Geoff Read is a British artist who teaches the subject. He is married to a Japanese woman, and they have a son. In 2009, Geoff and his family decided to move to Japan. To Fukishima to be precise. Geoff tells @jenntracey what happened on 11 March 2011 when the nuclear disaster happened, 80 miles from where they were living.
The image is taken from the Strong Children Japan website http://strongchildrenjapan.blogspot.com/
Former engineer and journalist, Takashi Hirose warns about nuclear dangers and its industry in numerous publications. In Japan everyone knows his name and several of his works became best-sellers like “the time bomb”.
Interview conducted by Keiko Courdy for Au-delà du Nuage °Yonaoshi 3.11_ Japan
Saturday 15 March: Solidarity March & Rally in London
Tuesday 11 March: Candlelit Vigil
Monday 10 March; Public Meeting in LondonJoin us to march in London, to mark the 3rd anniversary of the ongoing Fukushima disaster, in international solidarity with people in Japan and for a nuclear-free world.We, Japanese expats and UK citizens, are speaking with one voice as world citizens. We want all the governments to abolish nuclear power generation, to prevent the further release and spread of radioactive materials, to implement policies to protect people’s health and lives and to uphold citizens’ rights to engage in social activities and free speech.We are deeply concerned that radioactive contamination from the nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant that started on March 11 2011, has been spreading across Japan.The nuclear tragedies in Chernobyl and Fukushima have taught us that despite the guise of ‘peaceful use’, the destruction caused by a nuclear power disaster would be similar to nuclear war. Japan is the most earthquake prone country in the world and, currently, is in a very active seismic phase.Nuclear catastrophe in Japan would lead to long-term worldwide radioactive contamination. There is no safe method to dispose of nuclear waste. Using nuclear power means passing a burden to our children and their descendants. In addition, throughout the nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mining to decommission and waste storage, nuclear energy relies heavily on the sacrifice of workers who are exposed to radiation as they carry out these tasks. Given the deadly long-term toxicity of radiation released to the environment through use of nuclear energy, it must be said that nuclear power is both extremely dangerous and irresponsible. Nuclear power is not welcome in Japan, in the UK, and anywhere in the world.
Japanese Against Nuclear, Kick nuclear and CND are calling all the people in the UK to join the march, vigil, and the public meeting explained below:
** Saturday 9 March: SOLIDARITY MARCH
Assemble 12.30 at Hyde Park Corner for solidarity March to Parliament
with rally there, in Palace Yard, at 2.30pm
** Monday 11 March: Candle-lit Vigil
6.00-800 PM, opposite the Japanese Embassy
(101 Piccadilly, London, W1J 7JT)
(nearest tube: Green Park)
** Monday 10 March: Public Meeting
7.00 – 9.00PM, in the House of Commons
“Fukushima 3 Years On & Implications for UK Nuclear Power Plans” Chair:Jeremy Corbyn MP, vice-chair CND; Introduction by Kate Hudson, General Secretary, CND
Speakers:• Dr. Paul Dorfman• Dr. David Lowry: “Nuclear’s insecurity of supply” and “The truth about evacuation zones as a lesson from Fukushima.”• Speaker from Green Cross Switzerland: “Japan’s nuclear phase-out following Fukushima.”• Rik, a member of Kick Nuclear “Fukushima: What’s been happening the last few years.”• Geoff Read and Kevin Allwright, Fukushima refugees
Followed by: questions from the floor and discussion. Please give yourself half an hour to get through security. For further info contact London Region CND on 020-7607-2302
VIGIL Tuesday March 11, from 6-8 pm opposite JAPANESE EMBASSY, 101-104 Piccadilly, London W1J 7JT Candle-Lit Vigil in support of families and people of all ages continuing to suffer the effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Organized by：Japanese Against Nuclear UK (JAN UK), Kick Nuclear, and CND
Comment and report of Parliamentary session by P Hammond MP at 21.15 to 12.45 pm 6/3/2014
Posted to nuclear-news.net
Philip Hammond MP was speaking today at the Houses of Parliament concerning the PWR2 nuclear prototype reactor that is used in nuclear submarine fleet such as in the Vanguard class nuclear submarines. Problems have been found in a prototype reactor with the same design based at Dounreay nuclear site in Scotland.
The prototype reactor has been running at a higher rate than in service reactors and damage to the fuel cladding is reported to be the problem.
P Hammond MP said that there was no safety issues even though radiation has been found circulating with the cooling system.
The reactor was restarted after a service schedule in 2012 and is expected to run until 2015.
Vernon Coaker MP commented on the problem with the reactor and asked why is the house being told today after missed opportunities in the last 4 years. He also said that transparency is important. It is now on maintenance cycle but if the reactor is run as scheduled, it would take 3 more years before the cladding can be assessed, is that not too long?
The fuel bundles are the same design as the new PWR3 generation reactors for the new class submarine and may be needed to replace the existing vanguard class fuel rods . The cost of just one refuel is 120 million pounds sterling each or about 200 million dollars extra on top of the massive existing funding for these schemes.
Andrew Miller MP asked “that even if it was a “level zero event”, why werent at least local stakeholders informed of the issues?”
This is highlighting a staggering lack of transparency and co-operation with stakeholders such as the recent issue with the stakeholder group from Bradwell, and other anti nuclear Stakeholders, who were sidelined and ignored earlier this year, concerning their decommissioning fears, by the Department of the Environment and Climate Change (DECC). DECC released the final draft of their choice on the Gov.org website whilst they were attending stakeholder meetings, without notifying the stakeholders.
P Hammond mentioned that “core burn” on the prototype PWR2 core exceeds by far the normal submarine operational reactors. He mentioned that the fuel rod cladding had likely developed a “pin hole” leak into the cooling system causing some contamination. P Hammond was unsure if the reactor might be stopped now so in 3 years the cladding and reactor surfaces can be analysed though he wanted to keep to the planned running schedule.
“The PWR3 reactor program will not need a prototype reactor” P Hammond said. This has not been included in previous government cost disclosures. The government hope to rely on computer programing software to map out any issues. However, the recent flaw in the PWR2 prototype was not found by software programing and the fault can not be confirmed until 3 years after the reactor stops running at the earliest.
The chief scientific advisor has been asked to look into the viability of making a prototype test reactor for the PWR3 Astute fleet it was confirmed by P. Hammond MP later in the debate.
P Hammond refused to detail the actual “burn up rate” as propriety knowledge of the nuclear companies and therefore a secret.
EDF have been pulled up by regulators in France for running their civil reactor fleet for longer causing the fuel rod cladding to get dangerously thin and similar problems are reported in the USA because of using high burnup techniques. This is to increase electricity output in a competitive electricity market place and to maximise profits from the very expensive fuel rod bundles. More frequent fuel replacements have been advocated that will cause rising costs for all nuclear reactors as well as reduced performance.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency had been informed but only key Scottish ministers have been informed. SEPA did not feel the Scottish Parliament needed to know of the situation P Hammond said.
The decisions on the new PWR3 driven reactor submarine fleet will be finally decided in 2016.
Rolls Royce were commended for being the lead technical authority and manufacturer of these reactor cores. 80 reactor cores have been supplied since 1963 by Rolls Royce who is a leading provider of military reactor cores.
AUDIO: Scottish Ministers Demand Meeting Over Secret Higland Nuclear Incident
A row’s erupted between the Scottish and UK governments over secrecy surrounding a nuclear incident in the Highlands.
Yesterday the Ministry of Defence admitted to Parliament it had kept quiet about a problem with the Dounreay reactor.
The revelation came two years after radioactivity was detected where it shouldn’t have been.
Scottish Minister Keith Brown’s written a letter to London ‘seeking an early meeting’: “Why were we not told? It would simply take a phone call from Defence Secretary Philip Hammond or one of his ministers to a minister in the Scottish Government, and let us know.
“If it was not serious, as has been said, why not just let us know?
“It’s appalling that the UK Government has treated with such contempt both Scotland’s government and the people of Scotland.
“It shows the arrogance which has been demonstrated on a number of other defence issues.”
Ageing nuclear submarines could put sailors and public at… August 04, 2013 Britain’s ageing hunter-killer nuclear submarines are suffering mounting technical problems that could endanger the safety of sailors and the public, a report from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has warned. Five Trafalgar-class submarines, between 22 and 29 years old, are running into reliability issues with the reactors that power them, increasing the risk of cracks, pipe failures and…
Major nuclear incident at Britain’s Royal Navy submarine… October 07, 2013 The failure of both the primary and secondary power sources of coolant for nuclear reactors at the Devonport dockyard in Plymouth on 29 July last year followed warnings in previous years of just such a situation. Experts yesterday compared the crisis at the naval base, operated by the Ministry of Defence and government engineering contractors Babcock Marine, with the Fukushima Daiichi…
Government Has Been Covering up Meltdowns of Nuclear Power Plants for 55 Years
The entire idea of safe nuclear energy has arguably been a cover for nuclear weapons production … at the expense of our health and the environment.
Moreover, governments have been covering up meltdowns for more than 50 years.
Santa Susana
As a History Chanel special notes, a nuclear meltdown occurred at the world’s first commercial reactor only 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles, and only 7 miles from the community of Canoga Park and the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles.
Specifically, in 1959, there was a meltdown of one-third of the nuclear reactors at the Santa Susana field laboratory operated by Rocketdyne, releasing – according to some scientists’ estimates – 240 times as much radiation as Three Mile Island.
But the Atomic Energy Commission lied and said only there was only 1 partially damaged rod, and no real problems. In fact, the AEC kept the meltdown a state secret for 20 years.
There were other major accidents at that reactor facility, which the AEC and Nuclear Regulatory Commission covered up as well. See this.
Kyshtm
Two years earlier, a Russian government reactor at Kyshtm melted down in an accident which some claim was even worse than Chernobyl.
The Soviet government hid the accident, pretending that it was creating a new “nature reserve” to keep people out of the huge swath of contaminated land.
Journalist Anna Gyorgy alleges that the results of a freedom of information act request show that the CIA knew about the accident at the time, but kept it secret to prevent adverse consequences for the fledgling American nuclear industry.
1980s Studies and Hearings
In 1982, the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs received a secret report received from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission called “Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences 2″.
In that report and other reports by the NRC in the 1980s, it was estimated that there was a 50% chance of a nuclear meltdown within the next 20 years which would be so large that it would contaminate an area the size of the State of Pennsylvania, which would result in huge numbers of a fatalities, and which would cause damage in the hundreds of billions of dollars (in 1980s dollars).
Those reports were kept secret for decades.
Other Evidence
Well-known writer Alvin Toffler pointed out in Powershift (page 156):
At least thirty times between 1957 and 1985—more than once a year—the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant near Aiken, South Carolina, experienced what a scientist subsequently termed “reactor incidents of greatest significance.” These included widespread leakage of radioactivity and a meltdown of nuclear fuel. But not one of these was reported to local residents or to the public generally. Nor was action taken when the scientist submitted an internal memorandum about these “incidents.” The story did not come to light until exposed in a Congressional hearing in 1988. The plant was operated by E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company for the U.S. government, and Du Pont was accused of covering up the facts. The company immediately issued a denial, pointing out that it had routinely reported the accidents to the Department of Energy.
At this point, the DoE, as it is known, accepted the blame for keeping the news secret.
And former soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said on camera for a Discovery Network special (the must-watch “The Battle of Chernobyl“) that the Soviets and Americans have each hidden a number of nuclear accidents from the public:
Government Has Been Covering up Radiation Danger for 69 Years
The U.S. tried to cover up the destructive nature of radiation produced by nuclear weapons 71 years ago. As Democracy Now reports:
….Testing of a filter positioned before the HEPA system and removed several hours after the alarm showed 1,365 becquerels per cubic meter of americium and 672 Bq/m3 of plutonium. By Feb. 21, those levels fell substantially to 0.65 Bq/m3 of americium and 0.06 Bq/m3 of plutonium per day…..(For context, the Environmental Protection Agency’s actionable level of airborne contamination is 37 Bq/m3.)
Newly released lab tests of air filters from the Department of Energy’s waste repository in New Mexico documented a significant spike in radiation during an incident last month, although contamination in air that actually reached the environment was well below EPA standards.
The Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center measured radionuclides in samples taken following a radiation alarm at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant on Feb. 14. The cause of the alarm remains under investigation, and testing recently revealed small internal doses among 13 people working there at the time. The alarm caused the ventilation system to immediately direct air through a bank of high efficiency particulate absorption filters. Testing of a filter positioned before the HEPA system and removed several hours after the alarm showed 1,365 becquerels per cubic meter of americium and 672 Bq/m3 of plutonium. By Feb. 21, those levels fell substantially to 0.65 Bq/m3 of americium and 0.06 Bq/m3 of plutonium per day.
The lab also tested filters on the other side of the HEPA system that provide an estimate of the amount of radiation that actually entered the atmosphere. A filter installed on the day of the alarm and removed four days later found levels of americium at 1.81 Bq/m3 and levels of plutonium at 0.224 Bq/m3. (For context, the Environmental Protection Agency’s actionable level of airborne contamination is 37 Bq/m3.) Scientists, who are continuing to sample air from WIPP, reported that contamination levels in the post-HEPA-filter air decreased exponentially over the following days.
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