“We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.” — Jacques Cousteau
“When drinking water, remember its source.” — Chinese proverb
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” — Matthew 7:16-20, Holy Bible
Japan has an amazing food culture thanks in part to the rich volcanic soil and ample rainfall, despite the lack of spacious farms. As it stands, Japan can feed approximately one third of its population from domestic production.
If you watch Japanese TV from time to time, you will see a bizarre and disturbing fetishization of food that borders on the insane. The media and in turn consumers are obsessed with food as not only a source of nutrition and social cohesion (all for the good), but as art, fashion and status symbol, a celebration of gluttony and greed; an infantile obsession with eating for self satisfaction.
I love good and healthy food and appreciate Asian cuisine, but we eat to live, not live to eat. This social pathology affects other cultures as well as seen by increasing rates of extreme obesity especially in Western countries due to the proliferation of shopping malls, junk food and high fructose corn syrup.
How ironic then that a “high food” society like Japan would have to suffer the insult of radioactive contamination. This is not a tuna melt sandwich but a nuclear melt-down sundae.
The long-term consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster continue to linger years after the event. Anyone who studies Chernobyl will know that even after three decades radioactive contamination persists. Although a different type of accident occurred there, in the case of Fukushima it was three reactors that had meltdowns instead of one, and even possibly “melt throughs” referring to corium penetrating the reactor buildings in lateral and vertical outward paths.
In the days and months that followed the Fukushima disaster in March of 2011, many people became very worried about radioactive contamination of the food and water supply, especially from short-lived iodine isotopes, followed by the more persistent and harmful cesium, strontium and plutonium. There was much testing by both the government and independent researchers and organizations. Despite the best efforts of the Japanese government, nuclear industry and mainstream media to downplay the crisis, social media proved helpful in educating the public about how to reduce consumer risks.
The worst contamination occurred nearest the disaster site of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station (Dai-ichi) which is located about half way up the east coast in Fukushima prefecture.
When I visited Hirano town with my colleague Yoichi Shimatsu in 2013, we traveled on foot within a few kilometers of the site. We observed abnormally high levels of radiation making it unfit for long-term habitation. Decontamination has taken place there but it is not a thorough removal method and basically shifts radiation from one spot to another in the environment.
Today, if you visit the Japanese government website of the Nuclear Regulation Authority (1) you can find a variety reports on radiation levels with most reports citing very low levels of radiation. How the government arrives at such measurements is not clearly explained at the website. Are their measurements reliable or being taken in a selective manner?
The government hopes to normalize the former evacuation zone by allowing and encouraging residents to move back as soon as possible, despite their reluctance to do so.
Only 28% of Fukushima children returning to former schools….
The majority of schoolboys and girls are opting to stay out of their hometowns due to anxiety over radiation exposure and resettlement at evacuation sites (2).
The problem of radioactive contamination is not unique to Fukushima but to the entire region including Tokyo, home of millions. Recall that 60 million people were originally exposed to radioactive fallout from the accident. Japan was actually lucky because the majority of radiation blew out to sea away from Honshu, not back over the population.
While the government moves to allow wide-scale fishing off the coast of Fukushima (3), and the NRA reports minimal levels of radiation leaking from the plant into the ocean, this confidence in a safe environment is undermined by a report from Greenpeace which found “[r]adiation along Fukushima rivers up to 200 times higher than Pacific Ocean seabed.”
Riverbank sediment samples taken along the Niida River in Minami Soma, measured as high as 29,800 Bq/kg for radiocaesium (Cs-134 and 137). The Niida samples were taken where there are no restrictions on people living, as were other river samples. At the estuary of the Abukuma River in Miyagi prefecture, which lies more than 90km north of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, levels measured in sediment samples were as high as 6,500 Bq/kg (4).
The rivers and ocean are connected and one wonders why the media does not report on these worrying hotspots. These dangerously high levels are indicative of the widely scattered hotspots in the region. In contrast, I could find no reports on the radiation levels at river banks and lake beds at the NRA website, only some reports on radiation found in dust, seawater and so on.
For example, one 2014 report states:
Air dose rates in both “Road and its adjacent area” and “Vacant land lot” have decreased more rapidly than we expected considering the physical half-life of radionuclide in 32 months after the accident. Air dose rates in “Road and its adjacent area” have decreased more rapidly than “Vacant land lot” in 32 months after the accident (5).
The Culture Of Cover Up: Spiked!
A few months ago I was shopping at my health food store in central Tokyo when I was asked by the clerk if I would like to be interviewed by a TV reporter from the Asahi News. I said “sure why not.” Japanese TV often has “man on the street” types of interviews and if you put the shop in a good light, you might appear in a news “infomercial.”
The reporter asked me various questions about why I buy organic food and I spoke proficiently in Japanese about the positive benefits of eating organic food including its superior nutrition and flavor, and because it contributes to the local farm economy.
But I shocked the guy at this point when I bluntly stated that due to the radioactive contamination from Fukushima nuclear disaster, I prefer to buy food produced from as far away as possible, never from the northeast or Tokyo regions of Japan. Food from the west and far southwest of Japan has substantially less radioactive contamination.
I’m not sure if the reporter was even aware of the issue, being a “news reporter” you think he might have been. But it was clear from his reaction that this was a one hundred percent taboo topic. Perhaps because I was a foreigner I was perceived as rude and barbaric for raising it, and I knew ahead of time that by mentioning this my interviewed would not be aired, and it wasn’t.
In fact, after the 3/11 accident my regular health food shop very noticeably shifted the origin of their produce away from the northeast and Tokyo and toward the west, southwest of Japan due to consumer concerns. As for the Asahi News who are an arm of the Abe Propaganda Establishment (APE), Fukushima must only be presented to the public as a pristine location whose products are reliable and safe. A recent study reported:
According to the agriculture ministry, 260,538 food items were inspected in fiscal 2015, and 99 percent of farm products had cesium of less than 25 becquerels per kilogram. The tests showed that 264 items, or 0.1 percent of the total, had cesium exceeding the upper limit. Of these, 259 — or 98 percent — were wild mushrooms, game meat, freshwater fish and other so-called “hard-to-control items” (6).
According to this official data, small numbers of becquerels could be – probably are – routinely entering the general food supply, not to mention the issue of Tokyo’s persistently contaminated water supply which contains minute amounts of cesium.
Radiation is the new normal.
Although the majority of food is under 25 bq per kg of contamination, we don’t know the exact amount. If you multiply that small amount by the number of items consumed daily the danger to health grows exponentially over time.
It is good that Japan has strict standards on radioactive food products — the US allows 1,500 becquerels per kilogram versus Japan’s 100 — but the ubiquitous and long-term aspect of the problem is an ongoing concern.
Richard Wilcox is a contributing editor and writer for the book: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization? (2014) and a Tokyo-based teacher and writer who holds a PhD in environmental studies. He is gratefully a periodic contributor to Activist Post.
5 – Monitoring air dose rates in road/its adjacent area and vacant land lot from a series of surveys by car-borne radiation detectors and survey meters after the Fukushima Daiichi NPS accident https://www.nsr.go.jp/data/000067236.pdf
In March of 2011 as the still-ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster began, the US Navy sent a fleet of ships led by the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to participate in an humanitarian earthquake and tsunami relief effort called Operation Tomadachi (‘friendship’ in Japanese).
Fleet commanders were not informed by either TEPCO, the nuclear plant operator, or by the Japanese government about the plume of radioactive fallout being blown out to sea from what was eventually admitted to be a triple meltdown.
US navel personnel and their ships and aircraft were repeatedly doused with radiation from the rapidly shifting plume, which contaminated equipment, the ships’ air & ventilation systems, as well as drinking and bathing water.
Today, over 400 of those irradiated personnel have joined in a lawsuit against TEPCO seeking medical costs and compensation for the serious health effects they are experiencing, including cancers, miscarriages and loss of multiple bodily functions. At least 7 so far have died of their radiation-induced illnesses.
The suit, filed in the US court in California by attorneys Charles and Cabral Bonner and Paul Garner, charges that TEPCO withheld information from the Navy that would have prevented the mass radiation exposure and is therefore responsible to pay reparations.
TEPCO’s army of high-priced lawyers have been fighting to block the suit for over 5 years, and the merits of the case have yet to be addressed by the court as plaintiffs continue to die.
Last May, when former Japanese Prime Minister heard of the sailors’ plight, he insisted on coming to the US to interview some of the victims himself.
After several days of face-to-face private conversations with a sampling of suit’s plaintiffs and their affected family members, Mr. Koizumi held a news conference announcing his support of the lawsuit. Fighting back tears, he described what he had learned in the interviews, and stated his intention to establish a fund to help with the plaintiffs’ medical expenses.
Pt. 1 Mr. Koizumi’s Statement
This is the first of three segments of a May 17, 2016 news conference held in Carlsbad, CA by Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on the US sailors’ lawsuit against TEPCO.
Pt. 2 – Q&A
This is the second of three segments of a May 17, 2016 news conference held in Carlsbad, CA by Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on the US sailors’ lawsuit against TEPCO.
Pt. 3 – A soldiers story – This is the third of three segments of a May 17, 2016 news conference held in Carlsbad, CA by Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on the US sailors’ lawsuit against TEPCO.
Spraying of anti-scattering agent before taking down the wall panels of Unit 1 building cover at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
Video taken on: August 4 and September 3, 2016
Produced by: TEPCO Holdings, Inc.
The concentration of impurity in steel a Japanese manufacturer supplied to nuclear facilities in France exceeded the standards set by the European country, Japan’s nuclear watchdog said Wednesday, meaning the steel could be weaker than expected.
Briefed recently by French regulators about the finding, the Nuclear Regulation Authority is looking into allegations regarding the products provided by the Kitakyushu-based firm under scrutiny, Japan Casting & Forging Corp.
The NRA said it needs to carry out tests to evaluate whether the steel is in fact lacking in strength.
The French regulators said in June they found steel containing larger-than-expected amounts of impure substances in facilities such as reactor pressure vessels at 18 reactors operating in France and are investigating the matter. The steel products in question were made by Japan Casting & Forging and Creusot Forge, a subsidiary of France’s Areva SA.
In August, the NRA ordered local utilities hosting nuclear power plants in Japan to examine reactors and other major parts at the plants. The utilities have been asked to report the results to the NRA by the end of October.
Japan Casting & Forging is also under scrutiny in Japan as it is responsible for the construction of reactor pressure vessels in 13 Japanese nuclear reactors including the Sendai Nos. 1 and 2 reactors operated by Kyushu Electric Power Co. in Kagoshima Prefecture.
Currently, the two Sendai reactors are operating in Japan after passing stricter safety checks in the wake of the 2011 nuclear crisis that crippled the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.
Japan Casting & Forging had said earlier it has removed the impurities from its steel as instructed by its clients.
The NRA said the standard for carbon content in metals — a gauge of impurity — is below 0.22 percent in France, while the figure in Japan is below 0.25 percent.
But in some products provided by the Japanese firm in some nuclear facilities, carbon content in steel was over 0.3 percent.
Nearly 5½ years after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, a fan club was launched last week with an ambitious membership goal: gain 200,000 members by 2020 and boost the region’s products in the process.
Called Team Fukushima Pride, the project’s fans aren’t devoted to a pop idol group, but instead the local specialties of Fukushima Prefecture.
Already it has the support of organizations such as Yahoo Japan Corp. and Synergy Marketing Inc., which runs the fan club for professional baseball team Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
“Many people want to support Fukushima products but don’t know how to purchase them. I would like to organize a community for them and increase fans,” reconstruction minister Hiroaki Nagasawa, whose ministry spearheads the project, said.
At the heart of the project is a website that sells local products.
Hayato Ogasawara, spokesman for Fukushima Challenge Hajimeppe, an organization tasked with running the fan club and website, said the time of begging people to buy Fukushima products is over. Instead, the focus is to make Fukushima a brand of high-quality farm and marine produce.
“Rather than stressing the safety of the products, we want to inform people simply how great producers and products” in Fukushima are, said Ogasawara.
He said since the disaster the prefecture has been working to assure the safety of its local produce.
“We don’t conduct our own (radiation) checks on the products, but if asked we would explain the efforts of the prefecture,” he said.
Although many people supported Fukushima products in 2011 in the wake of the quake and tsunami, and subsequent radiation crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Ogasawara said sales figures have declined as a result of what he describes as the spread of misinformation about food safety, and due to diminished public focus on the area.
The Fukushima Prefectural Government continues to monitor radiation levels of the prefecture’s food products, ranging from vegetables and fruit to seafood. Among the 9,445 samples of 374 food items checked between April 1 and Aug. 31, just three samples were found to contain radioactive cesium exceeding the government limit of 100 becquerels per kilogram, according to the prefecture. The items that exceeded the limit were banned from distribution.
“The market value of peaches grown in Fukushima is roughly 80 percent of the price levels before the disaster,” Ogasawara said.
“It’s easy to beat the price down if the product is made in Fukushima. Our mission is to bring the price up and eventually develop fan bases for each producer there.”
Available for purchase are fruit, vegetables, sake and traditional crafts produced in the prefecture.
While the website allows anyone to make purchases, fan club members also have access to exclusive items.
Admission is free, and members are also offered opportunities to interact with Fukushima farmers through a special Facebook group and harvesting tours.
“After the disaster, I felt what we farmers could do by ourselves (was) very limited,” said Emi Kato, 35, a rice farmer in the city of Fukushima, who is involved in the project.
“But now there is a platform, which connects farmers and consumers. I’d like to keep on promoting the charm of Fukushima products.”
Local governments are making progress on their goal of generating all of the prefecture’s power from renewable sources by 2040
Cattle farmer Minoru Kobayashi has built solar arrays on land that can’t be used for farming
IITATE, Japan—Many residents of Fukushima prefecture are still angry about the nuclear disaster five years ago that contaminated towns, farm fields and forests. But as the cleanup continues, local governments and some business owners here are channeling their frustration into something positive: clean-energy development.
Fukushima prefecture, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo and roughly the size of Connecticut, was the site of the devastating meltdown of the Daiichi nuclear-power plant following an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. Since then, most of Japan’s 50-plus nuclear plants, which were shut down after the accident for a safety review, have remained off line.
Determined to move away from nuclear energy permanently, local governments in Fukushima, as well as some local entrepreneurs, have taken advantage of national subsidies and embraced solar and wind power. Even as Japan’s overall move toward renewables appears to be stalling amid resistance from utilities and cheap fossil-fuel imports, the prefecture has made progress on its goal of generating 100% of the power its residents use from green sources by 2040.
New solar, wind and geothermal power generators, combined with Fukushima’s already abundant supply of hydropower, have boosted the share of renewable energy in the prefecture’s total power supply to more than one-quarter from one-fifth in 2009. By comparison, renewables made up just 14% of Japan’s overall energy production in the year ended in March.
Fukushima wants a “zero nuclear” power supply, says government spokesman Norihiro Nagao.
Among the business owners who have jumped into the fray is Minoru Kobayashi, 64, who ran a cattle farm about 25 miles inland from the Daiichi plant before the accident. Radioactive contamination forced him and his family to evacuate, along with their cattle, and the government tore down the family’s home and everything else within a 20-meter radius of the house.
Left with fields that couldn’t be used for farming, Mr. Kobayashi, along with a group of local farmers and investors, built four 50-kilowatt solar arrays on their land and plan to build 12 more by the end of next year. The group is selling power to the local utility at prices set by the government and expects to turn a profit by the end of this year. (The company signed power contracts with the local utility when prices were between 27 and 32 yen (26 to 31 cents) a kilowatt-hour. The current rate is 24 yen a kilowatt-hour.)
Mr. Kobayashi says solar power represents more than just a business opportunity to him and his partners. “We welcome renewable energy as a protest to the nuclear power plant,” says Mr. Kobayashi.
Elsewhere, Yauemon Sato, who ran his family’s 226-year-old sake brewery for more than two decades, started the solar-power developer Aizu Electric Power Co. in Fukushima in 2013 with a group of friends and local business associates. The company has built 21 small and medium-size solar arrays and a one-megawatt solar farm in northern Fukushima. He says the new clean-energy businesses will create jobs and boost the economy.
“We started this company as part of a social-justice movement,” Mr. Sato says.
Some business owners are even hoping renewable energy will become a tourist attraction.
In Tsuchiyu Onsen, a resort area known for its natural hot springs and proximity to national parks, local hotel owners joined forces to build a 400-kilowatt geothermal power generator and a small hydroelectric generator.
It has become a new selling point for the resort area, says Katsuichi Kato, 68, president of Genki Up Tsuchiyu Co. “There are many other hot springs towns,” he says. “We had to create a new industry: renewable energy tourism.”
Farmers are surprised to find this snow man shaped pear.
It’s about 3 cm diameter, and leaves are growing from the hollow.
“It’s not possible to have leaves on a fruit. I wonder why…” said Mr. Sato who found this pear.
The emergency shutdown of nuclear reactors hasn’t been an emissions disaster.
In the wake of the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, Japan shut down its entire nuclear fleet in order to develop more rigorous safety standards and inspect the remaining plants. As of now, plants are only beginning to come back online.
Given that Japan had recently relied on nuclear for over a quarter of its electricity, the expectation is that emissions would rise dramatically. But that hasn’t turned out to be the case. While coal use has gone up, it hasn’t risen by more than 10 percent. And a heavy dose of conservation has cut Japan’s total electricity use to below where it was at the end of last decade.
Based on the graph, it appears that nuclear was playing a decreasing role in Japan’s energy mix even prior to Fukushima, being displaced in part by natural gas and in part by petroleum. But that may be an artifact of the chart, given that nuclear was shut down entirely immediately after Fukushima, but the chart shows it persisting. In either case, post-Fukushima conservation efforts dropped Japan’s electricity use below a PetaWatt-hour, and further efforts have turned the drop in electricity use into an ongoing trend.
Fossil fuel use has gone up, but not by as much as might be expected. Coal rose by eight percent, and natural gas (transported in its liquefied form) rose by nine percent. These have largely reversed the expansion of petroleum use that began prior to the meltdown at Fukushima. Non-hydro renewables have also more than doubled their electrical production since that time. Combined with hydroelectric plants, they now provide more electricity than petroleum.
The net result of all of this? Carbon emissions have been relatively flat and have not exceeded the nation’s record year back in 2007. Thus, if nuclear plants are brought back online in significant numbers, Japan’s emissions should begin to drop considerably. If the growth of renewables and general conservation continue as well, Japan should see the drop in emissions accelerate.
And that’s going to be needed, given that Japan has pledged to drop its carbon emissions significantly from their recent peak.
North Korea’s nuclear program is targeting U.S., Japanese lawmaker says, WP. 4 By Anna Fifield September 13
TOKYO — North Korea’s nuclear program is directed at the United States, a close adviser to Kim Jong Un said after last week’s atomic test, according to a Japanese lawmaker who just returned from Pyongyang.
The warning came as two U.S. military B-1 bombers flew over the southern half of the peninsula in a show of force against North Korea, and top military brass and diplomats alike warned Pyongyang the United States was prepared to take all steps to contain and punish the regime.
North Korea defied United Nations resolutions and international warnings by detonating its fifth and largest nuclear weapon Friday, declaring that it was a warhead that could be used to counter “the American threat.”
Antonio Inoki, a former professional wrestler who now serves in Japan’s parliament, returned Tuesday from a five-day visit to Pyongyang saying that Japan need not worry about the North’s nuclear program.
The Japanese government is making final arrangements to scrap the trouble-prone Monju fast-breeder reactor, given the huge cost expected for its resumption, government sources said Tuesday.
The move comes as the government judged it cannot obtain public support for the huge amount of money needed to restart the reactor in Fukui Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast.
If realized, decommissioning of the reactor would require a drastic change in the nation’s nuclear fuel-recycle policy, in which Monju is designated to play a key part.
The outer layer of the crippled No. 1 reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is exposed as Tokyo Electric Power Co. removes one of the panels covering the facility at 6:22 a.m. on Sept. 13.
The devastated outer layer of Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant’s No. 1 reactor building has been exposed for the first time in almost five years in the painstaking reactor decommissioning process.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. began removing on Sept. 13 the exterior walls of the cover installed around the structure to prevent the dispersal of radioactive materials on Sept. 13.
Shortly past 6 a.m., a large crane began removing a massive piece of the cover installed around the reactor building. The panel dismantled that day measured 23 by 17 meters and weighed 20 tons.
The cover was installed in October 2011 as a temporary measure after a nuclear meltdown occurred following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March that year. The meltdown caused a hydrogen explosion, blowing the walls off the building.
Once the cover is dismantled, the operator can assess the state of the building’s interiors and remove the debris fallen onto the spent fuel pool inside.
“Steady progress is necessary in reconstruction, but we hope they will carry on the procedure with safety as the No. 1 priority,” said a Fukushima prefectural government official.
TEPCO said that it plans to remove the remaining 17 panels of the covering by the end of the year. The portion covering the roof has already been removed.
Once the cover is removed, the utility will begin drawing up plans to remove the 392 fuel assemblies from the spent fuel pool and melted nuclear fuel from inside the building.
The plant operator said that it plans to be extra careful during the procedure. It will shroud the building in tarpaulins once the cover is removed as a precautionary measure against dust and other materials containing radioactive materials from being carried aloft by the wind.
The utility and central government’s joint schedule for the decommissioning process of the reactor states that the removal of the fuel rods from the pool will start in fiscal 2020.
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has resumed work to remove a temporary cover from a damaged reactor building.
Tokyo Electric Power Company had covered the partially collapsed No. 1 reactor building to prevent radioactive materials generated by the 2011 accident from spreading.
It started the removal process in July last year, the first step in the retrieval of spent nuclear fuel from a storage pool in the building.
The operation was suspended after sheets from the roof area were removed to assess the building’s condition.
On Tuesday, cranes were used to detach the panels from the side of the building, and the debris inside was exposed for the first time in 5 years. Each panel is 23 by 17 meters and weighs 20 tons.
TEPCO officials say they will spray chemicals to ensure that radioactive substances do not disperse even in strong winds.
They say they plan to complete the operation by the end of November, so that the debris can be removed. The removal of spent fuel is due to begin in 2021.
Industry ministry official Masato Kino who monitored the progress at the scene said difficult procedures will continue, but the first step has been taken. He said he hopes to carefully and safely proceed.
Nuclear power may never recover its cachet as a clean energy source, irrespective of safety concerns, because of the ongoing saga of meltdown 3/11/11 at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Over time, the story only grows more horrific, painful, deceitful. It’s a story that will continue for generations to come.
Here’s why it holds pertinence: As a result of total 100% meltdown, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) cannot locate or remove the radioactive molten core or corium from the reactors. Nobody knows where it is. It is missing. If it is missing from within the reactor structures, has it burrowed into the ground? There are no ready answers.
And, the destroyed nuclear plants are way too radioactive for humans to get close enough for inspection. And, robotic cameras get zapped! Corium is highly radioactive material, begging the question: If it has burrowed thru the containment vessel, does it spread underground, contaminating farmland and water resources and if so, how far away? Nobody knows?
According to TEPCO, removing the melted cores from reactors 1,2 and 3 will take upwards of 20 years, or more, again who knows.
But still, Japan will hold Olympic events in Fukushima in 2020 whilst out-of-control radioactive masses of goo are nowhere to be found. TEPCO expects decades before the cleanup is complete, if ever. Fortunately, for Tokyo 2020 (the Olympic designation) radiation’s impact has a latency effect, i.e., it takes a few years to show up as cancer in the human body.
A week ago on September 7th, Former PM Junichiro Koizumi, one of Japan’s most revered former prime ministers, lambasted the current Abe administration, as well as recovery efforts by TEPCO. At a news conference he said PM Shinzō Abe lied to the Olympic committee in 2013 in order to host the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan.
“That was a lie,” Mr Koizumi told reporters when asked about Mr Abe’s remark that Fukushima was “under control,” Abe Lied to IOC About Nuke Plant, ex-PM Says, The Straits Times, Sep 8, 2016. The former PM also went on to explain TEPCO, after 5 years of struggling, still has not been able to effectively control contaminated water at the plant.
According to The Straits Times article: “Speaking to the IOC in September 2013, before the Olympic vote, PM Abe acknowledged concerns but stressed there was no need to worry: “Let me assure you, the situation is under control.”
PM Abe’s irresponsible statement before the world community essentially puts a dagger into the heart of nuclear advocacy and former PM Koizumi deepens the insertion. After all, who can be truthfully trusted? Mr Koizumi was a supporter of nuclear power while in office from 2001-2006, but he has since turned into a vocal opponent.
Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo, Mr Koizumi said: “The nuclear power industry says safety is their top priority, but profit is in fact what comes first… Japan can grow if the country relies on more renewable energy,” (Ayako Mie, staff writer, Despite Dwindling Momentum, Koizumi Pursues Anti-Nuclear Goals, The Japan Times, Sept. 7, 2016).
Mr Koizumi makes a good point. There have been no blackouts in Japan sans nuclear power. The country functioned well without nuclear.
Further to the point of nuclear versus nonnuclear, Katsunobu Sakurai, mayor of Minamisoma, a city of 70,000 located 25 km north of Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, at a news conference in Tokyo, said: “As a citizen and as a resident of an area affected by the nuclear power plant disaster, I must express great anger at this act… it is necessary for all of Japan to change its way of thinking, and its way of life too – to move to become a society like Germany, which is no longer reliant on nuclear power,” (Sarai Flores, Minamisoma Mayor Sees Future for Fukushima ‘Nonnuclear’ City in Energy Independence, The Japan Times, March 9, 2016).
In March of 2015, Minamisoma declared as a Nonnuclear City, turning to solar and wind power in tandem with energy-saving measures.
Meanwhile, at the insistence of the Abe administration, seven nuclear reactors could restart by the end of FY2016 followed by a total of 19 units over the next 12 months (Source: Japanese Institute Sees 19 Reactor Restarts by March 2018, World Nuclear News, July 28, 2016).
One of the issues surrounding the Fukushima incident and the upcoming Olympics is whom to trust. Already TEPCO has admitted to misleading the public about reports on the status of the nuclear meltdown, and PM Abe has been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, but even much worse, lying to a major international sports tribunal. His credibility is down the drain.
As such, maybe third party sources can be trusted to tell the truth. In that regard, Greenpeace/Japan, which does not have a vested interest in nuclear power, may be one of the only reliable sources, especially since it has boots on the ground, testing for radiation. Since 2011, Greenpeace has conducted over 25 extensive surveys for radiation throughout Fukushima Prefecture.
In which case, the Japanese people should take heed because PM Abe is pushing hard to reopen nuclear plants and pushing hard to repopulate Fukushima, of course, well ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics since there will be events held in Fukushima Prefecture. After all, how can one expect Olympians to populate Fukushima if Japan’s own citizens do not? But, as of now to a certain extent citizens are pushing back. Maybe they instinctively do not trust their own government’s assurances.
But, more chilling yet, after extensive boots-on-the-ground analyses, Greenpeace issued the following statement in March 2016: “Unfortunately, the crux of the nuclear contamination issue – from Kyshtym to Chernobyl to Fukushima- is this: When a major radiological disaster happens and impacts vast tracts of land, it cannot be ‘cleaned up’ or ‘fixed’.” (Source: Hanis Maketab, Environmental Impacts of Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Will Last ‘decades to centuries’ – Greenpeace, Asia Correspondent, March 4, 2016).
That is a blunt way of saying sayonara to habitation on radioactive contaminated land. That’s why Chernobyl is a permanently closed restricted zone for the past 30 years.
As far as “returning home” goes, if Greenpeace/Japan ran the show rather than PM Abe, it appears they would say ‘no’. Greenpeace does not believe it is safe. Greenpeace International issued a press release a little over one month ago with the headline: Radiation Along Fukushima Rivers up to 200 Times Higher Than Pacific Ocean Seabed – Greenpeace Press Release, July 21, 2016.
Here’s what they discovered: “The extremely high levels of radioactivity we found along the river systems highlights the enormity and longevity of both the environmental contamination and the public health risks resulting from the Fukushima disaster,” says Ai Kashiwagi, Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace Japan.
“These river samples were taken in areas where the Abe government is stating it is safe for people to live. But the results show there is no return to normal after this nuclear catastrophe,” claims Kashiwagi.
“Riverbank sediment samples taken along the Niida River in Minami Soma, measured as high as 29,800 Bq/kg for radiocaesium (Cs-134 and 137). The Niida samples were taken where there are no restrictions on people living, as were other river samples. At the estuary of the Abukuma River in Miyagi prefecture, which lies more than 90km north of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, levels measured in sediment samples were as high as 6,500 Bq/kg” (Greenpeace).
The prescribed safe limit of radioactive cesium for drinking water is 200 Bq/kg. A Becquerel (“Bq”) is a gauge of strength of radioactivity in materials such as Iodine-131 and Cesium-137 (Source: Safe Limits for Consuming Radiation-Contaminated Food, Bloomberg, March 20, 2011).
“The lifting of evacuation orders in March 2017 for areas that remain highly contaminated is a looming human rights crisis and cannot be permitted to stand. The vast expanses of contaminated forests and freshwater systems will remain a perennial source of radioactivity for the foreseeable future, as these ecosystems cannot simply be decontaminated” (Greenpeace).
Still, the Abe administration is to be commended for its herculean effort to try to clean up radioactivity throughout Fukushima Prefecture, but at the end of the day, it may be for naught. A massive cleanup effort is impossible in the hills, in the mountains, in the valleys, in the vast forests, along riverbeds and lakes, across extensive meadows in the wild where radiation levels remain deadly dangerous. Over time, it leaches back into decontaminated areas.
And as significantly, if not more so, what happens to the out-of-control radioactive blobs of corium? Nobody knows where those are, or what to do about it. It’s kinda like the mystery surrounding black holes in outer space, but nobody dares go there.
Fukushima is a story for the ages because radiation doesn’t quit. Still, the Olympics must go on, but where?
A large majority of municipalities that were hit by massive earthquakes and other disasters in recent years called for expanding the coverage of a law aimed at providing financial assistance for rebuilding damaged homes, a Mainichi Shimbun survey has learned.
The survey, conducted on Sept. 11, covered 61 cities, towns and villages in six prefectures that suffered enormous damage from the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the September 2015 Kanto-Tohoku floods and the April 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes. It found that 80 percent of those municipalities believe the Act on Support for Reconstructing Livelihoods of Disaster Victims should be revised, underscoring the fact that the law is not sufficiently catering to the needs of victims in disaster areas.
Under this law, up to 3 million yen each is provided to those whose homes were entirely destroyed in disasters, and those whose homes were partially damaged and require extensive repair work can also receive financial assistance. However, other partially damaged homes are not covered by the law. The most common answer among the disaster-hit municipalities was to update the law to provide aid to households whose homes were partially destroyed but are not covered by the law. The second most common response was to raise the amount of relief money provided to affected households. The central government, however, is reluctant to review the support law.
Specifically, the survey covered 12 municipalities in Iwate Prefecture, 15 in Miyagi Prefecture, 10 in Fukushima Prefecture, five in Ibaraki Prefecture, four in Tochigi Prefecture and 15 in Kumamoto Prefecture. Of them, 57 municipalities responded except for four municipalities that suffered extensive damage from Typhoon Lionrock.
Forty-nine municipalities responding to the latest survey said the support law needs to be improved. Asked to choose from eight options for improvement, 24 municipalities said the financial assistance should be expanded to cover those whose homes were partially damaged; 17 municipalities said the amount of financial relief should be raised; and nine municipalities called for flexibility in recognizing damage to residences.
The Tochigi Prefecture city of Nikko called for expanding the law’s coverage to partially damaged houses, with a municipal government official saying, “There are partially destroyed houses whose status is infinitely close to damage requiring major repair work, and it is difficult to win victims’ understanding just by drawing such a simple line.” An official with the Iwate Prefecture city of Rikuzentakata said, “There is an enormous gap between households whose homes were partially damaged (and are thus cast out of the law) and other households that benefited from the support law.”
In areas damaged by the 2011 disaster, the most common request for the central government was to raise the amount of financial assistance provided to affected households. Behind the results are rising costs due to the reconstruction boom in disaster areas. “Construction costs are skyrocketing,” said an official with the Iwate Prefecture town of Yamada. As some victims lost all their furniture and other assets to tsunami, the Miyagi Prefecture city of Higashimatsushima proposed raising the amount of aid for those whose homes were swept away by tsunami.
Seven municipalities raised questions about the way subsidies are provided on a household-by-household basis under the law and the definition of households — though these were not among prearranged response options. “The amount of subsidies provided to each household is the same regardless of the number of members in a household. If the law takes the number of family members into account, we can provide assistance for their livelihood reconstruction in accordance with the realities they face,” said an official with the Kumamoto Prefecture city of Yatsushiro.
In the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake, around 400,000 homes were either completely or partially destroyed, according to the National Police Agency. Of them, only about 193,000 households were eligible to receive financial aid under the support law to rebuild or repair their homes.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office provided a negative view toward legal revision when it was reached by the Mainichi, saying, “Because financial resources are limited, we’d like to respond to the matter by supporting self-help efforts, such as promoting subscriptions to private insurance.”
After Fukushima, Japan turns to geothermal power for energy, By Michiyo Ishida, Japan Bureau Chief, Channel NewsAsia 11 Sep 2016 “…….. Japan’s largest geothermal plant – the Hatchobaru Geothermal Power Station – is located in Oita, southern Japan. Its total output is 110,000 kilowatts, and it powers about 37,000 households.
“Normally, you would utilise the steam straight from the source. But if there is energy left in the hot water, steam is drawn from there and it is used to generate energy. By doing that, we can increase power output by 20 per cent,” said the power station’s Vice-Director, Seiki Kawazoe.
The Kyushu Electric Power Company said this is an original technology known as the double flash system, which helps to raise energy efficiency.
The Hatchobaru plant generates the largest geothermal energy output in Japan, and it is able to do so as it is located in Oita, home to about 4,400 hot springs.
These surf clams, seen here in June at Hisanohama Port in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, were caught during test fishing.
IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture–Ten species were added to the list of catches eligible for test fishing off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture, but lingering concerns about radiation are keeping sales of such marine products low.
Still, the latest additions, which include the Japanese flounder, the white-spotted conger eel and the spotted halibut, have encouraged fishermen who have been struggling to rebuild their lives since the Fukushima nuclear disaster started in March 2011.
The Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations on Aug. 25 added the 10 species to bring the total number eligible for test fishing to 83. The additions were approved during a meeting in Iwaki of the prefectural council for the rebuilding of regional fisheries.
“I think the 83 fish species accounted for about 70 percent of our pre-disaster hauls,” said Tetsu Nozaki, president of the prefectural fisheries federation. “I am placing particularly high hopes for a great boost in the value of our catches from the resumed fishing of Japanese flounder.”
Test fishing for flounder started on Sept. 2.
The Soma-Futaba fisheries cooperative association, which is part of the prefectural federation, plans to resume catches of white-spotted conger eel in September. But the Iwaki city fisheries cooperative association has decided to wait until water temperatures are low enough to ensure freshness of the white-spotted conger eel.
Test fishing has expanded because the environment of the sea has significantly improved since the initial impact of the nuclear disaster. Radioactivity levels in fish caught there now stably remain within the safety limit for many species.
Despite extensive testing to ensure safety of Fukushima marine products, many dealers are still reluctant to buy the species.
Fish and shellfish from Fukushima Prefecture are being shipped to various parts of Japan, such as the Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu and Hokuriku regions. Prices of seafood items from Fukushima Prefecture are not much lower than those from other prefectures, according to Yoshiharu Nemoto, head of the fishing ground environment division with the Fukushima Prefectural Fisheries Experimental Station.
Yet few dealers are bidding for Fukushima marine products. If this trend continues with more Fukushima fish reaching the market, unsold leftovers from the prefecture could start to pile up and project a negative image, Nemoto said.
“It will become more necessary than ever to make publicity efforts, such as regularly releasing data concerning safety,” he said.
Test fishing began in June 2012, 15 months after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami caused the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Initially, only three species were covered: two kinds of octopuses and one type of shellfish.
While coverage has since expanded in stages, the latest addition of 10 species at one time is second only to the addition of 12 species, including brown sole and red sea bream, in August 2015.
Since April 2011, the Fukushima prefectural government has been monitoring the impact of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant on fish and shellfish. The radiation tests, which cover about 200 samples every week, have so far been conducted on 38,000 samples of 184 species.
The concentration of radioactive cesium initially exceeded the central government’s safety limit of 100 becquerels per kilogram in most of the fish and shellfish surveyed. But the concentration has declined from year to year, and no sample has exceeded the safety limit since April 2015.
In more than 90 percent of the samples tested in July 2015 and later, radioactivity levels were below the detection limit.
Radioactivity levels in fish caught near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are also falling.
The central government’s Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency (FRA) on Aug. 25 released data on radioactivity levels in Japanese flounder caught in July in waters around the crippled nuclear plant.
The FRA said its high-precision tests, with a lower limit of detection set at a mere 1 becquerel per kg, found radioactivity levels of less than 10 becquerels per kg in all 41 individual organisms tested. More than 90 percent of them measured less than 5 becquerels per kg.
Catches from test fishing have continued to grow: 122 tons in 2012, 406 tons in 2013, 742 tons in 2014 and 1,512 tons in 2015.
But last year’s catch was only 5.8 percent of the annual catch of 26,050 tons averaged over the decade preceding the 2011 disaster.
Fishermen are holding out high hopes for more fish species being eligible for catches.
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