Modern industrial society is a fanatical religion. We are demolishing, poisoning, destroying all life-systems on the planet. We are signing IOUs our children will not be able to pay...We are acting as if we were the last generation on the planet. Without a radical change in heart, in mind, in vision, the earth will end up like Venus, charred and dead.
– Jose Antonio Lutzenberger, Brazilian Minister for the Environment
ALERTS!!!!
“The number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. But this is not a natural health hazard—and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby—who may be born long after we are gone—should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent.”
FROM: NHK WORLD The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it has found water pouring into a drain inside the number 3 reactor building.
Tokyo Electric Power Company says it is yet to determine where the water comes from, or how much radioactive material it contains.
The company said that the water leak was spotted on the first floor of the reactor building on Saturday by a camera installed on a remote-controlled robot used for removing rubbles. It said that the water flow was about 30-centimeters wide and constant.
In the video above, we explore how to detect radiation in food. Why is this the ‘new normal’? With radiation accumulating in food, both animal, vegetable and fruit, we have no way of knowing how much radiation is in it. It is now becoming necessary to test ALL food before consuming it, due to the overwhelming magnitude of radiation contamination from many areas and nuclear facilities globally, not to mention depleted uranium weapons use.
Toxic radiation accumulates in water supplies after nuclear accidents. Radiation bioconcentrates in fish that live in fresh water and salt water. Runoff of fresh water from land which has been contaminated ends up contaminating oceans, and salt water creatures that live in it. Radiation can and does accumulate and bioconcentrate in fish and other creatures that live in the ocean, just like mercury, for example.
Most mass media stories about this subject downplay the hazards of nuclear radiation accumulating in animals or other foods. These ‘experts’ end up saying that despite increasing radiation levels in fish, there is ‘no immediate impact on health’. Although these are soothing words, there is little truth in these reports.
For example, they ignore the fact that children and infants are up to 2,000 times more sensitive to the same low dose of radiation in food or drink. What may be ‘harmless’ for at least a short period to a 200 pound adult healthy male, may be deadly to an egg, sperm, fetus, and/or highly toxic to a fetus, baby or even a small child.
If the radiation released from nuclear accidents, uranium recycling plants and nuclear dumping is so harmless, why is there so much resistance to independent experts doing radiation testing of fish, seaweed and shellfish? Medical facilities, hospitals and labs are not ALLOWED to test for radiation in Japan. This looks very much like a cover up. If it is NOT a coverup, what would a coverup look like. Would a coverup consist of a nation blocking all efforts to monitor and test for radiation by outside independent radiation ‘experts’?
A record high level of beta rays released from radioactive strontium-90 has been detected at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant beneath the No. 2 reactor's well facing the ocean, according to the facility’s operator.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) measured the amount of beta ray-emitting radioactivity at more than 2.7 million becquerels per liter, Fukushima’s operator said as reported in Japanese media. The measurements were taken on Thursday.
There has been a spike of radiation in this area since the beginning of the year. The measurements taken on Monday showed 2.4 million Bq/l, while the results taken on January 9 indicated the amount of beta rays at 2.7 million Bq/l, according to TEPCO’s Friday announcement.
American nuclear officials are wary of Japan’s new nuclear push
Official Japanese policy on nuclear power has swung full circle since the Fukushima disaster of 2011 – from avidly pro-nuclear power then, to rejecting nuclear power as too dangerous, and now back to avidly pushing on to re-start old reactors and build new ones. Adding the chronic secrecy and denial of the nuclear industry to such politically-driven indecision making, Japan has created a funhouse of distorting mirrors from which emerging information about the on-going Fukushima disaster cannot be considered credible without reliable, independent verification. Reliable and credible information about Fukushima is just what authorities in Japan and around the world apparently do not want.
Plowing through the news, one is often struck by the proliferation of acronyms, jargon, new names and terms. It can be a baffling experience, so I thought I would provide some explanations, keywords, synonyms, associative notions and interpretations to aid comprehension — even at risk of differing from the prevailing wisdom or PR hype.
“Abenomics”: 1. Deflation-busting policies by government aimed at raising prices, and hopefully wages, that might make the economy grow and make everyone happy if everything works out; 2. Boosting the stock market to make investors and speculators rich while devaluing the yen to promote exports at trading partners’ expense; 3. Making construction firms happy though vast increases in public-works spending; 4. Vague rumor outside of Tokyo where nobody seems to be benefitting; 5. Three-arrow variation on Three-card Monte; 6. Wishful thinking; 7. High stakes, long odds gamble; 8. Protecting vested interests; 9. Trickledown illusion.
“Abegeddon”: 1. What happens if/when Abenomics proves unsustainable, perhaps stoking high inflation and leaving a big mess to clean up; 2. Financial-market implosion; 3. Deep sh-t.
“Abeplomacy”: 1. Blowing it big time; 2. Isolation; 3. Relentless activity, poor results; 4. Slamming doors in neighbors’ faces.
On March 12, 2011, the day after a huge tsunami hit Japan's northeast coast, the USS Ronald Reagan entered the Sea of Japan on a humanitarian mission.
The massive US$4.5 billion ($5.4 billion) Nimitz-class nuclear-powered "super aircraft carrier", with a ship's company of 5500 men and women, was in the vanguard of a force of 24 US Navy ships, 189 aircraft and 24,000 service personnel deployed to help Japan in Operation Tomodachi.
By then the tsunami, triggered by a magnitude-9 offshore earthquake, had killed 19,000 people and engulfed the Fukushima nuclear power plant, owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). A catastrophic failure followed, triggering explosions and releasing highly radioactive material into the ocean and atmosphere, as three reactors went into meltdown, the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1989.
Back on board the Reagan, sailors began the grim, exhausting work of locating survivors amid apocalyptic devastation.
"On that first day, we pretty much immediately started search and rescue," recalls Lindsay Cooper, 34, then an aviation bosun's mate with the 500-strong flight deck crew. It was a frantic time as aircraft were launched and recovered.
"Next thing we know we've got this nasty, metallic taste in our mouth." She says the crew were ordered below. She believes they "had just got slammed by a radioactive plume".
The Abe administration wants the Diet in its next session (starting Jan. 24) to finalize a civil nuclear accord that Tokyo and Ankara signed in May 2013 during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Turkey.
The accord is problematic because, in theory, it would enable Turkey to reprocess spent nuclear fuel — which would result in the extraction of uranium and plutonium. Because plutonium can be used to make nuclear weapons, curbing access to it is key to global efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation.
The accord was part of Abe’s attempt to deepen relations with Turkey, a major player in the Middle East and Central Asia that is enjoying rapid economic development. Abe visited the country in May and October 2013.
Japan should have declined hosting the 2020 Olympics because the country has to focus on what to do about nuclear power, former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, who is set to run for Tokyo governor, says in a recently published book.
Hosokawa was interviewed for “Ikegami Akira ga Yomu Koizumi Motoshusho no Genpatsu Zero Sengen” (“Akira Ikegami Reads Former Prime Minister Koizumi’s Zero Nuclear Power Declaration)” and stresses the importance of pulling the plug on nuclear power.
A Santa Barbara chef is taking extreme measures to keep his customers safe from what said is dangerous seafood.
Robert Perez has been a chef for more than three decades, but it was the nuclear disaster in Japan that changed the way he cooks.
In March 2011, a tsunami triggered by an earthquake rocked the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, causing radioactive materials to leak.
Even though scientists have said that the radiation in the ocean is now low, Perez isn't buying it.
"The way things are heading, we just feel strongly that it is not safe, and I'm not going to consume the fish and I'm definitely not going to provide it to my guests. I just can't do that with a clear conscience," said Perez.
The menu at Seagrass changed slightly two years ago when the restaurant stopped using Japanese seafood. Around a year ago, Hawaiian fish was taken off the menu. Now, all seafood from the San Diego border to Alaska is gone.
The change has forced Perez to get his fish from Mexico, the Atlantic or even farther.
We speak with Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of the town of Futaba where part of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is located. The entire town was rendered uninhabitable by the nuclear disaster. We ask him what went through his mind after the earthquake and tsunami hit on March 11, 2011. "It was a huge surprise, and at the time I was just hoping nothing that had happened at the nuclear power plant. However, unfortunately there was in fact an accident there," Idogawa recalls. He made a decision to evacuate his town before the Japanese government told people to leave. "If I had made that decision even three hours earlier, I would have been able to prevent so many people from being exposed to radiation." For years he encouraged nuclear power development in the area; now he has become a vocal critic. He explains that the government and the plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company, always told him, "’Don’t worry, Mayor. No accident could ever happen.’ Because this promise was betrayed, this is why I became anti-nuclear."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMYGOODMAN: Music from the film Nuclear Nation: The Fukushima Refugees Story. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. This is the third day of our broadcast from Tokyo, Japan, and the final day. We are talking about moving in on the third anniversary of the Fukushima disaster. Nineteen thousand people died or went missing on that day, March 11th, 2011, and the days afterwards, when the earthquake triggered a tsunami, and three of the reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant melted down.
We’re joined right now by Futaba’s former mayor, Katsutaka Idogawa. For years, he embraced nuclear power. Now he has become a vocal critic. He is featured in the film Nuclear Nation.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! And thank you for traveling two hours to join us here at the studios of NHK International for this conversation. Mayor, explain what happened on that day—special thanks to Mary Joyce, who is translating for you today—on that day, March 11, 2011, and the days afterwards, when you decided it was time for the thousands of people who lived in your town, Futaba, to leave.
KATSUTAKAIDOGAWA: [translated] On that day, there was an earthquake of the scale of something we’d never experienced before. It was a huge surprise. And at the time, I was just hoping that nothing had happened to the nuclear power plant. However, unfortunately, there was in fact an accident there. And then I worked with the many residents, and thinking about how I could fully evacuate them from the radiation.
External exposure occurs when all or part of the body is exposed to a penetrating radiation field from an external source. During exposure this radiation can be absorbed by the body or it can pass completely through, similar to a chest x-ray. Note that exposure to a radiation field does not cause an individual to become radioactive; the radiation exposure ceases as soon as the individual leaves the radiation field.
All ionizing radiation sources produce an external radiation field. However, some fields are so small they pose no external radiation risk at all. Examples include these low and moderate energy beta radiation emitters:
H-3
C-14
Ni-63
P-33
S-35
Other sources of ionizing radiation produce much higher energy external radiation fields, and care must be taken to shield the source and to monitor exposure while working near these sources. Examples include:
Am-241/Be neutron sources
P-32 beta sources
Cs-137 gamma sources
Co-60 gamma sources
X-ray machines (only when the machine is energized)
Internal The other type of radiation injury involves contamination with radioactive material. Contamination means that radioactive material in the form of gases, liquids, or solids are released into the environment and contaminate people externally (such as on the skin), internally (such as by ingestion), or both.
Contamination by radioactive material can lead to incorporation of radioactive material into the body. This can be the result of uptake of radioactive material by body cells, tissues, and target organs such as bone, liver, thyroid, or kidney. In general, radioactive materials are distributed throughout the body based upon their chemical properties. For example, radioiodine, such as 125I, is concentrated in the thyroid gland of the body, just as non-radioactive iodine does.
All radioisotopes are potentially hazardous if inhaled or ingested. This includes low energy isotopes such as 3H and 14C. Frequent monitoring for contamination is necessary when working with any unsealed isotopes, and periodic leak tests are conducted for sealed sources (usually every 6 months).
X-ray machines contain no radioactive material, and thus pose no threat of contamination even when energized. When energized, an x-ray machine is a source of external radiation exposure.
House and Senate lawmakers want answers on whether U.S. sailors received high doses of radiation while supporting humanitarian operations in Japan following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
In the fiscal 2014 omnibus budget bill, lawmakers direct Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. Jonathan Woodson to provide Congress a full accounting of those who served on the carrier Ronald Reagan during the operation and any medical problems they later developed.
A group of sailors has filed suit against Tokyo Electric Power Co., alleging they suffered health issues as a result of exposure to radiation leaked from the company-owned Fukushima nuclear power plant when it had a meltdown after the earthquake and subsequent tidal wave.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, has 71 plaintiffs with ailments ranging from leukemia and thyroid problems to eye diseases and polyps.
TOKYO, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government on Wednesday approved a government revival and restructuring plan for Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the stricken nuclear facility in Fukushima Prefecture that suffered multiple meltdowns following a quake-triggered tsunami in March 2011.
The new turnaround plan, green-lit by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), will see the embattled utility receive 4 trillion yen (38.3 billion U.S. dollars) in additional state backing and espouse the sale by the end of fiscal 2016 of some of its 50.1 percent stake it holds.
The comes under an agreement to assist TEPCO's huge compensation burden, following the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.
The amount of radioactive substances in groundwater samples collected from an observation well at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has increased, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
The company detected 2.4 million becquerels of strontium-90 and other materials emitting beta particles per liter of groundwater collected from the well on Monday, the highest level on record, it said Tuesday.
The well, about 40 meters from the seawall, is located near the turbine building of the No. 2 reactor, one of the three reactors at the nuclear plant that experienced core meltdown in March 2011.
A Japanese engineer who helped build part of the Fukushima Daiichi No. 4 reactor said in Taiwan on Wednesday that the safety of nuclear power plants is unpredictable, urging Taiwan to ditch atomic energy for renewable resources.
Mitsuhiko Tanaka, who arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday with a delegation of Japanese parliamentarians for a six-day visit, told a press conference in Taipei that the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in 1986 changed his views on nuclear power.
"Nuclear accidents are bound to happen someday, only that we don't know when they will happen," he said.
Japan's government on Wednesday approved a fresh business plan for the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant that includes restarting idled reactors elsewhere in the currently nuclear-free country.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMYGOODMAN: We are on the road in Tokyo, Japan, for the first of three special broadcasts here. We’re here at a critical time for Japan and the region. Later in the show we’ll look at the crisis in Japan following the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant that occurred nearly three years ago. Our visit to Japan comes less than a month after thousands of people rallied on the Japanese island of Okinawa to protest plans to build a new U.S. Marine base. Meanwhile, protests continue here in Japan over the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP would establish a free trade zone stretching from the United States to Chile to Japan, encompassing nearly 40 percent of the global economy.
We’ll look at Okinawa and the TPP later in the week, but we begin today’s show looking at the rightward shift in Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was re-elected just over a year ago. Abe heads the country’s Liberal Democratic Party, is known as a conservative hawk who has pushed nationalistic and pro-nuclear policies. In December, he visited the controversial Yasukuni war shrine, which honors Japanese soldiers who died in battle, including several war criminals who were tried by the International Military Tribunal after World War II. The visit sparked outrage from China and South Korea, who consider the shrine a symbol of Japanese militarism and its refusal to atone for atrocities committed in China and Korea in the first half of the 20th century.
For more, I’m joined in our Tokyo studio by Koichi Nakano, professor at Sophia University here in Tokyo and director of the Institute of Global Concern at the university.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant originally comprised six boiling water reactors of a half-century-old General Electric design. The installation was one of the world’s 25 largest nuclear power stations. TEPCO currently believes that after the tsunami, units 1-3 suffered meltdowns, perhaps even through the floors of the buildings and into the soil.
However, the situation in unit 4 merited the most immediate attention. There, the building had partly collapsed. New and spent (used) fuel rods stored in temporary containment 100 feet above ground level were emitting radiation to the atmosphere.
In danger of internal collision due to seismic events or spillage from the damaged secondary containment, this exposed fuel has threatened Japan with a massive uncontrollable nuclear chain reaction. After completing precautionary activities, on November 18, 2013, the company began a delicate task of rearrangement. Plant workers started moving the assemblies of nuclear fuel rods racked in the upper-story pool to safer ground-level storage in a centralized pool common to all the damaged reactors.
As well as the hazard of spontaneous explosions, spent fuel rods can release considerable heat and quickly lethal levels of radiation. Robot cranes and other human-directed machinery are necessary to move these very hazardous materials. The unit 4 cooling pond contains 1,533 fuel assemblies, of which 1,331 have been used and 202 are unirradiated (fresh) ones. Some of the fuel assemblies are known to be damaged.
TOKYO, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Japan's trade ministry on Wednesday approved a revival plan for the utility responsible for the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Tokyo Electric Power Co , its second attempt at restoring its battered finances.
The plan hinges on Tokyo Electric (Tepco) restarting its Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant to cut fossil fuel costs, a contentious undertaking staunchly opposed by the local governor.
An earlier plan by Tepco outlining a revival after its Fukushima plant was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011, triggering triple meltdowns at the site, had to be torn up because it could not restart Kashiwazaki.
"As for the restart of Kashiwazaki Kariwa ... this is simply an assumption built into the financial plan," industry minister Toshimitsu Motegi said as he gave formal approval of the plan to Tepco President Naomi Hirose.
The previous revival plan revolved around a Kashiwazaki restart in early 2013. The new plan envisages a restart of two reactors at the station in July.
Motegi and Hirose said there may be a time lag between the plan's assumption and any restarts.
The recovery of Fukushima prefecture, dealing with compensation for those who lost homes and businesses and decommissioning the damaged plant are national priorities, Motegi told Hirose.
"Tepco will throw all available resources at taking responsibility for Fukushima. We will compensate every last person and the company has many things to do in order for residents to return quickly," Hirose said.
The company, which is majority owned by the government after an earlier bailout, said in the plan it may increase electricity prices if there are long delays in the restart schedule.
The new plan sees deeper cost cuts and more staff reductions than in the previous version. Tepco says it is aiming to report recurring profit of 167.7 billion yen ($1.62 billion)in the year through March 2015.
Tepco said it would seek savings on fuel purchases of 650 billion yen annually by buying supplies in partnership with other companies.
(Phys.org) —Researchers from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have launched "Kelp Watch 2014," a scientific campaign designed to determine the extent of radioactive contamination of the state's kelp forest from Japan's damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant following the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami.
Initiated by CSULB Biology Professor Steven L. Manley and the Berkeley Lab's Head of Applied Nuclear Physics Kai Vetter, the project will rely on samples of Giant Kelp and Bull Kelp from along the California coast.
"The California kelp forest is a highly productive and complex ecosystem and a valuable state resource. It is imperative that we monitor this coastal forest for any radioactive contaminants that will be arriving this year in the ocean currents from Fukushima disaster," said Manley, an expert in marine algae and kelp.
"I receive calls and emails weekly from concerned visitors and Californians about the effect of the Fukushima disaster on our California marine life," he continued. "I tell them that the anticipated concentrations that will arrive are most likely very low but we have no data regarding its impact on our coastal ecosystem. Kelp Watch 2014 will provide an initial monitoring system at least in the short-term."
The project includes the participation of 19 academic and government institutions and three other organizations/businesses. These participants will sample kelp from the entire California coastline as far north as Del Norte County and as far south as Baja California. The sampling will begin in mid-February and will end in late winter.
While publicly downplaying the threat posed by Fukushima radiation to the west coast, government scientists are preparing to monitor kelp forests across the entire state of California for contamination from the crippled nuclear power plant.
19 academic and government institutions will take part in the project, dubbed Kelp Watch 2014, which will collect samples of Giant Kelp and Bull Kelp from across the entire Californian coastline.
Sampling will begin next month and end in late winter, with scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory involved in the study.
“It is imperative that we monitor this coastal forest for any radioactive contaminants that will be arriving this year in the ocean currents from the Fukushima disaster,” CSULB biology professor Steven L. Manley Manley told CBS News.
Experts at the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems in Spain have concluded that the plume of radioactive cesium-137 released by the Fukushima disaster in 2011 will begin reaching U.S. coastal waters in early 2014.
While publicly scoffing at independent researchers concerned about Fukushima radiation, public health authorities have been making preparations which many see as being connected to the ongoing crisis at the Daiichi nuclear plant.
An International Experts Meeting on Radiation Protection will be held in Vienna next month to discuss lessons and challenges from the Fukushima nuclear accident.
The 2011 March earthquake and the following tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has brought to the forefront important challenges facing the international radiation protection regime.
As a result of the disaster, and in line with the its Action Plan on Nuclear Safety, the International Atomic Energy Agency (AIEA) is hosting an International Experts' Meeting (IEM) on Radiation Protection after the Fukushima Daiichi Accident: Promoting Confidence and Understanding. The meeting, to be held from 17 to 21 February, will bring some of the world's foremost experts and speakers on radiation protection to discuss a wide range of issues, IAEA said in a press release. Topics include the management of radiation exposures, potential healtheffects from the Fukushima accident, land management and public communication. Lessons from past accidents will also be reviewed. Sigurdur Magnusson, Director of Iceland's Radiation Protection Authority, will be chairing the meeting.
The accident at Fukushima alerted the global community to the need to fully implement safety standards in order to be able to effectively manage, in a timely manner, any possible future accident and its aftermath.
Ever since the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant three years ago, public fears about nuclear fallout have been high, both in Japan and increasingly in the United States. A scientist from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution would like to channel that anxiety into information by enlisting the public to fund and participate in a project to monitor radiation levels along the West Coast, just as the isotopes ferried across the Pacific are projected to arrive this spring.
Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at Woods Hole, announced Tuesday the launch ofourradioactiveocean.com, a website that will allow people and communities to propose sampling sites along the Pacific coast.
Buesseler is quick to point out that the levels of radiation exposure predicted by a number of models is well below the federal regulations for acceptable radiation exposure in drinking water. The expected radiation exposure in waters off the West Coast range from 1 to 30 Becquerels per cubic meter-- far below the federal drinking water limit of 7,400 Becquerels per cubic meter.
He does not expect to find unsafe levels of radiation, but he thinks the levels should be measured to allay people’s fears and to contribute to science, allowing regulators and oceanographers to get a better handle on how ocean currents travel. He is specifically interested in parts of the northern United States and Alaska, because the radioactive isotopes are projected to arrive there first.
“Without data, it’s easy to speculate and alarm people,” Buesseler said. “I’m concerned about radioactivity being dangerous, but I want to know what those levels are, and my concern scales with those numbers. ... I think we owe it to the public to make those measurements and I think it’s a pity our government hasn’t taken this on directly.”
As soon as World War II came to a close, the world fantasized of harnessing the inferno of nuclear power for peaceful, useful means. The first reactors sprung up in the 1950s, and the quest for commercial nuclear technology took on the frenzied urgency of a Soviet arms race. The 1973 oil crisis further buoyed the idea of nuclear power as the homegrown energy of the future.
But since its inception, commercial nuclear power has also provoked a kind of blood-curdling dread, and countries embraced the vision of a nuclear future to very different degrees. The 2011 catastrophe in Fukushima confirmed, once again, the nightmarish potential of nuclear power, and refigured the debate about nuclear across the globe. Is nuclear power a critical part of our energy future? Or a Cold War-flirtation bound for the history books? Here are some facts you may not know about the post-Fukushima nuclear world:
Japan abandoned its plans to get 60 percent of its energy from nuclear sources by 2100
Anti-nuclear protests have dwindled in Japan since Fukushima.
With few natural resources of its own, Japan was one of the most enthusiastic adopters of nuclear energy. Before Fukushima, Japan was the world’s third largest producer of nuclear power, with its reactors generating around 30 percent of the country’s electricity. The government’s goal was to cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than half between 2000 and 2050, and by 90 percent by 2100, thanks largely to an expansion in nuclear. Then, Fukushima happened. Japan shut down all 54 of its nuclear reactors -- later restarting two of them -- massively increased its oil and gas imports, resulting in a record trade deficit, and slashed its CO2 targets. Now, Japan is now the world’s second largest importer of fossil fuels after China, sparking a national debate over whether to restart its reactors.
Chiseler editor Daniel Riccuito recently met with Dr. Michael Parenti to discuss three global issues: Fukushima, Palestine and TPP (the Trans-Pacific Partnership). What follows is installment one of three.
Why isn’t President Obama more vocal about the ongoing environmental calamity caused by Fukushima?
For over two years, President Obama has been as mute about the calamity looming at Fukushima as the Japanese government itself—-and for the same reasons. First, the potential danger is stupendous and it is in the manner of leaders, when facing something that might develop into a super catastrophe, to keep the public’s mind off it. The last thing they want is to put the public into a fright and fury about their own survival vis-a-vis nuclear power.
Were people to focus on Fukushima they might very well come to the correct conclusion that nuclear power is too utterly dangerous to sustain. Building nuclear plants is akin to creating potential cataclysms. The public already is troubled about the possible disasters that are looming, including the need to find adequate aquatic sources for cooling purposes; the need to prevent meltdowns and massive explosions in the face of tsunamis, earthquakes, and onsite accidents; and finally, the need to develop faultless means to decommission troubled plants or keep them safely intact for the next 45,ooo years in order to prevent a meltdown and explosion that would make Hiroshima seem incidental.
The cargo trains dedicated to bringing disaster debris from Tohoku to Tokyo ended operations Monday because the volume of the rubble has been substantially reduced two years and 10 months after a massive offshore earthquake and tsunami wrecked its Pacific coastline in March 2011.
The last such train, carrying debris from Rikuzentakata and Kamaishi in Iwate Prefecture, arrived at a cargo terminal in Tokyo’s Shinagawa Ward on Monday morning. The containers were then put onto trucks.
The trains had been making runs nearly daily since September 2012, when the rubble from cleanup efforts started to get out of hand, said officials from Japan Freight Railway Co., one of the seven companies in the Japan Railways Group.
Efforts to get outside help with the disposal work were hampered by radiation contamination fears from the triple meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s neglected Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
When was the last time you heard an update about the Fukushima nuclear disaster on the evening news? Yeah, that’s what I thought. You might take the silence to mean that everything’s fine, but it’s not. In fact, if the little blips and pieces of news coming out of Japan are any indication, things are far from fine, and are getting worse by the second. Those of us in other countries, even on the other side of the world, may soon get our own taste of nuclear fallout.
On New Year’s Day (nearly three years after the initial incident) operators of the Fukushima plant reported that “plumes of most probably radioactive steam” had been seen rising from the reactor 3 building. According to RT.com, “the Reactor 3 fuel storage pond still houses an estimated 89 tons of the plutonium-based MOX nuclear fuel composed of 514 fuel rods.” Unfortunately, high levels of radiation inside the building make it nearly impossible to determine the source of the mystery steam. Although TEPCO, the plant’s operator, claims there’s no increased danger (small comfort from the people who admitted to the world that they have no controlover the situation), most agree that the plant is just seconds away from another disaster.
A Japanese research institute on nuclear decommissioning will ask 3 non-Japanese experts for advice on scrapping reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. It's been nearly 3 years since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused nuclear meltdowns.
The International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning was set up last year to support the government in dismantling the crippled reactors.
It is comprised of Tokyo Electric Power Company, which is the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi, and other utilities, as well as makers of nuclear plant equipment.
For a variety of reasons, many nuclear power plants are currently being retired across the Western world. Decommissioned reactors have started to appear in Japan, too.
At Japanese sites, such as Chubu Electric Power’s Hamaoka nuclear power plant and Japan Atomic Power’s Tokai nuclear power plant, most of the decommissioning work has been carried out by Japanese firms. Local companies cost less, so this is a way to save money while also boosting the regional economy. Experts say that dismantling and clearing a nuclear plant is not that dangerous, provided it is done carefully, based on a meticulous plan.
However, this is not the case with the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Decommissioning a disaster-hit reactor is uncharted territory. The authorities still do not know exactly what is going on inside the reactor. What is clear, though, is the presence of strontium and other radioactive materials not usually found at retired nuclear sites. The work is further complicated by the damaged state of the buildings and facilities.
I heard that moves were underfoot to get foreign companies involved in the decommissioning process at Fukushima.
TEHRAN (FNA)- The roll call of US sailors who say their health was devastated when they were irradiated while delivering humanitarian help near the stricken Fukushima nuke is continuing to soar.
Bay area lawyer Charles Bonner says a re-filing will wait until early February to accommodate a constant influx of sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and other American ships, Opednews reported.
Within a day of Fukushima One's March 11, 2011, melt-down, American "first responders" were drenched in radioactive fallout. In the midst of a driving snow storm, sailors reported a cloud of warm air with a metallic taste that poured over the Reagan.
