As Japan plans reactor startups, its nuclear waste crisis grows
Nuclear storage crisis grows as reactor restarts continue http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/28/national/nuclear-storage-crisis-grows-reactor-restarts-continue/#.WStAvpKGPGg BY ERIC JOHNSTON, TOYAMA – More than six years after the March 11, 2011, Tohoku quake, tsunami, and triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Japan is accelerating efforts to restart as many reactors as it possibly can. Four have been revived so far, and Kansai Electric Power Co. plans to restart the Takahama No. 3 unit soon.
But the rush to restart them has only highlighted the fact that Japan still has no final repository for its high-level radioactive waste. Original plans to first reprocess spent fuel at the Rokkasho facility in Aomori Prefecture before final disposal somewhere else have long been stalled. After 17 years asking prefectures and municipalities around the country to host such a site, no takers have been found.
So the government has changed its approach, saying it will draw up a map by this summer of “scientifically appropriate” candidate sites around the country.
To explain what that means, a series of town hall meetings are taking place at select locations this month and next month.
On May 20, officials from the Agency for Natural Resources and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO) were in Toyama, which is less than 50 km from the Shika nuclear power plant in neighboring Ishikawa Prefecture.
At present, there are about 18,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel stored in about 40,000 canisters at Japan’s nuclear power plants, said NUMO Executive Director Shinichi Ito. A final disposal site for high-level waste produced when, or if, the fuel is reprocessed would need to be quite large. Most of it would be underground, with an elaborate tunnel system of transport vehicles to deliver and store the waste.
“In terms of scale, above-ground facilities at a final depository would be between 1 to 2 sq. km, and the underground portion would be 6 to 10 sq. km in area, located at a depth of more than 300 meters from the surface. There would be some 200 km of tunnels in total for the storage facilities,” Ito said.
Waste would be stored at the site for around a half century. The basic cost for building a final depository is ¥3.7 trillion.
In drawing up the map of what constitutes a scientifically appropriate site, the government has a list of conditions and standards based on what it does not want.
A site should not be built within a 15-km radius of a volcano, and not near active fault lines at least 10 km long. In addition, it should not be situated in area where there is a lot of geothermal activity.
The government is also seeking a site that is within 20 km of a port where ships carrying the waste could dock, since transporting waste by ship, the government says, is the most appropriate method.
Iwao Miyamoto, director of the public relations office of the Agency for Natural Resources’ Radioactive Waste Management Office, said that, after the map is publicized and dialogue takes place with authorities deemed to have appropriate sites, a three-stage survey process would be carried out.
“The first stage would be to research the seismological and geological history of a potential site, checking to see how frequently earthquakes and volcanoes in and around the area have occurred,” Miyamoto said. “The second stage would be on-site drilling to determine how porous the rock bed is, and the third step is a precision survey to determine if the site can handle an underground storage facility.
“The first survey stage is expected to take two years, the second stage four years, and the final stage around 14 years,” he added.
In an attempt to entice the authorities at a chosen site, the central government will offer funding and economic incentives that the municipalities hosting nuclear power plants have long enjoyed.
“NUMO will work with a government that accepts a final storage facility to renovate and expand its roads, ports, and information systems,” Ito said. “There will also be donations for revitalizing the local economy via support for locally produced goods and for local culture.”
However, overcoming local political resistance in an area judged appropriate for a final depository is likely to be a long, difficult road. Nobody wants to be known as the town or village with a nuclear waste dump, and questions remain about the safety of transporting toxic waste by land or by sea.
Some governors in prefectures with many reactors have made it clear they will oppose any effort by the central government or utilities to bury nuclear waste on site or beside the plant that generated it.
“Fukui has accepted nuclear power plants. But it has no obligation to accept final disposal of nuclear waste,” Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa said in 2015. Fukui is home to 13 commercial reactors.
“We have our hands full just dealing with the nuclear reactors we have now,” Saga Gov. Yoshinori Yamaguchi said last year, indicating his prefecture would not accept being the site of a final repository. Saga hosts the four reactors at the Genkai plant run by Kyushu Electric. Yamaguchi approved the restart of Genkai units 3 and 4 in April.
Once the map is published, it is sure to galvanize opinion in those places judged appropriate and become a politically delicate topic. Yet with Agency for Natural Resources estimates showing the spent fuel pools of 17 power plants will run out of space within the next 15 years, if run continuously, the problem of final disposal grows more acute with each passing day. Pressure on those areas that fit the requirements for final disposal is likely to be intense.
At this point, though, the central government says that if a local government with a site deemed appropriate by the map still refuses once the survey begins, that will be the end of it.
“If there is official opposition at the local level at any stage of a survey, there would be no advancement to the next stage,” Miyamoto said.
However, given all of the problems Japan has had trying to make its reprocessing program work, critics say that attempting to draw up a plan for a final repository is a pipe dream.
” The Japanese government knows the current final nuclear waste repository program will never materialize. The whole project depends upon the creation of high-level waste canisters, i.e. the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. But t he program also depends on Japan recovering and consuming tons and tons of plutonium
” The Rokkasho reprocessing plant’s commercial operation has been delayed 23 times, and the fast reactor program to consume the plutonium is at square one de spite over a half century of effort,” said Aileen Mioko Smith of Kyoto-based Green Action.
Japan: meeting for a global partnership to prevent nuclear terrorism
Japan Today 28th May 2017 A meeting on a global partnership to prevent nuclear terrorism will be held in Tokyo this week. Around 200 delegates from 88 countries and five international organizations are set to participate in the annual plenary of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, which was launched in 2006 jointly by the United States and Russia, the Foreign Ministry said.
The participants, including those from nuclear powers Israel, India and Pakistan, are expected to exchange views on how to bolster measures to prevent weapons of mass destruction and related materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. North Korea is not part of the initiative.
After the end of the two-day senior-official-level gathering through June 2, a joint statement by co-chairs the United States and Russia is likely to be released, a foreign ministry official said. Japan, which will host the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, has actively engaged in discussions on the technical aspects of nuclear forensics and on improving security in the transport of nuclear materials.more https://japantoday.com/category/national/meeting-on-preventing-nuclear-terrorism-to-be-held-in-tokyo-next-week
Review of book on Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe
Review: Crisis without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe, Helen Caldicott et al.http://www.sanfranciscoreviewofbooks.com/2017/05/book-review-crisis-without-end-medical.html 4.0 out of 5 stars Vital Detailed Truth, Lacks Compelling Visualization, July 9, 2015 This review was written by Robert David Steele and has been reposted with permission. The original page can be found here. This book stems from a conference and is a very nicely presented double-spaced precis of the world-class contributions from the conference.
2 more nuclear reactors in Japan clear regulator’s safety review
A nuclear accident in South Korea could contaminate Western Japan, more eriously than South Korea
South Korean nuclear power plant accident would heavily taint western Japan: simulation http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/21/national/science-health/nuclear-accident-south-korean-plant-leave-western-japan-massively-contaminated-study/#.WSJ_W5KGPGg
KYODO A nuclear accident at a power plant in South Korea could cause wider radiation contamination in western Japan than on its home soil, a study by a South Korean scientist has shown.
If a cooling system fails at the spent-fuel storage pools at the Kori power plant’s No. 3 reactor in Busan, massive amounts of cesium-137 would be released that could potentially reach western Japan, according to a simulation by Jungmin Kang of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S. think tank.
In the worst-case scenario, up to 67,000 sq. km of Japanese soil would be contaminated and 28.3 million people would be forced to evacuate, the study said, though the fallout’s spread would depend on the season.
As for South Korea, an accident at the plant could taint more than half of the nation by contaminating up to 54,000 sq. km, it said.
A total of 818 tons of spent nuclear fuel were stored in pools at the site as of the end of 2015, Kang said. He said an accident could be triggered not only by natural disasters but by terrorism or a missile from North Korea.
Japan restarts another reactor
TOKYO: A Japanese utility Wednesday switched on a nuclear reactor, the latest to come back in service despite deep public opposition in the aftermath of the Fukushima crisis.
Japan shut down all of its dozens of reactors after a powerful earthquake in March 2011 spawned a huge tsunami that led to meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing the world’s worst such accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
But only a handful of reactors have come back online due to public opposition and as legal cases work their way through the courts.
On Wednesday, Kansai Electric Power (KEPCO) restarted the No 4 reactor at the Takahama nuclear plant after a court in March cleared the move.
The latest restart at the plant in Fukui prefecture, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) west of Tokyo, came after court battles that lasted more than a year during which a district court near Fukui ordered KEPCO to suspend operations.
The Fukui government, where the nuclear industry is a major employer, approved the reactor’s restart but concerned residents in neighboring Shiga prefecture asked their local court to stop the move.
The region’s appeals court in Osaka finally ruled in March that KEPCO could restart two of the four reactors at Takahama.
Shigeki Iwane, KEPCO president, announced the restart in a statement.
“We will… carefully continue our work with discipline and regard safety as the priority,” he said.
Shiga governor Taizo Mikazuki voiced frustration and urged the national government to reduce its reliance on nuclear power, saying his prefecture would be greatly impacted in the event of an accident.
He said the environment was not right for a restart.
“Local residents hold profound anxiety about nuclear plants,” he said in a written statement.
“The government should change the current energy policy that relies on nuclear plants at the earliest possible time,” he said.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has steadily promoted nuclear energy, calling it essential to powering the world’s third-largest economy.
https://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/World/2017/May-17/406167-japan-restarts-another-reactor.ashx
Mayors near Hamaoka nuclear plant say wider consensus needed for reactor restarts
The Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant, idled for five years and now guarded by a 22-meter-tall tsunami wall, is seen on May 12, 2016. Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, is seen in the background.
Seven heads of 11 Shizuoka Prefecture municipalities located within a 30-kilometer radius of Chubu Electric Power Co.’s Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant said in a recent Mainichi Shimbun survey that they believe restarting the currently idled nuclear reactors requires agreement from not only the host prefecture and host city but also other municipalities around the plant.
As May 14 marks the sixth year after the Hamaoka nuclear plant suspended operations upon a request from the then government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, the Mainichi Shimbun surveyed the Shizuoka Prefecture governor and mayors of 11 prefectural municipalities in the “Urgent Protective Action Planning Zone” (UPZ) around the plant. UPZs cover areas within a radius of 30 kilometers of a nuclear plant.
While no legal framework has been set up regarding the scope of municipal consensus necessary to restart operations at a nuclear station, requests have been growing for a broader agreement among municipalities — not just the host prefecture and host municipality — in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Shizuoka Gov. Heita Kawakatsu, who is running for re-election in the gubernatorial race scheduled for June, has argued for the need to hold a referendum over the restart of the Hamaoka plant and has expressed a positive view of involving the 11 mayors in decisions regarding the matter. Consequently, the issue could become a key point in the upcoming gubernatorial election.
The Mainichi asked Gov. Kawakatsu and 11 municipal mayors in a multiple-choice form about the scope of local consensus over the Hamaoka plant restart. Five mayors said agreement from all 11 municipalities in the UPZ was necessary, one favored gaining consensus from four municipalities located within a 10-kilometer radius of the plant and another mayor wanted agreement from all municipalities in Shizuoka Prefecture. The mayor of Omaezaki, the host city of the Hamaoka plant, said restarting the idled nuclear plant only required the city’s agreement.
Shigeki Nishihara, the mayor of Makinohara, neighboring Omaezaki, said consensus from municipalities in the UPZ was necessary. He commented that local governments (in that area) “have a responsibility to secure their residents’ safety.” Meanwhile, Yasuo Ota, the mayor of the town of Mori, who picked “agreement from all municipalities in Shizuoka Prefecture” to restart the Hamaoka plant, told the Mainichi, “It is necessary to hear broad opinions when it comes to gaining consensus over nuclear power as a national energy policy.”
While the remaining four mayors checked “other” in the survey, most of them expressed their view of involving the national government in deciding the scope of local consensus.
Gov. Kawakatsu stressed that it is not an appropriate time to make a decision over the scope of local consensus and repeated that a referendum over the issue of the Hamaoka plant is necessary from the standpoint of popular sovereignty.
No local government heads surveyed were actually in favor of restarting the Hamaoka nuclear plant, even under right conditions such as with approved safety measures. Three city mayors said they were against restarting the plant. Seven local government chiefs chose “other” in the question, while the remaining two said they “cannot judge at the moment.”
The Nuclear Regulation Authority’s screening process of the Hamaoka nuclear plant has been prolonged as the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors being screened are the same “boiling-water type” reactors as the ones at the devastated Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. Furthermore, the estimated maximum ground motion at the Hamaoka nuclear station is likely to be raised because it is located directly above the hypocenter of a potential Nankai Trough megaquake.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170513/p2a/00m/0na/013000c
Tepco Looks Beyond Fukushima Daiichi, Seeks Build Partners
Tokyo Electric and Power Company, owner of the Fukushima Daiichi generating station that suffered a triple-reactor meltdown after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, said Thursday that is was seeking partners to help re-establish itself in the nuclear power business.
The partnership would focus on building two light-water nuclear reactors at the Higashidori nuclear power station in the Aomori Prefecture, the Japan Times reported.
Tepco, while facing massive expenses on Fukushima Daiichi clean up and decommissioning, is hoping to increase revenues through partnerships in both electricity generation and power grid operations, the Times said.
Tepco is currently supported by the Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corp., a government-sponsored organization that is a significant shareholder in Tepco. Tepco and the Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corp. together submitted Tepco’s plan for partnerships for a state review.
The Higashidori plant is already the site of one reactor, owned by the Tohuku Electric Power Company. Tepco has plans to build two more reactors at the same site.
Japan’s Toshiba Corporation expects net loss of JPY950 billion ($8.4 billion) for the 2016-2017 financial year
JPY950 billion ($8.4 billion) for the 2016-2017 financial year, ending 31
March, according to unaudited results it released today. Last month, the
company warned of a net loss for the full year of about JPY1 trillion…. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Toshiba-projects-JPY950-billion-loss-for-FY2016-1505175.html
Families do not want to return to polluted Fukushima areas
the cleanup extends to only 20 meters around each house, and three-quarters of the village is forested mountains. In windy weather, radioactive elements are blown back onto the fields and homes.
The government is forcing people to go back, some argued, employing a form of economic blackmail, or worse, kimin seisaku — abandoning them to their fate.
The evacuation orders for most of the village of Iitate have been lifted. But where are the people?, Japan Times, BY DAVID MCNEILL AND CHIE MATSUMOTO, 14 May 17
“…….A cluster of 20 small hamlets spread over 230 square kilometers, Iitate was undone by a quirk of the weather in the days that followed the nuclear accident in March 2011. Wind carried radioactive particles from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which is located about 45 kilometers away, that fell in rain and snow on the night of March 15, 2011. After more than a month of indecision, during which the villagers lived with some of the highest radiation recorded in the disaster (the reading outside the village office on the evening of March 15 was a startling 44.7 microsieverts per hour), the government ordered them to leave.
Now, the government says it is safe to go back. With great fanfare, all but the still heavily contaminated south of Iitate, Nagadoro, was reopened on March 31.
The reopening fulfills a pledge made by Mayor Norio Kanno: Iitate was the first local authority in Fukushima Prefecture to set a date for ending evacuation in 2012, when the mayor promised to reboot the village in five years. The village has a new sports ground, convenience store and udon restaurant. A clinic sees patients twice a week. All that’s missing is people.
Waiting to meet Kanno in the government offices of Iitate, the eye falls on a book displayed in the reception: “The Most Beautiful Villages in Japan.” Listed at No. 12 is the beloved rolling patchwork of forests, hills and fields the mayor has governed for more than two decades — population 6,300, famous for its neat terraces of rice and vegetables, its industrious organic farmers, its wild mushrooms and the black wagyu cow that has taken the name of the area.
The description in the book is mocked by reality outside. The fields are mostly bald, shorn of vegetation in a Promethean attempt to decontaminate it of the radiation that fell six years ago. There is not a cow or a farmer in sight. Tractors sit idle in the fields. The local schools are empty. As for the population, the only part of the village that looks busy is the home for the elderly across the road from Kanno’s office…….
There has been no official talk of abandoning it. Indeed, any suggestion otherwise could be controversial: When industry minister Yoshio Hachiro called the abandoned communities “towns of death” in September 2011, the subsequent outrage forced him to quit a week later.
Instead, the area was divided into three zones with awkward euphemisms to suggest just the opposite: Communities with annual radiation measuring 20 millisieverts or less (the typical worldwide limit for workers in nuclear plants) are “being prepared for lifting of evacuation order,” districts of 20-50 millisieverts per year are “no-residence zones” and the most heavily contaminated areas of 50 millisieverts or more per year, such as Nagadoro, are “difficult-to-return.”…..
the cleanup extends to only 20 meters around each house, and three-quarters of the village is forested mountains. In windy weather, radioactive elements are blown back onto the fields and homes.
“All that money, and for what?” asks Nobuyoshi Itoh, a farmer and critic of the mayor. “Would you bring children here and let them roam in the fields and forests?”…..
Though nobody knows the true figure, the local talk is that perhaps half of the villagers have permanently left. Surveys suggest fewer than 30 percent want to return, and even less in the case of Nagadoro.
Yoshitomo Shigihara, head of the Nagadoro hamlet, says many families made their decision some time ago. His grandchildren, he says, should not have to live in such a place.
“It’s our job to protect them,” Shigihara says. …….
The government is forcing people to go back, some argued, employing a form of economic blackmail, or worse, kimin seisaku — abandoning them to their fate.
Itoh is angry at the resettlement. For him, politics drives the haste to put the disaster behind.
“It’s inhuman to make people go back to this,” he says. Like the physical damage of radiation, he says, the psychological damage is also invisible: “A lot of people are suffering in silence.”
Itoh believes the government wants to show that the problems of nuclear power can be overcome so it can switch the nation’s idling nuclear reactors back on. Just four are in operation while the fate of 42 others remains in political and legal limbo. Public opinion remains opposed to their restart.
Many people began with high hopes in Iitate but have gradually grown distrustful of the village government, says Kenichi Hasegawa, a farmer who wrote a book titled “Genpatsu ni Furusato o Ubawarete” (“Fukushima’s Stolen Lives”) in 2012. Right from the start, he says, the mayor desperately tried to hide the shocking radiation outside his office……. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/13/national/social-issues/fukushima-land-return/#.WRkB8UWGPGh
Tepco trying to get investment partners forf its nuclear business
Japan’s Tepco to seek partners for nuclear business, Reuters, | TOKYO, 11 May 17 Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Thursday it will seek partners for its nuclear business as part of a recovery plan after the Fukushima disaster of six years ago brought the utility to its knees and put it under state control.
The company, known as Tepco, is trying to place itself on a sounder financial footing after the government in December almost doubled its estimate for the costs related to the Fukushima disaster to 21.5 trillion yen ($188 billion).
It is the third attempt to boost its finances in the six years since the disaster, after the targets in previous plans proved to be unattainable.
Central to its efforts to boost profits and pay for the costs of the disaster is the restart of its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa (KK) nuclear plant in northern Japan, the world’s biggest power station not including hydroelectric dams…….
However, the governor of Japan’s Niigata prefecture, where KK is located, is opposed to a restart without a review of its safety plans, which could take several years. It also must resubmit applications with the national atomic regulator…….
Finding partners for Tepco’s nuclear business will be difficult. Top executives of Tohoku Electric Power and Chubu Electric Power, which operate in regions abutting Tepco’s service area, have said they were not considering any nuclear tie-ups with Tepco……
Tepco submitted the revised business plan to the government, which is expected to give its approval after providing its own input over the last few months.
Tepco plans to allocate 500 billion yen annually in the coming decades to pay for decommissioning at Fukushima and compensation.
Tepco is estimating net profit of 288 billion yen in the year through March 2018, more than double the year earlier period. Revenue is forecast to rise to 5.75 trillion yen from 5.36 trillion yen.
(Editing by Joseph Radford and Christian Schmollinger) http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-tepco-idUSKBN18718S
The urgent danger of wildfires in the radioactive Fukuhsima area
Fukushima a “ticking time bomb” — Fires now “raging” near nuclear plant — Blaze doubles in size; “Smoke rising from wide areas” — Concern over fallout of highly radioactive material; Officials closely watching radiation levels(video) http://enenews.com/fukushima-a-ticking-time-bomb-fires-now-raging-near-nuclear-plant-blaze-doubles-in-size-smoke-rising-from-wide-areas-concern-over-fallout-of-highly-radioactive-material-official
Mainichi, May 1, 2017: Wildfire rages in highly radioactive Fukushima mountain forest — A fire broke out in a mountain forest near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant on the evening of April 29, consuming an area approximately 20 hectares in size, according to prefectural authorities… As the fire continued to spread, however, helicopters from the GSDF, Fukushima Prefecture and other parties on May 1 resumed fire extinguishing operations from around 5 a.m. … As of May 1, there were no major changes to radiation levels in the heart of Namie and other areas near the fire scene, according to the Ministry of the Environment. “We will continue to closely watch changes in radiation doses in the surrounding areas,” said a ministry official.
Common Dreams, May 1, 2017: Sparking Fears of Airborne Radiation, Wildfire Burns in Fukushima ‘No-Go Zone’; Contaminated forests such as those outside fallout sites like Fukushima and Chernobyl ‘are ticking time bombs’ — A wildfire broke out in the highly radioactive “no-go zone” near the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant over the weekend, reviving concerns over potential airborne radiation… Local officials were forced to call in the Japanese military… In a blog post last year, Anton Beneslavsky, a member of Greenpeace Russia’s firefighting group who has been deployed to fight blazes in nuclear Chernobyl, outlined the specific dangers of wildfires in contaminated areas. “During a fire, radionuclides like caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium rise into the air and travel with the wind,” Beneslavsky wrote. “This is a health concern because when these unstable atoms are inhaled, people become internally exposed to radiation.” Contaminated forests such as those outside fallout sites like Fukushima and Chernobyl “are ticking time bombs,” scientist and former regional government official Ludmila Komogortseva told Beneslavsky. “Woods and peat accumulate radiation,” she explained “and every moment, every grass burning, every dropped cigarette or camp fire can spark a new disaster.”
Sputnik News, May 1, 2017: Japanese Authorities Fighting Wildfire in Evacuation Zone Near Fukushima NPP… There were no reports either about the wind direction or the changes in the background radiation level in relation to the fire.
Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui calls on U.N. chief to attend nuclear disarmament conference in August
Hiroshima mayor wants U.N. chief to attend nuclear disarmament conference in August http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/09/national/hiroshima-mayor-wants-u-n-chief-attend-nuclear-disarmament-conference-august/#.WRJEbEWGPGg
KYODO VIENNA – Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui has called on U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres to take part in a peace conference to be held in Nagasaki in August.
Matsui made the request in a Monday meeting with Izumi Nakamitsu, the new U.N. undersecretary general and high representative for disarmament affairs, handing over a letter written jointly with Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue.
Matsui, president of the nongovernmental organization Mayors for Peace, said he told Nakamitsu that many citizens, including survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hope for progress in the negotiations to ban nuclear weapons.
Mayors for Peace, an organization seeking nuclear disarmament and world peace, involves about 7,300 cities in 162 countries and regions. It is scheduled to convene a general conference in Nagasaki on Aug. 7-10.
Nakamitsu, who took her new posts on May 1, was quoted as saying that the key will be how nuclear powers and non-nuclear nations can work together to make the proposed nuclear ban treaty effective. So far, major nuclear powers have refused to join the negotiations.
Matsui and Nakamitsu met on the sidelines of a meeting in Vienna of the preparatory committee for a 2020 conference to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Japan’s desperate hunt for a highly radioactive nuclear waste dump site
Japan seeks final resting place for highly radioactive nuclear waste http://www.dw.com/en/japan-seeks-final-resting-place-for-highly-radioactive-nuclear-waste/a-38709488, 5 May 17,
With communities refusing to come forward to host the by-product of Japan’s nuclear energy industry, the Japanese government is drawing up a map of the most suitable locations for underground repositories.
The Japanese government is putting the finishing touches to a map of the country identifying what its experts consider to be the safest location for a repository for 18,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste for the next 100,000 years. The map is expected to be released next month and will coincide with the government holding a series of symposiums across the country designed to explain why the repository is needed and to win support for the project.
Given that the disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in March 2011 is still fresh in the memory of the Japanese public, the government’s plan is not expected to win much understanding or support.
The original proposal for a repository for the waste from the nation’s nuclear energy sector was first put forward in 2002, but even then there were few communities that were willing to be associated with the dump. Fifteen years later, and with a number of Japan’s nuclear reactors closed down for good in the wake of the Fukushima accident, the need for a permanent storage site is more pressing than ever.
Radioactivity release
The disaster, in which a 13-meter tsunami triggered by an off-shore earthquake crippled four reactors at the plant and caused massive amounts of radioactivity to escape into the atmosphere, also underlined just how seismically unstable the Japanese archipelago is and the need for the repository to be completely safe for 100,000 years.
Aileen Mioko-Smith, an anti-nuclear campaigner with Kyoto-based Green Action Japan, does not believe the government can deliver that guarantee.
“You only have to look at what happened in 2011 to realize that nowhere in Japan is safe from this sort of natural disaster and it is crazy to think otherwise,” she told DW.
Given the degree of public hostility, Mioko-Smith believes that the government will fall back on the tried-and-trusted tactic of offering ever-increasing amounts of money until a community gives in.
Government funds
“They have been trying to get this plan of the ground for years and one thing they tried was to offer money to any town or village that agreed to even undergo a survey to see if their location was suitable,” she said.
“There were a number of mayors who accepted the proposal because they wanted the money – even though they had no intention of ever agreeing to host the storage site – but the backlash from their constituents was fast and it was furious,” Smith added.
“In every case, those mayors reversed their decisions and the government has got nowhere,” she said. “But I fear that means that sooner or later they are just going to make a decision on a site and order the community to accept it.”
The security requirements of the facility will be exacting, the government has stated, and the site will need to be at least 300 meters beneath the surface in a part of the country that is not subject to seismic activity from active faults or volcanoes. It must also be safe from the effects of erosion and away from oil and coal fields. Another consideration is access and sites within 20 km of the coast are preferred.
High-level waste
The facility will need to be able to hold 25,000 canisters of vitrified high-level waste, while more waste will be produced as the nation’s nuclear reactors are slowly brought back online after being mothballed since 2011 for extensive assessments of their safety and ability to withstand a natural disaster on the same scale as the magnitude-9 earthquake that struck Fukushima.
Stephen Nagy, a senior associate professor of international relations at Tokyo’s International Christian University, agrees that the government will have to pay to convince any community to host the facility.
“They will probably peddle it as subsidies for rural revitalization, which is a tactic that all governments use, but there are going to be some significant protests because Fukushima has created a nuclear allergy in most people in Japan,” he said.
“I expect that the government would also very much like to be able to phase out nuclear energy, but that is simply not realistic at the moment,” he said.
When it is released, the government’s list is likely to include places in Tohoku and Hokkaido as among the most suitable sites, because both are relatively less populated than central areas of the country and are in need of revitalization efforts. Parts of Tohoku close to the Fukushima plant may eventually be chosen because they are still heavily contaminated with radiation from the accident.
Japan wants stronger Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Taking part in the preparatory committee for the 2020 review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in Vienna, the first Japanese foreign minister to do so, Kishida also urged cooperation between nuclear states and non-nuclear states to prevent the spread of nuclear arms……..
The first session of the committee to prepare for the review conference in 2020 was held as countries remain at odds over a separate treaty on banning nuclear weapons.
Japan has said it aspires to a world free of nuclear weapons but will abstain from the U.N. negotiations in March for a treaty on a ban, alongside the five recognized nuclear weapons states — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
Regarding the U.N. talks for a treaty on a ban, Kishida told the committee it would further deepen the gap between nuclear states and non-nuclear states, calling for a gradual approach to reducing nuclear weapons, which would be “realistic.”
The government’s decision, seen as reflecting its reliance on the U.S. nuclear umbrella, triggered criticism from the survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who saw the first-ever U.N. talks on the treaty as a step toward achieving a world free of nuclear weapons…….http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/02/national/japan-calls-stronger-nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty-amid-north-korea-threat/#.WQuYqEWGPGg
1 This Month
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25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
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From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
26 June – Radiation Trainwreck at the NRC / Join the Protect Better Campaign – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4ZlZ5_qLSHGiLSCg8FF6Bg#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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