A high school student from Ibaraki explains her family’s journey to evacuated from the regions around the Fukushima disaster. This is the reality people deal with every day. Something as simple as changing schools can take a year. Her experiences have been translated into English here.
The author that published the high school girl’s story has published in Japanese a series of volumes documenting the stories of the many nuclear migrants who have left various regions impacted by the disaster. He fled Tokyo after his research led him to determine it was unsafe to live there with his children. He found no publisher interested in publishing his book even though he had worked in that industry for years. He explains his journey and effort to publish people’s stories here. The first chapter of his book has been translated into English and is available here.
This mother from Fukushima tells how hard it was to evacuate. She had limited financial resources to use to leave and was unsure if she would be compensated for evacuation by the government. This follows what we heard in 2011, those with the resources left on their own. Those with limited resources but wanted to leave could not. The school was unhelpful. She had a very hard time obtaining information she could use to make her own decisions about the environment and the health of her children. With the help of a private group she was able to move to Yamanashi. After moving her health and her children’s health improved. They all now have thyroid damage and will have to deal with the long term health problems and risks that will bring. Her entire testimony can be found here.
Koriyama was the fall back location for many people who had to evacuate the towns closer to Daiichi. This mother describes how contaminated soil has been handled in her neighborhood. The radioactive soil was buried in a park field behind her home. She witnessed the contaminated soil being buried. Now children play sports on this field every day. There is no word if there is a plan to ever remove the radioactive soil to a proper disposal site or if it will live in this busy park surrounded by homes forever.
Some may want to pick apart these people’s personal experiences but these experiences echo what we have heard over and over again from people in the region. Imagine if you had to suddenly pick up and move. Could you find a new job quickly? Do you have the savings to fund a sometimes very expensive move? Could you sell your home? Could you leave family behind? This doesn’t even address the multi-generational ties many people have to the places they called home.
This article would not be possible without the extensive efforts of the SimplyInfo research team
Japan’s industry ministry is expected to retract its approval for about 670 solar power generation projects.
The ministry says these projects are unlikely to start operation in the near future. It approved them as power generators under a new power trading system that started in 2012.
Power utilities are, according to the new trading system, required to procure electricity generated from approved renewable energy sources at fixed prices.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry says it had given the thumbs up to about 196,000 solar power projects by the end of last October, but that only about 40 percent of them are in service.
It surveyed 6,045 projects it certified in the business year ending in March 2013. These projects were supposed to generate at least 400 kilowatts of electricity or more. It found that 4,699, or more than three-quarters, were not generating power.
Of these, 672 did not have the necessary land or equipment, or did not respond to the survey.
The ministry has decided to revoke approval of these projects next month after interviewing their operators.
The ministry suspects that to raise profits some operators have been delaying the set up of solar panels until prices fall further.
The ministry will also consider reviewing the current system as it didn’t set time limits for starting power generation after getting approval from the government.
Nukes over wind turbines? UK Research & Development policies are warped
Weapons of mass destruction get five times as much public research cash in the UK as renewable energy. Time for a rethink, says Stuart Parkinson
The scale of a nation’s public spending on different areas of research and development can be very revealing. For example, what sort of a nation would spend five times as much on developing weapons of mass destruction – including delivery systems – than on the R&D for renewable energy that is so central to tackling climate change? Figures just published reveal one such nation to be the UK.
Using data from freedom of information requests, campaign group Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), of which I am executive director, has pieced together recent R&D spending by the UK government on a series of major weapons systems and compared them with public R&D spending on measures to tackle major drivers of armed conflict, such as resource depletion, social and economic injustice, and climate change. This is the first time such an analysis has been carried out – for the UK or indeed anywhere else. What we have uncovered is deeply disturbing……
Jiji Press FUKUSHIMA (Jiji Press)—Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday that 130,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per liter were detected in groundwater sampled the same day from an observation well at its stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The level was the highest for radioactive cesium found in well water at the plant, which was heavily damaged by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, according to the power supplier.
The sampled water contained 37,000 becquerels of cesium-134 and 93,000 becquerels of cesium-137, TEPCO said.
The water also contained 260,000 becquerels of beta ray-emitting substances including strontium-90.
The level of cesium-134 and cesium-137 stood at 22,000 becquerels and 54,000 becquerels, respectively, in groundwater collected from the same well on Wednesday.
Near the observation well is a cable trench linked to the turbine building for the No. 2 reactor.
High-level radioactive water that has accumulated in the trench may be leaking, TEPCO officials said.
TEPCO released a report entitled, TEPCO’s Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Roadmap, that contained some astounding information regarding Unit 3. Follow Fairewinds Energy’s Arnie Gundersen as he shows you the 35-ton refueling bridge that fell in the Unit 3 spent fuel pool during the Unit 3 detonation explosion. Do the math. The bottom line here is that TEPCO has just acknowledged that at least 50-tons of rubble has fallen on top of and into the spent fuel pool in Unit 3. What does this 50-ton pile of debris mean to the Unit 3 spent fuel pool and its cleanup? http://fairewinds.org/media/fairewind…
Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang and his visiting Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orbán both declared their willingness to implement a planned upgrade of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line during Wednesday’s talks in Beijing.
Li also proposed that the two sides discuss the possibilities for co-operation in nuclear energy, possibly by involving a third party. He said China is ready to continue co-operation in infrastructure investment projects and agriculture, and hopes that Hungary can advance regional trade links.
Orbán said Hungary will play a positive role in co-operation between China and Europe and that the country is ready to implement large infrastructure projects. Declaring that the EU has practically stopped funding infrastructure projects in Central Europe, he said this presents an opportunity for China to take part in developing such projects.
Stating that political stability has been a “huge advantage” for China, he said “there is a good chance that Hungarian people will vote for political stability” on April 6.
….In fact, a U.S. plant came close to a fire-related meltdown in 1975. A worker at the Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama had accidentally caused a fire while using a candle to check for air leaks in a room directly below the control room for two reactors. The fire burned for almost seven hours, and damaged the electrical cables in the room such that all of the emergency cooling systems for one reactor shut down, along with most of the emergency systems for the other reactor.
“Only heroic operator actions prevented two meltdowns that day,” Lochbaum says.
The NRC adopted fire protection regulations to prevent another Browns Ferry incident in 1980, and updated them in 2004.
But “today, about half of the reactors operating in the US do not comply with either the 1980 or the 2004 regulations,”….
Could a nuclear accident like the 2011 meltdown that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan happen here?
ADVERTISEMENT
David Lochbaum, a former nuclear engineer, director of the Nuclear Safety Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists and one of the authors of the new book-length account “Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster,” thinks it’s more than possible. The safety preparations at the plant before the accident, he says, weren’t that different from the precautions taken at U.S. plants.
“It’s not that Japan was behind the standards of the rest of the world, or that the Japanese regulators or [Fukushima Daiichi operator] TEPCO was especially inept,” Lochbaum says. “They’re on par with everyone else.”
U.S. regulators have already been warning operators about the possibility of Fukushima-type disasters happening in the U.S. for years.
One of the most likely scenarios that could cause a meltdown is a flood. Nuclear reactors require a lot of water to carry away their waste heat, so they’re generally built next to oceans, lakes or rivers. Plants near lakes and rivers are often located downstream of a dam. In that case, if a dam bursts, the plant could be flooded and lose power, similarly to what happened at the Fukushima plant when the tsunami hit. In 2009, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff identified about 35 reactors in the U.S. (out of the 100 currently operating) that were vulnerable to dam failures, according to Lochbaum.
In June 2010, about nine months before Fukushima’s three reactors melted down, the NRC issued a letter to Duke Energy, the owner and operator of the Oconee Nuclear Station near Seneca, South Carolina (view the letter here on Scribd). The letter – initially not released to the public, but unearthed by a reporter from The Cascadia Times in Oregon, through a Freedom of Information Act Request — lists various actions Duke Energy is supposed to take to mitigate the risk of flood damage.
This letter came after NRC risk analysts concluded that the failure of the Jocassee Dam had a 100 percent chance of causing Oconee’s three reactors to melt down, according to Lochbaum. (Duke’s own reports disagree.) The main reason for concern? The plant’s flood wall was five feet high; the flood waters caused by a dam breakage were estimated to rise about 14 feet. Fukushima’s seawall was also easily breached by a 50-foot tsunami wave.
“In other words, both Oconee and Fukushima were protected by flood walls that worked just fine, unless there was a flood,” Lochbaum says.
Another risk to U.S. nuclear plants is fire. Like floods, flames can disable safety systems and their backups.
The total study area, according to the report, is 80km around the site comprising four districts — Karachi, Dadu, Thatta and Lasbela. Here, too, the report uses population data of the 1998 census for the present and projected estimates.
(It is important to recall here the use of old population data in the plants’ site evaluation report has evoked a lot of concern from experts who believe that the use of old data would lead to gross underestimation of the risk in case of a disaster, and render emergency plans flawed.)
The report makes no mention of the quantity of effluent discharge or emissions from the reactors. It also leaves unanswered the question of how much seawater would be pumped into the system daily. The reason, perhaps, is that reactors, according to the report, are to be designed.
KARACHI: The protection cover of the reactors is designed to endure the impact of a plane crash and there will be no significant adverse effect on the surrounding environment or aquatic marine life during construction or operation of the nuclear power plants, says an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report on the Karachi Nuclear Power Project-2.
The report was submitted by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) to the Sindh Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), which held a hearing by an expert committee on the project last year.
According to the report, the twin nuclear power plants to be installed at the Paradise Point near Karachi are of the pressurised water reactor type, having a production capacity of 1,000-megawatt each. They are expected to be connected with the national grid in 2019/2020.
The project site is located near the western border of Sindh with Balochistan. It’s about 1.5 kilometre north-west of the existing unit (Kaupp-1). The elevation of the site spread over 585 acres is about 38 feet from the sea level. Additionally, some unused land of K-1 has also been utilised.
BRUNEI’S strategic location in Borneo could leave the country open to nuclear material smuggling and therefore accidents or criminal incidents, said a visiting expert on nuclear security.
Andrea Cavina said this threat existed even though Brunei did not conduct nuclear research or dispose of radioactive waste.
Cavina is one of three speakers from the United Nations Inter-Regional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) invited to speak at the two-day National Action Plan workshop, which started yesterday.
The workshop, organised by the Brunei National CBRN (chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear) Team, aims to come up with a united approach to risk mitigation and emergency response to natural, accidental or criminal incidents by incorporating various practices from related government agencies.
It also seeks to list potential risks to be included in the National Action Plan, and also prepare steps for remediation that will be coordinated with international organisations such as ASEAN and the European Union.
Deputy Permanent Secretary (Security and Enforcement) at the Prime Minister’s Department Dato Paduka Hj Mohammad Juanda Hj Rashid, the guest of honour at the workshop’s launch, said: “Alhamdulillah, Brunei has never experienced any major incident involving CBRN, but nevertheless, this should not mean that we are not at risk of it happening in the future.”
He added that the risk of CBRN misuse or mishap would always be present because the era of globalisation had brought about a high degree of movement of people and goods.
“With the creation of the National Action Plan, it will help to mitigate, prevent and minimise potential threats of incidents involving CBRN,” he said.
Dato Hj Mohammad Juanda added that strengthening national CBRN capacities for prevention and detection had become increasingly important.
KALAMAZOO, MI – Calling nuclear energy “clean energy” is a misnomer, said Alfred Meyer, a member of the board of directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Alfred Meyer
“We have great objections to portraying nuclear as a clean energy source,” said Meyer, co-chairman of PSR’s radiation and health committee. “It’s our opinion that nuclear reactors cannot be used to solve climate change.”
Supporters of nuclear energy point to it as a source of energy that does not generate greenhouse gases. While that may be true inside the reactor chamber, Meyer said, he believes that leaves out many steps in the process.
“Let’s talk about uranium mining, refining, enrichment, fuel-fabrication and then, how do you take care of the waste for those millions of years?” he asked during an interview Thursday afternoon. “These are verifiable greenhouse gas emissions. There is less than coal, but it’s not carbon-neutral. To call it clean energy, I would have great objections to. Every step of the way, there’s pollution.”
Meyer was scheduled to deliver the talk, “Nuclear Power: What You Need to Know About Price, Pollution and Proliferation” Thursday evening at 7 p.m. at Western Michigan University’s Sangren Hall, in Room 1910. His WMU talk was part of a five-day tour across Michigan. On Friday, he will be appearing at Lake Michigan College, Room 141, 125 Veterans Blvd. in South Haven.
PSR, which formed in the 1960s out of concern for atmospheric testing, is opposed to all use of nuclear energy, Meyer said. The group has more than 50,000 members and 30 state and local chapters.
“The point of a reactor is to boil water. Isn’t it a bit arrogant that, in exchange for the privilege of boiling water for 40 to 60 years, to leave behind some of the most dangerous elements known to man?” he asked.
Meyer pointed to Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Covert Township as “a poster child for some of the issues. With Palisades, the issue is really safety and the potential danger for, if you will, polluting the community here.”
The tour is cosponsored by Beyond Nuclear and WMU Lee Honors College, WMU Environmental Studies program, WMU Institute of Government and Politics, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Don’t Waste Michigan, PSR Michigan Chapter, Alliance to Halt Fermi 3 and a Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes.
“There are many other, better options for us to have electricity. This is not our only choice,” Meyer said. “There are other options that are much healthier, much safer and don’t have the long-term implications.”
…USEC, which has been heavily subsidized by the U.S. government, was financially troubled at the time of the deal and subsequently announced a plan to enter bankruptcy. Its Paducah plant uses a 1950s era process called gaseous diffusion to enrich uranium. The process requires 20 times as much energy as modern centrifuge technologies, which has caused a dramatic drop in nuclear fuel prices and forced the closure of most plants using the old technology….
A report released last week suggests that public power customers in the Northwest could end up on the losing end of a speculative and politically motivated deal to subsidize an outdated and financially troubled nuclear fuel processing plant in Paducah Kentucky.
The plan is to sell most of that stockpile to the Tennessee Valley Authority in a series of transactions that begin in 2015 and run until 2022. It will use the rest to fuel its own plant, the Columbia Generating Station near Richland, Wash., until 2028.
It’s a convoluted deal, and its value depends on the economic beholder.
McCullough, for one, insists this is no deal at all for customers of the Bonneville Power Administration, who buy the plant’s output and financially backstopped the fuel purchase. He says it didn’t come through the normal channels, it doesn’t fit Energy Northwest’s typical fueling plans and it didn’t receive adequate vetting for a project of its size. At its most basic level, he says, its commodity speculation.
Moreover, McCullough says Energy Northwest and BPA have been cherry picking their accounting assumptions, first to make a questionable transaction look like a winner, and now to minimize the ongoing risks. His analysis suggests that it could ultimately cost BPA customers – 140 publicly owned utilities in the region – an extra $206 million over the life of the transaction.
“We have a federal agency speculating in a risky commodity,” he said. “Its dicey.”
Energy Northwest and Bonneville, meanwhile, say they’ve engineered a financial home run, or at least a triple, for ratepayers. They’ve locked in a fuel supply for the next two decades with limited downside risk, providing price certainty that’s highly valuable to ratepayers. When all is said and done, they say the deal will leave them with nine years of fuel to use in the reactor worth $236 million. According to their latest accounting methodology, they will have spent $65 million to buy it.
“Energy Northwest has a history of strategic fuel purchases that have resulted in some of the lowest fuel costs in the nation for Columbia Generating Station,” said Dale Atkinson, a vice president at Energy Northwest. “In the end, ratepayers are saving millions of dollars in the Northwest – and these savings will be reflected over the next two BPA rate cases.”
Robert McCullough
McCullough has spent the good part of the last year analyzing the economics of the Colombia Generating Station. The plant is the lone holdover from the financial fiasco that was the Washington Public Power Supply System, which attempted to build five nuclear plans in the 70s and 80s.
In December, McCullough released a study funded by an anti nuclear group, Physicians For Social Responsibility, concluding that Bonneville could save its ratepayers $1.7 billion over the next 17 years simply by closing the remaining nuke and purchasing power on the open market.
Energy Northwest has released its own study – and a special website – extolling the plant’s virtues. It maintains the plant is a key piece of the power reliability equation in the Northwest and will save ratepayers $1.6 billion if operated until 2043.
Both studies are heavily dependent on underlying assumptions about future natural gas prices and the resource mix that would be used to replace the output of the nuclear plant if it was shuttered. In the meantime, McCullough said he decided to have a closer look at the fuel purchase after a January meeting to discuss his initial findings with BPA Administrator Elliot Mainzer and his lieutenant, Greg Delwiche.
EDF Energy made an operating profit of £863 million in 2013 and invested over £1.1 billion, according to annual results published on Thursday.
Underlying profitability was down 12.9 per cent on 2012, with adjustments to the value of gas generation assets outweighing an increase in nuclear output.
However, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) rose 1.4 per cent to £1,689 million.
The company’s eight nuclear power stations generated 60.5TWh of electricity, the highest output in eight years.
Dungeness B is set to be kept open until 2028, with a 10-year life extension likely to be announced in 2014. That means seven stations will still be running in 2023, when new plant Hinkley Point C is due to come online.
On the supply side, EDF Energy made a net gain of quarter of a million household customers. It boasted the cheapest standard variable tariff of the major suppliers for 95 weeks out of 104 in 2012 and 2013.
EDF Energy chief executive Vincent de Rivaz said: “Our financial performance means we can make the big investments the country needs to give it the reliable low carbon energy it needs now and in the future. It also means we can invest in jobs and skills for the long term.
“The investment we are making in our existing nuclear power stations has resulted in their best performance for eight years. We believe that their operating lives can be safely extended and we expect to be able to announce a 10 year life extension for Dungeness B before the end of 2014. This means existing nuclear can hand over directly to the next generation of nuclear power stations without the need for more fossil fuel generation.
“Our customer numbers also continue to grow. We took early action to limit price rises and will continue to work closely with policy-makers to bear down on rising costs for consumers. We will listen to our customers and their concerns and take action on their behalf wherever we can.”
THE ATOMIC Weapons Establishment (AWE) sites in Aldermaston and Burghfield have today (Thursday) been listed by the MOD among potential sites to store waste from decommissioned nuclear submarines for the next 26 years – with a public consultation to take place later this year on this.
In a statement today (February 13), the MOD shortlisted five possible sites to store waste from nuclear-powered submarines that have left naval service, as part of the MOD’s Submarine Dismantling Project (SDP).
These include: both AWE sites at Aldermaston and Burghfield, owned by the MOD and run by AWE Plc; Sellafield in West Cumbria, owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA); Chapelcross in Dumfriesshire, also owned by the NDA; and Capenhurst in Cheshire, which is run by Capenhurst Nuclear Services.
nuclear-news 