WATCH OUT: Japan is pushing exports of its radiation contaminated agricultural products to other countries saying there is no radiation anymore in Fukushima
Japanese regions struggle to export farm produce to Taiwan as radiation fears politicized
Information boards explain stringent safety measures taken in Chiba Prefecture east of Tokyo during an agricultural expo held in the northwestern Taiwanese city of Taoyuan in May 2018.
September 30, 2018
TAIPEI, TAOYUAN, Taiwan/BEIJING — Some local governments in Japan are struggling to export their agricultural products to Taiwan as Taipei is expected to conduct a referendum on whether or not to lift a ban on imports from five Japanese prefectures following the 2011 disaster at the Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
During a recent agricultural exhibition held in the city of Taouyan in northwestern Taiwan, few participants dropped by a booth run by the government of Chiba Prefecture in eastern Japan, which is one of five prefectures hit by the ban. The remaining four prefectures are Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma, all north of Tokyo. In contrast, the stall of Miyazaki was inundated by visitors trying to test the juicy beef the southern Japan prefecture is famous for.
Chiba Gov. Kensaku Morita visited Taiwan in November last year and met with Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan. They agreed that local sweets made from peanuts harvested in Chiba should be made available in Taiwan, too. As Chen is said to be close to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, an individual who accompanied the governor told the Mainichi Shimbun that the two leaders had “a fairly in-depth discussion” toward lifting the ban.
However, at the agricultural festival earlier this year in Taoyuan, the Chiba government was not allowed to bring in food samples because of the import ban. Officials only had a video and panels explaining the safety of agricultural products in Chiba. “We want the ban to be lifted as soon as possible,” emphasized an official during the event.
Fukushima also wants to resume exports of peaches to Taiwan, which was the biggest overseas market for the fruit before the nuclear accident. The radioactive fallout from the TEPCO power plant contaminated a large swath of land near the facility. The Ibaraki Prefectural Government also sees Taiwan as a promising market for its agricultural items.
Taiwan ranked fourth among overseas markets for Japanese farm and food products last year, importing 83.8 billion yen out of the 807.1 billion yen total value. Hong Kong is the No. 1 importer, followed by the United States and China.
The Tsai administration is positive about lifting the ban, as most Japanese farm products do not contain detectable levels of radioactive materials under a strict screening system. Administration officials say if Taiwan came after China in resuming the import of Japanese farm products, it would be a blow to its relationship with Japan, which is vital for Taipei, along with its ties with the U.S., to counter Beijing. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and is trying to bring the island back into its fold eventually.
But people close to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party say Taiwan’s largest opposition party Kuomintang is using the issue to wage a political attack on the ruling party, fanning up public fear toward farm products from the five Japanese prefectures as “nuclear food.” The November referendum is expected to be called after the opposition collected some 470,000 signatures, more than the legally required number, to conduct the vote.
Taiwan is not alone in blocking Japanese agricultural products from entering the domestic market. It wasn’t until July this year that Hong Kong lifted its ban on agricultural items from four Japanese prefectures, but it still keeps its door closed to Fukushima produce.
China also continues to deny the import of agricultural and food items from 10 prefectures in the Tohoku and Kanto regions in the northern and eastern parts of the country, respectively, including Tokyo. The country accepts produce from other Japanese regions only if the goods come with certificates saying they are radiation free.
The Japanese government and business community have repeatedly demanded that Beijing relax the regulations, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed in May to set up a joint panel of experts to discuss the removal of the restriction.
The reason behind the intransigence indicated by some Asian countries and regions in denying Japanese farm produce is public concern. A survey of consumers in 10 countries and regions in the United States, Europe and Asia in February last year found that 81 percent of respondents in Taiwan said they were “worried about Fukushima produce.” The ratio stood at 69.3 percent in South Korea, followed by China with 66.3 percent. But a domestic poll in Japan by the Consumer Affairs Agency in February 2018 found that people hesitating to buy products from Fukushima was just 12.7 percent.
According to associate professor Naoya Sekiya of the University of Tokyo, a specialist in disaster information studies who conducted the 10-country/region survey last year, “the negative image caused by the 2011 nuclear accident just stuck, and people are not aware of food safety checks.” Only 10 percent-plus of people in South Korea responded that they knew about the complete radiation checks on all Fukushima rice carried out by the prefectural government. The ratio was just more than 20 percent for Taiwan, while 40 percent of Japanese respondents said yes.
Farmers in areas affected by the nuclear disaster have made efforts to reduce radiation, including the use of potassium to prevent the absorption of radioactive cesium from the fallout. Seventeen prefectures as well as agricultural cooperatives and shipment companies are testing their farm products. During the past three years, more than 99 percent of tested items did not contain detectable levels of radiation. In Fukushima, too, no rice was found to contain radiation above acceptable levels.
“Just telling people how tasty the food items are is not enough,” said Sekiya. “You also have to convey that airborne radiation levels are completely different from those right after the accident, no radioactive materials have been detected in food items, and the checking system functions with no problems.”
Liquid radioactive waste should not be called “treated” radioactive water
Treated water at Fukushima nuclear plant still radioactive
Sepember 28, 2018
TOKYO (AP) – The operator of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant said Friday that much of the radioactive water stored at the plant isn’t clean enough and needs further treatment if it is to be released into the ocean.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the government had said that treatment of the water had removed all radioactive elements except tritium, which experts say is safe in small amounts.
They called it “tritium water,” but it actually wasn’t.
TEPCO said Friday that studies found the water still contains other elements, including radioactive iodine, cesium and strontium. It said more than 80 percent of the 900,000 tons of water stored in large, densely packed tanks contains radioactivity exceeding limits for release into the environment.
TEPCO general manager Junichi Matsumoto said radioactive elements remained, especially earlier in the crisis when plant workers had to deal with large amounts of contaminated water leaking from the wrecked reactors and could not afford time to stop the treatment machines to change filters frequently.
“We had to prioritize processing large amounts of water as quickly as possible to reduce the overall risk,” Matsumoto said.
In this Feb. 23, 2017, file photo, an employee walks past storage tanks for contaminated water at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant of the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan. The operator of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant said Friday, Sept. 28, 2018, that much of the radioactive water stored at the plant isn’t clean enough and needs further treatment if it is to be released into the ocean.
About 161,000 tons of the treated water has 10 to 100 times the limit for release into the environment, and another 65,200 tons has up to nearly 20,000 times the limit, TEPCO said.
Matsumoto said the plant will treat the water further to ensure contamination levels are reduced to allowable limits.
He was responding to growing public criticism and distrust about the status of the water.
More than 7 ½ years since a massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami destroyed three reactors at the plant, Japan has yet to reach a consensus on what to do with the radioactive water. Fishermen and residents oppose its release into the ocean. Nuclear experts have recommended the controlled release of the water into the Pacific as the only realistic option.
The release option faced harsh criticism at town meetings in Fukushima and Tokyo in late August, when TEPCO and government officials provided little explanation of the water contamination, which had been reported in local media days earlier.
TEPCO only says it has the capacity to store up to 1.37 million tons of water through 2020 and that it cannot stay at the plant forever.
Some experts say the water can be stored for decades, but others say the tanks take up too much space at the plant and could interfere with ongoing decommissioning work, which could take decades.
Treated water at Fukushima nuclear plant still radioactive: Tepco
They called it “tritium water,” but it actually wasn’t.
About 161,000 tons of the water has 10 to 100 times the limit, and another 65,200 tons has up to nearly 20,000 times the limit.
A Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. official wearing radioactive protective gear stands in front of Advanced Liquid Processing Systems during a press tour at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, on Nov. 12, 2014.
Sep 29, 2018
The operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has said that much of the radioactive water stored at the plant isn’t clean enough and needs further treatment if it is to be released into the ocean.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. and the government had said that treatment of the water had removed all radioactive elements except tritium, which experts say is safe in small amounts.
They called it “tritium water,” but it actually wasn’t.
Tepco said Friday that studies found the water still contains other elements, including radioactive iodine, cesium and strontium. It said more than 80 percent of the 900,000 tons of water stored in large, densely packed tanks contains radioactivity exceeding limits for release into the environment.
Tepco general manager Junichi Matsumoto said radioactive elements remained, especially earlier in the crisis when plant workers had to deal with large amounts of contaminated water leaking from the wrecked reactors and could not afford time to stop the treatment machines to change filters frequently.
“We had to prioritize processing large amounts of water as quickly as possible to reduce the overall risk,” Matsumoto said.
About 161,000 tons of the treated water has 10 to 100 times the limit for release into the environment, and another 65,200 tons has up to nearly 20,000 times the limit, Tepco said.
Matsumoto said the plant will treat the water further to ensure contamination levels are reduced to allowable limits.
He was responding to growing public criticism and distrust about the status of the water.
More than 7½ years since a massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami destroyed three reactors at the plant, Japan has yet to reach a consensus on what to do with the radioactive water. Fishermen and residents oppose its release into the ocean. Nuclear experts have recommended the controlled release of the water into the Pacific as the only realistic option.
The release option faced harsh criticism at meetings in Fukushima and Tokyo in late August, when Tepco and government officials provided little explanation of the water contamination, which had been reported in local media days earlier.
Tepco only says it has the capacity to store up to 1.37 million tons of water through 2020 and that it cannot stay at the plant forever.
Some experts say the water can be stored for decades, but others say the tanks take up too much space at the plant and could interfere with ongoing decommissioning work that could take decades.
Touching from a Distance: The workers of Fukushima Daiichi
A hill looks out over Unit 2 (left) and Unit 3.
By Andrew Deck | Posted on September 28, 2018
Our tour van came to a stop in the pass between the Unit 2 and 3 reactors. The gap, once consumed by radioactive rubble, had been cleared several months before our visit to the Fukushima Daiichi plant in June. “You’ll have 10 minutes outside before we move onto the next location,” our guide announced to the vehicle, a portable Geiger counter in hand. We buckled our construction helmets, tightened the strings of our face masks and stepped out onto the open road. The Pacific coast was no more than 200 meters in front of us and on either side were nuclear reactor buildings. While Unit 2 was weathered but structurally intact, Unit 3 showed visible scars from the explosion it had suffered seven years earlier, marked by protruding support beams and fractured cement walls.
Since our day began at the edge of the exclusion zone in Tomioka, Fukushima, we had passed through half a dozen security checkpoints and received a full-body scan to measure internal radiation, a baseline reading for later comparison. Now, at the power plant, facing the shells of two nuclear meltdowns, our observation time was further regulated to minimize exposure. A visit to this part of the plant came with the understanding that just steps away were structures housing melted nuclear debris, the epicenters of one of the largest nuclear disasters in history.
There were no hazmat suits or gas masks, the biohazard uniform most would imagine for this portion of the tour. Pants and a long-sleeved shirt was the required outfit, a protective layer augmented by gloves, a helmet and what could pass as a kafunsho (hay fever) mask. We were directed to tuck our pant legs into four layers of neon blue socks, which we slid into black ankle-cut rain boots. A personal Geiger counter was placed in the chest pocket of our mesh vests. It would set off an alarm when it reached the tour’s daily allowance for radiation exposure, 100 microsieverts, equivalent to a roundtrip flight between Narita and JFK. In our meticulously planned day-long tour, these counters wouldn’t reach more than 30 microsieverts.
The optics of this moment, standing in plain clothes next to two nuclear reactors, were not lost on Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which operates Fukushima Daiichi and facilitated Metropolis’ tour of the 3.5km² power station, known internally as 1F. Our guide remarked that they often bring visitors to this spot. Safely getting up close to one of the reactors, even if only for 10 minutes, is a gesture they hope will show conditions at the plant have improved substantially since the 2011 disaster.
In the past year, TEPCO has expanded the number of power station tours for journalists and the general public. These tours are an effort to increase transparency and educate the public on the plant’s status. They are also an effort to build goodwill for a company that is still maligned by many for its culpability in the disaster. Three retired TEPCO executives, Ichiro Takekuro, Sakae Muto and former chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, are currently on trial for “professional negligence resulting in death and injury,” a criminal charge for ignoring internal reports that Fukushima Daiichi was at risk from a debilitating tsunami wave. The indictment was brought by a civilian judiciary panel, overruling prosecutors who had twice declined to press charges. The criminal trial follows a string of civil suits, including a ruling by a Tokyo court last year that ordered TEPCO to pay ¥11 billion (100 million USD) in damages to the residents of Minamisoma, Fukushima.
As part of these tours, TEPCO is promoting what they consider major improvements to working conditions on the plant. Currently, 96 percent of 1F can be accessed with the “regular uniform” we wore during our tour. One of the most advertised portions of the plant is Sakura Dori, a roadway at the edge of 1F that has been specially maintained in order to match regularly-occurring radiation levels in Tokyo. Before the disaster, families of plant workers and local residents would gather under the road’s 1,000 blooming cherry blossoms trees for hanami (cherry blossom viewing) every April. This past year TEPCO invited journalists to Sakura Dori for a photo-op of the 380 trees that remain.
These entwined motivations of public education and public relations valence any visit to 1F, including Metropolis’. But even a manufactured look behind the power plant fences provides insight into the personal and working lives of the 5,000 people who are employed at Fukushima Daiichi daily. Their roles are diverse, from nuclear engineers and security guards, to bureaucratic liaisons and cafeteria servers. Decontamination workers stand alongside janitorial staff. There is even a fully-stocked Lawson convenience store tucked away in an administrative building with cashiers working the registers. Each of these workers wakes up every morning and must pass into the Fukushima exclusion zone on their way to work. Some even enter reactor buildings, earning their livelihood by putting themselves in proximity to dangerous nuclear debris.
As we walked down Sakura Dori towards our tour van, we passed a couple dozen workers; some matched us in attire, others wore blue TEPCO-issued coveralls, others wore anorak body suits and full-face masks, used in the plant’s most radioactive areas, or “R zones.” It was a muggy summer afternoon with grey clouds forecasting heavy rain. We were told heat stroke is a common problem when wearing full-body protective gear, one motivation behind efforts to make 1F more accessible with regular clothes. Without fail, though, each worker shared a hearty “otsukaresama” as they passed one another. The greeting is used to offer thanks for hard work; its literal translation addresses “someone who is tired.” Unlike PR officers, TEPCO executives and Diet legislators based in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward, it is 1F’s decommissioning workers who must walk Sakura Dori every day — not just when the cherry blossoms are in bloom. In some form, they will likely be walking this road for decades.
On March 11, 2011 at 3:27 pm, a tsunami wave 13 meters tall crested over the six-meter seawall of Fukushima Daiichi’s complex, flooding the grounds with a force that crippled the nuclear power station’s vital cooling systems. Without electricity required to pump water into the reactors, the waterline dropped below the core rods in Units 1, 2 and 3, instigating a nuclear meltdown in each. Inside these reactor walls, boiling pools of stagnant water produced volatile amounts of hydrogen gas (a Zirconium-steam reaction). Within days Units 1, 3 and 4 (connected to the Unit 3 building by pipes) had all suffered explosions, carrying nuclear fallout over the Pacific and inland, disseminating across the towns of eastern Fukushima Prefecture. The nuclear fuel in Units 1, 2 and 3 soon melted through their primary containment vessels (PCVs) and pooled in the cement basements of each respective building, where it remains to this day.
Masahiro Yamamoto, 42, was there on March 11. In fact, he’s been at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant for over 20 years, his first and only job since university. Born in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, where southernmost Honshu meets the tip of Kitakyushu, Yamamoto enrolled in a TEPCO-affiliated high school. Trained as an engineer, the feeder program placed him at the Fukushima plant back in 1994, where he worked a steady engineering job and raised his three children in Futaba. One of two towns that border 1F, the evacuated municipality currently has an actual population of zero.
“Before the disaster, I worked just like an average salaryman. But as disaster struck and the situation worsened, it was as if I was dropped right in the middle of a battlefield,” he says. We don’t dwell on this difficult time, but Yamamoto shares some fragmented memories. “The monitors for the reactors started to show signs of abnormality, and I thought to myself, ‘what is going to happen now,’” he remembers. “My family lived nearby and I wanted to check their safety, but I had no way of communicating with them so I didn’t know whether they were swept away by the tsunami or injured by the quake. I had many worries, but I had to bury my feelings and focus on my duties. I managed to control myself up to that point.”
The Self-Defense Force came first; then other government agencies arrived — “When I was walking down the aisle to go to the restroom, the Prime Minister passed right by me.” Yamamoto’s workplace in a quiet seaside town had overnight become ground zero for a Level 7 nuclear accident, matched in severity only by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. He describes himself and his team as co-workers that were suddenly required to be soldiers faced with daily life-threatening work. “When Unit 1 exploded, I was wearing my mask to go outside and work onsite at the reactors. I felt [the blast] blow across my face. Things took a turn for the worse and every time we had to go near the reactor buildings, our team was assembled knowing that there may be an explosion and we might die. We had to go through that many times, and it was psychologically hard on me.”
Seven years later, the realities of working at Fukushima Daiichi have changed dramatically for Yamamoto. Along with 750 other TEPCO employees, he lives in company dormitory housing in the town of Okuma, just outside the exclusion zone. His family evacuated during the disaster and they have been living in Tokyo’s Otsuka neighborhood ever since. Long train rides on weekends are the only way he spends time with his wife and three children before returning to his duties at the plant.
“There’s nothing special about my job,” Yamamoto says, despite all signs to the contrary. “I think any work is hard and challenging.” He describes his average day, far removed from the emergency response. Early mornings begin with weight training; nights are spent studying eikaiwa (English conversation). He’s working to improve his English skills, in part, to share his experiences at the power plant and dispel fears about visiting Fukushima Prefecture. “I’d like many foreigners to come to Japan to learn not just about the fun things, but also about [Fukushima Daiichi] and the reality.”
Yamamoto currently serves as Team Leader at Units 5 and 6, two reactors that were spared from nuclear meltdowns but are set for decommissioning. While important work, this is only one part of an elaborate operation that also aspires to full decommissioning of Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 by 2050. Now seven years into this proposed timeline, some critics have questioned its feasibility. According to Daisuke Hirose, a TEPCO spokesperson who debriefed Metropolis on the state of decommissioning, there are three major priorities in fulfilling the plan as scheduled.
The most complex is the location and extraction of nuclear fuel debris. Hundreds of tons of melted fuel remain buried deep within Units 1, 2 and 3, the exact locations of which remain unknown. Rubble and fatal radioactivity levels have rendered these parts of the reactor buildings inaccessible to humans, leaving remote-controlled robots the most viable method of investigation. Only minimal fuel debris in Unit 2 has currently been identified and the means of extraction have not been finalized, but Hirose says TEPCO will meet a 2021 benchmark for initial fuel extraction. Alongside the handling of nuclear debris, the plant must confront a rapid accumulation of contaminated water on site, perhaps the most urgent task facing the operation.
Despite the pressing and complex problems facing the project, Hirose argues that improving the safety of the plant must rank above all other priorities, “Decommissioning is something done by people. Our most important task is improving conditions at 1F for decommissioning workers.” Yamamoto, for one, insists he does not worry about his health while working at the plant. “At the time of the disaster, I couldn’t comprehend all the issues about contamination and radiation exposure, so I was very worried back then,” he says. “I don’t have those worries now.” Yamamoto’s duties at Units 5 and 6 include routine exposure to radiation, but he does not currently conduct work in the plant’s most radioactive locations. While we requested to speak to an employee with work duties in the R zone, TEPCO declined the request citing the priority for these employees as decommissioning work. “Of course, to be honest, there are some people who’ve suffered health damage, as has been reported in newspapers, so it’s not a zero,” he adds. Currently, 17 employees at 1F who’ve developed cancer have applied to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for compensation as a work-related illness. In September, the Ministry acknowledged the first death related to radiation exposure at 1F, a subcontractor in his 50s who died of lung cancer.
Once a meishi (business card) that held tremendous social capital, TEPCO is now a company irrecoverably associated with the disaster. To many, the workers of Fukushima Daiichi are the face of this institution. Yamamoto shares stories of coworkers’ doors being vandalized with graffiti and trash being dumped in front of their homes. It is difficult to find sympathy for the TEPCO workers at 1F when considering the continued injustices suffered by the residents of Fukushima, but the victims of the nuclear disaster and the rain boots on the ground at 1F are not necessarily distinct populations. Around 60 percent of the employees at Fukushima Daiichi are from Fukushima Prefecture, a number that TEPCO says may be underreported since it only includes those born in the prefecture. In many instances, including Yamamoto’s, the workers at 1F are working towards recovering their own communities in the entwined futures of decommissioning and Fukushima’s restoration.
Our coach passed the border of the “difficult to return zone,” a government-designated boundary that separates areas of Fukushima deemed habitable from those deemed uninhabitable. Suddenly we were facing the Fukushima “ghost towns” of popular imagination. While Fukushima Daiichi is ground zero, the heart of this disaster is in the abandoned towns of the prefecture: homes and businesses and schools left behind in an instant, hard evidence of the 160,000 residents that were displaced by the disaster. Abandoned vehicles, shattered windows, hollowed-out storefronts, a dilapidated pachinko parlor and seven years of weeds rising from cracks in the cement — they all passed by the coach windows on our approach to Fukushima Daiichi.
We were not the only vehicles on this highway, trucks rumbled past us and cars lined the road. Calling these “ghost towns” is a misnomer: these towns may be uninhabited, but they are not unoccupied. Many of these vehicles belonged to a decontamination project that spans the original 20km exclusion zone and beyond. It is not operated by TEPCO, but rather a web of government agencies and municipalities. Their job, first and foremost, entails the mass removal of dirt, stripping entire towns of topsoil and manually washing down rooftops and other surfaces that were doused in radioactive particles in an effort to clean away radiation. Fields of black refuse sacks, millions of which are filled with contaminated soil, now litter the prefecture without plans for their permanent storage or removal. Regardless of this work’s efficacy, it is an undertaking that requires a massive labor force; Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reports that more than 46,000 were employed in Fukushima decontamination work in 2016.
The harsh reality is that the disaster has disrupted the industries that once thrived in Fukushima Prefecture — fishing, agriculture and service jobs. Currently, only half of the region’s 1,000 fishermen are going out to sea and they face highly reduced demand. The decontamination industry is one of the few thriving seven years later, but this line of work is not without its risks. In early September, the UN human rights division released a statement warning of possible worker exploitation in the recovery effort, both within the prefectural decontamination projects and on the 1F site. “Workers hired to decontaminate Fukushima reportedly include migrant workers, asylum seekers and people who are homeless,” wrote three UN Special Rapporteurs. “They are often exposed to a myriad of human rights abuses, forced to make the abhorrent choice between their health and income, and their plight is invisible to most consumers and policymakers with the power to change it.” Japan’s Foreign Ministry responded by calling the statement “extremely regrettable.”
We met Yamamoto in the parking lot of the plant after our tour. His TEPCO uniform had been exchanged for pants and a graphic-T. It is the second time we’d met that he had worn this particular gray short-sleeved shirt with a Ghostbusters logo emblazoned on its chest, one of his favorite movies as a child. Outside the plant, Yamamoto sheds his professional facade to reveal a youthful energy. During the night ahead we would visit an izakaya (Japanese pub) in Iwaki City and share stories over local sake and sashimi (sliced raw fish), once celebrated Fukushima products that have since been cast off supermarket shelves as new associations and stigmas took hold of the prefectural name.
There are many people who shoulder the burden of the nuclear disaster: parents sending their children to school with Geiger counters on their backpacks, farmers who have lost their livestock and livelihood, elderly left to care for deserted towns as the young set roots far from Futaba-gun, multi-generation Fukushima lineages that have been forced to abandon their familial homes for prefabricated temporary housing units. Yamamoto carries one small burden of this sweeping tragedy, as do the other workers of Fukushima Daiichi, as do those who labor in irradiated fields without other means of income. They are trying to extinguish a danger that can’t be seen, but its presence is felt in every aspect of their work. At times the job they’ve been assigned feels beyond comprehension, but Fukushima is not a supernatural disaster and Yamamoto is no ghostbuster. This disaster is deeply human, founded in both nature and negligence. “If you think in terms of decades, the long road ahead and the abstractness of it all will crush you,” says Yamamoto. “But just as with any other work, if you split up big projects into smaller pieces, the feeling of accomplishment from each small victory will keep you motivated.” Inside the exclusion zone, we witness the people of Fukushima trying to take their land a few steps closer to normal.
Formal restart approval of tsunami-hit Tokai N°2 nuclear plant near Tokyo
Tokai No. 2 nuke plant passes tighter safety checks introduced after 2011 quake
This July 17, 2018 file photo shows the Tokai No. 2 nuclear power plant, front, in the village of Tokai in Ibaraki Prefecture.
26 sept 2018
TOKYO — The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) officially determined on Sept. 26 that the Tokai No. 2 nuclear power plant north of Tokyo meets new, more stringent safety standards introduced after the March 2011 triple core meltdown and massive radiation leaks at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Tokai plant operator Japan Atomic Power Co. intends to restart the reactor and operate it 20 years beyond its original 40-year lifespan.
The only nuclear power station in the greater Tokyo area became the first nuclear power station to pass the NRA screening among those affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, which triggered the nuclear disaster at TEPCO’s Fukushima No.1 plant in northeastern Japan.
Restarting the 1.1-million-kilowatt Tokai No. 2 plant in the village of Tokai in Ibaraki Prefecture, about 160 kilometers northwest of central Tokyo, is no easy task, however. Japan Atomic needs to obtain approval from neighboring municipalities to resume reactor operations. Devising an evacuation plan in case of an accident for the some 960,000 residents living within a 30-kilometer radius of the plant is also a major challenge.
To get permission for the 20-year reactor life extension, Japan Atomic must also obtain government approval for relevant construction and extension plans before Nov. 27 this year, when the reactor will turn 40. The construction plan and the operational extension screening is almost finished, and both will be approved before the deadline.
Japan Atomic plans to complete safety enhancement work by March 2021 and then restart the plant at a later date. The work will cost some 174 billion yen, and Japan Atomic is depending on financial support from TEPCO and Tohoku Electric Power Co. to cover the outlay.
Tokai No. 2 became the eighth nuclear power station, and the 15th reactor, to pass the NRA safety screening. It is the second boiling water reactor after TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station certified as meeting the new safety standards. The reactors are a similar type to the ones at the Fukushima No. 1 plant that suffered core meltdowns.
(Japanese original by Riki Iwama, Science & Environment News Department)
Tsunami-hit nuclear plant near Tokyo wins formal restart approval
Tokai Reactor #2, Hit By March 11, 2011 tsunami gets NRA approval to reopen but needs approval of surrounding communities to do so. NRA sounds just like NRC.
Sept 26, 2018
The nuclear watchdog on Wednesday formally approved the restart of an almost 40-year-old nuclear power plant northeast of Tokyo that has sat idle since it was damaged during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster, which also caused meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
The Tokai No. 2 plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, operated by Japan Atomic Power Co., is the first nuclear plant affected by the disaster to clear screening by the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
The earthquake on March 11, 2011, left the plant without an external power source, and a 5.4-meter tsunami incapacitated one of its three emergency power generators. The plant managed to cool down its reactor over three and a half days after the disaster as the two other power generators remained operational.
The Fukushima plant, which used the same boiling water reactor as the Tokai plant, suffered core meltdowns and spewed out a massive amount of radioactive material after losing its external power supply and emergency power generators in the calamity.
Still, it is unclear when the Tokai plant will actually restart as construction work to enhance its safety will not be completed until March 2021. Also, it needs to obtain consent from all of its surrounding communities. It is the only nuclear power plant in the country to need consent from local governments beyond its host municipality.
In addition, the sole reactor in the complex turns 40 years old in November and faces two more screenings to extend its operation by up to 20 years beyond the normal 40-year limit. It is expected to pass the screenings.
It operator must also compile an evacuation plan covering the 960,000 residents within a 30-kilometer radius of the plant — the largest number of potential evacuees for a nuclear plant in the country due to its location in the metropolitan region.
In Tokyo, protesters gathered in front of the NRA office in the morning and shouted slogans against the restart.
Some civic group members submitted to the watchdog a letter calling for a decision against the plant’s resumption with the signatures of some 8,000 people. “A plant that passes a lax screening is not safe,” the document said.
Sengetsu Ogawa, 54, a local anti-nuclear activist in Ibaraki Prefecture, said, “I have doubts about the way the NRA conducts screenings as it is believed to rubber stamp operators’ applications (for restarts).”
“Japan has been rocked by major disasters such as floods and earthquakes for the past two months. Based on these circumstances, the NRA should conduct a screening again,” he said.
Tokai No. 2 is the eighth nuclear plant approved by the NRA to restart under stricter safety rules introduced after the Fukushima disaster.
Among plants with boiling water reactors, it is the second to be given the green light following the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear complex run by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., the operator of the crisis-hit Fukushima plant.
Japan Atomic Power applied for the restart in May 2014 with a plan to construct a 1.7-km-long coastal levee, predicting a potential tsunami as high as 17.1 meters.
With costs for safety measures at the plant estimated to reach some ¥180 billion ($1.6 billion), the operator, whose sole business is nuclear energy production, has struggled as none of its reactors has been online since the 2011 disaster.
Tepco and Tohoku Electric Power Co., which receive power supply from Tokai No. 2, have offered to financially support Japan Atomic Power.
Japan vows to cut its nuclear hoard but neighbours fear the opposite
Poor region of Japan is now very dependent on Rokkasho nuclear recycling project
Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’s plant in Rokkasho, Japan , Aug. 2, 2018.
Japan has amassed a large stockpile of plutonium and neighbours fear that the country may decide to build more nuclear weapons.
25 Sept 2018
More than 30 years ago, when its economy seemed invincible and the Sony Walkman was ubiquitous, Japan decided to build a recycling plant to turn nuclear waste into nuclear fuel.
It was supposed to open in 1997, a feat of advanced engineering that would burnish its reputation for high-tech excellence and make the nation even less dependent on others for energy.
Then came a series of blown deadlines as the project hit technical snags and struggled with a Sisyphean list of government-mandated safety upgrades. Seventeen prime ministers came and went, the Japanese economy slipped into a funk and the initial $6.8 billion budget ballooned into $27 billion of spending.
Now, Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd, the private consortium building the recycling plant, says it really is almost done. But there is a problem: Japan does not use much nuclear power anymore.
The country turned away from nuclear energy after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, and only nine of its 35 reactors are operational.
It is a predicament with global ramifications. While waiting for the plant to be built, Japan has amassed a stockpile of 47 metric tons of plutonium, raising concerns about nuclear proliferation and Tokyo’s commitment to refrain from building nuclear arms even as it joins the United States in pressing North Korea to give up its arsenal.
In August, North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper accused Japan of accumulating plutonium “for its nuclear armament.”
Japan pledged for the first time this past summer to reduce the stockpile, saying the recycling plant would convert the plutonium into fuel for use in Japanese reactors.
But if the plant opens as scheduled in four years, the nation’s hoard of plutonium could grow rather than shrink.
That is because only four of Japan’s working reactors are technically capable of using the new fuel, and at least a dozen more would need to be upgraded and operating to consume the plutonium that the recycling plant would extract each year from nuclear waste.
“At the end of the day, Japan is really in a vice of its own making,” said James M. Acton, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
“There is no easy way forward, and all those ways forward have significant costs associated with it.”
A handful of countries reprocess nuclear fuel, including France, India, Russia and the United Kingdom.
But the Japanese plan faces a daunting set of practical and political challenges, and if it does not work, the nation will be left with another problem: about 18,000 metric tons of nuclear waste in the form of spent fuel rods that it has accumulated and stored all these years.
A storage facility for spent fuel rods at Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’s plant in Rokkasho, Japan, Aug 2018.
Japan’s neighbours, most notably China, have long objected to the stockpile of plutonium, which was extracted from the waste during tests of the recycling plant and at a government research facility, as well as by commercial recycling plants abroad.
Most of this plutonium is now stored overseas, in France and Britain, but 10 metric tons remain in Japan, more than a third of it in Rokkasho, the northeastern fishing town where the recycling plant is being built.
Japan says it stores its plutonium in a form that would be difficult to convert into weapons, and that it takes measures to ensure it never falls into the wrong hands.
But experts are worried the sheer size of the stockpile — the largest of any country without nuclear weapons, and in theory enough to make 6,000 bombs — could be used to justify a nuclear buildup by North Korea and others in the region.
Any recycling plan that adds to the stockpile looks like “a route to weaponise down the road,” said Alicia Dressman, a nuclear policy specialist. “This is what really concerns Japan’s neighbours and allies.”
Japan maintains that its plutonium is for peaceful energy purposes and that it will produce only as much as it needs for its reactors. “We are committed to nonproliferation,” said Hideo Kawabuchi, an official at the Japan Atomic Energy Commission.
But the launch of the Rokkasho plant has been delayed so long — and popular opposition to restarting additional nuclear reactors remains so strong — that scepticism abounds over the plan to recycle the stockpile.
Critics say Japan should concede the plant will not solve the problem and start looking for a place to bury its nuclear waste.
“You kind of look at it and say, ‘My God, it’s 30 years later, and that future didn’t happen,’” said Sharon Squassoni, a nonproliferation specialist at George Washington University.
“It’s just wishful thinking about how this is going to solve their myriad problems.”
Ikata NPP’s reactor to restart as Hiroshima court judges volcanic erution frequency to be extremely low
Ruling puts onus on anti-nuclear plaintiffs citing volcanic risks
Lawyer Hiroyuki Kawai, center, explains the Hiroshima High Court’s decision on Sept. 25 to lift a temporary injunction barring operations of the Ikata nuclear plant.
September 26, 2018
HIROSHIMA–The Hiroshima High Court has significantly raised the bar for plaintiffs seeking suspensions of nuclear plant operations on grounds of a possible volcanic eruption.
In a ruling handed down on Sept. 25, the court overturned a temporary injunction order that had halted operations at the Ikata nuclear plant, saying the plaintiffs must present highly credible evidence of the risk of a catastrophic volcanic eruption.
The plaintiffs argued that Shikoku Electric Power Co. must suspend operations of its Ikata plant in Ehime Prefecture because of the dangers posed by Mount Aso in central Kyushu, Japan’s southern main island.
They said a pyroclastic flow from the volcano would reach the plant about 130 kilometers away in the event of an eruption on a scale similar to one that occurred about 90,000 years ago.
But the high court dismissed their argument by referring to “socially accepted ideas.”
“The frequency of such an eruption is extremely low,” Presiding Judge Masayuki Miki said. “The government has not taken any measures to deal with it, and a large majority of the public don’t see the risks of a major eruption as a problem, either.”
He added, “Unless the court is given reasonable grounds for the possibility of a major eruption, it is a socially accepted idea that the safety of a facility will not be undermined even if measures are not in place to prepare for such a scenario.”
The ruling was based on an assessment issued in March by the Secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority that risks to nuclear facilities from a catastrophic volcanic eruption are within a socially acceptable range.
Kenta Tsunasaki, one of the plaintiffs, said he was appalled by the ruling.
“We are again witnessing the exact same attitude toward a massive eruption of a volcano,” he said, referring to the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that caused the 2011 triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. “The judiciary must have forgotten about the Fukushima disaster.”
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant operator, has argued that the scale of the tsunami that struck the nuclear complex could not be foreseen.
Many volcanologists agree that catastrophic eruptions rarely occur.
But Yoshiyuki Tatsumi, professor of volcanology at Kobe University, questioned the court’s dismissal of the possibility of a huge eruption.
“The low occurrence does not assure safety,” he said. “A catastrophic eruption is one of the worst disasters in terms of the degree of danger, which is calculated by multiplying the expected number of victims and the rate of occurrence.”
Tatsumi also said it is difficult to predict when Mount Aso will have a major eruption because its eruption cycle is irregular.
(This article was compiled from reports by Sotaro Hata, Toshio Kawada and Shigeko Segawa.)
Reactor can restart in Japan after little risk seen from volcano
Shikoku Electric plans to resume operations at the Ikata plant in October
The No. 3 unit at the Ikata power plant in Ehime Prefecture
September 25, 2018
OSAKA — A Japanese court ruled Tuesday that a nuclear reactor operated by Shikoku Electric Power could restart, clearing the way for it to join the small handful of nuclear facilities that have resumed operating following a catastrophic earthquake in 2011.
The Hiroshima High Court overturned Tuesday its own provisional injunction from December, accepting the utility’s claim that a volcano in the vicinity poses little risk.
Following the decision, Shikoku Electric said it will restart the No. 3 unit at its Ikata power plant in Ehime Prefecture on Oct. 27.
High courts have often overruled suspensions handed down by district courts. Examples include the Nos. 3 and 4 units at Kansai Electric Power’s Oi and Takahama plants in Fukui Prefecture. With the Hiroshima high court’s decision, all reactors that had temporary suspension orders on them are able to restart.
The chief issue in the Ikata case was whether a nearby caldera of Mt. Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture is at risk of erupting.
“No proof has been shown of the possibility that a large-scale, catastrophic eruption will occur, and the likelihood that [lava flows] will reach the reactor is sufficiently low,” the court said in its ruling Tuesday.
But the restart could be stopped again by an Oita District Court decision due Friday on another provisional injunction to halt the Ikata unit.
The 890-megawatt No. 3 reactor is one of five across three plants nationwide to restart under standards introduced after the 2011 tsunami. It resumed operations in August 2016, but was halted in October 2017 for routine inspections. The shutdown has cost Shikoku Electric about 30 billion yen ($266 million), the company said.
Hiroshima High Court signs off on restart of reactor at Shikoku Electric’s Ikata nuclear power plant
Shikoku Electric Power Co.’s Ikata nuclear power plant is seen in Ehime Prefecture.
Sept. 25, 2018
HIROSHIMA – The Hiroshima High Court on Tuesday accepted an appeal by Shikoku Electric Power Co. allowing it to restart a halted reactor at its Ikata nuclear power plant in Ehime Prefecture, saying worries over a volcanic eruption damaging the plant are groundless.
The decision is an about-face from its earlier provisional injunction that demanded the utility halt the No. 3 unit at the plant until the end of this month, citing safety risks associated with potential volcanic activity in a nearby prefecture.
The temporary suspension order, issued last December following a request from a local opposition group, marked the first case in which a high court had prohibited operations at a nuclear plant since the 2011 triple meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant led to a nationwide halt of such plants.
Presiding Judge Masayuki Miki said in the ruling, “There is no reason to believe in the possibility of a destructive volcanic eruption during the plant’s operating period and there is only a small chance of volcanic ash and rocks reaching the plant,” which is about 130 kilometers away.
Following the court’s decision, Shikoku Electric said it will reboot the No. 3 reactor on Oct. 27. The unit has been idle for maintenance since October last year.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority, the country’s nuclear watchdog, said, “Drawing on the lessons learned from the nuclear accident at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, we will continue to impose strict regulations based on scientific and technical knowledge.”
Separately, residents in nearby Oita, Kagawa and Yamaguchi prefectures have also been seeking to stop the reactor in pending court cases. The Oita District Court is scheduled to hand down a decision on Friday.
In addition, a request to extend the period of the injunction beyond Sunday has been filed with the Hiroshima District Court.
In the injunction, the high court had said the power company underestimated the risks of heated rocks and volcanic ash reaching the plant if a big eruption occurs at Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture.
That decision constituted a major victory for the nation’s anti-nuclear movement and dealt a blow to the central government and utility firms, which are hoping to bring more reactors back online.
Shikoku Electric claimed in the appeal that it believes there is a “low possibility” of the volcano having a large-scale eruption while the reactor is in operation.
Plaintiffs, however, argued that the resumption of operations at the plant is “unreasonable” because of a “high risk of an accident.”
Fukushima Radiation causing U.S. Insurance Companies to EXCLUDE all Coverage for Radiation Claims
REPOST from February 2014
February 2, 2014 — (TRN) — Insurance Companies in the United States have begun notifying customers they will no longer have ANY coverage whatsoever for anything relating to nuclear energy claims. Fallout, radiation sickness, property damage from radiation – all EXCLUDED. This begs the question: If the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima power plant in Japan is as harmless to Americans as the government and “scientists” are telling us, why are Insurance companies specifically EXCLUDING coverage for nuclear energy related claims? (Hint: The government is lying about the danger.)
TRN has a PDF of one such notice being sent by Traveler’s Insurance Company. You can read it for yourself below.
Letters being sent by U.S. Insurance companies are notifying policy holders of an important change to their coverage. Letter sent by one major insurance company read as follows:
Dear Policyholder;
Thank you for choosing Travelers. We are providing advance notice of changes affecting your renewal policy or notification of renewal premium. Please consult Travelers Service Center for guidance in reviewing the information contained in this notice.
Your renewal policy will provide changes in coverage because of underwriting judgment based on an evaluation of your
individual risk exposures and/or loss history.
The following is changed on your renewal:
Coverage Change Details
IL 00 21 09 08 NUCLEAR ENERGY LIABILITY EXCLUSION ENDORSEMENT FORM HAS BEEN ADDED TO YOUR POLICY
The accompanying paperwork gets very specific about what they mean. It says, in part:
1. The insurance does not apply:
A. Under any Liability Coverage, to “bodily injury” or “property damage”:
B. Under any Medical Payments coverage, to expenses incurred with respect to “bodily injury” resulting from the “hazardous properties” of “nuclear material” and arising out of the operation of a “nuclear facility” by any person or organization.
2. As used in this endorsement:
“Hazardous properties” includes radioactive, toxic or explosive properties. “Nuclear material” means “source material”, “special nuclear material” or “by-product material” . . . . Spent fuel . . . . Waste . . . . .
The letters further make clear:
“Property damage” includes all forms of radioactive contamination of property.”
That last item, about radioactive contamination of property, THAT’s the “biggie.” THAT is the issue that will shortly become evident to people who live on the west coast of north America. One day, when folks in places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego wake up and hear evacuation orders on radio and TV telling them to run for their lives because the radiation levels from the Pacific Ocean have made their homes uninhabitable, THEN all those folks will understand the implications of this nasty little change in Insurance coverage.
The Turner Radio Network has been warning people about the coming radiation from Fukushima. For months, we have been issuing radiation alerts when local background radiation levels start “spiking.” For months, we have been closely monitoring developments at the Fukushima disaster site and publishing news stories about those developments and the dangers they pose to North America.
Sadly, for months, critics have claimed our coverage was “sensationalism” or “designed to scare people.” That was never the case, but it didn’t stop the critics from claiming such.
So here we are, February, 2014, and Insurance Companies are now specifically EXCLUDING coverage for radioactive contamination of property. Let’s be clear about what this means; if you have to move away from your home because the area is contaminated with lethal levels of radiation, don’t bother calling your insurance company. YOU HAVE NO COVERAGE AT ALL for this type of event. Of course, you still have to pay your mortgage for the house you can no longer live in, but that’s your problem, right?
Now, stop and think for a moment about other types of disasters. Homes in “Tornado Alley” in the USA routinely suffer horrific destruction from tornadoes. Have any insurance companies stopped covering such damage? No. They may charge a higher premium in those geographic areas, but they don’t flat-out EXCLUDE coverage. How about places that routinely suffer wildfires? California, Arizona, New Mexico come to mind. Have you ever heard of any insurance companies specifically EXCLUDING coverage for wildfires for people who live in those area? Nope!
So why, if the government and so-called “experts” are all publicly telling us that the radiation from Fukushima will be diluted by the Pacific Ocean and will not harm us, are Insurance companies beginning to absolutely and specifically EXCLUDE coverage for radiation-related damage, injuries and claims?
Could it be that the radiation from Fukushima, which has been spewing into the Pacific Ocean since March 11, 2011, is not nearly as “diluted” as the government and “experts” would have us believe? Could it be that the Insurance companies know (maybe from their pals in government) that entire STATES on the west coast of North America may have to be evacuated because of the incoming radioactive water in the Pacific? Does this start to make more sense to you now? Such events would utterly wipe out Insurance companies. You know it, the government knows it and the insurance companies darn sure know it. THAT is why insurance companies are excluding coverage; they KNOW what’s coming and they don’t want to be wiped out by it. Can’t blame them, but where does that leave you?
Some advice: If you live on the west coast of north America, sell your house fast and cheap to some illegal aliens. Get whatever you can for the house, take the money, and run like hell.
Whatever you get for the house will be more than you’ll get from your insurance company once the radiation arrives. Oh, about the illegal aliens to whom you sell . . . . well . . . . who cares what happens to them, they shouldn’t be here anyway!
Click HERE to read a PDF of the actual notice being sent to policy holders by Traveler’s Insurance Company
Japan Has Enough Nuclear Material to Build an Arsenal. Its Plan: Recycle.
After decades of delays, a plant in Rokkasho, Japan, is almost ready to start turning nuclear waste into nuclear fuel, its builders say. But Japan doesn’t use much nuclear power any more.
Sept. 22, 2018
ROKKASHO, Japan — More than 30 years ago, when its economy seemed invincible and the Sony Walkman was ubiquitous, Japan decided to build a recycling plant to turn nuclear waste into nuclear fuel. It was supposed to open in 1997, a feat of advanced engineering that would burnish its reputation for high-tech excellence and make the nation even less dependent on others for energy.
Then came a series of blown deadlines as the project hit technical snags and struggled with a Sisyphean list of government-mandated safety upgrades. Seventeen prime ministers came and went, the Japanese economy slipped into a funk and the initial $6.8 billion budget ballooned into $27 billion of spending.
Now, Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd., the private consortium building the recycling plant, says it really is almost done. But there is a problem: Japan does not use much nuclear power any more. The country turned away from nuclear energy after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, and only nine of its 35 reactors are operational.
It is a predicament with global ramifications. While waiting for the plant to be built, Japan has amassed a stockpile of 47 metric tons of plutonium, raising concerns about nuclear proliferation and Tokyo’s commitment to refrain from building nuclear arms even as it joins the United States in pressing North Korea to give up its arsenal.
Dairy farmer resumes operations 7 1/2 years after Fukushima disaster
Tetsuji Sakuma, right, unloads a cow from a truck in the Fukushima Prefecture village of Katsurao on Sept. 13, 2018, as he resumes operations at his dairy farm for the first time since the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant disaster.
September 19, 2018
KATSURAO, Fukushima — A 42-year-old man resumed operations at his dairy farm on Sept. 13 with the arrival of eight cows at his barn, after an evacuation order for the 2011 nuclear crisis was lifted in most parts of the village here.
Tetsuji Sakuma, who is aiming to ship milk for public sale from the beginning of next year, restarted his business for the first time in 7 1/2 years after the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant disaster. He did not give up hope of resuming his work even after being forced to evacuate and losing all his cattle as a result. “I hope to restore my finances and to lead this area (to recovery),” said the farmer, taking one step toward the reconstruction of his hometown.
Sakuma unloaded the cows from a truck into his barn with the help of his 68-year-old father Shinji. Sakuma laughed bitterly as he suddenly felt old, realizing he had “lost strength after not doing such work for 7 1/2 years,” but flashed a smile as he watched the cattle graze.
Sakuma took over running the ranch when he was just 20 years old. He successfully increased the number of cows and barns, and was raising a total of 129 dairy cattle before the nuclear crisis struck. He grew corn and grass to feed the cows, which he raised from when they were calves, and brought them up in a stress-less environment to produce large quantities of high quality milk. The cows were like members of the family and he used to ship the largest amount of raw milk among farmers in Fukushima Prefecture.
After the deadly quake struck on March 11, 2011, a tanker did not come to collect his milk the next day, forcing him to discard it. Dairy cattle can die if they are not milked and Sakuma thought that “cows sacrifice themselves to produce milk, and throwing it away is like wasting their lives.”
Everyone in the village was advised to evacuate on the night of March 14, 2011. Sakuma let his wife and child evacuate to Gunma Prefecture while he took shelter in the city of Fukushima with his parents. Ten of his cows were found dead when he returned on May 18.
Some 25 of his young cows were sent to a ranch in Hokkaido in June that year and the rest were shipped off to be culled for their meat following inspections. “People can evacuate, but cows have nowhere to escape,” the distressed farmer thought as he apologized to the cows.
Sakuma moved into a temporary housing complex in the town of Miharu in Fukushima Prefecture with his wife and child. He helped his friend’s civil engineering work while serving as a village assembly member, and waited for a chance to start farming again. Restrictions on shipments of milk were lifted in December 2016, half a year after the easing of the nuclear evacuation order. Sakuma rushed to prepare for the reopening of his dairy farm, such as repairing milking machines.
The excited farmer bought eight dairy cattle at an auction in Hokkaido on Sept. 11, exactly 7 1/2 years after the Fukushima disaster. Sakuma will check the level of radiation in the cows’ milk once a week, to accomplish his goal to ship milk for public sale from the beginning of next year. His future dream is to have 300 cows graze on his farm.
His wife gave birth to three more children while they lived as evacuees and this spring, the family moved into a new home he built in the place where their old home used to stand in the town of Katsurao. The father of four feels proud every time his eldest son Ryoji, 13, says he wants to “become a dairy farmer.”
Sakuma never once thought of shutting down his dairy farm. “I don’t want to be perceived as someone who quit in exchange for compensation. If I stop farming, I would feel like I have lost to these circumstances,” he stated. Sakuma has to repay a 100 million yen loan he took out to resume operations at his dairy farm and to work to eliminate damage caused by harmful rumors, as well as face many other challenges. “This is the point of no return,” said Sakuma, as he rolled up his sleeves to start his difficult journey.
(Japanese original by Rikka Teramachi, Fukushima Bureau)
Tepco to build finally extra sea wall to reinforce Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant
Fukushima Daiichi to be reinforced against tsunami
September 14, 2018
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant plans to build additional seawalls along its damaged reactors.
Its aim is to keep another possible mega-tsunami from causing the leakage of highly radioactive water accumulated in the basement of buildings housing 3 reactors that suffered a meltdown following the 2011 quake and tsunami.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, announced the plan at a meeting of the Nuclear Regulation Authority on Friday.
Last December, a government earthquake research panel warned of a possible imminent mega-quake in the Chishima Trench off the northern prefecture of Hokkaido.
TEPCO says its research shows such a quake could send tsunami of more than 10 meters into the Fukushima Daiichi plant and cause highly radioactive water to gush out of its damaged reactors.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant is in the process of decommissioning after the triple meltdown.
TEPCO has been pumping water into the 3 reactors to cool down fuel that melted. About 46,000 tons of contaminated cooling water and groundwater flowing into the reactor buildings have accumulated, mainly in their basement floors.
TEPCO now plans to move up work to seal the buildings’ entrances and other openings to prevent any more tsunami-related damage.
The company will also extend the coastal seawalls further north along reactor units 1 to 4, and plans to finish the work as soon as possible.
At Friday’s meeting, an official of the Secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority asked TEPCO to study whether the planned extension of seawalls will affect the decommissioning work.
TEPCO’s Chief Decommissioning Officer, Akira Ono, said another tsunami could knock out equipment and delay the decommissioning process. He said the company will quickly study how and where the seawalls should be built.
In shift in stance, TEPCO to build extra sea wall at Fukushima plant
September 15, 2018
Heeding a government warning, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it will build a 600-meter-long sea wall to strengthen protection against tsunami at the already battered Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
TEPCO announced its change in stance on Sept. 14 at a meeting of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, the country’s nuclear watchdog.
The wall will be constructed on the east side of four reactor buildings at the plant, TEPCO said. Details, such as height, construction schedule and costs, have yet to be decided.
The utility built a temporary sea wall after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami caused the triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant.
The company had said the temporary wall would provide sufficient protection of the plant from tsunami.
But TEPCO officials had second thoughts after the government’s Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion in December 2017 warned that the probability of an extremely powerful earthquake of magnitude 8.8 or higher striking in the Pacific Ocean off Hokkaido within 30 years was 40 percent.
The headquarters called for additional safety measures at nuclear plants, saying the strength of such a quake would be similar to the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake that spawned the devastating tsunami in 2011.
If another huge tsunami hits the plant, it could cause tons of radioactive water to flow out and obstruct work to decommission the nuclear reactors there.
“If another tsunami comes, the measures we have taken for the past seven years will be meaningless,” a TEPCO official said.
Work continues at the Fukushima No. 1 plant to cool the melted nuclear fuel within the heavily damaged reactor buildings. This water, coupled with the tons of daily groundwater that becomes contaminated after entering the reactor buildings, has forced the utility to store tons of radioactive water in tanks on the premises of the plant.
Those tanks and radioactive water accumulating in the reactor buildings could be swept away in a tsunami that hits the plant.
In addition, 1,573 nuclear fuel assemblies are stored in pools in the damaged reactor buildings.
If a tsunami knocks out functions to cool the fuel assemblies, the fuel could melt and release radioactive substances into the atmosphere.
TEPCO constructed the temporary 400-meter-long sea wall on the south side of the No. 4 reactor building in June 2011.
For possible tsunami coming from the east or north sides, TEPCO said waterproof doors on reactor buildings could overcome the problem.
The utility decided that an additional sea wall would be needed after the headquarters’ warning about an earthquake off Hokkaido, which is located north of the Fukushima plant.
TEPCO had considered constructing a sea wall at the site even before the 2011 nuclear disaster. However, it failed to reach a decision on its construction.
Fukushima prof., residents seek to establish an archive of nuke disaster lessons
In this July 17, 2018 file photo, tanks containing water contaminated with radioactive materials are seen on the grounds of the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture.
September 12, 2018
KATSURAO, Fukushima — A Fukushima University professor and his team are gathering materials for an archive project to pass on the lessons learned from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear disaster in this prefecture in northeastern Japan.
In a March 2017 plan finalized by the Fukushima Prefectural Government, the archives will be inaugurated in the summer of 2020 at a cost of approximately 5.5 billion yen in the town of Futaba, which has been rendered “difficult to live” due to radioactive fallout from the triple core meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)’s Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011. The facility will have a total floor space of 5,200 square meters with areas for exhibitions, management and research, storage, training sessions and holding meetings. The design was modeled after a similar center in the western Japan city of Kobe that was built to store records of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, but with more focus on the nuclear disaster than the quake itself.
Professor Kenji Yaginuma of Fukushima University’s Fukushima Future Center for Regional Revitalization and his team are visiting places affected by the nuclear accident and collecting testimonies of residents, documents, pictures and images for the project.
Yaginuma recently interviewed Tetsuyama Matsumoto, 61, who used to be a cattle breeder in the village of Katsurao, to hear his story about how his cows had to be slaughtered after the nuclear accident.
“I can’t believe they killed the cows without running any tests first,” Matsumoto fumed about the action taken after the central government decided that all cattle inside the no-go zone, within a 20-kilometer radius of the crippled plant, had to be culled. All eight cattle Matsumoto was keeping had to be killed because his farm was inside the zone. “The cattle were supporting me and my family,” Mastsumoto said as he looked over pictures of what happened after the disaster.
Yaginuma listened to Matsumoto’s tale intently, using a video camera to record the interview. “The value of relevant documents goes up with testimonies,” explained the professor.
On the same day, he also visited the village’s board of education as well as the former municipal Katsurao Junior High School to confirm the existence of whiteboards with plans for March 2011 written on it as well as what was written on the blackboards at the school. The school held a graduation ceremony on March 11 that year, the day of the quake disaster. According to the professor, sometimes it takes months for some residents to build up enough confidence to give him some important papers they have.
Yaginuma’s team is collecting just about anything that shows the daily lives of residents before the quake, or items that show what happened in the disaster and the ensuing nuclear accident, as well as materials indicative of post-disaster situations.
In November 2017, Yaginuma and his team visited the prefectural Ono Hospital in the town of Okuma, which is just 4 kilometers away from the nuclear plant and is still included in the “difficult-to-return” evacuation area designated by the government.
On the day of the earthquake seven and a half years ago, the hospital accepted many people injured by the jolt and the subsequent tsunami. But all patients and medical staff needed to evacuate at 7 a.m. the next morning using buses and ambulances after an evacuation order due to the nuclear accident was issued. Near the clinic’s entrance, papers with patients’ names and conditions are posted on a whiteboard. Stands to hang intravenous drip bags are also scattered around, reminiscent of the tense atmosphere of the time.
“We want to make it possible for people to look back on and study the earthquake and nuclear accident from every angle based on these documents,” said Yaginuma.
(Japanese original by Takuya Yoshida, Mito Bureau)
Japan tries to dilute tritium danger
September 11, 2018
TEPCO could dump radioactive water into ocean any day. Help stop it!
From various correspondents
More than one million tonnes of radioactively contaminated water has already accumulated at the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site, stored in steel tanks and increasing in volume daily — by some accounts one new tank is added every four days. Space to store it is rapidly running out. So far, the only “plan” TEPCO has come up with to deal with the problem is to dump the water into the Pacific Ocean.
The water is accumulating in part because about 150 tonnes of groundwater seeps daily through cracks in the stricken reactors’ foundations, thereby becoming contaminated with radioactive isotopes. In addition, water flows down the surrounding hillsides onto the site, picks up radiation, and must be captured and stored on site.
TEPCO has so far been pumping the contaminated water through a filtering system that can only remove cesium and strontium. But the process creates a highly toxic sludge as a byproduct, which also has to be stored in sealed canisters on site.
Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, cannot of course be removed from water. Hence the plan to dump the radioactive (tritiated) water into the ocean. This move has long been strongly opposed by people from many spectra in Japan. A “Resolution Against the Ocean Dumping of Radioactive Tritium-contaminated Waste Water From the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant,” initiated by physics Professor Emeritus at Kyoto University, Kosaku Yamada, has already garnered signatures from 280 individuals and 35 organizations. The Resolution is reproduced below.
The goal of the resolution is to raise public awareness about the prolonged serious health effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster that the Japanese government is taking every step to conceal.
Now, the organizers are calling on the international community to sign on as well. You can do so by sending your contact details directly to Professor Yamada at:
kosakuyamada@yahoo.co.jp
A Resolution Against the Ocean Dumping of Radioactive Tritium-contaminated Waste Water From the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
It was announced in March, 2014, that in the defunct Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant there was a total of approximately 3,400 trillion becquerels of tritium, with 830 trillion becquerels stored in tanks. This enormous amount of radioactive waste water has still continued to increase since then. In these circumstances, the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Company Ltd. (TEPCO), in their efforts to find an easy way to dispose of the tritium-contaminated waste water created by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, have been trying to dilute and dump it into the ocean. They have been watching for an unguarded moment among the opposition movements including the fishery cooperatives who are strongly against the dumping. Now they are about to finally decide to implement the ocean dumping plan. Far from regulating such activities, Toyoshi Fuketa, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Authority, has been championing this plan.
We are determined that the Japanese government and TEPCO shall never dump the radioactive waste water into the ocean for the following reasons:
1. Generally misunderstood as posing little risk to life and health, tritium is an extremely hazardous radioactive material. This is because organisms are not able to chemically distinguish tritium water from the normal water which composes most of the human body. This means that tritium can invade any part of the human body, irradiating it from inside; therefore, tritium can damage cell membranes and mitochondria in cells, indirectly through reactive oxygen species (ROS) and other radicals generated in irradiation. Tritium decay can directly cut chemical bonds of genomes or DNA strands. The risk peculiar to tritium is that if some hydrogen atoms which make up the genomes are replaced with tritium, the beta decay of the tritium into helium will cut off the chemical bonds of the genome.
Plants produce starch from water and carbon dioxide gas by using photosynthesis. Some of the hydrogen atoms in this starch can be replaced with tritium, forming organic tritium, which animals, plants and human beings absorb into their bodies over the long term, causing internal radiation.
2. With reference to the tritium released by various nuclear facilities, reports indicate a number of findings including: an increased incidence of leukemia among those living around the Genkai Nuclear Power Plant; an increased incidence of infant leukemia around nuclear reprocessing plants all over the world; and an increased incidence of child cancers around nuclear power plants. Real damage has already occurred.
3. Tritium, even if diluted and dumped into the ocean, will become concentrated again through aspects of the ecosystem such as food chains. Furthermore, tritium will vaporize into tritium-containing moisture or hydrogen gas, only to return to the land and eventually circulate within the environment. The idea that dilution ensures safety has caused fatal blunders to be repeated in many environmental pollution cases in the past, the vital factor being the total quantity released into the environment. Therefore, as far as environmental pollution problems are concerned, the only righteous and principled policy is to thoroughly confine and isolate radioactive materials or toxic substances from the ecosystem.
As tritium has a long half-life of 12 years, it destroys the environment over the long term. Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen which constitutes not only most of the living body but also its genes, so tritium disposal via dilution cannot be safe. Thus, we strongly urge the Japanese government and the Nuclear Regulatory Authority never to dump tritium into the ocean.
Nearly 60,000 evacuees, 5,623 in temporary housing 7.5 yrs after Tohoku disaster
A tsunami triggered by the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake is seen surging inland in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, in the country’s northeast
September 11, 2018
Seven and a half years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake hit Japan on March 11, 2011, but nearly 60,000 people still remain in evacuation and more than 5,600 people are living in temporary housing because of the quake, devastating tsunami and the triple core meltdowns at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)’s Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plant.
According to the government’s Reconstruction Agency, about 58,000 people still remained in evacuation as of August, although their number declined by about 15,000 during the past six months. As many as 5,623 people were living in prefabricated houses in the northeastern Japan prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, as of the end of August.
The construction of public housing for victims of the disaster is 96.5 percent complete, with 29,124 units built out of a planned 30,178 in those three prefectures as of late July. The achievement rate is 91.1 percent for Iwate and 98.4 percent for Miyagi. In Fukushima, the figure is 96.3 percent for evacuees from the nuclear accident.
Around the TEPCO nuclear power plant that spewed out a large amount of highly radioactive materials from the melted cores, 11 municipalities received evacuation orders from the central government. Although the orders were lifted in 70 percent of those areas by the spring of 2017, a total of seven cities, towns and villages still have so-called “difficult-to-return” zones with high radioactivity. Even in areas where evacuation orders have been lifted, the ratio of actual to registered residents is about 20 percent.
The central government intends to phase out temporary housing in Iwate and Miyagi by fiscal 2020 when its designated reconstruction and revitalization period will end, but the timing will be delayed to fiscal 2021 or later in Fukushima. The preparation of land plots where people affected by the disaster can build their own houses is 90.6 percent complete in the three prefectures.
Okawa Elementary School, which was flooded by the tsunami caused by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, is seen in this Oct. 15, 2016 file photo taken from a Mainichi Shimbun helicopter.
As of Sept. 10, the number of those killed by the 2011 disaster stood at 15,896, and 2,536 people remained missing. The Reconstruction Agency says 3,676 people in 10 prefectures, including Tokyo, had died of causes related to the disaster, as of the end of March this year.
(Japanese original by Nobuyuki Hyakutake, Ishinomaki Local Bureau, and Toshiki Miyazaki, Fukushima Bureau)
‘Nuclear food referendum’: Taiwan’s softening of Fukushima ban under threat amid ballot calls
10-Sep-2018 By Pearly Neo
Japan’s hopes that the Taiwan government will lift the current ban on foods from Fukushima and surrounding areas has hit another hurdle after Kuomintang, the largest opposition party in Taiwan, submitted a referendum request on what has been dubbed ‘anti-nuclear food’.
Read more at:
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- April 2026 (152)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 