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Analysis of risk of ecosystem collapse, biodiversity loss – a fifth of countries at risk

Fifth of countries at risk of ecosystem collapse, analysis finds  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/12/fifth-of-nations-at-risk-of-ecosystem-collapse-analysis-finds
Trillions of dollars of GDP depend on biodiversity, according to Swiss Re report,  Damian Carrington Environment editor @dpcarrington, Mon 12 Oct 2020 .One-fifth of the world’s countries are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing because of the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, according to an analysis by the insurance firm Swiss Re.

Natural “services” such as food, clean water and air, and flood protection have already been damaged by human activity.

More than half of global GDP – $42tn (£32tn) – depends on high-functioning biodiversity, according to the report, but the risk of tipping points is growing.

Countries including Australia, Israel and South Africa rank near the top of Swiss Re’s index of risk to biodiversity and ecosystem services, with India, Spain and Belgium also highlighted. Countries with fragile ecosystems and large farming sectors, such as Pakistan and Nigeria, are also flagged up.

Countries including Brazil and Indonesia had large areas of intact ecosystems but had a strong economic dependence on natural resources, which showed the importance of protecting their wild places, Swiss Re said.

“A staggering fifth of countries globally are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing due to a decline in biodiversity and related beneficial services,” said Swiss Re, one of the world’s biggest reinsurers and a linchpin of the global insurance industry.

“If the ecosystem service decline goes on [in countries at risk], you would see then scarcities unfolding even more strongly, up to tipping points,” said Oliver Schelske, lead author of the research.

Jeffrey Bohn, Swiss Re’s chief research officer, said: “This is the first index to our knowledge that pulls together indicators of biodiversity and ecosystems to cross-compare around the world, and then specifically link back to the economies of those locations.”

The index was designed to help insurers assess ecosystem risks when setting premiums for businesses but Bohn said it could have a wider use as it “allows businesses and governments to factor biodiversity and ecosystems into their economic decision-making”.

The UN revealed in September that the world’s governments failed to meet a single target to stem biodiversity losses in the last decade, while leading scientists warned in 2019 that humans were in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems. More than 60 national leaders recently pledged to end the destruction.

The Swiss Re index is built on 10 key ecosystem services identified by the world’s scientists and uses scientific data to map the state of these services at a resolution of one square kilometre across the world’s land. The services include provision of clean water and air, food, timber, pollination, fertile soil, erosion control, and coastal protection, as well as a measure of habitat intactness.

Those countries with more than 30% of their area found to have fragile ecosystems were deemed to be at risk of those ecosystems collapsing. Just one in seven countries had intact ecosystems covering more than 30% of their country area.

Among the G20 leading economies, South Africa and Australia were seen as  being most at risk, with China 7th, the US 9th and the UK 16th.

Alexander Pfaff, a professor of public policy, economics and environment at Duke University in the US, said: “Societies, from local to global, can do much better when we not only acknowledge the importance of contributions from nature – as this index is doing – but also take that into account in our actions, private and public.”

Pfaff said it was important to note that the economic impacts of the degradation of nature began well before ecosystem collapse, adding: “Naming a problem may well be half the solution, [but] the other half is taking action.”

Swiss Re said developing and developed countries were at risk from biodiversity loss. Water scarcity, for example, could damage manufacturing sectors, properties and supply chains.

Bohn said about 75% of global assets were not insured, partly because of insufficient data. He said the index could help quantify risks such as crops losses and flooding.

October 13, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, environment | Leave a comment

Small modular nuclear reactors create intensely radioactive wastes

A bridge to nowhere    New Brunswick must reject small modular reactors, Beyond Nuclear International, By Gordon Edwards and Susan O’Donnell, 12 Oct, 20 ”………  In New Brunswick, the proposed new reactors (so-called “small modular nuclear reactors” or SMNRs) will create irradiated fuel even more intensely radioactive per kilogram than waste currently stored at NB Power’s Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. The non-fuel radioactive wastes will remain the responsibility of the government of New Brunswick, likely requiring the siting of a permanent radioactive waste repository somewhere in the province.

Interestingly, promoters of both new nuclear projects in New Brunswick – the ARC-100 reactor and the Moltex “Stable Salt Reactor” – claim their reactors will “burn up” these radioactive waste fuel bundles. They have even suggested that their prototype reactors offer a “solution” to Lepreau’s existing nuclear fuel waste problem. This is untrue. Radioactive left-over used fuel from the new reactors will still require safe storage for hundreds of thousands of years.

……… Until now, every effort to recycle and “burn up” used reactor fuel – in France, the UK, Russia and the US – has resulted in countless incidents of radioactive contamination of the local environment. In addition, none of these projects eliminated the need for permanent storage of the left-over long-lived radioactive byproducts, many of which cannot be “burned up.”…….

The nuclear waste problem is not going away. The recent letter from more than 100 groups across Canada, and the recent cancellation of the proposed nuclear waste dump in Ontario have shown that significant opposition to new nuclear energy generation exists. Because producing nuclear energy always means producing nuclear waste as well……. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/10/12/a-bridge-to-nowhere/,

October 13, 2020 Posted by | Canada, Reference, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, wastes | Leave a comment

Struggling Japanese towns look to nuclear waste storing and the money associated

October 13, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, politics, wastes | Leave a comment

A positive story: We’ve had so many wins’: why the green movement can overcome climate crisis

We’ve had so many wins’: why the green movement can overcome climate crisis
Leaded petrol, acid rain, CFCs … the last 50 years of environmental action have shown how civil society can force governments and business to change, Guardian, by Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent, Mon 12 Oct 2020 

Leaflets printed on “rather grotty” blue paper. That is how Janet Alty will always remember one of the most successful environment campaigns of modern times: the movement to ban lead in petrol.

There were the leaflets she wrote to warn parents at school gates of the dangers, leaflets to persuade voters and politicians, leaflets to drown out the industry voices saying – falsely – there was nothing to worry about.

In the late 1970s, the UK was still poisoning the air with the deadly toxin, despite clear scientific evidence that breathing in lead-tainted air from car exhausts had an effect on development and intelligence. Recently returned from several years in the US, Alty was appalled. Lead had been phased out in the US from 1975. Why was the British government still subjecting children to clear harm?

Robin Russell-Jones asked the same question. A junior doctor, he quickly grasped the nature of the lead problem, moving his family out of London. His fellow campaigner, Robert Stephens, amassed a trove of thousands of scientific papers, keeping them in his garage when his office burned down – he suspected foul play.

Their campaign took years. But in 1983, a damning verdict from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution prompted the UK government to decree that both petrol stations and manufacturers must offer lead-free alternatives. Leaded petrol was finally removed from the last petrol pumps in the UK in 1999.

Today, it seems incredible that lead was ever used as a performance improver in car engines. Clean alternatives were available by the 1970s, but making the transition incurred short-term costs, so the motor industry, led by chemicals companies, clung on, lobbying politicians and ridiculing activists.

Faced with multiplying, and interlinked, environmental crises in the 2020s – the climate emergency, the sixth extinction stalking the natural world, the plastic scourge in our oceans, the polluted air of teeming metropolises – it is easy to feel overwhelmed. Lockdown offered a tantalising glimpse of a cleaner world, but also revealed a starker truth: that the global economy is not set up to prioritise wellbeing, climate and nature. What can we do, in the face of these devastating odds?

It is easy to forget that environmentalism is arguably the most successful citizens’ mass movement there has been. Working sometimes globally, at other times staying intensely local, activists have transformed the modern world in ways we now take for granted. The ozone hole has shrunk. Whales, if not saved, at least enjoy a moratorium on hunting. Acid rain is no longer the scourge of forests and lakes. Rivers thick with pollution in the 1960s teem with fish. Who remembers that less than 30 years ago, nuclear tests were still taking place in the Pacific? Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior ship was blown up by the French government in 1985, with one death and many injuries, in a long-running protest.

As well as giving heart to activists now, these victories contain important lessons. “The environmental movement has been very successful,” says Joanna Watson, who has worked at Friends of the Earth for three decades. “We’ve had so many campaigns and wins. Sometimes it’s been hard to claim success, and sometimes it takes a long time. And sometimes things that worked before won’t work now. But there’s a lot we can learn.”……
For Watson, the emphasis on what people have in common, despite surface divisions, is at the core of the green movement. “The thing about the environmental movement is, it crosses all barriers,” she says. “Whatever our political bent, we are all human, all people on the planet, and all interdependent. The environment is not something separate from us – we are all in the environment. It is where we live.”  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/12/climate-crisis-campaigns-pledge-real-change

October 13, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Inadequate Emergency Planning Zones for small modular nuclear reactors

No emergency planning zones for SMRs? NRC commissioner warns against “flimsy” rule that could extend to current reactor fleet, Beyond Nuclear International By Jeff Baran,  12 Oct  20, In a 3-1 vote by NRC Commissioners on December 17, 2019, Proposed Rule: Emergency Preparedness for Small Modular Reactors and Other New Technologies (SECY-18-0103) was accepted. The Rule would eliminate the need for Emergency Planning Zones and dedicated offsite emergency planning for Small Modular Reactors. The lone dissenting vote came from NRC Commissioner Jeff Baran. These are his comments.

For the last 40 years, NRC has required emergency planning zones, or EPZs, (Emergency Planning Zones) around nuclear power plants “to assure that prompt and effective actions can be taken to protect the public in the event of an accident.” Every one of the 96* operating large light-water reactors in the country has a plume exposure pathway EPZ that extends about 10 miles around the site with dedicated offsite radiological emergency plans and protective actions in place to avoid or reduce radiation dose to the public during an accident. An ingestion exposure pathway EPZ with a radius of 50 miles around each of these sites is designed to avoid or reduce dose from consuming food and water contaminated by a radiological release.

The EPZs and dedicated radiological emergency plans are meant to provide multiple layers of protection – or defense-in-depth – against potential radiological exposure. Other NRC requirements are focused on preventing or mitigating a radioactive release. The emergency planning regulations are there to provide another layer of defense in case a release occurs despite those safety requirements.

In other words, EPZs and radiological emergency planning are designed to address low-probability, high-consequence events. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) assesses the adequacy of the offsite emergency plans, and NRC regulations require licensees to hold offsite emergency preparedness drills at each plant at least once every 2 years to practice implementing the plan .

Under this proposed rule, emergency planning for small modular reactors (SMRs) and non-light-water reactors would be flimsy by comparison. Instead of a 10-mile plume exposure pathway EPZ, these reactors would have EPZs that encompass only areas where the projected dose from “credible” accidents could exceed 1 rem. An EPZ extending only to the site boundary is explicitly permitted under this methodology.

In the case of a site-boundary EPZ, NRC would not require dedicated offsite radiological emergency planning and FEMA would have no role in evaluating the adequacy of a site’s emergency plans. In addition, the proposed rule would eliminate the requirement for an ingestion exposure pathway EPZ and no longer require a specific drill frequency for emergency planning exercises. Overall, this proposed rule represents a radical departure from more than 40 years of radiological emergency planning…………

We need to take FEMA’s warnings seriously. FEMA has a key role in determining whether the emergency planning for a nuclear power plant site is adequate. Under NRC’s regulations, a nuclear power plant license cannot be issued unless NRC makes a finding that the major features of the emergency plan meet the regulatory requirements. And NRC is supposed to base its finding on FEMA’s determinations as to whether the offsite emergency plans are adequate and whether there is reasonable assurance that they can be implemented.

No new SMR or non-light-water reactor designs have yet been approved by NRC, and only one SMR design has been submitted for the staff’s review. These new designs could potentially be safer than current large light-water-reactor designs. But that does not eliminate the need for EPZs and dedicated offsite emergency planning to provide defense-in-depth in case something goes wrong…….

In addition to the issues identified by FEMA, there are several other significant problems with the proposed rule.

First, the logic of the proposed EPZ sizing methodology could be applied to the existing fleet of large light-water reactors to weaken the current level of protection. As the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards noted:

No technical basis is stated in the rule or the guidance for restricting the use of the new rule to SMRs and [other new technologies] with a limit on thermal power. The rule could apply to any reactor technology regardless of size. During our meetings, the staff acknowledged this point.

In fact, the proposed rule explicitly seeks comment on whether to apply this kind of approach to large light-water reactors. This opens the door to smaller EPZs and reduced emergency planning for the existing fleet of power reactors. If the proposed rule’s formulaic approach is adopted, a precedent will be established for applying a purely risk-based methodology to EPZ sizing. 

Second, the proposed rule does not account for the possibility of accidents affecting more than one SMR module. Even though some SMR designs contemplate several reactors at one site, the EPZ sizing methodology addresses each reactor in isolation. This ignores a key lesson of the Fukushima accident – that severe natural disasters can simultaneously threaten multiple reactors at a site. Under the draft proposed rule, a SMR is defined as a power reactor that produces less than 1,000 megawatts-thermal. The combined heat energy produced by just two SMRs of this size could be larger than that of some existing large light-water reactors in the U.S. But, under the proposed rule, each module could individually qualify for a site boundary EPZ without consideration of the other.

Third, unlike the existing regulations for large light-water reactors, the proposed rule “would not define the required frequency of drills and exercises” for emergency preparedness. As a result, SMR and non-light-water reactor licensees would not be required to conduct a full offsite emergency preparedness drill every 2 years. The NRC staff provides no basis for this weaker standard.

Finally, the proposed rule would eliminate the ingestion pathway EPZ for SMRs and non- light-water reactors . . . No FEMA evaluation of this change is provided. Nor is there any discussion of the effectiveness of ad hoc responses to previous radiological releases. Moreover, if the staff’s unbounded rationale were adopted, it could ultimately lead to ingestion pathway EPZs being dropped for the existing fleet of large light-water reactors.

For these reasons, I do not support finalizing the proposed rule in its current form. NRC needs a rule that provides regulatory certainty for potential applicants and recognizes that SMRs and non-light-water reactors will be different than traditional, large light-water reactors. It makes sense to have a graded approach that accounts for potential safety improvements in new designs. But the rule should not be purely risk-based, relying entirely on the results of a dose formula. Instead, NRC should issue a rule to establish the following emergency planning requirements for three categories of nuclear power plants………….https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/10/12/no-emergency-planning-zones-for-smrs/

 

October 13, 2020 Posted by | safety, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

 Resisting nuclear colonialism on Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Resisting nuclear colonialism on Indigenous Peoples’ Day | NIRS The resistance of Indigenous peoples and their allies has created greater awareness about abuses and injustices that have been perpetrated against Native peoples since European empires colonized their lands. This is one of the reasons why NIRS commemorates this day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

As an anti-nuclear organization, we take Indigenous Peoples’ Day as an opportunity to acknowledge and denounce instances of nuclear colonialism committed against Indigenous peoples all over the world.

For over 70 years, the US nuclear power and weapons industry has consistently targeted Indigenous communities for contamination and environmental sacrifice. The radioactive scars of nuclear colonialism affect Indigenous peoples throughout the lands of Turtle Island (also called North America) and the Pacific Islands occupied by the United States of America, including:

Over 15,000 abandoned uranium mines, affecting Indigenous nations throughout the continent, including the Apache, Dine (Navajo), Lakota, Pueblo, and Sioux. Over 200 above-ground nuclear weapons explosions (and nearly 800 below-ground) affecting the Western Shoshone, Apache, Pacific Islanders (Marshall Islands, Northern Marianas, and Guam), and others. The 1979 Church Rock uranium tailings spill, the US’s worst nuclear disaster, which poisoned Dine (Navajo) communities for nearly 100 miles of the Rio Puerco and upper Rio Grande and has never been cleaned up. The West Valley Demonstration Project reprocessing plant, an immensely radioactive site on Seneca Nation land, which has contaminated Cattaraugus Creek and risks spilling into Lake Erie, the Niagara River, and Lake Ontario. Repeated attempts to site a high-level radioactive waste repository for the whole US nuclear power and weapons industries in Yucca Mountain (Nevada), sacred land of the Western Shoshone. A proposed nuclear waste burial ground in West Valley, California, on sacred homelands of the Chemehuevi, Cocopah, Fort Mojave, Quechan and Colorado River Indian Tribes A 1990s program that targeted Native tribes/nations as possible supposedly ‘interim’ storage places for nuclear power high-level radioactive waste.How can we start making things right for the Indigenous victims of nuclear colonialism? Here’s a step in the right direction: Acknowledging and compensating the victims of the first nuclear weapons test in the US, called ‘Trinity’, and workers poisoned by mining and processing uranium for nuclear weapons and power. Those communities, disproportionately Indigenous peoples, are still living with the fallout from Trinity and over 200 similar nuclear weapons tests—and decades of uranium mines, mills, and spills. Too many of them have never been recognized or compensated for their decades of pain and suffering.

In 1990, Congress passed a law meant to compensate victims of atomic bomb testing, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough and will expire in 2022. A bill in the House of Representatives—H.R.3783, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2019—would expand compensation more fully to more of those affected by the tests and uranium extraction. But Rep. Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, hasn’t even scheduled a hearing for the bill yet.

The communities that live downwind from nuclear test sites (“Downwinders”) really need our support right now. Whether you’ve already written your member of Congress about this or not, they need to hear urgently from you now. Tell your member of Congress to ask Jerrold Nadler and Rep. Jim Jordan (the committee’s Republican ranking member) to schedule a hearing for this bill.

If our elected leaders truly care about the rights and sovereignty of our Indigenous relatives, they must take action to repair the harms of nuclear colonialism.

We grieve for the victims of the Trinity test and all other instances of nuclear colonialism. But we can do more. We can start setting things right. Compensating the Downwinders and uranium workers is an essential step in the right direction.

The post Resisting nuclear colonialism on Indigenous Peoples’ Day appeared first on NIRS.

October 13, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, indigenous issues | Leave a comment

India’s young anti-nuclear protestors still in trouble, police cases pending, 10 years after teir demonstration

October 13, 2020 Posted by | India, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Reopening of a Cold-War era submarine base, as USA struggles to beat Russia to control the Arctic.

Arctic battlefield: Putin on alert as nuclear base reopens to counter Russian aggressionA COLD War-era nuclear submarine base has been reopened following “pressure” from the US to defend against Russian aggression in the Arctic. Express UK , By BILL MCLOUGHLIN, Mon, Oct 12, 2020  The base will now be reopened to house the US Navy’s three Seawolf submarines as Russia and America vie for control of the region. Norway’s government announced Olavsvern, near to the city of Tromso in the north of the country, will now be reopened after being closed 18 years ago. The complex has a 9,800ft deep underground water dock which has the ability to modify and refit nuclear submarines.

Norway’s national broadcaster, NPK said: “An agreement on the return of Olavsvern to the armed forces may be ready as early as this week, as a result of pressure from the US navy.”

Olavsvern will also be used to house submarines for NATO amid increased concerns over Russia’s activity in the region.

The base is located 220 miles from the Russia border and thus offers an ideal outpost for Western allies to quickly contain, and defend against any aggression from the state.

Modifications will now be made to the base in order for it to house America’s nuclear attack submarine, the USS Jimmy Carter.

The announcement of the base comes as the UK’s First Sea Lord, Admiral Tony Radakin, warned China and Russia could soon exploit the Arctic Sea.

Due to climate change, he claimed the once-frozen passages are now thawing thus opening up potential naval routes.

With these routes now appearing, Chinese and Russian ships could now have gateways through to the UK.

He added the Royal Navy was essential in stopping these ships from trespassing in the UK’s waters but also policing the vital global trade routes………..

The undersea world matters. “Because this one remaining stealth medium is also the home to our nuclear deterrent. ”……  https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1346694/world-war-3-russia-cold-war-Norway-submarine-base-arctic-Vladimir-Putin

October 13, 2020 Posted by | ARCTIC, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New North Korean missile will prove a big diplomatic headache for US, expert warns

October 13, 2020 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Offshore Wind Energy, Not Nuclear, Is the Future

October 13, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, renewable | Leave a comment

Public Input Wanted On Transportation Of Nuclear Waste

October 13, 2020 Posted by | safety, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Groups urge New Mexico governor to take stand against nuclear waste plan

New Mexico governor urged to take stand against nuclear plan, SC Now, By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN Associated Press

Oct 12, 2020   ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Environmentalists and other watchdog groups want New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to create a government agency that would be tasked with keeping the state from becoming a permanent dumping ground for spent nuclear fuel and other high-level waste.

Dozens of groups sent a letter Friday to the Democratic governor. They pointed to Nevada’s past success in mothballing the once-proposed Yucca Mountain waste repository project in that state and asked the governor to consider similar measures to protect New Mexico.

“New Mexico’s people and our environment deserve better treatment than a plan offering millions of years of a public health menace from radioactive waste spreading into our soil, air, water and rivers,” the letter states. “Please consider what more aggressive steps can be taken to defeat the Holtec plan.”

New Jersey-based Holtec is seeking a 40-year license from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build what it has described as a state-of-the-art complex near Carlsbad. Company executives have said the project is needed because the federal government has yet to find a permanent solution for dealing with the tons of spent fuel building up at commercial nuclear power plants around the U.S.

The first phase of the project calls for storing up to 8,680 metric tons of uranium, which would be packed into 500 canisters. Future expansion could make room for as many as 10,000 canisters of spent nuclear fuel……..

State officials in comments recently submitted to federal regulators opposed a preliminary recommendation by staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that a license be granted to Holtec to build the multibillion-dollar facility. They said technical analysis has been inadequate so far and accused regulators of failing to consider environmental justice concerns and meet requirements spelled out by federal environmental laws.

Dave McCoy of Citizen Action is among those who signed the letter sent to Lujan Grisham. He said Monday that there’s a push to approve New Mexico for “interim” storage knowing that the waste will never leave……. https://scnow.com/business/new-mexico-governor-urged-to-take-stand-against-nuclear-plan/article_e167c5c0-4d7b-5a1f-8ebd-30a951f24c71.html

October 13, 2020 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, politics, wastes | Leave a comment

Japan diver reflects on unsung workers exposed to radiation as Fukushima 10th anniv. Looms

Hisashi Okazaki is seen doing diving work at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant’s No. 3 reactor in May 2006, in this image provided by Okazaki.

October 11, 2020

Have you ever heard of atomic divers? Hisashi Okazaki, 58, who has worked at nuclear power plants as a diver while being exposed to radiation, wants people to know that professional divers like himself work in dangerous conditions for nuclear reactors to run, as the 10-year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster approaches.

Among the places he has worked in his 33-year career as a professional diver is the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which would later go on to enter a meltdown following the Great East Japan Earthquake and resultant tsunami in March 2011.

Hisashi Okazaki is seen in Ehime Prefecture on Sept. 18, 2020.

After graduating high school, Okazaki, a resident of Seiyo in the western Japan prefecture of Ehime, entered the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. Four years later he left, and got his professional diving license. Since then, he has worked primarily as a self-employed diver taking on jobs both at home and abroad, fulfilling tasks including laying oil pipelines and tetrapod sea defenses, as well as fixing sea walls damaged after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake. He keeps illustrations of his dives as a record of what he’s done, and in all he has amassed more than 3,670 so far.

In 2006, a diver Okazaki knew invited him to work nuclear jobs. It was his first time working inside nuclear power facilities and being exposed to radiation, but he agreed to do it. Looking back, he said he did it because “I thought I wanted to experience anything I could. I had no fears.” His daily pay was 47,000 yen, almost twice the regular pay of around 25,000 yen for a day’s normal diving work.

Ahead of the job, 20 divers came together to train at a facility belonging to a heavy machinery maker situated in Kanagawa Prefecture south of Tokyo. They had on special heavy helmets weighing around 15 kilograms, and wore dry suits altered to stop water from entering them. They were hooked up to six cables, including for an air hose, photography, and radiation measurements. Both of their arms and legs as well as their chests were fitted with dosimeter equipment. After a week of training, the divers were dispersed to a number of nuclear plants across the country. Okazaki was dispatched to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant’s No. 3 reactor.

There, he dived into the plant’s suppression chamber, which cools the reactor containment vessel in the event that the release of steam causes its pressure to rise. The chamber is a doughnut-shaped facility in the lower part of the vessel, with water about 3 meters deep in it. The maintenance work Okazaki undertook had to be done while it was filled and he did the work with another diver to exchange equipment in the facility.

An illustration of a diver replacing equipment underwater is seen in this image provided by Hisashi Okazaki.

The area where they worked had high doses of radiation, and in a single day’s diving they could work for about two hours. When they approached an area with a particularly high dosage, they would be instructed via a voice cable not to proceed further. The divers stayed in Fukushima Prefecture for about a month. Legal occupational exposure limits to radiation for a worker are set at 50 millisieverts per year, but in just the 12 days Okazaki worked at the plant, he was exposed to a total of 7.34 millisieverts. At the end of the job, the contaminated equipment they’d used was all put into a drum and disposed of.

“I couldn’t feel satisfied doing a job that leaves no trace of it behind,” Okazaki said. On his way back from Fukushima to Tokyo, Okazaki asked himself while in a car the purpose of his work that exposed him to radiation, and the younger diver who worked with him on the job said, “We did this for that view (of the city) at night, didn’t we?” Okazaki felt a little bit relieved by what they’d said, and after that he went on to do underwater cleaning work at the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station in northeast Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture.

Then, in March 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake struck. Okazaki watched images of the hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station’s No. 3 reactor from a TV on a work barge in the sea off the Muroto Misaki cape in Kochi Prefecture, western Japan. “I’d never imagined the power would be lost and it would explode,” he said.

The use of divers for the decommissioning of the crippled nuclear reactor, such as in removal work and other tasks, is being considered. Even now, around 4,000 people are working at the Fukushima Daiichi plant each day. The decommissioning work, which is expected to take decades from now to finish, is employing robots to complete some tasks, but still the role of radiation-exposed human workers is vital. Okazaki said, “Even at the reactors that use the most technologically advanced equipment, there are sections which only human hands can deal with, and divers are part of the group of workers who take up such jobs.”

(Japanese original by Shunsuke Sekiya, City News Department)

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20201009/p2a/00m/0na/020000c

October 12, 2020 Posted by | Fukushima 2020 | , , | Leave a comment

National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations’ head opposes releasing Fukushima Daiichi radioactive water into sea

Hiroshi Kishi, the head of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, speaks at a government hearing in Tokyo on Thursday.

Fishing industry chief opposes releasing Fukushima No. 1 water into sea

Oct 9, 2020

The head of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, or Zengyoren, has voiced strong opposition against releasing treated water containing radioactive tritium from the disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant into the sea.

“We are absolutely against ocean release” as a way to dispose of tainted water at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture, Hiroshi Kishi, head of Zengyoren, said Thursday at a government hearing in Tokyo.

Kishi said that fishermen who are operating along the coast of Fukushima have been suffering from problems caused by the radioactive fallout from the 2011 meltdowns at the plant, such as fishing restrictions, as well as malicious rumors about the safety of farm and marine products there.

If the government chooses to release radioactive water into the sea, a leading option to get rid of accumulating low-level radioactive water at the plant, it will trash all efforts fishermen have so far made to sweep away such rumors and consequently “will have a devastating impact on the future of Japan’s fishing industry,” Kishi stressed.

Toshihito Ono, head of the prefecture’s fishery product processors association, who joined the hearing via a video call, warned that Fukushima’s processed marine products, including products that use ingredients from other prefectures, will become targets of harmful rumors.

In a report released in February, a government panel pointed out that a realistic option would be releasing the tainted water into the ocean after dilution or into the air through evaporation.

Many people fear that both methods will add to the reputational damage suffered by Fukushima products. But treated water storage at the power plant is expected to reach full capacity as early as autumn 2022.

After the hearing, state industry minister Kiyoshi Ejima told reporters, “We find it unadvisable to put off a decision on how to dispose of the water because not much room is left at the plant for tanks containing the water.”

This was probably the last hearing on the water issue, people familiar with the matter said.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/10/09/national/zengyoren-fukushima-water-sea/

Hiroshi Kishi, chairman of Japan’s national federation of fisheries cooperatives, JF Zengyoren, expresses his opposition to the release of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station into the sea, in Tokyo’s Minato Ward on Oct. 8, 2020.

Japan’s fishing industry firmly opposes release of tainted Fukushima water at sea

October 9, 2020

TOKYO — Japanese fishing industry representatives on Oct. 8 expressed their resolute opposition to the planned release of radioactively contaminated water that has built up following the 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station into the sea, saying it would create damaging rumors and could negatively affect the industry into the future.

The comments came in a government hearing with Japan’s national federation of fisheries cooperatives, JF Zengyoren, and other representatives over the handling of the contaminated water and whether to dump it into the sea.

“Damaging rumors would inevitably occur, and the consensus of those in the fishing industry is that we are absolutely opposed to releasing it at sea,” JF Zengyoren Chairman Hiroshi Kishi stated at the meeting.

The hearing is expected to be the last scheduled gathering in a series of meetings that have been held since April. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has stated that he wants to decide on a policy for dealing with the contaminated water as soon as possible, and the government is set to reach a decision based on opinions heard to date.

At the meeting, Kishi warned that if the contaminated water from the nuclear plant were released into the sea “all the efforts of fishing industry workers to date would come to nothing.” He added, “It would be a setback and letdown for those in the fishing industry and could have a devastating impact into the future.” He said that he had heard from the government about measures to prevent damaging rumors, but stated, “Not releasing it (contaminated water) into the sea is simply the best approach.”

A seafood processing federation from Fukushima Prefecture was among the bodies represented at the meeting. Federation head Toshihito Ono commented, “I’ve worked on the front lines with regard to damage from rumors following the nuclear plant accident for nine years. Even when the fish are caught outside the prefecture, if the processing firm is in Fukushima then they’ll be stigmatized.”

After the meeting, State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Kiyoshi Ejima commented, “We’ve heard opinions from 43 people to date. We’d like to sort them out as soon as possible and reach a conclusion with governmental responsibility.”

The Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Co-operative Associations and the national consumers federation Shodanren earlier expressed opposition to the release of contaminated water from the Fukushima plant at sea. The association of inns and hotels of Fukushima Prefecture, meanwhile, has expressed understanding of the move, as has the Central Federation of Societies of Commerce and Industry.

The Fukushima Prefectural Government has taken the position that the issue should be given careful consideration, while the head of the Fukushima Federation of Societies of Commerce and Industry said the water should be dealt with quickly and rumors dispelled, and that the central government should process the water responsibly.

(Japanese original by Suzuko Araki, Science & Environment News Department)

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20201009/p2a/00m/0na/039000c

October 12, 2020 Posted by | Fukushima 2020 | , , , | Leave a comment

Nuclear, climate news to 12 October

Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs

The World Health Organisation has reported 338,779 new cases of COVID-19 have been recorded last week, a new daily record.

World press freedom endangered, if UK extradites Julian Assange to America.  Assange extradition case could esrablish a dangerous legal precedent.

This election isn’t just about you, America.  The world’s climate future – much depends on America’s presidential election.   Trump’s psychopathology a threat to US democracy and to global stability.

Some bits of good news – The 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Goes To The World’s Largest Hunger Program.    A New Generation of Young Poll Workers is Stepping Up to Protect the Elderly From COVID-19

Why climate change is a time bomb. – Climate future depends on what action humans take.  Greta Thunberg: ‘Get everyone to vote for Joe Biden’.  Global and European temperature levels for September – hottest on record.

Countries that have included nuclear in their green stimulus plans may want to rethink their strategy.  Major study finds that renewables lower emissions substantially, and nuclear power does not. Nuclear power, irrelevant to climate change – and in fact, hinders climate action.

Promises, promises — the media keeps  buying the tired old nuclear spin, marketing small reactors.

U.S. and Russian negotiators try to salvage arms control pact.

14 million tonnes of plastic on ocean floor – more on the coasts.

Former world leaders urge those now in power to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Pro nuclear bias in  articles in Google headlines.

JAPAN.  Ageing community in Hokkaido town – mayor agrees to survey for nuclear waste dump.  Fishing industry chief opposes releasing Fukushima No. 1 water into sea.

ALGERIA. Algeria to ratify Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons “as soon as possible”.  France should reveal the location of its nuclear waste dump in Algeria.

PACIFIC ISLANDS.  Pacific Island Nations determined to say NO to nuclear weapons, and support UN Treaty Ban.

USA.

UK. Design not even finished! But UK govt to subsidise Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs).    Big doubts about the economics of small nuclear reactors for the UK.

Will the UK government sacrifice the beautiful Suffolk coast in its misguided, uneconomic, Sizewell nuclear power push?  Conflict of interest – UK’s Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) regarding Hinkley C nuclear project.

UKRAINE.  Ukraine’s President enthuses over their nuclear reactors – but they’re all ageing Soviet ones.

CHINA.  China backs Iran nuclear deal, calls for new MidEast forum.    China-Saudi nuclear pact can trigger an arms race in West Asia.

INDIA. India test-fires new version of nuclear capable Shaurya missile.

CANADA.  3 Canadian provinces sucked in by propaganda from 3 Small Nuclear Reactor companies.

RUSSIA.  Russia’s nuclear giant Rosatom moving into renewable energy, energy storage, grid development.

FRANCE.  European Commission, and France’s Hercules project, plan to break up the nuclear company EDF.  Cracks in France’s ageing Tricastin nuclear reactor 1.

NORTH KOREA. Kim Jong Un set to show off nuclear advances in message to Trump. Kim Jong Un showcases North Korea’s biggest intercontinental missile.

BELARUS.  Belarus postpones launch of nuclear reactor.

GERMANY.  Nuclear no option for hydrogen production: German government.NEW ZEALAND.  New Zealand installs its biggest solar farm, floating on a wastewater pond. Lower Saxony opposes building of nuclear power plants by Netherlands – location all too close

POLAND.  Poland to build nuclear reactor starting in 2026, excludes Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

ROMANIA. USA trying to beat China, in marketing nuclear reactors to Romania.

AUSTRALIA. Murdoch media monopoly – an ‘arrogant cancer on our democracy’.

October 12, 2020 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

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