“Nuclear Nation,” and “No Man’s Zone” – films show the human horror of Fukushima nuclear disaster
Berlin Film Festival: 3 documentaries on Japan nuclear disaster LA Times, Susan Stone in Berlin, February 10, 2012 | Less than a year after the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan devastated whole towns and crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing a radioactive disaster, filmic portraits at the Berlin International Film Festival are presenting the human fallout.
Three documentaries appearing at the Berlinale provide sort of post-nuclear ghost stories – landscapes and people haunted by the aftermath of the nuclear accident and residual radiation.
Atsushi Funahashi’s “Nuclear Nation,” which was to debut Friday night in a world premiere, documents life in exile for the residents of Futaba, a town that prospered and then all but perished, its rise and fall tightly woven together with the Fukushima nuclear plant.
National subsidies and major tax breaks came to Futaba starting in the 1960s, compensation for the presence of the plant. Along with jobs for citizens, the plant brought money for a new community center, library and sports facilities.
Funahashi’s film shows that all lies empty now, beyond the ornate city gates reading “Atomic energy makes our town and society prosperous” – the entire city has been designated as an exclusion zone, and will be uninhabitable for years. ….
Toshi Fujiwara’s “No Man’s Zone” screens Sunday, and aspires to more artiness, featuring a voice-over by Armenian Canadian actress Arsinée Khanjian. Fujiwara hopes to show the beauty in the tainted landscape, while leveling a critique of the disaster and how it was handled. …
The documentaries are screening just days after a fresh reminder of the ongoing problems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. On Feb. 8,
workers battled rising temperatures in one of the plant’s reactors, raising new questions about the stability of the facility.
The films should have a special resonance in Berlin, where anti-nuclear sentiment has been strong for years, partly due to
secrecy around and problems following the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine in 1986. After the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear
power plant in March 2011, the German government decided to phase out all nuclear energy by 2022, and started by immediately shutting several plants.
Video on US military use of depleted uranium
US used depleted uranium in recent wars Video http://www.presstv.ir/detail/223986.html Press TV 31 Jan 12, A prominent investigative journalist says the United States is using illegal weaponry – particularly depleted uranium – during its wars in the Middle East.
Numerous UN human rights commissions have prohibited the use of depleted uranium on humans, including during military conflicts. Read more »
National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Nuclear Weapons Testing,
http://kcpw.org/blog/local-news/2012-01-27/victims-of-nuclear-testing-radiation-remembered/ Victims of Nuclear Testing Radiation Remembered, 01.27.2012 by Jeff Robinson (KCPW News) It was 61 years ago today that nuclear testing began on the Nevada Test Site, as many residents of Salt Lake Cityand more rural areas like Kane County know too well. That’s why local leaders are marking a National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Nuclear Weapons Testing, which was designated by the U.S. Senate, to commemorate the lives of downwinders, those who were exposed to the radiation. Local resident Mary Dickson is one of them. She shared her downwinder story with KCPW’s Jeff Robinson.
Film exposes “regulatory capture” of USA’s NRC by the nuclear industry
Sundance Diary: “The Atomic States of America” Turns the Lens on Nuclear Power ONEARTH, BY BRUCE BARCOTT January 26, 2012 “……. The Atomic States of America, a film based partly upon her memoir, Welcome to Shirley.
McMasters’ book chronicled her childhood growing up in a blue-collar Long Island town next to the Brookhaven National Lab, one of the federal government’s leading nuclear research stations. In the 1990s, news broke (thanks to citizen activists and a local newspaper reporter) that Brookhaven’s three reactors regularly leaked deadly nuclear materials into the local water supply.
McMasters didn’t realize what was going on until college, when a roommate asked her, “Why are you always going home to all these funerals? What’s going on there?” The answer: Cancer, cancer, and more cancer.
Atomic States directors Sheena Joyce and Don Argott, who made the documentary Rock School in 2005, expand on McMasters’ material, looking at other nuclear power plant-adjacent communities and their chillingly similar experiences with radioactive leaks.
“At one of the documentary filmmakers forums over the weekend, we talked about this recurring theme of regulatory capture,” McMasters told me. “Again and again, we’re seeing the corporations that are supposed to be regulated take over the regulatory agency through money and politics.”
Three Japanese films about Fukushima nuclear disaster
Japanese filmmakers tackle the 3/11 tragedy, SBS 23 January 2012 - By World Movies Three films focusing on Japan’s nuclear plant meltdown and the aftermath will be unveiled next month. “If one was to be poisoned by radiation, if he or she did so out of their own will and conviction I believe it to be perfectly fine. But you can’t force that onto the children. The children, you must distance them from the poisoned areas.”
Also being unveiled at the festival are two other Japanese films dealing with the March 11, 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power station and ensuing tsunami. Read more »
World’s groundwater being depleted
since the year 1900 up to the year 2008, something in the order of 4,500 cubic kilometres of depletion; most of that occurring in the last 50 years. That’s how much less water is in the ground today than 108 years ago.
Audio http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3413882.htm Is the world facing a groundwater crisis? ABC Rural radio Dubravka Voloder reported this story on January 23, 2012 MARK COLVIN: Water is not just a sensitive subject in Australia. In a crowded world of seven billion people, water is an increasing source of friction and the lack of it could have damaging results.
International water researchers say that water shortages could affect world food production in the next few decades unless something’s done about it. The scientists are meeting in Sydney to discuss whether there’ll be a groundwater crisis.
Dubravka Voloder reports. Read more »
Films show effects of uranium mining on indigenous peoples
Two films show effects of uranium mining Friday Film Pick: Don’t Mine Me & Uranium Art Threat, by EZRA WINTON JANUARY 20, 2012 a doc looking at the history of uranium mining on a Navajo Indian Reservation in the US. Since you can only watch the trailer for this film and read about it as it continues production (with generous donations from supporters), I’m including a second film from 1990 that looks at uranium mining in Canada, called Uranium (trailers after jump).
Don’t Mine Me is a documentary about the history of uranium mining on the Navajo Indian Reservation in the Southwest United States. At the end of WWII, the United States encouraged uranium mining production. Several large uranium deposits were found on the Navajo Reservation and many Navajo men were employed to work these mines. Disregarding the known health risks resulting from exposure to uranium, the United States failed to inform the Navajo workers about the dangers and to regulate the mining to minimize contamination. Several mine workers and families on the reservation have suffered with numerous amounts of health problems, some even fatal, from environmental contamination. For decades the government failed to improve conditions and to inform workers of the dangers. Read more »
Israel will not pre-emptively strike Iran
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-19/israel-defence-minister-denies-jewish-state-about/3782256?section=world Israel Defence Minister denies Jewish state about to strike Iran ABC Radio News, January 19, 2012 Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak has denied that his country is close to carrying out a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He was speaking on the eve of a visit to Israel by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey who is reportedly on a mission urging Israel to show restraint.
Source: AM | TONY EASTLEY: Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak has denied that his country is close to carrying out a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
He was speaking on the eve of a visit to Israel by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey who is reportedly there on a mission urging Israel to show restraint.
Foreign affairs editor Peter Cave reports from Jerusalem….. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-19/israel-defence-minister-denies-jewish-state-about/3782256?section=world
Independent inquiry: did earthquake first damage Fukushima’s nuclear reactors?
The panel includes legal, nuclear and medical experts. Seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi has long warned of tsunami risks in the earthquake-prone country where all 54 nuclear reactors are built on the coastline. Engineer Mitsuhiko Tanaka designed nuclear reactors at Babcock-Hitachi K.K. and has suggested the March quake damaged the Fukushima reactors before the tsunami.
New probe to cut deeper in Japan nuclear crisis17 JAN 2012 3 News New Zealand, By Mari Yamaguchi
http://www.3news.co.nz/New-probe-to-cut-deeper-in-Japan-nuclear-crisis/tabid/417/articleID/239500/Default.aspx A newly formed investigative panel on Japan’s nuclear disaster will use its subpoena powers wisely and cut deeper into the accident than the government’s probe, according to the leader of the independent commission.
The panel appointed by parliament last month has gained attention here because its 10 members include outspoken critics of Japan’s nuclear policy who long ago questioned the seismic risks to the country’s 54 nuclear reactors.
It is expected to examine the extent to which the 9.0-magnitude earthquake contributed to the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, as well as the ensuing tsunami and radiation alert system. Read more »
Satellite pictures of North Korea’s nuclear plants
Satellite Snaps Show North Korea’s Nuclear Progress, Wired.com By Adam Rawnsley January 13, 2012 Kim Jong Il may be dead, but his legacy in North Korea lives on through the nuclear program he left behind. New satellite images now offer a more detailed view of the work that went into North Korea’s nuclear facilities in Kim’s final years.
The satellite pictures and the simulated models based on them show that North Korea has made notable progress building out its uranium enrichment facilities and accompanying experimental light water reactor since 2009. That progress is noted in a new article by Siegfried Hecker, Robert Carlin and Niko Milonopoulos in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists……. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/01/sat-snaps-north-koreas-nukes/
A historic video that exposes the crooked nuclear power industry
“We discovered that our theoretical calculations didn’t have a strong correlation with reality. But we just couldn’t admit to the public that all these safety systems we told you about might not do any good”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.html VIDEO A IS FOR ATOM Adam Curtis , 16 March 2011As a background to the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant I am putting up a film I made a while ago called A is for Atom. It was part of a series about politics and science called Pandora’s Box.
The film shows that from very early on – as early as 1964 – US government officials knew that there were serious potential dangers with the design of the type of reactor that was used to build the Fukushima Daiichi plant. But that their warnings were repeatedly ignored.
The film tells the story of the rise of nuclear power in America, Britain and the Soviet Union. It shows how the way the technologies were developed was shaped by the political and business forces of the time. And how that led directly to inherent dangers in the design of the containment of many of the early plants. Read more »
USA city Ithaca goes 100% renewable energy
Ithaca Moves to 100% Renewable Energy (VIDEO) 
http://www.weny.com/News-Local.asp?ARTICLE3864=9163128 Joe Melillo December 29, 2011 Ithaca (WENY) – The city of Ithaca will now be powered completely by renewable energy and moving the community one step closer to its goal of reducing the carbon footprint 20 percent by 2016. Nothing will change for people living in the city. From now on all the electricity used by the city will be from a renewable energy source. Read more »
Cancer from Fukushima radiation – the Japanese are the guinea pigs
The bottom line is that no one really knows how much this ongoing exposure is going to raise our risk of cancer. The true impact is still unknown, yet to be learned as the world watches. The legacy of 3/11 is to turn us all into a nation of guinea pigs.
. http://www.npr.org/2011/12/24/144194589/in-japan-radiation-fears-reshape-lives Radio In Japan, Radiation Fears Reshape Lives NPR.by LUCY CRAFT, December 24, 2011 Nine months after Japan’s nuclear accident, life in Tokyo seems to have snapped back to normal, with a vengeance. The talk shows are back to their usual mindless trivia about pop stars and baseball contracts. The date of the tsunami and nuclear accident, March 11 — known here as just 3/11 — has faded into the background.
But while the horror has receded, for many of us, particularly women with families, things will never be the same.
There’s no getting past the fact that the nuclear accident dumped radioactive particles into the atmosphere, soil and sea. Read more »
The coming cancer cost from Fukushma ionising radiation
Nuclear Expert: 1,000,000 cancers from Fukushima in Japan over next 20 years ENE News — First thyroid, then lung, organ, brain, leukemia (VIDEO) Title: Fukushima – Total Cost http://enenews.com/nuclear-expert-forecasts-1000000-cancers-from-fukushima-in-japan-first-thyroid-then-lung-organ-brain-leukemia-vide0 Dec 21, 2011
Description: Arnie Gundersen of Fairwinds Associates (a leading nuclear expert) and Warren Pollock (http://www.wepollock.com ) redefine the Fukushima nuclear incidents (meltdowns and explosions) in terms of human and total cost. [...]
I think the 20 year cost from Fukushima will be about one million cancers
- Based on Three Mile Island studies
- About a 20% increase in lung cancer 3-5 years after TMI
- And that was small compared to Fukushima
- And in a much lower population density
- First thyroid cancer
- Then lung cancer
- Then organ cancer, leukemia, brain cancer, things like that
India: 10,000 peaceful anti nuclear protestors march, and promise further action
Anti-nuclear protestors take out rally, stage peaceful demo Radhapuram (TN) Dec 18 (PTI) About 10,000 anti-nuclear protestors today took out a procession from a temple at nearby Koodankulam to this town and staged a peaceful demonstration, condemning Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement that the Nuclear Power project would be operationalised in a couple of weeks and resolved to picket the plant if work resumed.
Pushparayan, Convenor of People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), which is spearheading the stir, said the organisation would intensify its agitation from January 1 if their demand for removing the fuel rods loaded into the reactor were not removed by that date.
Police said the procession and the demonstration passed off peacefully and that adequate security had been deployed to ensure no untoward incidents took place. Earlier in the day, PMANE condemned Singh’s ‘anti-people’ and ‘autocratic’ statement on KNPP, saying it betrayed the fact that the state government’s resolution to
halt work was never honoured earnestly or implemented effectively.
http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/antinuclear-protestors-take-out-rally-stage-peaceful-demo/935954.html
VIDEO Huge protest planned in Kudankulam over PM’s statement by ndtv on Dec 18, 2011 With the Prime Minister announcing that the Kudankulam plant will be operationalised in a couple of weeks, at Ground Zero, villagers have called for a huge protest rally today, from Kudankulam to nearby Radhapuram in Tamil Nadu. “If the Nuclear Power Corporation of India or the Department of Atomic Energy tries to restart the work at the Kudankulam nuclear plant, we will lay a siege with thousands of people and their families immediately at the site, and number two in order to protest against PM’s statement made in Russia we are going to hold a rally from Kudankulam to Radhapuram,” said SP Udhayakumar, Convenor, People’s Movement against Nuclear Energy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPPlEavM3VE
1 THIS MONTH
profile of all three Fukushima documentaries.
of the week: http://sanonofresafety.org/blog/
A website to watch: http://hormesishistory.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/radiation-hormesis-and-adaptive-response-definitions/ Here’s a brand new website. It’s for anyone who wants background knowledge on ionising radiation. It will bust the spin of the current propaganda campaign promoting bodgie pseudoscience. – “radiation hormesis” and “adaptive response” are the latest spin designed by the nuclear industry to reassure us that low level ionising radiation is OK.
EVENTS
March 2012 is “March Against Nuclear Madness” and Beyond Nuclear has created a new March Against Nuclear Madness Facebook page.
March 8th & 9th – Cape Town, South Africa - The Global Conference: Nuclear Power For Africa? http://koebergalert.org/npfree/
March 11 _ UK – Protest at Hinkley nuclear site
May 31 USA - Portland, Maine, Bonnie Raitt benefit concert for New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution
Nuclear power and water – theme for February 2012
Effects of uranium mining and nuclear power on water.
Overuse of precious fresh water.One of the greatest dangers of the nuclear/uranium industry is in its use of water. Both uranium mining and nuclear reactors require enormous amounts of water. This is a threat to the world’s scarce resources of fresh water.
Pollution. Both uranium mining and nuclear reactors also pollute water. In uranium mining, water is often used to pour over radioactive dust tailings: radioactive water can leach down into groundwater. In the “in situ leach” process, radioactive water is disposed of into the aquifer.
Flooding rain can cause overflow and radioactive pollution of waterways.
Nuclear reactors use water for cooling – the resulting hot water is released into the source, river, or coastal sea, to thermally pollute the area, damaging plants and fish.
Effects of water (too little or too much) on nuclear reactors.
Water scarcity, and hot water.. In heat waves, nuclear reactors often will need to be shut down, as their river sources of cooling water become too warm to function as a coolant.
As global warming brings about a rise in average temperatures and ocean levels, inland reactors will increasingly contribute to, and be affected by, water shortages. During the record-breaking 2003 heat wave in France, operations at 17 commercial nuclear reactors had to be scaled back or stopped because of rapidly rising temperatures in rivers and lake. Spain’s reactor at Santa María de Garoña was shut for a week in July 2006 after high temperatures were recorded in the Ebro River.
Paradoxically, then, the very conditions that made it impossible for the nuclear industry to deliver full power in Europe in 2003 and 2006 created peak demand for electricity, owing to the increased use of air conditioning. http://chellaney.net/2011/03/14/paradox-of-nuclear-power-water-guzzler-yet-vulnerable-to-water/
Seawater can be used to cool reactors, but it has to be purified. Corrosive elements in the seawater would otherwise ruin the reactors – so seawater is a last resort for cooling. As in the case of the Fukushima emergency – seawater was used, as ruining the reactors was preferable to a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.
Too much water. It is a laugh that nuclear power is touted as a solution to global warming More likely, global warming is the death knell for nuclear power.
Very many nuclear reactors are located along coastlines, where they are vulnerable to storms, hurricanes, and tsunamis. With climate change and rising sea levels, these events are becoming more frequent and more extreme.
So far, we have considered water only as it relates to only the normal operations of nuclear reactors. Even then, nuclear reactors have leaks, especially as they age, allowing radioactive substances to disperse into water systems.
Uranium mines are vulnerable to flooding. When this happens, the disaster is an economic one, as well as environmental. Canada’s Cameco company and Energy Resources of Australia have found this out to their cost. Both uranium companies are still in financial plight due to the Cigar Lake (Canada) floods of 2006, and 2008, and the Ranger mine (Australia) floods of 2011.
But Fukushima has shown the world how a natural climate event can disrupt nuclear power. In the event of a nuclear accident the effects of nuclear power on water are hugely damaging, catastrophic.
Some figures and facts on nuclear/uranium and water.
URANIUM MINING Water use in a typical uranium mine is approximately 200 to 300 gallons per minute, In water-short Australia, BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine has been for years taking 35 million litres of water each day from the underground aquifer, at no cost whatever. When BHP digs its new biggest hole in the world, it will pay a small fixed price for removing even greater amounts, exceeding 42 million litres.
A typical 1000-megawatt pressurized-water reactor (with a cooling tower) takes in 20,000 gallons of river, lake or ocean water per minute for cooling, circulates it through a 50-mile maze of pipes, returns 5,000 gallons per minute to the same body of water, and releases the remainder to the atmosphere as vapor. A 1000-megawatt reactor without a cooling tower takes in even more water–as much as one-half million gallons per minute. The discharge water is contaminated with radioactive elements in amounts that are not precisely known or knowable, but are biologically active.
Some radioactive fission gases, stripped from the reactor cooling water, are contained in decay tanks for days before being released into the atmosphere through filtered rooftop vents. Some gases leak into the power plant buildings’ interiors and are released during periodic “purges” and “ventings.” These airborne gases contaminate not only the air, but also soil and water.
200 billion gallons of water withdrawn from America’s water supply each day for every terawatt of electricity produced by nuclear reactors,
At least 20 USA nuclear plants have admitted leakage of radioactive tritium into the groundwater.
Spills and leaks are common at In Situ Leach mines. The South Australian Department of Primary Industry and Resources lists 59 spills at Beverley mine from 1998 to 2007.
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