Don’t let nuclear lessons fade over time

The process will continue for 40 years at a minimum and cost trillions of baht, and it is anyone’s guess when, if ever, the surrounding area will be habitable again. And the risks from contamination are not confined to the general area. The biggest concern is that radioactive substances are leaching into the sea, where they will be dispersed around the world and be concentrated in the food chain….

Published: 10 Mar 2013

Bangkok Post

Tomorrow marks the two-year anniversary of the earthquake and resulting tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan, wiping out whole towns and thousands of lives in just minutes. The Japanese resolutely began rebuilding immediately after this natural tragedy of biblical proportions, and although the personal losses will never be forgotten, the material damage has largely been repaired. The exception, of course, is the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and surrounding vicinity.

The totally unexpected magnitude of the radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear accident, the largest since Chernobyl, has dealt a strong blow to an industry that was poised for resurgence as the best alternative to the fossil-fuel derived energy that is changing the weather of the planet. But unless there is a serious global commitment to developing truly clean alternatives, how long will it be before governments begin jumping back on the nuclear bandwagon?

As reported in several articles ahead of the fateful anniversary, including a report in today’s Spectrum, progress in the clean-up, decontamination and decommissioning of the reactors knocked out by the tsunami has been taking baby steps. The process will continue for 40 years at a minimum and cost trillions of baht, and it is anyone’s guess when, if ever, the surrounding area will be habitable again. And the risks from contamination are not confined to the general area. The biggest concern is that radioactive substances are leaching into the sea, where they will be dispersed around the world and be concentrated in the food chain. Back in December 2011 the Fukushima Daiichi operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said it was running out of space to store contaminated water and was considering dumping it into the sea. This brought howls of protest from local fishermen and environmental groups worldwide and the plan was apparently shelved. Yet levels of contaminated water continue to rise and the problem of storing it will only get worse. Now, Fukushima Daiichi’s operator is building a wall going down instead of up to keep contaminated groundwater from entering the ocean.

Proponents of nuclear energy say that that the industry’s track record is remarkably safe, and that’s true at least as far as major accidents go. But there is another big problem with nuclear energy _ how do you store wastes generated by nuclear fission that will be highly radioactive for thousands of years? In a way the ongoing problems at Fukushima are just a dramatic illustration of the fact that the nuclear power industry has yet to come up with a solution to the fundamental problem of waste storage. In fact this problem may be insurmountable.

But again, what are the alternatives? In order to maintain our modern way of life we need energy, lots of it and more every year. We can continue on with fossil fuels, depending more on highly polluting varieties such as coal and shale oil and environmentally risky practices such as fracking and deep-sea drilling. Perhaps nuclear energy would be a better way to go, even with the waste storage problem, providing power plants are strictly regulated and not built in earthquake or tsunami prone areas. After all, they don’t emit greenhouse gases.

This still leaves another big problem with nuclear energy: It is incredibly expensive. The industry could not survive without massive government subsidies. Wouldn’t it be better to subsidise truly clean energies such as solar, wind, tide and geothermal? For these energy sources to truly replace fossil fuels, societies would have to rely much more on mass transit and electric vehicles, but the same is true for nuclear energy.

The assistance that is now given to the fledgling clean energy technologies is insignificant compared to the direct and indirect subsidies going to multinational oil companies and the cost to taxpayers for proposed nuclear power plants.

The way we produce our energy is one of the most, if not the most, important issues facing the human race. Many people say that the quest for renewable and clean energy is an unattainable dream, but this ignores the considerable progress that has already been made by a relative few working with relatively limited resources. A global effort to support innovation and think outside the box is needed. Otherwise we’re doomed to sticking with default technologies that are already wreaking havoc on the planet.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/339668/don-t-let-nuclear-lessons-fade-over-time

March 9, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

NRA: Tsuruga nuclear power plant reactor ‘likely on active fault’

The Yomiuri Shimbun

A Nuclear Regulation Authority panel has concluded that a geological fault running directly under Japan Atomic Power Co.’s Tsuruga nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture is likely active, according to sources.

The NRA verification panel that examined the layer determined Friday that a crush zone running just beneath the No. 2 reactor at the Tsuruga plant was virtually an active fault. As the government’s seismic safety guidelines prohibit the construction of important facilities on active faults, the NRA will make an official decision in the near future not to allow the restart of the nuclear reactor, the sources said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in his policy speech: “Under the Nuclear Regulation Authority, we will foster a new culture of safety that will uncompromisingly raise the level of safety. After doing so we will restart nuclear power plants whose safety has been confirmed.”

Substantive discussion over the assessment of the fault was largely concluded on the day. Unless new data overturning Friday’s conclusion is presented, the No. 2 reactor is highly likely to be decommissioned.

The panel studied the validity of an assessment report compiled in January by an NRA expert team that investigated the plant. The panel basically confirmed the report, which said, “The crush zone, which may have moved in the past 130,000 years, is highly likely an active fault.”

It was the first time for the NRA to confirm such a decision following a meeting of the verification panel.

The NRA has not made a decision on the plant’s No. 1 reactor, which will soon enter its 43rd year of operation.

According to NRA regulations, the decommissioning of reactors after 40 years of operation will become mandatory in July, which will make it difficult to restart the No. 1 reactor.

On Friday, Japan Atomic Power said it was deeply regrettable the NRA reached the conclusion unilaterally, based solely on the possibility that the fault may be active.

March 9, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

FRANCE-ENERGY-NUCLEAR-ENVIRONMENT-DEMO ( 9 March 2013)

09 Mar 2013

A man dressed as a nuclear waste drum stands in front of protesters holding hands to form a human chain during an anti-nuclear power demonstration on March 9, 2013 in the center of Paris. AFP PHOTO / PIERRE ANDRIEU (Photo credit should read PIERRE ANDRIEU/AFP/Getty Images

Photographer:

PIERRE ANDRIEU/Staff

A protester holds an anti-nuclear banner in front of another’s mouth during an anti-nuclear power demonstration on March 9, 2013 in the center of Paris. AFP PHOTO / PIERRE ANDRIEU (Photo credit should read PIERRE ANDRIEU/AFP/Getty Images)

A woman shouts into a megaphone during an anti-nuclear power demonstration on March 9, 2013 in the center of Paris. AFP PHOTO / PIERRE ANDRIEU (Photo credit should read PIERRE ANDRIEU/AFP/Getty Images)

March 9, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Still Fukushima Suffers in Nuclear Disaster Shadow

by Bidita Debnath on  March 10, 2013 at 12:04 AM

Med India

From a nuclear disaster that some warn could leave part of Japan a hollow shell for generations, Mikio Nihei’s family is split by his need to work and their fear of radiation.

A week after a towering tsunami smashed into the atomic power plant on the Fukushima coast, sparking meltdowns in some reactors, Nihei sent his family away from the clouds of radiation many believed were pouring forth.

But Japan’s fragile economy means Nihei feels unable to leave his job in a car parts factory in Fukushima City, some 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the nuclear plant, so he stayed behind in the family home when his wife and two daughters — now three and five — fled for Tokyo.

Now he sees them only every four weeks.

“I don’t know how long this situation will continue,” Nihei, 38, told AFP in a house decorated with photographs of his daughters and letters they have written for him.

“I can go see them in Tokyo only once a month as travel expenses are high… It’s tough to keep going in this double life, economically and mentally.”

The world’s worst nuclear disaster in a generation is officially recorded as having killed no one. But the human cost has been high.

More than 100,000 people were forcibly evacuated from their homes in a 20-kilometre (12-mile) exclusion zone around the crippled plant. Tens of thousands more — like the Niheis — left a wider area, worried about the health dangers from radiation they could neither see nor smell.

Many take little comfort from pronouncements by government scientists or international bodies, who say the amount of radiation they are being exposed to is unlikely to cause them any harm.

The International Commission of Radiological Protection recommends a dosage limit of one millisievert per year from all sources of radiation, but says exposure to less than 100 millisieverts per year presents no statistically significant increase in cancer risk.

A single CT hospital scan delivers around 10 millisieverts, according to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan.

But, say campaigners, any amount of reassurances cannot mitigate the ever-present fear and little understood threat.

Nihei’s wife Kazuko, 36, said she wanted to avoid any possible risk from radiation, even if it was below 100 millisieverts per year.

“We couldn’t let children play outside anymore, and they got frustrated,” she said in Tokyo. “I didn’t want our daughters to eat locally-grown rice and vegetables.”

On the day AFP visited the Nihei family home in the city of Fukushima, a radiation monitoring post in front of a nearby junior high school showed 0.1 microsievert per hour. If that figure remained constant it would be equal to less than a 1.0 milisievert annual dose.

The World Health Organization said last month that lifetime rates of thyroid cancer for women who lived inside the government-mandated exclusion zone were expected to be 1.25 percent, up 70 percent from the baseline risk of 0.75 percent for Japanese women.

In an illustration of how polarising the issue can be, Greenpeace immediately said the WHO was vastly underestimating the risk, while the Japanese government said its calculations were overblown and based on unrealistic premises.

Two years after the crisis, the no-go zone around the plant is gradually shrinking as radiation levels decrease.

But for Norio Kanno, mayor of Iitate, a village from which some 6,000 residents have been evacuated, a return to normality is still a long way off.

“When we first evacuated, we thought we could go back in about two years,” he said in Tokyo. “But two years have already passed, and things have only just begun.”

Indeed, the timescales involved in the clean-up are far longer than were first imagined.

Full decommissioning of the reactors, where molten fuel ate through concrete casing, is expected to take at least three decades. That, along with the decontamination of surrounding areas, will cost billions of dollars, much of it borne by the taxpayer.

Farmers and fishermen in the region — previously one of Japan’s breadbaskets — complain that despite rigorous testing showing their produce to be safe, few people want to buy it.

Tourism is still suffering, with attractions like the fruit farms near the Niheis’ home seeing visitor numbers cut by three-quarters.

“The government doesn’t have anything that can convince evacuees to come back,” said Mikio Nihei. “I wonder how they are going to rebuild Fukushima.”

Source-AFP

Read more: Still Fukushima Suffers in Nuclear Disaster Shadow | Medindia http://www.medindia.net/news/still-fukushima-suffers-in-nuclear-disaster-shadow-115512-1.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+allhealthnews+(Medindia+Health+News)#ixzz2N4d9LwAf

March 9, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Video: 200,000 protest nuclear power – Taiwan

http://enenews.com/video-200000-protest-nuclear-power

Published: March 9th, 2013 at 11:33 am ET
By ENENews

CNA ENGLISH NEWS, March 9, 2013: 200,000 take part in Taiwan’s anti-nuclear protest […] In what organizers called the largest anti-nuclear protest in Taiwan, an estimated 200,000 people took to the streets in several parts of the island on Saturday to call for the scrapping of nuclear power plants. The protest was held simultaneously in northern, central, southern and eastern Taiwan just two days before the second anniversary of the meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant in the wake of the big earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. […] Later Saturday, a spokeswoman for the Presidential Office said President Ma Ying-jeou was willing to have dialogues with anti-nuclear groups and listen to their suggestions on how Taiwan can find alternatives for nuclear power. […]

The China Post, March 10, 2013: […] Over 100 civic groups joined the nationwide event, including the I am Human group and Victims of Nuclear Power, from Northern Taiwan. Despite the unseasonably hot and humid weather, people flooded into the street in front of the Presidential Office, with some even decked out in heavy costumes. Police estimates put attendance in Taipei at over 50,000, with some 8,000 each in Taichung and Kaohsiung. The event’s main organizers, however, estimated that 120,000 protesters turned out in Taipei and 200,000 nationwide. […]

Published on 9 Mar 2013

March 9, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Are sanctions over-hyped? Is North Korea really a threat?

Beijing wants to avoid a collapse of its neighbour. The dissolution of North Korea could mean a flood of economic refugees into China and the formation of a capitalist Korea controlled by Seoul and friendly with the United States. Bruce Klingner, a retired CIA North Korea analyst at the Heritage Foundation, doubted China was prepared to take the steps needed to make North Korea suffer the way Tehran has.

Sun, 10 March 2013

Oman Daily Observer

By Louis Charbonneau — NEW steps by the UN against North Korea over its nuclear arms programme were designed to bring its sanctions regime more, but fears remain that the measures will have little impact on Pyongyang’s defiant leaders. US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice — who led the drafting of UN Security Council resolution 2094 adopted unanimously last Thursday as well as the bilateral negotiations with China that produced it — said, “These sanctions will bite and bite hard.”
North Korea responded with an escalation of its bellicose rhetoric, including a threat to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States. It also repeated previous threats to cancel the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean war and moved to cut off a hotline with the South. But will the sanctions actually bite? And, if they do bite, will they end the cycle of rocket launches and nuclear tests that have resulted in a sustained push by the US, South Korea and Japan at the UN Security Council to condemn and punish Pyongyang?
Only Beijing and Pyongyang can answer those questions. Some analysts question whether North Korea’s ally and diplomatic protector China really wants “full implementation” of the UN restrictions on trade with North Korea, as its UN envoy Li Baodong called for last Thursday. Without China’s active support, the measures could be largely symbolic. George Lopez, a professor at the University of Notre Dame and a former member of a UN expert panel that monitors compliance with the North Korean sanctions regime, said the new measures could prove to be more effective than previous rounds of UN sanctions have been against Pyongyang.
“This diversity of sanctions measures and other directives in the new resolution have the potential to take a considerable bite out of DPRK (North Korea) money movements and to constrain their access to specialised products critical to missile and centrifuge operations,” he said. The Council’s latest resolution prohibits countries from engaging in any financial transactions with Pyongyang that could in any way be linked to its nuclear and missile programmes.
It also makes interdictions of suspicious North Korean cargo coming in and out of the country in violation of UN sanctions mandatory. Such raids on North Korean vessels were voluntary prior to last Thursday’s action by the Council. Some diplomats and analysts say North Korea’s effectively closed economy dulls the impact of sanctions. But not everyone believes China is ready to get tough on North Korea, even though it clearly dislikes Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme and wants to avoid a new Korean war. As one senior UN Security Council diplomat put it recently, if China had to choose between a nuclear North Korea and no North Korea at all, it would choose the former.
Beijing wants to avoid a collapse of its neighbour. The dissolution of North Korea could mean a flood of economic refugees into China and the formation of a capitalist Korea controlled by Seoul and friendly with the United States. Bruce Klingner, a retired CIA North Korea analyst at the Heritage Foundation, doubted China was prepared to take the steps needed to make North Korea suffer the way Tehran has. “Despite excitement by China watchers that internal debate amongst pundits and media organisations indicate the new Chinese leadership will adopt a new, more stringent policy towards its pesky ally, Beijing again shows itself to be an obstruction at the UN Security Council,” he said.
“The new UN resolution is an incremental improvement, but it doesn’t live up to Ambassador Rice’s hype that it’s exceptional and will significantly impede North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes,” he said. Pyongyang was hit with UN sanctions for its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests, measures that were subsequently tightened and expanded after several rocket launches. In addition to the luxury goods ban, there is an arms embargo on North Korea, and it is forbidden from trading in nuclear and missile technology.

http://main.omanobserver.om/node/156192

North Korea Not a Threat

breakingtheset

Published on 6 Feb 2013

March 9, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Tokyo High Court Declares Japan National Election Unconstitutional

freedomwv

Published on 8 Mar 2013

The high court has ruled that the recent national elections in Japan were not in line with the Japanese constitution.

Asahi Daily Report:

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201303060070

Tokyo court rules Dec. 16 election unconstitutional but not invalid

March 06, 2013

By RYUJIRO KOMATSU/ Staff Writer

March 9, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Vaya con Dios, Hugo Chàvez, mi Amigo – Greg Palast

By Greg Palast, http://www.gregpalast.com/vaya-con-dios-hugo-chavez-mi-amigo/

For BBC Television, Palast met several times with Hugo Chàvez, who passed away today.

As a purgative for the crappola fed to Americans about Chavez, my foundation, The Palast Investigative Fund, is offering the film, The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, as a FREE download. Based on my several meetings with Chavez, his kidnappers and his would-be assassins, filmed for BBC Television. DVDs also available.

Media may contact Palast at interviews (at) gregpalast.com.

Venezuelan President Chavez once asked me why the US elite wanted to kill him. My dear Hugo: It’s the oil. And it’s the Koch Brothers – and it’s the ketchup.

Reverend Pat Robertson said,

“Hugo Chavez thinks we’re trying to assassinate him. I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.”

It was 2005 and Robertson was channeling the frustration of George Bush’s State Department.

Despite Bush’s providing intelligence, funds and even a note of congratulations to the crew who kidnapped Chavez (we’ll get there), Hugo remained in office, reelected and wildly popular.

But why the Bush regime’s hate, hate, HATE of the President of Venezuela?

Reverend Pat wasn’t coy about the answer: It’s the oil.

“This is a dangerous enemy to our South controlling a huge pool of oil.”

A really BIG pool of oil. Indeed, according to Guy Caruso, former chief of oil intelligence for the CIA, Venezuela hold a recoverable reserve of 1.36 trillion barrels, that is, a whole lot more than Saudi Arabia.

If we didn’t kill Chavez, we’d have to do an “Iraq” on his nation. So the Reverend suggests,

“We don’t need another $200 billion war….It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”

Chavez himself told me he was stunned by Bush’s attacks: Chavez had been quite chummy with Bush Senior and with Bill Clinton.

Continue reading →

March 9, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Radioactive Japan: Thyroid Control Screening Reveals Much Higher Percentages of Cysts and Nodules in Children Far Away from Fukushima?

It seems these thyroid “abnormalities” are quite normally occurring anywhere in Japan.

http://ex-skf.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/radioactive-japan-thyroid-control.html

Friday, March 8, 2013

The control screening tests for thyroid abnormalities in children is being carried out by the Ministry of the Environment in Hirosaki City in Aomori Prefecture (distance from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant about 420 kilometers), Kofu City in Yamanashi Prefecture (about 380 kilometers), and Nagasaki City in Nagasaki Prefecture (about 1,480 kilometers).

The preliminary results have been announced by the Ministry of the Environment, and they more or less match the unofficial small-scale screening test results announced by doctors in Kobe City back in November 2012: Children in these far-away areas have higher incidents of nodules and cysts than children in Fukushima Prefecture.

Aomori and Nagasaki hardly had fallout from the accident. Yamanashi had some fallout, but the numbers don’t even compare to the prefectures in Kanto, or even to neighboring Shizuoka.

Fallout from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident in these prefectures in March 2011 (Monthly fallout data from the Ministry of Education):

• Aomori: I-131 1 MBq/km2, Cs-134 0.12 MBq/km2, Cs-137 0.097 MBq/km2
• Yamanashi: I-131 480 MBq/km2, Cs-134 170 MBq/km2, Cs-137 170 MBq/km2
• Nagasaki: I-131 9.8 MBq/km2, Cs-134 0.32 MBq/km2, Cs-137 0.35 MBq/km2

Here are the numbers for the thyroid screening, as reported by Fukushima TV on March 8, 2013:

Number of subjects: 4,300 total
Age of subjects: 3 to 18 years
Tests scheduled to run from November 2012 to the end of March 2013
Locations: Hirosaki City, Aomori Prefecture; Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture; Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture
Results:

Percentage of children found with nodules and/or cysts

• Fukushima Prefecture: 41.2%
• Nagasaki, Aomori, Yamanashi: 56.6%

Percentage of children in B-category that requires further testing　[with nodules larger than 5mm, cysts larger than 20mm]

• Fukushima Prefecture: 0.6%
• Nagasaki, Aomori, Yamanashi: 1%

For more on thyroid abnormalities in children, see this togetter if you read Japanese. It seems these thyroid “abnormalities” are quite normally occurring anywhere in Japan.

That’s not what many people in Japan and abroad want to hear. The conclusion for people in Japan who believe any bad news and rumors and disbelieves any non-bad news and rumors when it comes to radiation is either that the rest of Japan is so heavily contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear accident that children outside Fukushima have even higher incidents of thyroid abnormalities, or that the government is lying.

The former doesn’t make any scientific sense if they want to attribute these abnormalities singularly to the Fukushima nuclear accident (which they do), and the latter doesn’t advance any understanding or discussion. But it doesn’t seem to matter anyway. Radiation contamination has become almost like a religion, and since the national and local governments and government scientists did such a poor job of informing citizens of the nuclear accident and radiation contamination in the early days of the accident, people heavily discount anything they say or do.

Knowledge hasn’t advanced much, with the 2nd anniversary of the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident fast approaching.

For that matter, recovery hasn’t happened much either, other than the fake dead tree in Rikuzen Takata (which now has fake branches and leaves).

———————————————————————————–

Although Shinichi Suzuki, M.D., insisted that these ultrasound findings are “mostly normal” and commonly found in children, the study co-authored by Shunichi Yamashita, M.D., in 2001 revealed that normal children in Nagasaki had 0% nodules and 0.8% cysts on ultrasound.

Source: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B68f83tqq7QuNTVkOVdrNzlRWUk

——————————————————————-

Please refer to this post for the translation of Shunichi Yamashita’s letter to the Japan Thyroid Association members on January 16, 2012. He has asked/ordered physicians to adhere to his protocol. It is unclear why physicians need to follow his orders, but many do. Some hospitals simply refuse to see anybody for radiation-related symptoms.

http://fukushimavoice-eng.blogspot.com/2012/05/fukushima-childrens-thyroid-examination.html

March 8, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Women Rising #22: International Anti-Nuclear Activists

As part of celebrating Womens Day

Listen to Audio interview here

http://www.radioproject.org/2013/03/women-rising-international-anti-nuclear-activists/

With nuclear power back on the agenda, three prominent female activists tell their stories:

Kaori Izumi was part of the grassroots campaign to shutdown Japan’s nuclear power plants, after the Fukushima disaster.

Winona LaDuke, has spent much of her life working to oppose uranium mining on indigenous land. 

And Alice Slater is part of a global initiative to ban nuclear weapons.

On this edition, is the anti-nuclear movement on the rise? This is a special collaboration with Lynn Feinerman and Crown Sephira Productions.

Featuring:

Kaori Izumi, Japanese anti-nuclear activist, Winona LaDuke, Ojibwe activist, Alice Slater, Abolition2000 founder.

March 8, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Startling new find! – Boars “radioactive” in the woods of Valsesia NE Italy More than 600 Bq/Kg

ALARM – “We need to immediately extend the analysis to other wild animals as soon as possible and make clear the sources of contamination,” said Coldiretti. “The boars are animals sentinel pollution conditions in the areas where they live, because they provide precise information thanks to a certain way of exploiting the environment,”

h/t orsobubu from enenews

Traces of cesium-137 found in samples of animals killed during the hunting season 2012/2013

The discovery does not make you happy hunters and lovers of game. Traces of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope released from the nuclear accident in 1986 by the Chernobyl plant, have been found in dozens of wild boars forests of the Sesia Valley, in the province of Vercelli.

We analyzed samples of tongue and diaphragm of animals slaughtered during the hunting season 2012/2013: 27 samples of the level of Cesium 137 is higher than the threshold specified by Regulation 733 of 2008 as the tolerable limit in the event of a nuclear accident.

(600 Bq/kg, although codex allows for 1250 bq/Kg as an average but will allow higher one off finds. The article has shied away from making an actual measurement, this is standard IAEA policy of non information,, So, where does THIS cesium 137 come from? It could be from one of the medical reactors or a culmination of all the most likely sources as cesium 137 lasts for 300 years. Are the cesium 137 levels increasing quicker than the decay rate? If so the implications are staggering! especially as the UK has stopped testing  Sheep from the highlands of Scotland and Wales for radioactive contamination  – Arclight2011)

According to the deputy of the Piedmont Region Roberto Ravello alarmism should be avoided because the health risks would be “contained and controlled.”

HYPOTHESIS – ‘The artificial radionuclide cesium-137 is produced by nuclear fission. Is released from nuclear sites, “says Elena Fantuzzi, head of the Institute of Radiation Protection Enea. The hypothesis most immediate are those that may have been issued after the accident in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986.

But we must also consider the nuclear sites in the area, including the central Trino Vercellese dismantled in 1987 and the experimental site Enea, in Saluggia. Is not excluded even the trail of toxic waste.

According Fantuzzi, you should also consider the metabolism of boars, whether has features that promote the accumulation of cesium-137 above the limits considered safe. “It can not be anything but the fallout of the Chernobyl plant emissions,” adds Gian Piero Godio, Legambiente Piedmont and Val d’Aosta, an expert on nuclear issues. “Other explanations could be: the district of Valsesia has no radioactive source.”

NAS AND NOE – Health Minister Renato Balduzzi alerted the police of Nas and Noe: together with the Directorate General for hygiene and food safety and nutrition of the Ministry will coordinate all investigations. The first coordination meeting is scheduled on March 8.

ALARM – “We need to immediately extend the analysis to other wild animals as soon as possible and make clear the sources of contamination,” said Coldiretti.

“The boars are animals sentinel pollution conditions in the areas where they live, because they provide precise information thanks to a certain way of exploiting the environment,” adds Aldo Grasselli national secretary of the Union of Italian public veterinary medicine (Sivemp).

Drafting Online March 7, 2013 | 21:25 © REPRODUCTION RESERVED

http://www.corriere.it/cronache/13_marzo_07/cinghiali-radioattivi-intervengono-nas_f9ba913e-874c-11e2-82ae-71d5d7252090.shtml

And this from last year

Testing Food For Fukushima Radiation, Swiss Find Chernobyl Contamination Instead

ht vital1 from enenews

Published on 2012-05-28 10:20:46

Mushroom lovers beware. Health authorities in Zurich recently destroyed 10 tons of Ukrainian mushrooms after determining that the wild fungi contained unacceptable levels of radiation.

ZURICH – A food-testing lab in Zurich, Switzerland is sounding the alarm after discovering that a batch of mushrooms shipped from Ukraine contained too much radioactive cesium-137. Ukraine had cleared the mushrooms for export.

The laboratory had been on its toes last year because of the reactor catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan. It ran dozens of tests on various foods from Japan and came up with no radiation-contaminated items. Chemist Rolf Etter was all the more surprised, therefore, to find radiation in food of another provenance – Ukraine – especially since his team stumbled upon the findings by pure chance. Yet in two of the 14 tests conducted on frozen wild Ukrainian mushrooms, tolerance levels of cesium-137 were well over the acceptable mark. The mushrooms had all been imported by the same company.

The results mean that 25 years after the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, dangerous levels of radioactivity are still making their way into the food system. Etter said that what surprised him most was that the declared cesium values were three times lower than what was actually found in his lab’s tests, and that Ukraine had cleared the shipment for export. “It makes you wonder if those declarations are worth anything at all,” he said.

After learning of the results, Zurich authorities destroyed the 10-ton Ukrainian mushroom shipment. The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health is now working with its counterparts in Ukraine to ensure that there are no further problems of the sort.

Read the full story in German by Patrick Kühnis

Photo – Timm Suess

*This is a digest story, not a direct translation

http://www.worldcrunch.com/testing-food-fukushima-radiation-swiss-find-chernobyl-contamination-instead/food-travel/testing-food-for-fukushima-radiation-swiss-find-chernobyl-contamination-instead/c6s5431/#.UTlpOByP8xA

And where do these horses graze?

Title: Radioactivity cesium 137 cesium 134 feces horses fattening calves period june october 1986

Description: The paper deals with data on radioactivity levels of Cs-137 and Cs-134 in feces of horses and fattening calves, as a particularly relevant indicator of radionuclides metabolism in biological systems. The result indicated much higher degree of equine feces contamination in relation to the feces of fattening calves.

https://nuclear-news.net/2013/02/26/radioactive-horse-meat-dark-dealings-of-europes-cruellest-trade/

March 8, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | 3 Comments

982 Bq/Kg from Shiitake mushroom in Kashiwa Chiba

Posted by Mochizuki on March 7th, 2013 ·

According to Kashiwa city Chiba, 982 Bq/Kg of Cs-134/137 was measured from Shiitake mushroom.
It was produced in Kashiwa city Chiba for self-consumption.

Sampling date : 2/7/2013
Cs-134 : 356 Bq/Kg
Cs-137 : 626 Bq/Kg

They also measured 96.8 Bq/Kg from Chinese citron. It was also produced in Kashiwa city for self-consumption.

http://www.city.kashiwa.lg.jp/soshiki/059000/kekka02110220.html

_____

Français :

982 Bq/kg dans des champignons Shiitake à Kashiwa dans Chiba

Selon la municipalité de Kashiwa dans Chiba, 982 Bq/kg de Cs 134/137 ont été relevés dans des champignons Shiitake.
ls ont été produit dans la commune de Kashiwa dans Chiba pour consommation personnelle.

Date d’échantillon : 7 février 2013
Cs 134 : 356 Bq/kg
Cs 137 : 626 Bq/kg

Ils ont aussi relevé 96,8 Bq/kg dans des citrons chinois. Ils étaient aussi produits dans Kashiwa pour consommation personnelle.

http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/03/982-bqkg-from-shiitake-mushroom-in-kashiwa-chiba/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FukushimaDiary+%28Fukushima+Diary%29

March 8, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Obama’s Nominee for Secretary of Energy Is an MIT Professor Who Said It Would Be a Mistake to Abandon Nuclear Power Because of #Fukushima Accident

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

EXSKF

http://ex-skf.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/obamas-nominee-for-secretary-of-energy.html

It sort of rhymes with the Jiji’s interview with Dr. Antonino Zichichi, the 83-year-old Italian particle nuclear physicist who extolled the virtue of safe and cheap nuclear power, dismissing the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident as caused “human errors” committed by lowly non-specialist workers.

President Obama’s pick for the next Secretary of Energy is an MIT theoretical nuclear physicist who wrote in 2011 that it was a grave mistake for governments in the world to abandon nuclear power just because the Fukushima accident happened.

Why? Because nuclear energy is carbon-free energy! (Uggghhh…)

And because Chinese, Indians, Russians, and South Koreans haven’t stopped pursuing nuclear energy even after the Fukushima accident. So why should you?

To address safety of nuclear power plants, he advocates the Small Modular Reactors (SMR), for which Babcock & Wilcox backed by Microsoft’s Bill Gates won the federal government funding for half the cost of its 5-year project to design and commercialize small, modular reactors.

And nuke waste? From what I’ve skimmed through he doesn’t propose anything new. He simply says it has to be addressed.

From his featured essay in Foreign Affairs magazine in 2011 (November/December 2011 issue):

Why We Still Need Nuclear Power
Making Clean Energy Safe and Affordable

By Ernest Moniz

In the years following the major accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, nuclear power fell out of favor, and some countries applied the brakes to their nuclear programs. In the last decade, however, it began experiencing something of a renaissance. Concerns about climate change and air pollution, as well as growing demand for electricity, led many governments to reconsider their aversion to nuclear power, which emits little carbon dioxide and had built up an impressive safety and reliability record. Some countries reversed their phaseouts of nuclear power, some extended the lifetimes of existing reactors, and many developed plans for new ones. Today, roughly 60 nuclear plants are under construction worldwide, which will add about 60,000 megawatts of generating capacity — equivalent to a sixth of the world’s current nuclear power capacity.

But the movement lost momentum in March, when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the massive tsunami it triggered devastated Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. Three reactors were severely damaged, suffering at least partial fuel meltdowns and releasing radiation at a level only a few times less than Chernobyl. The event caused widespread public doubts about the safety of nuclear power to resurface. Germany announced an accelerated shutdown of its nuclear reactors, with broad public support, and Japan made a similar declaration, perhaps with less conviction. Their decisions were made easier thanks to the fact that electricity demand has flagged during the worldwide economic slowdown and the fact that global regulation to limit climate change seems less imminent now than it did a decade ago. In the United States, an already slow approach to new nuclear plants slowed even further in the face of an unanticipated abundance of natural gas.

It would be a mistake, however, to let Fukushima cause governments to abandon nuclear power and its benefits. Electricity generation emits more carbon dioxide in the United States than does transportation or industry, and nuclear power is the largest source of carbon-free electricity in the country. Nuclear power generation is also relatively cheap, costing less than two cents per kilowatt-hour for operations, maintenance, and fuel. Even after the Fukushima disaster, China, which accounts for about 40 percent of current nuclear power plant construction, and India, Russia, and South Korea, which together account for another 40 percent, show no signs of backing away from their pushes for nuclear power.

….

(Full article at the link)

At least partial meltdowns? I think at the time of the publication it had been already fully admitted by TEPCO and the Japanese government that they were total meltdowns and partial melt-throughs (out of Reactor Pressure Vessels).

  The concluding part of the essay, Dr. Moniz says “the public needs to be convinced that nuclear power is safe“. Have we seen this before? Yes, in the past 50 years or so in Japan, and particularly in the past 2. This is a political essay urging politicians to do “now or never” to save the planet from global warming, and telling them he is there to help:

The concluding part of the same essay above (emphasis is mine):

NOW OR NEVER

As greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, finding ways to generate power cleanly, affordably, and reliably is becoming an even more pressing imperative. Nuclear power is not a silver bullet, but it is a partial solution that has proved workable on a large scale. Countries will need to pursue a combination of strategies to cut emissions, including reining in energy demand, replacing coal power plants with cleaner natural gas plants, and investing in new technologies such as renewable energy and carbon capture and sequestration. The government’s role should be to help provide the private sector with a well-understood set of options, including nuclear power — not to prescribe a desired market share for any specific technology.

The United States must take a number of decisions to maintain and advance the option of nuclear energy. The NRC’s initial reaction to the safety lessons of Fukushima must be translated into action; the public needs to be convinced that nuclear power is safe. Washington should stick to its plan of offering limited assistance for building several new nuclear reactors in this decade, sharing the lessons learned across the industry. It should step up its support for new technology, such as SMRs and advanced computer-modeling tools. And when it comes to waste management, the government needs to overhaul the current system and get serious about long-term storage. Local concerns about nuclear waste facilities are not going to magically disappear; they need to be addressed with a more adaptive, collaborative, and transparent waste program.

These are not easy steps, and none of them will happen overnight. But each is needed to reduce uncertainty for the public, the energy companies, and investors. A more productive approach to developing nuclear power — and confronting the mounting risks of climate change — is long overdue. Further delay will only raise the stakes.

 

March 8, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Physicians: Initial health consequences of Fukushima catastrophe are now scientifically verifiable

http://enenews.com/physicians-initial-health-consequences-of-fukushima-catastrophe-are-now-scientifically-verifiable

Published: March 7th, 2013 at 11:57 am ET
By ENENews

Title: Health consequences resulting from Fukushima
Source: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
Author: Henrik Paulitz, Winfrid Eisenberg, and Reinhold Thiel
Date: March 6, 2013
h/t Anonymous tip

Summary

On 11 March 2011, a nuclear catastrophe occurred at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan in the wake of an earthquake and due to serious safety deficiencies. This resulted in a massive and prolonged release of radioactive fission and decay products. Approximately 20% of the radioactive substances released into the atmosphere have led to the contamination of the landmass of Japan with 17,000 becquerels per square metre of cesium-137 and a comparable quantity of cesium-134.

The initial health consequences of the nuclear catastrophe are now, two years after the incident, scientifically verifiable. Similar to the case of Chernobyl, a decline in the birth rate was documented in the nine months following the nuclear catastrophe. Throughout the whole of Japan, the total drop in number of births in December 2011 was 4362, with the Fukushima Prefecture registering a decline of 209 births. […]

Full report here

March 8, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Radiation expert back from Fukushima: Radioactivity still very high… not declining — Health risk played down since it can’t be dealt with — Children’s playgrounds at 200 times normal levels

http://enenews.com/radiation-expert-fukushima-radioactivity-very-high-declining-health-risk-played-down-be-dealt-childrens-playgrounds-200-times-normal-levels

Published: March 7th, 2013 at 12:58 pm ET
By ENENews

Title: Greenpeace: Fukushima victims are victims once again
Source: DW
Author: Gui Hao
Date: March 7, 2013

[…] Heinz Smital, of Greenpeace, believes residents are being kept in the dark over the dangers.

You recently measured the radioactivity in and around Fukushima for Greenpeace Germany. What were your findings?

The radioactivity there is still very high. In the city of Fukushima, which has some 300,000 inhabitants, there are still children’s playgrounds that are highly contaminated. The values we measured there on the ground were 200 times higher than before the nuclear accident. In the evacuated ghost towns where there has been a great effort to clean things up, we have found that the radiation has not declined. It simply isn’t going away. […]

Have people been given enough information by the authorities about how great the risk is?

The health risks are played down, in part because it is something that can’t be dealt with. It’s not possible to decontaminate whole swathes of land, mountains, rivers and riverbanks. You can’t get rid of that contamination. Now there is an effort underway to get people to accept the higher radiation levels. They say it doesn’t have any effects, to stop people from worrying. In this respect, the victims of the disaster are becoming victims once again in that they are being encouraged to accept living in areas where the radiation levels are too high. […]

See also: Headline: “Rising doubts about Japan’s official radiation figures” — Large cities still exposed to high levels of radioactivity from Fukushima plant

March 8, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment