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Japan’s government bans shipments of black rockfish from Fukushima, due to highlevels of radioactive cesium

Fish radioactive report prompts Fukushima ban, http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202104/21/WS607f7f4ea31024ad0bab93e5.html

By WANG XU in Tokyo China Daily 2021-04-21  The Japanese government banned shipments of black rockfish from Fukushima on Monday, after a radioactive substance was found to be more than five times higher than acceptable levels in the fish caught off the prefecture.

The Fukushima prefectural government said 270 becquerels of radioactive cesium were detected per kilogram of the black rockfish, which had been caught at a depth of 37 meters near the city of Minamisoma, Fukushima, on April 1.

The amount of radioactive cesium is five times more than the limit set by a local fisheries cooperative of 50 becquerels per kg. It is also sharply higher than Japan’snational standard in general foods of 100 becquerels per kg.

In response, Japan’s national nuclear emergency response headquarters on Monday ordered a ban on the shipment of the fish caught off the waters of Fukushima.

Early in February, radioactive cesium 10 times above permitted levels in Japan were detected in the same area.

Scientific research showed the amount of cesium in foods and drinks depends upon the emission of radioactive cesium through the nuclear power plant, mainly through accidents. High levels of radioactive cesium in or near one’s body can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding, coma, and even death.

Monday’s restrictions came a week after Japan’s government decided to release radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the sea despite fierce opposition from fishing crews at home and concern from the international community.

“The (Japanese) government’s decision is outrageous,” said Takeshi Komatsu, an oyster farmer in Miyagi prefecture, north of Tokyo. “I feel more helpless than angry when I think that all the efforts I’ve made to rebuild my life over the past decade have come to nothing.”

South Korea strongly criticized the decision to release the contaminated water, with its Foreign Ministry summoning the Japanese ambassador. President Moon Jae-in ordered officials to explore petitioning an international court over the issue.

April 22, 2021 Posted by | Japan, oceans, radiation | Leave a comment

U.N. experts concerned at Japan’s decision to dump Fukushima nuclear waste-water into the Paific.

UN Experts Decry Japan’s Plan to Dump Radioactive Fukushima Wastewater Into Ocean, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/04/16/un-experts-decry-japans-plan-dump-radioactive-fukushima-wastewater-ocean?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2W9TNN5pZWTgQjFhnnd_99e_F3cH4y7uPJggM1row-iqAzbRtoZvj2tvM

The decision is particularly disappointing as experts believe alternative solutions to the problem are available,” said the three special rapporteurs.by Brett Wilkins, staff writer  18 Apr 21, A trio of United Nations experts on Thursday added their voices to the chorus of concern over the Japanese government’s decision to dump hundreds of millions of gallons of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean, saying the move threatens not only the environment but also the human rights of people in and beyond Japan.

Japanese officials announced earlier this week that 1.25 million tonnes of treated radioactive water from the deactivated nuclear plant—which in March 2011 suffered major damage from a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami—would be discharged into the sea starting in about two years. Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide called the planned release “a realistic solution.” 

However, anti-nuclear campaigners joined Japan’s neighbors China and South Korea in condemning the decision, with Greenpeace saying that it “completely disregards the human rights and interests of the people in Fukushima, wider Japan, and the Asia-Pacific region.”

Marcos Orellana, Michael Fakhri, and David Boyd—respectively the U.N.’s special rapporteurs on toxics and human rights, the right to food, and human rights and the environment—weighed in on the issue Thursday with a joint statement calling Tokyo’s decision “very concerning.”

“The release of one million tonnes of contaminated water into the marine environment imposes considerable risks to the full enjoyment of human rights of concerned populations in and beyond the borders of Japan,” they said, adding that “the decision is particularly disappointing as experts believe alternative solutions to the problem are available.”

Critics say other options for disposing of the the water, including evaporating and then releasing it into the air, were not fully considered, although nuclear experts stress that evaporation would not isolate radioactivity. 

Japanese officials claim that levels of radioactive tritium are low enough to pose no threat to human health. However, scientists and other experts warn that the isotope bonds with other molecules in water and can make their way up the food chain to humans.

Cindy Folkers, radiation and health hazards specialist at the advocacy group Beyond Nuclear, said in a statement Wednesday that Fukushima Daiichi operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) “wants us to believe that the radioactive contamination in this water will be diluted in the ocean waters, but some of the radioactive isotopes will concentrate up the food chain in ocean life.”

“Some of the contamination may not travel out to sea and can double back on itself,” said Folkers. “Dilution doesn’t work for radioactive isotopes, particularly tritium, which research shows can travel upstream.”

“TEPCO data show that even twice-through filtration leaves the water 13.7 times more concentrated with hazardous tritium—radioactive hydrogen—than Japan’s allowable standard for ocean dumping, and about one million times higher than the concentration of natural tritium in Earth’s surface waters,” she added. 

Japanese officials did reverse one highly controversial policy related to the wastewater dump this week. Amid intense public backlash, the government hastily retired Little Mr. Tritium, an animated radioactive mascot meant to promote and popularize the discharge. 

“Some of the contamination may not travel out to sea and can double back on itself,” said Folkers. “Dilution doesn’t work for radioactive isotopes, particularly tritium, which research shows can travel upstream.”

“TEPCO data show that even twice-through filtration leaves the water 13.7 times more concentrated with hazardous tritium—radioactive hydrogen—than Japan’s allowable standard for ocean dumping, and about one million times higher than the concentration of natural tritium in Earth’s surface waters,” she added. 

Japanese officials did reverse one highly controversial policy related to the wastewater dump this week. Amid intense public backlash, the government hastily retired Little Mr. Tritium, an animated radioactive mascot meant to promote and popularize the discharge. 

“It seems the government’s desire to release the water into the sea takes priority over everything,” Katsuo Watanabe, an 82-year-old fisher from Fukushima, told Kyodo News. “We fisherman can’t understand it.” 

April 19, 2021 Posted by | Japan, oceans, politics international, wastes | Leave a comment

US backs Japan’s Fukushima plans despite S Korea’s concerns

US backs Japan’s Fukushima plans despite S Korea’s concerns

Seoul fails to gain US support against Japan’s decision to release contaminated water from Fukushima nuclear plant.  Aljazeera, 18 Apr 2021

US climate envoy John Kerry has reaffirmed Washington’s confidence in Japan’s decision to release contaminated water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea despite concerns raised by South Korea.

Kerry arrived in Seoul on Saturday to discuss international efforts to tackle global warming, on a trip that included a stop in China ahead of President Joe Biden’s virtual summit with world leaders on climate change this month.

South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong sought to rally support behind the country’s protest against the Fukushima plan at a dinner meeting with Kerry.

Under the plan, more than one million tonnes of water will be discharged from the plant wrecked by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 into the nearby sea off Japan’s east coast.

Seoul strongly rebuked the decision, with the foreign ministry summoning the Japanese ambassador and President Moon Jae-in ordering officials to explore petitioning an international court.

“Minister Chung conveyed our government and people’s serious concerns about Japan’s decision, and asked the US side to take interest and cooperate so that Japan will provide information in a more transparent and speedy manner,” the ministry said in a statement.

But Kerry, at a media roundtable on Sunday, said Tokyo had made the decision in a transparent manner and will continue following due procedures.

“The US is confident that the government of Japan is in very full consultations with the IAEA,” he said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency……..   The former US secretary of state added that Washington would closely monitor Japan’s implementation “like every country, to make certain there is no public health threat”……..    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/18/s-korea-us-show-differences-over-japans-fukushima-plans

April 19, 2021 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Fukushima nuclear wastewater ‘fundamentally different’ from normal plants: Chinese ministry,

Fukushima nuclear wastewater ‘fundamentally different’ from normal plants: Chinese ministry,   https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1221363.shtml
By Global Times , 18 Apr 21,  Amid international pushback against Japan’s decision to dump nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment has urged Japan to consider all safe ways of disposal to deal with the issue, as the nuclear-contaminated water is fundamentally different from discharges from other normal nuclear plants.

Regardless of domestic opposition and doubts from the international community, Japan made a unilateral decision to dump the contaminated water into the sea before exhausting all safe ways of disposal or fully consulting with neighboring countries and the international community, the ministry said. 

China, as Japan’s close neighbor and one of the stakeholders in this issue, has expressed grave concerns.

The Chinese environment ministry urged Japan, which has a responsibility to the international community, to conduct further research on all safe ways of disposal and release related information in a timely and transparent way. 

A cautious decision should be made after a careful consideration of all other safe ways of disposal and full consultation with all stakeholders, it said. 
The ministry stressed that the nuclear-contaminated water has fundamental differences from the discharge of a normally operated nuclear plant, either in terms of the original source, category of radionuclides, or disposal treatment imparity.

The Fukushima contaminated wastewater came from the cooling water injected into the melted reactor core after the nuclear accident, as well as groundwater and rainwater that permeated the reactor. It contains a variety of radionuclides in the melted reactor core, which are difficult to treat, it said.
Discharges from a normally operated plant are mainly from the technology and land drainage, which contain few fission nuclides. After being treated and strictly monitored under international standards, such discharges are much less harmful than the international standards require, the ministry noted. 

The ministry also said that China will evaluate the possible impact of nuclear-contaminated wastewater on the marine environment and strengthen monitoring of the radiation in that environment.

April 19, 2021 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

China to Japan: If treated radioactive water from Fukushima is safe, ‘please drink it’

China to Japan: If treated radioactive water from Fukushima is safe, ‘please drink it’,  WA Today, By Adam Taylor, April 15, 2021 —Washington: A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry challenged Japan’s deputy prime minister Wednesday to drink treated water, contaminated from contact with reactors, from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant, after the Japanese official suggested the water released would be safe to drink.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, infamous for trolling Australia over the Afghanistan war crimes cases, said during a press briefing: “A Japanese official said, it’s okay if you drink this water. Then please drink it.”

The ocean is not Japan’s trash can,” Zhao also said.

The Chinese official also tweeted a similar message in English.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s remarks came after the Japanese government announced on Tuesday it had decided to release into the sea more than 1 million tons of water collected from Fukushima, which melted down during a 2011 nuclear disaster following a tsunami………….

China’s Zhao, known for his aggressive style of diplomacy, has responded at length to the issues surrounding Fukushima water this week, on Tuesday denying the suggestion that China had itself been in a comparable situation when it released treated radioactive water from power plants into the sea………..

Chinese records show that local power plants like Daya Bay in Shenzhen have also released large amounts of tritium into the sea. Zhao said that the water from the Fukushima was different from that released to the ocean by other nuclear plants.

“No comparison can be drawn between the two,” he said, without further explanation…..

While the United States has offered its support for Japan’s move on the Fukushima water, Zhao said on Wednesday that the Japanese side needed to reach an agreement with all stakeholder countries before it could proceed.

“China reserves the right to make further responses,” Zhao said.https://www.watoday.com.au/world/asia/china-to-japan-if-treated-radioactive-water-from-fukushima-is-safe-please-drink-it-20210415-p57jcj.html

April 17, 2021 Posted by | Japan, politics international | Leave a comment

Fukushima” is not over: Japanese NGOs raise concern over the ongoing nuclear disaster

Fukushima” is not over: Japanese NGOs raise concern over the ongoing nuclear disaster, Friends of the Earth Japan, Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC), 14 Apr 21,

On the 10th anniversary of one of the worst nuclear accidents at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, and amid the controversial decision of the Japanese government to dump “treated” radioactive water into the ocean, Japanese NGOs Friends of the Earth Japan and Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC) co-produced a documentary film Fukushima 10 Years Later: Voices from the continuing nuclear disaster. The film sheds light on the ongoing suffering of victims of the accident and poses critical questions about the Japanese government’s poor responses to the accident.

While then-Prime Minister Abe vainly declared to the world that “the situation in Fukushima is completely under control”, nuclear decays are continuing inside the molten fuel rods, and the exploded plants are still emitting radioactive particles to this day. In the meanwhile, evacuees are torn apart in limbo, with grim hopes of returning to their homeland, continued fear of radioactive fallout, and a dire socio-economic situation. Fisherfolk, who overcame the initial fear of ocean contamination, are forced to relive the experience each time TEPCO and the Japanese government repeatedly choose to release contaminated water into the ocean.
This happens all under the propaganda that Fukushima is pressing ahead with “Fukkou (Recovery)”.  
This video aims to highlight the current situation of the victims of the man-made disaster, and challenge the government propaganda of Fukushima’s Recovery.

Fukushima 10 Years Later: Voices from the continuing nuclear disaster
Produced by Friends of the Earth Japan and Pacific Asia Resource Center
Supervised by HOSOKAWA Komei (Citizens’ Commission on Nuclear Energy)
Directed by MATSUMOTO Hikaru (Friends of the Earth Japan)
Running time: 43 min.

The English subtitled version of the film is now available on Vimeo on Demand and will cost USD 5.75 to rent and USD 47.50 to purchase.
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/fukushima10years

For further information on the film, please contact OKUMURA Yuto, Pacific Asia Resource Center.
E-mail: video@parc-jp.org
Yuto Okumura,Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC)

April 15, 2021 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

Japan’s hugely costly nuclear reprocessing program.

Plutonium programs in East Asia and Idaho will challenge the Biden administration, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Frank N. von Hippel | April 12, 2021,  ”………………Japan’s hugely costly reprocessing program. The United States has been trying to persuade Japan to abandon reprocessing ever since 1977. At the time, then prime minister Takeo Fukuda described plutonium breeder reactors as a matter of “life and death” for Japan’s energy future and steamrolled the Carter administration into accepting the startup of Japan’s pilot reprocessing plant. Today, Japan is the only non-nuclear-armed state that separates plutonium. Despite the absence of any economic or environmental justification, the policy grinds ahead due to a combination of bureaucratic commitments and the dependence of a rural region on the jobs and tax income associated with the hugely costly program. The dynamics are similar to those that have kept the three huge US nuclear-weapon laboratories flourishing despite the end of the Cold War.

For three decades, Japan has been building, fixing mistakes, and making safety upgrades on a large plutonium recycle complex in Rokkasho Village in the poor prefecture of Aomori on the northern tip of the main island, Honshu. The capital cost of the complex has climbed to $30 billion. Operation of the reprocessing plant is currently planned for 2023.

A facility for fabricating the recovered plutonium into mixed-oxide plutonium-uranium fuel for water-cooled power reactors is under construction on the same site (Figure 3 on original). The cost of operating the complex is projected to average about $3 billion per year. Over the 40-year design life of the plant, it is expected to process about 300 tons of plutonium—enough to make 40,000 Nagasaki bombs. What could possibly go wrong?

Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission reports that, because of the failures and delays of its plutonium useage programs, as of the end of 2019, Japan owned a stock of 45.5 tons of separated plutonium: 9.9 tons in Japan with the remainder in France and the United Kingdom where Japan sent thousands of tons of spent fuel during the 1990s to be reprocessed.

Both the Obama and Trump administrations pressed Tokyo to revise its reprocessing policy, especially after Japan’s decision to decommission its failed prototype breeder reactor in 2016.

Perhaps in response to this pressure, in 2018, Japan’s cabinet declared:

“The Japanese government remains committed to the policy of not possessing plutonium without specific purposes on the premise of peaceful use of plutonium and work[s] to reduce of the size of [its] plutonium stockpile.”

A step toward reductions that is being discussed would be for Japan to pay the United Kingdom to take title to and dispose of the 22 tons of Japanese plutonium stranded there after the UK mixed-oxide fuel fabrication plant was found to be inoperable. Japan’s separated plutonium in France is slowly being returned to Japan in mixed-oxide fuel for use in reactors licensed to use such fuel.

If, as currently planned, Japan operates the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant at its design capacity of more than seven tons of plutonium separated per year, however, its rate of plutonium separation will greatly exceed Japan’s rate of plutonium use.  Four of Japan’s currently operating reactors are licensed to use mixed-oxide fuel but loaded only 40 percent as much mixed-oxide fuel as planned in 2018-19 and none in 2020. Two more reactors that can use mixed-oxide are expected to receive permission to restart in the next few years. In 2010, Japan’s Federation of Electric Power Companies projected that the six reactors would use 2.6 tons of plutonium per year. If the much-delayed Ohma reactor, which is under construction and designed to be able to use a full core of mixed-oxide fuel, comes into operation in 2028 as currently planned, and all these reactors use as much mixed-oxide fuel as possible, Japan’s plutonium usage rate would still ramp up to only 4.3 tons per year in 2033. (At the end of 2020 the Federation of Electric Power Companies announced its hope to increase the number of mixed-oxide-using reactors to 12 by 2030 but did not list the five additional reactors, saying only, “we will release it as soon as it is ready.”)

As of June 2020, construction at Rokkasho on the mixed-oxide fuel fabrication facility that will process the plutonium separated by the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant was only 12 percent complete. It was still just a hole in the ground containing some concrete work with its likely completion years behind the currently planned 2023 operation date of the reprocessing plant.

Thus, as happened in Russia and the United Kingdom, the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant could operate indefinitely separating plutonium without the mixed-oxide plant operating. The reprocessing plant includes storage for “working stocks” containing up to 30 tons of unirradiated plutonium. If and when it begins operating, the mixed-oxide fuel fabrication plant will itself have additional working stocks of at least several tons of plutonium. Therefore, even if Japan transfers title to the plutonium it has stranded in the United Kingdom and manages to work down its stock in France, the growth of its stock in Japan could offset those reductions.

The Biden administration should urge Japan’s government to “bite the bullet” and begin the painful but necessary process of unwinding its costly and dangerous plutonium program. A first step would be to change Japan’s radioactive waste law to allow its nuclear utilities to use the planned national deep repository for direct disposal of their spent fuel.

In the meantime, most of Japan’s spent fuel will have to be stored on site in dry casks, as has become standard practice in the United States and most other countries with nuclear power reactors. Because of its safety advantages relative to storage in dense-packed pools, the communities that host Japan’s nuclear power plant are moving toward acceptance of dry-cask storage. During the 2011 Fukushima accident, the water in a dense-packed pool became dangerously low. Had the spent fuel been uncovered and caught on fire, the population requiring relocation could have been ten to hundreds of times larger ………….https://thebulletin.org/2021/04/plutonium-programs-in-east-asia-and-idaho-will-challenge-the-biden-administration/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MondayNewsletter04122021&utm_content=NuclearRisk_EastAsia_04122021

April 13, 2021 Posted by | - plutonium, Japan, Reference, reprocessing | Leave a comment

Fukushima: Japan announces it will dump contaminated water into sea

Fukushima: Japan announces it will dump contaminated water into sea  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/13/fukushima-japan-to-start-dumping-contaminated-water-pacific-ocean

More than 1m tonnes of contaminated water will be released from the destroyed nuclear station in two years’ time,  Japan plans to release into the sea more than 1m tonnes of contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear station, the government said on Tuesday, a decision that is likely to anger neighbours such as South Korea.

The move, more than a decade after the nuclear disaster, will deal another blow to the fishing industry in Fukushima, which has opposed such a step for years.

The work to release the water will begin in about two years, the government said, and the whole process is expected to take decades.

“On the premise of strict compliance with regulatory standards that have been established, we select oceanic release,” the government said in a statement after relevant ministers formalised the decision.

Around 1.25 million tonnes of water has accumulated at the site of the nuclear plant, which was crippled after going into meltdown following a tsunami in 2011.

It includes water used to cool the plant, as well as rain and groundwater that seeps in daily.

The water needs to be filtered again to remove harmful isotopes and will be diluted to meet international standards before any release.

The decision comes about three months ahead of the postponed Olympic Games to be hosted by Tokyo, with some events planned as close as 60km (35 miles) from the wrecked plant.

The disposal of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, run by Tokyo Electric Power, has proved a thorny problem for Japan as it pursues a decades-long decommissioning proj

April 13, 2021 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

China concerned about Japan dumping Fukushima nuclear waste water into the Pacific.

China says concerned over Fukushima waste disposal  https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/china-says-concerned-over-fukushima-waste-disposal/2206069
Beijing asks Japan to take ‘responsible attitude’ towards Fukushima nuclear plant’s radioactive water disposal

Riyaz Ul Khaliq   |12.04.2021   ANKARAChina on Monday expressed concern over the disposal of waste from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea.“China has expressed grave concern to Japan through diplomatic channels, asking the country to take a responsible attitude towards Fukushima nuclear power plant’s radioactive water disposal,” the local newspaper People’s Daily reported, quoting the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Last week, Japan said it plans to dispose of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s government will move ahead with the idea despite opposition within and outside the country and may announce the decision as early as Tuesday.

The wastewater, though treated, may still contain radioactive tritium.Japanese authorities want to dilute the waste to “acceptable global standards” and start dumping it into the ocean two years from now.

Japan’s fishery industry and some provincial authorities have voiced concerns over the plan, which has also drawn criticism from China and South Korea.However, the Japanese government said it “will work to address their concerns and bring in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other partners.”“We will seek the cooperation of global organizations such as the IAEA and local governments to thoroughly check the plan’s safety and maintain transparency,” Kajiyama Hiroshi, Japan’s economy, trade, and industry minister, said last week.

April 13, 2021 Posted by | China, Japan, oceans, politics international | Leave a comment

Japanese government and Tepco must pay monthly compensation to 3550 Fukushima residents displaced due to continued radioactivity.

International Bar Association 8th April 2021, In mid-February, the Tokyo High Court ruled that the Japanese government and nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) should pay a total of JPY 278m (approximately $2.6m) in damages to a group of survivors of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The ruling came ahead of the ten-year anniversary of the major Tohoku earthquake, which killed and displaced thousands of people. The tsunami caused by the earthquake led to the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, operated by Tepco.

In September 2020, the Sendai High Court ordered the state and the plant operator to pay approximately $9.5m in
damages in total to 3,550 plaintiffs, finding both negligent for not taking measures to prevent the disaster. The plaintiffs had sought $265m in the form of monthly compensation of $470 each until radiation in the affected region subsided.

https://www.ibanet.org/Article/NewDetail.aspx?ArticleUid=1462911D-400D-422C-ABDA-99D4D5BF78A8

April 10, 2021 Posted by | Japan, Legal | Leave a comment

Japanese government continues Japan’s ”Nuclear Village” generous grants to keep ageing nuclear reactors going.

Lucrative grants offered to keep aging nuclear reactors running,  http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14326422

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

April 7, 2021   The central government is offering billions of yen in new grants to Fukui Prefecture to allow a nuclear plant operator to run its aging reactors beyond their operational life span of 40 years.

Fukui is not the only prefecture in Japan that hosts old reactors, and the grants could create momentum toward the restarts of these units.

“As for an expansion of grants, up to 2.5 billion yen ($22.6 million) will be provided per nuclear plant to a prefecture preparing to respond to the extension of the 40-year life of reactors,” the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in a document presented to the Fukui prefectural government on April 6.

The ministry’s offer is expected to become a key point of discussions as Fukui Prefecture and the prefectural assembly begin to weigh whether they should approve of the restart of three reactors in question there.

Fukui Governor Tatsuji Sugimoto hailed the central government’s offer, calling it “a step forward.”
He had urged the prefectural assembly to discuss the restart issue in February, but the assembly put off the debate, citing a lack of measures to revitalize the local economy.

Osaka-based Kansai Electric Power Co. is pushing to reactivate the three reactors in Fukui Prefecture–the No. 1 and 2 reactors at the Takahama nuclear plant in Takahama and the No. 3 reactor at the Mihama nuclear plant in Mihama.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority has given its one-time permission to operate those reactors for 20 more years beyond their 40-year life spans.

If the local governments approve the restarts, Fukui Prefecture would receive a combined 5 billion yen under the new grant setup.

The town halls of Takahama and Mihama have already given the greenlight to the restarts. The remaining hurdle is whether the governor and the prefectural assembly will approve them.

The maximum 2.5 billion yen will be made available over a period of five years, according to the industry ministry’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.

The offer of the funds came in response to the Fukui prefectural government’s request for additional grants concerning the reactors as a measure to stimulate the local economy.

The prefectural government is expected to discuss how to distribute the grants with Takahama and Mihama.

Other prefectures hosting old reactors operated by companies seeking the 20-year extension will be eligible for the new grants.

The only other facility that has gained the NRA’s permission to operate beyond 40 years is the Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant in Ibaraki Prefecture.

Five other reactors in Japan have been in service for more than 35 years.

The decommissioning process has started for other aging reactors because their operators decided that upgrades and additional safeguard measures required to bring them back online would be too expensive.

(This article was written by Kenji Oda and Takayuki Sato.)

April 8, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Japan’s Prime Minister getting ready to release Fukushima waste water into the Pacific ocean?

Reuters 6th April 2021, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will hold a ministerial meeting as early as next week to start discussions on the release of contaminated Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant water into the ocean, broadcaster FNN said on Tuesday.

Suga is also expected to meet with the head of the national federation of fisheries cooperatives as early as Wednesday to discuss the potential release of the water. The water, which is treated but contains traces of tritium, was used to cool the reactors in the aftermath of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Power Plant’s nuclear disaster in 2011 and is now stored within the grounds of the power plant.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-disaster-fukushima-water-idUSKBN2BT09C?taid=606c150f9e71f30001ce44af

April 8, 2021 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

4,000 Fukushima waste bags contain unidentified radioactive materials

Mainichi 6th April 2021, Of the 85,000 containers holding radioactive waste placed in the radiation-controlled area of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the contents of about 4,000 have not been identified, operator Tokyo ElectricPower Company Holdings Inc. (TEPCO) announced on April 5. According to TEPCO, it began listing the contents of the containers after the meltdown in 2011, but about 4,000 of them remain unidentified. The company says it will formulate a survey plan and proceed to determine what they hold.

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210406/p2a/00m/0na/002000c

April 8, 2021 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

Japan halts restart of nuclear plant over poor anti-terror measures


Japan halts restart of nuclear plant over poor anti-terror measures, DAILY SABAH, 
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS, TOKYO ASIA PACIFIC APR 07, 2021 Japanese regulators last month fined a nuclear power plant operator over the organization’s inadequate anti-terrorism measures at a plant, and on Wednesday the operator announced that it would accept the penalty, further hurting its plans to restart operations at the facility for at least a year.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which was also the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant that was destroyed in the 2011 disaster, made the announcement in response to a decision by the Nuclear Regulation Authority in late March to ban it from moving any nuclear materials at the No. 7 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata prefecture.

The measure will suspend all ongoing steps to restart the plant. Regulators found malfunctioning anti-terrorism equipment and inadequate protection of nuclear materials at multiple locations at the plant from at least 2018………….

he punishment comes as TEPCO was making final preparations to restart the plant after regulators granted safety approvals for its No. 6 and No. 7 reactors in 2017.

Restarting the two reactors is considered crucial for TEPCO to reduce its financial burden in paying for damage caused by the Fukushima disaster. The penalty does not affect the wrecked Fukushima plant, which is being decommissioned.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he will make a final decision “within days” on whether to allow the release into the sea of massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water stored at the plant. TEPCO is expected to run out of storage space for the water in the fall of 2022……..

TEPCO and government officials say radionuclides can be filtered to allowable safety levels, but some experts say the impact on marine life from long-term, low-dose exposure is still unknown…….https://www.dailysabah.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-halts-restart-of-nuclear-plant-over-poor-anti-terror-measures

April 8, 2021 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Japan has the ability to become both coal-free and nuclear-free

Can Japan Be Both Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free?

Japan can – and should – pursue an energy mix that is both carbon-neutral and avoids reliance on nuclear energy. The Diplomat,   By Daisuke Akimoto  7 Apr 21, Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide, scheduled to have summit talks with U.S. President Joe Biden on April 16, has been pursuing a carbon-neutral society. On October 26, 2020, Suga delivered a policy speech to the Japanese parliament and declared that “by 2050 Japan will aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero.” Internationally, the Paris Agreement entered in to effect in 2016, and Japan as a signatory to the treaty is obliged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming.

Japan has been under international fire on climate issues, as it is the world’s fifth largest emitter of carbon dioxide. In an interview with Mainichi Shimbun on May 20, 2019, Swedish environment activist Greta Thunberg criticized the fact that Japan had relied on coal-fired energy for more than 30 percent of its total amount of electricity, and planned to build and export new coal-fired plants. For this reason, Suga’s pledge to pursue a carbon-zero society was welcomed by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

According to a poll reported by Reuters on December 9, 2020 however, many Japanese companies were pessimistic about the feasibility of the government’s carbon-free goal. n its policy proposal of March 2021, the powerful Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) suggested that the government should rely on efficient coal-fired power generation and nuclear energy as well. Before the 2011 nuclear accident in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Japan operated as many as 54 nuclear power plants, but currently, only nine nuclear power plants are in operation. Keidanren proposed that about 30 nuclear power plants should be brought back online by 2030.

Japan has been under international fire on climate issues, as it is the world’s fifth largest emitter of carbon dioxide. In an interview with Mainichi Shimbun on May 20, 2019, Swedish environment activist Greta Thunberg criticized the fact that Japan had relied on coal-fired energy for more than 30 percent of its total amount of electricity, and planned to build and export new coal-fired plants. For this reason, Suga’s pledge to pursue a carbon-zero society was welcomed by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

According to a poll reported by Reuters on December 9, 2020 however, many Japanese companies were pessimistic about the feasibility of the government’s carbon-free goal. n its policy proposal of March 2021, the powerful Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) suggested that the government should rely on efficient coal-fired power generation and nuclear energy as well. Before the 2011 nuclear accident in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Japan operated as many as 54 nuclear power plants, but currently, only nine nuclear power plants are in operation. Keidanren proposed that about 30 nuclear power plants should be brought back online by 2030.

Does Japan really need to continue its reliance on nuclear energy as a means of achieving a carbon-neutral society? In exploring answers to this energy conundrum, it is important to look to the changes in nuclear power’s share of electricity generation in Japan. In 2010, the 54 nuclear power plants generated nearly 25 percent of the total amount of electricity produced in Japan. Presently however, the nine nuclear reactors in operation produce a mere 6 percent of the total electricity generated in Japan, indicating that Japan has successfully managed to deal with its electricity shortage without too much dependence on nuclear power in the past 10 years.

Likewise, public opinion about Japan’s nuclear energy policy needs to be taken into consideration. According to a survey by the Japan Atomic Energy Relations Organization, 87 percent of respondents in 2010 agreed that nuclear power was necessary, but that the percentage plummeted to 24 percent in 2013, after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In a 2019 survey, only 12 percent of respondents stated that nuclear power generation should be maintained or increased, whereas 60 percent replied that nuclear power should be phased out or abolished immediately. Clearly, a majority of the Japanese people do not support the reactivation of the existing nuclear power plants, much less construction of new ones.

From a different viewpoint, Japan’s reliance on nuclear energy has military implications. U.S. Senator Edward Markey has pointed out the possibility of nuclear proliferation in Northeast Asia, warning that Japan’s stockpile of plutonium amounted to 48 tons as of 2017, which was nearly equal to the U.S. military’s stores and sufficient to create more than 6,000 nuclear warheads. Some experts, such as Professor Arima Tetsuo at Waseda University, have argued that the possession of a vast amount of plutonium – more than necessary for commercial use – symbolizes Japan is keeping opening the option to possess nuclear weapons. Paradoxically however, Tomas Kaberger, chair of the Executive Board of the Renewable Energy Institute, contended that nuclear reactors and reprocessing plants could be targeted in the event of armed attack, increasing Japan’s military vulnerability.

lthough the Suga administration does not plan to build new nuclear reactors, the government would depend on nuclear energy to achieve the carbon-neutral goal. This is because most lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) insist on the necessity of nuclear energy, which is regarded as a rich source of political support. However, an increasing number of LDP politicians have been supportive of the gradual decommissioning of the nuclear power plants.

Akimoto Masatoshi, former parliamentary vice minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, is the most conspicuous LDP legislator advocating for decommissioning nuclear reactors in Japan. Akimoto, a key ally of Suga, has argued that it is possible to create a carbon-free society without nuclear reactors. Likewise, Kono Taro who has prime ministerial ambitions and serves as minister for administrative reform and regulatory reform, has been convinced that it is desirable for Japan to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear energy by facilitating the further introduction of renewable energy……….

Without doubt, the landscape of international politics has been transforming in response to the global climate change and energy transformation, which will eventually change Japanese politics. On March 11, five former prime ministers – Hosokawa Morihiro, Murayama Tomiichi, Koizumi Junichiro, Hatoyama Yukio, and Kan Naoto – expressed a joint declaration calling for the Suga government’s policy shift toward a nuclear-free Japan. Learning from the lessons of Fukushima, Suga and candidates for future Japanese prime minister who share nuclear-free ideals, such as Kono Taro and Environment Minister Koizumi Shinjiro, are expected to take bold actions to transform Japan’s energy policy toward a carbon-free and nuclear-free Japan.  https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/can-japan-be-both-carbon-free-and-nuclear-free/

April 8, 2021 Posted by | ENERGY, Japan | Leave a comment

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