Nikki Haley Falsely Accuses Iran
Consortium News Israel and the neocons still seek an excuse to bomb Iran, now citing false claims about its supposed noncompliance with the nuclear deal. The new water carrier is U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar describes. By Paul R. Pillar
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement that limits Iran’s nuclear program, is for Donald Trump one more of the Obama administration’s achievements to be trashed. It goes alongside the Affordable Care Act, the Paris climate change agreement, and other measures (most recently the “dreamers” program involving children of illegal immigrants) as targets for trashing because fulfilling campaign rhetoric is given higher priority in the current administration than whether a program is achieving its purpose, whether there are any realistic alternatives available, or what the effects of the trashing will be on the well-being of Americans and the interests and credibility of the United States.
Nikki Haley, whose foreign policy experience has consisted of these past few months as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, has assumed the role of chief public trasher of the JCPOA for the administration. Evidently no demands on the time of the U.S. ambassador in New York, from the issue of North Korea (which has real, not imagined, nuclear weapons) to the war in Syria were too important to keep her from giving a speech at the American Enterprise Institute that represented the administration’s most concerted and contrived public effort so far to lay groundwork for withdrawing from the JCPOA.
Haley has warmed to this cause both because of her own previous parochial interests, including those associated with financial contributions she has received, and because it is a convenient vehicle for playing to Trump’s urges. Haley evidently feels no obligation to perform as one of the “adults” in the administration to whom the country looks to contain those urges.
The speech at AEI was Trumpian in some of the tactics it employed. The performance should cement the ambitious Haley’s place on Trump’s short list of candidates to become Secretary of State once Rex Tillerson’s unhappy and probably short tenure in the job ends. The speech also used more twisted versions of familiar rhetorical twists that have been heard before from diehard opponents of the JCPOA…….https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/06/nikki-haley-falsely-accuses-iran/
Lawsuit against Indiana University over nuclear lab spill
Chemist claims he was fired after telling women to shower after nuclear lab spill http://www.heraldbulletin.com/news/state_news/chemist-claims-he-was-fired-after-telling-women-to-shower/article_85046f6d-d055-5372-8db3-310fc90a7702.html, By Scott L. Miley CNHI Statehouse Reporter, Sep 6, 2017 INDIANAPOLIS — A former IUPUI nuclear chemist is suing the school after he was fired for allegedly having two women take showers following a spill in a lab.
Bradly Keck, who was assistant director of health physics at IU Health in Indianapolis, is alleging job discrimination in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana.
He has named IUPUI and the Indiana University Board of Trustees in his filing.
Keck and another co-worker began assisting the co-worker performing cleanup. Keck addressed the contamination of the technicians by scanning them with a meter and found them contaminated with radioactive isotopes.
He ordered them to go to a women’s locker room, remove their clothes and shower individually.
He claims that failure to remove the contamination could have resulted in serious health risks. Each showered between two and four times.
Keck again ran the meter over contaminated areas of their skin. He told them to go back into the shower where he washed their calves to remove any remaining contamination, he says.
However, he was suspended pending an investigation. On Jan. 25, he notified the university that he was alleging sex discrimination. He was fired Jan. 31.
Keck is asking that he be reinstated to his job and be paid compensatory damages.
Indiana University has not responded to the lawsuit.
America’s new nuclear reactors – after $2 billion in expenditures, none ready for deployment.
DOE Advanced Nuclear Reactor Program Deemed Ineffective, American Institute of Physics , 7 Sept 17
According to a new report, the Department of Energy’s program to develop advanced nuclear reactors has shifted priorities too often and overspent on facility upkeep. After $2 billion in expenditures, no advanced design is ready for deployment.This article was first published in the Politics and Policy section of Physics Today.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) is unlikely to fulfill its mission of developing and demonstrating one or two advanced nuclear reactor technologies by mid-century, according to a new review of the program. In a report published in Environmental Research Letters in August, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the Brookings Institution, and the University of California, San Diego, found fault with, among other things, NE’s overemphasis on light-water-reactor technologies…….
For advanced reactor and advanced fuel research over the 1998 to 2015 period reviewed by the authors, NE spent $2 billion, an amount they said is insufficient to ready even one advanced reactor design for commercial deployment. The authors estimated the cost of designing and licensing an advanced reactor to be $1 billion; demonstration at full scale would cost between $4 billion and $13 billion.
The report blamed NE’s ineffectiveness on a lack of “programmatic discipline.” The program’s funding focus has shifted frequently over the 18-year span, supporting a dozen different technologies at funding levels that were “too low to be relevant to actual commercialization.” Many of those efforts were discontinued during the review period………
Advanced reactor and fuel test facilities at Idaho National Laboratory consume up to half of NE’s budget. Some of those facilities, the report argued, are defense related and only marginally support NE’s core mission. But Lyons says NE doesn’t fund defense programs, and he notes that the U.S. Navy pays half the cost of operating Idaho’s Advanced Test Reactor.
The largest sustained NE R&D program during the review period was the $750 million Nuclear Power 2010, which supported development of two enhanced light-water-reactor designs through licensing and siting. Funding for that program was 57 percent greater than what was devoted to the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP), NE’s largest non-light-water advanced reactor program. The NGNP has effectively been terminated due to disputes over site location and the selection of a private-sector partner. ….
Lyons points out that the NGNP was conceived at a time when natural gas prices were at twice today’s levels and the economics of nuclear power was more compelling. He says the project failed mainly due to the unwillingness of industry to share its cost.
Most of the advanced reactor designs that NE has funded couldn’t use the tristructural-isotropic (TRISO) nuclear fuels that the DOE office spent $450 million to develop during the review period, the report stated. Consisting of tiny pellets of low-enriched uranium oxide encapsulated in four layers of carbon, pyrolytic carbon, and silicon carbide, TRISO fuel is more resistant to melting or rupture than today’s fuels are. But TRISO isn’t coupled to a specific reactor R&D program, and it is unclear what role the fuel would play in a transition to advanced reactors, the report said……https://www.aip.org/fyi/2017/doe-advanced-nuclear-reactor-program-deemed-ineffective
Britain’s new nuclear power projects – a public spending disaster in the making
No2NuclearPower 5th Sept 2017, Steve Thomas, Emeritus Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Greenwich, says many of the issues that arise with Hinkley Point C (HPC)
that might derail it apply equally to the whole Government programme.
He says we are probably at the point where we are looking at a public spending
disaster. Financing HPC will stretch EDF Energy to the limit and maybe
beyond.
He thinks there is no possibility of Sizewell C being built on the
timetable that the Government is looking at. He says we are in a surreal
situation where we are planning the two largest construction projects ever
built on UK soil – HPC and Moorside – and we are contemplating buying
the equipment from bankrupt and disgraced companies using technologies that
have abjectly failed wherever they have been built.
None of the three consortia (excluding Bradwell which is further off in the future) are
financeable in their present state. Here we look at the evidence presented
by Steve Thomas and others which questions whether any of these projects
will ever be successfully completed. On the other hand continuing with
these projects will seriously damage renewable and energy efficiency
programmes and delay real action to combat climate change. http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/recent-additions/uk-nuclear-policies-recent-changes-and-likely-developments/
Cybersecurity risks to energy companies in the US and Europe
FT 6th Sept 2017, Hackers have entered the operational systems of energy companies in the US
and Europe, lying in wait with the ability to switch off the power and
sabotage computer networks, according to a report by cyber security company
Symantec.
The group of hackers, known as Dragonfly, Energetic Bear or
Berserk Bear, infiltrated energy companies by tricking employees into
opening Microsoft Word documents that harvest usernames and passwords, with
the number of attacks rising in recent months.
While the hackers have not caused power outages, Symantec warned that attacks by a different group
that made whole regions in Ukraine go dark in 2015 and 2016 show what is
possible. https://www.ft.com/content/8c51cdae-9298-11e7-bdfa-eda243196c2c
Global effects of rapid thaw of Greenland’s permafrost
Greenland: How rapid climate change on world’s largest island will affect us all The ice sheet is melting and permafrost is thawing. What’s happening in Greenland will speed up climate change across the world, The Independent, 7 Sept 17, Kathryn Adamson
Greenland is an important cog in the global climate system. The ice sheet, which covers 80 per cent of the island, reflects so much of the sun’s energy back into space that it moderates temperatures through what is known as the “albedo effect”. And since it occupies a strategic position in the North Atlantic, its meltwater tempers ocean circulation patterns.
But Greenland is especially vulnerable to climate change, as Arctic air temperatures are currently rising at twice the global average rate. Environmental conditions are frequently setting new records: “the warmest”, “the wettest”, “the driest”.
Despite its size, the fire itself represents only a snapshot of Greenland’s fire history. It alone cannot tell us about wider Arctic climate change.
But when we superimpose these extraordinary events onto longer-term environmental records, we can see important trends emerging.
The ice sheet is melting
Between 2002 and 2016 the ice sheet lost mass at a rate of around 269 gigatonnes per year. One gigatonne is one billion tonnes. One tonne is about the weight of a walrus.
During the same period, the ice sheet also showed some unusual short-term behaviour. The 2012 melt season was especially intense – 97 per cent of the ice sheet experienced surface melt at some point during the year. Snow even melted at its summit, the highest point in the centre of the island where the ice is piled up more than 3km above sea level………
In Greenland, like much of the Arctic, rising temperatures are thawing the permafrost. This means the active layer is growing by up to 1.5cm per year. This trend is expected to continue, seeing as under current IPCC predictions, Arctic air temperatures will rise by between 2.0°C and 7.5°C this century.
Arctic permafrost contains more than 1,500 billion tonnes of dead plants and animals (around 1,500 billion walrus equivalent) which we call “organic matter”. Right now, this stuff has been frozen for thousands of years. But when the permafrost thaws this organic matter will decay, releasing carbon and methane (another greenhouse gas) into the atmosphere.
If thawing continues, it’s estimated that by 2100 permafrost will emit 850-1,400 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (for comparison: total global emissions in 2012 was 54 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent). All that extra methane and carbon, of course, has the potential to enhance global warming even further……..http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/greenland-how-rapid-climate-change-on-worlds-largest-island-will-affect-us-all-a7926006.html
Credit downgrade likely if Southern Company’s Georgia Power subsidiary buys Santee Cooper nuclear utility
Seeking Alpha 2nd Sept 2017, Moody’s has issued a warning that the decision by Southern Company’s
Georgia Power subsidiary to pursue its nuclear plant construction project
may lead to a credit downgrade. Moody’s raises questions about whether
Georgia Power can recover its costs. Credit concerns may affect Southern
Company’s ability to buy South Carolina utility, Santee Cooper.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4103753-moodys-warns-continuing-southern-companys-plant-vogtle-nuclear-project-credit-negative
Hurricane Irma 11 AM/2 PM EDT (38-A) Update, Key Points, and Nuclear Power Stations
“2:00 PM EDT Fri Sep 8
Location: 22.0°N 76.0°W
Moving: W at 14 mph
Min pressure: 925 mb
Max sustained: 155 mph; 250 km/hr ”
“SUMMARY OF 1100 AM EDT…1500 UTC…INFORMATION
———————————————–
LOCATION…22.0N 75.3W
ABOUT 270 MI…435 KM E OF CAIBARIEN CUBA
ABOUT 405 MI…655 KM SE OF MIAMI FLORIDA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…150 MPH…240 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT…WNW OR 285 DEGREES AT 14 MPH…22 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…927 MB…27.38 INCHES”
Hurricane Irma projected path-wind estimates and Nuclear Power Stations: Unlike STP Nuclear Operating Station, in Texas, Turkey Point and St. Lucie Nuclear Power Stations say they do not intend to ride out the storm at full power, but they have not yet shut-down either, as of early this morning, nor are they required to do so, until close to too late.
Turkey Point Nuclear Power Station and predicted storm surge:
Most predicted storm surge levels near Turkey Point…
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Powerful Irma Threatens to Put South Florida Underwater, Spill Lake Okeechobee
Near category five strength Irma represents a major flood threat from storm surge and rainfall to South Florida. Due to its large size, strong winds, its movement toward shore atop rising seas, and ability to push a tall and wide-ranging surge of water over far-flung coastlines, Irma has the potential to put major cities like Miami under water. In addition, expected 10-15 inch rainfall over Lake Okeechobee threatens the integrity of an aging dike which, if overtopped, could result in severe flooding of inland communities.
*****
As of the 2 PM advisory from the National Hurricane Center, Irma was a top-strength category 4 hurricane packing 155 mile per hour maximum sustained winds and a minimum central pressure of 925 mb. The storm is presently tracking just north of Cuba along a westerly or west-northwest path. It is expected to turn north by Saturday, ultimately making landfall somewhere in South…
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“Worst hurricane ever” headed straight for multiple US nuclear plants
“Worst hurricane ever” headed straight for multiple US nuclear plants — Winds up to 225 MPH — Storm to cause “apocalyptic damage” — Officials making Fukushima comparisons (VIDEOS) http://enenews.com/worst-hurricane-ever-headed-straight-for-multiple-us-nuclear-plants-winds-up-to-225-mph-storm-to-cause-apocalyptic-damage-officials-making-fukushima-comparisons-videos
LA Times, Sep 6, 2017 at 7:40 PM EDT: [T]he Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was getting ready to shut down two Florida nuclear plants…Miami Herald, Sept 6, 2017 at 2:00 PM EDT (emphasis added): Two South Florida nuclear power plants lie in Irma’s path… projections on Wednesday showed [Irma] headed straight for South Florida… But neither Turkey Point nor the St. Lucie plant farther up the coast had made the call yet to shutting down the plants… “If we anticipate there will be direct impacts on either facility we’ll shut down the units,” [spokesman Peter Robbins] said.
Bloomberg, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:10 PM EDT: Nuclear Plants in Irma’s Path Plan Shutdowns Ahead of Storm… Two of the Sunshine State’s nuclear facilities are in the Category 5 storm’s path… NextEra Energy Inc. will shut the plants “long before” the onset of hurricane force winds, spokesman Peter Robbins told Bloomberg…
Washington Post, Sep 6, 2017 at 7:50 PM EDT: This could be The Big One, again, and everyone knows it… Hurricane Irma is about as big as a tropical cyclone can possibly get, and the latest computer models show it aimed at South Florida as if following directions by GPS… This hurricane’s 185-mph maximum sustained winds are the strongest recorded for a landfalling hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean… Storm preparations also were underway at two nuclear sites in Florida… NextEra said that it will shut down its four nuclear reactors before Irma makes landfall… NextEra also said that its reactors could weather a loss of electricity of the sort that caused a meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi reactors…
PBS, Sep 6, 2017 at 6:50 PM EDT: Sustained winds are still blowing at a record 185 miles an hour, with gusts up to 225 miles an hour. One forecaster watching the assault today said this thing is a buzz saw…
The Times, Sep 7, 2017: Caribbean islands devastated by ferocity of Hurricane Irma, the worst Atlantic storm on record… The storm, at 480 miles wide and with gusts up to 225mph, is the most powerful recorded in the Atlantic — Hurricane Irma… left “apocalyptic” damage across Caribbean islands yesterday, inundating coastal areas and devastating buildings with 185mph winds… Officials on Barbuda said more than 90 per cent of the island had been destroyed. “Barbuda is literally rubble,” Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said after visiting the island. “The entire housing stock was damaged. It is just total devastation,” he said…
Watch broadcasts here: PBS | Local News
High Risk of Inhaling Cesium Contained in Shower Near Tokyo
Via Kurumi Sugita
The result of analysis of a cartridge filter of shower water using essentially zeolite. The user lives in Funabashi city in Chiba (near Tokyo).
The period of use is from Feb 2017 to August 2017.
The volume of water used is about 52500L.
Cesium fixed in cartridge is 1128.96 Bq/kg
While taking a shower, one is exposed to a high risk of inhaling cesium contained in the steam.
Japan’s Nuclear Regulator Not Agreeing to Tepco’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP Reactor Restart Plans
Nuclear regulator does dizzying U-turn on TEPCO reactor restart plans
From left, the No. 5, 6 and 7 reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant are seen in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, in this April 21, 2016 file photo.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the utility responsible for the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and its March 2011 triple meltdown, is aiming to get the reactors at its other power plants back on line.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), which must approve any restarts, had been holding to a very strict line on TEPCO applications. However, on Sept. 6 the NRA abruptly changed track, taking a more sympathetic attitude and indicating that the No. 6 and 7 reactors at the utility’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture would likely pass their safety inspections — a prerequisite for restart approval.
Despite the NRA’s suddenly sunny attitude, the prefectural government has not budged from its more cautious position. And TEPCO, which has made the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant a chief pillar of its business recovery plans, cannot flip the reactors’ “on” switch without the prefecture’s imprimatur, meaning the plant still has no clear restart schedule.
When the NRA summoned TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa and other top managers on July 10 this year to testify on the utility’s competence to keep running nuclear plants, authority chairman Shunichi Tanaka was unequivocal and unforgiving.
Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka speaks to the Mainichi Shimbun during an Aug. 29, 2017 interview. (Mainichi)
“If TEPCO is unwilling or unable to finalize the decommissioning of the Fukushima (No. 1 station) reactors, it is simply not qualified to restart the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant,” Tanaka told the executives, adding, “I don’t see TEPCO showing any independent initiative whatsoever.”
The NRA chairman was referring to the longstanding problems with contaminated water and radioactive waste disposal plaguing TEPCO’s Fukushima plant decommissioning efforts. The utility tends to focus too much on trying to read the government’s mind on any and all Fukushima issues — an attitude that has long drawn NRA criticism.
When the NRA inspected the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s No. 6 and 7 reactors, it added a new evaluation category to the usual technological checklist, though it was not part of the new safety standards: “eligibility.” That is, TEPCO’s eligibility to run a nuclear power plant at all. After all, it was one of TEPCO’s plants that had succumbed to the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. “TEPCO is different from other (power) companies,” Tanaka had said.
TEPCO President Kobayakawa and Chairman Takashi Kawamura are also a source of NRA concern. The two had no role in the utility’s response to the 2011 meltdowns, and Kobayakawa replaced a much more experienced hand in Naomi Hirose, a TEPCO managing director when the disaster struck. After his NRA dressing-down in July, Kobayakawa apparently visited the Fukushima disaster zone seven times.
However, there has been an apparent U-turn in Tanaka’s stance. A document submitted on Aug. 25 to the NRA under Kobayakawa’s name was sewn with phrases like, “We will carry the (Fukushima) reactor decommissioning through to the end,” and other terms suggesting a determined TEPCO attitude. At the same time, the document was bereft of details on specific preparedness measures or progress benchmarks for the decommissioning work.
Nevertheless, when Kobayakawa again appeared before the NRA on Aug. 30, the body indicated its acceptance of TEPCO’s position. Taking the contaminated water problem “as one example,” Tanaka stated that he recognized TEPCO’s lack of concrete countermeasure planning couldn’t be helped under the circumstances. One NRA executive revealed to the Mainichi Shimbun, “We avoided demanding a detailed (disposal measures) plan because we don’t legally have that authority, and doing so could pose legal risks.”
Pro-TEPCO sentiment was on conspicuous display when the NRA met again on Sept. 6, including acting Chairman Toyoshi Fuketa’s declaration that he “felt TEPCO’s drive to pass on the lessons of the (Fukushima nuclear) accident.”
Committee member Nobuhiko Ban stated that while the document the utility had submitted in the summer was a “declaration of intent,” he was “concerned over whether this alone can constitute eligibility” to run a nuclear plant. However, Tanaka wrapped up discussion by saying that “circumstances are not such that we can deny (TEPCO’s) eligibility.”
Tanaka will leave his NRA post on Sept. 18 after completing his five-year term in the chairmanship, and at a post-meeting news conference he was asked if he had wanted to bring the TEPCO issue to a close while in office.
“I can’t say that I’ve never felt that way,” Tanaka replied.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170907/p2a/00m/0na/019000c
NRA doubts TEPCO’s safety vow in Niigata, plans legal move
Tokyo Electric Power Co. wants to restart the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors, shown in the forefront, at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority, skeptical of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s promise to put safety ahead of profits, plans to gain legal assurances before allowing the embattled utility to start operating nuclear reactors again.
TEPCO has applied to restart two reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture, which would be the first run by the company since the disaster unfolded at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in March 2011.
Although NRA members agreed that the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant passed new regulations on technological aspects, they could not agree on whether the company has learned its lessons about safety management since the triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant.
To ensure TEPCO will put safety at the forefront of its operations, the NRA is considering holding the utility legally responsible for completing the entire decommissioning process of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The regulator expects to draft a checklist to verify the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s safety and other steps before it makes a final decision on whether to allow TEPCO to restart the reactors. The next meeting is scheduled for Sept. 13.
The NRA had previously determined that 12 reactors at six nuclear plants met new nuclear reactor regulations shortly after completion of their technological examinations.
The NRA also finished its technological examinations of the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors, the newest ones at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.
The plant has seven reactors, making it one of the largest nuclear power stations in the world. The two reactors that TEPCO wants to put online each has a capacity of 1.36 gigawatts.
TEPCO has said the resumption of the reactors are needed to turn around its business fortunes.
But NRA commissioners are reluctant to allow TEPCO to bring the plant online based solely on the results of the technological screening.
After the chairman and president of the utility were replaced in June, the NRA summoned the new top executives in July.
The watchdog demanded that they give a written response to the regulator’s position that TEPCO “is not qualified to operate the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, given the seeming lack of determination and spotty track record to take the initiative in decommissioning (the Fukushima No. 1 plant).”
In August, the company submitted a paper to the NRA promising to “take the initiative in addressing the problem of victims of the nuclear disaster and to fulfill the task to decommission the plant.”
The paper also said the company “has no intention whatsoever to place economic performance over safety at the (Kashiwazaki-Kariwa) plant.”
Tomoaki Kobayakawa, the new president of TEPCO, called the paper a “promise to the public.”
Although the NRA commissioners on Sept. 6 recognized TEPCO’s commitment to safety to a certain degree, doubts remained.
Nobuhiko Ban, an NRA member who is a specialist on radiological protection, called for a system that would keep TEPCO committed to safety management in the future.
“Is it all right for us to take TEPCO’s vow at face value?” he said.
The NRA then decided to consider legal ways to hold TEPCO accountable for safety issues.
New study says Minami-soma as safe as Western Japan cities – do they really expect us to believe this?
On September 5, 2017, Minami-soma city made a statement on the city’s radiation levels compared to 3 cities in West Japan, which has been reported in several newspapers. It’s important to comment on this study because the statement is intended to persuade the population to return to live there.
We are publishing comments on the articles below after having discussed with M. Ozawa of the citizen’s measurement group named the “Fukuichi Area Environmental Radiation Monitoring Project“. For English speaking readers, please refer to the article of Asahi Shimbun in English. For our arguments we refer to other articles published in other newspapers – Fukushima Minyu and Fukushima Minpo – which are only in Japanese.
Here are the locations of Minami-soma and the 3 other cities.
Here is the article of the Asahi Shimbun
Fukushima city shows radiation level is same as in west Japan
By SHINTARO EGAWA/ Staff Writer
September 5, 2017 at 18:10 JST
MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture–Radiation readings here on the Pacific coast north of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant are almost identical to those of sample cities on the other side of Japan.
The Minami-Soma government initiated the survey and hopes the results of the dosimeter readings, released Sept. 4, will encourage more evacuees to return to their home areas after they fled in the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear disaster.
A total of 100 portable dosimeters were handed out to 25 city employees from each of four cities–Minami-Soma, Tajimi in Gifu Prefecture, Fukuyama in Hiroshima Prefecture and Nanto in Toyama Prefecture. They were asked to take them wherever they went from May 29 through June 11.
The staff members were evenly dispersed with their homes in all corners of the cities they represented.
In addition, only those living in wooden houses were selected as different materials, concrete walls, for example, are more effective in blocking radiation.
In July 2016, evacuation orders for most parts of Minami-Soma were lifted, but not many residents have so far returned.
The city’s committee for health measures against radiation, which is made up of medical experts, analyzed the data.
The median value of the external radiation dosage of the 25 staff of Minami-Soma was 0.80 millisieverts per annum, while the average value was 0.82 mSv per annum, according to Masaharu Tsubokura, the head of the committee and a physician at Minami-Soma general hospital.
No significant difference was found in the three western cities.
Both figures were adjusted to include the natural radiation dose, and are below the 1-mSv per annum mark set by the national government as the acceptable amount of long-term additional radiation dosage, which is apart from natural radiation and medical radiation dosages.
The radiation doses in all cities were at levels that would not cause any health problems, according to Tsubokura.
“Making comparisons with other municipalities is important,” Tsubokura said. “I am intending to leave the survey results as an academic paper.”
Our comments
1) The difference of life style between city employees and local agricultural population
As we see in the article, portable dosimeters were handed out to city employees. They spend most of their day time in an office protected by concrete walls which are efficient for blocking radiation as stated in the article. However, in Minami-soma, most of the population spends more time outside, very often working in the fields. Their life style is different and therefore the external radiation dose cannot be similar to those of city employees. The result of the comparison between the external radiation dose of city employees cannot be used as an argument to say that it is safe for the local population to live in Minami-soma.
2) In the article of Fukushima Minyu, it is stated that in Minami-soma the radiation dose has a wider range than in the other three cities. This means that there are hotspots, which leads to higher risks of internal irradiation.
3) The radiation dose expressed in terms of Sieverts is relevant for radioprotection when the source of radiation is fixed and identified. This is the case for most of the nuclear workers. However, in the case of Fukushima after the nuclear accident where the whole environment is radio-contaminated and the radioactive substances are dispersed widely everywhere, it is not a relevant reference for radioprotection. It is important in this case to measure surface contamination density, especially of soil.
4) 6 years and 6 months since the accident, cesium has sunk in the soil. It is thought to be between 6 and 10 cm from the surface. This means the top layer of soil from 0 to 5 cm is blocking the radiation, reducing the measures of the effective dose. However, this does not mean that the population is protected from internal irradiation, since cesium can be re-scattered by many means, by digging or by flooding, for example.
5) The reliability of individual portable dosimeters has already been raised many times. This device is not adequate to capture the full 360° exposure in radio-contaminated environments as described in point 3 above.
6) In the article, it is stated that background radiation is included in the compared values, but it does not mention the actual background radiation measurements in the 4 cities.
The Table of Fukushima Minyu
Radiation dose of the 4 cities
Values include the background radiation dose
To summarize, the sample study group does not represent the overall population. The study doesn’t include the risks of internal radiation, for which the measurement of contaminated soil is indispensible. The dosimeters are not adequate to measure the full load of radio-contaminated environments. So, the research method is not adequate to draw the conclusion to say that it is safe for the population to return to live in Minami-soma.
MEPs to raise alarm on Fukushima food imports
Members of the European Parliament’s food safety committee will vote on a text on Thursday (7 September), raising the alarm over a European Commission proposal to partly relax controls on food imports from Fukushima, Japan, which suffered a nuclear disaster in 2011.
The draft resolution, seen by EUobserver, said “there are sufficient reasons to believe that this proposal could lead to an increase in exposure to radioactive contaminated food with a corresponding impact on human health”.
The MEPs’ text highlighted that, under the commission’s proposal, rice and derived products from the Fukushima prefecture would no longer be subject to emergency inspections. It stressed that one of those products is “rice used in baby food and food for young children”.
The text criticised that the commission’s proposal did not justify why some foodstuffs were taken off the list.
However, the MEPs’ concerns may already be outdated.
Cautious
Danish centre-left MEP Christel Schaldemose, one of the text’s sponsors, spoke to EUobserver on Tuesday over the phone.
“We are completely relying on data from the Japanese side. … We need to be cautious,” she said.
“I wouldn’t say we can’t trust them, but it is worth checking ourselves,” said Schaldemose.
The resolution is an initiative by French Green MEP Michele Rivasi, who has been working on the text since June 2017.
In parallel, Rivasi and two of her Greens colleagues, also asked the commission for an explanation through a written question, on 14 July.
On 22 August, EU commissioner for food safety Vytenis Andriukaitis answered, telling MEPs that the proposed changes are based on publicly available data from the Japanese government.
Andriukaitis included a link to the raw data in a footnote, and said that if MEPs wanted to have a “detailed justification for the proposed changes”, they can get them “by separate mail, upon request”.
According to a commission source, Rivasi will receive this justification after having requested it.
Meanwhile, however, work on the resolution continued, and is now on the agenda for a vote on Thursday.
It received the support from five other MEPs, including two from the two largest political groups in the EU parliament.
Free trade agreement
The parliament’s text, which is non-binding, also mentioned that Japanese exports of rice could increase under the EU-Japan free trade agreement (FTA), which the commission is expected to wrap up this year.
In a briefing which Green MEP Rivasi gave to journalists last July, according to a summary provided by her office, the French politician implied that the proposal on Fukushima was a bargaining chip in the negotiations for the FTA, and called it a “scandal”.
The left-wing Greens are generally critical of FTAs.
Rivasi referred to a remark commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker made following an EU-Japan summit on 6 July.
“I would like to congratulate prime minister Abe on the remarkable progress Japan has made on making products from the Fukushima region safe, following the 2011 accident,” Juncker had said.
“I am confident and I will work into that direction that we will have after the summer break a further lifting of import measures,” he added.
A commission spokeswoman told EUobserver, however, that the proposed changes are based on a thorough analysis.
“The requirement for pre-testing before export is lifted only for food and feed from a prefecture where sufficient data demonstrate that food and feed is compliant in the last growing season with the strict maximum levels applicable in Japan,” she said.
The emergency restrictions were put in place two weeks after the accident happened, and have already been amended five times.
The decision is taken by a so-called implementing act, which only involves the commission and member states, but not the EU parliament.
https://euobserver.com/environment/138902
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
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