Reactors subsidies pitched to curb greenhouse gases, Press Republican, By JOE MAHONEY CNHI Reporter, 14 Aug 16 ALBANY — Three nuclear power plants are in line for nearly $1 billion in subsidies as part of a plan to curb greenhouse-gas emissions.
But environmental groups want to derail the state plan, arguing that the reactors are a threat to public safety and the state instead should encourage the development of solar and wind energy.
“There are cheaper and better ways to get to zero emissions than having rate-payers give multi-million-dollar subsidies to aging, dangerous and expensive nuclear plants,” said Richard Brodsky, a former assemblyman from Westchester County who is working with the Alliance for a Green Economy.
The subsidies are part of a recommendation being advanced by the Department of Public Service as it seeks to hit the target set by Gov. Andrew Cuomo of having renewable energy account for half of the state’s power mix by 2030.
Under its plan, utilities would buy power at inflated rates over two years from the operators of the two reactors at Nine Mile Point on the shore of Lake Ontario: the James FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Oswego County and the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Plant in Wayne County……….
OLDEST U.S. REACTOR
But Brodsky, who once led a legislative committee that oversaw utilities, said the subsidy is unnecessary and would be a burden on electric bills.
“The big news here is that New York now wants to subsidize nuclear power,” he said. In a legal brief filed with the Public Service Commission, Brodsky said the No. 1 reactor at Nine Mile Point turned 47 years old this year and is the country’s oldest reactor.
The Ginna reactor is the fourth-oldest, he said.
Subsidies would not extend to the controversial Indian Point reactor in Westchester County, just north of New York City. Cuomo has advocated for its closure.
The governor has also said he wants the FitzPatrick reactor, slated to close next January, to remain open. Both reactors are owned by Entergy.http://www.pressrepublican.com/news/local_news/reactors-subsidies-pitched-to-curb-greenhouse-gases/article_d7e85bb0-5fca-5a61-970e-cc1a7ff409e6.html
August 14, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, USA |
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Abe, Modi to confer on nuclear deal / Meeting eyed for mid-Nov. in Tokyo The Yomiuri Shimbun, 14 Aug 16 The government is considering hosting India Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo in mid-November, according to sources, with nuclear cooperation on the agenda.
During the meeting, Abe and Modi intend to sign a nuclear cooperation accord that allows for trade in equipment and technology related to nuclear power plants. In preparation, both sides will soon start full-fledged talks to decide on wording in the accord, the sources said. Also likely to be discussed in the meeting will be the strengthening of security cooperation.
In recent years, the leaders of both nations have made mutual annual visits. In the summit meeting in December 2015, Abe and Modi reached a basic agreement on the signing of a nuclear cooperation accord. Should the accord be signed in November, it will allow Japanese companies to receive orders for nuclear power plant construction projects in India, which will lead to a possible solution for India’s serious electricity shortage.
As India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Japanese and Indian governments are coordinating to decide on wording in the accord regarding nonproliferation and prohibition of nuclear tests…….http://www.the-japan-news.com/news/article/0003148491
August 14, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
India, Japan, marketing |
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First published: 2 July 2013
Abstract
Aim
The degree of contamination with radioactive cesium (134Cs and 137Cs) in the human placenta after the accident at Fukushima nuclear power plant (FNP), which occurred on 11 March 2011, has not been assessed.
Material and Methods
134Cs and 137Cs contents were determined in 10 placentas from 10 women who gave birth to term singleton infants during the period between October 2011 and August 2012 using high-purity germanium detectors for gamma ray spectrometry. Five women resided within 50 km of FNP (neighbor group) and gave birth by the end of February 2012, while the other five women resided within 210–290 km of FNP (distant group) and gave birth in July and August 2012.
Results
All except one of the 10 placentas contained detectable levels of 134Cs and 137Cs, ranging 0.042–0.742 Bq/kg for 134Cs and 0.078–0.922 Bq/kg for 137Cs. One placenta from a woman living in Tokyo contained 0.109 Bq/kg 137Cs and no detectable level of 134Cs (<0.054 Bq/kg). 137Cs content was more than 0.2 Bq/kg in four and one placentas in the neighbor and distant groups, respectively.
Conclusion
Degree of contamination of the placenta with radioactive Cs was lower even in women who resided within 50 km of FNP compared to Japanese and Canadian placentas in the mid-1960s after repeated nuclear tests and in northern Italian placentas from 1986–1987 after the Chernobyl power plant accident.
Introduction
After the accident at Fukushima nuclear power plant (FNP), triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake on 11 March 2011, radioactive fallout was deposited over a wide area of Japan.[1, 2] Although the short-lived radionuclides, such as 131I (half-life, 8 days), decayed within a few days to months eventually reaching negligible concentrations, long-lived radioactive cesium (physical half-life, 2 years for 134Cs and 30 years for 137Cs) remained in detectable concentrations in the environment. These radionuclides reach pregnant women mainly through direct consumption of contaminated vegetables, crops, as well as animal and fish products. Contamination of breast milk with 131I was indeed documented in lactating women residing near FNP in April 2011.[1] The occurrence of milk powder contamination with 134Cs and 137Cs (22–31 Bq/kg) was announced by Meiji Holdings on 6 December 2011 (cited on 6 August 2012; available from http://www.meiji.co.jp/notice/2011/detail/20111206.html). This contamination was concluded to be derived from atmospheric air during the process of drying of milk powder, and not from water or dairy ingredients. Thus, environmental pollution with radioactive materials occurred and reached pregnant women after the FNP accident.
The placentas of women living in Hiroshima, Osaka, Tokyo and Canada in the 1960s contained detectable levels of 137Cs[3-5] due to environmental pollution with 137Cs after the repeated nuclear tests conducted by several countries, such as the USA and the former USSR. As the estimate of 137Cs deposition at the Meteorological Research Institute, Tsukuba, after the FNP accident far exceeded that in the 1960s in Japan (Fig. 1),[6] the placentas of women living near FNP may contain higher levels of 134Cs and 137Cs than those in the 1960s in Japan. However, the degree of placental contamination with radioactive Cs has not been studied. Therefore, the present study was performed to investigate the 134Cs and 137Cs contents in the placentas of women living within 300 km of FNP.
Measurement of radionuclides
Each whole placenta with a wet weight varying 0.418–0.672 kg was ashed to 4.13–7.40 g (Table 1) by muffle furnace at 450°C for 24 h after lyophilizing according to the preparation method recommended in the USA (http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/docs/marlap/402-b-04-001b-12-final.pdf). These ashed samples were placed individually into cylindrical plastic containers (100-mL capacity). To determine the gamma-emitting nuclides in the samples, gamma ray spectrometry was performed for more than 80 000 s with high-purity germanium detectors (GEM40-76; Ortec, Oak Ridge, TN, USA) connected to a multichannel analyzer and analytical software, and the activity concentrations of the radionuclides were corrected to the delivery dates. Each measured radioactivity was multiplied by 2(N/T): N and T were intervals until the measurement after delivery of the placenta (year) and half-life of each radionuclide (year), respectively. The energy and efficiency calibrations were performed using the nine nuclides mixed activity standard volume sources (MX033U8; Japan Radioisotope Association, Tokyo, Japan) composed of 109Cd, 57Co, 139Ce, 51Cr, 85Sr, 137Cs, 54Mn, 88Y and 60Co. These sources, contained in the same containers as the samples, had five different heights (0.5, 1, 2, 3 and 5 cm, respectively) to determine the detection efficiency of the detector as a function of sample height.
Results
As expected, 134Cs and 137Cs were detected in nine and 10 of the 10 placentas with varying activities ranging 0.042–0.742 Bq/kg for 134Cs and 0.078–0.922 Bq/kg for 137Cs, respectively (Table 1), while relatively constant levels of 40K were detected, ranging 46.5–59.3 Bq/kg, regardless of the differences in cities where they were living after the FNP accident. If we assumed that 134Cs content was 0.050 Bq/kg for case 8, median 134Cs content, 0.373 Bq/kg (range, 0.090–0.742) in the five placentas of the neighbor group was relatively higher than that of 0.061Bq/kg (range, 0.042–0.462) in the five placentas of the distant group, but difference did not reach a significant level (P = 0.05556, Mann–Whitney U-test). Median 137Cs content was 0.563 Bq/kg (range, 0.207–0.922) for the neighbor group and 0.109 Bq/kg (range, 0.078–0.694) for the distant group (P = 0.09524).
Discussion
The present study demonstrated that placentas of women living within 290 km of FNP contained detectable levels of 134Cs and 137Cs. The difference in degree of contamination of placentas with radioactive Cs may have reflected dietary habits, the degree of environmental pollution and the interval until delivery after the FNP accident. The shortened biological half-life of radioactive Cs from approximately 100 days for non-pregnant adults to approximately 60 days in pregnant women[7] may have also contributed to the lesser contamination of the placenta in women who gave birth in and after July 2012. Although environmental pollution with radioactive Cs has been decreasing, daily 137Cs activities of fallout exceeded 10 MBq/km2 in 15 days in March 2012 in Fukushima City (Preliminary results of monitoring the environmental radioactivity level of fallout [File number 93], cited on 10 August 2012; available from http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/old/ja/1285/2012/03/1285_033018.pdf). Surface soils contained more than 1000 Bq/kg of radioactive Cs in wide areas of Fukushima Prefecture where the five women of the neighbor group were living (cited on 10 August 2012; available from http://www.s.affrc.go.jp/docs/map/pdf/02_2_04bunpu_fukushima.pdf).
As shown in Figure 1, environmental pollution with radionuclides occurred after the repeated nuclear tests in the mid-20th century and after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. According to a study that examined 137Cs content in the placenta and urine of inpatients at Hiroshima University Hospital and in daily foods served for these inpatients over a 5-year period from 1966–1970,[5] 137Cs content in the placentas was approximately 35 pCi (1.3 Bq)/kg, 137Cs daily dietary intake was approximately 30 pCi (1.1 Bq) and 137Cs daily excretion in the urine was approximately 25 pCi (0.9 Bq) in 1966. Japanese and Canadian groups investigated 137Cs content in the human placentas collected in the Tokyo and Osaka areas in Japan and in the Montreal area in Canada in the mid-1960s.[3, 4] The average content of 137Cs was similar in Japanese and Canadian placentas, regardless of the differences in dietary habits (averages of 25.2 pCi [0.93 Bq]/kg and 24.8 pCi [0.92 Bq]/kg for Japanese and Canadian placentas, respectively).[3] Thus, placentas of Japanese and Canadian women in the mid-1960s contained an average of 0.9–1.3 Bq/kg 137Cs. Placentas contained less than 0.8 Bq/kg 134Cs and less than 1.0 Bq/kg 137Cs in this study. Although there may be a problem of direct data comparison between studies in which different assay methods were used, these results suggested that placentas of Japanese and Canadian women in the mid-1960s were more heavily contaminated with 137Cs than the placentas examined in this study.
The Chernobyl accident occurred on 26 April 1986. According to the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (released on 13 March 2012; cited on 6 August 2012; available from http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/ja/list/338/list-1.html), total amounts of dispersed 131I and 137Cs into the environment after the FNP accident were 1.3–1.6 × 1017 Bq and 1.1–1.5 × 1016 Bq, respectively, while corresponding values after the Chernobyl accident were 1.8 × 1018 Bq and 8.5 × 1016 Bq, respectively. Thus, the degree of environmental pollution is estimated to be 11–14-fold higher for 131I and 6–8-fold higher for 137Cs after the Chernobyl accident than after the FNP accident. An Italian group examined 134Cs and 137Cs contents in the placentas of women who gave birth at the University of Bologna over a 13-month period from June 1986 to September 1987 after the Chernobyl accident.[8] Mean placental 137Cs content increased from 4.2 Bq/kg in June 1986, showing a peak of 11.5 Bq/kg in March 1987, and then decreased to 6.6 Bq/kg in September 1987.[8] The Italian group also estimated dietary 137Cs intake on the basis of the average diet in the region where study subjects lived;[8] daily 137Cs intake was estimated to be 15 Bq in the summer of 1986,[8] which is approximately 14-fold higher than that of 1.1 Bq in the Hiroshima area, Japan, in 1966.[5] An investigation conducted 4 months after the FNP accident in early July 2011 revealed that median values of daily dietary intake of 134Cs and 137Cs were 0.6 Bq and 0.9 Bq in Soma (neighboring city to the north of Minami-soma), and 0.4 Bq and 0.7 Bq in Iwaki, respectively.[9] Thus, 137Cs content per kg of the placenta well reflected daily 137Cs intake and appeared to be 50–120% of the daily 137Cs intake. Another Italian group reported daily urinary excretion of 13.5 Bq 137Cs in people living in the Pordenone area of Italy in the latter half of 1987,[10] which is more than 10-fold higher than that of 0.9 Bq in women living in the Hiroshima area in 1966.[5] Thus, levels of exposure to radioactive Cs in Japanese pregnant women in the mid-1960s and after the FNP accident were much lower than those in women living in certain areas of Europe after the Chernobyl accident. In another report from Germany,[11] the radioactive Cs load in the placenta was shown to have increased by 10-fold compared with studies before the Chernobyl accident in western Germany.
The ratio of radioactive Cs to total K (stable and radioactive) is conventionally taken as a measure of radioactive Cs contamination, independent of body size and sex.[12] Soft tissue 137Cs content corrected for potassium did not differ between mother and fetus,[13] suggesting that the placenta is not a barrier for radioactive Cs. Mean activities of placental 40K were reported to be 770 pCi per placenta (57 Bq/kg) and 45 Bq/kg in Japanese[4] and Italian[8] studies, respectively, consistent with the values ranging 46.5–59.3 Bq/kg in this study. The heaviest contaminated placenta contained 0.922 Bq/kg 137Cs and 46.5 Bq/kg 40K. This 40K activity was equivalent to a placental K level of 38.4 mmol/kg. Thus, this placenta exhibited a 137Cs to K ratio of 0.024 Bq/mmol. According to a study in Glasgow by Watson,[12] whole-body 137Cs to total body K was 0.109 Bq/mmol after the Chernobyl accident; this figure is several-fold higher than that of 0.037 Bq/mmol determined in mainland Scotland in 1978–1979,[14] and that of 0.024 Bq/mmol in the placenta of case 1 in this study. The mean whole-body activity of naturally occurring 40K was 2859 Bq for females (52 Bq/kg, if we assume that bodyweight was 55 kg),[12] falling between two figures (45 Bq/kg[8] and 57 Bq/kg[4]) of placental 40K activity. Thus, placental 40K activity concentration appeared to be similar to whole-body 40K activity concentration.
A study of the whole-body radioactive Cs[15] showed another aspect of exposure to 134Cs and 137Cs in Minami-soma residents after the FNP accident. Although only one Minami-soma resident was included in our study population, this woman showed less placental contamination than those reported in the published work.[3-5, 8] However, relatively heavy exposure to radioactive Cs occurred in residents in Minami-soma. According to a study that examined whole-body radioactive Cs (134Cs and 137Cs) in 9498 residents in Minami-soma during the period between 26 September 2011 and 31 March 2012,[15] radioactive Cs (≥210 Bq for 134Cs and ≥250 Bq for 137Cs) was detected in 38% (3051/8066) of adults and 16% (235/1432) of children (6–15 years old), ranging 210–12 771 Bq (median, 744 Bq), with a concentration of 2.3–196.5 Bq/kg (median, 11.4) for adults and 210–2953 Bq (median, 590), with a concentration of 2.8–57.9 Bq/kg (median, 11.9) for children. Based on these data, we speculated that the pregnant Minami-soma woman in this study may have managed to avoid contaminated food materials. Available data on whole-body 134Cs and 137Cs activities are as follows: whole-body 134Cs and 137Cs activities were 172 Bq and 363 Bq, respectively, in non-pregnant adults living in the Glasgow area in June and July 1986 after the Chernobyl accident;[12] and that for 137Cs activity was estimated to be 3 nCi (111 Bq) in 1966, with a gradual decline to less than 1 nCi (37 Bq) in 1969 in pregnant Japanese women living in the Hiroshima area.[5]
In conclusion, placentas from women living within 290 km of FNP contained detectable levels of 134Cs and 37Cs. However, the degree of contamination was lower than those in Japanese and Canadian women in the mid-1960s and in northern Italian women in 1986–1987 after the Chernobyl accident. It has not been elucidated how placental contamination with radioactive Cs occurring in the past affected fetuses adversely. Such adverse effects, if present, may be disclosed in follow-up studies that are being conducted in Fukushima Prefecture in future.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jog.12071/full
August 14, 2016
Posted by dunrenard |
Fukushima 2013, Fukushima 2016 | cesium 134, cesium 137, Fukushima Radiation, Human Placenta |
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The government’s official pretexts for incinerating Hiroshima and Nagasaki still dominate public opinion. In 2005, a Gallop poll reported that 57 percent of people surveyed in the US believed the bombings were justified and legitimate. The myth retains its usefulness. President Obama’s proposed 30-year, trillion-dollar program to rebuild the nuclear weapons production establishment can only go ahead if taxpayers hold fast to the idea that something good can come from the mass destruction of civilians.
“The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”
— Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, WWII Air Force Commander of the 21st Bomber Command, Sept. 20, 1945.
With President Obama’s May 27 visit to Hiroshima, reporters, columnists and editors generally adhered to the official story that “the atomic bomb…ultimately spared more Japanese civilians from a final invasion,” as Kaimay Yuen Terry wrote for the Minneapolis StarTribune, or that, “Without it, more Japanese would have died in a US assault on the islands, as would have tens of thousands of Americans,” as Mike Hashimoto wrote for the Dallas Morning News.
“The dropping of the bombs stopped the war, saved millions of lives,” Harry Truman wrote in his memoir Truman Speaks. Oddly, historians have found no record of any memo, cable, command projection or study, military or civilian, where this estimate was suggested to him. In his book The Invasion of Japan, historian John Ray Skates says, “… prophecies of extremely high casualties only came to be widely accepted after the war to rationalize the use of the atomic bombs.” And historian Martin J. Sherwin has “cited a ‘considerable body’ of new evidence that suggested the bomb may have cost, rather than saved, American lives. That is, if the US had not been so determined to complete, test, and finally use the bomb, it might have arranged the Japanese surrender weeks earlier, preventing much bloodshed on Okinawa.”
Obama — uttering not a word about the historical controversy roiling since 1945 — perpetuated the rationalization, cover-up, and nostalgia that guarantees the US will never apologize for the needless and experimental massacre of 200,000 Japanese civilians. As Hashimoto wrote, “No apology [is] needed for sparing lives on both sides…”
The New York Times reported vaguely that, “Many historians believe the bombings on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, which together took the lives of more than 200,000 people, saved lives on balance, since an invasion of the islands would have led to far greater bloodshed.”
While “many” historians may still believe this, the majority do not. As noted by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s chief historian J. Samuel Walker: “The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it,” Walker wrote in the winter 1990 issue of Diplomatic History.
Five years earlier, historian Gar Alperovitz wrote in Atomic Diplomacy, “[P]resently available evidence shows the atomic bomb was not needed to end the war or to save lives — and that this was understood by American leaders at the time.” Further declassification made his lengthy history, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of An American Myth (Knopf, 1995) even stronger on this point.
Admirals and Generals Debunk the Myth
Contrary to Gov. Sarah Palin’s claim that Obama’s visit to Hiroshima “insults veterans,” the fiction that the atomic bombs ended the war is the real insult to the people who actually fought and won the war against Japan. The official myth that incinerating Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced Japan’s surrender ignores and obscures the fact that combat veterans and bomber crews defeated Japan well before August 6, 1945 — by sacrificing so mightily in dangerous bombing raids and in bloody battles for Midway, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and elsewhere. Dozens of high-level military officers have testified to this fact.
Most of the ranking officers who directed the war in the Pacific have never agreed that the atom bombs were conclusive. Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, Commander of the 21st Bomber Command, speaking publicly and for the record Sept. 20, 1945, said unequivocally: “The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb.” Pressed by a reporter who asked, “Had they not surrendered because of the atomic bomb?” Gen. LeMay — who directed the destruction of 67 major Japanese cities using mass incendiary attacks — said flatly, “The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”
Likewise, Gen. George Kenny, who commanded parts of the Army Air Forces in the Pacific, when asked in 1969 whether it was wise to use atom bombs, said, “No! I think we had the Japs licked anyhow. I think they would have quit probably within a week or so of when they did quit,” Alperovitz recounts in The Decision.
Alperovitz’s research found that Adm. Lewis Strauss, special assistant to WW II Navy Secretary James Forrestal, wrote to the naval historian Robert Albion Dec. 19, 1960 “from the Navy’s point of view, there are statements by Admiral King, Admiral Halsey, Admiral Radford, Admiral Nimitz and others who expressed themselves to the effect that neither the atomic bomb nor the proposed invasion of the Japanese mainland were necessary to produce the surrender.”
In Mandate for Change, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower wrote that when Secretary of War Henry Stimson told him atomic bombs were going to be used, “I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary…”
President Truman’s Chief of Staff, Adm. William Leahy, adamantly agreed. As Robert Lifton and Greg Mitchell, report in Hiroshima in America: 50 Years of Denial, Leahy said, “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons….” Lifton and Mitchell also note that Henry “Hap” Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Forces, said in his memoirs, “It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”
Answers to questions about the need of the atomic bombings were given early on, but some were kept secret. “[T]he US Strategic Bombing Survey published its conclusion that Japan would likely have surrendered in 1945 without atomic bombing, without a Soviet declaration of war, and without an American invasion,” Alperovitz reports in The Decision. The historian spent 30 years studying the issue and has revealed that a 1946 study by the Intelligence Group of the War Department’s Military Intelligence Division — discovered in 1989 — “concluded the atomic bomb had not been needed to end the war” and “judged that it was ‘almost a certainty that the Japanese would have capitulated upon the entry of Russia into the war.’”
The government’s official pretexts for incinerating Hiroshima and Nagasaki still dominate public opinion. In 2005, a Gallop poll reported that 57 percent of people surveyed in the US believed the bombings were justified and legitimate. The myth retains its usefulness. President Obama’s proposed 30-year, trillion-dollar program to rebuild the nuclear weapons production establishment can only go ahead if taxpayers hold fast to the idea that something good can come from the mass destruction of civilians.
John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and edits its newsletter.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/09/how-us-hiroshima-mythology-insults-veterans/
August 14, 2016
Posted by dunrenard |
Japan | Hiroshima, Myth, Nagasaki, WWII Atomic Bombings |
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Fukushima to use rare Pokemon to lure tourists back
Japan is planning to use Pokemon Go to lure tourists back to its quake hit regions, including in the radiation affected prefecture of Fukushima.
Officials for four prefectures in Japan have announced they are partnering with the Japanese subsidiary of Niantic, the US company behind the Pokemon Go game.
They hope that creating virtual attractions in the popular location-based game will help draw people back to the natural disaster affected areas.
Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures are located in the north of the country and were heavily impacted by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Kumamoto, located in southern Japan, suffered a series of earthquakes in April this year.
A handout image made available 16 March 2011 by Japanese Fukushima nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO)
The game is already live in Japan, but players would find extra goodies in the four prefectures under the plan.
Game-makers will add more PokeStops – places where treasured items can be found, and more Pokemon Gyms – locations where people can meet and send their captured monsters into battle.
Officials say they will also place more rare Pokemon in the areas for players to hunt.
Tourism promotions say that less than 10 per cent of Fukushima is affected by radiation exclusion zones, insisting that other areas are safe to visit.
Officials in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima have also been planning ‘recovery tours’ in which guides take visitors to sites affected by the disasters.
But there are limits.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, TEPCO, reportedly had to request game developers to prevent Pokemon from spawning in radiation affected areas of Fukushima, to avoid drawing players into hazardous areas.
Nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant suffered meltdowns as a result of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and TEPCO says they recently found Pokemon at the site.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/08/12/fukushima-use-rare-pokemon-lure-tourists-back
August 14, 2016
Posted by dunrenard |
Fukushima 2016 | Fukushima continuing, Tourism |
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Ikata nuclear power plant, foreground, is located at the root of the Sadamisaki Peninsula.
The No. 3 reactor at Shikoku Electric Power Co.’s Ikata nuclear plant in Ehime Prefecture was restarted Aug. 12, becoming the fifth reactor to be brought online under the stricter safety standards introduced in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The move followed the restart of the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai nuclear plant in Kagoshima Prefecture and the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Takahama plant in Fukui Prefecture. However, the two reactors at the Takahama plant have remained offline since March after the Otsu District Court ordered the operator to shut them down.
The No. 3 unit at the Ikata plant is now the only operating reactor in Japan that burns mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel, composed of plutonium blended with uranium.
But this reactor shares many of the serious safety problems that have been pointed out for the reactors at the Sendai and Takahama plants. It is impossible for us to support the decision to resume operations of the Ikata plant reactor without resolving these problems.
What is particularly worrisome about the Ikata plant is the anticipated difficulty in securing the smooth evacuation of local residents in the event of a serious accident.
The facility is located at the root of the Sadamisaki Peninsula, a 40-kilometer-long spear of land that juts westward into the sea with a maximum width of 6 km or so.
This narrow strip of land west of the plant is home to about 5,000 people.
The only land route for the emergency evacuation of local residents is a national highway that passes near the nuclear plant into inland areas.
Under the evacuation plan crafted jointly by the local governments in the region and the central government, local residents are supposed to be evacuated mainly by ship from ports in the peninsula if the highway becomes impassable because of an accident at the plant.
But many of the communities in the peninsula are located on slopes in coastal areas. They could be cut off from the rest of the peninsula if a landslide occurs.
There are seven radiation protection facilities within the town of Ikata, but four of them are located in designated landslide-prone areas.
People aged 65 or older account for more than 40 percent of the town’s population.
The municipal government has plans in place to support the evacuation of residents of each district. But residents say there is no way to secure evacuation of the entire town if multiple disasters occur.
People living in areas located between 5 and 30 kilometers from a nuclear power plant are supposed to take shelter in their own homes or public facilities, in principle, when a serious nuclear accident takes place.
But the series of earthquakes that rocked central Kyushu around Kumamoto Prefecture in April underscored anew the devastating effects of multiple disasters. The swarm of quakes included two registering a maximum intensity of 7 on the Japanese seismic scale, which caused severe damage to buildings across wide areas of Kumamoto Prefecture.
Ehime Prefecture is likely to be shaken violently if it is struck by the predicted massive Nankai Trough earthquake.
But the prefecture is ill-prepared for such a gigantic quake, with the ratio of public facilities that are quake-proof in the prefecture being the third lowest in Japan. These public facilities are supposed to play a key role in disaster response scenarios.
Evacuation plans are designed mainly to cope with situations in the wake of a single nuclear accident.
At the very least, however, the central and local governments should give serious consideration to the possibility of a nuclear accident being triggered or accompanied by other disasters like an earthquake and a landslide, and evaluate whether the lives of local residents will be protected in such situations.
Satoshi Mitazono, the new governor of Kagoshima Prefecture who took office last month, has indicated his intention to ask Kyushu Electric Power to halt the two reactors at its Sendai plant in response to local anxiety that has been aroused by the Kumamoto earthquakes.
Shikoku Electric Power’s decision to bring the Ikata reactor back on stream despite the fresh safety concerns is deplorable.
Another sticky issue is how to dispose of spent nuclear fuel.
If the No. 2 reactor at the Ikata plant is also restarted following the No. 3 unit, the spent fuel pool will become full in six to seven years. But there is no prospect of building a new storage facility for spent fuel.
There is no practical way, either, to reprocess spent MOX fuel.
The utility, which covers the Shikoku Island, has apparently enough capacity to meet power demand during this summer too.
The company has estimated that restarting the reactor will boost its annual earnings by 25 billion yen ($247 million). But this offers no compelling case for bringing the reactor back online at this moment.
Electric utilities, the central government and local governments in areas where nuclear power plants are located should all stop seeking to restart reactors until they have first dealt with the raft of safety issues.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201608130031.html
August 14, 2016
Posted by dunrenard |
Japan | Ikata NPP, Reactor Restart |
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‘No First Use’ Nuclear Policy Proposal Assailed by U.S. Cabinet 
Officials, Allies
Obama’s disarmament agenda hits significant roadblock on opposition from Kerry, Carter and Moniz, WSJ, By PAUL SONNE, GORDON LUBOLD and CAROL E. LEE Aug. 12, 2016 WASHINGTON—A proposal under consideration at the White House to reverse decades of U.S. nuclear policy by declaring a “No First Use” protocol for nuclear weapons has run into opposition from top cabinet officials and U.S. allies.
The opposition, from Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, as well as allies in Europe and Asia, leaves President Barack Obama with few ambitious options to enhance his nuclear disarmament agenda before leaving office, unless he wants to override the dissent.
The possibility of a “No First Use” declaration—which would see the U.S. explicitly rule out a first strike with a nuclear weapon in any conflict—met resistance at a National Security Council meeting in July, where the Obama administration reviewed possible nuclear disarmament initiatives it could roll out before the end of the president’s term…….
Mr. Obama ultimately didn’t issue a decision on the “No First Use” proposal at the National Security Council meeting, but people familiar with the White House deliberations say opposition from the critical cabinet members and U.S. allies reduces the likelihood of the change. They say a decision by Mr. Obama to press ahead with the declaration appears unlikely in his remaining months, given the controversy it would stir in the midst of a presidential election, but it isn’t impossible.
Other possible initiatives the administration has discussed also have met opposition, including calls to roll back a planned modernization of U.S. nuclear forces and proposals to reduce the U.S.’s deployed nuclear weapons without a reciprocal pledge from Russia……
The pushback on “No First Use” and other proposals shows the difficulty Mr. Obama has encountered in trying to advance a nuclear disarmament agenda that he first articulated less than three months after taking office.
During a 2009 speech in Prague, Mr. Obama promised the U.S. would put an end to Cold War thinking and “take concrete steps toward a world without nuclear weapons,” staking his legacy on an effort that months later would garner him the Nobel Peace Prize.
The following year, Mr. Obama signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, with then Russian PresidentDmitry Medvedev, holding the signing in Prague to show progress on the disarmament agenda. The treaty re-established lapsed oversight and limited the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads for each country to 1,550.
But to secure ratification of the treaty in the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama agreed to a multidecade modernization of the U.S. nuclear force, prompting dismay among antinuclear advocates. The vast overhaul includes the development of a new nuclear cruise missile, a new intercontinental ballistic-missile system and other measures the U.S. military says are necessary to keep its nuclear capabilities up-to-date……..http://www.wsj.com/articles/no-first-use-nuclear-policyproposal-assailed-by-u-s-cabinet-officials-allies-1471042014
August 13, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA, weapons and war |
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DRONE CRASHES INTO KOEBERG NUCLEAR POWER STATION http://www.htxt.co.za/2016/08/10/drone-crashes-nuclear-power-station/ An small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – commonly known as drones – has crashed into the nuclear power station at Koeberg near Cape Town.
While it appears that no damage was done, South Africa’s drone regulations are clear: you are not allowed to fly drones over roads and you keep them at least 50 meters away from buildings.
According to Eskom, the drone not only flew towards and over Koeberg, but crashed into a building on site. Surprisingly, Eskom says that the drone pilot had his UAV returned to him after the incident.
“A drone crashed on the Koeberg site in contravention of the nuclear safety regulations and was returned to its owner without the investigation having been completed,” the parastatal said in a statement.
Eskom says that it has subsequently suspended the Koeberg safety officer as a precautionary measure ahead of an investigation. It also highlighted the dangers of flying drones close to government installations.
“The matter has also been reported to the SAPS as Koeberg is a National Key Point,” it said. Eskom also revealed yesterday that it has suspended the Koeberg power station manager and the plant manager for an unrelated incident.
“Eskom has placed the Koeberg power station manager and the plant manager on precautionary suspension as a result of the distribution of documentation containing unauthorised facts and assumptions relating to Koeberg’s Production Plan and in particular, the steam generator replacement,” it said.
Eskom is this week facing strike action by 15 000 National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) members. In essence, it is illegal for any Eskom employees to strike, and NUM is protesting this.
“The decision to strike was taken at an urgent NUM Eskom national shop stewards council held at the NUM head office today. All 15 000 members of the NUM at Eskom will be fighting for the restoration of the right to strike at Eskom,” NUM said in a statement.
August 13, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
incidents, South Africa |
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Instead of waiting for problems to arise, the NRC and the Energy Department need to develop a transparent and comprehensive road map identifying the key elements of—and especially the unknowns associated with—interim storage, transportation, repackaging, and final disposal of all nuclear fuel, including the high-burnup variety.
Nuclear power plant? Or storage dump for hot radioactive waste? http://thebulletin.org/nuclear-power-plant-or-storage-dump-hot-radioactive-waste9775
Robert Alvarez In addition to generating electricity, US nuclear power plants are now major radioactive waste management operations, storing concentrations of radioactivity that dwarf those generated by the country’s nuclear weapons program. Because the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository remains in limbo, and other permanent storage plans are in their infancy, these wastes are likely to remain in interim storage at commercial reactor sites for the indefinite future. This reality raises one issue of particular concern—how to store the high-burnup nuclear fuel used by most US utilities. An Energy Department expert panel has raised questions that suggest neither government regulators nor the utilities operating commercial nuclear power plants understand the potential impact of used high-burnup fuel on storage and transport of used nuclear fuel, and, ultimately, on the cost of nuclear waste management.
Spent nuclear power fuel accumulated over the past 50 years is bound up in more than 241,000 long rectangular assemblies containing tens of millions of fuel rods. The rods, in turn, contain trillions of small, irradiated uranium pellets. After bombardment with neutrons in the reactor core, about 5 to 6 percent of the pellets are converted to amyriad of radioactive elements with half-lives ranging from seconds to millions of years. Standing within a meter of a typical spent nuclear fuel assembly guarantees a lethal radiation dose in minutes.
Heat from the radioactive decay in spent nuclear fuel is also a principal safety concern. Several hours after a full reactor core is offloaded, it can initially give off enough heat from radioactive decay to match the energy capacity of a steel mill furnace. This is hot enough to melt and ignite the fuel’s reactive zirconium cladding and destabilize a geological disposal site it is placed in. By 100 years, decay heat and radioactivity drop substantially but still remain dangerous. For these reasons, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) informed the Congress in 2013 that spent nuclear fuel is “considered one of the most hazardous substances on Earth.”
US commercial nuclear power plants use uranium fuel that has had the percentage of its key fissionable isotope—uranium 235—increased, or enriched, from what is found in most natural uranium ore deposits. In the early decades of commercial operation, the level of enrichment allowed US nuclear power plants to operate for approximately 12 months between refueling. In recent years, however, US utilities have begun using what is called high-burnup fuel. This fuel generally contains a higher percentage of uranium 235, allowing reactor operators to effectively double the amount of time the fuel can be used, reducing the frequency of costly refueling outages. The switch to high-burnup fuel has been a major contributor to higher capacity factors and lower operating costs in the United States over the past couple of decades.
While this high-burnup trend may have improved the economics of nuclear power, the industry and its regulator, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), have taken a questionable leap of faith that could, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, “result in severe economic penalties and in operational limitations to nuclear plant operators.” Evidence is mounting that spent high-burnup fuel poses little-studied challenges to the temporary used-fuel storage plans now in place and to any eventual arrangement for a long-term storage repository.
High burnup significantly boosts the radioactivity in spent fuel and its commensurate decay heat. Of particular concern is the effect of high-burnup fuel on the cladding that contains it in the fuel assemblies used in commercial reactors. Research shows that under high-burnup conditions, that cladding may not be relied upon as the primary barrier to prevent the escape of radioactivity, especially during prolonged storage in the “dry casks” that are the preferred method of temporary storage for spent fuel. Resolution of these problems remains elusive.
For instance, research shows that in regard to high-burnup waste the fuel cladding thickness of used fuel is reduced and a hydrogen-based rust forms on the zirconium metal used for the cladding, and this thinning can cause the cladding to become brittle and fail. In addition, under high-burnup conditions, increased pressure between the uranium fuel pellets in a fuel assembly and the inner wall of the cladding that encloses them causes the cladding to thin and elongate. And the same research has shown that high burnup fuel temperatures make the used fuel more vulnerable to damage from handling and transport; cladding can fail when used fuel assemblies are removed from cooling pools, when they are vacuum dried, and when they are placed in storage canisters.
The NRC and the nuclear industry do not have the necessary information to predict when storage of high-burnup fuel may cause problems. To err on the side of caution, high-burnup fuel might have to be left in cooling pools for 25 years—as opposed to the current three to five years for lower burnup spent fuel— to allow cladding temperatures to drop enough to reduce risks of cladding failure before the fuel is transferred to dry storage. Also, the cooling pools at US commercial reactors are rapidly filling, with more than 70 percent of the nation’s 77,000 metric tons of spent fuel in reactor pools, of which roughly a fourth is high burnup. So far, a small percentage of high-burnup used fuel assemblies are sprinkled amid lower burnup fuel in dry casks at reactor sites. But by 2048—the Energy Department’s date for opening a permanent geologic disposal site—the amount of spent fuel could double, with high burnup waste accounting for as much as 60 percent of the inventory.
What’s next? In 2014, the NRC adopted a “continued storage” rule that recognized the strong likelihood of long-term surface storage of used nuclear fuel—but that rule basically ignored high-burnup spent fuel. Under the rule, the agency currently permits dry storage casks to accommodate a uniform loading of spent fuel below a certain level of use in reactors. The average burnup for the US reactor fleet is measured by the amount of energy produced, expressed in gigawatt days per metric ton of uranium; at present, used fuel assemblies are allowed to go up to 62,000 gigawatt days per metric ton.
Accordingly, a few high burnup assemblies, with higher decay heat, may be mixed with lower burnup assemblies in a storage canister. But there is little guidance on how this can be done without exceeding NRC peak temperature requirements. NRC’s current regulatory guidance concedes that “data is not currently available” supporting the safe transportation of high burn spent nuclear fuel. Owners of the shuttered Maine Yankee and Zion reactors are not taking a chance and have packaged high burnup spent fuel as it were damaged goods, stored in double-shell containers instead of single-shell, to allow for safer transport.
The impacts of decay heat from high-burnup spent fuel on the internal environment of commercial dry casks are virtually impossible to monitor, according to a 2014 NRC-sponsored study, “because of high temperatures, radiation, and accessibility difficulty.” The uncertainties of storing a mix of high- and low-burnup spent fuel in a canister are compounded by the lack of data on the long-term behavior of high-burnup spent fuel. This problem was highlighted by the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an expert panel that provides scientific oversight for the Energy Department on spent fuel disposal. That panel said there is little to no data to support dry storage and transport for spent fuel with burnups greater than 35 gigawatt days per metric ton of uranium. In a May 2016 letter to the Energy Department, the board raised elemental questions that should have been answered before the NRC and reactor operators took this leap of faith: “What could go wrong? How likely is it? What are the consequences?” The board provided no answers to those questions.
It will take the Energy Department at least a decade to complete a study involving temperature monitoring in a specially designed dry cask containing high burnup fuel. Meanwhile, as high-burnup inventories increase, the higher amounts of radioactivity and decay heat associated with high-burnup fuel assemblies are putting additional stress on cooling pool storage systems.
This is happening at a time when concerns over spent fuel pool storage conditions are increasing. “As nuclear plants age, degradations of spent fuel pools … are occurring at an increasing rate,” a study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory concluded in 2011. “During the last decade, a number of NPPs [nuclear power plants] have experienced water leakage from the SFPs [spent fuel pools] and reactor refueling cavities.” As a result of increasing high burnup loadings, spent nuclear pool storage systems are likely to require upgrading, which will certainly drive up costs at a time when age and deterioration are of growing concern.
These concerns were given greater prominence in May of this year by a National Academy of Sciences panel established by Congress to review the response of the NRC to the Fukushima nuclear accident. In its report, the panel warned the NRC about terrorist attacks for the second time since 2004 and urged the agency to “ensure that power plant operators take prompt and effective measures to reduce the consequences of loss-of-pool-coolant events in spent fuel pools that could result in propagating zirconium cladding fires.” Allison Macfarlane, then chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), noted in April, 2014 that “land interdiction [from a spent nuclear fuel pool fire at the Peach Bottom Reactor in Pennsylvania] is estimated to be 9,400 square miles with a long term displacement of 4,000,000 persons.”
Down the road, it is likely that spent nuclear fuel will have to be repackaged to mitigate decay heat into smaller containers ahead of final disposal. High-burnup fuel will only complicate the process, and increase costs, currently estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. Depending on the geologic medium, a maximum of four assemblies for high burnup, as opposed to the dozens in current storage casks, would be permitted after 100 years of decay; larger packages containing no more than 21 assemblies might have to be disposed if there is forced ventilation for 50 to 250 years—driving up repository costs.
The basic approach undertaken in this country for the storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel needs to be fundamentally revamped. Instead of waiting for problems to arise, the NRC and the Energy Department need to develop a transparent and comprehensive road map identifying the key elements of—and especially the unknowns associated with—interim storage, transportation, repackaging, and final disposal of all nuclear fuel, including the high-burnup variety. Otherwise, the United States will remain dependent on leaps of faith in regard to nuclear waste storage—leaps that are setting the stage for large, unfunded radioactive waste “balloon mortgage” payments in the future.
August 13, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Reference, USA, wastes |
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US Nuclear-Bomber Triad in Pacific for First Time as China Reaches Boiling Point http://sputniknews.com/military/20160812/1044182905/nuclear-bomber-triad-china-pyongyang.html With tensions in the South China Sea and throughout the Pacific Rim at increasing levels, the Obama Administration adds fuel to the fire by dispatching enough nuclear weaponry to kill everyone in the region.
The United States has dispatched its three strategic bomber types to the Pacific region for the first time, in a bid to reassure allies amid growing aggression from China in the wake of the Hague-based Court of Arbitration ruling against Beijing’s claim to territories in the South China Sea, and the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system.
Announced Wednesday, the US Air Force will dispatch a Boeing B-52H Stratofortress, a Rockwell B-1B Lancer, and a Northrup Grumman B-2A Spirit bomber to operate concurrently in the US Pacific Command region in support of the Continuous Bomber Presence (CBP) and Bomber Assurance and Deterrence (BAAD) missions.
The move by the United States supplements a sizeable but undisclosed number of B-52s stationed at Andersen Air Force Base on the Island of Guam since 2006. The move called for the transfer of a fleet of B-1Bs and three B-2s to be deployed to Andersen Air Force Base to assist with the BAAD mission.
The US Air Force announcement cited the need to ward off potential adversaries but refused to explicitly name China, whose growing military strength puts Beijing on other side of the American nuclear barrel, though the connection is “clear,” according to IHS Jane’s Defence. Additionally, the region has become increasingly unstable due to a proliferation of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles at the hand of the unstable regime of Kim Jong-Un in North Korea.
While the United States mission to deter and contain North Korea is understandable, the willingness of the White House to escalate tensions with Beijing marks a shift in the Obama Administration’s posture toward China, previously focused on strengthening defense and economic relationships with regional allies to provide a countervailing political force in the Pacific, as opposed to embarking on a path toward increased militarism.
The movement of US B-1Bs, B-2As, and B-52Hs to the Pacific region has not only incensed of China, but has left North Korea feeling cornered, accusing the US of planning a preemptive nuclear strike against Pyongyang, according to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
August 13, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
USA, weapons and war |
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Shikoku MOX plant restarts amid outcry over fresh quake fears, Japan Times, BY ERIC JOHNSTONSTAFF WRITER, 12 Aug 16, MATSUYAMA, EHIME PREF. – Shikoku Electric Power Co. restarted the Ikata No. 3 reactor Friday at its plant on the narrow Sadamisaki Peninsula in Ehime Prefecture as citizens groups sought injunctions in three different prefectures to turn it back off amid various safety concerns, including the viability of evacuations.
The reactor is the fifth to be switched back on since all of the nation’s atomic reactors were closed due to the March 2011 triple core meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant following a mega-quake and tsunami.
However, a March decision by the Otsu District Court to place a temporary injunction on two Kansai Electric Power Co. reactors in Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, left only two reactors at Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture in operation. They were restarted a year ago.
The Ikata No. 3 unit is also the only reactor burning the mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel…….
the reactor’s restart has not gone unchallenged. The Otsu District Court decision, which shut down Kepco’s Takahama No. 3 and 4 reactors less than two months after they were restarted, has energized residents who opposed the Ikata restart. In light of the quakes in Kyushu earlier this year, many now fear a natural disaster could also damage the reactor, and that official evacuation plans for the slender peninsula could prove unrealistic.
Petitions seeking a temporary injunction on the Ikata reactor have been filed in the district courts of Matsuyama in Ehime, as well as Hiroshima and Oita, by people living relatively close to the plant. Matsuyama is about 60 km from Ikata and Hiroshima is within 100 km. Oita’s Saganoseki Peninsula is about 45 km away.
A temporary injunction from any one of the three courts would almost certainly mean Ikata No. 3 would have to shut down immediately. For this reason, anti-nuclear lawyers involved with the petitions remain hopeful the courts will do what politicians have not.
“The Otsu court decision to shut down the Takahama reactors sent a shock wave through the government and the utilities. Political measures including demonstrations are needed. But I’ve come to believe the best way to stop the restart of nuclear power plants is through legal means, such as filing lawsuits and requests for temporary injunctions,” Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer involved with the Matsuyama, Hiroshima and Oita petitions, said at a news conference in Matsuyama late last month.
The Otsu decision angered Kepco and senior corporate leaders in the Kansai region who fear it will spark a nationwide movement against nuclear power plants. Some are now pushing the government to establish a separate court presided over by judges with specialized knowledge, or to establish separate legal measures to review petitions by citizens’ groups targeting restarts in the hope of obtaining more favorable rulings.
“From the viewpoint of a stable energy supply, it’s necessary to reduce the legal risks as much as possible,” Kansai Economic Federation chairman and former Kepco Chairman Shosuke Mori said at his regular news conference last month.
Other pro-nuclear Kansai economic leaders support Mori’s call for legal changes.
“Why should the nation’s energy policy be impaired by a judge at a district court? I hope the law is quickly changed so this doesn’t happen,” said Kansai Economic Federation Vice Chairman and Hankyu Railways Chairman Kazuo Sumi after the initial Oita ruling in March.
In their request for a temporary injunction on the Ikata unit, citizens’ groups cite the fact that it lies about 5 km from the Median Tectonic Line, which runs from Kyushu to Honshu. They also say that evacuation plans in the event of a natural disaster that damages the plant could prove impossible if the roads along the narrow, landslide-prone peninsula hosting it collapse or are washed away by a tsunami…….http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/12/national/shikoku-electric-poised-fire-ehime-plant-mox-reactor-amid-protests/#.V642mlt97Gg
August 13, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Japan, Legal |
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Lawsuit claims US aid to Israel violates nuclear pact Institute for Research: 
Middle Eastern Policy says atomic powers who don’t sign NPT aren’t legally eligible for American money, Times of Israel, BY JTA August 12, 2016 A lawsuit filed in a US district court claims that American aid to Israel is illegal under a law passed in the 1970s that prohibits aid to nuclear powers who don’t sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, who filed the lawsuit Monday with a Washington DC court, said the United States has given Israel an estimated $234 billion in foreign aid since Congress in 1976 passed the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, with its stipulation regarding countries that did not sign the NPT, according to Courthouse News.
Discussing his August 8 lawsuit in an interview to Court House News, Smith said the litigation has been 10 years in the making.
Though Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Smith noted that it is a known nuclear power and recipient of US aid. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied possession of nuclear weapons but is widely believed to possess dozens if not hundreds of nuclear warheads.
The US has had a long-standing policy of keeping mum on the existence of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, an open secret that successive US administrations since Gerald Ford have refused to publicly acknowledge.
Smith’s lawsuit comes on the eve of an aid deal that would boost US assistance to the country by between $1 billion and $2 billion per year over a decade. Israel already gets $3 billion a year in US aid.
In addition to the United States and President Barack Obama, the complaint names as defendants Secretary of State John Kerry, CIA Director John Brennan, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, and the secretaries of the Treasury, Energy and Commerce Departments.
“Defendants have collectively engaged in a violation of administrative procedure and the Take Care Clause by unlawful failure to act upon facts long in their possession while prohibiting the release of official government information about Israel’s nuclear weapons program, particularly ongoing illicit transfers of nuclear weapons material and technology from the US to Israel,” the 33-page lawsuit states.
To sustain a policy of “nuclear ambiguity” on Israel’s weapons program, Smith says the government uses improper classification and threatens federal employees and researchers with prosecution, fines and imprisonment.
The gag is driven, according to the complaint, by a Department of Energy directive known as WNP-136, Foreign Nuclear Capabilities. Smith says his digging under the Freedom of Information Act brought a version of the document to light that was “nearly 90 percent redacted.”
“This is an Energy Department directive that demands imprisonment for any federal official or contractor who even mentions that Israel might have a nuclear weapons program,” Smith said in an interview.
In the lawsuit, Smith says foreign aid to Israel violates two amendments of the 1961 Foreign Aid Act, known as the Symington and Glenn amendments, which ban aid to clandestine nuclear powers……..http://www.timesofisrael.com/lawsuit-claims-us-aid-to-israel-violates-atomic-pact/
August 13, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Legal, Reference, USA |
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US government accuses Hinkley point partner of nuclear espionage, SC Magazine, Max Metzger, Reporter, 12 Aug 16 Major partners in the controversial nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point have been accused in American courts of attempting to steal US nuclear technology. Fears over Chinese involvement in a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point have been reinforced as a major partner in the plant’s development has been accused by the US government of nuclear espionage.
Szuhsiung Ho, an advisor to the state-owned China General Nuclear Power (CGN) company, which would have a 33 percent stake in the new plant at Hinkley, has been charged with “conspiracy to unlawfully engage and participate in the production and development of special nuclear material outside the United States”.
Essentially, the US Department of Justice has accused Szuhsiung Ho, otherwise known as Allen Ho, of trying to steal US nuclear technology.
Ho, under orders from CGN, is supposed to have tried to get US nuclear experts to help develop nuclear material in China. According to a statement released by the DoJ, for nearly 20 years, between 1997 and 2016, Ho “identified, recruited and executed contracts with US-based experts from the civil nuclear industry who provided technical assistance related to the development and production of special nuclear material”.
Of particular interest to Ho and his co-conspirators was assistance with CGN’s programmes on small modular reactors, advanced fuel assembly and fixed in-core detectors.
If one is to act as an agent of a foreign power within the United States, their status must be declared to the US attorney general. Not only did Ho not do this but explicitly told those he was trying to recruit that he was acting on behalf of the Chinese state. The DoJ records him as telling his potential recruits that he was working surreptitiously to help China “to design their Nuclear Instrumentation System independently and manufacture them independently”.
None of the accusations have yet been proven but the charges could carry a sentence of life and a US$250,000 (£192,000) fine.
The case is being pursued by a number of US law enforcement agencies including the Department of Energy – National Nuclear Security Administration and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch Michael Steinbach said in a statement, “The arrest and indictment in this case send an important message to the US nuclear community that foreign entities want the information you possess”.
“The federal government has regulations in place to oversee civil nuclear cooperation, and if those authorities are circumvented, this can result in significant damage to our national security. The US will use all of its law enforcement tools to stop those who try to steal US nuclear technology and expertise.”…….http://www.scmagazineuk.com/us-government-accuses-hinkley-point-partner-of-nuclear-espionage/article/515702/
August 13, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
China, Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA |
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Japan reactor restarts, despite protests, boosting Tokyo’s nuclear push, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-12/japan-reactor-restarts-in-post-fukushima-nuclear-push/7729892Japan has restarted a nuclear reactor despite a court challenge by local residents, in a boost for Tokyo’s faltering post-Fukushima push to bring back atomic power.
Operator Shikoku Electric Power said it switched on the No 3 reactor at its Ikata nuclear power plant in Ehime prefecture, about 700 kilometres south-west of Tokyo.
The reactor — shuttered along with dozens of others across Japan in the wake of the March 2011 Fukushima accident — was expected to be fully operational by August 22.
The prefecture’s governor and the mayor of the plant’s host town agreed on the restart in October, in the face of opposition from some local residents who filed a lawsuit to halt the refiring.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and utility companies have been pushing to get reactors back in operation after a huge earthquake and tsunami caused a disastrous meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in north-eastern Japan.
The accident forced all of Japan’s dozens of reactors offline in the face of public worries over the safety of nuclear power and fears about radiation exposure, forcing a move to pricey fossil fuels.
Opposition to nuclear power has seen communities across the country file lawsuits to prevent restarts, marking a serious challenge for Mr Abe’s pro-nuclear stance.
In April, a court ruled that Japan’s only two working nuclear reactors could remain online, rejecting an appeal by residents who said tougher post-Fukushima safety rules were still inadequate. Two other reactors in central Japan had also been restarted before a court in March ordered them offline in response to a legal challenge.
Including the reactor restarting on Friday, Japan will have just three operating reactors — and furious local residents have vowed to fight on.
“We protest this restart of the Ikata nuclear reactor and are extremely angry,” the residents’ group said in a statement, adding that the reactor’s use of a plutonium-uranium MOX fuel made it especially dangerous.
“We can’t have another Fukushima.”
The utility said it would make “ceaseless efforts” to ensure the plant was safe and to keep residents informed about key details of the restart.
August 13, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Japan, opposition to nuclear |
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Obama Admin Gives Green Light for Iran to Build Two New Nuclear Plants
New Iranian nuclear plants will not violate nuclear deal, officials say Washington Free Beacon, BY: Adam Kredo August 12, 2016
Iran is permitted to pursue the construction of two newly announced nuclear plants under the parameters of last summer’s nuclear agreement, Obama administration officials informed the Washington Free Beacon, setting the stage for Tehran to move forward with construction following orders from President Hassan Rouhani.
Ali Salehi, Iran’s top nuclear official, announced on Thursday that Iran has invested $10 billion into the construction of two new nuclear plants after receiving orders from Rouhani, according to reports in Iran’s state-controlled media.
A State Department official said to the Free Beacon following the announcement that Iran is allowed to move forward with this venture under the nuclear agreement, which does not prohibit this type of nuclear construction.
“The [nuclear deal] does not prevent Iran from pursuing new light-water reactors,” a State Department official not authorized to speak on record said to the Free Beacon in response to questions about Iran’s latest announcement. “Any new nuclear reactors in Iran will be subject to its safeguards obligations.”………http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-admin-gives-green-light-iran-build-two-new-nuclear-plants/
August 13, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Iran, politics |
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nuclear-news 