New Plan To Inspect Fukushima Unit 1 Unveiled, Simply Info January 31st, 2016
IRID has published a new plan to complete phase 2 of the robot containment inspection of unit 1 at Fukushima Daiichi. The initial plan involved dropping the shape changing robot down to the basement level of the containment structure. Due to brackish water and small debris in the water they have opted to not attempt to drop the shape changing robot or another swimming robot down into the lower level……..http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=15279
Tokyo Electric Power Co. has postponed inspections by robots to finally confirm the location and state of melted fuel at two damaged reactors of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The camera-equipped robots were scheduled to enter the containment vessels of the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors within fiscal 2015, which ends in March. But TEPCO said Jan. 28 that a series of unexpected circumstances, such as poor visibility caused by murky radioactive water, have ruined that plan.
The robot for the No. 1 containment vessel will be redesigned, and the remote-controlled survey will be conducted in fiscal 2016, the utility said, without offering a more specific timetable.
Nuclear fuel assemblies in the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors are believed to have melted and fallen to the bottom of the containment vessels following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Radiation levels inside the containment vessels remain extremely high, making them too dangerous to be approached by workers.The remote-controlled robotic probe was seen as crucial in determining conditions inside the containment vessels for the eventual decommissioning of the nuclear plant.
TEPCO conducted a preliminary survey using an industrial endoscope in the containment vessel of the No. 1 reactor. It found accumulated waste turned the water murky and blocked the view.
For the No. 2 reactor, TEPCO had planned to locate the melted nuclear fuel using a robot last summer. But decontamination and cleanup work near the entrance to the containment vessel proved difficult. That prevented TEPCO from carrying out robotic survey as planned.
An underground ice wall designed to curb the buildup of radioactive water at the Fukushima Daiichi plant will see near completion on Friday. But it’s not yet clear when it can be put into service as the nuclear regulator has not yet given a green light to its use.
The barrier will almost be finished Friday. Only the last procedure, which involves filling underground pipes with coolant, remains.
The wall made of frozen soil stretches about 1.5 kilometers around 4 reactor buildings.
Tokyo Electric Power Company aims to cut the amount of groundwater that seeps into the buildings and then becomes contaminated. The utility expects the barrier to reduce the inflow to 10 tons a day. That’s less than one tenth the current level.
The project to build the wall began in June 2014 at a cost of about 290 million dollars from the national coffers. The plan is to start operation by the end of March.
But the Nuclear Regulation Authority has not given its approval. It fears radioactive water could leak from the reactor buildings if the wall makes the level of groundwater lower than that of contaminated water.
TEPCO says it will closely monitor groundwater levels and inject water if the levels fall too far.
WASHINGTON – Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant is not over five years since a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered the meltdowns.
“There is no doubt” radioactive materials have been seeping into the sea after mixing with groundwater, Kan, who has been a vocal critic of nuclear energy since the crisis started, told the National Press Club in Washington.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly said the issue of water contaminated with radioactive substances at the Fukushima plant is “under control,” including when he was making a pitch for Tokyo as host of the 2020 Olympic Games.
Kan disputes this. “The accident is still unfolding,” he said.
Kan was prime minister when the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl occurred following the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
Kan, a lawmaker of the Democratic Party of Japan, also criticized Abe’s decision to raise the ratio of electricity produced by atomic energy to 20-22 percent of the nation’s total output by 2030.
“The goal is not achievable” unless Japan extends the maximum legal period of reactor operations or builds a new nuclear plant, Kan said.
Most nuclear reactors remain off line in Japan, but various operators are seeking restarts.
Kansai Electric Power Co. is set to reactivate a reactor at its Takahama plant in Fukui Prefecture on Friday, in what would be the third restart since new safety standards were put in place.
FUKUSHIMA – Fishermen in Fukushima Prefecture said Wednesday they plan to scale down their self-imposed fishing ban in waters off the damaged nuclear power plant due mainly to a substantial decline in radioactive cesium levels.
The Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations is considering narrowing the area subject to the ban to a 10-kilometer radius from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant from the current 20-kilometer radius.
The move comes as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. last autumn completed the construction of a shielding wall to prevent leaks of contaminated groundwater into the sea. Since the completion, radiation levels in sea waters at the plant’s port have been declining.
In addition, prefectural research shows the radioactive cesium levels of marine products caught in coastal areas have dropped substantially.
The proportion of marine products with cesium levels exceeding the state standards of 100 becquerels per kilogram fell to less than 0.1 percent last year from some 40 percent between April and December 2011, soon after the nuclear accident at the plant in March that year. No products have surpassed the level in checks since last April.
The federation is scheduled to make a final decision late next month. “The environment of the seas of Fukushima has improved, and conditions for reviving fisheries are being laid out,” federation leader Tetsu Nozaki told reporters.
After the tsunami-triggered triple meltdown at the nuclear plant, the federation voluntarily halted all of its coastal fishing. In June 2012, it started trial operations in a limited area, which has since expanded in steps. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/27/national/fukushima-fishermen-to-expand-operations-off-crippled-nuclear-plant/#.VqmtzVLzN_m
Government agencies are discussing the plan as a ‘long-term solution’ while environmentalists have dismissed it as an expensive ‘pipe dream’.
A team of experts from Japan’s Nuclear Waste Management Organisation is examining the possibility of storing thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive nuclear waste in tunnels deep beneath the Pacific Ocean.
Japan already has a stockpile of some 40,000 units of vitrified nuclear waste, with each of the stainless steel containers containing around 500kg of radioactive material, with more waste being produced.
Two of Japan’s 55 nuclear reactors resumed operations last year, after their operations were subjected to detailed scrutiny as a result of the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant, caused by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
A number of additional reactors have applied to restart operations, while dozens of the older plants will now have to be decommissioned as they have reached the end of their operational lives. Japan has never before decommissioned a reactor and does not have a dedicated storage facility for high-level nuclear waste.
“We are presently looking for a site and one of the options being considered is for tunnels beneath the seabed,” Kenichi Kaku, a spokesman for the agency, told the South China Morning Post.
“We are looking for a long-term solution to the issue that also meets the terms of the law on the storage of high-level waste,” Kaku explained.
A preliminary report suggests that tunnels could be excavated from the land to a distance of several kilometres offshore. The final disposal chamber would need to be in bed rock at a depth of at least 300 metres below the seabed.
The tunnels would need to be within 20km of a port, which would be required to transport vitrified waste over long distances, and the containers would be taken to the sub-seabed storage chamber by remote-controlled vehicle.
As well as being more secure from human interference, storage chambers beneath the seabed are less affected by the movement of groundwater and fluctuation in sea levels.
The experts, appointed to complete a full study by the ministry of industry, will now carry out a study of the technical issues that will need to be overcome. They will start by examining geographical features to identify possible seismic fault zones.
Kaku admitted that one result of the 2011 disaster at Fukushima is that “the Japanese public has lost confidence in science and we need to rebuild our credibility”.
Key considerations will be ensuring security in the transportation phase of highly radioactive waste, he said, while a great deal of work needs to be done to ensure that the storage chamber cannot be breached after the tunnel has been closed off.
“We need to identify active faults and volcanic regions so the waste is not affected in any way and we are looking to the experience of other countries for our plans,” Kaku said.
Environmental organisations have been quick to condemn the plan, however, with Aileen Mioko-Smith, an activist with Kyoto-based Green Action Japan, telling the Post that the proposal is “a pipe dream”.
“They talked about an ‘ice wall’ that was meant to stop ground water at the Fukushima plant becoming contaminated with radiation, but that was a pipe dream,” she said. “This is another one. It may look good on paper but how could it ever be achieved at a reasonable cost?
“And that’s before we even consider the safety of putting high-level nuclear waste beneath the seismically active seabed off Japan. It just doesn’t make sense.” http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1906306/japan-considering-building-network-tunnels-beneath-seabed-store
According to NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority), Cs-134/137 density in Tokyo tap water is 24% higher than Fukushima.
The report was released on 10/30/2015, titled as “Readings of radioactivity level in drinking water by prefecture” to cover from July to September in 2015.
From this report, only 0.0015 Bq/Kg of Cs-137 was detected in Fukushima drinking water. Cs-134 was not supposed to be detected. On the other hand, 0.00036 Bq/Kg of Cs-134 and 0.0015 of Bq/Kg were detected from Tokyo drinking water.
The measurement of Cs-134 is due to Fukushima accident.
NRA comments each data is based on the reports from prefectures.
It is not mentioned by Fukushima prefectural government why Cs-134 was not detected in their drinking water.
From left, Ruiko Muto, Kazuyoshi Sato and Takashi Soeda hold a news conference in Fukushima on Jan. 19 to announce a planned group that will monitor the trial of three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co.
Lawyers, journalists and scientists will form a group to help expose the truth and spread details about the Fukushima nuclear disaster during the criminal trial of three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co.
“We will encourage the court to hold a fair trial while transmitting information regarding the trial across the nation,” said an official of the planned organization, whose name is translated as “support group for the criminal procedure on the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.”
Tsunehisa Katsumata, former chairman of TEPCO, the operator of the crippled plant, and two former vice presidents, Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro, face mandatory charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury.
Although the trial is still months away, 33 people are now setting up the group, including Ruiko Muto, who heads an organization pursuing the criminal responsibility of TEPCO and government officials for the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Tetsuji Imanaka, an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, and Norma Field, a professor emeritus of East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago, have also joined.
Three reactors melted down at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11, 2011. A number of hospital patients died in the chaotic evacuation.
About 14,000 residents of Fukushima Prefecture filed a criminal complaint against TEPCO executives, government officials and scientists in 2012, saying they were aware of the dangers to the Fukushima nuclear plant from a tsunami, but they failed in their responsibility to take proper countermeasures.
Tokyo prosecutors twice decided not to indict the three former TEPCO executives. However, the Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution, a panel of citizens, decided to forcibly indict the three in July last year.
“It has been almost five years since the disaster, but many details, including their foreseeability of the tsunami, remain unclear,” said science writer Takashi Soeda, one of the group’s co-founders. “As TEPCO has not unveiled a sufficient amount of information even in inquiries conducted by the Diet and the government or in civil lawsuits, the truth must be uncovered through the legal force of a criminal trial.”
Five lawyers appointed by the Tokyo District Court will act as prosecutors in the trial.
Legal experts expect the lawyers will indict the former TEPCO executives and release a statement naming the victims around March 11, the fifth anniversary of the triple disaster that still haunts the Tohoku region. http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201601270055
NARAHA, Fukushima Prefecture–A life-size model of a section of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that will be used in developing decommissioning technology is almost complete.
The mockup of the lower part of a reactor containment vessel will be used to develop remote-control technology used to locate the section from where radioactive water is leaking in order to repair damage, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency said.
A group of reporters from the Japan National Press Club were allowed to enter the test building of the JAEA’s Naraha Remote Technology Development Center in the town of Naraha.
The model is being built at the center by a consortium comprised of electric utilities and nuclear plant manufacturers. It is scheduled to be completed in mid-March.
Radiation levels near the reactors that went in meltdown in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster remain too high for workers to approach. The development of remote-control technology is key to smoothly conducting the decommissioning work, which is estimated to take 30 to 40 years.
A Japanese organization called “declaration of safety in Fukushima” (福島 安全 宣言) or something like that launched a campaign for the “decontamination of minds” (心 の 除 染) to convince that radioactivity is safe.
In a video taken in the twenty kilometers zone, sill evacuated, a person takes radiation readings and states that it is safe as it is well below 100 mSv. But the video avoids the most contaminated areas and confuses microsieverts and microsieverts / hour. When the Japanese authorities say there is no risk below 100 mSv, it is on the whole life span. To compare that value to microsieverts per hour or millisieverts per year is meaningless.
There are also videos of pseudo-scientific conferences to affirm that radiation in Fukushima is safe. The audience seems very small.
The group calls for the lifting of the evacuation orders and the return of inhabitants, and also for the restart of the declared safe nuclear reactors.
Another similar initiative, already presented by the Blog of Fukushima, has been to make children to pick up garbage along the highway 6 that passes thru the forbidden zone. This time, it was an organization called “Happy Road Net” which was the organizer. http://happyroad.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Image150915145225.pdf
Let us remember that it is internationally recognized that there is no safe limit for radiation and that each radiation dose has an impact that is proportional to it. In such a context, it is recommended that the radiation exposure should be justified by a benefit. What was the benefit for these children?
An example of bio-accumulation of radioactive material in Fukushima:
According to the following post, wild monkey poops from Namie-city, Fukushima had more than 150,000Bq/kg in terms of radioactive Cs137 & Cs134.
Cs137: 133987 Bq/kg
Cs134: 25186 Bq/kg
K40: 225 Bq/kg
The surrounding ground surface was about 500～600cpm.
I strongly support “an honorable retreat from the 2020 Olympic Games” which is called for by former PM Hatoyama and a former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland Mitsuhei Murata. Hatoyama says, in an interview with the Japan Times, “In a situation in which nothing has been resolved at #Fukushima, Japan must not sponsor something like the Olympic Games.” Hatoyama also said “There are still many inhabitants of the Tohoku region living in temporary housing. Moreover, the government has yet to admit the truth about the accident despite its having been more severe than Chernobyl. It is regrettable that the government has failed in its duty to inform both the people of Japan and the world about the true situation. The government even goes so far as to deny the increased incidents of thyroid cancer in the Fukushima region are connected to radiation releases from the multiple meltdowns.” Hatoyama believes the government claimed the situation at nuclear plant was “under control” in order to lure the 2020 Olympic Games to Tokyo. “The government was successful in this ploy,” he says, “but this was a complete lie. Far from having been under control then, it is still not under control even now. This is a grave situation.” He also shared interesting comments about Okinawa and the US base issues in the following exclusive interview with the Japan Times.
Hatoyama dreams of a Japan anchored within a united Asia
“I wish to apologize to the Japanese people for having betrayed their expectations,” says Yukio Hatoyama halfway through our interview, lowering his head and bowing deeply.
Hatoyama, prime minister for nine months of the Democratic Party of Japan’s three years in power between 2009 and 2012, is discussing the reasons behind his resignation in June 2010 — specifically, his failure to live up to his party’s promise to block the contentious U.S. Marine Corps base construction now underway at Henoko in Okinawa.
Recently, the former DPJ leader has been in the news for other mea culpas in Nanjing and Seoul — apologies made, he says, on behalf of Japanese for colonial-era crimes in Asia. These unsanctioned trips have incensed the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has painted Hatoyama as a charlatan and even a traitor for his foreign escapades.
For those having trouble placing Hatoyama among the three DPJ figures who served as prime minister in that brief, heady period when power in postwar Japan changed hands, he is the one who led the DPJ to that historic victory. You know — the “alien.”
Hatoyama, now 68 and retired from politics, has never been able to shake that nickname. Coined by the domestic media in 2001 during his first stint as DPJ leader, the foreign press had a field day with Hatoyama’s extraterrestrial appellation, rejoicing in the fact that they finally had a Japanese leader who stood out from the crowd.
But what was it that made Hatoyama appear so otherworldly? True, his saucer-like eyes did give him a vague resemblance to E.T., but his nickname was not just the product of his looks and his manner; it also owed much to his proposals — proposals that were and remain anathema to Japan’s conservative establishment.
But how did Hatoyama, who came from a well-known, politically conservative family, become a maverick? In an exclusive interview with The Japan Times, Hatoyama discussed a range of issues, including Okinawa, the relationship between the Fukushima No. 1 disaster and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, and his proposal for the creation of an “East Asian EU.” He began by explaining the circumstances that led him to resign the prime minister’s post in 2010 after only nine months in office.
“The DPJ, of which I was leader, proposed a revision of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement in our manifesto for the 2009 House of Representatives election. We also proposed the realignment of the U.S. military in Japan, including a review of the state of U.S. bases,” he explains. “As for the relocation of the U.S. Marine base to Henoko, I personally said that at the very least, it should be moved outside (Okinawa) Prefecture. However, as soon as the DPJ took power, bureaucrats close to the U.S. in the Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry moved to crush my proposal.”
In the end, Hatoyama’s idea went nowhere, and Henoko was confirmed as the proposed site for the new base. Many Okinawans — and DPJ voters — felt betrayed, and the party began to fear defeat in the Upper House elections of July 2010. “So I decided to resign,” Hatoyama confesses. “There was no excuse.”
During his time in office, Hatoyama also emphasized the need for a less lopsided Japan-U.S. relationship.
“I thought that as prime minister, it was only natural for me to seek an equal relationship with the United States. However, there are many (Japanese) politicians and bureaucrats who believe that because Japan is dependent on the U.S. in so many ways, it isn’t appropriate to seek an equal relationship. Once again, my proposal ended in failure.”
This was the first time in the postwar period that a Japanese prime minister had made such a demand. Hatoyama even dared suggest that Japan’s security could be achieved without a permanent U.S. troop presence. None of this was welcomed by those, on both sides of the Pacific, long accustomed to Japan’s subservience to U.S. interests.
Hatoyama was born in 1947 and graduated from the University of Tokyo before going to earn a Ph.D. in industrial engineering at Stanford. Upon graduation, he initially pursued an academic career, but later decided to run for the House of Representatives in 1986.
His lofty aim was to “restore sovereign power to the people, breaking from a system dependent on the bureaucracy,” he says, and to “transform Japan from a centralized state to one of regional and local sovereignty, and from an insular island to an open maritime state.”
During his campaign, Hatoyama took advantage of his experience as a researcher and garnered public attention with his unique appeal for “a scientific approach to politics.” Following his election, he quickly became a controversial figure for, among other things, revealing the huge scale of political campaign funding the LDP was receiving from business interests — even though he was a member of the party at the time.
“I eventually left the Liberal Democratic Party because of repeated incidents involving money and politics, such as the Recruit insider-trading and corruption scandal of 1988 and Shin Kanemaru’s huge tax evasion affair of 1992,” Hatoyama says. “Political reform was urgently called for, but the LDP was unwilling to act.”
A messy political realignment soon followed, eventually leading to the creation of the current iteration of the Democratic Party of Japan in 1998. Hatoyama went on to lead the party between 1999 and 2002, and again from May 2009. The DPJ grew steadily until finally, in September 2009, it succeeded in ousting the scandal-tainted LDP.
Hatoyama became Japan’s 93rd prime minister, though he would not remain so for long. Government bureaucrats, long accustomed to running the country behind the scenes, acted quickly to undermine his administration and hasten its demise.
Hatoyama says that Defense Ministry officials attempted to scuttle his plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma air base outside of Okinawa by claiming that any replacement facility must be located within 65 miles (105 km) of the marines’ Northern Okinawa Training Area. “The bureaucrats and ministers who should have been doing their best to support me were in fact attempting to resolve the matter by supporting the U.S.,” Hatoyama says.
The 65-mile requirement effectively precluded moving the base off the main island of Okinawa, which is a convenient 70 miles long. Yet the source of this apparent requirement remains elusive. Hatoyama says the Defense Ministry simply claimed that this figure was included in a U.S. military document. “Whether or not this requirement was expressly stated in the document remains unclear even now,” he notes.
But what about the U.S.? Were American officials also involved in the attempt to derail Hatoyama’s base relocation plans? Apparently not, Hatoyama says.
“No documents on the U.S. side support the claim of Defense Ministry officials. Thus, it can be said their claim was groundless,” he explains. “It’s possible it was just their way of forcing me to abandon my proposal. However, when we consider the feelings of the Okinawan people, there’s no way they would grant permission for the base to be relocated within Okinawa.”
At this point in the interview, Hatoyama bowed and offered his apology.
Another blow to the fledgling DPJ administration came in December 2009, when it was revealed that Hatoyama had received some ¥1.2 billion in political donations that had been improperly reported. Most of the money came from his mother, the wealthy heiress to the Bridgestone empire, though ¥400 million of this was listed as coming from fictitious donors — including some who were deceased.
While Hatoyama denied personal knowledge of the donations, he later apologized to the nation for the scandal and promised to pay more than ¥600 million in gift taxes on donations made to him by his mother that were first deemed as “loans.” Hatoyama recognizes the major impact this issue had on his tenure as prime minister, admitting, “The political donations I received from my mother were the second major reason I had to resign.”
Prosecutors declined to bring charges against Hatoyama, citing insufficient evidence of criminal activity. They did, however, indict two of his former secretaries, resulting in a ¥300,000 fine for one and a suspended sentence for the other. While no question of corporate bribery or political favors was involved, the incident nevertheless served to raise questions in the public’s mind about just how different the DPJ was from the money-tainted politics of the long-ruling LDP.
The media was unforgiving. After all, Hatoyama had already managed to upset both the establishment media and their new-media competitors. The former fought against his proposal to open up the prime minister’s news conferences to journalists from outside the cozy “press club,” and the latter were angry after he failed to follow through on that pledge.
“When I became prime minister, I tried to abolish the press-club system, which had become a vested interest for its members,” Hatoyama explains. “However, I was subject to a fierce counterattack.”
One club-affiliated reporter told Hatoyama that the prime minister’s press conferences were not something he was in charge of but, rather, something the press club sponsored.
Although by March 11, 2011, Naoto Kan was prime minister, Hatoyama was still a member of the House of Representatives, and the multiple disasters — especially the nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima No. 1 plant — affected him deeply. In the December 2011 issue of the magazine Nature, Hatoyama co-authored an article expressing his concerns about both the radioactive and political fallout from the accident.
Titled “Nationalize the Fukushima Daiichi atomic plant,” Hatoyama first pointed out the need “to know precisely what happened (on March 11, 2011) and what is continuing to happen now.” He further argued that only when all the evidence relating to the accident had been gathered and made public “will the world be able to have faith in the containment plan developed by Tepco or be able to judge how it should be modified.”
Hatoyama and two fellow Diet members formed a committee to conduct an independent investigation of the accident. The group reached two major conclusions, outlined in the Nature article. First: “The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant must be nationalized so that information can be gathered openly. Even the most troubling facts should be released to the public.” Second: “A special science council should be created to help scientists from various disciplines work together on the analyses. That should help to overcome the dangerous optimism of some of the engineers who work within the nuclear industry.”
Although Hatoyama is no longer a Diet member, he has not lost interest in this issue. Recently, he joined former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland Mitsuhei Murata in calling for “an honorable retreat from the 2020 Olympic Games.” Echoing Murata, who was also present at the interview, Hatoyama says, “In a situation in which nothing has been resolved at Fukushima, Japan must not sponsor something like the Olympic Games.”
Hatoyama elaborates: “There are still many inhabitants of the Tohoku region living in temporary housing. Moreover, the government has yet to admit the truth about the accident despite its having been more severe than Chernobyl. It is regrettable that the government has failed in its duty to inform both the people of Japan and the world about the true situation. The government even goes so far as to deny the increased incidents of thyroid cancer in the Fukushima region are connected to radiation releases from the multiple meltdowns.”
Hatoyama believes the government claimed the situation at nuclear plant was “under control” in order to lure the 2020 Olympic Games to Tokyo. “The government was successful in this ploy,” he says, “but this was a complete lie. Far from having been under control then, it is still not under control even now. This is a grave situation.”
Hatoyama’s change of mind is significant because as prime minister in October 2009 he had given a speech in Copenhagen in support of Tokyo’s failed bid for the 2016 Games. At the time, he sought to promote a new image of the Olympics centered on environmental protection, held in harmony with nature and celebrating simplicity.
March 11, 2011, however, changed everything. Again, like Murata, Hatoyama stresses that he is not opposed to the Olympics per se, but asks: Why now, and why Tokyo — especially in the absence of any pressing need to do so? Hatoyama nods in assent when Murata states: “At this point there is no other solution than to stage an honorable retreat from the games. Failure to do so will ultimately lead to a disgraceful retreat, dishonoring our country. The time to act is now!”
Hatoyama’s reservations about Japan’s future are not limited to either Fukushima or the Olympics. Politically and militarily, Hatoyama believes Japan is moving in an ever more dangerous direction.
“Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe’s recent passage of the collective security bills has made it possible for America to call upon Japan to participate in its wars,” he says. “However, the Constitution states that Japan will never again wage war and, accordingly, rejects the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.”
He continues: “Given this, I deeply regret that the road to our participation in war has been opened once again. It may be presumptuous of me to say this now that I am no longer a politician, but in light of the wrong direction our country is currently heading in, I earnestly hope for an end to the Abe regime.”
Just as relations between Tokyo and Beijing were sinking to new lows over historical and territorial issues, Hatoyama infuriated the Abe government with his decision to visit Nanjing in January 2013. At the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, he bowed and offered a silent prayer, later explaining, “As a Japanese, I feel responsible for the tragedy, and I am here expressing my sincere apology.”
While in Nanjing, Hatoyama also urged the Japanese government to acknowledge the dispute between the two countries concerning sovereignty of the islands known the Senkakus in Japanese and Diaoyu in China. “The Japanese government says there are no territorial disputes, but if you look at history, there is a dispute,” he says.
Hatoyama’s comments led Japanese government officials to criticize him for admitting the existence of a territorial dispute with China, something they adamantly deny. The defense minister at the time went so far as to use the word “traitor.”
“If his remarks have been politically used by China, I’m unhappy,” said Itsunori Onodera. “At that moment, the word ‘traitor’ arose in my mind.”
In March 2015, Hatoyama made another controversial trip, this time to Crimea, where he expressed his belief that Japan should “normalize” relations with Russia by lifting sanctions imposed after Moscow’s annexation of the Ukrainian territory. Hatoyama defended the referendum in the region as constitutional, stating, “Crimea wasn’t annexed unilaterally under pressure from Russia. In fact, people reached a conclusion based on their own strong will.”
Once again, Hatoyama’s remarks earned him the condemnation of the Japanese government. “It’s unthinkable that such action and comments came from a person who was once prime minister,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. Suga also described Hatoyama’s behavior as “extremely imprudent.”
In August 2015, just prior to Prime Minister Abe’s statement commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, Hatoyama visited the Seodaemun Prison History Hall in Seoul. He knelt down in front of a memorial stone to apologize to Korean independence activists jailed, tortured and executed during Japan’s colonial control of Korea from 1910 to 1945.
“In the hope that no such mistake is made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology,” he said.
Though Hatoyama’s actions may seem quixotic or even deliberately provocative to some, they are best understood through the prism of his world view, which stands in stark contrast to one of the guiding principles of modern Japan in the years following the Meiji Restoration. Promoted by the famous Meiji educator Yukichi Fukuzawa, this principle is known as Datsu-A Ron or the “Goodbye Asia doctrine.” Fukuzawa maintained, “It is better for us to leave the ranks of Asian nations and cast our lot with the civilized nations of the West.”
While not turning his back on the West, Hatoyama nevertheless seeks to redirect Japan’s focus away from the U.S. and back to its geographical location in Asia. He imagines a Japan at peace with its neighbors — from Russia in the north to China and South Korea — and at ease with its position on the edge of the continent.
With this dream in mind, Hatoyama created the East Asian Community Research Institute in March 2013, with the ultimate goal of creating something resembling an East Asian EU. With membership open to the general public, the institute, through its educational arm, Sekai Yuai Forum, holds lectures and other events to promote Hatoyama’s vision.
All of which brings us back to the issue of the U.S. military presence on Okinawa. Hatoyama continues to be concerned about the struggle of the Okinawan people against the construction of the new U.S. base at Henoko. This led to a series of trips to Okinawa seeking a solution to this intractable problem. As recently as November, Hatoyama visited the island to encourage the anti-base demonstrators at Henoko.
Hatoyama envisions a future for Okinawa not as a “keystone of the Pacific” for the U.S. military but as a “keystone of peace” for the countries of Asia. He has called for the creation of an “East Asian Community” headquartered in Okinawa and composed of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus Japan, China and South Korea.
“It is important for the countries of East Asia to become self-reliant, helping one another by developing win-win relationships,” he explains. “Should, however, they engage in a military arms race, it would only lead to a decline in deterrent power.”
“If Europe can do it,” says Hatoyama, pointing to the continent’s postwar integration, “there is no reason East Asia can’t.”
Source : Japan Times http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2016/01/20/our-lives/hatoyama-dreams-japan-anchored-within-united-asia/#.VqFRnFLzN_k
Currently under development by an international research team, the technology will finally provide means for assessing radiation in the submerged parts of the reactor.
“Our research will focus on developing a remote-operated submersible vehicle with detection instruments that will be able to identify the radioactive sources,” said Malcolm Joyce, Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Lancaster University, who leads the team.
“This capability does not currently exist and it would enable clean-up of the stricken Fukushima reactors to continue.”
Focusing particularly on dangerous neutron and gamma radiation, the robots will be able to assess how stable the situation is in the submerged parts of the nuclear power plant. For safe decommissioning, debris as well as fuel needs to be removed from the reactor, but the high risk is that some accidental reaction could be triggered by the manipulation.
“A key challenge with the remote-operated vehicle will be to design it so that it can fit through the small access ports typically available in nuclear facilities,” explained Barry Lennox, Professor of Applied Control at the University of Manchester. “These ports can be less than 100 mm in diameter, which will create significant challenges.”
Scientists from universities in Lancaster and Manchester are working on the project, which is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, together with partners from Japan and private company Hybrid Instruments.
The remotely controlled vehicle that will come out of the project could also be used in decommissioning of undamaged nuclear sites, such as the Sellafield Reprocessing facility in Cumbria, or it could serve the oil and gas industry in assessing natural deposits of radioactive materials.
The reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, damaged during the 9.0-magnitude earthquake in 2011, had to be flooded with sea water to cool them down.
“A key task is the removal of the nuclear fuel from the reactors,” Joyce said. “Once this is removed and stored safely elsewhere, radiation levels fall significantly making the plant much more safer, and cheaper, to decommission.”
Biologist Timothy Mousseau’s Lecture at Fukushima on Jan 11, 2016 ” Impact of Radiation on Wildlife of Fukushima” 中継の視聴をのがしてしまったので、のちほど視聴してみます。 生物学の視点から。
NARAHA, Fukushima Prefecture–A life-size model of a section of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that will be used in developing decommissioning technology is almost complete.
nuclear-news 