Evacuation plans last year, as Fukushima crisis occurred
Mr McLean revealed that Australia and other nations began compiling elaborate evacuation plans amid growing concern and uncertainly as the Fukushima plant began to explode.
The former ambassador confirmed Australia had evacuation plans in place but voiced the uncomfortable truth that, in reality, greater Tokyo (population 35 million) would have been almost impossible to evacuate.
Ex-ambassador frustrated by post-tsunami silence BY: RICK WALLACE, TOKYO CORRESPONDENT The Australian March 10, 2012 AUSTRALIA’S former ambassador to Japan has told of his frustrations with the Japanese government for keeping its close partners in the dark about the extent of the damage to the Fukushima nuclear plant at the height of the crisis almost one year ago. Continue reading
Cover-up of nuclear collusion between USA and Japan at Fukushima
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has yet to disclose the truth behind his more disturbing decisions: first, the absence of stenographers and voice recordings at his emergency Cabinet meetings;
The high-level cover-up and lab analysis of cesium-isotope ratios indicate the Japanese nuclear establishment was illegally involved in the reprocessing of weapons-grade uranium at Fukushima No. 1 and probably two other civilian nuclear plants in northern Japan.
The collaboration between Washington and Tokyo in a covert 
nuclear-weapons program was a violation of international law
The World is Powerless Against Fukushima Fallout, Hyphen Submitted by New America Media, March 8, 2012 by Yoichi Shimatsu “……..Public at Risk From Official Silence At the molecular level inside a biological cell, gamma-ray bombardment rewrites the genetic code contained in the chromosomes, scrambling the elegant poetry of life into gibberish.
Since leukemia, cancers and birth defects can be falsely attributed to other disorders, the governments of North America, Europe and Asia along with international agencies can be counted on to remain silent or mount campaigns of misdiagnosis to protect their nuclear power and weapons programs, along with their food and travel industries. Bureaucrats, at heart and out of self-interest, are cowards. Continue reading
Fukushima’s psychological trauma, as well as radiation cancer risk
Radiation is still leaking from the now-closed Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, though at a slower pace than it did in the weeks after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. It’s not immediately fatal but could show up as cancer or other illnesses years later.
The uncertainty breeds fear.
The [cancer] risk is cumulative. The radioactivity in one’s body builds up through various activities, including eating contaminated food every day or staying in a hot spot for an extended period.
Uncertain risks torment Japanese in nuclear zone, THE HINDU, 8 March 12, Yoshiko Ota keeps her windows shut. She never hangs her laundry outdoors. Fearful of birth defects, she warns her daughters — never have children.
This is life with radiation, nearly one year after a tsunami-hit nuclear power plant began spewing it into Ota’s neighbourhood, 60 km away. She’s so worried that she has broken out in hives.
“The government spokesman keeps saying there are no immediate health effects,” the 48-year-old nursery school worker says. “He’s not talking about 10 years or 20 years later. He must think the people of Fukushima are fools. It’s not really OK to live here,” she says. “But we live here.” Continue reading
Plenty of future work for Japan’s nuclear professionals – in shutting down the world’s nuclear reactors
concerns over where Japan’s nuclear professionals will end up. We believe, however, that this concern needs to be reframed. There are more than 430 nuclear reactors in the world, and one by one they will all reach the end of their service lives. Regardless of the future paths of nuclear policies around the world, there will be plenty of reactors that need to be shut down.
Editorial: Time to say goodbye to nuclear power, Mainichi Daily News, 7 March 12, The illusion of nuclear power safety has been torn out by the root. The Fukushima nuclear disaster that followed the great waves of March 11 last year made sure of that.. Continue reading
United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation
The committee, known as UNSCEAR, will publish a report in May 2013 that aims to give an analysis of radiation dosages among citizens and forecast health risks in the coming decades
Children Wait for UN Radiation Study After Fukushima Crisis, Bloomberg By Yuriy Humber and Tsuyoshi Inajima March 05, 2012 As five-year-olds charge through the corridors of a kindergarten in northeast Japan at lunchtime, teacher Junko Kamada says she is still unsure if their food is safe a year after the Fukushima nuclear accident.
Since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima plant, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of the Sakuragi Hanazono kindergarten in Tagajo city, parents of the 198 children have been seeking assurances that the school lunches are free of radiation…..
wait at least another 14 months for a unified view on food contamination when the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation issues the first global and independent assessment of the Fukushima nuclear accident. Continue reading
Japan’s Tsuruga nuclear plant over an active earthquake fault
Fault under Tsuruga nuclear plant could trigger M7.4 quake: research TOKYO Mainichi Daily News, 6 March 12, (Kyodo) — An active fault running under the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at Japan Atomic Power Co.’s Tsuruga nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture is at least 35 kilometers long and could trigger an earthquake with a magnitude of around 7.4, much higher than previously anticipated, a team of government-affiliated researchers said Monday. Continue reading
Fukushima to get off shore wind farm
Mixed Greens: Offshore wind for Fukushima REnew economy, By Sophie Vorrath 7 March 2012 Almost one year after an earthquake and tsunami hit Fukushima and sent three out of six of its nuclear reactors into meltdown, the Japanese government has announced plans to install two Mitsubishi Heavy 7MW turbines, and a 2MW turbine made by Fuji Heavy, at a floating wind farm off the coast of the devastated prefecture. Recharge News reports that the estimated ¥12.5 billion project is part of a government plan to kick-start the country’s offshore wind sector and rejuvenate the Fukushima region. Tokyo has flagged plans to install 1GW of offshore wind power in the Fukushima region, and Japan’s Wind Power Association estimates potential for 519GW of floating offshore wind capacity in Japan. “The Tokyo area has good potential for offshore. It’s easy to get grid connections. The Fukushima nuclear power plants will never operate again so there’s a vacant grid line there,” says Yoshinori Ueda, assistant general manager at MHI.
The floating wind farm will be located between 20-40km offshore, where ocean depths range from 100-150 metres, the average wind speed is more than 7-metres per second and wave heights are 10-15 metres. It will be built by a consortium including Japanese trading house Marubeni, MHI, Mitsubishi Corp, IHI Marine United, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, Nippon Steel, Hitachi, Furukawa Electric and Shimizu; with consultation from the University of Tokyo and Mizuho Information & Research Institute. The first phase of the project, due to be completed by March 2013, will see the installation one of Fuji Heavy’s Subaru80 2MW turbines with a four-column, semi-submarine type floater and a 66kV floating offshore substation. In the second phase, from 2013-15, Mitsubishi Heavy will install two of its new 7MW turbines, with a three-column, semi-submarine type floater.
Mitsubishi Heavy’s 7MW turbine, known as the ‘SeaAngel’ and developed with about ¥5 billion in backing from the Japanese government, uses a hydraulic transmission system to eliminate the need for a gearbox. The first prototype is set to be installed onshore in the UK next year, ahead of the Fukushima offshore project…. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/mixed-greens-offshore-wind-for-fukushima-64769
$100 dollars a day: workers face radiation risks at Fukushima nuclear plant
it’s really important to reduce the amount of radiation that each individual gets and to do that, we need to bring in more people.” Bringing in more workers is going to be hard. Already, 167 workers have exceeded their lifetime radiation exposure limit of 100 milliseverts.
Safety fears at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant 03/05/2012 By majiroxnews TOKYO — Low pay and overwork could trigger a shortage of workers at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The Tokyo Occupational Safety and Health Center warned this week of thesedangers – with workers at the crippled site earning as little as 100 dollars a day.
After the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, conditions of the workers seem to be plummeting. Continue reading
Japan’s radioactive cleanup, a mammoth and uncertain task that will take decades
The waste would remain in the longer-term storage for 30 years, until half the radioactive cesium breaks down. Then it would still have to be treated and compacted using technology that hasn’t been fully developed yet before being buried deep underground in enclosed
containers. ….
Japan cleans up radiation zone, unsure of success, The News, March 06, 2012 FUKUSHIMA, Japan: Workers in rubber boots chip at the frozen ground, scraping until they’ve removed the top 2 inches (5 centimeters) of radioactive soil from the yard of a single home. Total amount of waste gathered: roughly 60 tons.
One down, tens of thousands to go. Continue reading
Where to put over 100,000 tons of radioactive waste materials?
6,800 tons of radiation-tainted rice straw left lying in 8 prefectures, Mainichi Daily News, 5 Mar 12, http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120303p2a00m0na010000c.html Some 6,800 metric tons of rice straw contaminated with radioactive substances leaked from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant remains in eight prefectures with no immediate prospect of disposal, the Mainichi has learned.
Moreover, sludge generated from radiation-contaminated waste water as well as ash tainted with radioactive materials amounts to some 97,000 tons in 12 prefectures — 3.6 times the figure as of July last year, according to the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry. Continue reading
$67 billion lawsuit against executives of nuclear company Tepco
Shareholders to sue Tepco execs for $US67b, SMH, March 6, 2012, Shareholders of Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc, operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in northeast Japan, are suing the utility’s executives for a record 5.5 trillion yen ($US67.4 billion) in compensation, lawyers said….
. In the biggest claim of its kind in Japan, 42 shareholders filed a lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court on Monday accusing 27 current and former Tepco directors of ignoring multiple warnings of a possible tsunami and of failing to prepare for a severe accident, lawyers for the shareholders said in a statement.
They want the executives to pay damages to Tepco, which would then use the money to compensate those affected by the disaster.
There is deep public anger over Tepco’s handling of the crisis and the perceived arrogance of top management, including underplaying the seriousness of the disaster in its early stages and delays in compensating those forced to leave their homes. Government officials
have walked a tightrope between that taxpayer anger and keeping afloat a firm that provides electricity to 45 million people in Japan.
Japan’s trade minister last month approved nearly $US9 billion in additional support for Tepco to help compensate victims of the crisis, but said the government would not go ahead with a plan to inject more money into the utility unless it had more say in its management.
“By seeking to hold individuals responsible, we want to correct the collective and systemic irresponsibility in the nuclear industry,” Hiroyuki Kawai, one of the lawyers, told a news conference.
Kawai said the record compensation was based on calculations by a government-appointed experts’ panel of what Tepco might have to pay to victims and businesses. The company has forecast an annual net loss of 695 billion yen……. http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/shareholders-to-sue-tepco-execs-for-us67b-20120306-1ueup.html#ixzz1oN2tudjN
Solar industry’s bright prospects in Japan
New Tariff, Nuclear Halt May Fuel Japan Solar Demand By MARI IWATA, March 5, 2012, TOKYO—Japan may become a bright spot for the solar industry due to regulatory changes and its nuclear power crisis, which equipment makers from home and abroad hope will help offset a profit outlook clouded by oversupply, falling prices and shrinking demand elsewhere.
A new feed-in tariff designed to boost industrial use of renewable energy will come into force this summer, with the government likely to recommend Tuesday rates that utilities should pay for renewable energy-sourced electricity and periods during which they should buy it.
Around the same time, the last of the country’s fleet of 54 reactors will be shut pending government decisions on Japan’s nuclear future.
The new feed-in tariff and the vacuum left by idled nuclear capacity are contributing factors to a European Photovoltaic Industry Association forecast of a 50% rise in Japanese solar panel demand in 2012, to 1.5 gigawatts.
Several foreign solar panel and component makers have already set up shop in Japan, putting them head-to-head with big local producers such as Sharp Corp. and Kyocera Corp., who have benefited from local consumers’ faith in locally made products.Kyocera said Monday that it and partner Softbank have been selected by Kyoto City to build and operate two 2.1-megawatt utility-scale solar power plants that together will be able to supply enough power for 1,000 households. They will be the largest such installations in the prefecture, and are due to be operational by July, when the new feed-in tariff takes effect.
SB Energy, a renewable energy unit of Softbank Corp., said separately Monday that it will build two solar farms, one in Gumma and the other in Kyoto…. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204276304577262781511394776.html
Japan’s March 11 radiation forecast was too scary to be released
Ministry hid data on fallout from public,SPEEDI forecast judged too chilling to be released: internal memo, Japan Times, 5 March 12, Kyodo Former science minister Yoshiaki Takaki and other top ministry officials decided to withhold radiation forecast data from the public four days after the March 11 disasters triggered the nuclear crisis, an internal document shows.
Takaki, lawmakers serving as top ministry officials and senior bureaucrats decided March 15 to withhold data about the predicted spread of radioactivity, including an assumption that all radioactive material would be discharged from the crippled reactors’ cores at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The prediction of the spread of radioactive substances, compiled through the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI), “could by no means be released to the public,” the document, dated March 19, shows….. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120304a1.html
Tighter radiation limits for food in Japan
Under the revised regulations, the upper limit on foods such as meat, vegetables and fish will be set at 100 becquerels per kilogram. The limit will be 50 becquerels per kg for milk and infant food and a maximum of 10 becquerels for drinking water.
At present, the levels are set at 500 becquerels per kg for the majority of foodstuffs and 200 becquerels for milk, dairy produce and water. There is presently no specific figure for infant food. Continue reading
Japanese farmers caring for their radioactive cows
“Rebel Farmers” Feed Cows Condemned To Death After Fukushima, by Kristina Chew, March 3, 2012 http://www.care2.com/causes/rebel-farmers-feed-cows-condemned-to-death-after-fukushima.html#ixzz1oHTSSaAM “….. 69-year-old Yukio Yamamoto is one of ten farmers from Namie, which is within the “no go zone,” who is defying government orders to euthanize his 36 black-haired wagyu cows. The cows — once prized for their high-quality beef; each was once worth $10,000 — ingested radioactive caesium and Yamamoto was supposed to kill them by lethal injection. In an interview with the Guardian, Yamamoto discussed getting a permit to enter the zone to feed his animalion. Says Yamamoto about the six-hour trip he now routinely makes:
“I left like everyone else after 11 March, “I couldn’t stop worrying about my cows, so I started coming back in every other day to feed them.”…
“Straight after the disaster, my cows had nothing to eat or drink … many of them starved to death right where they were tethered.I had to decide whether to leave the ones still alive or keep them healthy, even though we were separated.”
But Yamamoto, who is very likely the last of generations of his family to raise wagyu cows, has not received any feed from the Japanese government. Private donors, including farmers in Australia, have provided him with food for his cows.
“Eventually the feed will run out, and the government has said it will kill every last cow. But that is something I can’t allow to happen. “I could never kill these cows. They are like members of my family.”
Yamamoto is pinning his hopes on studies that can properly measure the level of contamination among his cows. As Ryoichi Harada, another “rebel farmer” helping Yamamoto feed his cows, says “We accept that the meat will never go on sale, but the cows could be put to some other commercial use.”
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