Weekly nuclear and climate news
COP25, the annual United Nations international conference on dealing with climate change is now beginning, in Madrid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJzt05K0r1U Global climate tipping point is getting near – researchers say.
For December, my websites are focusing on that unfashionable subject – ETHICS. Some aspects of “nuclear ethics” are climate change, health and environment, sustainability, developing countries, economic feasibility, – conclusion – nuclear power is not an ethical choice.
A bit of good news – Humpback Whale Population Bounces Back From Near-Extinction—From Just 450, to Over 25,000
Barnaby Joyce auctions lump of coal – in a glass jar – at Nationals dinner.
Public opinion: for the first time, Environment is Australians’ top concern. The Murray Darling water crisis and what governments must do to fix this.
RENEWABLE ENERGY. Heating & cooling to go renewable and provide demand response. Australian solar PV integrated window technology gains US approval. Renewable South Australia posts lowest wholesale prices for second month in row. The day rooftop solar met two thirds of South Australia’s total demand. Power bills to fall by $40 as New South Wales Central West becomes wind and solar power hub. Why is pumped hydro in Australia not used very much?
INTERNATIONAL
The negotiations in Madrid for COP 25 Climate Change Conference. Tipping points leading to ‘Hothouse Earth’ already “active”, scientists warn.
Catholic doctrine; the use and even the possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. Plans for nuclear waste disposal, but there’s no long term solution.
Despite Halting Progress, UN Continues its Push for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East.
USA.
- USA will send no senior government official to COP25 climate conference. Prominent Americans to wage ‘World War Zero’ against climate change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMTnFwL3a8w
- No president should have the absolute authority to launch nuclear weapons. US Bishops stand with the Pope calling for a world without nuclear arms. The insanity of punishing the good – jailing the Kings Bay Plowshares 7. The judge who assailed “worship of the Bomb”.
- Nuclear waste Bill in U.S. House of Representatives – resistance in New Mexico to nuclear waste dump.
- Persistent outages plaguing Grand Gulf nuclear plant are adding millions to the bills of New Orleans customers.
MIDDLE EAST. Big risk factors for Middle East countries in adopting nuclear power.
UK. UK’s Labour and Greens parties have highly prioritised climate change action. Cyber attack targets UK’s nuclear industry. Suffolk Coastal Labour opposes the development of new nuclear capacity at Sizewell. UK Environment Agency Aims to Increase Tritium Limit in Irish Seaside Landfill .
JAPAN. Pope Francis, in Japan, Warns of ‘Selfish Decisions’ on Nuclear Energy. Thorny topic of Fukushima food at the 2020 Olympics. Onagawa nuclear plant to get approval for restart.
FRANCE. France wants to label nuclear as “green“. Germany will have none of it.
GERMANY. Germany must now face up to its nuclear waste problem.
HUNGARY. Hungary wants EU to weaken nuclear licensing rules, as it wants to expand Rosatom nuclear project.
IRAN. Iran warns EU that it may step back from UN nuclear watchdog.
RUSSIA. Russia’s nuclear company Rosatom in financial trouble trying to fund nuclear project in Turkey. Rosatom planning to market Small Modular Nuclear Reactors to Europe. Nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile tested over the Barents Sea.
CANADA. Premiers of Ontario, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick to plan development of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.
SOUTH AFRICA. South Africa to create extra space for nuclear waste.
AUSTRALIA. Catastrophic weather conditions, but Australian govt has no climate adaptation plan.Sir David Attenborough hits out at the federal government over climate position.
Fukushima’s contaminated water is an issue affecting all of humanity
An ocean dump could lead to a global ecological disaster
An image of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, including storage tanks for contaminated water, taken by Greenpeace campaigner and Swedish photographer Christian Aslund on Oct. 16, 2018.
December 1, 2019
As the possibility of Japan dumping contaminated water from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant into the ocean has been raised, concerns are being voiced on the Korean Peninsula and through various international organizations. Obviously, it is South Korea that is leading the efforts at international coordination in organizations like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Maritime Organization (IMO), and World Health Organization (WHO).
The biggest issue that stands to arise if the contaminated water is dumped into the ocean is the major impact on the marine environment in the Western Pacific and the health of residents in the region, and South Korea is the closest neighbor to Japan.
In a recent piece published in the UK’s The Economist, Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace Germany warned that if Japan dumped the water into the pacific, radioactive material will begin flowing into the East Sea within a year. As Japan’s closest neighbor, South Korea has maintained that it has a right to sufficiently discuss the potential environmental threat and demand related information. During a South Korean parliamentary audit, expressions of concern about the Fukushima water release were coupled with demands for response measures to be put in place.
Unfortunately, these messages and warnings are not being expressed as part of a system of guidance and cooperation to permit a fundamental resolution. Rather, they amount more to a form of pressure within international discourse, which runs the risk of being shrugged off with pro forma logic. The predictions that radioactive material will begin washing into the East Sea within a year could change with the actual amounts and concentrations of water dumped; in the absence of real announced concentrations of inflowing contaminants, it does nothing more than to raise a threat.
More than the fact of the inflows over the year after release, we need to be aware that there are migrating species that could enter the waters near South Korea at any time. Also, what is to be done about the destruction to the marine ecosystem or the marine life that is being fished in the Pacific by the different countries? The result would be a disaster for humankind. We need a more in-depth and scientific examination to identify a disposal plan that allays the concerns of Japan’s neighbors as well as those of Japanese civil society and fishers, who are the ones suffering the ill effects first hand.
Plans for handling marine contaminants fall into five main categories. The first involves controlling the source. The most basic means of resolution is to replace materials and production processes and ban production and consumption to ensure that contaminants are not released in the first place. The second involves recirculation and reuse. This means either re-circulating contaminants through nature or reusing them for other purposes. The third involves storing the contaminants. In cases where no disposal method has yet been developed and reuse is not an option, the approach has been to contain and process them at a safe distance from areas of human activity.
The fourth involves controlling contamination through a regional quota system. This means applying different standards for management depending on the uses of particular waters; in South Korea’s case, marine protected areas and special management areas fall into this category. The last approach is contamination control through taxation. Under such a system, penalties are imposed in cases where contamination is unavoidable; as a rule, the party responsible bears the costs for compensation and restoration.
Lee Suk-mo, professor of ecological engineering at Pukyong National University
An ocean dump from a nuclear power plant at the current level, without any international regulations in place, would be utterly unacceptable and an affront to environmental justice for humanity today and future generations. Radioactive material decays naturally; if set apart and stored, it goes away naturally over time. But because of issues concerning time and space, this is not an economical approach, and new and effective disposal technology could be developed while it is being stored.
This is why the nuclear power plant water issue is something that should be approached as an issue affecting all of humanity, rather than one restricted to Fukushima and Japan. In particular, neighbors and countries possessing nuclear power plants of their own should make it a priority to cooperate fully in technological and economic terms.
Human disasters may start in one country, but it is through international cooperation that a country’s disaster can be resolved.
By Lee Suk-mo, professor of ecological engineering at Pukyong National University
http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/919137.html
Safety concerns linger although Onagawa reactor cleared to restart
Possible radioactive water leak at Japan’s crisis hit Fukushima nuke plant
Regulator: Venting at Fukushima reactor failed
Possible water leak from Fukushima exhaust stack
Fukushima Journey, Pt. 2: Olympics Propaganda, Thyroid Cancers, Japanese Govt. Lies – 4 days in Fukushima Prefecture w/Beverly Findlay-Kaneko
November 28, 2019
This Week’s Featured Interview:
- Fukushima Journey: The “Disappearing” Nuclear Disaster – 4 days on-the-ground in Fukushima Prefecture with Beverly Findlay-Kaneko continues. She lived in Yokohama, Japan for 20 years until March 2011 after the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake. She worked at Yokohama National University and The Japan Times. Beverly has a Master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Stanford University, and speaks Japanese fluently.
Since returning from Japan, Beverly and her husband, Yuji Kaneko, have been active in raising awareness about nuclear issues, including the nuclear accident at Fukushima. Their main activities have included organizing speaking tours, giving presentations, networking in activist and nuclear-impacted communities in the U.S. and Japan, and co-producing the annual Nuclear Hotseat podcast “Voices from Japan” special on Fukushima.
This is the second half of the “Fukushima Journey” Nuclear Hotseat interview, based on more than three hours of source material. Pt. 1 appeared in episode #439 from November 19, 2019.
British shops to sell radioactive BABY FOOD and other produce from Fukushima under EU plan
Nuclear watchdog approves restart of Onagawa reactor in Miyagi hit by 3/11 tsunami
Transparency, the olympics, and that damned water, Part 2
Official messaging about Fukushima focuses on happiness.
Tuesday November 26th, 2019
Part 2: What about the Olympics?
The concerns we hear about the 2020 Olympics are more generalized and less focussed than those about the water in the tanks at Fukushima Daiichi. Some people ask us if it’s safe to come to Japan at all. Others narrow it down to Fukushima Prefecture. A few journalists and others have specifically asked us to weigh in on the potential risks to people who attend the events which will be held in Azuma Stadium in Fukushima City. Our response to Tokyo businessman Roy Tomizawa was to suggest he build a bGeigie and survey the stadium himself. He did, and wrote about it. Helping people find out for themselves is how we prefer to interact with and inform the public. We often point out that the entire framing of “safety” when it comes to radiation risk is problematic. The guidelines for acceptable radiation limits in food, the environment, and elsewhere are not really “safety” limits, and exceeding them does not mean “unsafe.” They are warning levels that trigger protective actions intended to prevent actually “unsafe” exposures. In each case, the important questions are: Do you understand this risk, and is it acceptable to you? This is where people need help, and where government has so far largely failed in its mission to inform. Once again we think it comes down to transparency.
A quick Google search of “Fukushima Olympics” will illustrate the widespread belief that athletes and visitors who go to Fukushima next year will be putting their lives at risk. The Korean government has announced that their teams will bring their own food so as not to incur potential health risks from eating local products. Many people suspect that the Japanese Government is holding Olympic events in Fukushima in order to cover up the effects of the disaster and paint the prefecture with a tint of normality. It seems clear that the government lost control of this narrative long ago and may well be unable to recover before the 2020 Olympics begin, and that the negative effects could persist for years afterwards. We do not see any adequate messaging or information about the kinds of risks people around the world are concerned about, presented understandably and accessibly. What messaging we have seen so far is clumsy and tends heavily towards images of smiley happy people intended to suggest that everything is fine. No-one really trusts these blithe reassurances, because they distrust government itself.
Japanese government agencies seem to be operating under the assumption that their authority in matters like this is still intact in the eyes of the public. Their messages appear to be shaped under the assumption that they can simply say, “We’ve had a committee look into it and we’ve determined that it’s safe,” without demonstrating the necessary transparency and breaking the explanation down in appropriate ways. We have no desire to make government’s job easier about any of this, but we care about the people in Fukushima, and so we want government to present clear and accurate information about their situation. Things in Fukushima are not as bad as alarming Google hits often suggest, but it’s definitely not hunky-dory either. Honest messaging would reflect this. We too wonder why the government has rushed to hold Olympic events in Fukushima, ignoring the global public’s existing fear and skepticism. Many Fukushima residents are supportive of the games and hope they will shed a positive light on the progress the prefecture has made since the disasters in 2011. It could be good for local economies as well. On the other hand, it could be another avoidable PR disaster.
We think people can visit Fukushima today without undue fear. The preponderance of data, both independent data like ours as well as official data, shows that typical visitors are extremely unlikely to travel anywhere in the prefecture where external radiation exposure is higher than natural background radiation levels in most of the world, unless they go out of their way to enter very contaminated areas to which access is normally prohibited. If people are willing to consider normal background radiation levels “safe,” then most of Fukushima fits this description. There are a lot caveats, however. There may be cesium contamination in the ground even in places where the external dose rate is in the normal range (Minnanods has published a very good map of their independent measurements of soil contamination). While food produced in Fukushima is closely monitored by both official bodies and independent labs, both of which indicate that it is overwhelmingly “safe,” people should avoid wild mushrooms, wild vegetables, wild game, and other items which are not produced under controlled agricultural conditions and distributed by supermarkets. With few exceptions the forests are not being decontaminated, and radiation levels can be considerably higher there, so it’s probably best to avoid entering unknown forests.
We get a lot of pushback for saying this, but years of Safecast radiation measurements in Fukushima and elsewhere show that short-term visitors to Fukushima will almost certainly get a higher radiation dose on their flights to Japan than they will by spending several days in Fukushima. (You can see Safecast measurements taken during air travel here.) These exposures are not entirely comparable, though, and the equation is different for people who live in parts of Fukushima where they are likely to receive decades of elevated radiation doses. But we stand by our overall conclusions, while pointing out that the only way to be sure is to have good data available for the places you’re going, which Safecast tries hard to provide. We’re very critical of the Korean government’s politically motivated manipulation of fear about Fukushima food despite not presenting any measurement data in support of its claims. On the other hand, Korea has demanded that radiation risks for next year’s Olympics be verified by independent third-parties, which we highly endorse. The Japanese government and the Olympic committee have announced that the torch relay will run though over 20 Fukushima towns, but they have not provided the public with survey data showing the current radiation levels along those routes. Safecast volunteers are ready to measure these routes, and indeed most have probably already been measured at some point, and while our data might indicate no particular risks for participants and viewers in most locations, it might reveal areas of concern. What maddens us is that we have been unable to obtain information about the actual street routes for the Fukushima portions of the relay and do not know how long before the event’s route information will actually become available.
Ultimately, we expect that official messaging about the Fukushima 2020 Olympic events will continue to avoid frank discussions of radiation risks and will continue to focus on “happiness.” The current information void and amateurish messaging are likely to be shattered at some point early next year by a massive and expensive PR blitz which will also focus on “happiness” but with higher production values and market reach. If radiation is dealt with at all, it is likely to be in a superficial and somewhat misleading manner. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Azby Brown
Azby Brown is Safecast’s lead researcher and primary author of the Safecast Report. A widely published authority in the fields of design, architecture, and the environment, he has lived in Japan for over 30 years, and founded the KIT Future Design Institute in 2003. He joined Safecast in mid-2011, and frequently represents the group at international expert conferences.
https://blog.safecast.org/2019/11/transparency-the-olympics-and-that-damned-water-part-2/
Transparency, the olympics, and that damned water, Part 1
Joe’s drone image of the water tanks at Fukushima Daiichi, December ,2018
Tuesday November 26th, 2019
Questions, questions…
It’s hard to say what we get more questions about lately, the 2020 Olympics or the plan to release water from Fukushima Daiichi to the Pacific Ocean. Both issues involve public safety. How safe from radiation will people be who will attend Olympic games in Japan next year, specifically those who attend events to be held in Fukushima? How safe is it for TEPCO to release the water containing tritium and other radionuclides that is currently being stored in hundreds of tanks onsite at Fukushima Daiichi? These are separate issues of course, but in both cases the answers hinge on transparency. We think the fact that we get so many questions about these issues from both journalists and the general public indicates a continuing lack of trust in what the Japanese government and TEPCO say about anything related to Fukushima. That there can be no trust without transparency has become one of our mantras, and we repeat it at every opportunity. Whether the questions are about the Olympics, the water, food safety, the environment, or health, available scientific data only fills in part of the picture. Time and again we’ve found that even when the science generally supports official policy, the public is not given enough transparent information to evaluate the accuracy of the statements they’re hearing. And all too often we ourselves are forced to conclude that we haven’t seen enough reliable information to either confidently validate or refute official claims.
Part 1: What about the water?
In the case of the water in the tanks, last year I wrote a detailed two-part blog post as well as a newspaper op-ed about the issue. I pointed out the problems we saw then with communication and transparency on the part of both the gov’t and TEPCO, and relayed expert opinions about the risks of releasing the water. At the time, all of the information about the water in the tanks provided by TEPCO and the government referred only to its tritium content, with no reference to other radionuclides. While researching for my articles I consulted TEPCO experts several times, and asked them directly if there was data available showing the actual radionuclide content of the tanks. I asked directly if there was truly only tritium to be concerned about. Each time I was given summary data that indicated only tritium. A few months later, in September, 2018, TEPCO suddenly announced that in addition to the tritium the tanks also contain noticeable levels of strontium, americium, and other radionuclides. The public was as outraged by this dishonesty as we were.
What should we make, then, of the November 21, 2019, announcement from METI, widely (and vaguely) reported in the international press, that the advisory committee had determined that the water release plan was “safe”? In terms of politics and process, we’d like to point out that there has not yet been any announcement of an order from METI, NRA, or other government body to TEPCO to release the water. Similarly there has not been any announcement of an actual request from TEPCO to be allowed to do so. The public position is that no decision has been made yet. But we think it’s a done deal and has been for several years already. What we’re seeing is an ongoing effort to get enough of the public on board to minimize the political fallout when it happens. Someone will have to put their name on the order, and it will surely be politically costly.
To be sure, this entire “crisis” is predicated on the claim that TEPCO will run out of onsite tank space in a year or two, but there is no evidence that the company or METI has seriously evaluated obtaining use of land adjoining the Fukushima Daiichi site, which is currently under the jurisdiction of the Environment Ministry for storage of decontamination waste, in order to build more tanks for long-term storage. This recommendation has been put forward by several groups and individuals at public meetings and elsewhere, but seems to have been dismissed without detailed study. We acknowledge the potential risks of this approach in the event a tank ruptures, but considering that the half-life of tritium is about 12.3 years, it seems plausible that secure storage for several decades could be constructed, during which time the water’s radioactivity would decline substantially. The idea should at least be seriously considered and good evidence presented for why it should not be done, if that is the conclusion.
The November 21st METI document acknowledges the need for monitoring if and when the water is released, stating: “Effective monitoring to confirm both 1) safety at the time of discharge and 2) safety of surrounding environment should be conducted” and “Monitoring results should be shared in a transparent manner, to wipe out concerns.” While these acknowledgements are welcome, we consider them obvious to the point of absurdity. Painful experience has shown that the need for actual transparency in cases like Fukushima can only be met by robust and independent third-party monitoring, which is not mentioned anywhere. The public has a right to this, and as Safecast has proven, we can do it ourselves. We have strongly recommended to TEPCO and the government officials we have spoken to over the years that they allow water samples to be measured by genuinely independent researchers and citizen-run radiation monitoring labs. We had never gotten an explanation of why this could not be facilitated. But in a recent news article, TEPCO spokesperson Hideki Yagi is quoted as saying that necessary safety protocols make independent testing impossible. We see no evidence that TEPCO has seriously investigated how true third-party monitoring could be implemented for the water in the tanks. Adequate protocols seem to be in place for third-party testing of other water onsite. TEPCO should come clean and give adequate access to technically qualified organizations and let them convey their findings before any release decision is made.
Page eight of the recent METI briefing document includes dose estimates for humans after the water is released, which it states have been derived from an UNSCEAR document from 2016, “Sources, effects and risks of ionizing radiation, Annex A.” METI concludes that “…the impact of the radiation from the discharge is sufficiently small…” This is, of course, the most crucial data, but it is presented in an extremely confusing and sketchy manner. The public should also be given dose rate and radionuclide concentration estimates for the ocean water itself at different points, and for affected marine life. We asked for this information over a year ago, but METI was unable to provide it. Further, the UNSCEAR document cited as the basis for the calculations is really a summary overview document, and we question whether or not by itself it provides a sufficient basis for detailed dose estimates. The METI committee should show its calculations, especially the assumptions made, and we caution that no-one should assume that the estimates are correct until they do so. To ensure true transparency, the public should also demand to be included in developing detailed monitoring plans for the released water, to track the spread of the radionuclides and their concentrations, and to monitor subsequent concentrations in the food chain and in the wider environment. There are many individuals and organizations, including Safecast, who are well-qualified to participate in this oversight and have the motivation to do so. The public should refuse to accept any release plan until this kind of participatory planning and oversight is clearly in place. We are far beyond the point where “Trust Us” is an option.
Azby Brown
Azby Brown is Safecast’s lead researcher and primary author of the Safecast Report. A widely published authority in the fields of design, architecture, and the environment, he has lived in Japan for over 30 years, and founded the KIT Future Design Institute in 2003. He joined Safecast in mid-2011, and frequently represents the group at international expert conferences.
https://blog.safecast.org/2019/11/transparency-the-olympics-and-that-damned-water-part-1/
Radioactive food from Fukushima will be heading to UK under EU plans
Should Fukushima food be served at the Olympics?
Hot particles in Japan: what does this mean for the Olympics and beyond?
November 21, 2019
Hundreds of thousands of people – athletes and spectators – will flood into Japan for the 2020 Olympics. But exposure dangers from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe have not ended since the meltdowns and explosions spread radioactive contamination over large areas reaching down to Tokyo and beyond. Soon after the start of the meltdowns, experts began warning of exposure to radioactive microparticles (hot particles)– a type of particle that poses a danger unaccounted for by regulatory agencies. In order to understand the special danger posed by these particles, at the Olympics and beyond, we must first understand the current state of radiation exposure standards.
Hot particles don’t fit current exposure models
For decades, protection from radiation exposure has been based on understanding how doses are delivered to the human body. Are the doses high or low? Inside or outside the body? If a dose is internal, which organ is it impacting? Is the dose given all at one time, or over a longer time? Additional consideration should be given to who is receiving the exposure: men, women, children, fetuses, — although protection based on age, gender and pregnancy falls short.
The difficulty with hot particles, which can travel great distances, is that they don’t deliver doses in the way experts expect. Current exposure assumptions hold that radionuclides settling in the body, i.e. through inhalation or ingestion, deliver a low dose to surrounding cells where they lodge. But these models are not truly reflecting the damage that is occurring. For instance, precise distribution of many radionuclides within the body eludes experts. And radiation doses delivered inside cells, which may seem low to an entire body, are large doses when just single cells or groupings of cells receive them. Hot particles deliver a much larger dose still, than what is considered “low”; and once they are inhaled or ingested, they deliver it specifically to the often unpredictable area of the body where they lodge.
Hot particles make already unpredictable damage worse
Not only can doses be unpredictable – so can damage. Called stochastic, damage from radiation exposure may occur by chance, and may occur at all doses down to zero. The higher the dose is, the greater the chance is that damage will happen. However, the severity of the damage, should any occur, is independent of the dose; in other words, even low doses of radiation can result in severe consequences. Sometimes these consequences can take decades to manifest. But for times of life when fast growth is occurring – such as pregnancy or childhood – the damage may show up in a much shorter time frame.
Since all parts of the human body develop from single cells during pregnancy, the severity of a radiation hit during this development can be devastating for mother and child, yet governments and the nuclear industry never consider these exposures as having an official radiation impact. Therefore, NO safe dose CAN exist. Stochastic risk, coupled with the additional unpredictable and unaccounted for risk from radioactive microparticles, can lead to impacts that are more dangerous and difficult to quantify with currently used methods.
Olympics 2020 and beyond
Clearly the danger posed by exposure to radioactive microparticles should be considered, in addition to known and better understood radiocesium contamination, as Japan prepares to host the 2020 Olympics. While most of the radioactive particle dust has settled, it can be easily resuspended by human or animal actions such as digging or running; and by weather, such as rain, wind, snow, and floods. Health officials in Japan continue to fail to act and stop the ongoing radioactive exposures. This lack of governmental action puts all residents of Japan at risk, and also any athletes, spectators and visitors that participate in Olympic festivities or games.
Currently, the torch relay is scheduled to begin with a special display of the “Flame of Recovery”, as the torch passes through still-contaminated areas of Fukushima Prefecture. Then, the “Grand Start”, the Japanese leg of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Torch Relay, will occur at J Village, the former disaster response headquarters used during the initial nuclear meltdowns in 2011. It is 12.4 miles from Fukushima Daiichi and resides close to acres of radioactive topsoil and other material stored in bags. The bags and the cranes moving them are visible on satellite maps dated 2019. After starting in Fukushima, the torch will travel to all remaining prefectures of Japan. Further, there is indication that J. Village (now called National Training Center) is being retrofitted as a practice area for baseball, softball and soccer. Game events hosted in Fukushima Prefecture aren’t the only exposure concern as radioisotopes have traveled far from the ruined cores of Fukushima’s reactors. Radionuclides from the meltdowns were found in Tokyo’s metropolitan area as late as 2016 and would raise and lower, researchers observed, based on rainfall and run-off. A “high activity radioactively-hot dust particle” traveled from Fukushima’s ruined core, to a house in Nagoya, Japan –270 miles away.
In our normal lives, each one of us breathes in a modest amount of dust daily. People are also exposed through contaminated food, ingestion of dusts and soil, or through skin contact. Endurance athletes are at a higher risk, since they often eat much more – and take in more breaths per minute – than an average athlete or a person at rest. And, biologically, due to developing cells, children and pregnant women are at a much higher risk from radiation exposure than men. Many Olympic and Paralympic athletes are of childbearing age or adolescents
Contamination in Japan has not gone away and neither should our awareness. While most of the athletes, coaches and spectators will leave Japan, the contamination remains, impacting generations of people who will have to contend with this danger for much longer than the eight plus years they have been exposed to date.
Japan’s government-wide policy of dismissing radiation’s dangers and normalizing exposure to radioactivity is part of an attempt to resettle people in areas that would allow a dose of 2 rem (2000 mrem) per year. Prior to the Fukushima meltdowns, this level was considered high-risk to the general population. This is not an acceptable level of exposure, and the radioactive microparticles found in areas with even lower background levels indicates a significant risk that governments around the world who support nuclear technologies are covering up. Merely understanding and quantifying these particles is not enough. Governments must protect people from exposure everywhere in the world, not just in Japan. The danger of radioactive microparticles should be added to a long list of reasons why nuclear technology is not safe and should no longer be used.
Thanks to Arnie and Maggie Gundersen at Fairewinds Energy Education for technical and editorial input. Any mistakes are my own. Cindy Folkers
Tokyo 2020 Olympics: will Fukushima rice and fruits be on the menu?
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Earth Energy Imbalance – EEI: How HEAT Impacts Ocean, Land, Cryosphere, and Atmosphere: Part 1 of 2
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