Ian Thomas Ash was attacked by a media outlet here and some links to the companies behind the attacks
“This is not to say that all of the response has been positive. One notable (and particularly vicious) attack on me, the film and the mothers who appear in it, was published this week in Asa Ge Plus (アサ芸プラスここ) under the title “Fukushima Discrimination Film ‘A2-B-C’ Encourages International Discrimination of Fukushima” (福島差別映画「A2-B-C」が国際的な“福島差別”を助長する). ” http://ianthomasash.blogspot.fr/2014/06/anonymous-attack.html
put this here to check out later .. http://zakko.or.jp/outline_eng/04.html
Japan Magazine Advertising Association-JMAA Overview
zakko.or.jp
一般社団法人 日本雑誌広告協会WebSiteです。
i feel the beginnings of an article coming on .. i hope some Japanese speakers can have 5 minutes searching also .. for connections .. got ADK as well .. Hmmm?
OKUMA SHOTEN PUBLISHING CO., LTD. http://whois.net/whois/asagei.com
Whois Lookup & IP | Whois.net
whois.net
Whois.net, Your Trusted Source for Secure Domain Name Searches, Registration & A…
LOL == http://zakko.or.jp/outline_eng/06.html director is a trustee of JMAA //
Japan Magazine Advertising Association-JMAA Overview
zakko.or.jp
一般社団法人 日本雑誌広告協会WebSiteです。
Just a quick note to apologise for a lack of posts this week.
Owing to a perfect storm of personal issues, we have been very busy. Normal service will be resumed with a week update and return to normal postings on Friday 20th June.
Also, Nuclear hotseat has been having some technical problems and the website is being sorted out as we speak. You can access Libbe`s podcast using a podcast downloader, search for “Nuclear Hotseat” . I will be posting direct links to the mp3 podcast tomorrow if the website continues to have problems (Update ; the link appears to be working again http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/1978/ Link to podcast mp3 download here, just in case http://lhalevy.audioacrobat.com/download/9e5ba2b0-cb08-4a3d-152c-bb42f0fae095.mp3 )
Needless to say, we have been busy planning for the continuing well being of nuclear-news and its subscribers and readers. Please be a bit more patient and we will be posting as normal. many thanks for hanging in there! There will be lots of exciting nuclear news on its way!
The California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) will hold a public meeting regarding the San Onofre proposed settlement, Monday, June 16, 2014, at the Costa Mesa Neighborhood Community Center, 1845 Park Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92627, 4pm to 7pm, (MAP).
There are many reasons to be concerned about a secret deal that resulted in jubilation from Edison. They left ratepayers holding the bag for huge risks taken by senior management which led to the permanent shutdown at San Onofre. The agreement avoids an investigation into wrongdoing that should have taken place before any settlement talks began. It is time to reject this deal and get the facts established in an open and public manner. Don’t let them place responsibility on consumers for their mistakes while they take huge profits.
Many have worked hard to bring this next public meeting about, especially Ray Lutz who is leading the Coalition to Decommission San Onofre (CDSO), which includes San Clemente Green. Please do your part by attending this meeting if at all possible. It is not just about money, although billions of ratepayer’s money is on the line. It is about holding people accountable and protecting ratepayer’s interests. If we don’t stand up for our rights, no one else will.
Two moderate earthquakes have struck off Japan’s eastern coast near Fukushima, but officials say there’s no immediate risk to the stricken nuclear power plant.
The epicentre of the first quake, with a magnitude measuring 5.7, was located some 91km off the coast of Honshu, Japan’s largest and most populated island, at a depth of 22km shortly after 3am local time (0400 AEST).
The US Geological Survey said a second, 5.6-magnitude quake struck two hours later, slightly closer to shore at a depth of 39km. Cities nearest to the epicentre included Iwaki, Kitaibaraki, Namie and Hitachi.
The same coastline was struck by a devastating quake and subsequent tsunami in 2011 that killed more than 18,000 people and sparked a meltdown at the Fukushima power plant – the world’s worst nuclear accident in a generation.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the Fukushima plant, said in an email that it had found no anomalies at the site following the quakes. Two other plants in the region also reported no problems.
Trains continued to operate normally and no damage or injuries were reported, the NHK broadcaster reported.
The Japan Meteorological Agency put the magnitude of the first quake on Monday slightly higher at 5.8, adding that there was no immediate risk of a tsunami.
Japan is situated at the conjuncture of several tectonic plates and experiences a number of relatively violent quakes every year.
But thanks to strict building codes, even powerful quakes that might wreak havoc in other countries frequently pass without causing much damage.
Overnight on Sunday, a moderate 5.6-magnitude quake struck northern Honshu with no damage reported. Last month a strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake shook buildings in the Japanese capital Tokyo, injuring 17 people.
Environmental groups have long worried about the local geology and contamination of underground water sources near the site, which can accept low-level waste from compact members Texas and Vermont as well as 36 other states.
The site could soon be the resting place for hotter material that’s being stored at Texas’ four commercial nuclear reactors.
The company operating Texas’ only radioactive waste dump site is asking state regulators to allow disposal of depleted uranium and triple the capacity of a burial site that accepts waste from dozens of states.
Although Waste Control Specialists says the uranium stored at its West Texas site would have only low-level radioactivity, opponents say the proposal would get the company another step closer to handling more dangerous material that wasn’t part of the original license. The company has already been in talks with county officials about high-level waste disposal.
Meanwhile, the Dallas-based business has also asked the state to reduce the money it’s required to have available to fund potential liability at the site — to about $86 million from $136 million.
“The public should be paying attention, but they’re not,” said state Rep. Lon Burnam, a Fort Worth Democrat who has taken an active role in monitoring how the state handles radioactive waste. “We have less and less financial assurances and greater threat for more harm.”
The depleted uranium, a byproduct of enriched uranium that fuels nuclear power plants, would come from U.S. Department of Energy facilities, said company spokesman Chuck McDonald.
Although the uranium would still be classified as low-level, experts say the substance gets more radioactive as time passes and if disposed of improperly could pose health risks such as cancer.
To ensure safety, the depleted uranium would have to be disposed of at the greatest depth possible, said Andrea Morrow, a spokeswoman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA (Reuters) – Nuclear-armed states are modernizing their arsenals and appear determined to keep sizable numbers of such weapons of mass destruction for the foreseeable future, the SIPRI think-tank said in its annual report on Monday. Five years after U.S. President Barack Obama set out a vision of a world without nuclear weapons, the findings by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute made clear just how distant that goal remains.
While there has been a steady decline in the number of nuclear warheads in the world over the past five years, nine countries still had a total of 16,300 such weapons in early 2014 – down by around 5.6 percent from the previous year – of which some 4,000 were operational. “Once again this year, the nuclear weapon-possessing states took little action to indicate a genuine willingness to work toward complete dismantlement of their nuclear arsenals,” wrote SIPRI researchers Shannon Kile and Phillip Patton Schell.
Arclight note .. I was unable to get the full SIPRI report but i got some more from here ; From Euronews
VIENNA (Reuters) – Nuclear-armed states are modernising their arsenals and appear determined to keep sizable numbers of such weapons of mass destruction for the foreseeable future, the SIPRI think-tank said in its annual report on Monday.
Five years after U.S. President Barack Obama set out a vision of a world without nuclear weapons, the findings by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute made clear just how distant that goal remains.
While there has been a steady decline in the number of nuclear warheads in the world over the past five years, nine countries still had a total of 16,300 such weapons in early 2014 – down by around 5.6 percent from the previous year – of which some 4,000 were operational.
And the pace of reductions seems to be slowing compared with a decade ago, the Swedish think-tank said.
“Once again this year, the nuclear weapon-possessing states took little action to indicate a genuine willingness to work toward complete dismantlement of their nuclear arsenals,” wrote SIPRI researchers Shannon Kile and Phillip Patton Schell.
The Cold War-era enemies United States and Russia together hold about 93 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons and their reductions under the New Start treaty ratified in 2011 were the main factor behind the decline in global numbers.
SIPRI identified seven other nuclear weapon states – Britain, France, China, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea.
The United States, Russia, France, Britain and China are the world’s five officially recognised nuclear weapons states. The four others are outside the global Non-Proliferation Treaty, designed to prevent the spread of atomic arms.
Non-nuclear weapon states often criticise the five for not sufficiently living up to their part of the central bargain of the 1970 NPT, when nations without atomic bombs pledged not to seek them and nuclear states agreed to pursue disarmament talks.
The United States and Russia “have extensive modernization programs under way for their remaining nuclear delivery systems, warheads, and production facilities”, the SIPRI report said.
The nuclear arsenals of the others are considerably smaller, but they are “either developing or deploying new weapons or have announced their intention to do so”.
NORTH KOREA’S NUCLEARWEAPONS
Israel is widely assumed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed power, drawing frequent Iranian and Arab condemnation. Israel for its part accuses Iran of developing a capability to assemble such arms, a charge Tehran denies.
Obama gave new impetus to the often halting process of disarmament in his 2009 speech in Prague, and last year he proposed further cutting nuclear arsenals by a third.
However, his aim has produced mixed results so far, not least because of a plan by the United States and NATO to build an anti-missile shield around Western Europe, which Russia has said could erode its nuclear deterrent.
Moscow has frequently said it is unlikely to go for further cuts in its nuclear arsenal unless its concerns are addressed.
“Russia is in the middle of a broad upgrade of its strategic nuclear forces that over the next decade will retire all Soviet-era inter-continental ballistic missiles,” SIPRI said.
Of the nine states covered in its report, SIPRI estimated that North Korea – which has carried out three nuclear tests since 2006 in defiance of international sanctions and condemnations – had the fewest weapons, with six to eight.
“There is an emerging consensus in the expert community that North Korea has produced a small number of nuclear weapons, as distinct from rudimentary nuclear explosive devices,” it said.
While North Korea has long boasted of making strides in acquiring a “nuclear deterrent”, there had been general scepticism that it could master the step of miniaturising a nuclear warhead to mount on a ballistic missile.
But there has been a shift in thinking since it conducted a nuclear test in February last year. There have been on-off indications that it is preparing another, and some experts now say it may be closer than previously thought to putting a nuclear warhead on a missile.
However, SIPRI said there was “no public evidence to date that it has developed a sufficiently compact nuclear warhead or other key technologies for a nuclear-armed ballistic missile”.
On the one hand, these costs do not appear large in comparison to the fixed cost of keeping a nuclear plant open (insurance, employees, and so on). Indeed, this is why some analysts believe the US nuclear industry is at risk.
[…]
Overall, we find that the cost of electricity generation in California increased because of the closure by about $350 million during the first twelve months. This is a large change, equivalent to a 13% increase in total in-state generation costs; yet it went almost completely unnoticed because of a contemporaneous offsetting decrease in natural gas prices.
[…]
As it turns out, these plants were operated through a tolling agreement with JPMorganChase, and they were investigated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for market manipulation between 2010 and 2012 (FERC 2013). While our analysis cannot be used to prove withholding or other market manipulation, it does serve as a useful diagnostic tool for unusual plant behaviour.
[…]
Over this period, we find that the closure of San Onofre increased carbon dioxide emissions by 9 million tons, implying a social cost of almost $320 million per year. A large fraction of the world’s nuclear plants are beginning to reach retirement age, and it is important to take these external costs into account as decisions are made about whether or not to extend the operating lives of these plants.
[…]
Despite the high cost of the San Onofre closure, the decision to shutter the plant appears to have been optimal from the operator’s perspective. The plant’s annual operations and maintenance expenditures were substantial – around $340 million per year.
Just as free trade in goods offers opportunities for efficiency gains, electricity transmission infrastructure facilitates exchange in electricity markets. The first-order effects of geographic integration in electricity markets are straightforward – allocation of production across firms is improved, so lower cost generating resources can be used to meet demand.
In addition, some unusual features of the electricity market make transmission particularly valuable. Storage of electricity, unlike most goods, is prohibitively expensive. As a result, supply must meet demand on a continual basis. Moreover, demand is both price-inelastic and highly variable. As a result, the market typically clears on the supply side, and large price swings are possible whenever supply is inelastic. Geographic integration can smooth this volatility by expanding the number of potential suppliers.
Finally, adequate transmission has important implications for competition in deregulated electricity generation markets. The combination of inelastic demand and lack of storage means these markets are susceptible to the exercise of market power. Because it increases the number of relevant competitors, adequate transmission is necessary for competitive generation markets to function well (Borenstein, Bushnell, and Stoft 2000, Wolak 2012, Ryan 2013).
While the qualitative importance of transmission is well understood, the ability to quantify the benefits is still important for policymakers, because transmission investments are not made in a competitive marketplace. Transmission is a natural monopoly, so it has traditionally been price-regulated; in addition, new investments face a suite of overlapping economic and environmental regulations (CEC 2009). Transmission has also been at the heart of policy discussions on incentivising the expansion of renewable generation (DOE 2009, CAISO 2014).
Quantifying the benefits of transmission is tricky. Ex-ante simulations must rely on simplifying assumptions that can only approximate how generators and system operators behave in real time. Ex-post calculations are difficult because building a credible counterfactual is not always possible; investments in transmission capacity are endogenous responses to changes in market conditions, and they are planned years in advance. Previous studies of transmission constraints in electricity markets have either used stylised theoretical models (Cardell, Hitt, and Hogan 1997, Joskow and Tirole 2000), or Cournot simulations (Borenstein, Bushnell, and Stoft 2000, Ryan 2013).
Calculating the benefits of transmission
In new work, we use a different approach. We take advantage of a natural experiment to calculate ex-post the value of electricity transmission (Davis and Hausman 2014). In 2012, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California was closed unexpectedly because of safety concerns. The plant had been a large resource, generating enough electricity to supply 2.3 million households – about 8% of all electricity generated in the state. Moreover, it was located near two large demand centres (Los Angeles and San Diego) in an area with limited transmission capacity. As a result, its closure caused transmission constraints to bind, substantially increasing the cost of meeting demand.
We use data from the year and a half leading up to the San Onofre closure to construct a supply curve for a hypothetical world in which San Onofre had not closed. We then compare this counterfactual to observed generation outcomes following the closure, calculating the increased cost required to meet demand. Overall, we find that the cost of electricity generation in California increased because of the closure by about $350 million during the first twelve months. This is a large change, equivalent to a 13% increase in total in-state generation costs; yet it went almost completely unnoticed because of a contemporaneous offsetting decrease in natural gas prices.
We further decompose the cost increase into two effects. The first effect is simply the cost of using higher cost natural-gas plants to fill in for the lost nuclear generation. Like other nuclear power plants, San Onofre produced electricity at very low marginal cost. When the plant closed, this generation had to be made up for by operating other, more expensive generating resources. The second effect is the additional cost attributable to transmission constraints. The binding transmission constraints meant that it was not possible to meet all of the lost output from San Onofre using the lowest cost available generating resources. We calculate that the transmission effect totalled around $40 million in the first twelve months following the closure.
With this estimate of $40 million, we find that several transmission projects would have payback periods of less than ten years. Indeed, the California Independent System Operator has been working since 2012 to implement several projects to relieve the congestion caused by the San Onofre closure.
Plant-level impacts
In addition to state-wide estimates of changes in generation, we look at effects at the individual plant level. We document two important outliers: plants that would have been expected to substantially increase their generation following the San Onofre closure, but whose average generation remained essentially unchanged. As it turns out, these plants were operated through a tolling agreement with JPMorganChase, and they were investigated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for market manipulation between 2010 and 2012 (FERC 2013). While our analysis cannot be used to prove withholding or other market manipulation, it does serve as a useful diagnostic tool for unusual plant behaviour.
Environmental implications
In addition to the value of electricity transmission, several other policy implications emerge from our analysis. We document that the closure of San Onofre had important environmental implications, in addition to the generation costs described above. While California currently has a cap and trade program for carbon dioxide emissions, the program was not yet in place in 2012. Over this period, we find that the closure of San Onofre increased carbon dioxide emissions by 9 million tons, implying a social cost of almost $320 million per year. A large fraction of the world’s nuclear plants are beginning to reach retirement age, and it is important to take these external costs into account as decisions are made about whether or not to extend the operating lives of these plants.
Despite the high cost of the San Onofre closure, the decision to shutter the plant appears to have been optimal from the operator’s perspective. The plant’s annual operations and maintenance expenditures were substantial – around $340 million per year. Thus even though San Onofre had a much lower marginal cost than natural gas plants, its profitability was questionable. Indeed, the impact of low natural gas prices on wholesale electricity prices is jeopardising the balance sheets of many US nuclear plants.
Concluding remarks
Having adequate transmission helps electricity markets to run more efficiently and reliably. The closure of the San Onofre plant in California is important in this context – it shows how the unexpected closure of just one resource can have large economic costs. Our research finds that closing the plant increased the cost of generation by $350 million per year, and that $40 million of this is attributable to transmission constraints. Additionally, the closure led to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions worth $320 million annually.
On the one hand, these costs do not appear large in comparison to the fixed cost of keeping a nuclear plant open (insurance, employees, and so on). Indeed, this is why some analysts believe the US nuclear industry is at risk.
On the other hand, the costs could potentially have been much higher. If a particularly hot summer had led to spikes in demand, if natural gas prices had been higher, or if a substantial amount of market power had been exercised, the cost of the San Onofre closure (including the cost of transmission constraints) would have been significantly larger.
We believe there are many current and former nuclear weapons workers living in southern New England who are eligible for monetary compensation and medical benefits, but who have yet to file a claim. Our goal is to inform these individuals about the program and to assist them with obtaining the compensation and medical benefits to which they are entitled
The U.S. Department of Labor will host a town hall meeting on Thursday, June 19, at the Courtyard by Marriott, 4 Sebethe Drive, Cromwell, to notify current and former nuclear weapons employees who worked at 33 covered facilities in southern New England about the benefits available to them under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act.
“We believe there are many current and former nuclear weapons workers living in southern New England who are eligible for monetary compensation and medical benefits, but who have yet to file a claim. Our goal is to inform these individuals about the program and to assist them with obtaining the compensation and medical benefits to which they are entitled. We encourage anyone interested in filing a claim or learning more about the EEOICPA to attend the upcoming town hall meetings or contact our New York Resource Center at 800-941-3943,” said Division of Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Director Rachel P. Leiton.
The program, which is administered by the DEEOIC, part of the department’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, provides lump-sum compensation and medical benefits to eligible U.S. Department of Energy nuclear weapons workers, including employees, former employees, contractors and subcontractors. Survivors of qualified workers may be entitled to benefits. Officials will present an overview of Parts B and E of the EEOICPA and discuss the medical benefits available to approved claimants.
Covered facilities in Connecticut include the following: American Chain and Cable Co., Bridgeport; Anaconda Co., Waterbury; Bridgeport Brass Co., Havens Laboratory, Bridgeport; Combustion Engineering, Windsor; Connecticut Aircraft Nuclear Engine Laboratory, Middletown; Dorr Corp., Stamford; Fenn Machinery Co., Hartford; Machlett Laboratories, Springdale; New England Lime Co., Canaan; Seymour Specialty Wire, Seymour; Sperry Products Inc., Danbury; and Torrington Co., Torrington.
Staff from DEEOIC’s Cleveland District Office and New York Resource Center will be available for extended hours on June 18-19 to assist individuals with filing new claims under the EEOICPA and to provide updates on existing claims. These meetings are open to the public and preregistration is not required.
Extremely high density of Tritium was detected from groundwater of deep layer.
Tepco has started building the frozen water underground wall. In order to investigate the groundwater contamination outside of the wall, Tepco took sample from 25m underground.
As a result, 3,100,000 Bq/m3 of Tritium was measured from the sample taken near reactor2. The sampling date was 5/28/2014. From Fukushima Diary’s research, this is the highest reading since they started measuring.
They measured Strontium-90 from the same deep layer beside reactor4 last November.
There is a possibility that contaminated water is traveling under the sea bottom of Fukushima port to come up offshore.
(Highest density of Tritium detected from 25m underground / 3,100,000 Bq/m3 [URL])
From Tepco’s follow-up report on 6/13/2014, the Tritium density increased again and it reached 4,700,000 Bq/m3 in the same from the same sampling well (Location is on the map above).
Tepco hasn’t made any explanation on this increase in Tritium density. From Fukushima Diary’s research, this is the highest reading since Tepco started measuring groundwater 25m underground. There is a possibility that the frozen water wall is spreading contamination underground.
As I climbed the steep stairs to the Yamatsumi shinto shrine from the entrance gateway at the bottom of the mountain, the view over the beautiful Iitate village surrounded by the rich nature appeared in front of me. There was once a rumor, based on a TV program, that Yamatzumi shrine blocked the wave of radiation, shielding the village. I asked about the rumor, but the person living in the shrine laughed my question down saying, “Oh, I have heard about it!” Maybe the TV clues wanted to create an emotional episode that a shinto shrine protected the village from radiation.
As soon as we met, Hosokawa started saying, “This country is going mad. There is something seriously wrong going on”. He led us to the ranch after quick exchange of greetings. According to him, horses have fallen ill one by one within these short weeks. Among his 34 horses, four were unable to stand up anymore.
One of the four, a white miniature horse, had the worst condition. Its skin was badly damaged. The veterinarian doctor who accompanied us saw it and indicated the symptoms of damaged liver although he did not know the reason. It had jaundiced eyes. The doctor was wondering why its knees were so wobbly. Hosokawa stroked the lying horse, saying, “I think it can’t make it through this month. Poor thing….”
A wild boar rushed down beside the ranch, as we were talking.
15 foals have been born since the beginning of this year, but 14 of them died within a month, sometimes within a week.
“I have lived with horses since I was a kid, but I have never seen anything like this. It’s not normal. I think radiation is responsible for this”.
Hosokawa stresses the effect of radiation as a cause. Of course he doesn’t have proper scientific grounds to support his idea, but his long relationship with horses gives him the instinctive feeling.
The media have reported that many cows had died in the evacuation area, because people who fed them left the village, and the cows didn’t get sufficient nutrition to survive. However, the horses on Hosokawa’s ranch have been getting sufficient feed, if not plenty.The horses without symptoms did not look skinny and seemed to have appetite.
First death of a USS Ronald Reagan sailor hit by radiation from Fukushima Daiichi while on the humanitarian aid Operation Tomodachi. Information just released today by the legal team representing the USS Reagan sailors in their billion dollar lawsuit against TEPCO.
Military honors for the late Theodore A. Holcomb, formerly of the USS Ronald Reagan and one of the sailors represented in the billion dollar lawsuit against TEPCO. FEATURED – VOICES FROM JAPAN:
Laura and Giichi Inoue run Komoro Homestay, a program which sponsors Fukushima families with small children to come to the relative safety of the Komoro/Nagano region to alleviate the stress of their daily lives . They provide educational materials and the chance to speak honestly about their fears and stresses – a rarity in Japan. To contact Komoro Homestay, go to: https://www.facebook.com/groups/299490890226766/
For those who wish to share practical radiation-related material with Komoro Homestay, send an email to: LauraJane713@gmail.com.
NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK:
Canadian Nuclear “Safety” Commission has the gall to produce report saying that while the rest of the world’s radioactive materials may cause cancer, their s**t don’t stink and their radiation won’t hurt you… unless… well sometimes… maybe… but not very often… no, really (said Pinnochio as his nose grew longer…).
PLUS:
NRC needs to “duck and cover” as Sen. Barbara Boxer demands accountability and Sen. Ed Markey blows the lid off NRC reprisals against employees who stand up for safety;
Sen. Boxer On Fire re: Wild Fire Within 1/2 mile of San Onofre Nuke Plant – a video by Myla Reson
Vermont Yankee critics use laugh track on NRC and Entergy spokesmodels;
Radioactive groundwater spikes under Indian Point NPP;
TEPCO admits it hasn’t a clue what’s happening with the melted core or the water leaks at Fukushima;
Japan forgets to report on its hidden stash of 80-bombs-worth of weapons grade plutonium – OOPS!
Midwest activists unveil media campaign against new Fermi 3 nuke in Michigan:
Award winning actor Martin Sheen and activist John Dear discuss the reasons why we should ban nuclear weapons at the ICAN Civil Society Forum 2013 in Oslo.
ICAN would like to thank the Oslo Student -TV for the images http://ostv.no
A map of the children with Thyroid cancers in Fukushima … and growing! When you hear 89 cases or suspected cancers, don’t bother. As it is revealed that 98% of the “suspected” cases turned out to be CONFIRMED. The experiment on the children is going unabated. Let’s make sure we reserve uncomfortable jail cells for both Yamashita and Suzuki.
Yoshida Masao, the Fukushima Daiichi plant manager who died of cancer in July 2013, gave alarming testimony to government investigators about the crisis that was kept secret until revealed by the Asahi in May 2014
In April 2014 Prime Minister Abe unveiled Japan’s new national energy strategy, reinstating nuclear energy as a key source of energy even as the shambolic cleanup and decommissioning at the Fukushima Daiichi lurches from one blunder to the next malfunction, and radiation contaminated groundwater flows into the ocean. This is a major milestone in the comeback of nuclear energy despite a seemingly endless cascade of damning revelations about lax safety practices and perfunctory oversight since the three reactor meltdowns in March 2011. As a result, 2014 may be Japan’s last nuclear free summer for the next few decades as pressure is mounting to restart some of Japan’s 48 idled reactors.
Why has Fukushima not been a game changing event? The institutions of Japan’s nuclear village (principally the utilities, big business, the bureaucracy and the Diet) enjoy considerable advantages in terms of energy policymaking. (Kingston 2012c, Kingston 2012d, Kingston 2013a, Kingston 2013b) They have enormous investments at stake and matching financial resources. Richard Samuels argues that the nuclear village is too big to fail while Jacques Hymans draws attention to the institutional advantages that favor energy policy inertia. (Samuels 2013, Hymans 2011) Abe’s nuclear renaissance is possible because the nuclear village has engaged in relatively successful damage control while also working the corridors of power and backrooms where energy policy is decided. In this arena the nuclear village with its vast financial and lobbying resources enjoys tremendous advantages that explain why it has prevailed over public opinion concerning national energy policy.
National Energy Plan Faces Hurdles
In April 2014 the Abe cabinet approved Japan’s first new national energy plan since the Fukushima accident. (DeWit 2014) Unlike earlier national energy plans, the government did not explicitly adopt numerical targets for the energy mix, probably to avoid presenting a target for antinuclear activists. But it left open the door to new reactor construction and suggested that nuclear energy should remain a key base-load source of continuous energy supply. It also said it would proceed with restarts once the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) verifies that reactors have met new safety criteria.
With Abe at the helm and the LDP facing no effective political opposition in the Diet, it looks like smooth sailing ahead for the nuclear village. But even as Abe’s plans for a nuclear renaissance gain momentum, obstacles remain.These include the necessity to: (1) secure NRA approval of reactor restarts; (2) gain host community agreement to restarts; (3) overcome prefectural government opposition to restarts; (4) decide on the fate of reactors that do not meet new safety criteria; (5) decide what to do with radioactive waste; (6) overcome technical problems at Rokkasho, the spent-fuel reprocessing facility, and the massive costs of pursuing the nuclear fuel cycle; (7) justify nuclear energy in light of diminished power demand and nuclear’s high costs; (8) overcome public opposition and media criticism; and (9) the unnerving spectacle, three years after Fukushima, of 130,000 nuclear refugees coping with long-term displacement and facing the end of government subsidies.
Post-Fukushima it seemed unlikely that Japan would restart nuclear reactors let alone export them, but both initiatives are central to PM Abe’s agenda. The stakes are exceptionally high given the vast amount of money invested in the 48 viable reactors and the opportunity cost of foregoing this source of energy and decommissioning the plants. The vested interests in industry, government, and finance that have the most to lose from phasing out nuclear energy remain resolute and influential. Since the furor has subsided somewhat, nuclear energy has settled back into existing policy ruts; inertia trumped transformation because it is easier to sustain what exists than to mount an energy revolution that takes on established vested interests and challenges policy rigidities. Nonetheless, Japanese doubts remain high, especially because the stricken Fukushima plant continues to spew radiation into the ocean and the media has drawn attention to lingering safety issues and the unlearned lessons of Fukushima.
Abe’s restart agenda has become more complicated following the revelation in May 2014 that the government and Tepco had been hiding the fact that almost all workers, including managers at the Fukushima Daicihi (#1) plant, fled the scene and abandoned their posts on the morning of March 15, 2011 as the crisis seemed to be spiralling out of control. Contrary to the nuclear village’s narrative, the workers ignored orders from their superiors and were unavailable for emergency countermeasures. (Kimura 2014a) Instead of remaining on the plant site as ordered, most workers fled for their lives to the Fukushima Daini (#2) plant 10 km to the south. While such actions are understandable, they shatter the myth of workers heroically remaining at their posts throughout the crisis that Tepco and the government has cultivated and raises new questions about the lessons of Fukushima. It has also been revealed that right at the beginning of the crisis all of the government safety inspectors from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) working at the Fukushima Daiichi fled the scene, meaning they were not on site to advise on what steps should be taken to manage the accident. (Sekine 2014 b) They initially moved to a remote command center 5 km away and then on March 15th relocated to Fukushima City, 50 km away. As a result the government did not have its own experts on site to provide information and advice and was totally dependent on Tepco for information. Communications between Tepco headquarters and the prime minister’s office, however, were not smooth, generating misinformation, distrust and chaos. Under current rules radiation exposure of public servants must not exceed 100 millisieverts, although this was temporarily increased to 250 millisieverts during the nuclear crisis. No new limit has been decided so regulations require withdrawal of workers if they exceed the stipulated limit and as such they are within their rights to evacuate. However, the government manual on how to deal with a nuclear accident has been modified to require safety inspectors to stay at a stricken nuclear plant’s onsite command center to gather information. The government has not changed its policy that the nuclear plant operator is the main actor responsible for dealing with a nuclear accident. The NRA chairman Tanaka explains, “We are not assuming that an accident the operator cannot control will take place.” (Sekine 2014b)
Given the exodus of plant workers, is that a justified assumption? Is it possible to operate nuclear reactors safely if those responsible for conducting emergency operations cannot be relied on to carry out their duties? Moreover, Yoshida Masao, the veteran plant manager responsible for emergency countermeasures, admitted he had no idea how to operate the emergency cooling system and thus made a crucial error in managing the crisis. (Asahi 5/23/2014)
These reports about fleeing workers and inspectors, and the plant manager’s lapses, were all news to the chairman of the new nuclear safety watchdog agency – the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) – charged with preventing a recurrence of a nuclear disaster and reinforcing doubts about whether ongoing safety checks focusing on hardware upgrades are sufficient to ensure reactor safety given that human error and inadequate training were key factors in the nuclear accident.
An international group of doctors and scientists joined June 3d with non-profit organizations in urging pregnant women to limit or avoid exposures to electromagnetic radiation from cellphones and other wireless devices by taking simple steps to protect themselves and their babies. A national public education campaign called the “BabySafe Project” is being launched by Grassroots Environmental Education and the Environmental Health Trust. The precautionary warning is based on independent research that links exposure to wireless radiation from cellphones during pregnancy to neurological and behavioral problems in offspring, problems that resemble Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children.
The BabySafe Project recommends 10 simple things pregnant women, and anyone else, can do to limit their exposures:
• Avoid carrying cellphones on
your body (e.g. in a pocket or bra).
• Avoid holding wireless devices
against your body when in use.
• Use cellphones on speaker setting
or with an “air tube” headset.
• Avoid using wireless devices
in cars, trains or elevators.
• Avoid cordless phones, especially
where you sleep.
• Connect to the internet with
wired cables.
• If using Wi-Fi, connect only for
downloading, then disconnect and
disable Wi-Fi.
• Avoid prolonged or direct
exposure to nearby Wi-Fi routers
(e.g. while sleeping).
• Unplug your home Wi-Fi router
when not in use (e.g. at bedtime).
• Sleep as far away as possible from
wireless utility meters (i.e. “smart”
meters).
“There’s essentially no downside to being cautious and protecting your baby,” says Hugh Taylor, Chair of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the Yale Univ. School of Medicine, who recently authored a study showing significant behavioral changes in the offspring of mice exposed to cellphone radiation during pregnancy. “We have demonstrated clear cause-and-effect relationships in mice, and we already have studies showing that women who use cellphones have children with more behavioral problems. I think together that’s very powerful evidence.”
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