Nuclear phaseout a key election policy for Japan’s ruling party
62.6 percent opposed the use of nuclear energy, giving scores between zero and 4, with 17.8 percent saying they think Japan should idle all nuclear plants immediately.
DPJ vow for next poll: a nuclear phaseout, Japan Times 14 Aug 12, Role for Kan urged to draft pre-election energy goals Kyodo Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s party is arranging to make a nuclear phaseout a key policy pledge in the next general election, sources in the Democratic Party of Japan said.
The DPJ’s plan comes amid widespread opposition to the continued use of nuclear energy. Continue reading
Nuclear power industry lost $46 billion – and that’s its good news
Utilities lose $46 billion as nuclear era nears end, Japan Times, 14 Aug 12, Shareholders at risk amid efforts to break up power monopolies Bloomberg The nuclear power industry has lost a record $46 billion since the earthquake and tsunami disasters led to three meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant last year, wiping out seven years of profit.
Then came the bad news. Continue reading
Japan’s secret nuclear weapons program
United States Circumvented Laws To Help Japan Accumulate Tons of Plutonium, DC Bureau By Joseph Trento, April 9th, 2012 “…..The Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami How Japan ended up in this nuclear nightmare is a subject the National Security News Service has been investigating since 1991.
We learned that Japan had a dual use nuclear program. The public program was to develop and provide unlimited energy for the country. But there was also a secret component, an undeclared nuclear weapons program that would allow Japan to amass enough nuclear material and technology to become a major nuclear [weapons] power on short notice.
That secret effort was hidden in a nuclear power program that by March 11, 2011– the day the earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 metric tons of plutonium. Like its use of civilian nuclear power to hide a secret bomb program, Japan used peaceful space exploration as a cover for developing
sophisticated nuclear weapons delivery systems.
Political leaders in Japan understood that the only way the Japanese people could be convinced to allow nuclear power into their lives was if a long line of governments and industry hid any military application. For that reason, a succession of Japanese governments
colluded on a bomb program disguised as innocent energy and civil space programs. The irony, of course, is that Japan had gone to war in 1941 to secure its energy future only to become the sole nation attacked with nuclear weapons……
http://www.dcbureau.org/201204097128/national-security-news-service/united-states-circumvented-laws-to-help-japan-accumulate-tons-of-plutonium.html
Research on butterflies shows the genetic effects of low level radiation
experimental demonstration of genetic mutations in the germ-line cells that are inherited by the offspring of radiation-exposed parents has been scarce, although the germ-line damage was shown in barn swallows
We address these important issues in connection with the recent Fukushima Dai-ich NPP accident. We use the pale grass blue butterfly Zizeeria maha (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae) as an indicator species to evaluate the environmental conditions.
We conclude that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused physiological and genetic damage to this species.
The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale
grass blue butterfly – Nature science journal. 9 Aug 12,Primary source. “……Prompt and reliable evaluation of the biological influences of the artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi NPP is lacking, and only a few studies have been performed to date 9, 10. In the case of the Chernobyl accident, changes in species composition and phenotypic aberration in animals11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and an increase in the incidence of thyroid and lymph cancers in humans18 have been reported. Continue reading
Radiation effects on birds – Fukushima compared to Chernobyl
University of South Carolina, Prof Tim Mousseau et al, genetic survey of small wildlife, Fukushima. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749112000255 “……. Abundance of birds was negatively related to radiation in Chernobyl and Fukushima. ► Effects of radiation on abundance differed between Chernobyl and Fukushima and among species. ► For 14 species common to the two areas the effects of radiation on abundance were stronger in Fukushima than in Chernobyl.…..
Low-level radiation in Fukushima Prefecture appears to have had immediate effects on bird populations, and to a greater degree than was expected from a related analysis of Chernobyl, an international team of scientists reported Feb. 8 in Environmental Pollution. Continue reading
Secret Cold War Nuclear Policies – USA and Japan
Declassified U.S. government documents make a mockery of the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. The papers reveal that Japanese government officials ignored evidence that the United States was routinely bringing nuclear weapons into Japanese ports.
United States Circumvented Laws To Help Japan Accumulate Tons of Plutonium, DC Burea By Joseph Trento, April 9th, 2012 “….. In October 1964, communist China stunned the world by detonating its first nuclear bomb. The world was caught by surprise, but nowhere were emotions as strong as in Japan. Three months later Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato went to Washington for secret talks with President Lyndon Johnson. Sato gave LBJ an extraordinary ultimatum: if the United States did not guarantee Japan’s security against nuclear attack, Japan would develop a nuclear arsenal. The ultimatum forced LBJ to extend the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” over Japan. Ironically, this guarantee later enabled Sato to establish Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles: to never own or produce nuclear weapons or allow them on Japanese territory. The policy won Sato the Nobel Prize for Peace. The Japanese public and the rest of the world never knew that these three principles were never fully enforced, and Sato allowed the secret nuclear weapons program to go on. Continue reading
History of deception in Japan’s development of nuclear reprocessing
Japan would have to do what the Americans and Europeans had failed to do – make an experimental breeder program a commercial success.
during the Reagan administration – legislation that dramatically changed U.S. policy. The United States ceded virtually all control of U.S.-origin nuclear materials shipped to Japan.
International corporations and officials sacrificed the safety and security of the public to carry out the deception. Under the guise of a peaceful nuclear power program, they made huge profits.
United States Circumvented Laws To Help Japan Accumulate Tons of Plutonium, DC Bureau By Joseph Trento, April 9th, 2012“……Energy has always been Japan’s Achilles’ heel. Her need for oil in the face of an American embargo triggered Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and the continued shortage was a recurring theme in her defeat in that war. Only one act could take more credit for Japan’s humiliation – the splitting of the atom that gave birth to the nuclear bomb. Now Japan would turn that same atom to its own purposes — to ensure a stable source of energy well into the next century and, equally important, to ensure that the homeland never again suffered the indignity of defeat.
Japan approached the nuclear problem the same way it tackled the electronics and automobile industries. A core group of companies were each given key tasks with long-term profit potential. Then the government nurtured these companies with whatever financial, technological and regulatory support needed to assure their success. The strategy worked brilliantly to bring Japan from post-war oblivion to economic dominance in a single generation. Continue reading
Falure of TEPCO’s Balloon Survey of Fukushima Nuclear Reactor 1
Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 1 Balloon Survey of 5th Floor Was Unsuccessful http://ex-skf.blogspot.ca/2012/08/fukushima-i-nuke-plant-reactor-1.html AUGUST 8, 2012 VIDEO & Pics
I had to laugh and cry, looking at the photographs of the huge, red and white balloon with cameras attached using duct tape. This is sad.
According to TEPCO’s press release on 8/8/2012, the balloon couldn’t pop out onto the operating floor (5th floor) because it was stopped by a cable on the 4th floor. The balloon did take photographs of the 4th floor.
The purpose of the survey (not fulfilled by this project) was to see what the 5th floor was like, in order to prepare for the future removal of fuel assemblies from the Spent Fuel Pool. (See my post from July 23, 2012.)
5 TEPCO employees and 14 affiliate company workers did the work, for about 35 minutes, receiving maximum 1.54 millisievert for the shortened work.
From TEPCO’s Photos and Videos Library, 8/8/2012:
This is a iconic example how Tepco is thinking and handling the disaster.
A balloon and duct tape… How desperate can you be?
It also shows that they have no solution and no ideas how to’fix’ this. It’s clearly infixable, but ‘m affraid it will take a few more ‘balloons and duct tape solutions’ before they ( goverment and big corp. ) can/will admit it’s hopeless.
In the mean time ( a few years probably ) they will try to start more nuclear reactors, to be able to keep the cashflow going to their endless deep pockets. The money is too juicy to let this just stop right now. And that’s why we will see more of these actions; completely meaningless, but as long as they can keep the show going on an pretending they are ‘fighting’ against this disaster, the money keeps coming.
It’s all about the money ( as usual ) and the bill is paid by… right, we, the people, the taxpayers, and in Fukushima and surroundings they pay the highest price… their lives.
Sad there is still not enough ‘uprising’ in Japan ( and the rest of the world). Every day that this continueing, is a lost day for the people of Japan and in particular for those poor souls in Fukushima.
Murky history of Japan’s fast breeder nuclear reactor program
United States Circumvented Laws To Help Japan Accumulate Tons of Plutonium, DC Bureau By Joseph Trento, on April 9th, 2012“…….From the very start, the Japanese breeder program was predicated on the belief that Japanese industry could do what the Americans and Europeans had failed to do – run the extremely complicated breeder cycle safely and profitably. That belief was rooted in Japan’s national self-confidence, nurtured by two generations of success in manufacturing. Japan’s dedicated and educated workforce and its special brand of quality management made it the world leader in a host of industries. Nuclear power generation would, it was believed, merely be one more success, made possible by Japan’s superior workers and management.
Thirty years ago even Japan’s harshest critics might have agreed that perhaps it could succeed where Western efforts had failed. But that optimism soon faded as a string of nuclear catastrophes demonstrated that nuclear industries are far different than any other. Both the Monju fast-breeder reactor in 1995 and the Tokai reprocessing plant in April 1997 suffered serious, accidental radiation leaks; both accidents were the subjects of attempted cover-ups. Most egregious was the fire and leak of radioactive sodium at the Monju FBR. Japan’s Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC), the government corporation that operated Monju, lied repeatedly to the public about the accident. PNC attempted to suppress video footage that showed the cause of the accident: a ruptured pipe in a secondary cooling system that had spilled an estimated two to three tons of radioactive sodium – the largest such leak in the history of fast-breeder technology. One of the reasons PNC gave for releasing the misinformation was that Monju was too important to Japan’s energy program to jeopardize the reactor’s operation. In other words, the public’s safety was secondary to the breeder program.
Had it not been for a courageous act by a group of Fukui prefecture officials in the early morning of December 11, PNC’s attempted cover-up probably would have succeeded. Suspecting a cover-up, the officials entered the plant and secured the videotape. The action came as a direct result of a previous accident at Fukui’s Tsuruga Unit I reactor in the early 1980s. Fukui prefecture officials were not permitted to investigate that mishap. When the Monju accident took place, the officials were determined not to be turned away a second time. Following revelations that the agency itself had been involved in trying to withhold the video, a PNC executive committed suicide……. http://www.dcbureau.org/201204097128/national-se
TEPCO: Fukushima workers’ lead shields masked radiation readings
Lead shields masked radiation readings up to 30% August 09, 2012 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN Lead radiation shields forced on workers at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to cover their dosimeters masked radiation readings by about 30 percent. Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the plant, and Tokyo Energy and Systems Inc., a TEPCO group company, made the admission Aug. 8 after a test. Continue reading
Japan’s handling of nuclear disaster far worse than Soviet Russia’s in Chernobyl
If Japan takes evacuation measures equivalent in scale to that following the Chernobyl disaster, it will need to relocate several millions of people in this densely populated country,
*Asahi* Japan Physicist: Several millions will need to be evacuated from around Fukushima plant if gov’t used same scale as after Chernobyl — Japan’s handling of disaster “far worse” than Soviet Union http://enenews.com/asahi-japan-physicist-several-millions-will-need-to-be-evacuated-from-around-fukushima-plant-if-govt-used-same-scale-as-after-chernobyl-japans-handling-of-disaster-is-far-worse August 9th, 2012
By ENENews (Subscription Only) Title: INTERVIEW/ Yuko Fujita: Lone
wolf physicist calls for Nagasaki’s awakening
Source: AJW Asahi Shimbun
Author: HIROSHI MATSUBARA
Date: August 10, 2012 Continue reading
TEPCO ‘doctored’ video of Fukushima conference
Yomiuri: Tepco has ‘heavily altered’ video footage — Expert suspects images have been altered more than necessary http://enenews.com/yomiuri-tepco-has-heavily-altered-video-footage-expert-suspects-images-have-been-altered-more-than-necessary August 7th, 2012 By ENENews
Title: TEPCO video heavily altered / Alternation shows utility’s reluctance to make information available
Source: The Yomiuri Shimbun
Date: Aug. 8, 2012
The recently disclosed video of Tokyo Electric Power Co. teleconferences that took place just after the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has been significantly altered, with many images blurred and audio heavily obscured. Continue reading
In Japan, (as in other countries) nuclear lobby cons children
At left is an example of AREVA’s spin to children in Australia
‘Alice in Wonderland’ was used to convince children in Japan nuclear power is safe (PHOTO & VIDEO) http://enenews.com/alice-wonderland-convince-children-japan-nuclear-power-safe-photo-video (VIDEO) August 8th, 2012 By ENENews
Speaker: Charles Ferguson, President, Federation of American Scientists Stories have come out that the government was promoting nuclear power so much that they were using cartoon characters, they were using Alice in Wonderland to convince school children nuclear power is incredibly safe. They weren’t showing the other side of the story adequately enough. It was an unbalanced presentation.
The New York Times’ Norimitsu Onishi on the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme: The New York Times’ Norimitsu Onishi on the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme:
Source: Ko Sasaki for The New York Times
Near a nuclear power plant facing the Sea of Japan, a series of exhibitions in a large public relations building here extols the virtues of the energy source with some help from “Alice in Wonderland.”
“It’s terrible, just terrible,” the White Rabbit says in the first exhibit. “We’re running out of energy, Alice.”
A Dodo robot figure, swiveling to address Alice and the visitors to the building, declares that there is an “ace” form of energy called nuclear power. It is clean, safe and renewable if you reprocess uranium and plutonium, the Dodo says.
“Wow, you can even do that!” Alice says of nuclear power. “You could say that it’s optimal for resource-poor Japan!”
Nuclear power workers co-operate in deception, in order to keep their jobs
Nuclear power plants: A hidden world of untruths, unethical behavior August 06, 2012 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN The long and the short of it is this: Nuclear power plants probably would not operate properly in Japan if workers were not willing to sacrifice their health, and possibly their lives.
It emerges that workers at nuclear plants routinely resorted to ingenious ways to conceal the true levels of radiation to which they were exposed–simply to go on earning a living. Continue reading
Tepco managing director says “evacuate the workers from the site” after Reactor No. 3 exploded
WSJ: Tepco managing director says “evacuate the workers from the site” after Reactor No. 3 exploded — “Bulk of footage is available for viewing only by select journalist” http://enenews.com/wsj-tepco-managing-director-evacuate-workers-site-after-reactor-3-exploded-footage-available-viewing-only-select-journalist August 6th, 2012 By ENENews
Title: Tepco Releases Video Footage Taken During Critical Hours After Fukushima Daiichi Accident
Source: Wall Street Journal
Author: Phred Dvorak and Mitsuru Obe
Date: Aug 6, 2012
On Monday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. for the first time released footage taken inside its command centers
[…]
They’re 150 hours recorded over Tepco’s emergency videoconference system — 100 of them without audio — and they largely show tiny, blurred-out faces around conference tables. The bulk of the footage is available for viewing only by select journalists in Tokyo (including JRT). Continue reading
1 This Month
PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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