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Lessons from Chernobyl and Fukushima: Is Europe prepared for another nuclear disaster?

By Camille Bello  •  Updated: 11/03/2023 – 15:29

Exactly 12 years ago, a massive earthquake and tsunami caused the second-worst nuclear accident in history at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan.

The anniversary of the catastrophic meltdown that displaced 160,000 people and cost the Japanese government over €176 billion should itself be enough of a reminder of the potential threat of a nuclear spill, but a number of recent events have also raised the alarm in Europe.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has repeatedly knocked out the country’s electricity grid, causing blackouts at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, where power is needed to prevent the reactors from overheating like in the 1986 Chernobyl radiation disaster.

Meanwhile, Europe’s other nuclear reactors are ageing – they were built on average 36.6 years ago – and recent checkups in France have found cracks in several of them.

Some energy experts have warned that the extreme weather events brought on by climate change could pose a serious threat to the EU’s 103 nuclear reactors, which account for about one-quarter of the electricity generated in the bloc.

Jan Haverkamp, a senior nuclear energy and energy policy expert for Greenpeace, said the chances of Europe seeing a large accident like Fukushima were now “realistic” and “we should take them into consideration”.

“We are not properly prepared,” he told Euronews Next  https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/03/11/chernobyl-fukushima-europe-prepared-nuclear-disaster-ukraine-earthquake-meltdown-radiation

March 12, 2023 Posted by | EUROPE, safety | Leave a comment

Nuclear research center reiterates need for separate regulatory body

Business World, March 12, 2023,

THE creation of a new agency that will oversee nuclear power will assure objective regulation of the development of the industry, especially in the areas of safety and security, the head of a nuclear research institution said.

Responding to claims that a separate regulator is unnecessary, Carlo A. Arcilla, director of the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI), told BusinessWorld by phone: “You don’t normally want to have a situation where a body will regulate itself.”

The PNRI is an arm of the Department of Science and Technology tasked with conducting research into the safe and peaceful use of nuclear energy in the Philippines. Mr. Arcilla said that transferring regulatory powers to a different agency would help avoid conflict of interest.

The House nuclear energy committee is currently discussing a bill proposing to create the Philippine Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority or PhilATOM, which will take on the regulatory functions that the PNRI currently holds.

A science advocacy organization has called the bill unnecessary, calling instead for the expansion of the PNRI’s powers……………….

The proposed agency will be headed by a director general and deputy director-general, who will be appointed by the President of the Philippines.

Advocates of Science and Technology for the People, the group that opposed the bill, also said that nuclear waste disposal could affect the safety of nearby communities. …….  https://www.bworldonline.com/economy/2023/03/12/510115/nuclear-research-center-reiterates-need-for-separate-regulatory-body/

March 12, 2023 Posted by | Philippines, safety | Leave a comment

Dr Ian Fairlie -Low-dose radiation a health in the nuclear industry , as well as in medicine

Dr Ian Fairlie , 12 Mar 23

This is an important new study in the BMJ  …a meta analysis of 93 health studies. https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj-2022-072924

The authors conclude, inter alia, “Our findings suggest that radiation detriment might have been significantly underestimated, implying that radiation protection and optimisation at low doses should be rethought.” And also

“This finding has considerable implications for the system of radiological protection, assuming that the extrapolation is permissible, even, for example, over the restricted dose range 0-0.5 Gy. This added risk would nearly double the low dose detriment.”

These conclusions are supported in an accompanying BMJ editorial https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj-2022-074589

In initial thoughts: we should note that almost all of these studies concern medical exposures (ie for diagnostic or for cancer treatment purposes). Environmental exposures are hardly mentioned at all. However radiation exposures do occur to nuclear workers and to populations near nuclear facilities. Therefore we should be concerned about their cardiovascular health risks too.

For example,  there exists a 2017 INWORKS study – strangely omitted in this BMJ meta analysis – of increased deaths to nuclear workers from cardiovascular diseases. see

[1][ Gillies M, Richardson DB, Cardis E, Daniels RD, O’Hagan JA, Haylock R, Laurier D, Leuraud K, Moissonnier M, Schubauer-Berigan MK, Thierry-Chef I, Kesminiene A, “Mortality from Circulatory Diseases and other Non-Cancer Outcomes among Nuclear Workers in France, the United Kingdom and the United States” (2017) 188:3 (INWORKS) Radiat Res at pp 276-290, online: https://meridian.allenpress.com/radiation-research/article/188/3/276/192902/Mortality-from-Circulatory-Diseases-and-other-Non.

 It remains to be seen whether the nuclear establishment (ICRP, UNSCEAR, IAEA, WHO etc) will pay any attention to this study.

March 12, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation | 2 Comments

Fukushima’s first responders recall the disaster 12 years on

Julian Ryall in Tokyo

03/10/2023March 10, 2023, The so-called “Fukushima 50” were the emergency workers sent to the nuclear disaster site. A fire chief and nuclear engineer have spoken to DW about their roles in the emergency cleanup operations.

The March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant — caused by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami — forced thousands to flee the leaking radiation. But a handful of people ran in the opposite direction.

A skeleton staff of the plant volunteered to remain on site as the crisis worsened. Reactor temperatures were spiking uncontrollably, and a series of hydrogen explosions ripped the reactor buildings apart. At the same time, dozens more specialist engineers and emergency workers were rushed to the site.

It was the second-worst nuclear accident in world history.

The media quickly dubbed this small group the “Fukushima 50,” even though as many as 580 emergency personnel rotated through the site in the first chaotic days of the disaster. But the name stuck, and even became the title of a 2020 movie about the emergency.

Sunday marks the 12th anniversary of the disaster. Two of the first responders agreed to speak to DW, giving a rare insight into what happened over those difficult days.

The fire chief’s tale

Osamu Kinoshita, head of the special disasters response team of the Tokyo Fire Department, was at its headquarters in the Otemachi district when the earthquake struck shortly before 3 p.m. on March 11. He saw the first images of the destruction as they were broadcast on television.

Kinoshita and his team were initially sent to respond to fires and collapsed buildings in Tokyo. Fears for his own son ran through his mind as he worked. Kazuya Kinoshita was a university student at the time in the town of Rikuzentakata, one of the worst affected in the disaster zone, but communication lines were down.

“When I saw the waves destroying the city, I assumed there was no way he would have been able to survive,” Kinoshita told DW. By chance, his son had been taking a driving lesson further inland at the time of the quake, and was not swept up in the tsunami. But it took three days for that information to reach his parents.

By that time, Kinoshita was preparing to head to the Fukushima plant.

“On the night of March 17, the prime minister [Naoto Kan] made a formal request to the governor of Tokyo for assistance, and the order was issued to the fire brigade,” he said. “The request was specifically for crews to go to the reactors and make sure that sufficient water was getting into the pools holding the spent nuclear fuel.”

“Everyone was given the choice of whether to go or not, but all 300 people in the team said they would go,” he said.

The 32-vehicle convoy left Tokyo at around 2 a.m. and drove for seven hours, negotiating damaged bridges and roads blocked by landslides.

Once at the site, the fire crews ran hoses 800 meters (2,625 feet) out to the ocean and started spraying seawater onto the reactors to keep them cool. Ladders from firefighting trucks were hoisted over the damaged reactor buildings, and in the first 20-minute operation, some 60 tons of water were sprayed on the reactor shrouds. Over the following eight days, a further 4,000 tons of water were pumped onto the structures.

The firefighter standing at the top of the ladder had to be replaced every five minutes, as radiation levels were dangerously high and the entire complex was being hit by aftershocks.

“We realized the risks were pretty severe, but we were all there to get this job done,” he said. “I remember when we were first setting up the equipment and we were directly between the second and third reactors, and I wondered to myself which way I should run if there was another big aftershock. Those concerns were always in the back of our minds.”

The engineer’s experience……………………………………………………….

March 12, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

National remembrance day , and huge civil case penalty for Tepco executives, but memory of Fukushima now fading in Japan

Japanese offered tearful prayers Saturday on the anniversary of the deadly
tsunami that triggered the Fukushima disaster, but public support for
nuclear power is growing as memories of the 2011 meltdown fade. A minute’s
silence was observed nationwide at 2:46 pm (0546 GMT), the precise moment
when a 9.0-magnitude quake – the fourth strongest in Earth’s recorded
history – devastated northeastern Japan 12 years ago.

In January, Tokyo’s,High Court upheld the acquittal of three former TEPCO executives, again
clearing them of professional negligence over the disaster. But in a
separate civil verdict last year, the trio – plus one other ex-official –
were ordered to pay a whopping 13.3 trillion yen ($97 billion) for failing
to prevent the accident. The enormous compensation sum is believed to be
the largest ever for a Japanese civil case, although lawyers acknowledge it
is well beyond the defendants’ capacity to pay.

The government also plans
to start releasing more than a million tonnes of treated water from the
stricken Fukushima plant into the sea this year. A combination of
groundwater, rainwater that seeps into the area, and water used for
cooling, it has been filtered to remove various radionuclides and kept in
storage tanks on site, but space is running out. The water release plan has
been endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency but faces staunch
resistance from local fishing communities and neighbouring countries.

France24 11th March 2023

https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20230311-japan-mourns-victims-of-2011-fukushima-disaster-as-support-grows-for-nuclear-power

March 12, 2023 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, legal | Leave a comment

Nuclear crash exercise beset by blunders, says UK’s Ministry of Defence

Rob Edwards March 12, 2023

An exercise testing emergency responses to a nuclear bomb convoy crashing,
exploding and spreading a cloud of radioactive contamination was plagued
with “errors” and “confusion”, according to official assessments by
the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

There were shortages of vital medical
equipment, “poor” arrangements for casualties and multiple mistakes in
radiation monitoring. One set of radiation readings was wrong “by a
factor of 1,000 times”. At one point MoD firefighters ran out of water,
and at another an MoD commander refused help from the civil fire service.
There was no official assessment of whether or not the crash was caused by
a terrorist.

The Ferret 12th March 2023  https://theferret.scot/nuclear-crash-exercise-blunders/

March 12, 2023 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Fukushima Vigil Outside the UK’s Uranium Fuel Manufacturing Factory — RADIATION FREE LAKELAND

Many thanks to folk who came along today to the Fukushima Vigil outside the UK’s uranium fuel manufacturing factory – represented were Radiation Free Lakeland, Close Capenhurst and South Lakeland/Lancaster District CND. Following the Vigil outside the plant we walked along the Lancaster Canal from which you can view the nuclear industrial sprawl of the […]

Fukushima Vigil Outside the UK’s Uranium Fuel Manufacturing Factory — RADIATION FREE LAKELAND

March 12, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

U.S. to deliver first of 116 Abrams tanks to Poland soon — Anti-bellum

Polish Press AgencyMarch 8, 2023 First US Abrams tanks to arrive in Poland in April – MoD The first of 116 used Abrams tanks ordered from the US will be delivered to Poland in April, the Polish defence minister has said. The tanks’ arrival forms part of a significant expansion of the Polish armed forces. […]

U.S. to deliver first of 116 Abrams tanks to Poland soon — Anti-bellum

March 12, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ukraine demands “incredible amount” of new Turkish combat drones – DM — Anti-bellum

Daily SabahMarch 6, 2023 Ukraine needs ‘incredible amount of drones,’ defense chief says Ukraine’s defense chief said on Monday that his country needed “an incredible amount of drones,” as Moscow’s war with Kyiv rages on into its second year. “This is also a game changer. Both drones for reconnaissance and adjustment, shock drones from 3 […]

Ukraine demands “incredible amount” of new Turkish combat drones – DM — Anti-bellum

March 12, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia seeks US security guarantees, nuclear assistance in return for Israel normalisation

Middle East Monitor March 12, 2023

Saudi Arabia is reportedly seeking a number of conditions to be met by the United States in return for its normalisation of relations with Israel, a report has claimed.

According to the New York Times, Saudi Arabia has said that it could potentially normalise ties with Israel if the US provides it security guarantees, assistance in its civilian nuclear program, and the lifting of restrictions on arms sales to the kingdom.

Those intentions and conditions were reportedly communicated to Washington by senior Saudi officials last year, when they talked to policy experts in the US such as members of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy – a pro-Israel think tank – who visited Riyadh in October……………………………………………………………….  https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230312-saudi-arabia-seeks-us-security-guarantees-nuclear-assistance-in-return-for-israel-normalisation/

March 12, 2023 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia | Leave a comment

March 12 Energy News — geoharvey

Opinion: ¶ “Why UN Climate Science Must Keep Shaping Global Climate Policy” • IPCC reports provide a comprehensive assessment of the scientific evidence on climate change. Their 30-odd page ‘Summary for Policymakers’ has a sense of ‘ownership’ by UN member states as it goes through a line-by-line approval process by government delegations. [Impakter] Ghost forest […]

March 12 Energy News — geoharvey

March 12, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

NATO chief orders EU cohorts to boost arms purchases, stockpiles for Ukraine war — Anti-bellum

NATOMarch 8, 2023 NATO Secretary General at EU Defence Ministerial: we must boost ammunition stockpiles, ramp up production Video Arriving at a meeting of EU Defence Ministers on Wednesday (8 March 2023), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg underlined the importance of strengthened ammunition stockpiles and more joint procurement in order to continue supporting Ukraine. He […]

NATO chief orders EU cohorts to boost arms purchases, stockpiles for Ukraine war — Anti-bellum

March 12, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

TODAY. Nuclear economics – the road to fascism.

Western world politicians are twisting themselves into knots, trying to convince their electorates, and themselves, that nuclear power is economically viable.

Russia and China don’t have that agonising problem, as in those countries, the taxpayer dutifully forks out the money, and there’s no pretense that nuclear power is a great way to choose invest your savings. (However, China is obviously aware that renewable energy is a much more economic way to go)

Freed from having to persuade the public of nuclear power’s cheapness, Russia and China are able to go allout for nuclear weapons, which are really now the only purpose of the nuclear industry.

The Wester nuclear industry, and its bought politicians and journalists now work hard to convince a sceptical public of the economic benefit of small nuclear reactors, and even of big ones, too. It’s tough enough to keep pushing that big lie – that nuclear will solve climate change. But as global heating adversely affects the reactors, the job of pitching nuclear as beneficial and cheap, gets ever harder.

Russia and China show the way to go. Stop pretending that Mum and Dad can invest in NuScam or Rolls Royce or Hinkley or all the other nuclear front tricks. Just admit that the big money is in weaponry industries, and let the governments get on with the job of squandering tax-payer money on toys like small nuclear reactors – whose only real purpose is to facilitate the nuclear weapons industry.

Unfortunately, this approach, while being easier for governments, is not good for democracy. The Russian and Chinese people have little choice to dissent from their governments. Indeed, in those regimes, a person’s dissent can result in that person’s disappearance. That’s dictatorship, that’s totalitarianism. For the Western world, it’s certainly in the interest of the nuclear industry to have the governments running it. For the nuclear industry – fascism would be the successful way to go.

March 12, 2023 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

The Foreseeable End of Ukraine

The days of Ukraine as we know it are now numbered. Sooner rather than later, it will probably sink into insignificance as a greatly diminished rump state. Its tragedy is that it has allowed itself to be instrumentalised by the West, above all by Washington, in an almost suicidal manner for goals that are not its own. The phrase that the US administration is fighting ‘to the last Ukrainian’ has become a common expression

By Karl Richter, 6 March 2023,  https://arktos.com/2023/03/06/the-foreseeable-end-of-ukraine/

Karl Richter asserts that Ukraine is facing an imminent end due to Russia’s dominance in the ongoing conflict, weak Western military and economic support, and Ukraine’s own nationalism, citing predictions by several Western military experts and predicting Western governments will soon have to justify the utter failure of their Ukraine policy.

The faces of Ukraine supporters are now visibly getting longer. In fact, things are getting interesting now. In the next few months, the central lie of Western politics will burst: Ukraine is coming to an end. No more billions of dollars sinking into the Kiev quagmire, and certainly no handful of Western battle tanks, should they ever come, will make much difference to events. Russia is in the driver’s seat and has all the means of escalation at its disposal, while the West is on its last legs economically, militarily and not least morally.

At least four Western military experts who know something of their trade have contradicted mainstream reporting in recent weeks and are now predicting the decisive weeks of Ukraine’s survival. Among them is Austrian Colonel Markus Reisner, a convinced Ukraine sympathiser. In one of his latest analyses, Reisner points to the considerable Russian resources and has to concede: ‘Ukraine could win several rounds, but there has been no knockout yet.’ The Russian side, he says, still has stocks of at least ten million artillery shells at its disposal, plus 3.4 million new shells produced each year. ‘So they are in a position to fight this war even longer’, while things are now getting tight for Kiev

Erich Vad, ex-brigadier general and former military policy advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is more explicit. He sees Russia ‘clearly on the advance’ and agrees with US Chief of Staff (!) Mark Milley ‘that a military victory for Ukraine is not to be expected’. He is surprised, however, at the extensive ‘synchronisation of the media, the likes of which I have never experienced in the Federal Republic of Germany. This is pure opinion mongering.’ One wonders, however, in which world the honourable ex-general has been living in the last decades.

The fourth member of the group is the former Pentagon adviser and former US colonel Douglas Macgregor. In several recent interviews (including those of the independent US portal Redacted), he not only addresses the immense losses of the Ukrainians – in some cases up to 70 per cent of the original battalion strength – but also the rampant repression of the Ukrainian domestic intelligence service SBU against its own population – a sure sign that the end is near. If the Kiev leadership does not agree to negotiations soon, there will be little more left of Ukraine than a rump state west of the Dnieper, says Macgregor. He does not want to rule out the possibility of a coup movement against the Kiev junta in view of the horrendous losses at the front – if not, Moscow itself would be forced to finish the ‘job’ and mop up the Selenskyj regime. A new Ukrainian government would probably be sensible enough to enter into peace negotiations. In the best case, Russia would thus also have achieved its wartime goal of ‘denazifying’ Ukraine.

Even a mainstream newspaper like the German daily Die Welt had to admit recently (31 January) that in the foreseeable future Russia will emerge from the conflict as the victor not only militarily but also politically: while Ukraine will not achieve any of its goals, certainly not the reconquest of Crimea, Russia will, in the course of an inevitable negotiated settlement, enforce that Ukraine’s NATO membership ‘will be excluded for the foreseeable future’ – nothing else was demanded by Moscow before the war began almost a year ago. And: ‘The result will be an amputated Ukraine.’

One can look forward to how the Western regimes will soon explain the complete failure of their Ukraine policy to their populations. Neither will Ukraine have won nor will Russia be ‘ruined’, which the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has erroneously claimed is the goal of German government policy. When it comes to the end of Ukraine, the Western regimes will not only have sunk gigantic sums of billions into Kiev, but will also have permanently poisoned relations with Russia, destroyed their own energy supply and successfully disarmed their own armed forces. This is truly an unprecedented achievement that can only be described as open treason. It will cost the Europeans dearly. In ‘normal’ times, those responsible would be held accountable. This bill remains open. The current leadership – not only in Germany – will have to be replaced without residue anyway if we want to get back into talks with Russia even halfway sensibly.

The days of Ukraine as we know it are now numbered. Sooner rather than later, it will probably sink into insignificance as a greatly diminished rump state. Its tragedy is that it has allowed itself to be instrumentalised by the West, above all by Washington, in an almost suicidal manner for goals that are not its own. The phrase that the US administration is fighting ‘to the last Ukrainian’ has become a common expression.

Last but not least, Ukraine has become a victim of its own nationalism. In Soviet times, this was only kept under the surface in a makeshift manner, only to be vigorously fanned by American foundations soon after 1991, with an anti-Russian bias from the start. Today, Ukraine is a pseudo-state consumed by national hatred, which is no longer viable in its current form. If one wants to apply historical perspective, similarities with Czechoslovakia and Poland before the Second World War come to mind. Both countries proved incapable of getting along with their ethnic minorities in a sensible way as a result of their nationalism and the Western powers’ agitation. Kiev is currently reaping the consequences of this policy, comparable to Czechoslovakia in 1938 and Poland in 1939.

As far as Poland is concerned, it would be a particularly bitter irony of history if Poland were to take back its former eastern territories in Galicia in the course of the settlement of Ukraine. The preparations for this have been in full swing for months – interestingly enough, in full agreement with the Kiev cokehead regime. One can research this without much effort. It cannot be ruled out that Moscow has long been on board behind the scenes. The Kremlin could be the one laughing, watching Polish and Ukrainian nationalists butting heads in the future. The Volhynia massacres of 1943/44, when the Ukrainians slaughtered up to 300,000 Polish peasants behind the German lines, have not been forgotten. In no time at all, the EU would have another trouble spot on its hands where it could sink its billions in the future. A mature achievement all around.

March 12, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Another executive goes to prison for lying about doomed nuclear project

Is 15 months long enough?

By JEFFREY COLLINS, March 9, 2023,  https://apnews.com/article/stephen-byrne-scana-power-plant-prison-c97cb1aaa33c991020551b2ae5c4dd85

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A former executive utility who gave rosy projections on the progress of two nuclear power plants in South Carolina while they were hopelessly behind will spend 15 months in prison for the doomed project that cost ratepayers billions of dollars.

Ex-SCANA Corp. Executive Vice President Stephen Byrne apologized in court Wednesday, saying he thinks about how he let down customers, shareholders, employees, taxpayers and his family almost every day.

The two nuclear plants, which never generated a watt of power despite $9 billion of investment, were supposed to be “the crowning achievement of my life,” Byrne said. “But I failed.”

Byrne is the second SCANA executive to head to prison for the nuclear debacle. Former CEO Kevin Marsh was sentenced to two years in prison in October 2021 and released earlier in March after serving about 17 months.

Two executives at Westinghouse, which was contracted to build the reactors, are also charged. Carl Churchman, who was the company’s top official at the Fairfield County construction site at V.C. Summer, pleaded guilty to perjury and is awaiting sentencing. Former Westinghouse senior vice president Jeff Benjamin faces 16 charges. His trial is scheduled for October.

March 12, 2023 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment