“Don’t abandon the children of Fukushima” (part 5 of 5)
Today was my last day in Fuskushima for this trip, and I had asked the Sugano family if I could film their three children (son Koutarou, 9, daughter Kae, 5, and youngest son Shinjirou, 4) getting ready for school.
Koutarou, who leaves for school the earliest, was up before six. He had breakfast and got dressed in his school uniform, which includes a radiation monitor on a blue lanyard around his neck. While his younger brother and sister still slept, Koutarou got in a few more minutes of morning cartoons before leaving for school.
Koutarou, wearing a radiation monitor on a blue lanyard, watches cartoons before school.
Kae and Shinjirou sleep while their brother gets ready for school.
A little after seven, Koutarou put on a protective face mask and headed to Oguni Elementary School in Date City (the elementary school with the radioactive hotspot that I wrote about yesterday).
Palomares bombs: Spain waits for US to finish nuclear clean-up
By Gerry HaddenPRI’s The World
Actually, just how much plutonium is still out there is hard to determine, because the US has never said how much the bombs were carrying to begin with. But Spanish investigator Carlos Sancho estimates that between 15 and 25 pounds (7 and 11kg) of the material ended up in the soil. Sancho, who runs the Palomares section of the Spanish Department of Energy, insists it does not pose health risks.
[…]”In the movie, they had all this really awesome underwater technology that got the bomb. But in real life, it was much harder to first locate, and then recover the bomb from the sea bed.”
“The earth there can’t be moved because the plutonium is latent in the soil,” he says. “If we disturb the soil the plutonium could be dispersed.”
Cairo – The Egyptian government has announced that it would send an economic delegation to South Korea in the near future to examine ways to bolster cooperation in several fields, including nuclear energy, Al-Hayat reported Sunday.
According to the London-based newspaper, Egypt is seeking to increase its trade with South Korea.
South Korean officials have said that Samsung has decided to establish its first center for development and research in Egypt, an investment worth more than US$300 million.
The Egyptian Tourism Ministry will also work to attract South Korean tourists back to Egypt. Around 76,000 South Korean tourists visited Egypt every year before the 25 January revolution. The Egyptian government also plans to resume direct flights between the two countries.
Total trade between Egypt and South Korea exceeds $3 billion a year, but Egyptian exports to South Korea remain low, with oil constituting 95 percent of them. South Korean investments in Egypt amount to $1 billion while Egyptian investments in South Korea are almost negligible, as investment in South Korea requires large amounts of capital and advanced technology.
“…About the threshold about dose, I don’t disagree to the hypothesis of ICRP about the linear causal relationship between radiation dose and health risk.
I apologize for exaggerating the safety of radiation exposure under 100mSv/y. I am sorry for causing anxiety and distrust.
I admit there was miscommunication about protection from radiation and health risk from the emergency situation just after 311, which was my fault….”
Now Dr. Yamashita has admitted he exaggerated the safety of the situation in Fukushima. He admitted that ICRP radiation standards were valid, they show a much lower exposure to risk level than Yamashita has been promoting. He admits his statements added to the anxiety and distrust among the public and contributed to the discrimination towards those trying to take proper safety measures for their families. Fukushima Diary has provided translation on their site for the letter exchange between Yamashita and a lawyer that includes these admissions.
Dr. Yamashita managed to get himself appointed the head of the Japan Thyroid Doctors association in November 2011. In January 2012 Yamashita had a letter sent to all members of the association telling them to deny patients tests and exams related to thyroid concerns that may have been brought on by the nuclear disaster. This has caused many to be denied second opinions or needed in depth tests.
David Toke Senior Lecturer of Energy Policy at the University of Birmingham 18/10/2012 The government’s plans for new nuclear power stations are on the rocks, and it would require desperate measures to save them. Some evidence of the desperation emerged when John Hayes, the recently appointed minister for energy said, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, that he is ‘mulling over’ the possibility of underwriting plans for building new nuclear power stations. He appeared to be referring to the last remaining ‘live’ proposal by EDF’s for a 3.2 GW nuclear power plant at Hinkley C in Somerset. Mr Hayes would be well advised not to sip from the poisoned chalice (underwriting) he has been presented by nuclear supporters via the Daily Telegraph.
Underwriting means telling EDF, in effect, that the government would foot whatever bill it took to build the power plant. Nobody knows for sure how much that would be given than similar plants still being built in Finland and France are now terribly over budget and a long time behind schedule. Underwriting would blast a hole through specific Conservative pre-election commitments not to underwrite nuclear power construction, not to mention Ed Davey’s pronouncements about there being ‘no blank cheque’ for nuclear. Underwriting would make a complete nonsense of any notion of nuclear power being competitive with renewable energy sources such as wind power and solar power which certainly are not in receipt of ‘underwriting’ commitments.
Australia has been handing key intelligence on Julian Assange to Washington for over two years. Newly-released cables indicate the US conducted an “active and vigorous enquiry” as early as 2010 to ascertain if they could try Assange for espionage.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) revealed it had been in cahoots with the US over the Assange case for over two years, saying it had turned over documents as early as 2010 that pertained to the whistleblower’s activities.
One of the cables dated November 2011 includes a communiqué between former Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and former Attorney-General Robert McClelland on the subject of how best to prosecute Assange.
The cable stipulates that the most successful route to prosecution “would be to show that Mr. Assange had acted as a co-conspirator – soliciting, encouraging or assisting [US Army private] Bradley Manning, to obtain and provide the documents.”
Chris Busby lays into the UK charity Children with Cancer, the largest childhood cancer charity in the UK, which he explains is standing in the way of finding the real causes of childhood cancer. He advises people to stop donating their money to an organisation that wastes it and which avoids looking at what is the obvious cause of childhood cancer, environmental exposure to radioactive contamination. This is clear from the recent studies of uranium particle exposure in Fallujah Iraq and a 14-fold increase in childhood cancer in that town. Nuclear sites, he argues, also run on uranium and release particulates, and are associated with childhood cancer. He accuses the conference committee of bias and draws attention to the astonishing choice of ex- nuclear industry British Nuclear Fuels (Sellafield) research chief, Richard Wakeford, (a man who has described himself as BNFLs Rottweiler) as the CWC plenary conference speaker on the relationship between ionizing radiation and childhood leukemia.
“That didn’t seem to impress several of those in the room. Selectman John Mahoney, who is the board’s liaison to the NMC noted that, when Entergy officials gave a presentation at Plymouth North High School last year, residents were told any threatening aircraft wouldn’t get close to Pilgrim. “Obviously, that was fraudulent,” Mahoney said.”
by MATTHEW NADLER on OCTOBER 19, 2012
Paul Rifkin, a Cotuit resident and an opponent of the relicensing of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, recently took photographs of it from a helicopter.
He told CapeNews.Net he was shocked that he recivred no warning, either from Pilgrim security or flight controllers, for his actions. He shouldn’t have been.
It seems that, while entering the power plant’s property from land or sea is tightly controlled, flying over it is just fine. While aviators are advised to avoid it, Pilgrim Station is not in a no-fly zone, PNPS spokesman David Tarantino told the Nuclear Matters Committee Monday night. If an aircraft were to linger near the plant, security would contact the FAA, he said.
NMC Chairman Jeff Berger said he was surprised that flying over Pilgrim violated no rules.
The ‘decontamination’ effort in Fukushima continues despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles, among which are:
1. After a specific property (or school) is ‘decontaminated’, it is nearly impossible to prevent it from becoming re-contaminated with radiation from neighboring properties that have yet to be ‘decontaminated’ when it rains or when the wind blows.2. Short of actually cutting down all the forests and shaving the topsoil (both large sources of radiation) off the surface of the mountains in the entire contaminated area, true ‘decontamination’ will be impossible.
3. Many companies in charge of ‘decontamination’ are simply small, local construction companies that have no experience or expertise in ‘decontamination’ and offer employees nearly no specialized training and even less personal protection.
4. During ‘decontamination’, which often takes place around schools and homes where children live, the actual act of cutting down trees and removing contaminated dirt in and of itself causes radiation to become airborne once again and causes danger to people, and especially to children, breathing in the contaminated dust.
5. ‘Decontamination’ is viewed by many citizens of Fukushima as a way for the government to make residents “feel safe”, therefore terminating the discussion of evacuation and, more importantly, the associated cost to the government of providingfinancial compensation to those affected.
Today I met with Date City council member Mr. Yoshiaki Kanno to discuss the concerns of the citizens living in the area. We met on the property of one of his constituents whose home is currently undergoing ‘decontamination’. He told me that like the people he represents, he too, thinks ‘decontamination’ is impossible, and that the people should at least be given the option to evacuate and receive compensation. Mr. Kanno did make it clear that this needed to be an “option” as there are people, including some elderly, who have expressed their desire to remain in their homes and on their ancestral land.
“We have to think of ways to protect nuclear workers, otherwise Fukushima won’t be sorted out,” he said.
Agençe France-Presse
19 October 2012
TOKYO: Brainwave-controlled robot suits that allow wearers to don heavy radiation protection without feeling the weight have been unveiled in Japan.
Researchers showed off the latest incarnation of HAL, the Hybrid Assistive Limb, a full body suit that could eventually be used by workers dismantling the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.
HAL – coincidentally the name of the evil supercomputer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey – has a network of sensors that monitor the electric signals coming from the wearer’s brain.
A radiographer went in a bunker where industrial radiography operations were made. The ionising source was a X-ray machine (225kV – 4mA). The radiographer thought that the irradiation was finished but this was not the case and he was exposed.
According to the biological dosimetry, the radiographer received a whole body dose below 200mSv.
At the moment, the licencee is making a reconstitution of the incident to better determine the dose
“It’s such an odd situation because private companies just don’t have this material,” Miles Pomper, a senior research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, D.C., told the Democrat and Chronicle.
No kidding. A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the Los Angeles Times that the company had enriched 1,582 grams of uranium-235 up to 93.4%, a level considered weapons-grade. Good thing Kodak isn’t in Iran; that’s the kind of thing Israel’s been threatening to go to war over.
For Kodak, nuclear reactor and weapons-grade uranium proved useful
Posted on October 18, 2012
From
An Eastman Kodak facility had a small nuclear reactor and 3½ pounds of weapons-grade uranium for more than 30 years. (Associated Press / May 14, 2012)
By Matt PearceMay 14, 2012, 3:01 p.m.
Kodak has the bomb.
… OK, not really. But according to a report from the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat and Chronicle, an EastmanKodak facility had a small nuclear reactor and 3 ½ pounds of weapons-grade uranium for more than 30 years.
Kodak. The company that makes cameras and printers.
“It’s such an odd situation because private companies just don’t have this material,” Miles Pomper, a senior research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, D.C., told the Democrat and Chronicle.
No kidding. A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the Los Angeles Times that the company had enriched 1,582 grams of uranium-235 up to 93.4%, a level considered weapons-grade. Good thing Kodak isn’t in Iran; that’s the kind of thing Israel’s been threatening to go to war over.
The company was using the reactor to check its chemicals and perform radiography tests, the commission said, and had upgraded to its in-house system after using one at Cornell University, according to the Democrat and Chronicle. It was reportedly guarded and monitored carefully.
Kodak, not known as one of the world’s nuclear powers, filed for bankruptcy protection in January and has been shedding some of its holdings.
MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed …. When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.”
The REAL Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan (It Was Not To End the War Or Save Lives)
Posted on October 14, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog
Atomic Weapons Were Not Needed to End the War or Save Lives
Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American and Japanese lives.
But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise.
The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946 that concluded (52-56):
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
General (and later president) Dwight Eisenhower – then Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces, and the officer who created most of America’s WWII military plans for Europe and Japan – said:
The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.
Newsweek, 11/11/63, Ike on Ike
Eisenhower also noted (pg. 380):
In [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.
During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whoseemployment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude….
Admiral William Leahy – the highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who was at the center of all major American military decisions in World War II – wrote (pg. 441):
It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
“Nuclear energy policy is connected with economic growth, employment and national security, among other concerns. It is not a matter that should be settled by referendums.
On the reactivation of reactors at nuclear power plants where safety has been confirmed, the government needs to be responsible for making decisions while taking local opinions into consideration.”
Tokyo’s Nikkiso moves manufacturing plant to avoid predicted earthquake on Pacific coast
A major Japanese precision equipment maker plans to relocate its plant to the Sea of Japan coast to avoid the negative impact of a predicted major earthquake along the country’s Pacific coast.
Tokyo’s Nikkiso Company manufactures medical equipment and aircraft parts at its plant in Makinohara City on the Pacific coast of Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan.
But the Japanese government released projections in August suggesting more than 300,000 people could be killed in a massive earthquake and tsunami that could possibly occur near the Nankai Trough along the country’s Pacific coast.
The manufacturer decided to move the plant to the Sea of Japan coast city of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture.
The company’s CEO Toshihiko Kai visited Ishikawa prefectural office on Thursday. He reported the relocation plan to Ishikawa Governor Masanori Tanimoto and Kanazawa Mayor Yukiyoshi Yamano.
Kai said it would be difficult for a medical equipment maker in Shizuoka to fulfill its heavy social responsibility in the event of major disaster.
Referendums no way to decide restarts of nuclear reactors -say Shizuoka Prefectural Assembly
Nuclear energy policy is connected with economic growth, employment and national security, among other concerns. It is not a matter that should be settled by referendums.
On the reactivation of reactors at nuclear power plants where safety has been confirmed, the government needs to be responsible for making decisions while taking local opinions into consideration.
The Shizuoka Prefectural Assembly has rejected a draft ordinance on holding a referendum to ask residents whether they would support the restart of reactors at Chubu Electric Power Co.’s Hamaoka nuclear plant in the prefecture.
The draft ordinance was requested of the prefectural government by a citizens organisation that collected the signatures of more than 160,000 residents in the prefecture.
Far-reaching ramifications
Even if such a referendum were held, the result would not be legally binding. But it would likely affect decisions made by the central government, concerned local governments and the utility company. We praise the prefectural assembly for its sound judgment in rejecting it and preventing unnecessary confusion.
The problem is that Shizuoka Gov. Heita Kawakatsu expressed support for holding a referendum on the grounds that there were a large number of signatures in favor of submitting a draft ordinance.
Message from Noam Chomsky about support to the Fukushima Evacuate Children Lawsuit
On 2012/01/12, at 11:50, Noam Chomsky wrote:
It is a privilege to be able to lend personal support to the Fukushima Evacuate Children Lawsuit.
There is no better measure of the moral health of a society than how it treats the most vulnerable people within it, and none or more vulnerable, or more precious, than children who are the victims of unconscionable actions.
For Japan, and for all of us, this is a test that we must not fail.
“We have to think of ways to protect nuclear workers, otherwise Fukushima won’t be sorted out,” he said.
nuclear-news 