Prominent Japanese spearhead a Bill to abolish nuclear power
Oe, Sakamoto lead charge for no-reactor bill http://www.japantimes.co.jp text/nn20120824a5.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+japantimes+(The+Japan+Times:+All+Stories) Kyodo
A group led by Nobel literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe, Academy Award-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and other noted celebrities has launched a nationwide network seeking passage of a bill to abolish all nuclear power plants in Japan.
“We must bring an end to nuclear power plants if humankind is to continue living in the next century,” Oe said during a news conference Wednesday in Tokyo. “By speaking out
loud, we can have the bill passed.”
Group members said they want to see the bill that they have compiled
passed as soon as possible before 2025. Oe and Sakamoto have been leading rallies against nuclear power, with the most recent protest on July 16 drawing what organizers said was an estimated 170,000 people to Yoyogi Park.
Other members of the group include Kenji Utsunomiya, former president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, and Tatsuya Murakami, the mayor of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, where the country’s first nuclear reactor was set up in 1957.
In its bill, the group calls nuclear power an extremely fragile system in terms of security, noting the devastating damage that accidents can cause and that no safe method of disposing of nuclear waste has been established.
The group aims to prohibit construction of new nuclear plants and expansion of existing ones, and to abolish all nuclear plants between 2020 and 2025. It also seeks a ban on operation of reactors that are more than 40 years old, as well as a halt to the reprocessing of spent fuel.
Conservatives and right wingers now part of Japan’s anti nuclear movement
“Some in the very right wing of conservative thinkers have become anti-nuclear after 3/11,”.. ”The Friday protests also have some right-wingers. It’s not just lefties,”
“Morality and economic growth are possible without nuclear power,” he concludes.
Nationatalist Japan manga author joins anti-nuclear fight Asahi Shimbun, 25 Aug 12, Japan’s anti-nuclear movement has a new supporter: bestselling nationalist “manga” author Yoshinori Kobayashi, known for his controversial defense of Tokyo’s wartime aggression, has joined the growing ranks of those who want the country to end its reliance on atomic power in the wake of the Fukushima crisis.
The attack from an unexpected quarter comes as Japan tries to decide the role nuclear energy should play in a new national energy portfolio amid growing pressure from voters worried about safety after last year’s Fukushima atomic disaster, the world’s worst in a quarter of a century. Continue reading
Mitt Romney – very vague about renewable energy
The plan also includes devolving decision-making to the state level for onshore energy development, measures to reduce environmental and other regulation, and a speed-up of federal approval for new nuclear reactor designs and licensing of approved designs to two years.
Romney white paper on energy policy vague 
on renewable energy Solar Server 24 Aug 12, The campaign of U.S. Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney (R) has released a white paper regarding the candidate’s energy policy plans, calling for North American energy independence by 2020 and focusing on oil and gas development.
The document also includes vague calls for an end to alleged preferential treatment of renewable energy, and suggests removing subsidies, calling for a “level playing field”. This is a departure from the direct attacks on renewable energy which have been a feature of the Romney campaign to date….
Statement remarkable for vagueness on renewables In many ways, the statement continues Republican Party talking points and conspiracy theories regarding the treatment of renewable energy under the Obama Administration, including claims that Obama has made war on the oil and coal industries.
However, it is also notable in its vagueness regarding specific policy supports for renewable technologies. Continue reading
Every USA State has big potential for renewable energy
NREL Study Shows Renewable Energy Potential in Every State http://www.rdmag.com/News/Feeds/2012/08/materials-nrel-study-shows-renewable-energy-potential-in-eve/ by National Renewable Energy Laboratory A new study of renewable energy’s technical potential finds that every state in the nation has the space and resource to generate clean energy.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory produced the study, U.S. RE Technical Potential, which looks at available renewable resources in each state. It establishes an upper-boundary estimate of development potential. Economic or market restraints would factor into what projects might actually be deployed.
The report is valuable for decision-makers and utility executives because it compares estimates across six renewable energy technologies and unifies assumptions and methods. It shows the achievable energy generation of a particular technology given resource availability – solar, wind, geothermal availability, etc. — system performance, topographic limitations, and environmental and land-use constraints.
The study includes state-level maps and tables containing available land area (square kilometers), installed capacity (gigawatts), and electric generation (gigawatt-hours) for each technology.
“Decision-makers using the study will get a sense of scale regarding the potential for renewables, and which technologies are worth examining,” said NREL’s Anthony Lopez, a co-author of the study. “Energy modelers also will find the study valuable.”
“This is intended to be a living document,” NREL’s Donna Heimiller, another co-author, added. “We’ll be frequently updating the information as we get more data.”
For more information go to the NREL website: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/re_potential.html.
NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.
Teacher: “I’m lying to a room full of students” — Fukushima City should be evacuated
http://enenews.com/teacher-im-lying-to-a-room-full-of-students-fukushima-city-should-be-evacuated August 24th, 2012 By ENENews Title: Visiting the end of the world
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Author: Senator Scott Ludlam, Australian Greens Senator for Western Australia
Date: Aug 24, 2012
[…]
Flash forward to August 2012, with 150,000 people evacuated from places like Iitate. The mood in the region is dark. A young high school teacher downloads the unvarnished truth in a loungeroom in Fukushima City the night before our trip down to the coast.
“I’m lying to a room full of students,” he tells me, daring me to break eye contact. Like many thousands of others, his wife and children now live in temporary accommodation well outside the contaminated area, but Japan has no social security net to speak of and people can’t just walk away from jobs.
Now he is grappling with a hateful dilemma, addressing a room full of students in a city he believes is no longer safe for children. Fukushima City, population 290,000. Kōriyama City, population 336,000. Both of them hit by the plume that carried fission products from the broken reactors to the north-west before the wind swung briefly towards Tokyo. I hesitate, then ask, should this city be evacuated? He pauses a long time before answering, and finally drops his gaze. Yes.
[…]
With a slightly different fall of the dice, the Fukushima meltdowns would have cost the people of Japan their country. Another cruel accident of plate tectonics and it still could.
There is no place on this archipelago for nuclear power, and tens of millions of Japanese now understand this. Everything has changed.
The Koodankulam nuclear plant a national issue in India
Koodankulam agitation is national issue http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2012/08/24/koodankulam-agitation-is-national-issue/ India Punchline By M K Bhadrakumar – August 24, 2012 While the attention of the political class is trained on the ‘Coalgate’ scam, it has been left to a Western news agency to highlight that the Comptroller and Auditor General issued yet another report Wednesday criticising the functioning of India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board [AERB] for being an appendage of the government without a mind of its own or a mandate or independent authority and, dismally enough, lacking in a radiation safety policy as such.
The agitation that mushroomed in faraway Koodankulam has reached the Indian capital and the involvement of high-profile activists such as Aruna Roy all but ensures that this issue is not going to go away. The government won’t have the option now to resuscitate the old allegation that the Koodankulam agitators are ‘foreign agents’. The national mood is becoming increasingly receptive to the cause of the agitators. Lest it is forgotten, Roy is a member of the National Advisory Council and an experienced social activist who is able to gauge the national mood.VIDEO Cesium levels increasing in soil in Chernobyl area
Physician: We don’t know what’s happening — Cesium levels in soil not going down after Chernobyl, some areas have gotten even higher (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/physician-cesium-levels-soil-going-down-areas-gotten-higher-dont-whats-happening-around-chernobyl-video August 23rd, 2012 at 3 By ENENews
Atomic Age Symposium II: Fukushima, May 5, 2012 – Session II
Published: August 22, 2012
Published by: University of Chicago
At 1:44:15 in
Jeffrey Patterson, MD, Physicians for Social Responsibility board member: Chernobyl today is still a mess […] The levels of cesium in the soil have stayed the same, and in some areas gotten higher. We don’t know why — what’s happening.
VIDEO – Melted nuclear fuel in ground under Fukushima?
Japan Nuclear Expert: Melted fuel may have gone through cement floor and into ground under Fukushima reactors — I don’t believe Tepco’s claim for one second — Where in the world is it? (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/japan-nuclear-expert-melted-fuel-gone-cement-floor-leaked-ground-fukushima-reactors-dont-believe-tepcos-calculations-one-second-world-video
August 23rd, 2012 at 9:09 pm ET
By ENENews Atomic Age Symposium II: Fukushima, May 5, 2012 – Session III Roundtable
Published: August 22, 2012
Published by: University of Chicago
Transcript Excerpt
Hiroaki Koide, nuclear reactor specialist and Assistant Professor at Kyoto University’s Nuclear Research Institute:
The problem right now is not figuring out what the cause of the explosion [at Unit 3] is, but where in the world is the melted nuclear material that is in the plant right now?
Unfortunately we have no way of figuring this out…
We can’t go in and look… there’s nothing we can do at this point…
Like I said we have no idea where the melted nuclear core is at this point…
100 tons [was in reactor]…
Fell through steel reactor…
So where did the melted material go from there? It fell into the containment vessel and what is that made of? Also steel.
But what Tepco has been telling us is that underneath that steel is a floor of cement and that cement hasn’t melted yet.
But it’s not as if Tepco has gone there and seen if this is the case or anything like that. It’s based on calculations that they claimed to have worked out that way.
But I don’t believe it for one second.
There’s at least a possibility that it’s gone through all of it and leaked into the ground…
If something like that happens, there’s a strong possibility that it leaks into the environment and the ocean is right there.
I’ve been advocating since last May that a wall be built underground…
That’s really all I know at this point. I really hope something is done so the material doesn’t spread to the greater environment and I’m going to do all I can do to prevent that from happening.
Petition about radiation, and VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbto7xNypS0&feature=youtu.be Nuclear Catastrophy Review & how YOU can Help Link to the petion here:
http://nuclearjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Petition-ANY-Environment…
http://nuclearjustice.org/?p=50 It follows that if new evidence has appeared about the potential consequences of the EURATOM Basic Safety Directive, Under Article 20 (in the original 1996 version Article 6) all practices involving radiation exposure have to be re-justified. It is a legal requirement. What is proposed, therefore, is that all individuals resident in or citizens of a EU member state country, and all NGOs based in such countries, petition the European Parliament to require a re-justification of all radiation producing practices covered by the Euratom Basic Safety Standards Directive in any of its forms in the light of the new scientific evidence of health risks.
This new evidence is appended to the Petition as an Appendix and petitioners may ask for the evidence to be presented in any scientific discussion by members of the European Committee on Radiation Risk www.euradcom.org , or the International Committee on Nuclear Justice www.nuclearjustice.org .
Chris Busby on radioactivity displacing supplements http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iutbbfduAQBusby talks here from a playground in Stockholm about the cover-up of the Fukushima contamination and the failure of the Japanese government to act for the children who are suffering the same health problems as those exposed to the Chernobyl contamination. Continue reading
Beyond evacuation zone, high levels of radiation in Fukushima residents
Fukushima Residents With Exposures As High As Chernobyl Areas http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=7187August 24th, 2012 Two couples from outside the evacuation zones have shown with some of the highest internal radiation exposure to date in Japan. One couple lives in Nihonmatsu, the other in Kawamata-machi.
Kawamata-machi
man 19,507 becquerels
his wife 7,724 becquerels
Nihonmatsu City
man 11,191 becquerels
his wife 6,771 becquerels
Dr. Tsubokura, one of the doctors conducting the exposure scans on residents said these levels are similar to internal exposure seen in Belarus.
The couples have been eating home grown mushrooms, bamboo shoots and local persimmons. The mushrooms were grown on logs from Namie, a highly contaminated area in the evacuation zone. It was not clear if they logs were gathered before the nuclear disaster or not. EX-SKF mentions they may not have understood the risks in doing this. Most of the elderly rely on TV and print newspapers for information, both sources have downplayed the risks in the region.
There may be more instances of high radiation in elderly residents. Many have been reluctant to leave or felt their age would spare them from the long term effects of radiation exposure. It is giving researchers a contrasting group of exposures that hint what could have happened to more residents had food restrictions not been implemented.
Cumbria’s huge report on proposal for underground nuclear waste bunker
NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL: THE DEFINITIVE REPORT CONDENSED, in-cumbria by Ellis Butcher , 24 August 2012 The experts call it a “geological disposal facility”. Opponents call it a “nuke dump”. They all agree it’ll contain “high level and intermediate nuclear waste”.
A history-making vote takes place on October 11 which represents one of Cumbria’s most important ever nuclear decisions.A trio of councils, involving hundreds of community leaders, decides on whether West Cumbria takes part in a search to site a massive underground bunker containing the UK’s most toxic nuclear waste. Business Editor Ellis Butcher looks at the definitive report facing them. Continue reading
Aruna Roy, India’s powerful voice against nuclear energy
Stop new nuclear projects, Aruna Roy urges Sonia Gandhi http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Stop-new-nuclear-projects-Aruna-Roy-urges-Sonia-Gandhi/articleshow/15649860.cms TNN | Aug 25, 2012, NEW DELHI: National Advisory Councilmember Aruna Roy has asked the chairpersonSonia Gandhi to stop the installation and commission of new nuclear projects, including the one at Kudankulam.
Adding her voice to protestors at the Tamil Nadu site, Roy in a letter addressed to Sonia said, “The prime minister’s recent remarks about the liability issue related to reactors 3 and 4 at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant has brought out the lack of clarity regarding the liability issue related to reactors 1 and 2, which are to be commissioned soon.”
Roy said she had visited the site and met the people, “All of them expressed anguish and dismay at the government’s insistence on going ahead with the plant, turning a deaf ear to their legitimate concerns of safety and survival.”
She noted that “many of them had police cases against them for expressing dissent. This included charges as serious as sedition, and waging war against the state”. Continue reading
Award winners from the Uranium Film Festival
Special achievement awards Uranium Film Festival, by Robert del Tredici , 23 Aug 12, Special achievement awards of the 2nd International Uranium Film Festival go to “Chernobyl, the Invisible Thief”, by Christoph Boekel (Germany), “Buried in Earthskin”, by Helena Kingwill (South Africa), ”Australian Atomic Confessions”, by Katherine Aigner (Australia),
“Radioactive Wolves”, by Klaus Feichtenberger (Austria), “The Secret and the Sacred: Two Worlds at Los Alamos” by Claus Biegert, (Germany) and “Rokkasho Rhapsody” by Hitomi Kamanaka (Japan) and to Peter Greenaway’s outstanding experimental documentary “Atomic Bombs on the Planet Earth”.
“Atomic Bombs on the Planet Earth”
Peter Greenaway and Irma de Vries (Video design), United Kingdom/The Netherlands
Special Achievement Award “Hors Concours” for reminding us of something we have tended to forget, or maybe even not to know: that 2,201 atomic bombs have been exploded on, within, or over our own home planet – which, from Earth’s point of view, are not atomic tests at all but preemptive nuclear strikes. Greenaway creates an infernal cinematic aesthetic to convey this truth.
Using 25 screens at once, Atomic Bombs on Planet Earth overwhelms the viewer’s field of vision with dazzling cascades of poison fire punctuated by percussive sounds and eerie sonics to convey the reckless enormity of the many Bombs
humans exploded not all that long ago. The grid of screens gives rise to multiples of every blast a dozen times or more and staggers clips to make them tumble downscreen, slantwise, in coruscating tides. By the time the razzle-dazzle’s over, Greenaway has delivered more fireballs than any viewer will be able to absorb — and more than any living planet may be able to sustain. The first Trinity blast appears several times as Robert Oppenheimer provides the film’s voice-over
with words repeated like a mantra: “Some laughed – Some cried – Most remained silent.”
These are hardly words of wisdom from the father of the Bomb… and half a century on, in the absence of anything like sage words on nuclear weapons, we get what’s coming to us: an experimental documentary impossible to forget that triggers in our collective brain an atomic migraine of criminally insane proportions whose energies go deeper and are destined to last longer than our own DNA. http://www.uraniofestival.org/index.php/en/home-en/73-en/frontpage-en/162-special-achievement-awards
Cumbria ponders on hosting UK’s underground radioactive waste dump
The anticipated footprint of the underground facilities ranges from 2.32 square miles to 8.88 square miles, depending on rock type and the amount and type of waste to be disposed of.
The Government has said deep geological disposal is the best way to dispose of higher activity radioactive waste. The waste is currently stored above ground at 36 UK sites, with most of it at Sellafield.
NUCLEAR DUMP COULD BE AS BIG AS WORKINGTON, Times & StarNews, 24 August 2012 An underground nuclear dump in West Cumbria would be about the size of Workington, a report has revealed. West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership, which published its final report this week, said it would take at least 15 years to find a site.
Twenty-five per cent of West Cumbria has already been ruled out as unsuitable for an underground nuclear waste dump, the report said, and more work would be needed before it would be known if any of the area would be able to host the site. Continue reading
Russia committed to nuclear disarmament, but USA’s missile shield is the obstacle
Putin says Russian nuclear cuts to hinge on U.S. missile shield By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/24/russia-usa-nuclear-idINDEE87N0EX20120824 MOSCOW Aug 24, 2012 (Reuters) – Moscow is open to the idea of new nuclear arms cuts on a reciprocal basis and if Washington addresses its concerns about a U.S.-led missile defence system in Europe, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. Continue reading
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