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Govt plan to reuse radioactive soil for agriculture meets opposition

BNA 14th June 2018 Japan’s plan to reuse soil contaminated with radiation from the
Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant accident for agriculture is sparking
something of its own nuclear reaction. Residents and other critics don’t
want any part of it.
https://www.bna.com/blowback-japanese-plan-n73014476527/

June 18, 2018 Posted by | environment, Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Hopes for peace following the Trump-Kim summit are likely to be short-lived

The scary truths about Trump’s nuclear summit https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/15/the-scary-truths-about-trump-s-nuclear-summit/ In which Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un compared the size of their nuclear buttons. Violet Blue, @violetblue   

In the first summit meeting between the leaders of the United States and North Korea, Donald Trump met with Kim Jong-un, on June 12, 2018, in Singapore. The two leaders smiled warmly, posed for cameras as friends, shook hands, and Trump spoke in glowing terms of admiration about Kim at the news conference.

The summit came after a year and a half of both men terrorizing the world with open threats of thermonuclear annihilation and childish public insults. Trump derisively nicknamed the North Korean dictator “Rocket Man” and called him “fat and short,” while Kim Jong-un called Trump “a mentally deranged U.S. dotard.” This week’s historic meeting was nearly scrapped by Trump in a threatening, yet passive-aggressive letter to Jong-un that tried to make the cancellation look like it was North Korea’s idea.

On behalf of the United States, Trump conceded to Kim the discontinuation of joint military exercises with South Korea and to withdraw troops stationed there; he also gave Jong-un international standing and lavished him with compliments. He echoed North Korean rhetoric, which characterizes the military exercises as “very provocative.”

In response to accusations about giving away the farm for a handful of rocks and rusty Nuka Cola bottle caps, USA Today reported that other than agreeing to a meeting, Trump said “I gave up nothing.”

In return, we got a crazy-vague joint statement wrapped in a PR stunt. All North Korea gave us was a meeting. The signed agreement had no specificsabout denuclearization. The 1 1/2 page document ignored North Korea’s existing stockpile of nuclear weapons, had no verification provisions whatsoever, and failed to address ongoing issues of its attacks, kidnappings, and physical threats on Japan and South Korea.

North Korea has historically avoided true nuclear disarmament, preferring to qualify any agreements instead as denuclearization of the peninsula. “That has always been interpreted as a call for the United States to remove its “nuclear umbrella” protecting South Korea and Japan,” wrote Reuters. The country has promised denuclearization since the 1990s and has repeatedly ignored that promise as a rule.

Emerging from the summit as a victorious bringer of peace on Earth, Trump tweeted that “everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”

It was a stunning concession when Trump announced, “We will stop the war games which will save us a tremendous amount of money.” It shocked and baffled South Korea and other allies, the Pentagon, US military officials, and members of the Republican Party. This came hot on the heels of Trump saying it would be better if South Korea and Japan protect themselves.

South Korea and Japan are not feeling the same love in the air as Trump and Jong-un. “His announcement was a surprise even to President Moon Jae-in’s government in Seoul,” wrote Reuters. “One South Korean official said he initially thought Trump had misspoken.” South Korea’s largest newspaper Chosun Ilbo openly worried that the North will keep its nuclear weapons program permanently as a result of Trump’s concessions, describing the summit as “dumbfounding and nonsensical.”

You see, we’ve allied ourselves to help protect South Korea for some pretty big reasons. If, like Trump, you’re encountering a North Korea-US summit with no prep whatsoever, here’s a quick bit of background.

North and South Korea have been divided since 1945; for a short period Russia occupied the North while the US occupied the south; during the war, China aided the north and the US aided the south (we lost 54,246 lives and 7,704 American soldiers are still unaccounted for). The Korean War ended with an armistice agreement but no peace settlement, so technically the war has never ended. American military remains in the South as part of a mutual defense treaty.

Fast forward to 1963 and the world finds out that the North has begun building a nuclear reactor. Then a nuclear weapons program in the 1980s. The first time North Korea committed to denuclearization was 1992’s Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula — though historically, nuclear inspectors have been barred from surveying North Korean facilities.

Earlier this year, a team of Stanford University experts — one who visited North Korean nuclear facilities multiple times — formulated a detailed planfor the dismantlement of the North Korean program with a 10- to 15-year estimate. In statements surrounding the summit, Trump — who has no science advisor — said “I think whoever wrote that [estimate] is wrong.”

Before going into the summit Trump bragged about his lack of preparation and said that he “will know, just [by] my touch, my feel” how to assess Kim Jong-un’s nuclear plan.
Trump, who coasted into the White House on his sole qualification as a dealmaker, came straight to the North Korean denuclearization summit after failing to make a deal about milk with Canada. That was at the G-7 summit in Quebec, to which he arrived late and left early and wholly tanked by withdrawing the US from the signed trade declaration, all while somehow managing to piss off the one country known as the world’s friendliest. He spent the weekend petulantly talking smack about the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, whom he called “very dishonest and weak.”

He ran from G-7 straight into the arms of Kim Jong-un, with whom he seemed genuinely pleased. As a token, Trump commissioned a gift for North Korea’s leader in the form of a fake Hollywood movie trailer about the two of them, starring together, bringing peace and happiness to the world. It included lines like “featuring President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un … in a meeting to remake history.” He played it on an iPad for the dictator in their private meeting. Washington Post reported that when it aired in the press room, journalists assumed the video was North Korean propaganda.

Reuters explained that prior to Trump’s elevation of Kim, he “was an international pariah accused of ordering the killing of his uncle, a half-brother and hundreds of officials suspected of disloyalty.” They added, “The North Korean leader had been isolated, his country accused by rights groups of widespread human rights abuses and under U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”

The Washington Post noted the UN’s report “described the country as a ruthless police state where as many as 120,000 people are kept in political gulags under horrific conditions; other prisons, effectively labor camps, hold people for ordinary crimes. Telephone calls are monitored and citizens are punished for watching or listening to foreign broadcasts.”

Now put that in the context of nuclearization. According to U.S. military intelligence, defense experts and North “watchers” (cited in Newsweek), in 2017 it was estimated that North Korea has “enough plutonium stored up to create a minimum of six nuclear weapons, but other estimates were as high as 10 to 16 nuclear weapons.”

So if Kim is a dictator with nukes and very aggressive hackers, there’s no reason to doubt that both Kim and Trump are fine with holding the world hostage under threat of nuclear annihilation for whatever their real endgames really are. Last August Trump warned that any North Korean attack “will be met with fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

For North Korea’s grand finale to its founder’s 105th birthday party in April 2017, it celebrated with a propaganda video showing missiles being launched.

“Eventually the nukes found their target, San Francisco, and exploded in massive fiery eruptions, engulfing the city in flames. The audience appeared to applaud San Francisco’s destruction,” wrote nervous Bay Area press. “The image of flickering flames overlaid shots of an American flag and a military cemetery.”

Let’s just hope they stick to comparing the size of their buttons.

June 15, 2018 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Why TEPCO should quickly close down Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant

Editorial: TEPCO should quickly decommission Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant,  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180615/p2a/00m/0na/026000c  (Mainichi Japan).  Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has finally announced that it will decommission its Fukushima No. 2 Nuclear Power Plant, more than seven years after the outbreak of the ongoing crisis at its tsunami-ravaged Fukushima No. 1 plant. If realized, all 10 nuclear reactors in Fukushima Prefecture would be dismantled.

The presence of the No. 2 power station has offended Fukushima Prefecture residents, many of whom are still living as evacuees, and others who have suffered groundless rumors about radiation contamination. TEPCO needs to swiftly draw up a road map that will enable smooth decommissioning of the complex.

Like the No. 1 plant, the No. 2 complex was also hit by tsunami generated by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. However, some of its external power sources remained intact, averting meltdowns at the plant.

The No. 2 plant remains offline, but a massive amount of nuclear fuel remains in the complex. Since prefectural residents have deeply rooted concerns about the plant’s safety and its possible reactivation in the future, the prefectural government has urged TEPCO and the national government, which effectively has the largest stake in the utility, to decommission the plant at an early date.

Reactivation of a nuclear plant requires consent from the local municipalities hosting the complex. Therefore, the resumption of operations at the No. 2 power station has always been a politically unfeasible option.

Moreover, more than 30 years have passed since operation of its four reactors began.

To operate the reactors beyond the 40-year limit set under new rules introduced after the outbreak of the nuclear crisis, it is necessary to invest a vast amount of money for additional safety measures. That means there were no merits to keeping the power station open in terms of the utility’s finances.

Nevertheless, TEPCO had delayed the decision to decommission the complex.

Once a utility decides to decommission a nuclear reactor, the operator cannot regard the facility or the nuclear fuel inside it as part of the company’s assets, weakening its financial base. It appears TEPCO may have waited to make the decision until the company had restored its financial strength.

However, even considering the financial strain that TEPCO experienced after the March 2011 disaster, it deserves criticism for its lack of sincerity, failing to provide a sufficient explanation to the public about its plans for the reactors.

TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa, who notified Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori of the decision, has admitted that the No. 2 plant “has hindered disaster recovery.” If so, the utility should promptly begin preparations to decommission the complex.

The power company already faces the extremely difficult task of decommissioning the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. In order to smoothly carry out the decommissioning of the No. 2 plant as well, the company must exercise wisdom in allocating its management resources, such as funds and personnel. We hope TEPCO will cooperate with the government in swiftly materializing its plan for decommissioning the No. 2 power station.

The decommissioning of the Fukushima No. 2 plant would leave the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Niigata Prefecture as TEPCO’s sole atomic power station. This means that TEPCO may step up its efforts to persuade the local municipalities hosting that power plant to accept its reactivation. However, the company must keep in mind that the main priority is to ensure safety at the plant and to obtain the understanding and acceptance of local communities.

June 15, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Tough sanctions will remain on North Korea until its complete denuclearisation – says USA

Pompeo says North Korea sanctions to remain until complete denuclearisation, Reuters, Christine Kim, Michael Martina– 14 June 18, SEOUL/BEIJING – Tough sanctions will remain on North Korea until its complete denuclearisation, the U.S. secretary of state said on Thursday, apparently contradicting the North’s view that the process agreed at this week’s summit would be phased and reciprocal.

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a joint statement after their meeting in Singapore this week that reaffirmed the North’s commitment to “work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”, while Trump “committed to provide security guarantees”.

Trump later told a news conference he would end joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises.

“President Trump has been incredibly clear about the sequencing of denuclearisation and relief from the sanctions,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters after meeting South Korea’s president and Japan’s foreign minister in Seoul.

“We are going to get complete denuclearisation; only then will there be relief from the sanctions,” he said.

North Korean state media reported on Wednesday that Kim and Trump had recognized the principle of “step-by-step and simultaneous action” to achieve peace and denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula.

The summit statement provided no details on when North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons program or how the dismantling might be verified.

Skeptics of how much the meeting achieved pointed to the North Korean leadership’s long-held view that nuclear weapons are a bulwark against what it fears are U.S. plans to overthrow it and unite the Korean peninsula.

……. Kim understood getting rid of his nuclear arsenal needed to be done quickly and there would only be relief from stringent U.N. sanctions on North Korea after its “complete denuclearisation”, Pompeo said.

Moon later said South Korea would be flexible when it comes to military pressure on North Korea if it is sincere about denuclearisation.

Also on Thursday, North and South Korea held their first military talks in more than a decade. The talks followed on from an inter-Korean summit in April at which Moon and Kim agreed to defuse tension and cease “hostile acts”.

Speaking later in the day in Beijing, Pompeo said China, Japan and South Korea all acknowledged a corner had been turned on the Korean peninsula issue, but that all three had also acknowledged sanctions remain in place until denuclearisation is complete.

…… we have made very clear that the sanctions and the economic relief that North Korea will receive will only happen after the full denuclearisation, the complete denuclearisation of North Korea.” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa/pompeo-says-north-korea-sanctions-to-remain-until-complete-denuclearization-idUSKBN1JA07O

June 15, 2018 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Completely ignored in nuclear summit talks – the forgotten North Korean victims of 1945 atomic bombs

Trump–Kim: an agenda for forgotten nuclear victims, ps://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/trump-kim-agenda-forgotten-nuclear-victimsThe Interpreter, BY Lauren Richardson, @Lauren_ANU  14 June 18

Like most Korea observers, in the lead-up to the Trump–Kim summit I have been inundated with questions from journalists and friends alike. Does Kim Jong-un have any actual intention to denuclearise? Would Donald Trump settle for anything less than complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament (CVID) of North Korea’s nuclear program? Will North Korea’s human rights abuses be on the agenda? And, in that vein, will Trump raise the issue of North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens?

There is, however, one question that no one is asking. And it is a crucial one.

What about the North Korean A-bomb victims, the only survivors of the US nuclear attacks on Japan, who have never had recourse to monetary redress? Will they be on the summit agenda?

The absence of this question in the summit discussions is unsurprising. North Koreans are the forgotten victims of the atomic bombs and represent a gap in global memory of nuclear issues. It is not commonly known that when the US dropped atomic bombs over Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August 1945, roughly 10% of the victims of these attacks were of Korean descent.

Koreans were residing in the A-bomb target cities in large numbers under colonial auspices: in many cases they had been brought there against their will, forced to perform labour in Japan’s military industrial factories.

And it is a virtually unknown fact that when Koreans were repatriated to their newly divided homeland in the years following Japan’s surrender, approximately 2000 of the A-bomb survivors wound up north of the 38th parallel, suffering from the unrelenting effects of the radiation blast. Many of them are still alive and ailing today. In a further twist of fate, owing to the lack of diplomatic relations between Pyongyang and Tokyo, North Korean victims were precluded from financial assistance provided by the Japanese government to overseas A-bomb survivors, including South Koreans, in later decades. This was premised on a belief that “the money would likely never reach them”.

The plight of the North Koreans would never have come to light at all were it not for an activist named Lee Sil-gun. I have sat with Lee in Hiroshima on a number of occasions to interview him about his advocacy efforts. He was born in Japan in 1929 to Korean parents, and became an atomic bomb victim by virtue of exposure to residual radiation in Hiroshima.

In the post-war years, as the plight of A-bomb victims became politicised in Japan and the redress movement launched by South Korean victims gradually gained traction, he was dismayed to find that the voiceless North Koreans had been left out of the discourse:

I knew that there were victims in the North because I farewelled them at the port when they were shipped off from Japan after the Second World War.

Lee began embarking on annual visits to Pyongyang in the 1990s in an attempt to reach out to the victims there. He was supported in this endeavour by a small group of dedicated Japanese anti-nuclear activists.

They found the North Koreans in a terrible predicament: without recourse to adequate medical care, the victims were resorting to various primitive methods to treat their radiation-related maladies. They were burning sulphur, for instance, and using the smoke to sterilise recurrent wounds.

On discovering this, Lee and his supporters arranged a dispatch of Japanese medical practitioners to the DPRK to train local doctors in the treatment of A-bomb illness; they then organised a converse delegation of victims and doctors from North Korea to Japan, to respectively undergo treatment and be familiarised with advanced medical equipment.

North Korean officials were appreciative of and inspired by Lee’s efforts, and in 1997 issued him with an astonishing request. They asked Lee if he would organise a photo exhibition in North Korea depicting the destructive impact of nuclear weapons. Lee happily obliged, and this exhibit came to fruition two years later: 77 photos were displayed in the Grand People’s Study House in central Pyongyang from 13–18 August 1999.

I found a newspaper article about this event in an archive in Seoul. When I asked Lee how he managed to pull it off, he became choked with emotion. Through tears, he said:

I went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and asked if I could borrow some of their posters and photos. At first they were reluctant, but eventually they let them have them for a month. I was so happy.

Four reasons make plain why this issue should be part of the Trump–Kim summit and any ongoing US–DPRK talks.

First, for Trump to acknowledge North Korea’s long-ailing A-bomb victims would be the best way to set the scene for talks on denuclearisation. Consider Barack Obama’s playbook, for instance. When he made an historic visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in 2016, paying homage to the nuclear victims, it did wonders for US–Japan relations. Paying tribute to the North Korean victims at the summit would serve to frame the negotiations in such a way that Pyongyang was not the only party with adverse nuclear potential at the table.

Second, the issue of North Korean A-bomb victims would be a reminder that the devastating potential of nuclear weapons is embedded in the memory of North Korea. This should factor into Trump’s strategic calculus of Kim’s intentions for his nuclear program.

To be sure, Kim is young and did not experience first-hand the turmoil in Northeast in the aftermath of the US atomic bombings. But his grandfather did. And his own father permitted the efforts of activists from Japan to advocate on behalf of North Korean A-bomb victims – the same victims that live among Kim Jong-un’s populace today. Thus, if Trump does not manage to achieve the grand CVID bargain that he hopes for at the summit, he shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Kim intends to use his nukes in the near future.

Third, any settlement regarding the “denuclearisation” of the Korean Peninsula should reasonably entail the establishment of a specialist treatment facility for A-bomb victims in the North. Two years ago, I visited a nursing home that offers round-the-clock treatment to the South Korean victims in Hapcheon County; the patients reported to me that they were still having tiny shards of glass surgically removed from their faces all these decades down the track.

While I don’t wish to suggest that the South Koreans are better off – in fact, they are still suffering immensely – the North Koreans have been left without any such facility. If the 1945 chapter of nuclear history has still not been settled, how can we expect to settle the current one with North Korea?

Lastly, raising the North Korean A-bomb victims issue would serve as a stark reminder at the summit that there is still only one government that has deployed nuclear weapons in conflict, and it is not Pyongyang. To the contrary, (the now) North and South Koreans were the collateral damage of that historic conflict, and many are still awaiting redress.

* This piece is based on a forthcoming journal article.

June 15, 2018 Posted by | North Korea, Reference, weapons and war | Leave a comment

In North Korea, Kim Jong Un is seen as the tough winner, in Singapore nuclear summit

North Korea’s view of negotiations with Trump: Kim was the tough one. SMH, By Kirsty Needham, 13 June 18, Singapore: A day after Donald Trump gave the world his version of the historic talks with Kim Jong-un, North Korean media has provided the view of the other person in the room.

Trump spoke casually at a press conference about ending US “war games” with South Korea, but the North Korean state news agency KCNA highlighted it as a win for Kim. The news agency said the halt to joint military exercises would continue while the US and North Korea undertook “goodwill dialogue”.

North Korea also highlighted Trump’s offer of security guarantees and a lifting of economic sanctions as negotiations advance and the mutual relationship improves.

Kim underlined Trump’s “bold decision on halting irritating and hostile military actions”, which, according to KCNA, came after Kim told Trump the two sides should stop antagonising one another.

An end to the “war games” was not in the letter signed by the two men after negotiations ended on Tuesday. The militaries of South Korea and the US also revealed they had not been informed of the move before Trump made his televised comments.

KCNA reported that Kim had won support from Trump for “the principle of step-by-step and simultaneous action in achieving peace”.

“Kim Jong-un clarified the stand that if the US side takes genuine measures for building trust in order to improve the DPRK-US relationship, the DPRK, too, can continue to take additional goodwill measures of the next stage commensurate with them,” said the KCNA report.

This means the US must offer concessions before it will see further steps from North Korea. The need for “simultaneous” action may be the reason nothing more concrete was signed at the summit, and why there was as yet no agreement for a peace treaty to end the Korean War, despite high expectations.

The version presented to the North Korean public in some ways presents a mirror image of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s depiction of the US side as tough negotiators who were unwilling to budge on the demand for complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation by North
Korea.

Through the lens of the North Korean media reports, it was Kim who held the North Korean line and was the tough negotiator.

The North Korean media nonetheless trumpeted the improved rapport between the two sides and friendly atmospherics of the meeting.

…….China also welcomed the end of war games, with foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang saying the halt to military exercises was an endorsement of China’s roadmap for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

“The facts have proven that the China-proposed ‘suspension for suspension’ initiative has been materialised … The DPRK-US summit is what China has been looking forward to and striving for all along,” Geng said.https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/kim-jong-un-the-tough-negotiator-with-trump-says-north-korean-media-20180613-p4zl8s.html

June 15, 2018 Posted by | North Korea, politics international | Leave a comment

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings considers scrapping the shuttered Fukushima Dai-ni, or No. 2, nuclear plant

Japanese utility eyes scrapping 2nd Fukushima nuclear plant http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/japanese-utility-eyes-scrapping-2nd-fukushima-nuclear-plant-1.4705532, When Fukushima No. 2 is dismantled, Japan will have 35 workable reactors, down from 54 pre-disaster, The Associated Press  

The utility responsible for meltdowns at a nuclear power plant in northeast Japan seven years ago said Thursday for the first time publicly that it will start making concrete plans to decommission another plant in Fukushima that narrowly escaped the crisis.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said it will decide on the timeline and other details before formally announcing the dismantling four reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ni, or No. 2, plant, which has never restarted since the 2011 disaster.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi, or No. 1, plant was heavily damaged in a March, 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami. Three reactors had meltdowns and a fourth had damage to its building. Decommissioning of those reactors has started and the two others are set to be scrapped.

An additional decommissioning in Fukushima would mean all 10 of TEPCO’s reactors in Fukushima would be dismantled eventually.

TEPCO has said a Fukushima No. 2 decommissioning would cost about 280 billion yen ($3.3 billion Cdn), in addition to the estimated 22 trillion yen ($259 billion Cdn) needed for the ongoing Fukushima No. 1 cleanup.

Fukushima officials and residents have demanded TEPCO decommission its remaining reactors, saying uncertainty has hampered reconstruction.

TEPCO president Tomoaki Kobayakawa, who met Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori at the governor’s office, announced the plan following the governor’s renewed request to scrap Fukushima No. 2.

“We thought prolonging the ambiguity would hamper local reconstruction,” Kobayakawa said.

Uchibori welcomed the decision, saying TEPCO’s plan for Fukushima No. 2 decommissioning would help alleviate negative image and safety concerns.

TEPCO had kept mum on its decision on Fukushima No. 2, which has been offline since the tsunami and its restart was thought to be a difficult proposition because of local protests.

Only a handful of reactors restarted

In addition, its four reactors are more than 30 years old and would have required TEPCO to make huge investments to improve safety to get approvals for restarts.

TEPCO would be left with only Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata, northern Japan, to produce nuclear power. Local restart approvals for two of its seven reactors are pending.

When Fukushima No. 2 decommissioning becomes official, the number of workable reactors in Japan would fall to 35, down from 54 before the disaster.

Nuclear energy now accounts for less than 2 per cent of Japan’s energy mix since most reactors were idled after the 2011 disaster. Only five reactors have since restarted.

While the government of pro-business Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pushing to start up as many reactors as possible, restarts are coming slowly as anti-nuclear sentiment remains strong and regulators have stepped up screening process.

Still, the government says nuclear energy should account for 20-22 per cent of Japan’s energy mix by fiscal 2030 in a draft energy plan that experts say as unrealistic.

Japanese utilities have been opting to scrap aging reactors nearing their 40-year lifespan rather than take advantage of an exemption that would allow them to extend their operation for up to 20 more years. Meeting new safety standards put in place after the Fukushima disaster costs more, making nuclear power more expensive than it used to be.

June 15, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, Japan | Leave a comment

Japan approves 70-year plan to scrap nuclear reprocessing plant

 https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180613/p2g/00m/0dm/072000c

 (Mainichi Japan)  TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japan’s nuclear watchdog on Wednesday approved a plan to scrap a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant northeast of Tokyo over a 70-year period with the cost projected at 1 trillion yen ($9 billion).

The facility in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture went into operation in 1977. It was Japan’s first spent-fuel reprocessing plant built under the nation’s nuclear fuel cycle policy, which aims to reprocess all spent nuclear fuel in order to reuse the extracted plutonium and uranium as reactor fuel in the resource-scarce country.

But the policy has run into a dead end as the completion of a separate fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori Prefecture, built on the technological expertise of the Tokaimura plant, has been delayed by more than 20 years.

The decommissioning cost will be shouldered by taxpayers as the Japan Atomic Energy Agency operating the Tokaimura plant, is backed by the state. Where to store the waste accumulated at the plant is undecided.

In 2014, the agency decided to decommission the plant due to its aging and the huge cost to run it under stricter safety rules introduced after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis.

According to the plan approved by the Nuclear Regulation Authority, around 310 canisters of highly radioactive vitrified waste and some 360 cubic meters of radioactive waste are currently stored at the facility.

About 770 billion yen is estimated for the disposal of such waste and decommissioning of the facility and roughly 217 billion yen for the 10-year preparation work.

June 15, 2018 Posted by | Japan, reprocessing | Leave a comment

LDP-backed candidate wins governor’s race in Niigata

A candidate backed by the pro-nuclear Liberal Democratic Party won the Niigata gubernatorial election June 10. TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in the Niigata prefecture is the largest nuclear power plant in the world. In December 2017, the Nuclear Regulation Authority completed its major safety screenings of the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors at the plant.
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Hideyo Hanazumi, a candidate backed by the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, celebrates his election victory in Niigata on June 10.
 
June 11, 2018
NIIGATA–A candidate backed by the pro-nuclear Liberal Democratic Party won the Niigata gubernatorial election June 10, but he remained unclear on whether he would approve the restart of Japan’s largest nuclear power plant.
Hideyo Hanazumi, 60, former vice commandant of the Japan Coast Guard, defeated two other candidates, including Chikako Ikeda, 57, a former Niigata prefectural assemblywoman who was supported by five opposition parties.
The election was held to replace Ryuichi Yoneyama, 50, who resigned in April over a sex scandal.
Yoneyama had shown a cautious stance toward approving the resumption of operations at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in the prefecture.
In December 2017, the Nuclear Regulation Authority completed its major safety screenings of the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors at the plant. That shifted the focus on whether the Niigata prefectural government and the two municipal governments of Kashiwazaki and Kariwa would give their consent to bring the reactors online.
However, Yoneyama said he first wanted to find the cause of the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Hanazumi, who also received support from Komeito, the junior partner in the ruling coalition, took a cautious stance on the reactor restarts during the campaign.
When his victory became certain on the night of June 10, Hanazumi said: “I will firmly maintain the (prefectural government’s) work (of looking into the cause of the Fukushima accident). Based on the results of the work, I will make a judgment as the leader (of Niigata Prefecture).”
He also referred to the possibility of holding another election when he decides on whether to approve the reactor restarts.
Hanazumi, who was vice governor of Niigata Prefecture from 2013 to 2015, garnered 546,670 votes, compared with 509,568 for Ikeda, who was backed by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the Democratic Party for the People, the Japanese Communist Party, the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party.
Another candidate, Satoshi Annaka, 40, a former Gosen city assemblyman, received 45,628 ballots.
Voter turnout was 58.25 percent, up 5.2 points from 53.05 percent in the previous gubernatorial election held in 2016.
During the campaign, Hanazumi kept a distance from the Abe administration and the LDP as criticism mounted against the prime minister over scandals related to school operators Moritomo Gakuen and the Kake Educational Institution.
Ikeda had also pledged to take over Yoneyama’s work concerning the Fukushima disaster, and she blasted the Abe administration for its pro-nuclear stance.
However, she was unable to effectively differentiate herself from Hanazumi over the restarts at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.
In Tokyo, LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai told reporters that Hanazumi’s victory is good news for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s attempt to seek a third term in the LDP presidential election in autumn.
“It’s certain that favorable winds have begun blowing,” Nikai said.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201806110049.html

June 13, 2018 Posted by | Japan | , , | Leave a comment

The Singapore nuclear summit – a huge win for Kim Jong UN

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance on a nuclear weapons program in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang September 3, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS

The Guardian view on Trump in Singapore: a huge win – for North Korea https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/12/the-guardian-view-on-trump-in-singapore-a-huge-win-for-north-korea  13 June 18 
Editorial   A confident leader strode into the Singapore summit and won. Kim Jong-un went with a plan, gave little and left with plenty: bolstered status and diplomatic leverage, lavish praise from the US president, the promise of an end to US-South Korean military drills – and, surely, a growing confidence that North Korea is doing well at this game. A meeting supposed to effect a breakthrough on denuclearisation looked “more like a big welcome party to the nuclear-armed club”, in the acid but accurate words of one observer.

Better than war, for sure. But since it was Donald Trump who raised that spectre, giving him credit for dispelling it would be like calling a man a life-saver when second thoughts stay his hand from murder. The US president handed over gift after gift in exchange for the inflation of his ego. He does not know or does not care that his country went home poorer than it came. The language in the joint statement was weaker than in previous agreements– the very significant difference being that the North is now much further advanced in its nuclear programme. There was not even a pledge that either side “shall” take action; just the assertion that North Korea will “commit to working towards” denuclearisation, which it sees as a general, not unilateral, process.

In return Mr Trump axed the drills with, it seems, no warning to Seoul (or even US forces). Worse, he described them as “provocative” and “inappropriate”, not just giving the North what it wanted, but suggesting it was right to demand it. He added that he hoped to withdraw US troops from South Korea at some point – further undermining the long alliance.

Mr Trump’s recounting of the meeting would have been laughable were it not so shocking. He explained to the North Koreans that they could have “the best hotels in the world” on the beaches they use for artillery drills. He presented Mr Kim with a Hollywood-style movie trailer laying out the choice before him, complete with growling voiceover. He described the 100,000 or more North Koreans held in prison camps as “one of the big winners” of the meeting, though not even the vaguest assurance was extracted on their behalf. While finding time for another crack at Canada’s Justin Trudeau, he called Mr Kim “a very talented man” who wants to do the right thing and loves his country. He praised him for “running it tough” (quite the euphemism for a dictatorship with human rights atrocities which the UN calls unparalleled in the modern world). And the comprehensive, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation on which the US was to insist? Ah: “There was no time!” to cover that. But he would be surprised if the North Koreans hadn’t begun already. Mr Trump thinks that the two sides probably have a rough transcript capturing all this, but does not need to verify anything because “I have one of the great memories of all time”. No satirist would dare to invent this.

Hope for the best but don’t expect much progress in lower-level talks next week; nor at meetings at the White House or in Pyongyang, mooted by the US president. China has already implied that it may be time to relax sanctions; South Korea and Russia have hinted that they are similarly minded. Even Mr Trump acknowledged that in six months’ time it may emerge that the North Koreans are not taking action (adding, in a startling moment of candour, that “I will find some sort of excuse” rather than admit that).

“He trusts me and I trust him,” Mr Trump boldly declared of Mr Kim. But if the US president is so naive, surely the North Korean leader cannot be. In so far as the US president has any enduring belief, it appears to be that disruption is a good in and of itself: that throwing everyone else off-balance must benefit the world’s only superpower, as one official has suggested (his colleague had a cruder characterisation). Withdrawal from the Iran deal proved that America’s enemies cannot rely upon its word. The G7 and Singapore summits demonstrated that allies cannot either. But Tuesday’s meeting also showed that Americans have reason to be wary. They too cannot count upon Mr Trump to live up to his promises.

June 13, 2018 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

What the Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un document actually says

Singapore summit: Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un document released after historic meeting http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/donald-trump-and-north-korea-leader-statement-after-meeting/9861688–June 12, 2018, Sentosa Island

The text from the document signed by Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un has been made available. Here it is in full:

President Donald J Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong-un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a first, historic summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018.

President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un conducted a comprehensive, in-depth, and sincere exchange of opinions on the issues related to the establishment of new US-DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong-un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

Convinced that the establishment of new US-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognising that mutual confidence-building can promote the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un state the following:

  1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
  2. The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
  3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
  4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
Having acknowledged that the US-DPRK summit — the first in history — was an epochal event of great significance and overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening of a new future, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un commit to implement the stipulations in this joint statement fully and expeditiously.

The United States and the DPRK commit to hold follow-on negotiations led by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the US-DPRK summit.

President Donald J Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong-un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new US-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.

June 13, 2018 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Amazingly High Radiation in Tokyo Bay — 131,000 Bq per Meter Squared

Abstract  http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0193414

A monitoring survey was conducted from August 2011 to July 2016 of the spatiotemporal
distribution in the 400 km2 area of the northern part of Tokyo Bay and in rivers flowing into it of radiocesium released from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident.

The average inventory in the river mouth (10 km2) was 131 kBq⋅m-2 and 0.73 kBq⋅m-2 in the central bay (330 km2) as the decay corrected value on March 16, 2011. Most of the radiocesium that flowed into Tokyo Bay originated in the northeastern section of the Tokyo metropolitan area, where the highest precipitation zone of 137Cs in soil was almost the same level as that in Fukushima City, then flowed into and was deposited in the Old-Edogawa River estuary, deep in Tokyo Bay.

The highest precipitation of radiocesium measured in the high contaminated zone was 460 kBq⋅m-2. The inventory in sediment off the estuary of Old-Edogawa was 20.1 kBq⋅m-2 in August 2011 immediately after the accident, but it increased to 104 kBq⋅m-2 in July 2016. However, the radiocesium diffused minimally in sediments in the central area of Tokyo Bay in the five years following the FDNPP accident.

The flux of radiocesium off the estuary decreased slightly immediately after the accident and conformed almost exactly to the values predicted based on its radioactive decay. Contrarily, the inventory of radiocesium in the sediment has increased.

It was estimated that of the 8.33 TBq precipitated from the atmosphere in the catchment regions of the rivers Edogawa and Old-Edogawa, 1.31 TBq migrated through rivers and was deposited in the sediments of the Old-Edogawa estuary by July 2016. Currently, 0.25 TBq⋅yr-1 of radiocesium continues to flow into the deep parts of Tokyo Bay.

June 13, 2018 Posted by | Japan, water | 1 Comment

Scientists predict millions of climate refugees – but where will they go?

Universal migration predicts human movements under climate change, Physics World, 12 Jun 2018 

Climate change is expected to displace millions of people through impacts like sea level rise, crop failures, and more frequent extreme weather. Yet scientists still cannot predict where these expected climate-induced migrants are likely to go in the coming decades.

A new study, published today in Environmental Research Letters, seeks to address this need by incorporating climate impacts into a universal model of human mobility.

To demonstrate the efficacy of the new approach, the study focused on the case of sea level rise (SLR) and human migration in Bangladesh, where the authors estimate that more than two million Bangladeshis may be displaced from their homes by 2100 because of rising sea levels alone.

The study, led by Columbia University, New York, used a probabilistic model combined with population, geographic, and climatic data to predict the sources, destinations, and flux of potential migrants caused by sea level rise.

Lead author Dr Kyle Davis, from Columbia University, explained: “More than 40 per cent of Bangladesh’s population is especially vulnerable to future sea level rise, as they live in low-lying areas that are often exposed to extreme natural events.

“However, SLR is a very different type of migration driver from short-lived natural hazards, in that it will make certain areas permanently uninhabitable.”

The team’s results using Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios showed that mean SLR will cause population displacements in 33 per cent of Bangladesh’s districts, and 53 per cent under more intensive conditions. By mid-century, they estimated nearly 900,000 people are likely to migrate because of direct inundation from mean SLR alone.

Under the most extreme scenario, of up to 2 metre mean SLR, the number of migrants driven by direct inundation could rise to as many as 2.1 million people by the year 2100. For all RCP scenarios, five districts – Barisal, Chandpur, Munshiganj, Narayanganj, and Shariatpur – are the source for 59 per cent of all migrants.

Their analysis considered mean SLR without normal high tides, so the results – both in terms of inundated area and displaced population – are conservative.

The researchers also estimated the extra jobs, housing and food needed to accommodate these migrants at their destinations. They found that to cope with the numbers likely to be displaced by 2050, 600,000 additional jobs, 200,000 residences and 784 billion food calories will be needed.

These results have clear implications for the places that are likely to receive incoming migrants…….https://physicsworld.com/a/universal-migration-predicts-human-movements-under-climate-change/

June 13, 2018 Posted by | ASIA, climate change | Leave a comment

US demands Japan reduce its plutonium stockpiles

Nikkei Asian Review 10th June 2018 , US demands Japan reduce its plutonium stockpiles. Trump-Kim summit raises
questions about Tokyo’s nuclear exemption. The U.S. has called on Japan to
reduce its high levels of stockpiled plutonium, a move that comes as the
Trump administration seeks to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear
weapons, Nikkei has learned.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-Relations/US-demands-Japan-reduce-its-plutonium-stockpiles

June 13, 2018 Posted by | - plutonium, Japan | Leave a comment

Why wasn’t TEPCO bankrupted? – Japan’s Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center

Why wasn’t TEPCO bankrupted?   http://www.cnic.jp/english/?p=4128   Hajime Matsukubo, CNIC, BY CNIC_ENGLISH · JUNE 4, 2018

The nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO’s) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) has left TEPCO under a huge pile of debt. At the time, there were arguments in favor of dissolving TEPCO, the liable party, but due to the Japanese government’s generous support, the company continues to exist to this day. In this article, we attempt to throw light on the reasons why TEPCO was not bankrupted.

Act on Compensation for Nuclear Damage
Japan’s Act on Compensation for Nuclear Damage states in Section 3, “Where nuclear damage is caused as a result of reactor operation etc. during such operation, the nuclear operator who is engaged in the reactor operation etc. on this occasion shall be liable for the damage, except in the case where the damage is caused by a grave natural disaster of an exceptional character or by an insurrection.” In Section 4, the Act stipulates that “Where nuclear damage is covered by the preceding section, no person other than the nuclear operator who is liable for the damage pursuant to the preceding section shall be liable for the damage.” Thus while imposing on the nuclear power operator unlimited no-fault liability with liability concentrated in its hands, it also provides exemptions in the form of “a grave natural disaster of an exceptional character or by an insurrection.” At the same time, Section 16 provides for necessary government assistance to pay compensation, and Section 17 states that in the case of “a grave natural disaster of an exceptional character or by an insurrection” the government “shall take necessary measures to relieve victims and to prevent the damage from spreading.”
What became a problem at the time of the FNDPS accident was whether or not it had occurred due to a grave natural disaster of an exceptional character. From the outset, the government indicated the stance of not applying the exemption, stating, “As the nuclear power operator, TEPCO should bear liability for damage caused by this nuclear power plant accident.” TEPCO insisted that the accident was due to “a grave natural disaster of an exceptional character” and that “there is a margin for judging that an exemption be invoked,” but eventually accepted liability. 
 
Financing immediately after the accident
Since the exemption was not invoked, TEPCO faced unlimited compensation for the damage caused by the FNDPS accident. In 2011, the government estimated that compensation alone would be of the order of 4.5 trillion yen.
TEPCO’s cash and deposits as the accounts were closed at the end of the third quarter of 2010 (December 31, 2010) were 366.5 billion yen. With company bond redemptions of 500 billion yen coming up in FY2011 and the need to procure fuel worth 800 billion yen, financing from the market was fraught with difficulties after the FNDPS nuclear accident, bringing TEPCO close to bankruptcy.
TEPCO’s cash and deposits leaped up to 2.2 trillion yen at the close of accounts for FY2010 (March 31, 2011). This was almost all in long-term loans. According to news reports at the time, 1.865 trillion yen was provided in loans of three to ten years, with no warranty and at the same interest as before the accident, by eight financial institutions, including the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (600 billion yen), the Mizuho Corporate Bank (500 billion yen) and the Mitsubishi UFJ Bank (300 billion yen). It is said that in the background to this was the statement by the then deputy minister of the Ministry for the Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Kazuo Matsunaga, that “We must also not shirk  responsibility. I would also like to see support from financial institutions.”
TEPCO thus managed to overcome the problems of March 2011, but even after that, arguments insisting that TEPCO be declared bankrupt and go into legal liquidation continued. However, in the end, it was decided to allow the company to survive from the viewpoint that if TEPCO went into legal liquidation compensation to those affected by the nuclear accident would be delayed.
Especially problematical were the electric power bonds issued by TEPCO. The Electricity Business Act allows TEPCO and the other power business operators to issue company bonds with “general collateral” that make it possible to prioritize debt repayment to other creditors. In other words, if a company goes bankrupt, those financial institutions that originally stood to make profits from the purchase of the company bonds would receive first priority in debt repayment, whereas compensation for those affected by the nuclear accident would be on the same pecking order as repayment for other debts (e.g. loans, etc.).
TEPCO’s net assets as of March 31, 2011 were 1.6024 trillion yen. It was clear that the estimate for compensation at the time of 4.5 trillion yen would put TEPCO in a situation of net capital deficiency. The balance of company debt at this time was 4.4251 trillion yen. If TEPCO were to be declared bankrupt at that time, the company debt would first have to be repaid, after which other debts, including the liabilities to those affected by the nuclear accident, would be paid out.
There was also the option of allowing TEPCO to go bankrupt, and having discharged the debts the government would, in a separate deal, then pay out compensation from the national treasury to those affected by the nuclear accident. However, since the accident was still ongoing, liquidating TEPCO might pose obstacles to the work of the post-accident clean-up. Considering this, it is not unreasonable that the government at the time decided to allow TEPCO to continue to exist. However, by allowing TEPCO to survive, the stockholders who had invested in TEPCO and the financial institutions that had provided funds, i.e. the investors who bore a certain risk for the sake of profits, suffered no losses, and in their place the greater population of Japan overall would take on the burden. That was how the current TEPCO survival scheme was born.
The TEPCO survival scheme
In August 2011, the government enacted the Nuclear Damage Compensation Facilitation Corporation Act to avoid a TEPCO bankruptcy. The scheme inherent in the act is as follows:
1) The government shall establish the Nuclear Damage Compensation Facilitation Corporation (later reorganized as the Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation in August 2014) as the facilitating organization handling compensation payments and so on in the case of nuclear damage, and nuclear power operators are to establish a reserve fund (general contributions) to provide compensation.
2) The Corporation shall levy a special contribution from the nuclear operator that caused the accident (in this case TEPCO).
3) The Corporation shall provide financial facilitation (granting of funds, acceptance of stocks, loans, purchase of company bonds, etc.) when the Corporation’s facilitation is required for compensation by the nuclear operator. To procure the funds necessary for financial facilitation, the Corporation can issue government-guaranteed compensation bonds to borrow money from financial institutions.
4) In the case that special support is required from the government, the Corporation and the nuclear operator shall determine the amount of compensation, prepare a “special business plan” that sets out the content and value of the financial support, policies for business management rationalization and so on, and receive approval from the relevant ministers (the Cabinet Office and METI). Following approval, the government will allocate government bonds to the Corporation, the necessary funds then being granted to the nuclear operator by the Corporation.
5) The Corporation shall pay into the national treasury money up to the amount of redemption of the government bonds.
  Based on this scheme, TEPCO and the Corporation devised a Special Emergency Business Plan in November 2011, following up with a Comprehensive Special Business Plan in May 2012, a New Comprehensive Special Business Plan in January 2014 and a New-New Comprehensive Special Business Plan in May 2017. On the basis of these business plans, the government established a government bond allocation limit of 13.5 trillion yen (including decontamination and mid-term storage of radioactive wastes, etc. as well as compensation) for the Corporation and it was decided to provide a grant of 10.2006 trillion yen to TEPCO. In addition to this, the Corporation accepted one trillion yen in TEPCO stocks in July 2012 (making the Corporation the holder of 54% of TEPCO stocks, which would increase to 80% if class B priority stocks were converted to class A stocks).
Furthermore, besides the above, TEPCO also estimates that that 8 trillion yen will be needed for decommissioning and as countermeasures for contaminated water. As a result, the costs involved in dealing with the FNDPS nuclear accident are therefore currently estimated to be 21.5 trillion yen.
Of this, it is presumed that the 4 trillion yen estimated for decontamination costs will be eventually supplemented by profits accruing from the sale of TEPCO stocks, the 1.6 trillion yen costs for intermediate storage facilities will be paid from the national treasury, and that 3.7 trillion yen of the total compensations will be paid by nuclear power operators from the general contributions, while 0.24 trillion yen will be borne by imposing a power distribution consignment charge on power companies that have entered the market recently due to deregulation of the power market.

June 11, 2018 Posted by | Japan, politics | Leave a comment

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