There is simply no reason to continue Monju reactor program
An expert council on the Monju fast-breeder reactor program started debate last week on a draft report it will submit to the science and technology ministry.
The panel’s work is a response to the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s recommendation last year that the operator of the troubled experimental reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, should be replaced.
After a series of revelations about omitted safety inspections and other problems, the NRA in November urged science and technology minister Hiroshi Hase to find a new entity to replace the government-backed Japan Atomic Energy Agency as the reactor’s operator.
But the council’s draft report, released on May 20, doesn’t name a candidate for the mission. It only mentions a set of conditions the new operator should fulfill, which are nothing new and all part of conventional wisdom.
It says, for instance, the new operator should have “the ability to develop and implement operation and maintenance plans based on the characteristics of the reactor that is still in the experimental stage.” It also says the new operator should be able to respond appropriately to the interests and needs of society.
The draft report also points to the failure of a series of reforms that have been carried out to save the trouble-plagued program. It offers no reason to believe this time is different and the proposed replacement of the operator will bring about sufficient improvements in the management of the Monju.
The fast-breeder reactor requires as much as 20 billion yen ($182 million) in annual maintenance costs. In addition, there is not even an estimate of the certainly huge costs for necessary safety measures.
All these facts make a compelling case for decommissioning the reactor.
The biggest problem, as some members of the ministry panel have noted, is the lack of serious debate on the cost-effectiveness of the Monju program.
Who needs this program and how strong is the need? How much more money is the government ready to spend to develop and operate the reactor? These and other key questions about whether the program makes economic sense have been left unaddressed.
The Monju is now in a precarious position even in the government’s nuclear energy policy.
The reactor was once touted as the core facility for the government’s plan to establish a nuclear fuel recycling system in which plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel is burned in a fast-breeder reactor.
For more than two decades since a sodium coolant leak accident in 1995, however, the Monju has remained mostly idle.
Over the period, the need for a nuclear fuel recycling system has kept diminishing. There are now few people in the private sector calling for the development of a fast-breeder reactor.
When it drew up a research plan using the Monju three years ago, the science and technology ministry had to focus on the topic of nuclear waste disposal rather than fast-breeder reactor technology itself.
Still, the government has refused to pull the plug on the Monju program because it is concerned about possible repercussions on its nuclear fuel recycling policy as a whole.
But this vision is now almost a fantasy. If the government admits this fact, however, the issue of how to dispose of the large amounts of spent nuclear fuel stored at nuclear power plants across the nation will no doubt come under the spotlight.
Continuing the Monju program simply to gloss over this grim reality would be too foolish.
A small experimental reactor is enough and more efficient for use in research in nuclear waste disposal, which is still in a rudimentary stage. The need for such research offers no rationale for keeping the Monju program alive.
Opinion: Tokyo’s handling of Fukushima aftermath lacks responsibility
BEIJING, May 23 (Xinhua) — In the story of one famous Chinese idiom, a man plugs his ears while trying to steal a bell, foolishly believing that by doing so others won’t hear the sound of the bell when it is moved away.
Of course they do, and he gets caught.
The cautionary tale of burying one’s head in the sand aptly applies to the handling of the Fukushima incident by the Japanese government, which has chosen to turn a deaf ear to the aftermath of the worst nuclear accident in decades triggered by quake-related Tsunami five years ago.
Tokyo’s irresponsible attitudes and acts such as speeding up the return of displaced residents to some nuclear disaster-affected areas of Fukushima Prefecture and reluctance to share relevant information, have sparked doubt and anger domestically and internationally.
A joint opinion poll conducted by The Asahi Shimbun, a national daily, and the Fukushima local press in 2015 showed that over 70 percent of the Fukushima residents were unsatisfied with the government’s response.
In an editorial published on the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear accident, French newspaper “Le Monde” said the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is “eager to turn over the page of Fukushima” and has shown a “willingness to forget.”
On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck Japan’s eastern coast and triggered a 15-meter tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and sent its nuclear reactors into meltdown. The nuclear disaster was the worst since the Chernobyl incident in 1986.
As a result, up to 120,000 Japanese were relocated as “nuclear refugees” from the region.
A 2015 research found that children living near the Fukushima nuclear facilities are significantly up to 50 times more likely to develop thyroid cancer compared to those children living elsewhere in Japan.
Data on radiation levels collected by Japanese volunteers near the Daiichi nuclear power plant is 8 to 10 times higher than the official number.
At least 300 tons of radiation-contaminated underground water kept pouring into the ocean each day in 2013, but Abe, then vying for Tokyo’s right to host the Olympics, claimed that nuclear contamination was “totally under control.”
Questions over the Fukushima aftermath have never ceased to pop up.
The International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, a global organization, sent a message to the Japanese government this January expressing worry over the high incidence of thyroid cancer among children in the Fukushima region and offering as a professional organization to support the investigation on this matter.
The Japanese government, however, gracefully declined the offer.
The lack of transparency and independent investigation has led to limited access to information about the accident, one of the only two level-seven nuclear disasters according to the international nuclear watchdog.
Tokyo’s approach shows a weak sense of responsibility and the intention to avoid political pressure ahead of the G7 summit later this week and the 2020 Olympic Games.
Japan is concerned with its national image, food security, tourism, nuclear policy, medical compensation and possibility of public lawsuits. But not single one of them should be the country’s excuse for preventing the post-disaster situation from being known to the public.
Given the scale and impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, there is no ground for Tokyo to stay secretive and evasive over the handling of the issue.
The international community should urge the Japanese government, if it sticks to the passive attitude, to make public relevant information and its post-disaster management.
The selective amnesia over a disaster out of political or any other purposes is even more terrifying than the disaster itself. Tokyo owes an explanation to the world.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-05/23/c_135381193.htm
Spotlight: Five years on, Fukushima remains shrouded in untold stories
BEIJING, May 23 (Xinhua) — In front of the local government of Iidate Village in Japan‘s Fukushima Prefecture stands a big radiation measuring device. On its spotless dashboard flashes a red number: 0.38 microsieverts/hour.
The spot is about 40 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was crippled by the monstrous earthquake-triggered tsunami in March 2011.
Looking at the display, Yoichi Tao, a volunteer with a physics background, smiled in mockery. “The figure is too low,” he said, pointing to a humble measuring device not far away. “This is a measuring equipment we set up ourselves,” he said. “The figure of radiation is eight to 10 times of the official one.”
Tao’s feeling presents a stark contrast to the Japanese government’s official statements, which claimed that the crisis was “totally under control” and that “any negative impact of radioactive water on the environment is completely blocked.”
Tao was suspicious and angry, and the like-minded are many. Some of them suffer from radioactive-related diseases, and some are seeking help but having nobody to turn to.
This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear accident, as well as the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. On the latter, various investigations and commemorations have never ceased over the past three decades. Yet on the Fukushima nuclear disaster, probes have always been wrapped in an ominous cloak for the past five years.
How many years are needed to handle the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident? What are the exact ecological impacts on the environment? How much progress has been made in the decontamination process? How should the nuclear waste be disposed of?
As regards those questions, many experts around the world give a similar answer:” It’s hard to tell, as we don’t have enough information.”
RADIATION EXPOSURE: HIGH
Why are the radiation measuring figures 10 times different? “This shining measuring device was set up by the government later than us,” explained Tao. “It dispatched the military to wipe out the nearby nuclear radiation on the ground in advance, so the official figure looks very low. That’s how the government did it.”
However, concealing the truth will not lead people’s memory to oblivion, but arouse anger.
A joint opinion poll conducted by The Asahi Shimbun, a national daily, and the Fukushima local press in 2015 showed that over 70 percent of the Fukushima residents were unsatisfied with the government’s response. One focal point is the local children’s poor health, especially thyroid cancer, possibly triggered by nuclear radiation.
Toshihide Tsuda, a professor of environmental epidemiology at Japan’s Okayama University, found that the incidence of thyroid cancer among children in Fukushima Prefecture was 20 to 50 times higher than the national average as of 2014, three years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
His finding, however, fell on deaf ears of the central and local authorities. The Fukushima prefectural government attributed the phenomenon to a surge of “over-diagnosis.” The local government insisted that the cancer incidents and nuclear radiation were not related.
The International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, a global organization, sent a message to the Japanese government this January expressing worry over the high incidence of thyroid cancer among children in the Fukushima region and offering as a professional organization to support the investigation on this matter. However, its offer has been gracefully declined by the Japanese government.
At the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the parents of the children who were diagnosed with thyroid cancer in Fukushima formed a mutual help group to demand that the government provide convincing evidence that their children’s sufferings were not related to the nuclear accident.
WILLINGNESS TO FORGET
In an editorial published on the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear accident, French newspaper “Le Monde” said the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is “eager to turn over the page of Fukushima” and has shown a “willingness to forget.”
The Japanese government admitted in August 2013 that at least 300 tons of highly-contaminated water flowed freely into the Pacific Ocean every day and the problem might linger for ages.
However, in September the same year, when Japan was bidding for the 2020 Olympic Games, Abe told the international community that the crisis was “totally under control.”
It has also been revealed this February that Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukishima nuclear power plant, had knowledge of multiple meltdowns at the plant’s reactors following the tsunami, but intentionally withheld that information until months later.
Yuko Yoshida, secretary-general of Japan Women’s Network for Chernobyl Health Survey and Health-Care Support for the Victims, noticed the different attitudes of the Japanese media reporting the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents.
She pointed out that during the past three decades, mainstream Japanese media have been constantly fixing their eyes on Chernobyl. Yet after Fukushima, they have basically refrained from in-depth investigation and reporting on the health hazards caused by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Similar attitudes existed in the research community. Professor Valery Stepanenko, a leading Russian specialist in medical and environmental dosimetry and radiation safety, told Xinhua that he asked his Japanese counterparts why Japan had not performed a retrospective analysis of the radiation doses received by the population, but the Japanese scholars were either silent or vague about it.
“As a result, doses of iodine tablets received by children at that time remain unknown, but they are very important for proper follow-up treatment,” Stepanenko said.
FEAR OF IMAGE DAMAGE
According to Ken Buesseler, a senior researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a U.S. private non-profit organization, the Japanese government has not been doing a good job communicating with the public.
Information disclosure needs to be improved, so that the general public would know more about the level of nuclear contamination and its influence on health, he suggested.
The expert, who has been studying the Fukushima nuclear accident’s impact on maritime environment since 2011, told Xinhua that the impact was unprecedented, as 80 percent of the leaked radioactive substance has flown to the sea.
However, the Japanese government has kept claiming that everything is “completely under control” and that any negative impact on the environment “is completely blocked.”
Observers from around the world have pointed out that the Japanese side has deliberately toned down the nuclear accident’s long-term impact on health, food safety and the environment. Adding to Tokyo’s worry are concerns that the image of Japan would be stained and the safety of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics be questioned.
However, underestimating the long-term impact of the accident could lead to slack supervision on affected food, and might also produce unrealistic optimism in the Japanese government that could result in careless handling of the aftermath, experts warned.
According to Chen Xiaoqiu, deputy chief engineer with the Radioactive Safety Center of the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection, remedial efforts include restoring the environment, cleaning up nuclear contamination and processing nuclear waste and studying the biological survival environment and the radiation impact on human bodies.
Given Japan’s handling of the incident, an independent investigation initiated by international experts is necessary to reveal the truth of the disaster whose aftermath spills well beyond the Japanese border, said Buesseler.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-05/23/c_135381065.htm
Fukushima could have been even worst than it is already
A spent fuel pool at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Clemente, California.
Near miss at Fukushima is a warning for U.S., panel says
By Richard Stone May. 20, 2016
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary called it “the devil’s scenario.” Two weeks after the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing three nuclear reactors to melt down and release radioactive plumes, officials were bracing for even worse. They feared that spent fuel stored in the reactor halls would catch fire and send radioactive smoke across a much wider swath of eastern Japan, including Tokyo.
Thanks to a lucky break detailed in a report released today by the U.S. National Academies, Japan dodged that bullet. The near calamity “should serve as a wake-up call for the industry,” says Joseph Shepherd, a mechanical engineer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who chaired the academy committee that produced the report. Spent fuel accumulating at U.S. nuclear reactor plants is also vulnerable, the report warns. A major spent fuel fire at a U.S. nuclear plant “could dwarf the horrific consequences of the Fukushima accident,” says Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., who was not on the panel.
After spent fuel is removed from a reactor core, the fission products continue to decay radioactively, generating heat. Many nuclear plants, like Fukushima, store the fuel onsite at the bottom of deep pools for at least 5 years while it slowly cools. It is seriously vulnerable there, as the Fukushima accident demonstrated, and so the academy panel recommends that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and nuclear plant operators beef up systems for monitoring the pools and topping up water levels in case a facility is damaged. It also calls for more robust security measures after a disaster. “Disruptions create opportunities for malevolent acts,” Shepherd says.
At Fukushima, the earthquake and tsunami cut power to pumps that circulated coolant through the reactor cores and cooled water in the spent fuel pools. The pump failure led to the core meltdowns. In the pools, found in all six of Fukushima’s reactor halls, radioactive decay gradually heated the water. Of preeminent concern were the pools in reactor Units 1 through 4: Those buildings had sustained heavy damage on 11 March and in subsequent days, when explosions occurred in Units 1, 3, and 4.
The “devil’s scenario” nearly played out in Unit 4, where the reactor was shut down for maintenance. The entire reactor core—all 548 assemblies—was in the spent fuel pool, and was hotter than fuel in the other pools. When an explosion blew off Unit 4’s roof on 15 March, plant operators assumed the cause was hydrogen—and they feared it had come from fuel in the pool that had been exposed to air. They could not confirm that, because the blast had destroyed instrumentation for monitoring the pool. (Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant operator, later suggested that the hydrogen that had exploded had come not from exposed spent fuel but from the melted reactor core in the adjacent Unit 3.) But the possibility that the fuel had been exposed was plausible and alarming enough for then-NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko on 16 March to urge more extensive evacuations than the Japanese government had advised—beyond a 20-kilometer radius from the plant.
Later that day, however, concerns abated after a helicopter overflight captured video of sunlight glinting off water in the spent fuel pool. In fact, the crisis was worsening: The pool’s water was boiling away because of the hot fuel. As the level fell perilously close to the top of the fuel assemblies, something “fortuitous” happened, Shepherd says. As part of routine maintenance, workers had flooded Unit 4’s reactor well, where the core normally sits. Separating the well and the spent fuel pool is a gate through which fuel assemblies are transferred. The gate allowed water from the reactor well to leak into the spent fuel pool, partially refilling it. Without that leakage, the academy panel’s own modeling predicted that the tops of the fuel assemblies would have been exposed by early April; as the water continued to evaporate, the odds of the assemblies’ zirconium cladding catching fire would have skyrocketed. Only good fortune and makeshift measures to pump or spray water into all the spent fuel pools averted that disaster, the academy panel notes.
At U.S. nuclear plants, spent fuel is equally vulnerable. It is for the most part densely packed in pools, heightening the fire risk if cooling systems were to fail. NRC has estimated that a major fire in a U.S. spent fuel pool would displace, on average, 3.4 million people from an area larger than New Jersey. “We’re talking about trillion-dollar consequences,” says panelist Frank von Hippel, a nuclear security expert at Princeton University.
Besides developing better systems for monitoring the pools, the panel recommends that NRC take another look at the benefits of moving spent fuel to other storage as quickly as possible. Spent fuel can be shifted to concrete containers called dry casks as soon as it cools sufficiently, and the academy panel recommends that NRC “assess the risks and potential benefits of expedited transfer.” A wholesale transfer to dry casks at U.S. plants would cost roughly $4 billion.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/burning-reactor-fuel-could-have-worsened-fukushima-disaster
Young woman from Fukushima speaks out
For each of the last four days, I have published a part of an interview I filmed with a brave, young woman from Fukushima about her diagnosis of thyroid cancer. Following are some details about the interview as well as some data for reference.
Below is a summary of the main points of the young woman’s story:
1) She often gets tired easily after undergoing surgery for thyroid cancer.
2) She sometimes feels emotionally unstable after the surgery.
3) She has no medical doctor with whom she can talk comfortably.
4) She does not want other Fukushima children/ adolescents to develop thyroid cancer.
5) She wants young residents in Fukushima to undergo regular thyroid checkups, so that thyroid cancer cases may be detected early.
6) She is anxious about the possible health implications on her future children.
Points 1) and 2): Fukushima Medical University insists that thyroid cancer is not a disease that is deadly, and therefore residents in Fukushima do not have to worry even if they are diagnosed with thyroid cancer. However, this young woman’s story clearly demonstrates that the postoperative conditions of patients are not that simple. Post-operative patients are likely to experience various physical and emotional difficulties even after they have survived thyroid cancer.
Points 3): Doctors at Fukushima Medical University are not forming a comfortable relationship with the patients on whom they operate, which is a significant problem in terms of doctor-to-patient relationships. It is even more problematic when it is taken into account that most of the patients are young and therefore require intensive medical and emotional follow-up care.
Points 5): She is sending a strong message to young Fukushima residents that they should continue receiving regular thyroid checkups.
Peace,
Ian Thomas Ash
http://ianthomasash.blogspot.fr/2016/05/young-woman-from-fukushima-speaks-out-15.html
Truths deliberately covered about Fukushima surface over five years
People shout slogans and hold placards to protest against Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), owner and operator of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, in front of the Prime Minister’s official residence in Tokyo, Japan, March 11, 2015.
TOKYO, May 23 (Xinhua) — Facts about the Fukushima nuclear disaster triggered by a powerful earthquake kept emerging over the past five years after the mishap took place, revealing the real face of the disaster.
In front of the local government of Iidate Village in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture, there stands a sharp radiation measuring device. On its spotless dashboard jumps a red number: 0.38 microsieverts/hour.
The spot is about 40 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant which was crippled by the monstrous quake-triggered tsunami in March 2011.
However, volunteer Yoichi Tao who majored in physics said the figure of radiation on their own device is 8 to 10 times of the official one.
According to Tao, the government dispatched the military to wipe out the nearby nuclear radiation on the ground in advance, so the official figure looks very low. “That’s how the government did it,” he said.
Toshihide Tsuda, professor of environmental epidemiology at Okayama University, found out that the rate of children suffering from thyroid cancer in Fukushima Prefecture was as much as 20 to 50 times higher than the national average as of 2014, three years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
His finding, however, did not arouse concern from the Japanese and local governments. On the contrary, it was rejected by the Fukushima prefectural government, attributing the phenomenon to a surge of “over diagnosis.” The local government insisted the cancer incidents and nuclear radiation were not related.
The Japanese government admitted in August 2013 that at least 300 tons of highly-contaminated water flew freely into the Pacific Ocean everyday, and the problem might linger for ages. However, in September the same year, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the international community when Japan was bidding for the 2020 Olympic Games that the crisis was “totally under control.”
It has also been revealed that TEPCO, or Tokyo Electric Power Company, had knowledge of multiple meltdowns at the plant’s reactors following the tsunami, but intentionally refrained from informing the public of the fact until recently.
Underestimating the long-term impact of the accident could lead to a slack supervision on affected foods. It may also produce an unrealistic optimism in the Japanese government, thus the official handling of the aftermath would be careless, experts warned.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-05/23/c_135380988.htm
Japan’s demand for seafood declines, especially among young generation: report
With all what Tepco has been dumping and leaking into the sea at Fukushima Daiichi for the past five years, no wonder the Japanese people to slow down their fish consumption.
TOKYO —Japan’s seafood consumption has declined drastically, especially among the younger generation, according to a government report released this week.
The report reveals that the total per-capita marine food consumption in the year through March 2016 had declined to 27.3 kilograms, 30% down from a peak of 40.2 kilograms in fiscal 2001, Sankei Shimbun reported.
The decreasing seafood consumption is especially prevalent among people younger than 40, who are increasingly replacing the country’s once most common food with meat, the report reveals.
Meanwhile, with the overall seafood consumption in most developing countries increasing, the report further suggests that Japan may profit from expanding its export market in the future, as a means to compensate for domestic sales decline.
A successful example, specifically mentioned in the report, was the cooperation of six seafood companies based in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, an area that was severely damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in 2001. The alignment resulted in producing a new seafood brand, which is successfully expanding export sales globally and contributing to sustaining the Sanriku area’s overall financial growth.
Response to the Chicago Tribune Editorial “The children of Fukushima: When medical tests mislead”
The following is the letter to the Editor for the Chicago Tribune editorial, “The children of Fukushima: When medical tests mislead.” The letter was submitted through the online form on April 19, 2016, but there has been no response from Chicago Tribune. (Brevity of the content is due to the 400-word limit for letters).
*****
Dear Editor,
The March 25, 2016 Chicago Tribune editorial, “The children of Fukushima: When medical tests mislead” is misleading on its own regarding the childhood thyroid cancer situation in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
Differences in cancer rates by distance from the accident site and contamination levels may not be obvious, but an epidemiological analysis by Tsuda et al. (http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Fulltext/2016/05000/The_Authors_Respond.37.aspx) found a dose response tendency with proximity to the accident site after adjusting for the length of time between the accident and the time of screening. It is also important to remember only 1,080 children had their thyroid exposure doses directly measured and that is only 0.36% of 300,000 children who underwent thyroid ultrasound examination. Taken under high background levels, the doses are far from being accurate.
Children younger than age 5 showed an increased rate of thyroid cancer beginning at 4-5 years after the Chernobyl accident, so the first 3 years after the Fukushima accident, covered by the completed first round screening, would not expect to see that age group affected. The first cancer case was diagnosed about 17 months after the accident, not within a year, and some of these early cases might have been the result of radiation exposure promoting the growth of latent cancer that might not have become large enough to be detected until much later in life if unexposed to radiation.
Comparison with three other prefectures where one cancer case was diagnosed in 4,365 subjects is invalid as its small sample size lacks the necessary statistical power. The Korean screening is in adults and should not be compared with children.
It is true that unnecessary medical testing can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment, but the clinical information provided by Fukushima Medical University, such as metastasis and physical proximity of tumor to other vital structures, validates surgical interventions for the majority of the operated cases in Fukushima. Thyroid cancer is believed to grow slowly, but 80% of thyroid cancer cases discovered in the ongoing second round screening had no suspicious findings in the first round screening only 2-3 years earlier.
It is not just a cancer death but cancer diagnosis itself that is concerning for patients and their loved ones, and the causality should not be prematurely prejudged. A lesson of the Fukushima children may be the importance of conducting a timely and adequate collection of the exposure data and a comprehensive evaluation of data in a transparent and unbiased manner.
Yuri Hiranuma, D.O.
Member, Radiation and Health Committee
Physicians for Social Responsibility
http://fukushimavoice-eng2.blogspot.fr/2016/05/response-to-chicago-tribune-editorial.html
Fukushima: A Nuclear Story’ stands out among 3/11 documentaries
The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster has been examined in hundreds of documentaries to date, counting all media, nationalities and languages. But “Fukushima: A Nuclear Story” stands out for one simple, powerful reason: Its central figure, Italian journalist Pio d’Emilia, was among the first foreign reporters allowed on the scene after the earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant.
With his camcorder, he captured the devastation and confusion of the disaster’s immediate aftermath, as he evaded still-spotty security to travel to the plant gates. The documentary, narrated by American actor Willem Dafoe, has been distilled from nearly 300 hours of footage. This includes an in-depth interview with Naoto Kan — prime minister at the time of the disaster — who says he was seriously considering an evacuation of Tokyo when the meltdowns at the plant seemed to be spiraling out of control.
Kan was also on hand for a gala preview screening of “Fukushima: A Nuclear Story” at the MAXXI museum of contemporary art in Rome on Monday. The film has also been sold for broadcast in Canada, the United States, Germany, Norway and Mexico — but not yet Japan.
“Fukushima has already joined the many forgotten nuclear disasters,” says d’Emila; “forgetting means lying. Tepco and the Japanese government began lying from the very first hours — by hiding the already occurring multiple meltdowns — and are still lying by pretending the situation is now under control. As everybody knows, it isn’t.”
PC with Documentary, “Fukushima; A Nuclear Story”: Pio d’Emilia
Japan vows to cooperate in French Olympic probe
Japan vowed to cooperate with a French probe into $2 million allegedly paid to help Tokyo secure the 2020 Olympics on Monday, as the son of ex-world athletics chief Lamine Diack denied receiving the money.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he had ordered full cooperation with the French investigation into the payments, sent to a Singapore bank account which has been linked to Diack’s son, Papa Massata Diack.
Japanese officials have been swift to deny wrongdoing in what is the most serious in a series of problems to affect the 2020 Games, including over the main stadium’s design and the event’s official logo.
French prosecutors said last week they suspect the payments were intended to help secure the 2020 Olympics for Tokyo, which beat out competition from Istanbul and Madrid.
Japan’s Olympic chief last week insisted the payments were a “legitimate consultant’s fee”, while the top government spokesman insisted the bid was “clean”.
And Prime Minister Abe told parliament on Monday: “I have instructed the education and sports minister to fully cooperate in the investigation.”
“Education and sports minister Hiroshi Hase told the Japanese Olympic Committee and the former bid committee to cooperate in the investigation,” he added, according to Jiji Press.
French prosecutors said some 2.8 million Singapore dollars (1.8 million euros, $2 million) were paid to the now defunct Black Tidings consulting company, which Britain’s Guardian newspaper has linked to Papa Massata Diack.
Lamine Diack was an International Olympic Committee member in 2013 when Tokyo won the hosting rights for 2020. Diack and his son already face corruption charges in France.
– ‘Let them investigate’ –
The payments were discovered as part of an inquiry into allegations the Diacks organised bribes to cover up failed dope tests by Russian athletes, French prosecutors said. France became involved as the money may have been laundered in Paris.
But Diack’s son, Papa Massata Diack, speaking to Kyodo News agency in his native Senegal, insisted he hadn’t received any money from the Tokyo bid team.
“I haven’t got any money,” he said in Dakar. “Let them investigate… I have nothing to hide,” he added.
He added that he had been friends with Ian Tan Tong Han, formerly the sole proprietor of Black Tidings, since the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But he said he didn’t know Tan’s company was contracted by the Japanese bid team.
“I’ve been in this sports business for 25 years. I know the rules,” Diack said, adding that Tokyo’s bid “shouldn’t be tarnished” and had been done “very fairly”.
Tsunekazu Takeda, the Japanese Olympic Committee president who led Tokyo’s bid, said the money was for “professional services” for consulting work.
“I never knew there was a link (between the company and Papa Massata Diack),” Takeda told lawmakers in parliament on Monday. “Anyway, if it is in the realm of acquaintance there is no problem,” he added.
“Internationally it is quite common” to have a contract with an international consultant, Takeda added.
The controversy comes after Tokyo had to scrap its original main stadium design due to its eye-watering price tag, and also had to weather plagiarism accusations over the Games’ initial logo.
Up to 10,20 µSv in Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture 163km from Fukushima Dai-ichi
Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture. Way north of Sendai, adjacent to Kessenuma and Minamisanriku. 163km, (101 miles) from Fukushima Dai-ichi.
(part 3) Young woman from Fukushima speaks out
This interview was filmed on February 12, 2016, in Fukushima Prefecture. The young woman was 15 at the time of the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, and we are releasing this interview with her permission. She is one of the 166 Fukushima residents aged 18 or younger at the time of the nuclear disaster who has been diagnosed with or suspected of having thyroid cancer (as of February 2016).
Fukushima residents who were 18 years old or younger at the time of the nuclear accident have been asked to participate in the voluntary thyroid ultrasound examination which is part of the Fukushima Health Management Survey. However, 18.8% of this age group were not tested in the 1st round of testing.* While the final results for the 2nd round of testing are not yet complete, every year the number of children participating in the official thyroid examinations is decreasing; the number of children who have not participated in the 2nd round of testing is currently 50.7%** For those young people aged 18-21 (as of April 1, 2014) and who were living in Fukushima at the time of the nuclear accident, 74.5% have not yet taken part in the official thyroid ultrasound examination.**
This young woman’s reason for speaking out is to motivate the families of children who have not yet received the thyroid ultrasound examination to have their children tested. However, in sharing her story about a topic which has become increasingly difficult to talk publicly about in Japan, she faces inherent risks which may include those to her work, community life and personal relationships. I therefore ask that her privacy is respected.
Ian Thomas Ash, Director
U.S. would back a rethink of Japan’s plutonium recycling program: White House
WASHINGTON – The United States would back a change to Japan’s nuclear fuel reprocessing program because there are concerns it may lead to an increase in its ally’s stockpile of unused plutonium, a senior White House official said.
If Japan were to change course “they would find the United States to be supportive,” Jon Wolfsthal, senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council, said in a recent interview.
Wolfsthal’s remark reflected concerns in President Barack Obama’s administration about the future of Japan’s large plutonium stockpiles, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.
Wolfsthal said the upcoming renewal in 2018 of a bilateral nuclear agreement with Japan “has the potential to become a very controversial issue.”
The 1988 pact authorizes Japan to reprocess used nuclear fuel when the fuel includes U.S.-produced uranium.
“There is no question that plutonium recycling in Japan has been expensive, that it is a challenging future for Japan,” Wolfsthal said.
In March, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida defended the reprocessing of used nuclear fuel, saying the United States has approved it.
The United States and Japan have discussed what a decision to have large stockpiles of plutonium that “don’t have a dedicated pathway to use and disposition” means for global efforts to restrict reprocessing and enrichment, he said.
If Japan keeps recycling plutonium, “what is to stop other countries from thinking the exact same thing?” Wolfsthal said, apparently referring to concerns that other Asian countries such as China and South Korea may compete to get involved in similar projects.
Under the Japanese reprocessing program, plutonium extracted from used nuclear fuel is recycled to make plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel usable at nuclear power plants. Japan has licensed companies in foreign countries such as Britain and France to produce the so-called MOX fuel.
Japan came up with the plutonium recycling program in the face of potential international suspicion that a large stockpile of plutonium could encourage it to go nuclear.
But the plutonium recycling effort has hit a snag because most of Japan’s nuclear plants have suspended operations due to public safety concerns since the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 plant following the giant earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Obama has urged Japan and other countries to give up unused nuclear materials including plutonium as part of his efforts to strengthen control over the management of nuclear substances all over the world to prevent terrorists from obtaining them.
Japan had 48 tons of plutonium as of the end of 2014 and sent 331 kilograms of plutonium to the United States earlier this year.
Fukushima, an ongoing tragedy Japanese government has brushed aside
Toshihide Tsuda, professor of environmental epidemiology at Okayama University, found that the rate of children suffering from thyroid cancer in Fukushima Prefecture in Japan was as much as 20 to 50 times higher than the national average as of 2014, three years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
His findings were published in the electronic edition of the journal of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology late last year, but was refuted by the Fukushima prefectural government and other experts as it doubted the cases are related to the nuclear crisis and the government attributed to the surge to “over diagnosis.”
“Unless radiation exposure data are checked, any specific relationship between a cancer incidence and radiation cannot be identified,” Shiochiro Tsugane, director of the Research Center for Cancer Prevention and Screening, was quoted by a local report as saying.
More than 160 teenagers in Fukushima Prefecture were diagnosed with thyroid cancer, including suspect cases, since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was crippled by the monstrous quake-triggered tsunami in March 2011. And the number almost certainly increase with the passage of time.
At the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the parents of the children who were diagnosed with thyroid cancer in Fukushima formed a mutual help group to demand the government provide convincing evidence that their children’s sufferings were not related to the nuclear crisis.
In fact, the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology sent a message to the Japanese government suggesting it to conduct detailed and continuous research on residents’ health in Fukushima, but the government here did not respond to the advice, according to Tsuda who urged the government to face up to the aftermath of the nuclear issue.
Meanwhile, overseas nuclear experts are also surprised by the irresponsible and indifferent attitude of the Japanese government toward the nuclear refugees.
Oleksiy Pasyuk, an expert on energy policy at the National Ecological Center of Ukraine, told Xinhua that one of the main mistakes made by Japan in the aftermath of the accident was that the government had not stocked enough medicinal iodine tablets, which can prevent the absorption of radioactive material into the human body.
“No iodine tablets were distributed to residents living in the plant’s vicinity, who may have been exposed to radiation — it was an essential lesson, which they had to learn from Chernobyl,” Pasyuk said last month at the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The Fukushima disaster is the worst nuclear crisis since the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986, but the Japanese government has failed to learn the lessons from the Chernobyl over the past 25 years.
The management of the Fukushima plant had been warned in advance about the risks of failure of the emergency electricity generators and the subsequent failure of the cooling systems in a seismically active region, said Olga Kosharna.
The expert with the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine said that “if they had re-ionizers of hydrogen or holes in the roof, there would be no explosion and no such severe radiation effects. There has been a human error.”
“Japanese mentality is hierarchical — all are awaiting instructions from the top chief to start acting and it is time-consuming. Besides, there was no independent nuclear agency, which examines the technical state of the plant and decides whether to stop the functioning of the reactors or suspend its operating license,” Kosharna told Xinhua.
More than five years on, the debate over the aftermath of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in three decades are continuing, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the international community in 2013 when Japan bid for the 2020 Olympic Games that the crisis was “totally under control.”
The fact is obvious that about 200 tons of highly-contaminated water flows freely into the Pacific Ocean everyday and the nuclear power plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) still can not prevent the contaminated water from leaking from its makeshift containers.
TEPCO in March launched its ambitious project of freezing soil to create an ice wall to decrease toxic water leaking into the ocean. Local reports said that the project is expected to reduce the water to about 50 tons, but added that the effects are still unclear, as such a project is unprecedented on such a huge scale.
According to research by Fukushima University, about 3,500 trillion becquerels of radiative cesium-137 were discharged into the sea with the toxic water since the disaster broke out and the radiative material has reached the western coast of northern America.
Meanwhile, about a hundred thousand evacuees are still displaced and live in cramped temporary housing camps due to the uncontrolled nuclear disaster.
However, in the face of such troubles regarding the ongoing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crisis, the Japanese government is eager to reboot the country’s idled nuclear plants.
The Sendai nuclear power plant in the Kyushu area was reopened last November despite the eruption of a nearby volcano. It is also close to Kumamoto Prefecture, which was hit by waves of strong earthquakes, including one measuring a magnitude of 6.7 and another registering M7.3, last month.
The majority of the Japanese public oppose the restarting of the country’s nuclear power plants and only about 30 percent are supportive. More than 60 percent of Fukushima prefectural residents are dissatisfied with the government’s countermeasures against the nuclear disaster.
http://www.miragenews.com/fukushima-an-ongoing-tragedy-japanese-government-has-brushed-aside/
TEPCO: Frozen soil wall proving effective
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says the work to freeze soil around the crippled reactors is making progress. It is designed to stop radioactive groundwater from flowing out of the facilities.
Tokyo Electric Power Company began freezing the soil in late March to make a 1.5-kilometer frozen wall surrounding the 4 reactors.
The reactor facilities have been the main source of radioactive contamination of groundwater at the plant.
TEPCO says that as of Tuesday, more than 80 percent of 6,000 checkpoints set up along the wall logged temperatures below zero. The operator says it means the freezing work is going well.
It also says that groundwater levels are rising in areas between the reactor facilities and the frozen wall along the coast. TEPCO officials assume the wall is preventing the water from seeping out. But water is still coming in through some unfrozen parts of the hillside.
Officials told reporters on Thursday that they will further carefully monitor the effect of the frozen wall and seek its completion.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20160520_03/
Below are diagrams from TEPCO’s newest report:http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2016/images1/handouts_160519_02-j.pdf
1 This Month
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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