23,900 Bq/Kg of Cs-134/137 still measured from fish in Fukushima plant port
Still extremely high level of Cesium-134/137 is detected from fish of Fukushima plant port from Tepco’s report released on 8/18/2015.
Cs-134/137 density was 23,900 Bq/Kg, which is 239 times much as the food safety limit.
The sample was the muscle part of Sebastes cheni collected on 7/28/2015.
Sr-90 density and other nuclides’ analysis data are not reported.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/f1/smp/2015/images/fish01_150818-e.pdf
Source: Fukushima Daiichi
23,900 Bq/Kg of Cs-134/137 still measured from fish in Fukushima plant port
Tepco Restructures, Subdividing Non-Nuclear Concerns
Tokyo Electric Power Company in Japan said it was restructuring the company, creating three businesses that continue with its 2014 separation of its nuclear businesses from its non-nuclear concerns.
As from 1 April 2016, Tepco said, the company will spin off its fuel and thermal power generation business into a company called TEPCO Fuel and Power, Incorporated. Its distribution and transmission business will become TEPCO Power Grid Incorporated. Its retail electricity business will be spun off as TEPCO Energy Partner Incorporated.
Tepco said it was making the major structural changes to survive in the post-Fukushima Daiichi reality. The new brand “signifies [the company’s] … determination to survive in the midst of competition while fulfilling its responsibilities for the Fukushima nuclear accident,” the company said.
“Japan’s electricity market is entering a period of dramatic change. Full liberalization of the electricity retail market is scheduled for April 2016, and the law requires separation of electricity transmission and distribution functions from the retail business in 2020.
“The changes in TEPCO’s company structure anticipate these changes and prepare it to succeed in the new, competitive environment, while serving its customers with a stable supply of electricity and full retention of its responsibilities not only for Fukushima but also for safety and reliability throughout its business,” the company said in a statement.
The company has already been effectively nationalized in the post-Fukushima era. The company’s 10-year plan allowed the government 51 percent of the company in exchange for $8 billion in government funding. Last year, in 2014, it restructured to form a separate division that would focus on decommissioning at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant where three reactors suffered meltdowns after a tsunami event that followed the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
Source: Nuclear Street
Japan’s highly dangerous plutonium stockpile
Japan’s plutonium stockpile worries Oxford specialist, Global Post, Xinhua News Agency Aug 17, 2015 NEW YORK, — The handling of Japan’s huge plutonium stockpile remains a challenge for the whole world, an Oxford environmental expert has warned.
When Japan marked the 70th anniversary of Nagasaki’s obliteration by a plutonium bomb on Aug. 9, its own cache of weapons-usable plutonium was more than 47 metric tons, enough to make nearly 6,000 warheads like the one that flattened the Japanese city, Dr. Peter Wynn Kirby of University of Oxford wrote in an op-ed on Monday’s New York Times……..
Japan’s 48 standard reactors burn uranium fuel, a process that yields plutonium, a highly radioactive and extremely toxic substance.
Although these reactors were shut down after the Fukushima tragedy, Japan still stores nearly 11 tons of plutonium on its territory, with the rest in Britain and France. Stockpiling plutonium in Japan remains hazardous given seismic instability in the country and the risk of theft by terrorists, warned Kirby…..
As a byproduct of burning uranium, plutonium itself can be processed in so-called fast-breeder reactors to produce more energy. That step also yields more plutonium, and so in theory this production chain is self-sustaining — a kind of virtuous nuclear-energy cycle, noted Kirby.
“In practice, however, fast-breeder technology has been extremely difficult to implement. It is notoriously faulty and astronomically expensive, and it creates more hazardous waste,” wrote Kirby.
Many other countries that experimented with fast-breeder reactors, including the United States, had phased them out by the 1990s. But Japan continued to invest heavily in the technology, noted Kirby.
While Japan’s record with nuclear waste is abysmal, no other country has found a safe or economically sustainable way to reuse such substances, especially not plutonium, he noted. Given Japan’s many vulnerabilities, particularly seismic activity, nuclear waste should no longer be stored in the country, he argued. “The Japanese government should pay its closest allies to take its plutonium away, permanently.”
Britain and France respectively holds 20 tons and 16 tons of Japan’s plutonium under contracts to reprocess it into usable fuel. Under current arrangements, this fuel, plus all byproducts, including plutonium, are to be sent back to Japan by 2020.
“Japan should pay, and generously, for that plutonium to stay where it is, in secure interim storage. And it should help fund the construction of secure permanent storage in Britain and France,” he said.
The Japanese government should also pay the United States to remove the nearly 11 tons of plutonium currently in Japan, he argued.
“Handling Japan’s plutonium would be a great burden for receiver countries, and Japan should pay heftily for the service. But even then the expense would likely amount to a fraction of what Japan spends on its ineffectual plutonium-energy infrastructure,” wrote the specialist.
Making Japan free of plutonium stockpile, thus preventing nuclear catastrophe as a result of earthquakes, would be in the whole world’s interest, he concluded.http://www.globalpost.com/article/6632161/2015/08/17/japans-plutonium-stockpile-worries-oxford-specialist
Sendai’s cooling tubes already leaking! But the pro #nuclear hubris goes on!
Japan Sendai Nuclear Restart — The Hubris Alone Is Killing Me, Let Alone the Volcano and Salt Water Leaks, Nuke Pro 21 Aug 15
I would drop a comment at the link, but I have been banned from Japan Times, so many TIMES that I can’t count. They have no interest in the truth.
————————————————————————————————————–
Kyushu Electric checked the water quality and confirmed an increase in salt content.
Each condenser has some 26,000 tubes inside that are used to pipe seawater around for cooling. Kyushu Electric suspects that holes have opened on such tubes, causing seawater to enter into the condenser. [diagram below by the author of this article]
And this is very dangerous way to think. Perhaps they have 2 sets of heat exchangers, so they can run at 50% whilst one set is completely shut down and worked on. Regardless, this is a stop gap measure, just like at San Onofre if some tubes are already going, there are many more right behind it. So these stories will slip out at the weeks go on.
Heat exchangers that can handle salt water are going to be stainless steel at least and ideally titanium. Industry has gotten a lot better at working with titanium in the last few decades. So those 40 year old heat exchangers at Sendai are probably stainless steel, not at good as titanium.
But in Typical japan Times Fashion, they try to downplay the incident by stating
In Japan, similar problems have occurred about 50 times in the past, but the latest case was the first at the Sendai power plant. In the past, Kyushu Electric experienced two cases at the No. 1 reactor at its Genkai plant in Saga Prefecture in 1997 and 1999.
Classic “don’t worry” it happens all the time. So the pimps of nuke will do anything to keep this plant running. Including putting your life and livelihood at risk………. http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/japan-sendai-nuclear-restart-hubris.html?showComment=1440185210724#c7323011781148838576
Kyushu delays increasing output at Sendai nuclear plant after cooling system problems detected
KAGOSHIMA – Kyushu Electric Power Co. said Friday it will delay planned increases in electrical output from the No. 1 reactor at its Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture as seawater is believed to have entered into a reactor cooling system.
The company planned to bring the recently reactivated reactor up to full capacity on Tuesday. But this will now be delayed as it will take about a week to fix the problem, officials from the utility said.
A small amount of seawater is believed to have flowed into one of the three condensers in the reactor’s secondary cooling system, the officials said. Condensers turn steam into water by cooling it, after the steam runs power generation turbines.
But there should be no problem in continuing the reactor’s operations as the salt can be removed with the aid of desalination equipment, the officials added.
The level of electric conductivity, which is monitored to check water conditions, rose Thursday afternoon at an outlet of a condensate pump used to circulate secondary coolant water.
Kyushu Electric checked the water quality and confirmed an increase in salt content.
Each condenser has some 26,000 tubes inside that are used to pipe seawater around for cooling. Kyushu Electric suspects that holes have opened on such tubes, causing seawater to enter into the condenser.
The company will seal any tubes found to have holes, the officials said.
In Japan, similar problems have occurred about 50 times in the past, but the latest case was the first at the Sendai power plant. In the past, Kyushu Electric experienced two cases at the No. 1 reactor at its Genkai plant in Saga Prefecture in 1997 and 1999.
The output at the Sendai plant’s No. 1 reactor, restarted on Aug. 11, reached 50 percent of capacity last Sunday and 75 percent on Wednesday. The company had planned to raise output to 95 percent Friday.
The reactor is the first in Japan to run under strict new safety standards introduced in July 2013 following the meltdown accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 plant, which was wrecked in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The reactor’s restart also brought to an end the total absence of active reactors in Japan that had become a feature since September 2013, when Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Oi plant in Fukui Prefecture suspended operations for routine safety checks.
Some nuclear experts have said reactors could face severe safety problems because they have been mothballed for such a long period of time.
Source: Japan Times
Unspoken Death Toll of Fukushima: Nuclear Disaster Killing Japanese Slowly
The Japanese government is still in denial and refuses to recognize the disastrous consequences of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, London-based independent consultant on radioactivity Dr. Ian Fairlie states, adding that while thousands of victims have already died, thousands more will soon pass away.
Embarrassingly, “[t]he Japanese Government, its advisors, and most radiation scientists in Japan (with some honorable exceptions) minimize the risks of radiation. The official widely-observed policy is that small amounts of radiation are harmless: scientifically speaking this is untenable,” Dr. Fairlie pointed out.
The Japanese government even goes so far as to increase the public limit for radiation in Japan from 1 mSv to 20 mSv per year, while its scientists are making efforts to convince the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) to accept this enormous increase.
“This is not only unscientific, it is also unconscionable,” Dr. Fairlie stressed, adding that “there is never a safe dose, except zero dose.”
However, while the Japanese government is turning a blind eye to radiogenic late effects, the evidence “is solid”: the RERF Foundation which is based in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is observing the Japanese atomic bomb survivors and still registering nuclear radiation’s long-term effects.
“From the UNSCEAR estimate of 48,000 person Sv [the collective dose to the Japanese population from Fukushima], it can be reliably estimated (using a fatal cancer risk factor of 10% per Sv) that about 5,000 fatal cancers will occur in Japan in the future from Fukushima’s fallout,” he noted.
“It is impossible not to be moved by the scale of Fukushima’s toll in terms of deaths, suicides, mental ill-health and human suffering,” the expert said.
http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20150820/1025992771.html#ixzz3jSVAPg9L
Underground temperature never go down regardless of frozen wall beside common fuel pool
The underground temperature beside common fuel storage pool has not been decreased since the end of April from Tepco’s report released on 8/20/2015.
Tepco is testing the frozen underground wall to circulate the coolant material in the frozen duct.
They have been monitoring the temperature at 18 points around the crippled reactor buildings.
From their data, the temperature of the monitoring point “No.12″ is showing almost no decrease from the beginning.
This is located between Reactor 4 building and the common pool, where is stocking the fuel assemblies removed from SFP 4 (Spent Fuel Pool in Reactor 4). At the moment of 8/20/2015, it is still over 10 ℃.
For some reason, Tepco stopped sending the coolant material to 4 of the monitoring points.
Among the rest of the points, the temperature is still above 0 ℃ at 8 of 14 monitoring points.
Japan asks for WTO panel to rule on S.Korea’s Fukushima-related food import restrictions
Aug 20 Japan on Thursday asked the World Trade Organization to set up a panel to rule on South Korea’s import bans and testing requirements for Japanese food after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, since the restrictions show no signs of being eased.
Japan launched a trade complaint at the WTO in May, saying the South Korean measures violated a WTO agreement and that Seoul had failed to justify the measures as required.
“We held two days of bilateral discussions on this on June 24 and 25, but there was no expression from the Korean side of when the restrictions might be lifted,” Japan’s Agriculture Ministry said on its website.
“Since more than 60 days have passed since the complaint was lodged, and there is no sign of when the restrictions might be repealed, we have asked today, in accordance with WTO rules, for the establishment of a panel.”
South Korea in May expressed regret at Japan’s move and said then that the ban on some Japanese seafood was necessary and reflected safety concerns.
Japan countered by saying levels were safe and that a number of other nations, including the United States and Australia, had lifted or eased Fukushima-related restrictions.
The average annual value of South Korean imports of Japanese fish and seafood was $96 million in 2012-2014, less than half the average of $213 million in 2006-2010, according to data from the International Trade Centre in Geneva.
Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/20/japan-southkorea-wto-idUSL3
Editorial: Use wisdom in drawing curtain on nuclear fuel cycle
With the recent reactivation of the No. 1 reactor at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima Prefecture, the government has moved a step ahead with a policy for maintaining nuclear power. To keep in tandem with that move, a working group of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in July began looking into measures to maintain the nuclear fuel cycle. While the move is aimed at improving the environment for nuclear power businesses amid liberalization of the electricity market, it is posing serious problems.
Under the nuclear fuel cycle, spent fuel from nuclear plants is reprocessed to extract plutonium for reuse as fuel. While the project is promoted as part of Japan’s national policy, the actual reprocessing of spent fuel is undertaken by Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd., a company jointly invested in by power companies. If free competition progresses in the electricity market, utilities would not be able to secure as much profit as before and some might no longer be able to support Japan Nuclear Fuel.
The ministry’s working group is considering intensifying government involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle to keep the project afloat. The group is also mulling more secure ways to raise a total of 12.6 trillion yen in operating costs for the project.
Currently, the cost for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is tacked on to electricity bills. If the government is to step up its involvement in the project, it will need to seek public consensus over its relevance, including the additional public financial burden.
The nuclear fuel cycle has been riddled with major problems in terms of technology, safety and costs. The completion of Japan Nuclear Fuel’s reprocessing plant under construction in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, has been postponed 22 times following regular trouble. The construction cost has already tripled from the initial estimate of 760 billion yen, and could further snowball for safety and other necessary measures. The development of a fast-breeder reactor, which is supposed to act as “wheels on a car” for the nuclear fuel cycle along with the reprocessing project, has been stalled at the stage of operating the Monju prototype reactor, with no prospects for putting it into practical use. The so-called “pluthermal” project using plutonium in conventional light-water reactors is not making as much progress as expected.
There also lies a serious problem in plutonium extracted in the reprocessing of spent fuel from the viewpoint of nuclear non-proliferation. Japan currently possesses more than 47 metric tons of plutonium at home and abroad, and if the country is to produce additional plutonium that could be diverted to military use with no destination for consumption amid lowering dependence on nuclear power, the international community would only grow suspicious about such possession.
In the wake of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant disaster, the Japan Atomic Energy Commission released an assessment showing that the direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel over the next 20 to 30 years would be equal to or more beneficial than reprocessing such fuel in terms of economic efficiency, nuclear non-proliferation and other effects. Given such estimates, the government should focus its efforts not on measures to prolong the nuclear fuel cycle but on putting forth steps to draw a curtain on the project.
If the reprocessing of spent fuel is to be terminated, Aomori Prefecture would demand that such fuel it has thus far accommodated should be brought back to where it was originally generated. Such a project termination would also cause problems to local employment and the disposal of existing plutonium. The government should rather rack its brain over how to resolve these issues.
Source: Mainichi
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20150820p2a00m0na016000c.html
WHOI Study Shows Fukushima Contaminated Sediment Moving Offshore
Researchers deployed time-series sediment traps 115 kilometers (approximately 70 miles) southeast of the nuclear power plant at depths of 500 meters (1,640 feet) and 1,000 meters (3,280 feet). The two traps began collecting samples on July 19, 2011—130 days after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami—and were recovered and reset annually.
WOODS HOLE – Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have been studying the effects the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 2011 has had in the Pacific Ocean.
WHOI has recently released the results of a three-year study of sediment samples collected offshore in the American Chemical Society’s journal, Environmental Science and Technology.
The purpose of the study is to understand what happens to the Fukushima contaminants after they are buried on the seafloor off of coastal Japan.
The team, led by senior scientist and marine chemist Ken Buesseler, found that a small fraction of contaminated sea floor sediments off Fukushima are moved offshore by typhoons that resuspend radioactive particles in the water, which then travel laterally with Southeasterly currents into the Pacific Ocean.
Researchers used funnel-shaped traps to collect the data at depths of 500 meters and 1,000 meters starting 130 days after the disaster.
The research found radiocesium from the plant along with sediment with a high fraction of clay material in the samples. The clay material is characteristic of shelf and slope sediments and suggest a near shore source.
Buesseler says that more than 99 percent of the contaminated material from the plant moved with the water offshore and that less than 1 percent ended up on the sea floor as buried sediment.
Source: CapeCod.com
WHOI Study Shows Fukushima Contaminated Sediment Moving Offshore
International Research Team studies Fukushima contaminants in seafloor sediments
Examining the fate of Fukushima contaminants, Science Daily,
Fraction of buried, ocean sediment uncovered by typhoons, carried offshore by currents August 18, 2015, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
- Summary:
- An international research team reports results of a three-year study of sediment samples collected offshore from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The research aids in understanding what happens to Fukushima contaminants after they are buried on the seafloor off coastal Japan. Scientists found that a small fraction of contaminated seafloor sediments off Fukushima are moved offshore by typhoons that resuspend radioactive particles in the water.
- An international research team reports results of a three-year study of sediment samples collected offshore from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in a new paper published August 18, 2015, in the American Chemical Society’s journal,Environmental Science and Technology.
The research aids in understanding what happens to Fukushima contaminants after they are buried on the seafloor off coastal Japan.
Led by Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist and marine chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the team found that a small fraction of contaminated seafloor sediments off Fukushima are moved offshore by typhoons that resuspend radioactive particles in the water, which then travel laterally with southeasterly currents into the Pacific Ocean.
“Cesium is one of the dominant radionuclides that was released in unprecedented amounts with contaminated water from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami,” says Buesseler. “A little over 99 percent of it moved with the water offshore, but a very small fraction–less than one percent–ended up on the sea floor as buried sediment.”
“We’ve been looking at the fate of that buried sediment on the continental shelf and tracking how much of that contaminated sediment gets offshore through re-suspension from the ocean bottom,” he adds.
The research team, which included colleagues from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, analyzed three years’ worth of data collected from time-series sediment traps……….
-
“The total transport is small, though it is readily detectable. One percent or less of the contaminated sediment that’s moving offshore every year means things aren’t going to change very fast,” Buesseler says. “What’s buried is going to stay buried for decades to come. And that’s what may be contributing to elevated levels of cesium in fish–particularly bottom-dwelling fish off Japan.”
While there were hundreds of different radionuclides released from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant during the disaster, after the initial decay of contaminants with half lives (the time it takes for one half of a given amount of radionuclide to decay) less than days to weeks, much of the attention has remained focused on cesium-137 and-134– two of the more abundant contaminants. Cesium-134 has a half-life of a little over two years, and so any found in the ocean could come only from the reactors at Fukushima. Cesium-137 has a half-life of roughly 30 years and is also known to have entered the Pacific as a result of aboveground nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s and ’60s, providing a benchmark against which to measure any additional releases from the reactors.
In October, Buesseler and the research team will return to Japan to redeploy more sediment traps. The continued study will help estimate how long it takes to decrease the level of radiocesium in seafloor sediments near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150818112431.htm
EXtra high radiation level in atmosphere above Melted slag storage facility of Fukushima sewage plant
Melted slag storage facility of Fukushima sewage plant has 10 times higher atmospheric dose than rest of area The atmospheric dose near the melted slag storage facility is approx. 10 times higher than the rest of the area in Fukushima sewage plant.
This is from the data published by Fukushima prefectural government on 8/11/2015………http://fukushima-diary.com/2015/08/melted-slag-storage-facility-of-fukushima-sewage-plant-has-10-times-higher-atmospheric-dose-than-the-rest-of-the-area/
Fukushima: thousands have died, thousands more will die
New evidence from Fukushima shows that as many as 2,000 people have died from necessary evacuations, writes Ian Fairlie, while another 5,000 will die from cancer. Future assessments of fatalities from nuclear disasters must include deaths from displacement-induced ill-heath and suicide in addition to those from direct radiation impacts.
Official data from Fukushima show that nearly 2,000 people died from the effects of evacuations necessary to avoid high radiation exposures from the disaster.
The uprooting to unfamiliar areas, cutting of family ties, loss of social support networks, disruption, exhaustion, poor physical conditions and disorientation can and do result in many people, in particular older people, dying.
Increased suicide has occurred among younger and older people following the Fukushima evacuations, but the trends are unclear.
A Japanese Cabinet Office report stated that, between March 2011 and July 2014, 56 suicides in Fukushima Prefecture were linked to the nuclear accident. This should be taken as a minimum, rather than a maximum, figure.
Mental health consequences
It is necessary to include the mental health consequences of radiation exposures and evacuations. For example, Becky Martin has stated her PhD research at Southampton University in the UK shows that “the most significant impacts of radiation emergencies are often in our minds.”
She adds: “Imagine that you’ve been informed that your land, your water, the air that you have breathed may have been polluted by a deadly and invisible contaminant. Something with the capacity to take away your fertility, or affect your unborn children.
“Even the most resilient of us would be concerned … many thousands of radiation emergency survivors have subsequently gone on to develop Post-Trauma Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety disorders as a result of their experiences and the uncertainty surrounding their health.”
It is likely that these fears, anxieties, and stresses will act to magnify the effects of evacuations, resulting in even more old people dying or people committing suicide.
Such considerations should not be taken as arguments against evacuations, however. They are an important, life-saving strategy. But, as argued by Becky Martin,
“We need to provide greatly improved social support following resettlement and extensive long-term psychological care to all radiation emergency survivors, to improve their health outcomes and preserve their futures.”
Untoward pregnancy outcomes
Dr Alfred Körblein from Nuremburg in Germany recently noticed and reported on a 15% drop (statistically speaking, highly significant) in the numbers of live births in Fukushima Prefecture in December 2011, nine months after the accident.
This might point to higher rates of early spontaneous abortions. He also observed a (statistically significant) 20% increase in the infant mortality rate in 2012, relative to the long-term trend in Fukushima Prefecture plus six surrounding prefectures, which he attributes to the consumption of radioactive food:
“The fact that infant mortality peaks in May 2012, more than one year after the Fukushima accident, suggests that the increase is an effect of internal rather than external radiation exposure.
“In Germany [after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster] perinatal mortality peaks followed peaks of cesium burden in pregnant women with a time-lag of seven months [2]. May 2012 minus seven months is October 2011, the end of the harvesting season. Thus, consumption of contaminated foodstuff during autumn 2011 could be an explanation for the excess of infant mortality in the Fukushima region in 2012.”
These are indicative rather than definitive findings and need to be verified by further studies. Unfortunately, such studies are notable by their absence.
Cancer and other late effects from radioactive fallout
Finally, we have to consider the longer term health effects of the radiation exposures from the radioactive fallouts after the four explosions and three meltdowns at Fukushima in March 2011. Large differences of view exist on this issue in Japan. These make it difficult for lay people and journalists to understand what the real situation is.
The Japanese Government, its advisors, and most radiation scientists in Japan (with some honourable exceptions) minimise the risks of radiation. The official widely-observed policy is that small amounts of radiation are harmless: scientifically speaking this is untenable.
For example, the Japanese Government is attempting to increase the public limit for radiation in Japan from 1 mSv to 20 mSv per year. Its scientists are trying to force the ICRP to accept this large increase. This is not only unscientific, it is also unconscionable.
Part of the reason for this policy is that radiation scientists in Japan (in the US, as well) appear unable or unwilling to accept the stochastic nature of low-level radiation effects. ‘Stochastic’ means an all-or-nothing response: you either get cancer etc or you don’t.
As you decrease the dose, the effects become less likely: your chance of cancer declines all the way down to zero dose. The corollary is that tiny doses, even well below background, still carry a small chance of cancer: there is never a safe dose, except zero dose.
But, as observed by Spycher et al (2015), some scientists “a priori exclude the possibility that low dose radiation could increase the risk of cancer. They will therefore not accept studies that challenge their foregone conclusion.”
One reason why such scientists refuse to accept radiation’s stochastic effects (cancers, strokes, CVS diseases, hereditary effects, etc) is that they only appear after long latency periods – often decades for solid cancers. For the Japanese Government and its radiation advisors, it seems out-of-sight means out-of-mind.
This conveniently allows the Japanese Government to ignore radiogenic late effects. But the evidence for them is absolutely rock solid. Ironically, it comes primarily from the world’s largest on-going epidemiology study, the Life Span Study of the Japanese atomic bomb survivors by the RERF Foundation which is based in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The lessons of Chernobyl
The mass of epidemiological evidence from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 clearly indicates that cancer etc increases will very likely also occur at Fukushima, but many Japanese (and US) scientists deny this evidence.
For example, much debate currently exists over the existence and interpretation of increased thyroid cancers, cysts, and nodules in Fukushima Prefecture resulting from the disaster. From the findings after Chernobyl, thyroid cancers are expected to start increasing 4 to 5 years after 2011.
It’s best to withhold comment until clearer results become available in 2016, but early indications are not reassuring for the Japanese Government. After then, other solid cancers are expected to increase as well, but it will take a while for these to become manifest.
The best way of forecasting the numbers of late effects (ie cancers etc) is by estimating the collective dose to Japan from the Fukushima fall out. We do this by envisaging that everyone in Japan exposed to the radioactive fallout from Fukushima has thereby received lottery tickets: but they are negative tickets. That is, if your lottery number comes up, you get cancer [1].
If you live far away from Fukushima Daiichi NPP, you get few tickets and the chance is low: if you live close, you get more tickets and the chance is higher. You can’t tell who will be unlucky, but you can estimate the total number by using collective doses.
The 2013 UNSCEAR Report has estimated that the collective dose to the Japanese population from Fukushima is 48,000 person Sv: this is a very large dose: see below.
Unfortunately, pro-nuclear Japanese scientists also criticise the concept of collective dose as it relies on the stochastic nature of radiation’s effects and on the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model of radiation’s effects which they also refute. But almost all official regulatory bodies throughout the world recognise the stochastic nature of radiation’s effects, the LNT, and collective doses.
Summing up Fukushima
About 60 people died immediately during the actual evacuations in Fukushima Prefecture in March 2011. Between 2011 and 2015, an additional 1,867 people [2] in Fukushima Prefecture died as a result of the evacuations following the nuclear disaster [3]. These deaths were from ill health and suicides.
From the UNSCEAR estimate of 48,000 person Sv, it can be reliably estimated (using a fatal cancer risk factor of 10% per Sv) that about 5,000 fatal cancers will occur in Japan in future from Fukushima’s fallout. This estimate from official data agrees with my own personal estimate using a different methodology.
In sum, the health toll from the Fukushima nuclear disaster is horrendous. At the minimum
- Over 160,000 people were evacuated most of them permanently.
- Many cases of post-trauma stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety disorders arising from the evacuations.
- About 12,000 workers exposed to high levels of radiation, some up to 250 mSv
- An estimated 5,000 fatal cancers from radiation exposures in future.
- Plus similar (unquantified) numbers of radiogenic strokes, CVS diseases and hereditary diseases.
- Between 2011 and 2015, about 2,000 deaths from radiation-related evacuations due to ill-health and suicides.
- An as yet unquantified number of thyroid cancers.
- An increased infant mortality rate in 2012 and a decreased number of live births in December 2011.
Non-health effects include
- 8% of Japan (30,000 sq.km), including parts of Tokyo, contaminated by radioactivity.
- Economic losses estimated between $300 and $500 billion.
Catastrophes that must never be repeated
The Fukushima accident is still not over and its ill-effects will linger for a long time into the future. However we can say now that the nuclear disaster at Fukushima delivered a huge blow to Japan and its people.
2,000 Japanese people have already died from the evacuations and another 5,000 are expected to die from future cancers.
It is impossible not to be moved by the scale of Fukushima’s toll in terms of deaths, suicides, mental ill-health and human suffering. Fukushima’s effect on Japan is similar to Chernobyl’s massive blow against the former Soviet Union in 1986.
Indeed, several writers have expressed the view that the Chernobyl nuclear disaster was a major factor in the subsequent collapse of the USSR during 1989-1990.
It is notable that Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the USSR at the time of Chernobyl and Naoto Kan, Prime Minister of Japan at the time of Fukushima have both expressed their opposition to nuclear power. Indeed Kan has called for all nuclear power to be abolished.
Has the Japanese Government, and indeed other governments (including the UK and US), learned from these nuclear disasters? The US philosopher George Santayana (1863-1962) once stated that those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Dr Ian Fairlie is an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment. He has a degree in radiation biology from Bart’s Hospital in London and his doctoral studies at Imperial College in London and Princeton University in the US concerned the radiological hazards of nuclear fuel reprocessing.
Ian was formerly a DEFRA civil servant on radiation risks from nuclear power stations. From 2000 to 2004, he was head of the Secretariat to the UK Government’s CERRIE Committee on internal radiation risks. Since retiring from Government service, he has acted as consultant to the European Parliament, local and regional governments, environmental NGOs, and private individuals.
Source: The Ecologist
Japan nuclear utility says no special precautions over volcano
Japanese utility Kyushu Electric Power said on Monday that it was monitoring activity at a volcano near its Sendai nuclear plant, but did not need to take any special precautions after authorities warned of the risk of a larger-than-usual eruption.
TOKYO: Japanese utility Kyushu Electric Power said on Monday that it was monitoring activity at a volcano near its Sendai nuclear plant, but did not need to take any special precautions after authorities warned of the risk of a larger-than-usual eruption.
The reactor is the first to be restarted under new safety standards put in place since the meltdowns at Fukushima in 2011.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and much of Japanese industry want reactors to be switched on again to cut fuel bills, but opinion polls show a majority of the public oppose the move after the nuclear crisis triggered by an earthquake and tsunami.
The possibility of a significant eruption of Sakurajima, located about 50 km (30 miles) from Sendai, is a reminder of the volatile geology of Japan, which has 110 active volcanoes.
“We are not currently taking any particular response,” Kyushu Electric spokesman Tomomitsu Sakata said by phone.
“There is no impact in particular to the operations” of the Sendai plant, Sakata said. “We will continue to pay close attention to information from the Japan Meteorological Agency.”
The 890-megawatt-reactor had reached 50 percent of its output by Sunday and the operator expects full power to be achieved around Aug. 24, Sakata said.
Critics of the nuclear industry say that new safety measures are insufficient, particularly for plants such as Sendai, which is located near five giant calderas, crater-like depressions formed by past eruptions, with the closest one about 40 km away.
The precautions by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority for volcanic eruptions were “wanting in a number of important respects” and did not meet international standards, said John Large, chief executive of Large & Associates, a nuclear engineering consultancy.
Large wrote a report this year on the Sendai plant’s ability to withstand being hit by volcanic ash and has testified in court about the issue.
Sakurajima is one of Japan’s most active volcanoes and erupts almost constantly. There was a risk of larger than usual eruption, an official at the Japan Meteorological Agency said on Saturday.
“With Kyushu’s volcanoes clearly more active, Sendai should be shut immediately,” said Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director at activist group, Green Action, claiming there was no viable evacuation plan for the plant.
The Meteorological agency raised the warning level on the peak, about 1,000 km southwest of Tokyo, to an unprecedented 4, for prepare to evacuate, from 3.
Seventy seven residents who live within a 3 km radius of the craters have been evacuated, an official said on Monday.
Source: Channel News Asia
1 This Month
of the week – THE ONENESS of HUMANITY
25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
Thursday, June 25, 2026
7pm Central Time (8pm ET, 6pm MT, 5pm PT) UTC – 5
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
1st July – Webinar Waste of Space: The Environmental Harm of Military and Civil Space Activity st July, 7 pm
Report Launch Online: We are seeing an increasing exploitation of space for military and commercial purposes. This must change.
Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- June 2026 (241)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 