CRACKDOWN IN RUSSIA: CRITICS ACCUSE NUCLEAR AUTHORITIES OF SOVIET-STYLE COVER-UPS AND HEAVY-HANDED TACTICS, Newsweek, BY MARC BENNETTSOne thing that’s clear: The risks are growing for environmental and human rights activists who take on the powerful nuclear agency. Just ask Nadezhda Kutepova, 45, the head of a human rights organization that helped the victims of radiation pollution in and around Ozyorsk. “At first, I didn’t pay much attention to the reports about the radioactive pollution, but as soon as I heard that Rosatom had said everything was OK and that Mayak officials were denying an accident had taken place, I started to monitor the situation,” she tells Newsweek. “These are very cynical people.”
Kutepova was born in Ozyorsk in 1974. Her father worked at Mayak for 35 years and took part in the 1957 clean-up. He died of cancer in 1985, but the Soviet authorities never officially admitted that the illness was linked to his job. In 2007, after a long legal battle, Kutepova forced the government to recognize her father as a victim of occupational radiation sickness. Neither Kutepova nor her mother, however, received compensation.
Kutepova didn’t fight only for her family. She also tried to force Rosatom to pay for medical treatment for locals affected by illnesses related to decades of atomic pollution. In 2013, Kutepova discovered the first known case of third-generation radiation sickness in the region. The case involved a 6-year-old girl named Regina Khasanova who died of cancer. Medical experts said her death was caused by genetic mutations that resulted from the radiation her grandmother was exposed to during the 1957 clean-up at Mayak.
Two years later, Kutepova was forced to flee Russia after state TV accused her of trying to exploit the nuclear issue to foment revolution. Another report said she was attempting to destroy Russia’s nuclear deterrent on behalf of the United States. The purported evidence? Her human rights group received financing from the U.S. government–funded National Endowment for Democracy, which Russian officials have accused of seeking to topple Putin. (The NED says its aim is to promote worldwide democracy.) “We never covered up this funding,” Kutepova says. “We also received funds from organizations in Canada, Germany and the Netherlands.”
Kempner: Georgia underdogs confront power, get smacked By Matt Kempner – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 21 Dec 17, “……..the Georgia Public Service Commission was holding days of hearings recently, but there was no question where it ultimately would end up: keeping the troubled nuclear expansion of Plant Vogtle alive and giving the monopoly Georgia Power approval to squeeze captive customers for billions of dollars more in cost overruns and extra company profits.
It approved all of Georgia Power’s newly projected spending on the unfinished project, decided in advance that it is all reasonable (though not yet prudent) and set the stage for the company to pocket billions in additional profits because of the delays. ……..
Georgia Power and its contractors busted budgets in every conceivable way. Yet, the company has cautioned that its latest cost projections could still be off. And the PSC’s own staff highlighted Georgia Power’s “mismanagement” of the project and said the expansion is “uneconomic” for ratepayers under cost and risk parameters the company proposed this year……….
In a recent hearing, Prenovitz [opposing the nuclear development] asked company witnesses about Vogtle-related costs that they said they weren’t sure of. Then he started punching numbers into a calculator to help the witnesses along with other figures.
Wise, the PSC’s chairman, wasn’t happy.
“I don’t know if it is your style or your personality or your obstinance or some other adjective or just basically your lack of understanding or that you just don’t even care about the process ….”
Prenovitz told me he doesn’t know if he’ll continue to ask tough questions about Vogtle. Preparing filings can take days. Hearings last for hours. “It’s grueling.”
And so, the billions of tons of silt that has accumulated in Lake Mead and Lake Powell serve as archives of sorts. They hold the sedimental records of an era during which people, health, land, and water were all sacrificed in order to obtain the raw material for weapons that are capable of destroying all of humanity.
Jonathan ThompsonPERSPECTIVE Dec. 18, 2017 This article was originally published on The River of Lost SoulsBeneath the murky green waters on the north end of Lake Powell, entombed within the tons of silt that have been carried down the Colorado River over the years, lies a 26,000-ton pile of unremediated uranium-mill tailings. It’s just one radium-tainted reminder of the way the uranium industry, enabled by the federal government, ravaged the West and its people for decades.
In 1949, the Vanadium Corporation of America built a small mill at the confluence of White Canyon and the Colorado River to process uranium ore from the nearby Happy Jack Mine, located upstream in the White Canyon drainage (and just within the Obama-drawn Bears Ears National Monument boundaries). For the next four years, the mill went through about 20 tons of ore per day, crushing and grinding it up, then treating it with sulfuric acid, tributyl phosphate and other nastiness. One ton of ore yielded about five or six pounds of uranium, meaning that each day some 39,900 pounds of tailings were piled up outside the mill on the banks of the river.
In 1953 the mill was closed, and the tailings were left where they sat, uncovered, as was the practice of the day. Ten years later, water began backing up behind the newly built Glen Canyon Dam; federal officials decided to let the reservoir’s waters inundate the tailings. There they remain today.
If you’re one of the millions of people downstream from Lake Powell who rely on Colorado River water and this worries you, consider this: Those 26,000 tons of tailings likely make up just a fraction of the radioactive material contained in the silt of Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
During the uranium days of the West, more than a dozen mills — all with processing capacities at least ten times larger than the one at White Canyon — sat on the banks of the Colorado River and its tributaries. Mill locations included Shiprock, New Mexico, and Mexican Hat, Utah, on the San Juan River; Rifle and Grand Junction, Colorado, and Moab on the Colorado; and in Uravan, Colorado, along the San Miguel River, just above its confluence with the Dolores. They did not exactly dispose of their tailings in a responsible way.
At the Durango mill the tailings were piled into a hill-sized mound just a stone’s throw from the Animas River. They weren’t covered or otherwise contained, so when it rained tailings simply washed into the river. Worse, the mill’s liquid waste stream poured directly into the river at a rate of some 340 gallons per minute, or half-a-million gallons per day. It was laced not only with highly toxic chemicals used to leach uranium from the ore and iron-aluminum sludge (a milling byproduct), but also radium-tainted ore solids.
Radium is a highly radioactive “bone-seeker.” That means that when it’s ingested it makes its way to the skeleton, where it decays into other radioactive daughter elements, including radon, and bombards the surrounding tissue with alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. According to the Toxic Substances and Diseases Registry, exposure leads to “anemia, cataracts, fractured teeth, cancer (especially bone cancer), and death.”
It wasn’t any better at any of the other mills. In the early 1950s, researchers from the U.S. Public Health Service sampled Western rivers and found that “the dissolved radium content of river water below uranium mills was increased considerably by waste discharges from the milling operations” and that “radium content of river muds below the uranium mills was 1,000 to 2,000 times natural background concentrations.”
That was just from daily operations. In 1960, one of the evaporation ponds at the Shiprock mill broke, sending at least 250,000 gallons of highly acidic raffinate, containing high levels of radium and thorium, into the river. None of the relevant officials were notified and individual users continued to drink the water, put it on their crops, and give it to their sheep and cattle. It wasn’t until five days later, after hundreds of dead fish had washed up on the river’s shores for sixty miles downstream, that the public was alerted to the disaster.
Of course, what’s dumped into the river at Shiprock doesn’t stay in Shiprock. It slowly makes its way downstream. In the early 1960s, while Glen Canyon Dam was still being constructed, the Public Health Service folks did extensive sediment sampling in the Colorado River Basin, with a special focus on Lake Mead’s growing bed of silt, which had been piling up at a rate of 175 million tons per year since Hoover Dam started impounding water in 1935. The Lake Mead samples had higher-than-background levels of radium-226. The report concludes:
“The data have shown, among other things, that Lake Mead has been essentially the final resting place for the radium contaminated sediments of the Basin. With the closure of Glen Canyon Dam upstream, Lake Powell will then become the final resting place for future radium contaminated sediments. The data also show that a small fraction of the contaminated sediment has passed through Lake Mead to be trapped by Lakes Mohave and Havasu.”
And so, the billions of tons of silt that has accumulated in Lake Mead and Lake Powell serve as archives of sorts. They hold the sedimental records of an era during which people, health, land, and water were all sacrificed in order to obtain the raw material for weapons that are capable of destroying all of humanity.
Saudi-US talks on civilian nuclear program to begin within ‘weeks’ Riyadh’s energy minister insists kingdom seeks energy for peaceful purposes, but will not agree to American limitations on uranium enrichment
By TOI STAFF , 21 Dec 17, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said the US and Riyadh will begin talks within weeks on cooperation over the kingdom’s emergent civilian nuclear program. Falih noted that Saudi Arabia has already “signed agreements with China, Russia, with France, so their technologies will be competing for the Saudi national nuclear project.”
US law forbids cooperation with nations that have not signed a so-called Section 123 Agreement, which limits nuclear work to peaceful uses only. Though Riyadh has said it does not seek a military program, it has said it seeks “self-sufficiency in producing nuclear fuel” and has in the past refused to sign an agreement that would limit its ability to enrich uranium…….https://www.timesofisrael.com/saudi-us-talks-on-civilian-nuclear-program-to-begin-within-weeks/
Ratepayers win victory in fight to recover money from failed SCE&G nuclear project BY SAMMY FRETWELL sfretwell@thestate.comDECEMBER 20, 2017 SCE&G customers who have paid nearly $2 billion for a failed nuclear construction project scored a victory Wednesday that could lead to a cut in power bills of up to 18 percent.
The S.C. Public Service Commission denied SCE&G’s request to throw out a legal case that seeks to eliminate charges customers now pay for the shuttered project. The commission also agreed not to dismiss a case that seeks potentially billions of dollars in customer refunds from SCE&G.
Wednesday’s decision was a rare win for ratepayers and a blow to SCE&G, which faces withering criticism for failing to complete the V.C. Summer nuclear project with its state-owned partner Santee Cooper.In deciding to keep the rate cases alive, the PSC now plans to hold a hearing next year to determine whether cutting the charges and making refunds are wise ideas. The hearing is among several ways ratepayers could be reimbursed. The Legislature also is considering bills to help reduce charges by SCE&G for the nuclear project…..
Whether the commission will eventually order rate cuts or refunds won’t be known until next year, but SCE&G’s critics were elated Wednesday that the PSC supported customers over the Cayce-headquartered power company.
They said the PSC has sided with SCE&G consistently in the past on the company’s plan to bill ratepayers for the V.C. Summer project. Customers have been hit with nine rate hikes to pay for the nuclear expansion effort under a 2007 law that made financing the project easier…….
Two legislative committees on Wednesday unanimously approved a controversial bill that could raise New Jerseyans’ utility bills $41 a year to subsidize the state’s largest energy company.
Public Service Electric & Gas officials say the $320 million subsidy would stave off the premature closure of nuclear plants in Salem County, which will be in the red within two years……..
Stefanie Brand, director of the state’s Division of Rate Counsel that represents utility consumers, said Wednesday that the utility company has not demonstrated are hurting financially “other than bald assertions and ultimatums issued by the company.”
“The Legislature has a duty to to its constituents to test those assertions and not simply succumb to the company’s threats,” she said, adding that the review of its financials described in the legislation falls short of what is required for a thorough analysis.
Renewable energy – the low cost, high-value option for the Philippines, Manila BulletinBy Eddie O’Connor, Chairman, Global Wind Energy Council and Mainstream Renewable Power “…..One of the perceptions about renewable energy and the transition to a low-carbon economy is that this technology will impose costs on the Philippines that it cannot afford, particularly in the generation of electricity where coal will have to be replaced by wind and solar power.In fact, renewable energy will save the Philippines money, make its economy more competitive, and boost living standards and consumer purchasing power. At the conference the chairman of the National Renewable Energy Board presented a study by the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation that showed that far from being a burden on the country, the existing renewable energy programme has reduced the overall cost of electricity.
This is because unlike coal or gas power, the variable cost of production for wind or solar energy is zero. This happens because the fuel – the wind and the sun – is free. This electricity is used first to satisfy customer demand, before the system operator brings on more expensive coal power. The overall effect is to depress the wholesale cost of electricity on the spot market.
By using this wind and solar power, the grid operator avoids the cost of operating the more expensive coal and oil plant. Over the three years of the PEMC study from 2014-2017 this avoided cost was 18.7billion pesos; a very significant sum………
n the Philippines all the customer sees on their bill is the cost of the tariff supporting new wind and solar power. What they don’t see is the overall savings accrued through this reduction in the price of electricity.
Knowing that, despite the cost of the tariff, the introduction of wind and solar power onto the system actually saves the customer money, the government in Ireland continues to support renewable energy, and we now have 22% of our electricity capacity from these two sources of generation.
The Philippines can follow this trajectory and aim to have 25% of its electricity capacity supplied by wind and solar energy in the coming decade. The savings that will accrue to the customer will be considerable. Funds that would otherwise be spent on coal or oil can be invested in other infrastructure. Consumers will have additional spending power. The economy will get an extra boost.
Electricity made from wind and solar does not require any fuel to be bought from abroad. The wind and sun belongs to the country. It will be there forever. It doesn’t matter what external price shocks impact on oil or coal, the wind will blow and the sun will shine and their unit cost will remain at zero.
By moving ahead of its regional ASEAN partners and setting ambitious targets for wind and solar power, the Philippines can also attract investment in the supply chain. Early movers into renewable energy like Brazil, Germany, China and Morocco have created new industries and thousands of new jobs. Why should the Philippines subsidise mining jobs in Australia and Indonesia when it could be building the plant that will supply its own clean energy sectors and those across the region?…..https://news.mb.com.ph/2017/12/21/renewable-energy-the-low-cost-high-value-option-for-the-philippines/
Japan’s Nuclear Exports: Risky Business A burgeoning nuclear export portfolio carries with it significant risks and responsibilities.The Diplomat By Tom Corben December 22, 2017 While Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s electoral victory in October has generated plenty of debate regarding prospective constitutional change, another highly controversial issue — nuclear power — has largely escaped attention despite being touted as a significant electoral issue. Although initially returning to power in 2012 at the height of post-Fukushima anti-nuclear sentiment, Abe has promoted nuclear energy as a pillar of his economic agenda at home and abroad. Indeed, despite the industry’s diminishing domestic prospects, his return to office signals the continuation of policies promoting Japanese nuclear technology abroad as a means of addressing the nation’s trade deficit, ironically a product of the suspension of most of Japan’s own reactors. While I have discussed the domestic security dimensions to Japan’s nuclear power program elsewhere, it is worth unpacking some of the political, financial, and strategic risks of a continuation of Tokyo’s nuclear export agenda.
Nuclear exports contribute significantly to the pursuit of Japan’s foreign economic and political goals in strengthening key bilateral relationships and opening up investment opportunities with emerging economies. Certain agreements, however, arguably risk implicating Tokyo in international proliferation controversies or potential future industrial-environmental disasters, while the long-term financial benefits of nuclear power investments are also uncertain. Furthermore, some analysts contend that Japanese society’s traditional “nuclear allergy,” including its nuclear non-proliferation principles, is facing steady erosion under sustained internal and external pressures. Tokyo has been criticized for backtracking on past professions of anti-nuclear principles, considering that this year’s version of its annual UN motion advocating for the elimination of nuclear weapons critically omitted any mention of a landmark treaty concerning the banning of such capabilities. As such, the signs indicate that Japan will persist with nuclear exports despite the myriad risks to its international reputation and global security generally……..
as a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the ambiguous nature of assurances from the Indian government that Japanese technology will not be used to produce nuclear weapons is worrying, as is the lack of legal definition around the circumstances in which Japan may justifiably abandon the deal. The agreement has been criticized as a further deviation from Japan’s traditional nonproliferation principles, on top of the uncertain strategic dimensions to Japan’s own nuclear program and the aforementioned omission from it’s UN motion.
Prospective agreements with Saudi Arabia could potentially further undermine these principles. ……. A Japan-Saudi nuclear deal could be interpreted as a double standard given the international community’s efforts to constrain Iran’s own nuclear aspirations…….
The long-term economic benefits of nuclear exports are also uncertain……..the financial integrity of Japanese firms, such as Toshiba and its subsidiary Westinghouse, are already under scrutiny. Existing agreements may also be canceled: only last November Vietnam pulled out of a deal with a conglomerate of Japanese firms worth $11 billion due to safety fears and spiraling construction costs. More cancellations would see the vast sums of yen spent on project campaigns struck out as further financial losses. Without a strong domestic demand to fall back on, many companies may find that the balance between financial risks and rewards of overseas nuclear power projects will tip increasingly toward the former…….. https://thediplomat.com/2017/12/japans-nuclear-exports-risky-business/
Congress moves to aid Georgia’s troubled nuclear project, Politically Georgia, By Tamar Hallerman, WASHINGTON — Senators on Wednesday began laying the groundwork to aid the country’s only remaining new nuclear project under construction, the Augusta-area Plant Vogtle, less than a day before Georgia utility regulators are scheduled to rule on its fate.
The leaders of the tax-writing Finance Committee unveiled legislation that would guarantee the project roughly $800 million in federal tax credits, money Vogtle’s operators have long been counting on for their balance sheets.
The language, which Georgia’s congressional delegation has been lobbying hard for this year, would end the 2021 sunset date for the previously-promised nuclear production tax credits. Vogtle’s operators would receive the credits only after the new units go fully into operation.
The extension was needed since the project is not scheduled to be complete until 2022.
It is still unclear when both chambers of Congress will consider the legislation. Nuclear industry lobbyists have been pushing for lawmakers to consider the language as part of a must-pass government spending agreement later this week, but time on Capitol Hill is in short supply before the holiday break. U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson suggested Tuesday that Congress could wait until January and then make the credits retroactive…..http://politics.blog.myajc.com/2017/12/20/congress-moves-to-aid-georgias-troubled-nuclear-project/
Why Kenya’s push for nuclear power rests on false or fanciful premises, Mail and Guardian, Brendon J. CannonKenya wants to go nuclear. Since 2012, Nairobi has been talking the talk and walking the walk. It has engaged the International Atomic Energy Agency and signed multilateral letters of intent in pursuit of nuclear power.
To date, Kenya reportedly has memoranda of understanding with Russia, China, South Korea and Slovakia which involve the building of four nuclear power plants with a total output of 4 000 MW. France is apparently also eyeing the potentially lucrative deals which would nearly double Kenya’s current electricity capacity.
Kenya’s Nuclear Electricity Board secured the global atomic energy agency’s approval in 2016. It hopes to have the first plant online anywhere from 2022 to 2027, leading a new African push for nuclear power. The only country currently generating nuclear is South Africa……..
The cost of the Kenya plant is estimated at Sh500 billion. This is costly and, given the current energy consumption patterns in Kenya, would be a massive waste of money.
Kenya’s industrial and consumer demand, economic growth, relative poverty as well as the current grid and distribution network simply do not support this magnitude of power generation at such exorbitant costs.
Myths about Kenya’s power situation
According to the popular narrative, Kenya suffers from the twin evils of electricity that is overly expensive and in short supply. Yet there is strong evidence that Kenya’s power is relatively cheap and that successive governments have exaggerated both it’s economic growth trajectory and its need for a massive increase in power generation.
While economies are required to have surplus power capacity, excess capacity can lead to higher power bills as consumers are often charged for idle power plants.
Thus the government, while promising ever cheaper power to consumers may actually be undercutting this promise in its pursuit of nuclear power plants and other costly projects that fail to reflect both industrial and private consumer demand.
Note of caution
A recent study by a German engineering consultancy further confirmed how exaggerated government figures about demand have been. It noted that Kenya’s maximum power demand would
grow 72% to 2 259MW by 2020 from the current 1 620MW, when projects such as the standard gauge railway start operating fully.
Government estimates, on the other hand, project peak demand will jump threefold to 4 755 megawatts in the three-year period. This is twice as much as the consultant’s estimates.
On top of this, Kenya’s problem isn’t that it needs more energy. Rather it needs to address distribution issues.
Any project involving the generation of more power needs to pay equal attention to Kenya’s grid and distribution system which currently can’t handle additional power. This includes corresponding efforts at regular, systematic maintenance work. Without these, any extra power generated from renewable and other energy sources will remain costly and wasted.
Yet another note of caution is in order. Demand from Kenya’s domestic consumers remains low even though a total of 5.8 -million customers now have connections to power – a five-fold increase in the past seven years.
Why is this the case?
Neither a lack of connectivity nor an unreliable supply is to blame for the low consumption of electricity by the vast majority of Kenyan consumers. Nor is it because of reportedly relatively high electricity tariffs.
Rather, it is simply because the majority of Kenyans still have low income levels. Many Kenyans simply cannot afford the luxury of modern appliances for cooking, heating or refrigerating.
This simple fact has neither been figured into government prognostications nor donor-driven last-mile connectivity scenarios………
Adding extremely expensive nuclear power to Kenya’s energy mix along with power from other inadvisable projects such as the Lamu coal power plant is arguably inexcusable as well as profligate. Lamu is expected to produce 5 000MW of power within a period of three years.
As such, Kenya needs to work overtime to set a power generation agenda that identifies real versus perceived needs. The country’s electricity agenda must not be driven by estimated consumption figures that fail to correspond to the true energy needs. In the words of a former Kenyan energy official,
It does not take much effort to notice the gap between what is on paper and the economic reality.
US preparing ‘bloody nose’ attack on North Korea, New York Post, By Yaron Steinbuch, December 21, 2017 The US is preparing plans to deliver a “bloody nose” attack against North Korea to knock out its nuclear weapons program.
The White House has “dramatically” ramped up its military plans amid fears that diplomacy won’t thwart North Korean despot Kim Jong Un from making good on his threats, sources told the UK’s Telegraph.
One option is destroying a launch site before the rogue regime uses it for a new missile test, while another is targeting weapons stockpiles, according to the news outlet.
The Trump administration hopes that pre-emptive action would show the trigger-happy dictator that the United States is serious about stopping his bellicose pursuits and persuading him to negotiate.
The Telegraph cited three anonymous sources, one inside the administration and two former officials familiar with the White House thinking.
To celebrate the holidays, a reminder of one of 2015’s successes — the early release from prison of Sister Megan Rice, one of three brave peace activists who broke into high security nuclear weapons at the Y-12 nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
We’ll hear from:
Sister Megan Rice, the 85-year old nun, speaks at length about the peaceful 2012 Transform Now Plowshares protest action which resulted in her being charged with sabotage and sentenced to almost three years in prison. Recorded when she was newly out of prison pending a re-sentencing hearing. All further charges were later dropped.
Co-defendant Gregory Boertje-Obed, 60, who along with co-defendant Michael Walli, 68, was sentenced to over five years in prison for their non-violent protest.
Originally presented on May 26, 2015, for Nuclear Hotseat #205.
Sister Megan Rice, newly released from prison in 2015 Photo Credit: Dan Zak, by his permission.
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Kansai Electric Power Co said on Wednesday it has used parts in important safety equipment at two of its nuclear plants that were supplied by a unit of Mitsubishi Materials Corp with possibly falsified data.
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Kansai Electric Power Co said on Wednesday it has used parts in important safety equipment at two of its nuclear plants that were supplied by a unit of Mitsubishi Materials Corp with possibly falsified data.
Mitsubishi Materials Corp. President Akira Takeuchi (2nd R) bows with Executive Vice President Naoki Ono (2nd L), Mitsubishi Shindoh Co. President Kazumasa Hori (L) and Mitsubishi Cable Industries Ltd. President Hiroaki Murata during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan November 24, 2017.
The utility has found it is using rubber seals from Mitsubishi Cable Industries with possible falsified specifications in dozens of locations at its Takahama and Ohi nuclear plants, a spokesman said, confirming Japanese media reports.
The discovery comes after Kansai Electric delayed the restart of one of the nuclear power stations because it needs to make checks on parts supplied by Japan’s Kobe Steel Ltd, which, like Mitsubishi Materials, is embroiled in a scandal over product specifications.
The utility has told Japan’s nuclear regulator that it has not found any immediate safety issues, the spokesman said.
Kansai Electric receives rubber seals from multiple suppliers and is having difficulties identifying which ones come from Mitsubishi Materials, he said. The company does not plan to switch suppliers, the spokesman said.
Rubber seals are used in large numbers in the extensive piping found in nuclear reactors and their cooling systems and can be subject to high temperatures and pressure.
Mitubishi Materials and Mitsubishi Cable both declined to comment on Wednesday.
Mitsubishi Materials previously said it had discovered that products with falsified specifications had been sent to more than 300 of its customers.
That was the latest in a slew of scandals to rock Japan’s manufacturing industry. Apart from Kobe Steel, similar lapses on specifications have been found at Toray Industries Inc and incorrect final inspection procedures were discovered by automakers Nissan Motor Co and Subaru Corp.
Kansai Electric’s delays and checks on Ohi reactors are further hitches to the protracted reboot of Japan’s nuclear sector, shut down in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
Kansai Electric does not plan to close down the Takahama station for checks, or expect any additional delays on the restart of Ohi, the spokesman said.
Japan is the world ‘s champion in downplaying and denying…. WWII sexual slaves, Nanking massacre, Fukushima….
Eager to maintain its energy policy in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Japan made sure concerns about nuclear technology were downplayed at the 12th Group of Seven summit it chaired in Tokyo days after the disaster, according to Japanese diplomatic records declassified Wednesday.
References to “radiation” and “concerns” about the nuclear accident that took place in what is now present-day Ukraine were deleted from a draft of the G-7 statement. The final statement instead dubbed nuclear power as “an energy source that will be ever more widely used in the future.”
The declassified records show that Japan worked to build an international consensus on retaining nuclear power even while little was known about the cause of the Chernobyl accident or the scale of the damage.
Missing a chance to thoroughly debate strengthening safety regulations, Japan went ahead with its nuclear power strategy until the March 2011 Fukushima accident, triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami, exposed what government-appointed investigators and others have dubbed a “safety myth.”
According to a Foreign Ministry official who was involved in the G-7 summit at the time, “There was no awareness in the government or the nuclear industry that Japan’s nuclear plants might be dangerous too, or that we could learn a lesson from (Chernobyl).”
After the nuclear crisis on April 26, 1986, the Soviet Union first publicly acknowledged it on April 29 JST, but released very few details as part of its tight control of information in the midst of the Cold War.
Among the declassified records is a Japanese government “plan to respond to the Soviet nuclear accident,” dated May 1 and marked secret.
The plan centered on “reaffirming the necessity” of nuclear power, while also aiming to set up an international information-sharing system for nuclear accidents.
This plan guided the Japanese delegation at the G-7 summit in Tokyo, which began on May 4, and served as a springboard for the statement adopted there the following day.
According to a document dated May 3, then-Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone had told senior Foreign Ministry officials that “there is great interest in Japan in the ‘ashes of death (radioactive fallout).’ ”
The issue was a particularly sensitive one for the public due to the exposure of fishing boat Fukuryu Maru No. 5, also known as the Lucky Dragon, to radioactive fallout from a U.S. hydrogen bomb test in the Marshall Islands in 1954, as well as the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.
The ministry later described Nakasone as having “shown initiative” at the summit.
Once the G-7 adopted its statement, Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy then wrote a memorandum to power companies and local authorities involved with nuclear plants on May 6, explaining that the government would “continue to promote (nuclear power) with a safety-first mindset.”
A note in the margin warned the recipients not to release the contents of the memo to the press.
Earlier, the Foreign Ministry had ordered Japanese embassies across Europe to gather information on the Chernobyl accident, according to a ministry cable dated April 29 in which it was described as something that “could have a grave impact on Japan’s nuclear energy policy.”
The cable also indicates Tokyo was mindful of the accident’s potential to stir up opposition to nuclear power within Japan, including in communities near power plants. It noted that “no marked protest activities have been observed.”
The G-7 then comprised of the United Kingdom, Canada, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States.
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