiroyuki Watanabe, a City Council member in nearby Iwaki.

One worker who refused to give his name said he was already so vulnerable that he ended up homeless when he lost his job cleaning contaminated mud off workers’ boots. Another, hired to check for cracks at the plant’s reactors, said he arrived after losing his factory job and losing a place to live when he broke up with his girlfriend.

The labor broker he said that he worked with, a company called Takahashi Kensetsu, did not ask about his credentials.

He says he was often unsure what he was checking for on the reactors, and received little explanation of potential hazards. After his pay was delayed and he was denied overtime, he quit. He has since won some back pay with help from the local labor standards office.

Takahashi Kensetsu had disappeared by then — empty beer cans and comic books littered its empty offices during a recent visit — so the labor advocates got the money from the contractor that hired the broker. Takahashi Kensetsu could not be found in an official local business registry, and repeated calls to the number listed in its ad rang with no answer.

Other contractors in Fukushima and labor activists, say Takahashi Kensetsu is affiliated with a local chapter of Inagawa-kai, one of Japan’s largest organized crime groups, or yakuza. Workers, contractors and lawyers say the yakuza has long been involved in providing workers to nuclear plants, and at least one contractor penalized over labor-law abuses at Fukushima was identified by the police as having ties to the yakuza.

“Tokyo Electric has no idea who’s really handling the job on the ground,” said Takeshi Katsura, who helped the worker win back pay. “It’s a free-for-all.”