Taiwan govt to give $2.55 billion to Orchid Island in nuclear waste compensation
Orchid Island to get NT$2.55 billion in nuclear waste compensation, Focus Taiwan, (By Flor Wang, Elaine Hou, Lu Tai-cheng Taipei, Nov. 22 (CNA) The government will pay NT$2.55 billion (US$83.6 million) to Orchid Island residents to compensate them for infringing on their rights by maintaining a nuclear waste storage facility there over the past five decades, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) announced Friday.
Tsai announced the compensation at a news conference in Taitung and hailed the move as reflecting the goal of the current government to pursue transitional justice for indigenous tribes based on fact-finding efforts.
“Evidence we collected showed that the then-government decided to build a nuke waste storage in reserved lands for the Yami people on Orchid Island without their previous knowledge or agreement,” Tsai said.
She described the payment as a step toward compensating Orchid Island and its people, but said there was still a lot to do to “correct our past errors.”
The decision to position the facility to handle low- and medium-level nuclear waste from Taiwan’s nuclear power plants on Orchid Island was made in 1974 and it began receiving shipments in 1982.
The process has long been recognized as deceptive, with a report titled “Orchid Island: Taiwan’s Nuclear Dumpsite” in the newsletter Nuclear Monitor in 1993 detailing how residents were led to believe a cannery was being built.
The Executive Yuan brought up historical documents showing that former President Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and Premier Sun Yun-suan (孫運璿) went ahead with the decision to build the facility without informing the local Yami people in advance.
Since residents realized in the late 1980s what was actually on the site, they have feared it would contaminate the food chain and force them off the island and also led protests against nuclear power……http://m.focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201911220023.aspx
UK Labour touts ‘green industrial revolution’, BUT INCLUDES NUCLEAR POWER AS “GREEN”!
 Labour pledges ‘green industrial revolution’ with nuclear power and a digging over of allotment lawsThe environment gets top billing in Labour’s manifesto. The first chapter of their 150 pages of policy pledges is devoted to what Labour are calling a “Green Industrial Revolution”. While they’ve conspicuously dropped a conference pledge of a net zero carbon target by 2030, which most serious analysts warned was impossible to achieve anyway, like the Liberal Democrats and Green Parties they’re planning to borrow big to invest in a low carbon economy. There’s a £250bn “Green Transformation Fund” to massively increase low carbon energy generation, warmer, lower carbon homes and promises to decarbonise heating in buildings — much needed if the UK is going to meet its existing climate change pledges. In a notable departure from Liberal Democrat and Green manifestos, they promise to support nuclear power as a way of ensuring stable electricity supply on a future national grid….. https://www.itv.com/news/2019-11-21/labour-pledges-green-industrial-revolution-with-nuclear-power-and-a-digging-over-of-allotment-laws/ |
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For UK elections, top issue is climate change
Climate crisis topping UK election agenda is ‘unprecedented’ change Environmentalists say such political focus on green issues ‘unthinkable’ just five years ago, Guardian, Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent, Fri 22 Nov 2019 The climate emergency has risen to the top of the UK’s election agenda in a way that would have been “unthinkable” even five years ago, leading environmentalists have said, predicting that it augurs a permanent change in British politics.On Wednesday, Labour took the unprecedented move of putting green issues as the top section of its manifesto, the first time one of the UK’s two major parties has done so. Jeremy Corbyn led the appeal to voters with policies including an £11bn windfall tax on oil and gas companies, a million new jobs in a “green industrial revolution” and commitments on moving to a net-zero carbon economy.“Such focus on climate and the environment would have been almost unthinkable five years ago,” said Shaun Spiers, executive director of the Green Alliance. “Tackling climate change runs through this manifesto in a way that is unprecedented from either of the main parties ahead of a UK general election.”
“It would not have been possible five years ago,” said Tom Burke, chairman of environmental thinktank E3G and former adviser to several governments, who said the move marked a permanent change in British politics, as younger voters in particular were “energised” over the environment. Public anxiety had been fuelled by people seeing extreme weather around the world, and the rise of climate activism in movements such as Extinction Rebellion and the school climate strikes reflected that. “The politicians are following the public on this, not the other way round.”
…….. The Liberal Democrats, while focusing on Brexit, have also made the climate emergency a key priority, promising to generate 80% of the UK’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030, to bring forward to 2045 the deadline for net-zero carbon, and to expand electric vehicles and ban fracking. The Green party wants to spend £100bn a year for the next decade on the climate crisis, replacing high-carbon infrastructure and creating jobs…. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/21/climate-crisis-topping-uk-election-agenda-is-unprecedented-change
France’s nuclear company EDF – report – a litany of failures
EDF gives Macron little reason to come clean on nuclear, Problems at a flagship nuclear reactor means French government can take time over future of EDF. BEN HALL 20 Nov 19
The earthquake that shook the Rhone valley in south-east France last week could have been another financial disaster for energy giant EDF in what has been a bruising year. Its share price has taken a battering over concerns that it will struggle to pay for the upkeep of its ageing fleet of reactors, find money to build new ones and service its €37bn of net debt. The worries have been amplified by further delays and cost overruns at the mammoth nuclear plant it is building on the Normandy coast. The Rhone valley is home to four of the country’s 19 atomic power stations and a nuclear fuel processing facility, all operated by EDF. The tremor was the worst to hit France in 16 years. Three reactors at Cruas had to be shut down until mid-December for mandatory safety checks. ……..
…………The failures at Flamanville have given Paris reason to withhold the clarity EDF needs — even if Mr Macron’s regards the nuclear industry as a strategic asset for France and Europe. The risks of nuclear power to health and safety and the costs of decommissioning and waste storage may be overblown, as Jonathan Ford has argued in this column. But if the more basic challenge of building vaguely on time or on budget cannot be met, nuclear energy soon loses its appeal. ben.hall@ft.com https://www.ft.com/content/adbe9da6-0ab8-11ea-bb52-34c8d9dc6d84
UK’s Liberal Democrat leader criticised for her willingness to use nuclear weapons
Sickening’: Jo Swinson condemned for unhesitatingly saying she would use nuclear weapons, CND attacks ‘disgraceful response’, saying: ‘Not even a moment’s hesitation about the prospect of killing millions of people’ Independent, Rob MerrickDeputy Political Editor @Rob_Merrick, 20 Nov 19
Jo Swinson has been criticised for trying to pass a “virility test” after saying she would be willing to press the nuclear button if she becomes prime minister.
The Liberal Democrat leader was asked if she would “ever be prepared to use a nuclear weapon”, answering with a single word: “Yes.”
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament attacked the “disgraceful response”, saying: “Not even a moment’s hesitation about the prospect of killing millions of people. We need better than this.”
And Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish National Party leader, said: “It’s sickening to hear this question asked and answered as if it’s some kind of virility test and without any context.
“Using nuclear weapons would mean killing millions of people. Those consequences should be made clear.”
But a Lib Dem spokesman defended Ms Swinson’s answer, saying: “We support multilateral disarmament, but if you have a nuclear deterrent and tell everyone you won’t use it, it ceases to be a deterrent.”
The controversy comes after Labour got into difficulty over its stance on the UK’s Trident nuclear submarines. It is party policy to retain them – but Jeremy Corbyn has previously said he would not use them.
Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, said Labour would “work collectively” on how to respond to a nuclear threat.
The Lib Dem general election manifesto is expected to back maintaining “a minimum nuclear deterrent”, while pursuing international talks to achieve multilateral disarmament.
When in office, in the Cameron-Clegg coalition, the party pledged to put forward alternatives to scale down the Trident fleet, but the idea came to nothing.
Defence experts have suggested that the number of Vanguard submarines could be reduced, ending so-called ‘continuous at sea deterrence’, without putting the UK at risk.
However, little has been heard about the idea from the Lib Dems since Nick Harvey was sacked from his defence post in the coalition in 2012.
On the campaign trail, Mr Corbyn has also declined to rule out scrapping Trident as part of any post-election arrangement with the SNP.
The Labour leader said that, as prime minister, he would seek to revive non-proliferation talks with other nations, with the UK’s nuclear weapons on the table.
Asked whether he would agree to scrap Trident if the SNP insisted on that as the price of backing a Labour government in a hung parliament, Mr Corbyn said: “I think the SNP would actually agree with me, and indeed in the past they certainly have, that the priority has to be giving realism to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.”
Ms Thornberry, asked if Mr Corbyn would press the button, replied: “I suspect that the way that Jeremy makes decisions is that he takes advice and that we work collectively.”
Social media is an increasingly important battle ground in elections – and home to many questionable claims pumped out by all sides. If social media sites won’t investigate the truth of divisive advertising, we will. Please send any political Facebook advertising you receive to digitaldemocracy@independent.co.uk, and we will catalogue and investigate it. Read more here.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jo-swinson-nuclear-weapon-button-war-lib-dems-election-debate-a9210456.html
Desperate times for the nuclear industry – could Australia be its saviour?
the number one goal of the nuclear lobby is to remove Australia’s national and state laws that prohibit the nuclear industry.
the campaign by the global nuclear industry, particularly the American industry, to kickstart another “nuclear renaissance”, before it’s too late.
Australia is the great ‘white’ hope for the global nuclear industry, Independent Australia, By Noel Wauchope | 19 November 2019, The global nuclear industry is in crisis but that doesn’t stop the pro-nuclear lobby from peddling exorbitantly expensive nuclear as a “green alternative”. Noel Wauchope reports.
The global nuclear industry is in crisis. Well, in the Western world, anyway. It is hard to get a clear picture of Russia and China, who appear to be happy putting developing nations into debt, as they market their nuclear reactors overseas with very generous loans — it helps to have stte-owned companies funding this effort.
But when it comes to Western democracies, where the industry is supposed to be commercially viable, there’s trouble. The latest news from S&P Global Ratings has made it plain: nuclear power can survive only with massive tax-payer support. Existing large nuclear reactors need subsidies to continue, while the expense of building new ones has scared off investors.
So, for the nuclear lobby, ultimate survival seems to depend on developing and mass marketing “Generation IV” small and medium reactors (SMRs). …..
for the U.S. marketers, Australia, as a politically stable English-speaking ally, is a particularly desirable target. Australia’s geographic situation has advantages. One is the possibility of making Australia a hub for taking in radioactive wastes from South-East Asian countries. That’s a long-term goal of the global nuclear lobby. …..
In particular, small nuclear reactors are marketed for submarines. That’s especially important now, as a new type of non-nuclear submarine – the Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) submarine, faster and much cheaper – could be making nuclear submarines obsolete. The Australian nuclear lobby is very keen on nuclear submarines: they are now promoting SMRs with propagandists such as Heiko Timmers, from Australian National University. This is an additional reason why Australia is the great white hope.
I use the word “white” advisedly here because Australia has a remarkable history of distrust and opposition to this industry form Indigenous Australians…..
The hunt for a national waste dump site is one problematic side of the nuclear lobby’s push for Australia. While accepted international policy on nuclear waste storage is that the site should be as near as possible to the point of production, the Australian Government’s plan is to set up a temporary site for nuclear waste, some 1700 km from its production at Lucas Heights. The other equally problematic issue is how to gain political and public support for the industry, which is currently banned by both Federal and state laws. SMR companies like NuScale are loath to spend money on winning hearts and minds in Australia while nuclear prohibition laws remain.
Ziggy Switkowski, a long-time promoter of the nuclear industry, has now renewed this campaign — although he covers himself well, in case it all goes bad, noting that nuclear energy for Australia could be a “catastrophic failure“. ……
his submission (No. 41) to the current Federal Inquiry into nuclear power sets out only one aim, that
‘… all obstacles … be removed to the consideration of nuclear power as part of the national energy strategy debate.’
So the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) should be changed, according to Switkowski. In an article in The Australian, NSW State Liberal MP Taylor Martin suggested that the Federal and state laws be changed to prohibit existing forms of nuclear power technology but to allow small modular reactors.
Switkowski makes it clear that the number one goal of the nuclear lobby is to remove Australia’s national and state laws that prohibit the nuclear industry. And, from reading many pro-nuclear submissions to the Federal Inquiry, this emerges as their most significant aim.
It does not appear that the Australian public is currently all agog about nuclear power. So, it does seem a great coincidence that so many of their representatives in parliaments – Federal, Victorian, New South Wales, South Australia and members of a new party in Western Australia – are now advocating nuclear inquiries, leading to the repeal of nuclear prohibition laws.
We can only conclude that this new, seemingly coincidental push to overturn Australia’s nuclear prohibition laws, is in concert with the push for a national nuclear waste dump in rural South Australia — part of the campaign by the global nuclear industry, particularly the American industry, to kickstart another “nuclear renaissance”, before it’s too late.
Despite its relatively small population, Australia does “punch above its weight” in terms of its international reputation and as a commercial market. The repeal of Australia’s laws banning the nuclear industry would be a very significant symbol for much-needed new credibility for the pro-nuclear lobby. It would open the door for a clever publicity drive, no doubt using “action on climate change” as the rationale for developing nuclear power.
In the meantime, Australia has abundant natural resources for sun, wind and wave energy, and could become a leader in the South-East Asian region for developing and exporting renewable energy — a much quicker and more credible way to combat global warming. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/australia-is-the-great-white-hope-for-the-global-nuclear-industry,13326
The emerging potential new nuclear industry political scam
Does Nuclear Power Slow Or Speed Climate Change? Forbes, Amory B. Lovins 17 Nov 19, 2. Through generally regulated utility tariffs, customers paid for the plants’ construction and financing, including a just and reasonable return on capital.
3. Customers paid over decades for the plants’ operation, including major repairs, power upratings, and safety upgrades.
4. Many customers reimbursed owners for “stranded-asset costs” totaling upwards of $70 billion to support the owner-demanded transition to competitive wholesale markets.
5. Over the past few years, when reactors generating 2 percent of U.S. electricity proved unable to compete in those wholesale markets (though most of their owners kept their finances secret and kept reporting profits to investors), the owners persuaded state legislators in Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Ohio to vote billions of dollars a year for new multi-year operating subsidies.
6. Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear operator and the leading player in the previous two steps, successfully sought Federal regulatory approval for greater capacity payments from power pools whose auctions found nuclear power uncompetitive and whose own rules were thrown off-balance by the new state subsidies. And now, as the annual logrolling season of “tax extenders” rolls around in Congress:
7. For the third year, Exelon is advancing a “Nuclear Powers America Act” to create a new federal investment tax credit on nuclear fuel and maintenance expenses to “help level the playing fuel with other clean energy sources”—whose temporary tax credits are meanwhile being phased down or out. This follows a longstanding pattern of giving different kinds of subsidies to renewables than to nuclear, then “leveling the playing field” by trying to duplicate renewables’ specific forms of subsidies with new ones for nuclear, but never the reverse.
This saga of selling the same hay seven times—and those clever lawyers aren’t done yet—doesn’t include many additional federal and state subsidies. It also doesn’t include an emerging potential scam that could end up with ratepayers’ and federal taxpayers’ getting stuck with vast decommissioning and waste-management liabilities. This emerging pattern has an LLC buy a closed reactor. Absent oversight or rules to stop misbehavior, the LLC could then choose to strip the accumulated customer-funded multi-billion-dollar cash decommissioning fund, not finish the job, and walk away, leaving the parent company whole and electricity customers or taxpayers holding the bag. Watch this space.
Exelon’s proposed “nuclear investment tax credit” has ingenious new features:
– By redefining normal accounting categories so fuel becomes a capital investment, it repays utilities for an “investment” that’s really just a normal operating cost—thus trying to make nuclear operating costs look small by shifting much of them to taxpayers.
The nuclear operating costs it covers have no counterpart for renewables (fuel, nuclear waste management, protection against catastrophic releases of radioactivity), or almost none (operation & maintenance costs), so a tax credit for them would specifically advantage nuclear against renewables.
– Nuclear owners may be able to double-dip, collecting the new federal subsidy and new state subsidies for the same plants and thus turning dead dinosaurs into juicy cash cows.
– There’s virtually no “means test”: the new federal subsidy would apply to about 95% of US operating reactors, including those that the industry claims are currently profitable.
– The proposed legislation, obscurely written in tax-law jargon, appears to be a 30% tax credit (phasing down to 26% in 2024, 22% in 2025, and a permanent 10% in and after 2026), and to cost ~$22–26 billion over the first decade, or ~$33 billion counting the crowding-out of cheaper competitors. Every billion dollars thus bilked from taxpayers is unavailable to provide more electrical services and save more carbon by cheaper means.
– By further distorting the delicate balance between federal, regional, and state regulation, the subsidy seems tailored to weaken or destroy the efficient regional power markets where renewables beat nuclear power. The goal is thus to pay nuclear power for values it doesn’t deliver, while blocking its most potent competitors from continuing to provide the values they do deliver.
– Unlike renewable credits that have helped to mature important new technologies, the nuclear credit would elicit no new production, capacity, or innovation. It would simply transfer tens of billions of dollars to the owners of uncompetitive nuclear assets bought decades ago—if they apply for license extension by 2026, as nearly all have done.
This covert attack on renewables is logical because renewables are now the supply-side competitor nuclear must beat but can’t. The nuclear industry is reluctant to admit that renewables are a legitimate competitor, since this would contradict its claims that renewables can’t supply reliable power. Renewables, unlike nuclear power, are also widely popular. Nuclear advocates therefore tend to blame their woes instead on cheap natural gas. However, new and often even existing combined-cycle gas-fired power plants no longer have a business case: a September 2019 study found that at least 90% of the 88 proposed US gas-fired plants are pre-stranded assets. ………https://www.forbes.com/sites/amorylovins/2019/11/18/does-nuclear-power-slow-or-speed-climate-change/#5b47c988506b
Hinkley Point C nuclear, a super-expensive project for a dubious short term gain
This is the West Country 17th Nov 2019, Stop Hinkley spokesman Roy Pumfrey questions whether the economic boost from Hinkley C is worth the cost I get tired of reading how easily impressed councillors are when they visit the giant incomplete building site that is HPC.“biggest economic boost” is necessarily a good thing when it is also hugely
problematic and costly for anyone not directly involved? In our case,
economic growth also means a host of problems. There are more traffic jams
all around gridlocked Bridgwater. I’d like to travel from Bridgwater to
Taunton using the Taunton Road, but that simply adds 30 minutes to the
journey time.
schedule.
\ them to the reality of the massive hazard an untried new nuclear power
station running adjacent to her constituency represents.
Confusion in UK over Jeremy Corbyn’s nuclear weapons policy
What is Jeremy Corbyn’s nuclear weapons policy? The Week, Nov 18, 2019 Labour leader has been quizzed again on future of Trident. Jeremy Corbyn’s position on nuclear weapons is back in the headlines after he refused to rule out scrapping Trident as part of a post-election deal with the Scottish National Party.
Asked on The Andrew Marr Show whether he would scrap Trident, the Labour leader said: “I think the SNP would actually agree with me… that the priority has to be giving realism to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, giving realism to the six-party talks in Korea, giving realism to the whole question of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.”
Pressed further on the matter, he replied: “Obviously if you went into non-proliferation treaty discussions then clearly every country’s nuclear weapons go into that equation.” ……. https://www.theweek.co.uk/104380/what-is-jeremy-corbyn-s-nuclear-weapons-policy
Jeremy Corbyn could scrap UK’s nuclear weapons, in deal with Scottish National Party
 Jeremy Corbyn suggests he could SCRAP Britain’s nuclear weapons as the SNP demands he ‘gets rid’ of Trident missiles to win its backing in a government coalition, Daily Mail Labour leader said he wanted to add ‘realism’ to nuclear non-proliferation treaty
By DAVID WILCOCK, WHITEHALL CORRESPONDENT FOR MAILONLINE 18 November 2019 Jeremy Corbyn today suggested he would be prepared to give up the UK’s nuclear weapons after the SNP signalled it would be part of their price for propping up his future government. The Labour leader said he wanted to add ‘realism’ to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NNPT), with discussions about ‘every country’s nuclear weapons’. He also had a dig at Nato, disagreeing with a claim last week by General Sir Nick Carter, the professional head of the British Army, that the alliance was the most successful in history. His BBC interview came after the Scottish National Party’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford had said the upcoming election was ‘an opportunity to get rid of Trident’ – the UK’s atomic missile system…… The SNP has made removing Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet – based on the Clyde – out of Scotland a mainstay of its party policy. And Mr Corbyn, a former chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, has long opposed Britain’s nuclear weapons programme…. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7694603/Now-SNP-demands-Jeremy-Corbyn-scrap-Britains-NUCLEAR-WEAPONS-win-votes-coalition.html |
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The plight of Fukushima nuclear workers getting leukaemia
 Fukushima Workers Battle Leukemia – and Bureaucracy Unseen Japan
by Hiro Ugaya, November 13, 2019 The March 2011 tsunami, and the subsequent meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, has had a devastating impact on Japan. Eight years later, and most journalists – in Japan and abroad – have forgotten about the story. But for many, the struggle continues.
This is especially true of workers who helped assist in the cleanup effort at Fukushima. Some Fukushima workers have contracted severe diseases – including cancer and leukemia – since their work concluded. The government of Japan has even certified that some cases are a result of recovery work. But workers who are fighting for their lives also find themselves fighting the system. Tokyo Electric (TEPCO), which led the recovery effort, refuses to admit any connection between the cleanup work and subsequent diseases in workers. And many insurance companies are pointing to the fine print in private insurance contracts stating they don’t cover accidents at nuclear facilities. Unseen Japan has been pleased to partner with photojournalist Hiro Ugaya (烏賀陽弘道) to translate his interviews with evacuees and former evacuees, and to document the ongoing struggle of the victims of this tragedy. We previously published Hiro’s interview with a mother in the city of Minamisoma. In this installment, we share the first part of Hiro’s interview with Mr. Ikeda (pseudonym), a Fukushima nuclear reactor cleanup volunteer who now finds himself fighting two uphill battles. Translation from an article originally published on Note.mu. Translation by Jay, Editor/Publisher, Unseen Japan. All photos used with permission of Hiro Ugaya.) Ikeda’s StoryFor this installment of the Fukushima Report, I visited Northern Kyushu City in Fukuoka prefecture. I departed from Tokyo and flew west, in the direction opposite Fukushima. I went to Fukuoka, which is quite far from Fukushima. That’s where the leukemia-stricken Ikeda Kazuya (age 44; pseudonym) has lived since participating in the Daichi Nuclear Reactor reconstruction efforts. I had visited Ikeda once in 2017 to hear his story. Among all my interviews here in the Fukushima Report, it’s the one that’s reverberated the loudest. Mr. Ikeda volunteered to participate in the restoration work at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. By trade, he’s an independent welder. In March 2011, when so many people died due to the tsunami, he looked at the report of the death of a small child and thought, “I need to do something useful for Tohoku” [Editor: the region of Japan hit by the tsunami]. He asked permission from his boss and threw himself into the reconstruction effort. The interior of the heavy machinery room of Reactor 4 butts up against the nuclear fuel rod pool. But in 2013, Mr. Ikeda came down with leukemia. Mr. Ikeda is one of the first cancer patients that the country recognizes as a work-related accident connected to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Two Fukushima workers contracted leukemia (bone marrow cancer), and one contracted thyroid cancer. The first case of leukemia was recognized in October 2015. The second was recognized in August 2016. The third person, who had thyroid cancer, was certified in December 2016. As of May 2019, there are six patients in the country whose cases have been recognized as occupational accidents caused by work at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. To tell the truth, I was quite surprised that the country recognized them as occupational accidents. Judging from the history of pollution diseases, such as Minamata disease and Itai-itai disease, I predicted the government would probably prevaricate and not admit a causal relationship. But the government admitted it readily (employing a lot of rhetoric, of course, such as “This is not an admission of a scientific, causal relationship”). From a global and historical perspective, the admission is rare. In the Three Mile Island nuclear accident (1979) in the US, more than 2000 lawsuits have been filed, but no relationship between health damage and exposure has been admitted in even a single case. The state government naturally won’t admit it, and the courts don’t either. Due to this admission, the assertion that “the radiation leakage from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident is mild enough not to damage health” fell apart. In the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the former Soviet Union, the first to suffer serious harm were the so-called “Liquidators,” the firefighters and soldiers who were the first responders. Nearly 5,000 people died. Naturally, people who are close to radiation-intensive sites will become seriously ill. The same phenomenon occurred in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. While the case was recognized as a workplace injury, Mr. Ikeda filed a lawsuit against Tokyo Electric (TEPCO), which ran the restoration project. That’s because TEPCO doesn’t “recognize a causal relationship between Mr. Ikeda’s leukemia and exposure to radiation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.” I’ve long found it mysterious that not a single TV station, weekly newspaper, web media or other news outlet has done an article on those like Mr. Ikeda who contracted deadly diseases from the nuclear reactor recovery work. Since the government’s announcement certifying them as workplace injuries, there’s been dead silence. Those affected can’t be heard in their own voices. ……. Mr. Ikeda pointed out something important. People who work in nuclear facilities such as nuclear power plants are not covered by private insurance, even if they have an accident or get sick. It’s in the so-called “disclaimer.” If People who engaged in the dangerous work of recovering the nuclear power plant post-meltdown have been left naked and defenseless. And few people notice it. Even insurance companies don’t care. I want to fix this abnormality…… (Interview: -) There are six people, including yourself, who have been certified as workplace accidents due to cancer or death from overwork in the recovery work of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. Any contact from them? No, none. I’ve caught sight of the wife of one of the Fukushima workers who died from overwork (karoshi) at rallies in Tokyo. It seems that TEPCO employees and primary subcontractors who got sick will receive 30 million yen [around USD $274,000]. But in return, they can’t sue. That’s what my lawyer emphasized at trial. But that offer doesn’t extend to us (second-tier subcontractors). The owner who hired me also had business owner insurance. Just in case we have an industrial accident. However, we found out later that it wasn’t valid in nuclear facilities, such as nuclear power plants. The insurance companies say it’s too dangerous a place to cover via employer insurance. And yet TEPCO denies responsibility for my leukemia. That’s what you’re contesting in court. That’s right. They’re denying everything. They say it was too low of a dose to bear any relationship. In the previous trial, TEPCO says I developed leukemia due to smoking, drinking, and a vegetable deficiency. That took me aback (laughs). They talk to us like we’re alcoholics…… What evidence is TEPCO presenting to refute you? Search for the stories of scholars who kowtow to the government, you’ll find it (laughs). Who’s providing testimony, besides you? There are various people I think. TEPCO won’t recognize the causal relationship between your leukemia and radiation exposure, correct? If they did, it’ll become a serious obstacle to future nuclear power policy. I was the first person certified, and there’ve been a number since. So there has to be a causal relationship, right? What total dose did you receive? A total of 19.8 millisieverts. Others received more. TEPCO is terrible. It’d be better if they just copped to it. “Others Will End Up Like Me”Why do you think TEPCO should admit responsibility? When this happens to someone else, this won’t be any guarantee, but it’ll give them peace of mind, you know? I mean, it’s not like you can tell people, “Don’t help with recovery efforts.” Other industries offer insurance – who’s going to guarantee workers who enter a nuclear facility if the employer’s primary insurance won’t? That’s what I want to tell people. Fukushima workers who entered the facility had no idea their employer’s primary insurance wouldn’t cover it……. https://unseenjapan.com/fukushima-workers-leukemia-bureaucracy/ |
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Trump picks another lackey of the coal and nuclear industries as US Energy Secretary
Dan Brouillette, 57, a former lobbyist at Ford Motor Co and Louisiana state energy regulator, would replace Rick Perry, who has said he is stepping down on Dec. 1.
Perry became known as one of the “three amigos” in a side-channel Ukraine policy led by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, that has been at the center of the Trump impeachment probe. But Perry has said he was not involved in any conversations where former Vice President Joe Biden was brought up…….
If, as expected, he is confirmed by the Senate Energy Committee and then by the full Senate, Brouillette will work to carry out Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda of boosting U.S. production of oil and natural gas.
Brouillette told Republican senators from Wyoming and Louisiana that he supports technology on curbing climate change by capturing and storing underground carbon dioxide from coal and natural gas facilities, adding that fossil fuels would power a large portion of global energy needs for the next 40 to 50 years…….
Brouillette also said he wants to support development of advanced nuclear power plants, hopefully one day bringing microreactors that provide relatively small amounts of power to remote places like rural Louisiana, where he was born, to Alaska. ……
Democratic senators not on the Energy Committee, including Ed Markey and Tim Kaine, sent Brouillette a letter on Wednesday asking whether he supported nonproliferation standards in any deal on sharing U.S. nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia, a question he will likely continue to face if he is confirmed.
Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Peter Cooney and Tom Brown https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-energy/trump-energy-pick-to-face-questions-on-coal-nuclear-power-idUSKBN1XO1OH
Before he’s even in the job, USA’s new Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette is busily promoting SMRs for his REAL bosses, the nuclear industryg
Could tiny nuclear reactors power Alaska villages?
“We want to get to a place where we can develop small micro-reactors, one to five megawatts,” Dan Brouillette said Thursday at his confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate Energy Committee. …..
Brouillette is now the deputy secretary. He told Murkowski there’s reason to be optimistic about the development of reactors that are a fraction of the size of those in use today. ….. https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/11/14/energy-secretary-nominee-says-tiny-nuclear-reactors-could-power-alaska-villages/
France considering building 6 new EDF nuclear reactors at a cost of at least 46 billion euros ($51 billion)
France’s EDF expects six new nuclear reactors to cost 46 billion euros: Le Monde, PARIS (Reuters) 11 Nov 19 – French power utility EDF estimates it would cost at least 46 billion euros ($51 billion) to build six of its latest generation EPR nuclear reactors if the government decides to build them, French newspaper Le Monde reported on Saturday.The estimate was in a confidential document presented to the board of state-controlled EDF at the end of July, it said.
However, the Flamanville EPR reactor under construction in northern France has been plagued by cost overruns and a series of technical problems resulting in years of delays.
EDF, in which the state has an 84% stake, said in October the project which began in 2006 would cost 1.5 billion euros more than previously expected, raising the total cost to 12.4 billion euros.
Reporting by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Edmund Blair full story https://www.reuters.com/article/us-edf-nuclear-epr/frances-edf-expects-six-new-nuclear-reactors-to-cost-46-billion-euros-le-monde-idUSKBN1XJ074
A UK Labour govt would make ‘collective’ decision over use of nuclear weapons?
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General election: Labour government would make ‘collective’ decision over use of nuclear weaponsEmily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, says Labour would maintain ‘ambiguity’ over circumstances in which Trident deterrent might be used , Independent Andrew WoodcockPolitical Editor @andywoodcock, 11 Nov 19
A Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government would make a “collective” decision on whether to use nuclear weapons in response to an imminent threat, the party’s shadow foreign secretary has said. Emily Thornberry came under fire from Conservatives after suggesting that Mr Corbyn would share the decision on whether to press the nuclear button with senior colleagues. Labour’s official policy is to retain the UK’s independent Trident deterrent, but the party leader has previously said that he would not be willing to use nuclear weapons…… https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-labour-nuclear-weapons-trident-corbyn-thornberry-deterrent-a9198881.html |
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1 This Month
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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