Report From Japanese Nuclear Industry Insiders: Business is Booming, Rocket News 24, February 10, 2012

According to Ito, what we don’t see occurring is what he calls “backspin business” which is profit made off of situations that undo
previous progress. Key players that once had the now-dubious honor of building a strong, clean, and safe nuclear power infrastructure are making preparations to profit from its damage.

For example, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has long struggled with the task of disposing of nuclear waste. Local residents of all TEPCO’s desired locations have been understandably hesitant to accept tons of radioactive material into their neighborhoods.Luckily for TEPCO the wasteland of the likely to be decommissioned Fukushima Daini (Number 2) Reactor is now the perfect place for them to set-up a decontamination factory….

General contractors are also in line to rake in money. Thanks to their friends at the JAEA, three companies, Kashima, Obayashigumi, and Taiseikensetsu were responsible for building 45 of Japan’s nuclear plants. Now they are looking to JAEA for work decontaminating 12 cities in Fukushima Prefecture. The Japanese government has entrusted JAEA with management of clean-up efforts in the area. If you recall, one of JAEA’s previous incarnations, the PNC, was responsible for the Monju Nuclear Plant accident and cover-up. JAEA has since been bogged down in an expensive effort to restart and maintain that plant for over a decade.

One benefit to regular citizens is the trickle-down revenue local business can make from clean-up crews. Beyond that, the largest
investors in this massive project, the Japanese taxpayers, are taking all the risk and getting no dividends. Meanwhile in the words of one TEPCO employee “after the closing and decontamination, [these companies] will be able to put food on the table for decades.”..
http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/02/10/report-from-japanese-nuclear-industry-insiders-business-is-booming/

Even more disturbing to critics of the decontamination program is the fact that the government awarded the first contracts to three giant construction companies — corporations that have no more expertise in radiation cleanup than anyone else does, but that profited hugely from Japan’s previous embrace of nuclear power.

Japan Starts Nuclear Cleanup, With Little Idea of How By HIROKO TABUCHI, NYT February 10, 2012 IITATE, Japan — As 500 workers in hazmat suits and respirator masks fanned out to decontaminate this village 20 miles from the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, their confusion was apparent. “Dig five centimeters or 10 centimeters deep here?” a site supervisor asked his colleagues, pointing to a patch of radioactive topsoil to be removed. He then gestured across the village square toward the community center. “Isn’t that going to be demolished? Shall we decontaminate it or not?”

A day laborer wiping down windows at an abandoned school nearby shrugged at the work crew’s haphazard approach. “We are all amateurs,” he said. “Nobody really knows how to clean up radiation.”

Nobody may really know how. But that has not deterred the Japanese government from starting to hand out an initial $13 billion in contracts meant to rehabilitate the more than 8,000-square-mile region most exposed to radioactive fallout — an area nearly as big as New Jersey. The main goal is to eventually enable the return of many of the 80,000 or more displaced people nearest the site of last March’s nuclear disaster, including the 6,500 villagers of Iitate.

It is far from clear, though, that the unproved cleanup methods will be effective.

Even more disturbing to critics of the decontamination program is the fact that the government awarded the first contracts to three giant construction companies — corporations that have no more expertise in radiation cleanup than anyone else does, but that profited hugely from Japan’s previous embrace of nuclear power.

It was these same three companies that helped build 45 of Japan’s 54 nuclear plants — including the reactor buildings and other plants at Fukushima Daiichi that could not withstand the tsunami that caused the plant’s catastrophic failure — according to data from Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, a watchdog group.

One of them, the Taisei Corporation, leads the consortium that sent out the workers now tramping around Iitate in hazmat suits. Consortiums led by Taisei and the other two big companies — Obayashi and Kajima — among them received contracts for the government’s first 12 pilot decontamination projects, totaling about $93 million.

“It’s a scam,” said Kiyoshi Sakurai, a critic of the nuclear industry and a former researcher at a forerunner to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, which is overseeing this phase of the decontamination effort. “Decontamination is becoming big business.”

The cleanup contracts, Mr. Sakurai and other critics contend, are emblematic of the too-cozy ties they say have long existed between the nuclear industry and government.

“The Japanese nuclear industry is run so that the more you fail, the more money you receive,” Mr. Sakurai said.

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency said the construction giants would not necessarily receive the bulk of the future work, which will be contracted out by the Environment Ministry. Officials for the companies, however, have indicated they expected to continue serving as primary contractors….

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/business/global/after-fukushima-disaster-a-confused-effort-at-cleanup.html

10 villages join protest against nuclear plant Times of India, Bhaskar Mukherjee, TNN | Feb 11, 2012,  FATEHABAD

The protesters gathered in the local grain market and then marched to the mini secretariat to hand over a memorandum against the plant, signed by 10,000 people, to deputy commissioner M L Kaushik. Villagers including women from Kharakheri, Dhanger, Mochiwali, Khajuri, Chobara, Jandli, Dahman, Kajal Heri, Nehla and Gorakhpur participated in the demonstration.

President of Kisan Sangharsh Samiti Hans Raj Siwach said, “We are on a protest call for the past 546 days but the government does not care. We shall not let the government acquire our agriculture land.” He asked, “Why does the Haryana government want to set up nuclear power plant. Don’t they realize what the Fukushima nuclear disaster did to Japan?”

At least 1,313 acres of land in the village are to be acquired for the nuclear plant. Farmers of Gorakhpur had recently held three officials hostage when they visited the village for taking measurements. The officials were only let go when they promised never to come to the village again. They were forced to write down their promise on paper and sign it.

In the meantime, the residents of the village submitted memorandums against the setting up of the nuclear plant on their land.  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/10-villages-join-protest-against-nuclear-plant/articleshow/11843998.cms

‘Remove pro-nuclear Srinivasan from panel’ Press Trust Of India, Hindustan Times, Chennai, February 10, 2012

People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) said it welcomed constitution of the four-member state panel but pointed out that Srinivasan was a “well-known pro-nuclear person.”

Srinivasan was the former chairman and a current member of India’s Atomic Energy Commission. He was also a member of the site selection committee in the 1980s for the KNPP and has been writing and speaking in favor of nuclear power and the Koodankulam project itself, S P Udayakumar, leading the anti-nuclear movement, said in a statement.

He said people had expected that the state expert team would be neutral and independent “but Dr Srinivasan is neither.So it is hard for the PMANE to accept Dr Srinivasan.”
It asked the chief minister to replace Srinivasan with another expert and expand the team with experts in Geology, Oceanography and
Hydrology. PMANE also requested Jayalalithaa to make the State Expert Team meet its own experts, consider their findings and engage in a ”genuine dialogue” and listen to the fears and concerns of the people and arrive at a conclusion in a democratic manner on the basis of majority opinion.

He alleged that having failed to allay the fears of the people, the Centre was sending spies into the areas around Koodankulam “to divide
our communities, create fear and panic among the people and instigate violence..”… http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Chennai/Remove-pro-nuclear-Srinivasan-from-panel/Article1-809419.aspx

Warning that Fukushima is “far from over,” Tasaka said official assurances of the complex’s alleged safety were based on “groundless
optimism.” Tasaka cited more than 1500 fuel rods dangerously exposed to the open atmosphere at Unit Four alone. The waste problem has gone nationwide, he said in a newly published book, as “the storage capacities of the spent fuel pools at the nation’s nuclear power
plants are reaching their limits,”

Tasaka’s statements came as a new temperature spike unexpectedly stuck Fukushina Unit Two. For reasons not yet clear, heat releases in excess of 158 degrees Farenheit spewed from the core, prompting Tokyo Electric to pump in more water and boric acid meant to damp down an apparently on-going chain reaction. Prof. Tasaka and others warn that this in turn will contribute to spreading still more radiation into the water table and oceans.

With bitter debate raging in Japan, the US and elsewhere over the killing power of Fukushima’s emissions, the certification of a new US
reactor design may someday be remembered as a bizarre epitaph for the 20th century’s most expensive failed technology.

Without state ratepayers and federal taxpayers being forced to foot the bill, new reactor construction in the US is going nowhere.

And without a final resolution to the on-going horrors at Fukushima, the entire planet, from Tokyo to Alaska to Georgia and beyond, remains at serious radioactive risk.

Abe said he and the other monks are storing the soil on a hill behind the temple as neither the government nor the nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) are helping with the clean-up.

“No-one else would take the soil. If there’s nobody to take care of it, the decontamination can’t get going because there’s nowhere to get rid of it,” Abe said.

Japan priest fights invisible demon: radiation Feb 10 (Reuters) – On the snowy fringes of Japan’s Fukushima city, now notorious as a byword for nuclear crisis, Zen monk Koyu Abe offers prayers for the souls of thousands left dead or missing after the earthquake and tsunami nearly one year ago.

But away from the ceremonial drums and the incense swirling around the Joenji temple altar, Abe has undertaken another task, no less
harrowing — to search out radioactive “hot spots” and clean them up, storing irradiated earth on temple grounds….

Radiation, carried on winds and by snow, spread far beyond the 20 km (12 miles) evacuation zone around the plant, nestling in hot spots across the region and contaminating the ground in what remains a largely agricultural region.

Many of those who fled have no idea when, if ever, they can return to
land held by their families for generations.

“The damage here in Fukushima is different from the destruction caused
by the tsunami,” Abe said.

“You can’t see it. Nothing looks as if it’s changed, but really,
radiation is floating through the area. It’s hard for those hit by the
tsunami, but it’s hard to live here too.”…
Now he is trading his ceremonial robes for a protective mask, working
with volunteers to track down lingering pockets of radiation and
cleaning them up.

One participant is Masataka Aoki, a 65-year-old engineer at nuclear
plant maker Hitachi for more than 40 years. None of the Fukushima
Daiichi reactors were made by Hitachi.

Aoki had long been a believer in nuclear power, but he had a change of
faith after the meltdowns and now seeks to assuage a sense of guilt.

“The thing I’d come to believe was good and useful to society turned
out to be useless and caused everybody trouble,” Aoki said. “I feel a
deep sense of remorse.”

On a recent weekend volunteers including Aoki looked for radioactive
hot spots along a small path which local parents said was mostly used
by children on their way to school.

Tests with hand-held Geiger counters yielded results of more than 9
microsieverts per hour, higher than in some areas of the evacuation
zone near the plant itself.

Figures from government testing stations within the exclusion zone the
same day read between 3.6 microsieverts and 13 microsieverts an hour.
A typical chest x-ray is about 20 microsieverts a scan.

Volunteers dig up the earth in any hot spots they find and load the
soil into trucks. The surrounding area is then washed down with
high-powered hoses.

Abe said he and the other monks are storing the soil on a hill behind the temple as neither the government nor the nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) are helping with the clean-up.

“No-one else would take the soil. If there’s nobody to take care of it, the decontamination can’t get going because there’s nowhere to get
rid of it,” Abe said.

Volunteers have gathered some 400 kg (800 pounds) of radioactive
waste. But it is likely to take years to remove all of the “invisible
snow”, as Abe describes the radiation — if that is even possible.

“Real snow is cold but it is much better than the invisible snow. The
visible snow will eventually melt away,” he said.        (Writing by Elaine
Lies; Editing by Michael Perry)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/japan-disaster-invisible-idUSL4E8D71P220120210

Chinese County Protests Nuclear Plant Construction, VOA, February 9th, 2012

The newspaper quotes critic and activist Sun Bin as saying “we all believe the plant is a time bomb.” The paper said the November critique pointed out that the facility – located in an adjacent county – sits on a seismic fault zone “with frequent occurrences of earthquakes.” The November report also said fault-zone data was not mentioned in earlier environmental impact reports. Plant construction was suspended for further impact studies last year, after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster…….. http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/02/09/chinese-county-protests-nuclear-plant-construction/

Atomic body dismisses report on nuclear safety Taipei Times Staff Writer, with CNA , 9 Feb 12, 

The French newspaper Le Monde reported on Tuesday that spent fuel pools at the Jinshan (金山) Nuclear Power Plant in Shimen District (石門), New Taipei City (新北市) and Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in Wanli District (萬里), New Taipei City, have become saturated and could therefore be severely hazardous in the event of an accident.
However, the council said spent fuel pools at the two plants are not saturated, and the state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), which operates the two plants, will establish dry storage facilities to relieve spent fuel levels in the pools.
At the first nuclear plant, which is 28km north of Taipei, 2,870 and 2,744 bundles of spent fuel rods are stored in the plant’s two pools, each of which can accommodate a total of 3,083 bundles, data compiled by the council on Jan. 2 showed.
While the pools are almost full, an on-site dry storage facility will be completed in 2013 and spent fuel from the pools will be transferred to the new facility to clear the way for further spent fuel, council spokesman Peng Chih-wei (彭志偉) said….. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2012/02/10/2003525139

Japanese Anti-Nuclear Campaign Says It Has 5 Million Petition Signatures, VOA, 08 February 2012 Steve Herman | Tokyo

But amid traditional apathy among Japanese toward political movements and longstanding strong ties between power companies and lawmakers in a resource-poor country, anti-nuclear
campaigners are acknowledging an uphill struggle….

Petitioners in Tokyo and Osaka separately say they have collected enough signatures
for referenda in Japan’s two largest cities. But it is unclear if those campaigns will clear all the legal hurdles to get on the ballot.

The Fukushima disaster also gave rise to some of Japan’s largest
public protests in decades, which have been peaceful. But one of the
most prominent domestic anti-nuclear figures in the country, Nobel
laureate for literature Kenzaburo Oe, says citizens’ initiatives have
not gone far enough.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Oe called for a national referendum
on nuclear power. He contends Japanese seismologists have understated
the risk of earthquakes at reactor locations and that some nuclear
industry scientists in the country have reversed opinion and now
express doubts about the safety of Japan’s aging reactors. …
Oe also called for children in Fukushima to undergo detailed screening
for internal radiation exposure, comparing their plight to the victims
of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of
World War Two.  ….
http://www.voanews.com/tibetan-english/news/Japanese-Anti-Nuclear-Campaign-Says-It-Has-5-Million-Petition-Signatures-138941634.html