Sustained Public Opposition to nuclear power restart in Japan
In the Wake of Fukushima: Japan’s Nuclear Energy Policy Impasse 60% of Japan’s 48 viable nuclear reactors,are not as yet being considered for application to the Nuclear Regulation Agency (NRA) for restart By Andrew Dewit Global Research, April 07, 2014
Asia-Pacific Journal “………..The most recent Japanese opinion poll on nuclear restarts is the March 18 survey by the Asahi Shimbun. It indicates that 59% of the Japanese public oppose restarts of any nuclear capacity, whereas only 28% support restarts. The poll’s results not only confirm that the opposition to nuclear is holding; it also shows a great sensitivity to risk. According to the poll, a mere 12% of the Japanese public have either no or only minimal concern regarding the risk of further nuclear accidents at facilities other than the infamous Fukushima Daiichi. By contrast, 50% have a fair degree of concern, and 36% have a very high degree of concern. In addition, the poll shows that only 4% of respondents regard the lack of nuclear waste disposal facilities as of no or only minimal concern. By contrast, 19% believe it is to some extent a problem. And a massive 76% regard it as a serious problem.7
Nationwide, there are 135 local communities that lie within 30 kilometers of a reactor, and 21 prefectures that are host to one or more reactors. The news service Kyodo Tsushin surveyed these 156 local governments in mid- to late-February of 2014, and found that only 13 were ready to agree to restarts without conditions. A further 24 would agree to restarts, but with conditions. Of the remainder, 32 declared their opposition to restarts, 66 replied that they could not decide, and 21 offered no reply at all.8 The NRA decided on March 13 to prioritize Kyushu Electric’s Sendai rectors 1 and 2 (in Kagoshima Prefecture) for restart.9 But that decision itself came under criticism, due to perceptions of undue haste amid suggestions that seismically active zones are nearby………. http://www.globalresearch.ca/in-the-wake-of-fukushima-japans-energy-policy-impasse/5376899?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-the-wake-of-fukushima-japans-energy-policy-impasse
Greenpeace Activists invade French nuclear power plant
Activists breach French nuclear plant Sky News, , Tuesday March 18, 2014 Dozens of Greenpeace activists have snuck into a nuclear power plant in eastern France at dawn.
It’s the latest break-in by the environmental group to highlight alleged security weaknesses at atomic facilities.
The activists broke into the Fessenheim plant and hung a banner reading ‘Stop risking Europe’ on the side of one of its reactors.
They did this ‘to denounce the risk of French nuclear power for the whole of Europe,’ the group said in a statement on Tuesday…….
Police detained 56 activists, he said, but 20 remained on top of the dome of one of the reactors as a police helicopter hovered above.
France, the world’s most nuclear-dependent country, operates 58 reactors and has been a leading international proponent of atomic energy.
But in a deal with the Greens before the 2012 parliamentary and presidential elections, President Francois Hollande’s Socialist party promised to cut reliance on nuclear energy from more than 75 per cent to 50 per cent by shutting 24 reactors by 2025.
Hollande has pledged to close Fessenheim, which was commissioned in 1977, by the end of 2016.
The plant, located on the banks of the Rhine, is close to the Swiss and German borders and is considered vulnerable to seismic activity and flooding.
The Greenpeace protest stunt comes ahead of a meeting by European leaders to discuss the future of the continent’s energy policy.
Greenpeace wants Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to push Europe towards a real energy transition, complaining that France relies too much on nuclear power, and Germany on coal, for electricity supplies. http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=959316
Tokyo anti nuclear groups organise to promote renewable energy
Nuclear foes rally in U.S. cities on 3/11 anniversary Japan Times KYODO NEW YORK 12 Mar 14,“…..Green association forged KYODO A group of 38 local green power advocacy groups plan to set up a national association by June in an effort to break away from nuclear power generation.
The association will provide a forum for sharing information about members’ experiences in setting up community-based renewable power plants, the founders said Tuesday in Tokyo.
Members also plan to create a system for issuing certificates indicating the origin of electricity ahead of the 2016 liberalization of the retail electricity market, which will allow households to choose suppliers. Noting their wish not to have another nuclear disaster, the founders said they hope to assist companies and individuals to overcome challenges in developing locally driven power plants. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/12/national/nuclear-foes-rally-in-u-s-cities-on-311-anniversary/#.UyII_j9dV9U
Virginia Uranium dumps its Coles Hill project
Amid fierce political opposition, US uranium miner suspends mine plans Mining.com, Ana Komnenic | December 15, 2013 A uranium miner has given up on mining one of the world’s largest known uranium deposits in Virginia – for now.
Virginia Uranium has plans to develop the Coles Hill deposit in Pittsylvania County.According to the Associated Press, the site contains an estimated 119-million-pounds of uranium.
But Virginia has a decades-long ban on uranium mining and the Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe has fiercely opposed attempts to change this legislation and said he would veto any pro-uranium bills.Faced with this major political hurdle, Virginia Uranium told the Associated Press on Saturday that it would “not back the introduction of uranium mining legislation in the 2014 session of the General Assembly.”
The company cited the Governor-Elect’s opposition as a “significant challenge” to the project……
Environmental group Sierra Club has applauded McAuliffe for his opposition, publishing an article this week thanking the Governor.
Earlier this year McAuliffe stated that he was “not comfortable” enough with the science to say that he believed his community would be safe.
“I’m afraid it would get into the drinking water,” he said……http://www.mining.com/amid-fierce-political-opposition-us-uranium-miner-gives-up-on-one-of-the-worlds-largest-uranium-deposits-66417/
US politicians and indigenous people fight Lake Huron nuclear waste dump
Saugeen Ojibwe and U.S. Politicians Oppose Nuclear Waste Burial Near Lake Huron, Indian Country, Martha Troian12/12/13
A controversial proposal to bury nuclear waste a half mile from Lake Huron’s shoreline in Ontario is proceeding over indigenous objections in a plan that has repercussions on both sides of the U.S.–Canada border.
Opposition to the plan, which would inter low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste about 2,230 feet underground in solid rock, is sparking opposition from Indigenous Peoples and U.S. politicians alike. …… Continue reading
Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) oppose Karachi nuclear power projects
Keamari Town’s nuclear power projects irk fishermen http://tribune.com.pk/story/638482/energy-leap-keamari-towns-nuclear-power-projects-irk-fishermen/ By PPI November 29, 2013 KARACHI:
The Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) is unhappy with the two newly inaugurated Karachi nuclear power projects, K-1 and K-2, along the coastal area of the city in Keamari Town.
The officials are of the view that the authorities should have reviewed its environmental and social effects before their launch. In a statement issued on Thursday, the PFF said that the area community should have been taken into confidence with regards to their security to avoid any loss because of the installation of these power plants.
The statement said the projects were located close to the fault line while the people had been facing frequent warnings and threats of cyclone and tsunami. In case of this happening, it could be disastrous for not only the communities but also marine ecology. The project site has already been declared disaster prone, and there was no justification of environmental safety and community protection, it said. Continue reading
Intrepid Medha Patkar aims to stop nuclear power project in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh.
Medha Patkar raises pitch against proposed nuclear plant in AP Zee News, November 27, 2013, Srikakulam (AP): Activist Medha Patkar has opposed a nuclear power plant coming up at Kovvada village in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh.
She was addressing a meeting of local fishermen who are opposing the project, fearing displacement.
“The government’s move of ordering acquisition of about 2,000 acres of land for the nuclear plant is nothing but violation of human rights,” she alleged.
Local leaders have alleged that around 9,000 local fishermen families will lose their livelihood if the project comes up. ……….http://zeenews.india.com/news/andhra-pradesh/medha-patkar-raises-pitch-against-proposed-nuclear-plant-in-ap_892835.html
Two former Japan Prime Ministers call for ending nuclear power
Japan Ex-Leaders Join Calls Against Nuclear Power TOKYO November 12, 2013 (AP) abc news, By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer, Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report.
Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Tuesday that the current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, should take advantage of his high public support and sway in parliament to “do the right thing.”
“Prime Minister Abe should use the power given to him to do what the majority of the people want,” Koizumi said in a speech at the Japan Press Club. “It can be achieved. Why miss this chance?”
Koizumi, who supported nuclear power during his 2001-2006 term in office, said that with Japan’s nuclear plants all offline for safety checks it would be easiest to begin the phase-out soon…….
Polls have shown the majority of the public, jittery over radiation risks, prefers to shift away from the nuclear plants that provided nearly a third of Japan’s power generation capacity before the accident at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, the worst since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
Even within Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, opinions over the future for nuclear power are divided.
Japan’s rapid turnover in leadership over the past two decades means there are plenty of former prime ministers. At least three, including Koizumi, have said they support ending use of nuclear power.
Their support could help reinvigorate the anti-nuclear movement, which has lost some of its vitality nearly three years after the Fukushima accident.
Another former prime minister, Morihiro Hosokawa, said in an interview published in the Tokyo Shimbun on Tuesday that he also favors an end to reliance on nuclear power.
“I can’t understand why they want restarts of the nuclear plants when there is no place to discard the nuclear waste,” said Hosokawa, who served as prime minister for eight months in 1993-94. “It would be a crime against future generations for our generation to restart nuclear plants without resolving this issue,” he said.
Koizumi likewise emphasized his concern over nuclear waste disposal, especially in a densely populated, land-scarce country like Japan.
Experts have questioned whether earthquake-prone Japan can safely store nuclear waste under any scenario.
“I think it is too optimistic and irresponsible to assume we can find a final radioactive waste storage site in Japan, after the accident,” he said.
Even burying it underground for 100,000 years could expose future generations to harmful radiation, he said.
“What language should we use to convey the hazards to those people in the future?” he said…….. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/japan-leaders-join-calls-nuclear-power-20859089
Scotland’s “mass walk-on” protest against firing of depleted uranium weapons
Dundrennan depleted uranium protest staged http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-24835544 6 Nov 13 The last DU tests were carried out at Dundrennan five years ago Campaigners have held a “mass walk-on” at the Dundrennan range in protest at the test firing of depleted uranium (DU) weapons into the Solway Firth.
It was part of an international day of action and followed concerns about serious health issues resulting from the use of such weapons in war zones.
The last DU tests at the south of Scotland range were in 2008. Earlier this year the Ministry of Defence said it had no plans to restart firing in the area.
One of the campaigners, Rachel Thompson, said the protest had been well supported from across Scotland and beyond. “We have found that depleted uranium is one of those issues people really do care about,” she said.
“They knew when they started that Scottish people did not want this to happen.” She said the protest wanted to make the link between that objection and the consequences of the use of such weapons in Iraq.
Opposition to dangerous nuclear power, in Jordan
Jordanians fret over ‘dangerous’ nuclear plan Phys Org, 6 Nov 13, by Kamal Taha Jordan’s plan to build its first nuclear plant with Russian help has stirred fresh fears and suspicions as experts called for the “dangerous” and “illogical” project to be abandoned. The government announced late last month that two Russian firms will build and operate a $10-billion (7-billion-euro) nuclear plant, including two 1,000-megawatt reactors.
The plant, to be completed in 2023, will be built in Amra, a desert area north of the capital, the government said.
Energy-poor Jordan says it wants to develop nuclear power to meet its growing needs and to fire desalination plants to overcome its crippling water shortage.
But activists and environmentalists warn that the project is too risky. Continue reading
Former Prime Minister Kan’s campaign to rid the world of nuclear power
he [Kan] noted that already a new energy prospect is visible off the Fukushima coast, where a floating wind turbine is being tested. It has been dubbed “Fukushima mirai,” which means “Fukushima future” in Japanese. “In Japan,” Kan said, “we see that even without nuclear power plants we can actually supply energy to meet our demands.”
The Nuclear Odyssey of Naoto Kan, Japan’s Prime Minister during Fukushima Having led Japan through the 2011 nuclear crisis, the elder statesman is now campaigning for a world without nuclear power, Scientific American, By David Biello, 17 Oct 13, (“……………Kan could not help but wondering how much worse the Fukushima meltdowns might get on the dark nights spent in his office after March 11, 2011. “What was going through my mind at the time?” Kan said through a translator during a public event at the 92nd Street YMCA in New York City on October 8. “How much worse is this going to get, and how can we stop this from getting even worse?”
Proud history of USA women holding back nuclear power industry
In their determination to publicize its hazards, the intervening women were pioneers alerting the American public to the scientific consensus that all radiation exposure is cumulative and damages cellular DNA.
No Nukes and Intervening Women http://www.huffingtonpost.com/renee-parsons/no-nukes-and-intervening-women_b_1425733.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=623147b=facebook Renee Parsons : 04/16/2012 In an era when Occupy Wall Street protestors are beaten and arrested like hardened criminals, more than 40 years ago in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, there was another organized protest movement that captured the nation’s attention as it spread from New Hampshire’s Clamshell Alliance to the Abalone Alliance in southern California..In the mid-to-late 1970s, massive civil disobedience and notably peaceful arrest of protestors were taking place from the tidewater of Virginia to the farmlands of Oklahoma against the construction and operation of commercial nuclear power reactors.
What is less well-known is that at the root of the controversy, prior to public demonstrations of opposition, were a handful of exceptional women, mostly “housewives” whose thankless work done at their dining room tables provided those demonstrators and an uninformed country with the true realities of the “peaceful” atom. Continue reading
African Americans’ proud history against nuclear weapons
The Civil Rights Movement and Nuclear Test Ban Treaty HUFFINGTON POST, Vincent Intondi 10/07/2013“………..having the first African American president also advocate for nuclear disarmament should not come as a surprise. President Obama was simply following in the path of those before him. Indeed, since 1945, many in the African American community, including some of the most prominent black leaders in U.S. history, actively supported nuclear disarmament, often connecting the nuclear issue with the fight for racial equality and liberation movements around the world. And it was due, in part, to these black activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and his wife, Coretta, that President Kennedy was able to pass the partial nuclear test ban treaty fifty years ago this week. Continue reading
Final curtain staying down for nuclear energy in Japan?
“Some people may say it is irresponsible to call for zero nuclear plants,” he said, “but I think it is even more irresponsible not to have a disposal site for the waste or even any prospect of constructing such a facility.”
He now doubted the claims by experts in the industry that nuclear energy was “safe, clean, and inexpensive” and wondered “if human beings can really control nuclear energy” 
Koizumi has an accomplice: Abe’s wife. She has been whispering into her husband’s ear at night – and making anti-nuclear speeches during the day
The End Of Nuclear Energy In Japan? Zero Hedge by testosteronepit 10/04/2013 Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter
“I’m calling for zero nuclear power,” said Junichiro Koizumi, the hugely popular former prime minister of Japan, on Tuesday at a lecture in Nagoya. He’d served from 2001 to 2006. In 2005, he’d led the Liberal Democratic Party to win an extraordinarily large parliamentary majority. Then he groomed Shinzo Abe to become his successor. By September 2006, Abe was PM – only to get kicked out a year later. Now that Abe is PM again and is trying to restore the scandal-plagued nuclear industry to its former glory, Koizumi’s words ripped into his policies at the perfect moment…..
Though retired from politics since 2009, Koizumi remains influential. He was pro-nuclear throughout his career. But on Tuesday, he said that the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 and the subsequent nuclear fiasco in Fukushima should be used as an opportunity to build a resource-recycling society. And he called on his former protégé to abandon nuclear power…….
If he were an active politician, he’d want “to convince lawmakers to move in the direction of zero nuclear plants,” he said. Now would be the ideal time to move that direction. All 50 nuclear reactors were off line. All opposition parties favored zero nuclear power. It could be done “as long as the prime minister made the decision” – putting the onus squarely on his former protégé. And nuclear politics in Japan haven’t been the same since. Continue reading
Michigan politicians unhappy about Nuclear waste dump near great lakes
Michigan politicians voice concerns over burying nuclear waste near Kincardine CTV News September 30, 2013 Two American politicians made the trip to Kincardine Monday to share their opposition to burying nuclear waste near the Great Lakes.
“It’s just really astonishing to me that they would consider putting this type of nuclear waste so close to Lake Huron and to our Great Lakes. As I look out here, it’s just even more compelling of a case for me,” says Michigan State Representative Sarah Roberts.
Roberts and Michigan State Senator Hoon Yung Hopgood travelled to Bruce County to say Michigan doesn’t want nuclear waste permanently stored within 1.2 kilometres of the lake their share with Ontario. “In Michigan, every single person that I have talked to says ‘I cannot believe they are considering doing that,'” says Roberts.
Ontario Power Generation wants to bury 200,000 cubic metres of its low and intermediate level nuclear waste in an underground facility on the Bruce Power site…….
While there very well may be opposition in Michigan, it’s harder to find on this side of the border. Every mayor within 150 kilometres of the proposed site is favour of OPG’s plan, including Kincardine Mayor Larry Kraemer…… http://london.ctvnews.ca/michigan-politicians-voice-concerns-over-burying-nuclear-waste-near-kincardine-1.1477370#ixzz2gWBWQW7B
1 This Month
26 September – International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
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