Radioactive cesium fallout on Tokyo from Fukushima concentrated in glass microparticles
Public Release: 26-Jun-2016 Goldschmidt Conference
New research shows that most of the radioactive fallout which landed on downtown Tokyo a few days after the Fukushima accident was concentrated and deposited in non-soluble glass microparticles, as a type of ‘glassy soot’. This meant that most of the radioactive material was not dissolved in rain and running water, and probably stayed in the environment until removed by direct washing or physical removal. The particles also concentrated the radioactive caesium (Cs), meaning that in some cases dose effects of the fallout are still unclear. These results are announced at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Yokohama, Japan.
The flooding of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) after the disastrous earthquake on March 11 2011 caused the release of significant amounts of radioactive material, including caesium (Cs) isotopes 134Cs (half-life, 2 years) and 137Cs (half-life, 30 years).
Japanese geochemists, headed by Dr Satoshi Utsunomiya (Kyushu University, Japan), analysed samples collected from within an area up to 230 km from the FDNPP. As caesium is water-soluble, it had been anticipated that most of the radioactive fallout would have been flushed from the environment by rainwater. However, analysis with state-of-the-art electron microscopy in conjunction with autoradiography techniques showed that most of the radioactive caesium in fact fell to the ground enclosed in glassy microparticles, formed at the time of the reactor meltdown.
The analysis shows that these particles mainly consist of Fe-Zn-oxides nanoparticles, which, along with the caesium were embedded in Si oxide glass that formed during the molten core-concrete interaction inside the primary containment vessel in the Fukushima reactor units 1 and/or 3. Because of the high Cs content in the microparticles, the radioactivity per unit mass was as high as ~4.4×1011 Bq/g, which is between 107 and 108 times higher than the background Cs radioactivity per unit mass of the typical soils in Fukushima.
Closer microparticle structural and geochemical analysis also revealed what happened during the accident at FDNPP. Radioactive Cs was released and formed airborne Cs nanoparticles. Nuclear fuel, at temperatures of above 2200 K (about as hot as a blowtorch), melted the reactor pressure vessel resulting in failure of the vessel. The airborne Cs nanoparticles were condensed along with the Fe-Zn nanoparticles and the gas from the molten concrete, to form the SiO2 glass nanoparticles, which were then dispersed.
Analysis from several air filters collected in Tokyo on 15 March 2011 showed that 89% of the total radioactivity was present as a result of these caesium-rich microparticles, rather than the soluble Cs, as had originally been supposed.
According to Dr Satoshi Utsunomiya;
“This work changes some of our assumptions about the Fukushima fallout. It looks like the clean-up procedure, which consisted of washing and removal of top soils, was the correct thing to do. However, the concentration of radioactive caesium in microparticles means that, at an extremely localised and focused level, the radioactive fallout may have been more (or less) concentrated than anticipated. This may mean that our ideas of the health implications should be modified”.
Commenting, Prof. Bernd Grambow, Director of SUBATECH laboratory, Nantes, France and leader of the research group on interfacial reaction field chemistry of the ASRC/JAEA, Tokai, Japan, said:
“The leading edge observations by nano-science facilities presented here are extremely important. They may change our understanding of the mechanism of long range atmospheric mass transfer of radioactive caesium from the reactor accident at Fukushima to Tokyo, but they may also change the way we assess inhalation doses from the caesium microparticles inhaled by humans. Indeed, biological half- lives of insoluble caesium particles might be much larger than that of soluble caesium”.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/gc-rcf062316.php
Radioactive “Glassy Soot” Fell Over Tokyo After the Fukushima Meltdown
It’s science no one wishes was necessary.
Most of the radioactive material that rained down on Tokyo following the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was encapsulated in glassy microparticles, researchers have found.
The findings, which will be presented on Monday at the Goldschmidt conference in Japan, show that the radioactive fallout from the 2011 earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster has been poorly understood. Previously, it was assumed that most of the radiation that fell dissolved in rain. This would mean that it would wash out of the soil and through the environment with the hydrologic cycle.
However, what actually happened is that, in the midst of the meltdown, molecules of radioactive caesium and nanoparticles of iron-zinc oxides became embedded in silicon oxide glass. This occurred because of the interaction between the molten core and the concrete containment units.
These tiny glass particles entered the air and fell as soot on the surrounding region. Because the radioactive molecules are contained in an insoluble medium, they will not wash out of the soil with rainwater to the same extent.
“It looks like the clean-up procedure, which consisted of washing and removal of top soils, was the correct thing to do,” says Dr. Satoshi Utsunomiya, who will present the findings on Monday. “However, the concentration of radioactive caesium in microparticles means that, at an extremely localised and focused level, the radioactive fallout may have been more (or less) concentrated than anticipated.”
Beyond the consequences for the environment, there are significant consequences for human health. Breathing caesium encased in glass particles may have a very different impact from exposure to it as radioactive rain, and it may be dangerous at a much higher or lower concentration. The half-life of the material may also depend heavily on the medium.
This information will be valuable in assessing the ongoing impacts the Fukushima disaster. Hopefully, no nuclear meltdown on that scale occurs again, but if one does, this new science will help governments better respond to the crisis.
Tepco admits they concealed the fact of meltdown 7 million Bq of all β nuclides leaked as contaminated water in Fukushima plant
According to Tepco, highly contaminated water leaked from a water storage tank on 6/26/2016.
All β nuclides density is reportedly 96,000,000 Bq/m3. Cs-134/137 density is also 700,000 Bq/m3.
Tepco states the leaked volume was 72 L. Based on their announcement, at least 6,912,000 Bq of all β nuclides leaked to contain Sr-90.
Tepco says no contaminated water spread to the outside of the tank area.
The type of this tank has unwelded joint parts, which is vulnerable for leakage.
The life of these tanks was reported to be 5 years but in 2013 Tepco admitted it has no basis.
These tanks are not bearable for the contaminated water but these are still in use.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/press/mail/2016/1301003_8708.html
http://www.tepco.co.jp/press/mail/2016/1301004_8708.html
http://www.tepco.co.jp/press/mail/2016/1301009_8708.html
Fukushima evacuees made to feel small if they don’t return
Makiko Sekine tends flowers at a public housing unit for disaster survivors in Kawauchi, Fukushima Prefecture, with her husband, Hiroshi, on June 14. That day, the evacuation order was lifted for parts of the village, including the couple’s home district of Kainosaka.
KAWAUCHI, Fukushima Prefecture–In a rush of sorts, evacuation orders are being lifted from municipalities of this northeastern prefecture that were affected by the 2011 nuclear disaster.
The order was lifted for part of the village of Katsurao on June 12, followed by an area of Kawauchi village on June 14. It will be lifted for a section of Minami-Soma city on July 12.
The central government has decided to have all evacuation orders lifted by March next year, except for in “difficult-to-return” zones where radiation levels remain elevated.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, having toured Katsurao and Kawauchi on June 3, said, “I want to make sure that the livelihood of the communities, as well as family and community ties, is revived as soon as possible.”
Having covered news in Fukushima Prefecture for four years, I cannot believe that everything is so rosy simply because evacuation orders are being lifted.
It is certainly good news that disaster-affected areas are becoming freely accessible again, but I know that some residents are being left behind in the process.
Hiroshi Sekine, 88, and his wife, Makiko, 81, a couple I have known for three years, are from the Kainosaka district of Kawauchi, where the evacuation order has been lifted.
They moved there from the neighboring city of Iwaki in 1959, five years before the first Tokyo Summer Olympic Games.
Deep within the mountains far from the center of the village, the couple reclaimed wasteland and turned it into farmland. They raised four children.
The Sekines, who now live in a public housing unit for disaster survivors elsewhere in Kawauchi, said they are not returning home.
Before the nuclear disaster, Kainosaka, home to 13 households, functioned as a small “community” where people helped out each other.
After five years spent in evacuation, the couple no longer have the energy to restart life in their inconveniently situated home district.
Even if they returned, they would be unable to sustain their life because nobody else is going back to Kainosaka.
“The lifting of the evacuation order is about deregulation,” a central government official told the Sekines. “It is up to you to decide whether you are going back or not.”
Once the evacuation order is lifted, however, the couple’s status switches from “those being forced by the central government into evacuation” to “those choosing to remain in evacuation despite having the option of returning.”
This new status will oblige them to feel apologetic, wary of what others may think of them.
The lifting of evacuation orders scheduled through next spring will allow around 46,000 people to return to their homes.
But many communities, like the Kainosaka district, will never be like what they were before.
How can we prevent people like the Sekines from being made to feel small because the evacuation order has been lifted? That is a complicated question about moral dignity, which cannot be solved with cash.
The Law on Special Measures for the Reconstruction and Revitalization of Fukushima was enacted a year after the onset of the nuclear disaster.
The law designates only “people who have been evacuated from zones under evacuation orders” and “people who have moved back to zones where evacuation orders have been lifted” as those entitled to coverage under the central government’s measures for “ensuring stability.”
When the law was enacted, nobody expected the cleanup of radioactive substances to take so long that it would delay the lifting of the evacuation orders, and that so many residents would choose not to return home after the orders are lifted, a central government official said.
The Sekines will be obliged to continue to live a life different from the one they had before the disaster.
I think people like the Sekines should be given the clearly defined status of “evacuees” by, for example, legally guaranteeing them the right to remain in evacuation.
Fukushima nuclear meltdown was covered up, plant operator admits
Naomi Hirose, left, TEPCO president, and Takafumi Anegawa, a director, apologise at press conference in Tokyo today
The company responsible for the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant has admitted lying about the meltdown of its reactors five years ago, in a deliberate cover-up of the world’s second worst nuclear disaster.
It took two months for the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to own up to the meltdown of three reactors after an earthquake and tsunami. A report commissioned by the company says that its president at the time ordered employees to speak of “damage” to the reactors and avoid the world, “meltdown”.
The company’s current president, Naomi Hirose, said: “It is extremely regrettable People are justified in…
No accountability in nuclear industry
Following the June 16 quake in Hakodate, Hokkaido, nuclear plant operators in the area reported no damage, but even if there were problems, because of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s new anti-democratic secrecy law, they would not necessarily report them, nor would they feel any compunction to do so. The Nuclear Village Idiots can cover their backsides very nicely with this new secrecy law.
Public safety is hardly a concern of politicians or the nuclear power plant owners. Japan’s very much a totalitarian state once again. It simply uses democratic-sounding titles to cover up the true authoritarian nature of the government and senior industrial officials. It’s Tojo’s Japan with velvet gloves. Let’s hope the gloves never come off.
ROBERT MCKINNEY
OTARU, HOKKAIDO
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/06/25/reader-mail/no-accountability-nuclear-industry/
Japan Could Go Nuclear ‘Virtually Overnight’ Joe Biden Tells Chinese President
This undated picture released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on June 23, 2016 shows a test launch of the surface-to-surface medium long-range strategic ballistic missile Hwasong-10 at an undisclosed location in North Korea.The Musudan — also known as the Hwasong-10 — has a theoretical range of anywhere between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometres (1,550 to 2,500 miles).
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, never one for a loss of words, told Chinese President Xi Jinping that Japan has the capacity to acquire nuclear weapons “virtually overnight.”
Biden made his disclosure while giving a speech at a Public Broadcasting Service program aired on Monday. Biden said he had urged Xi to exert influence on North Korea so it will abandon its missile and nuclear weapons developments.
Referring to North Korea’s recent nuclear test and missile launches in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, Biden said that if China and the U.S. fail to take effective action against North Korea, “What happens if Japan, who could go nuclear tomorrow? They have the capacity to do it virtually overnight.” Biden did not say when his conversation with Xi took place.
Biden said that China had the single greatest ability to influence North Korea, adding that North Korea is building nuclear weapons that can strike as far away the U.S. mainland.
“And I say, so we’re going to move up our defense system,” the vice president added, referring to the U.S. plan to deploy THADD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), an advanced missile interception system, in South Korea.
Biden quoted Xi as saying, “Wait a minute, my military thinks you’re going to try to circle us.” Earlier this month China said that deploying THADD infringes on China’s strategic interests.
The fact that Japan can easily develop nuclear weapons, however, isn’t the issue but the fact that Biden chose to tell Xi this is worthy of note, both in the context of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and given Biden’s history of frequently making gaffes.
Tepco’s “sincere”apology!!!
With Tepco it is always the same song, they apologize for a long ago previous lie and tell the whole world how very very sorry, repenting they are, while they daily continue lying and covering-up the true happenings at Fukushima Daiichi.
FUCK TEPCO!
Press Release (Jun 21,2016)TEPCO APOLOGIZES FOR PREVIOUS LEADERSHIP’S FAILURE TO ACKNOWLEDGE MELTDOWN DURING FUKUSHIMA ACCIDENT
Responding to recent report of an investigating committee, TEPCO restates its commitment to provide comprehensive, accurate and understandable information, while making safety the utmost priority to ensure a safe and secure society
TOKYO, June 21, 2016 In its first response to the June 16 report of the committee investigating the belated acknowledgment that a meltdown had taken place at Fukushima Daiichi NPS in March 2011, TEPCO said it is clear from the report that its previous leadership gave instructions not to use the word “meltdown” in public statements.
“We deeply regret that our previous leadership failed to live up to the standards of transparency and thoroughness that we strive to meet today,” said TEPCO President Naomi Hirose (who was not the company’s leader at the time of the accident). “We sincerely apologize for it,” he said.
In more recent years, through the creation of the Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee and many other changes, TEPCO has worked to improve the timeliness, thoroughness, and clarity of its communication with the public, both inside Japan and internationally. President Hirose stressed that TEPCO has been learning this lesson and breaking from its past, as it works to build trust with the public and with government through the implantation of its Nuclear Safety Reform Plan. Improvements in communication represent an important element of that Plan, which is overseen both by the company’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Office and by an independent Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee chaired by the former head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“We deeply regret the shortcomings of the past,” President Hirose said, “but it is important to recognize that they do not represent the TEPCO of today while making safety the utmost priority to ensure a safe and secure society.”
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/2016/1300509_7763.html
To carry better the Fukushima radioactive water into the ocean
New Drainage Channels Start Operations at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station
More Drainage “Improvements” at Fukushima Daiichi: In advance of typhoon season, rainwater drainage has been further improved by the construction of a new drainage channel. The channel runs between Units 5-6 and the cluster of Units 1-4. It carries water into two drainages, both of which empty into the protected port area and not the open ocean. The new channel helps manage the increased runoff that results from extensive hard-surfacing that has been done to reduce radiation, prevent rainwater from seeping into the ground, and in turn “improve the environment”.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/news/library/archive-e.html?video_uuid=tq4l2aqa&catid=69631
Living with radiation in Fukushima
In Iwaki city, Fukushima, the Tarachine “screening center” is a fully independent citizen laboratory, well equipped and employing qualified technicians to help the Fukushima population with anything involving radiation measuring or contamination testing.
For a minor fee people can come to the Tarachine screening clinic to have their foods tested, but also their house lot soil tested, or even the vacuumed dust of their house tested.
The Tarachine screening center fulfill a very important role for the Fukushima families, as families do not have the means to acquire all the necessary expensive equipment nor the technical qualifications.
As the Japanese government does not provide such vital service nor could be trusted with radiation measure numbers, some citizens organized themselves to set up such laboratories. There are at present about 100 such laboratories which have spread up, but Tarachine is certainly the most efficient and fully equipped for various types of radiation measures.
For example, since in a lot of places very young children cannot anymore play outside safely, but are kept to play indoors, it is therefore vital for the mothers to constantly control the level of contamination inside their house, thus they bring to the Tarachine center their vacuumed dust to be measured.
As an example this mother having brought her house vacuumed dust to be analyzed learned that it is contaminated by 4400 Bq/kg of Cesium 137, 718 Bq/kg of Cesium 134 and 1950 Bq/kg of Potassium 40, thus a total contamination of 5158 Bq/kg. The levels of Cesium 137 and Cesium 134 have too high, 4 times higher than the advised contaminated threshold and could therefore be harmful to the persons living in that house, especially for children.
As a comparison, you may see vaccumed dust from 3 different locations, one in Iwaki, Fukushima, one in Chiba, nearby Tokyo, and one in Vancouver, British Columbia,Canada:
Vacuum House Dust in Fukushima (Iwaki)
Cs 137 4440 Bq/kg
Cs 134 718 Bq/kg
Vacuum House dust in Chiba (Makuhari)
Cs 137 137Bq/kg(± 2%)
Cs 134 27Bq/kg(± 5%)
Vacuum House dust in Vancouver, BC
Cs 137 <1.08Bq/kg
Cs 134 <0.86bq/kg
The Japanese government during the past 5 years has constantly lied to the Fukushima population about the harmful radiation risks, condemning the people to stay and live with radiation. Consequently citizens have learned to rely only on their own for radiation measuring and protection.
https://www.actbeyondtrust.org/campaign/pledge/tarachine/jp/
Contact adress: Tarachine Screening center
Onahama hanabatake-cho 11-3, Iwaki city, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan
Tel: 0246‐92‐2526
Japanese utility begins loading fuel at reactor for late July restart
MATSUYAMA, EHIME PREF. – Shikoku Electric Power Co. started loading nuclear fuel Friday into a reactor at its Ikata power plant, paving the way for a scheduled restart next month.
The utility plans to reactivate the No. 3 unit at the plant in Ehime Prefecture on July 26. The company envisions beginning electricity generation three days later and resuming commercial operation in mid-August.
The pressurized-water reactor using uranium-plutonium mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel, will be the fifth unit to be reactivated under tougher regulations introduced in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Ehime Gov. Tokihiro Nakamura said he hopes the reactor operator will make safety a high priority. Safety concerns remain, however, as the plant on the island of Shikoku is situated near a fault zone.
A group of local residents filed a suit in May seeking an injunction to halt the restart, arguing that strong earthquakes that have hit central parts of Kyushu may affect the fault and trigger further temblors. The plant is about 170 km (105 miles) east of Kumamoto Prefecture, the epicenter of the recent quakes.
The reactor, whose operation began in 1994, was suspended in April 2011 for a regular inspection after the March 2011 earthquake-tsunami and nuclear disasters.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority last July approved Shikoku Electric’s enhanced safety measures against possible earthquake and tsunami hazards as well as other major accidents prior to the restart.
The company started on-site preoperational checks of the unit in April, the last procedure toward reactivation.
On Friday, about 20 local residents shouted, “No to restart” near the power plant, saying the reactors should be decommissioned.
“I can’t believe the reactor is restarted even though the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant of Tepco has not been contained,” said Takashi Hasebe, 62, who is a member of a citizens’ group opposed to Ikata’s restart. “We can’t stop natural disasters but we can stop nuclear power plants.”
But local businesses want them to be restarted in hopes of boosting the local economy.
“If the reactors won’t be restarted, our town would be depopulated even more,” said Tomokatsu Shinozawa, 55, who runs a Japanese inn in the town of Ikata. “I want it to be restarted as soon as possible.”
Another male farmer, 64, pointed out that spent nuclear fuel would be stored whether or not they are restarted.
“It’s dangerous one way or the other,” he said. “If that’s the case, it’s better to restart it making sure that it’s safe.”
Business analysts do not share the optimism of Toshiba’s new CEO, on nuclear power
Toshiba’s new CEO sticks to nuclear target branded ambitious by analysts http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/latestnews/2016/06/23/Toshibas-new-CEO-sticks-nuclear-target-branded-ambitious-analysts Fiscal Times, 23 June 16, “Its achievable,” Satoshi Tsunakawa told reporters on Thursday, a day after assuming the top post, when asked about the company’s goal of building 45 nuclear power reactors globally by the business year ending March 2031….
When France uses Charles Aznavour to trivialize Fukushima
June 22, 2016 / Mathieu Gaulène (Reporterre)
Translated by Hervé Courtois (D’un Renard)
From our correspondant in Tokyo, Japan
Last week, the Embassy of France in Tokyo, Japan organized a “friendship dinner” to promote agricultural products from Fukushima. In this great communication exercise, the main purpose was to “serve the interests of France in Japan”, that is by defending the nuclear industry.
” The oceans are garbage dumps, the seabeds are soiled, smultiple Chernobyls are seeing fetuses stillborn”, sang in 2009 Charles Aznavour in “The Earth dies”.
Yet at the Embassy of France in Tokyo, Friday, June 17, at a dinner during which he was the guest of honor, it was another song that was sung to the the nonagenarian by the Ambassador Thierry Dana. In partnership with Fukushima Prefecture and the Aeon supermarkets chain, the Embassy of France organized within its walls a great event for the promotion of agricultural products from Fukushima. Some “delicious dishes” were prepared and served by the chef of the Embassy to the handpicked guests.
Charles Aznavour with Ambassador Thierry Dana
This is not the first time that the Embassy of France is actively promoting the nuclear industry and minimizing the risks following the Fukushima accident.
The former minister-counselor had even told us point blank, in 2013, that the main role of the embassy was “to serve the interests of France in Japan, that is to say nuclear.”
“We want to end this drama with this event”
But with this event, a new milestone was reached in the promotion of nuclear power, assumed and uninhibited: an outright negation of the health consequences of this disaster on the region. For, under the guise of a pseudo “friendship” with the people of Fukushima, singularly absent from the reception, the dinner was above all a great exercise in communication.
“We want to end this drama with this event,” explains a communication officer before the press conference starts. And to end the debate about radioactivity? “We do not want to present things like that …” she begins, before going elsewhere. And indeed, the ambassador of France, Thierry Dana, achieved the feat of making a speech on Fukushima never saying the words “nuclear accident” or “radioactivity”. He should have thought about it strongly, however when talking about “unfounded rumors on products that are both delicious and safe for health” [1]. When the phrase was translated into Japanese, Masao Uchibori, governor of Fukushima, and Tsuyoshi Takagi, Minister for Reconstruction, nodded, visibly satisfied that France plays its role of stooge in this case.
Masao Uchibori, the governor of Fukushima, Thierry Dana and Tsuyoshi Takagi, the Minister for Reconstruction (left to right), Friday, June 17, at the Embassy of France in Tokyo.
When we questioned the ambassador on the left unspoken and the danger or irresponsibility, to promote products from a contaminated region, in the time allotted to us – 5 minutes for questions of the journalists in a “press conference” of 1 hour 15 – he made a well-rehearsed reply: “Our goal is to enlighten the people who do not know, and as your question proves, we must continue to promote these products which are safe, and to eat them”, before to hand us theatrically before the cameras of TV Asahi, a cucumber from Fukushima.
Stay and learn to live with radioactivity
Indeed, explains Mr. Uchibori, who’d like also to answer us, tests are performed on products such as rice, and a maximum of 100 becquerels per kilogram of radioactivity has been set since 2012 for vegetables and fruits – In the first months, the threshold was set at 500 becquerels.
But even if these tests were systematic, which is not the case for all vegetables, food from Fukushima often contain low doses of radioactive particles. Even water from Tokyo tap still contains traces of cesium 134 and 137. Now we know that the radioactivity is more harmful when internal and repeated. Ingested, radioactive particles accumulate and can cause cancer, weakened immune system and various diseases.
On location, a hundred citizens laboratories were created to verify the content of radioactivity in food after food. A practice that could become over the years horribly banal: the life of radioactive elements is measured in decades or even thousands of years for plutonium.
A selection of products, among which mushrooms, from Fukushima.
The presence of Aeon, first supermarket chain of the Japanese archipelago, as a partner of this event is more significant. The company is very engaged with the Fukushima Prefecture in the denial of the radioactive risk. In August, 2011, Aeon was the center of a scandal after it sold in its Tokyo supermarkets several hundred kilos of Minamisoma beef, whose radioactive cesium content was three to six times higher than normal. The company president, Mr. Okada, although present at the press conference and dinner, has been inconspicuous. And yet he seems to have been the main architect of this event.
A candlelight dinner, to the invisible radioactivity.
“Mr. Okada and Mr. Dana met upstream, and the ambassador has generously offered to host this event,” explains the director of communication of Aeon. Okada knows well indeed the ambassador, who presented him with the Legion of Honor in December 2015. Mr. Yasuhide Chikazawa, vice- president of Aeon, participated in the Ethos program in 2013. The Ethos program, benefiting from significant EU subsidies had already been set up in Chernobyl, and seeks nothing less than to encourage residents of contaminated areas with radioactivity to stay and to learn to live with it, because their evacuation is considered too expensive.
Free trade agreements between Japan and the European Union
A program that appears to have paid off as in the town of Tamura, highly contaminated but open to refugees since April 2014, small school children are taught about radioactivity and agricultural activities, professed by Ms. Yukiko Okada, of the atomic energy laboratory of the University of Tokyo city.
Since 2012, Aeon began to flood its supermarkets with products from Fukushima, at bargain prices.
For if the apology of products coming from an area that experienced a nuclear disaster is a first for France, in Japan, advertisements for Fukushima products orchestrated by Dentsu advertising, are permanent. [2] Aeon, well developed in the rest of Asia, has also started to export these products to other countries. And tomorrow, to Europe?
The Japanese seem to think about it very much. The Minister of Reconstruction, Mr. Takagi, laments, “Unfortunately, there are still countries or regions in the world who refuse to import products from Fukushima. ” But that could change. Since January 2016, the European Commission has facilitated the importation stopping simply to require radioactivity test certificates for most fruits and vegetables, tea or beef from Fukushima.
This facilitation, far from health considerations, was in fact granted under free-trade agreements being between Japan and the EU. In short, the EU condones products from Fukushima in exchange for lower tariffs in Japan for pork, cheese or wine exports. This “friendship dinner” might be just one of the final steps in those trade negotiations.
[1] The term “rumors” is a language element very quickly adopted by the Japanese government. From March 2012, the Japanese Embassy in France had sent to all French journalists writing about this country, a press release entitled “Fight against harmful rumors.” “To come to Japan and buy Japanese products, including those produced in the affected areas, is the best support for reconstruction that can be provided,” it read.
2] On the role of Dentsu the advertising giant in the promotion of nuclear power, you may read this article: http://www.inaglobal.fr/television/article/le-publicitaire-dentsu-tire-t-il-les-ficelles-des-medias-japonais-9000
Source: https://reporterre.net/Quand-la-France-se-sert-de-Charles-Aznavour-pour-banaliser-Fukushima
Pro nuclear lobbying destroying nuclear safety principle in Japan
40-year safety principle erodes in pro-nuclear lobbying, Asahi Shimbun By MASANOBU HIGASHIYAMA/ Staff Writer June 21, 2016 Cries of disapproval rang out from the spectators’ gallery when Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), announced the decision to allow two aging reactors to continue running for 20 more years.
“Don’t you know that the operating period is 40 years, in principle?” someone shouted at Tanaka at the NRA meeting on June 20.
In the name of safety, the law on nuclear reactor regulations was revised after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster to limit the operating period of a reactor to 40 years, in principle. The idea was to phase out old reactors because of the difficulties in taking safety measures for such aging equipment.
When Tanaka assumed the post of NRA chairman in September 2012, he said at a news conference, “The designs (of reactors) of 40 years ago are insufficient to maintain their safety.”
But through lobbying by pro-nuclear politicians, this 40-year cutoff point is now seen as the time when utilities should seek approval for extending their reactor operations.
The NRA even gave special treatment to Kansai Electric Power Co. in its application for the 20-year operating extensions of the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at the Takahama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture. These two reactors have already been in operation for 40 years. …..http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201606210073.html
Fukushima 3/11 Breeds Cynicism
There’s an old saying “disasters bring out the best in people,” but Fukushima 3/11 of March 11, 2011 has put an exclamation point on cynicism rather than heartfelt concern.
Similar to America’s experience of outright lies by its government about the Iraqi Massacre, the blowback of cynicism and contempt bring forth a strain of populism, rejecting establishment, attracting lowly dishonorable politics, as America gooses-up an abomination!
Fukushima’s a horror story of hidden agendas, lies, scare tactics, and harsh secrecy laws, yet it’s held up as a icon of safe nuclear power by clever mastery of pro-nuke Oceania Newspeak, which, in the novel 1984 penalized “rebellious thoughts” as illegal, similar to Japan’s 2013 secrecy law wherein the “act of leaking itself” is bad enough for prosecution, regardless of what, how, or why, off to jail for 10 years. These decadent precepts are hard to accept with a straight face.
However, the day is fast approaching when the pro-nukie crowd, which claims Fukushima 3/11 caused few, if any, major radiation casualties, will be forced to “munch on their own words.” As time passes, it becomes ever more obvious that pro-nuke arguments, supporting big fat cumbersome nuclear power plants, metaphorically, hang by fingertips on an electric fence.
As an aside, it is rumored, thru the grapevine in Japan, that hospitals have been instructed to categorize, and officially report, patients’ radiation symptoms as “stress-related cases.” Hmm!
As for pro-nuclear news:
“In spite of this whole theatrical drama the result was…nobody killed or injured, and no indication of long term negative radiation effects on people. So the lesson of Fukushima is that nuclear power is much safer than people thought,” Kelvin Kemm, The Lesson of Fukushima – Nuclear Energy is Safe, Cfact, Feb. 16, 2015.
Another example:
“No one has been killed or sickened by the radiation — a point confirmed last month by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Even among Fukushima workers, the number of additional cancer cases in coming years is expected to be so low as to be undetectable, a blip impossible to discern against the statistical background noise,” George Johnson, When Radiation Isn’t the Real Risk, New York Times, Sept. 21, 2015
And, one more:
“There were no cases of radiation sickness among plant workers, because their radiation doses were too low to produce sickness,” Georgetown Radiation Expert, Author Reflects on 5th Anniversary of Fukushima Meltdown, Georgetown University Medical Center, Newswise, Feb. 23, 2016.
Bunk! To the contrary, not only have several independent sources in Japan reported cover ups of Fukushima worker deaths, bodies incinerated with ashes hidden in Buddhist temples, and instances of hair falling out, nose bleeding, and assorted serious ailments unique to radiation poisoning, now several deaths of U.S. sailors may be closely linked to this disaster that a pro-nuclear crowd claims demonstrates how “safe” nuclear power really is.
Thus, begging the question: Are the pro-nukites liars and/or are they being lied to, or what’s up? Who knows, and who really cares which, but their published articles, grandstanding nuclear power, are prominent throughout mainstream big time, and small time, magazines and newspapers and hyperspace, Oceania redux.
Whereas, in vivid contrast to this pro-nuke claptrap, one of Japan’s most eminent former prime ministers Junichiro Koizumi (2001-06) declares support for the U.S. sailor’s TEPCO lawsuit, more on this later.
Additionally, PM Koizumi has repeatedly urged PM Abe to halt efforts to restart Japan’s nuclear reactors. He is the second former Japanese prime minister, including PM Naoto Kan (2010-11), to plea for a halt to nuclear power. They claim nuclear power is not safe!
Luckily for the nuclear power industry, Abe is the prime minister.
Yet, there’s a festering problem, prevalence of radiation-poisoned deaths:
“The ashes of half a dozen unidentified laborers ended up at a Buddhist temple in this town just north of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. Some of the dead men had no papers, others left no emergency contacts. Their names could not be confirmed and no family members had been tracked down to claim their remains. They were simply labeled “decontamination troops” — unknown soldiers in Japan’s massive cleanup campaign to make Fukushima livable again five years after radiation poisoned the fertile countryside,” Mari Yamaguchi, Fukushima ‘Decontamination Troops’ Often Exploited, Shunned, AP & ABC News, Minamisona, Japan, March 10, 2016.
And, here’s another:
“It’s a real shame that the authorities hide the truth from the whole world, from the UN. We need to admit that actually many people are dying. We are not allowed to say that, but TEPCO employees also are dying. But they keep mum about it,” Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba (Fukushima Prefecture), Fukushima Disaster: Tokyo Hides Truth as Children Die, Become Ill from Radiation – Ex-Mayor, RT, April 21, 2014.
And, one more:
Mako Oshidori, director of Free Press Corporation/Japan, investigated several unreported worker deaths, and interviewed a former nurse who quit TEPCO: “I would like to talk about my interview of a nurse who used to work at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) after the accident… He quit his job with TEPCO in 2013, and that’s when I interviewed him… As of now, there are multiple NPP workers that have died, but only the ones who died on the job are reported publicly. Some of them have died suddenly while off work, for instance, during the weekend or in their sleep, but none of their deaths are reported.”
“Not only that, they are not included in the worker death count. For example, there are some workers who quit the job after a lot of radiation exposure… and end up dying a month later, but none of these deaths are either reported, or included in the death toll. This is the reality of the NPP workers,” (The Hidden Truth about Fukushima by Mako Oshidori, delivered at the international conference Effects of Nuclear Disasters on Natural Environment and Human Health held in Germany, 2014 co-organized by International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War).
Still and all, PM Abe insists upon fireside chats with pro-nuke campers whilst reopening nuclear power plants even though Japan survived just fine for five years without. He appears to have ants in his pants, pushing hard to restart the ole nuke plants A-SAP.
Meanwhile, in another universe, former PM Koizumi supports the lawsuit of U.S. sailors aboard the USS Ronald Reagan that participated in Operation Tomodachi, providing humanitarian relief after the March 11th Fukushima meltdowns. Allegedly, they were assured that radiation levels were okay!
“There is no excuse for Tokyo Electric Power Co. not to give the 400 U.S. sailors and marines who are now suing the company the proper facts. Things are looking especially good for the plaintiffs now that former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is backing the lawsuit over the Fukushima radiation,” Support for U.S. Sailor’s Tepco Suit, The Japan Times, June 17, 2016.
“Undoubtedly, Koizumi was convinced to help the sailors because they now suffer from radiation poisoning. He said: ‘Those who gave their all to assist Japan are now suffering from serious illness. I can’t overlook them,” Ibid.
According to lawyers representing the sailors, Charles Bonner & Cabral Bonner & Paul Garner, Esq., Sausalito, CA, seven sailors have already died, including some from leukemia.
With passage of time, the number of plaintiffs and numbers of deaths grows as the latency effect of radiation sets in. Thus, over time, the latency effect works against the pro-nuclear squawk talk that “all’s clear.”
Initially, the lawsuit represented less than 200 sailors but over time, the latency effect brings forward 400 sailors claiming radiation-poison complications, including leukemia, ulcers, gall bladder removal, brain cancer, brain tumors, testicular cancer, uterine bleeding, thyroid illness, stomach ailments, and premature deaths. These are youngsters.
The lawsuit process has been exacting for the young sailors: “Lindsey Cooper, for example. The woman who started the whole thing was torn apart on a CNN program by atomic energy experts and was later mocked on conservative radio shows,” Alexander Osang, Uncertain Radiological Threat: US Navy Sailors Search for Justice After Fukushima Mission, Spiegel Online International, Feb. 5, 2015.
As it happens, it’s not disasters that turn people’s stomachs as much as cover-ups and lying, bringing forth cynicism, contempt, and ultimately populist blowback as people get fed up with establishment politics.
It is very likely that, similar to American populist blowback, Japan will meet the same fate.
On second thought:
“There is one thing that really surprised me here in Europe. It’s the fact that people here think Japan is a very democratic and free country.” (Mako Oshidori, director/Free Press Corporation/Japan, speech in Germany)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/fukushima-311-breeds-cynicism/
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