Diplomatic outreach from Trump. Xi and Putin could persuade North Korea to give up nuclear weapons expansion
Under Trump, America can defuse the Korean nuclear crisis – with help from China and Russia http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2048641/under-trump-america-can-defuse-korean-nuclear-crisis-help
Charles K. Armstrong and John Barry Kotch say North Korea may well be willing to give up its nuclear plans if both Xi and Putin can be convinced to add their weight to the diplomatic outreach Charles Armstrong , 24 November, 2016, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said recently at a Council on Foreign Relations forum that dissuading North Korea from continuing its nuclear development was “a lost cause”. The remark is itself a cause for alarm. North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal and increasing delivery capability could render East Asian stability itself a lost cause, substantially raising the risks of regional nuclear proliferation and disarray in America’s alliances with Japan and South Korea – as well as posing a direct threat to the US homeland. It is a principal reason that Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sought an early meeting with President-elect Donald Trump last week.
Throughout most of its tenure, the Obama administration has put its stock into increasingly intrusive sanctions based on a strategy of so-called “strategic patience”, but this has not brought a resolution of the North Korean nuclear crisis any closer. On the contrary, Pyongyang has tested nuclear weapons and missiles at an ever-increasing rate.
To end North Korea’s nuclear push, we must first understand its fears
Kim Jong-un’s nuclear trajectory only increases Sino-US friction in northeast Asia
Had Hillary Clinton been elected president, one could envisage such an initiative led by two former US presidents – Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton – who have negotiated or held substantive discussions with North Korea’s leader himself or at the top leadership echelon. And while previous agreements reached with Kim Jong-un may have rejected the agreements his father and grandfather made in the 1990s, avowing not to go down the nuclear path via plutonium reprocessing or uranium enrichment, one thing the younger Kim could not have done was spurn the legacy of his father and grandfather in meeting with two former US presidents.
Carter’s negotiations with Kim Il-sung in 1994 led to a shutdown of the nuclear plant at Yongbyon for eight years and the resumption of International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. A bilateral framework established the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation, with the goal of providing light-water reactors to meet Pyongyang’s energy needs. Unfortunately, the agreement fell apart during the first George W. Bush administration.
Towards the end of the Clinton administration, the US moved towards recognising North Korea as a legitimate state actor. The momentum towards diplomatic recognition was symbolised in 2000 by the visit of North Korea’s Marshall Jo Myong-rok to the White House and secretary of state Madeline Albright’s meeting with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang. The two sides discussed a missile agreement, to be finalised by a presidential visit to North Korea.
Trump now has an opportunity, at the start of a new relationship with Xi Jinping ( 習近平 ) and Vladimir Putin respectively, to work with China and Russia in making clear to Kim Jong-un that a North Korean nuclear capability is incompatible with the stability of Northeast Asia. As Stanford University professor Siegfried Hecker has noted, the North’s strategy has evolved from a nuclear deterrent as a bargaining chip to a strategic force, and a 2020 reality of a fully fledged intercontinental ballistic missile capability.
And what of the argument, according to Clapper, that North Korea will never give up this capability, which it views as the sole guarantor of its survival? In effect, this is a false choice – unless one accepts Pyongyang’s proposition that it is faced with an existential threat from the US, making a nuclear deterrent essential for its security. Just the reverse is true: North Korea’s nuclear capability itself puts the country’s survival at risk, because no American president can tolerate the threat a nuclear-armed North Korea would pose to the US homeland.
Given the above, now is the time for China and Russia, both neighbouring states that would be directly affected by a potential US pre-emptive strike on North Korea, to embrace high-level “pincer” diplomacy vis-à-vis North Korea. To date, Beijing has argued that squeezing too hard would force a North Korean collapse, which is China’s worst-case scenario. But clearly the sanctions that China has enforced have been insufficient to deter North Korea. A non-nuclear North Korea would offer Beijing the best of both worlds: a buffer on its eastern border that is not a rogue nuclear state or a threat to regional stability.
President Xi has said to President-elect Trump that “facts have shown that cooperation is the only correct choice” for the United States and China. To gain Beijing’s acquiescence to a diplomatic approach, the first step would be for the US to delay the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) system in South Korea. THAAD was to be deployed in response to Pyongyang’s testing an intermediate-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead into space, on a trajectory that could reach Guam or the Aleutian Islands. China has been adamantly opposed to THAAD; dropping or delaying the deployment of the system opens the door to a positive diplomatic role for China, to complement sanctions-based coercive diplomacy. Once the North Korean threat was removed, there would be no need or justification for THAAD.
Russia, similarly, has a vested interest in the denuclearisation of North Korea. Engaging Moscow in resolving the nuclear impasse is both logical, given the Soviet role in providing the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the principal driver of Pyongyang’s nuclear programme, and would take advantage of the political leverage enjoyed by Putin, the only current leader to have successfully engaged with a North Korean leader, in persuading Kim Jong-il to observe a three-year missile moratorium in 1999. He has similarly agreed with Trump to “normalise relations and pursue constructive cooperation on the broadest possible range of issues”. The upside for Putin is an opportunity to bolster his standing in the West by making an important contribution to international peace and security.
Trump will have the opportunity for a fresh diplomatic approach to resolving the North Korean nuclear issue with the cooperation of the most important nuclear powers in the region – an opportunity that should be grasped sooner rather than later. The test for both Putin and Xi will be their willingness, with the full backing of Trump, to intercede directly with the North Korean leader.
Charles K. Armstrong is professor of Korean Studies at Columbia University and John Barry Kotch is a research scholar and Columbia PhD in political science
New sanctions on North Korea, agreed on by China and USA. Russia delays
China, U.S. agree on new sanctions to punish North Korea for nuclear test, but Russia ‘trying to hold it up’, National Post Michelle Nichols, Reuters | November 24, 2016 UNITED NATIONS — The United States and China have agreed on new U.N. sanctions to impose on North Korea over the nuclear test it conducted in September, but Russia is delaying action on a draft resolution, a senior Security Council diplomat said on Wednesday.
The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, believed China could persuade Russia to agree to the new sanctions and that the 15-member Security Council could vote on the draft resolution as early as next week.
Since North Korea’s fifth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 9, the United States and China, a close ally of North Korea, have been negotiating a new draft Security Council resolution to punish Pyongyang.
That draft text was recently given to the remaining three permanent council veto powers, Britain, France and Russia.
“The (permanent five members) are getting very close to agreement on a draft resolution,” the diplomat said. “The key thing is that China and the U.S., who have led this, have got to a position that they agree on. So the issue now is Russia…….http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/china-u-s-agree-on-new-sanctions-to-punish-north-korea-for-nuclear-test-but-russia-trying-to-hold-it-up
Fukushima Evacuees Still Unable to Go Home Over 5 Years after Earthquake, Nuclear Accident
Over five-and-a-half years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 and the subsequent nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Since then, big disasters have occurred in several other areas around the world, and in Japan the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes also caused great damage. So, the term “disaster area” does not always evoke specific images of Tohoku or Fukushima for many of us in Japan today. However, a large number of disaster victims continues to suffer from the disaster in Tohoku, especially by the nuclear accident in Fukushima. The hard times for disaster victims haven’t ended yet. We report here on the latest situation in the Tohoku and Fukushima districts so as not to forget their ongoing suffering.
The losses from the Great East Japan Earthquake as of March 10, 2016, were officially reported as follows: 18,455 people dead or still missing (not including deaths related to injuries after the earthquake); 400,326 houses or buildings either completely destroyed or half destroyed. By prefecture in the most seriously affected areas in the Tohoku region, the death tolls are 4,673, 9,541, and 1,613, in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima, respectively.
The estimated number of evacuees was approximately 470,000 at the peak, but 144,471 people were still living as refugees as of February 12, 2016.
Looking at the data of estimated populations of communities in the disaster-hit areas, comparing the population as of March 1, 2011 (before the disaster) and the most recent population, we see that the severely affected communities in Iwate and Miyagi have lost about one third of their populations. In Fukushima, several communities show “minus 100%” as the change of their population. Those ones are communities in the areas affected by the nuclear accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where the evacuation order has not yet been lifted even today.
On a chart showing the timeline of evacuation orders issued right after the disaster, we see that areas ordered to evacuate were rapidly increasing one by one, while in the middle of all this, another explosion occurred at the reactor No.3. The timeline shows how the evacuation-ordered areas expanded.
Later, the government designated three evacuation zones based on international basic safety standards on radiation exposure. We can see on a map two significant evacuation zones: the Evacuation Order Zone (Warning Zone) — within a 20-kilometer radius from Fukushima Daiichi — and the Emergency Evacuation Preparation Zone — within a 20-30 kilometer radius. And we also see one more evacuation zone on the map, the Planned Evacuation Zone — a large zone including part of the 20-30-kilometer radius zone and extending to areas outside of a 30-kilometer radius, which is the area into which the wind was blowing when the plant exploded — meaning large amounts of radioactive materials were carried into the area by wind.
At the same time, Emergency Evacuation Preparation Zones were also designated where the cumulative dose during the year after the nuclear accident was predicted to exceed 20 millisieverts (mSv) depending on wind direction and geography. The zones were also called “hot spots,” and an evacuation advisory was issued to their residents.
Later on, the categories of evacuation zones were revised as follows:
- Zones where evacuation orders were ready to be lifted (where it was confirmed that the annual cumulative dose of radiation will definitely be 20 mSv or less). People could go home temporarily (staying overnight prohibited) to prepare to return completely, and resume some operations such as hospitals, welfare facilities, shops, and farming.
- Zones in which the residents were not permitted to live (where the annual cumulative dose of radiation was expected to be 20 mSv or more and where residents were ordered to remain evacuated in order to reduce the risk of radiation exposure). People could temporarily return home and pass through the areas along main roads to repair infrastructure.
- Zones where it was expected that the residents would have difficulties in returning for a long time (where the annual cumulative dose of radiation was expected not to be less than 20 mSv in five years and the current cumulative dose of radiation per year was 50 mSv or more). People were legally required to evacuate from the area.
As seen in the zone map showing evacuation orders, many areas are still designated today as “difficult-to-return” zones.
Let’s look specifically at the status of Fukushima Prefecture. Before May 2012, the total number of evacuees was 164,655. As of March 2013, the number from zones with evacuation orders and other areas was about 109,000. Looking at the updates in July 2016, 89,319 people in Fukushima are still living as evacuees . Also, Tomioka, Futaba, and some other Fukushima towns and local governments located in evacuation zones have moved their administrative functions both inside and outside of the prefecture.
Besides the number of deaths related directly to disaster-caused injuries in Fukushima Prefecture, the number of disaster-related deaths is still increasing, due to mental shock and physical conditions at shelters, such as poor hygiene and cold. Japan’s Reconstruction Agency recognized 459 people in Iwate Prefecture, 920 in Miyagi, and 2,038 in Fukushima as qualifying for payment of condolence money for disaster-related deaths. These numbers surpass the deaths directly caused by the earthquakes and tsunami.
The Tokyo Shimbun, a regional newspaper covering eastern Japan, gathered statistics on the deaths tied to the nuclear accident by asking municipalities in Fukushima to read through application forms for condolence money to find out the number of people that died from worsened physical conditions due to the stress of evacuation from the nuclear accident. The company wrote in its newspaper on March 6, 2016, “We interviewed municipal governments in Fukushima Prefecture and found that at least 1,368 people had died in connection with the nuclear accident, just from the numbers that could be confirmed.” The disaster-related death toll confirmed by each municipal government amounted to 2,028 as of March 4, 2016. It states that 67% of the disaster-related deaths are considered to be nuclear-related deaths.
According to statistics gathered by the Cabinet Office on the number of annual suicides related to the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear plant accident, the number in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures is approaching zero, while it is still increasing in Fukushima.
Victims of nuclear accident face multiple difficulties, as shown below.
- Loss of daily living
- Loss of ways to earn a living
- Loss of community
- Forced to make own decisions whether to evacuate or not, and personally accept all risks that entail (people whose homes are outside of designated mandatory evacuation zones)
- Divorce, family breakdown, and separation of generations due to differences of opinion among family members
- A second mortgage to pay at the place of temporary evacuation
- Discrimination or bullying at place of temporary evacuation
- Not knowing when they can return home
- Uncertain about safety of returning home even after evacuation order is lifted
- Unable to rebuild community because many people have rebuilt their own lives (employment, human relations) at their place of temporary evacuation, and leaving mainly the elderly to return home.
Before the disaster, the nuclear power plants in Fukushima were generating power to send the electricity mainly to the Tokyo metropolitan area, not for local use. The nuclear accident forced people to leave their hometowns, and they are still not allowed to return to some areas. Even if the evacuation directive is lifted, evacuees will be unable to escape their anxieties about whether or not their homes are safe, and this situation continues to bring sorrow and hardship to the evacuees.
Even in this situation, Japan continues to approve the restart of nuclear power plants, some with operating permits for more than 40 years, despite the fact that the ruined plants have not yet been cleaned up, compensation for the accident is still not complete, and many people are still forced to live away from their hometowns. Each of us needs to think about the seriousness of nuclear accidents and the responsibilities that come with using nuclear power.
http://www.japanfs.org/sp/en/news/archives/news_id035681.html
Fukushima Radiation is not safe
A repost of a December 2011 video from Goddard’s Journal
Studies cited in order presented:
National Academy of Sciences Low-Dose Radiation Report
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11340&page=R1
Data tables used, 12D-1 and 12D-2:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11340&page=311
http://www.nap.edu/openbook/030909156X/gifmid/311.gif
How to scale that data to unique exposure scenarios, Annex 12D, Example 1:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11340&page=310
15-country study of nuclear-worker cancer risk
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17388693
Table 5 shown is from Part II of the study
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17388694
http://iangoddard.com/15countries_Part2_Table5.png
Jacob et al. (2009) meta-analysis of nuclear-worker studies
http://oem.bmj.com/content/66/12/789.full.pdf
Editorial on Jacob et al. quoted
http://oem.bmj.com/content/66/12/785.extract
Chromosomal translocations are associated with cancer
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3152359/
Boffetta et al. (2007) more chromoHarm entails more cancer
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17071846
Bhatti et al. (2010) meta-analysis of chromosomal damage
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3075914/
# Addendum #
Since I posted this video, the ‘Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ published a special edition on low-dose radiation, the lead article of which matches and thereby corroborates the case I present in this video. It also covers additional research and nuclear-industry efforts to derail scientific investigation of radiation risks http://bos.sagepub.com/content/68/3/10.full.pdf
Some friends created PDF files of this video available here
In English
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5qUOl0_hAfneW9rWmJ0akNMZEk/edit
In Japanese
Costs too high: India has to postpone its nuclear power programme
Empty Pockets Leave Indian Nuclear Plants Incomplete https://sputniknews.com/asia/201611231047759881-india-incomplete-nuclear-plants/ ASIA & PACIFIC 23.11.2016 India’s target to rapidly step up nuclear power capacity may be stumbling because many suppliers have not been paid. The Government is now trying to borrow from state-owned companies to complete the projects.
New Delhi : India’s ambitious nuclear power plans are facing the sword of financial uncertainty. The Indian Government has acknowledged that major equipment for two nuclear power projects was delivered on time because the suppliers had not been paid. The projects are being set up by the government-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL).
India had changed the Atomic Energy Law this year to allow NPCIL enter into joint ventures with other government entities. “After the changes in the law, India would be able to set up a new nuclear power reactor in every four year,” says Rajiv Nayan, senior research associate, Institute of Defense and Security Analysis.
Sources say that companies like NTPC, Indian Oil Corporation and NALCO have agreed to invest $ 1,500 million each in joint ventures with NPCIL. “India will not get far even after adding this money with the amount available with NPCIL for investment. Costs and financing, therefore, complicate India’s ability to scale up nuclear power through its own means without relying on foreign imports,” writes Anirudh Mohan, Junior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation in a research paper. Currently, India is setting up 6,700-megawatt nuclear power projects across the country with an estimated cost of more than $ 18 billion. Being the sole company authorized to set up nuclear power plants, NPCIL is faced problems in generating funds for these projects.
Fears about North Korea’s nuclear test swish around Donald Trump’s inauguration
NUCLEAR WARNING: North Korea planing another nuke test on Donald Trump’s INAUGURATION http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/735831/North-Korea-nuke-test-Donald-Trump-president-inauguration-US-Lee-Su-seok-Kim-Jong-un NORTH Korea could launch another devastating nuclear test on the same day Donald Trump is inaugurated into the White House in a chilling show of strength, security experts have warned. By WILL KIRBY Nov 24, 2016 The secretive state has launched 20 missiles this year alone as it aims to develop a long-range weapon, capable of hitting the US mainland.
“In early 2017, it is highly likely that Pyongyang will detonate another nuclear device and launch a long-range ballistic missile to reiterate its status as a nuclear power.”
With President-elect Trump set to be inaugurated on January 20 next year, these latest claims have sparked fears the ceremony could become a target.
Trump is not believed to consider the communist state a high priority at the moment, but this recent speculation about the country’s nuclear capabilities could spark increased efforts for dialogue and negotiations between the two countries.
He said: “Inter-Korean relations will remain frosty and strained until the first half of 2017 due to the North’s continued military provocations. Any dialogue with North Korea, if any, will be possible some time after Trump takes office in January.”
The director said: “The Kim Jong-un regime will continue its verbal and military threats in efforts to urge the nearly paralysed Seoul government to change the current strict policies toward Pyongyang”. South Korea’s scandal-plagued president Park Geun-hye has recently been caught up in a corruption case involving her longtime confidant, Choi Soon-sill, who has been accused of using high-ranking connections to wield inappropriate influence inside the government.
As a result, Kim Jong-un’s loyal followers are expected to exploit the unrest in South Korea and create internal conflicts within the country.
Puddles Found in Reactor Buildings at Fukushima Daini Plant
Fukushima Daini
Following a powerful quake that hit northeastern Japan in the early morning on Nov. 22, 2016. The utility said Nov. 24 that puddles in three of the four reactor buildings at the idled Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant may have formed from water that splashed out of spent-fuel pools during the quake.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/photos/2016/11/445699.html
Crisis averted, but is N-plant operator Tepco prepared for a bigger quake?
An aerial view of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after a strong earthquake hit off the coast of Fukushima on Tuesday. The operator of the plant said there were no abnormalities observed at the plant.
TOKYO — There was no avoiding fearful memories of the Japanese nuclear disaster of 2011 on Tuesday morning after a powerful earthquake off the coast of Fukushima caused a cooling system in a nuclear plant to stop, leaving more than 2,500 spent uranium fuel rods at risk of overheating.
But this time, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), the utility that operates three nuclear plants, restored the cooling pump at the Fukushima Daini plant in about 90 minutes. The Daini plant is about 11km south of Fukushima Daiichi, the ruined plant where three reactors melted down five years ago after tsunami waves inundated the power station and knocked out backup generators.
Tepco reported that it never lost power at either the Daini plant or its neighbour to the north after the Tuesday quake, which had a magnitude of 7.4, according to the Japanese weather service.
“We took the regular actions that we should take when handling troubles,” Mr Yuichi Okamura, acting general manager of the nuclear power division at Tepco, said at a news conference on Tuesday.
The company was prepared for big tsunamis, having built sea walls rising to almost 15m at the Fukushima plants and enclosing backup generators in waterproof facilities, Mr Okamura said.
Critics of Tepco, which struggled to keep on top of a crisis that followed the 2011 calamity, said they were relieved that there had been no immediate damage. However, they remained sceptical that the company had done enough to prepare for a disaster on the scale of the earthquake five years ago.
That quake, which had a magnitude of 8.9, set off tsunami waves as high as 40m in some places. In contrast, the highest waves on Tuesday reached only about 1.4m.
“It looks like the right things have been done,” said Mr Azby Brown, director of the Future Design Institute at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology and a volunteer researcher with SafeCast, an independent radiation-monitoring group.
“But you never know until something happens. As far as this morning goes, they did a decent job, but mainly because it wasn’t that big of an earthquake or that big of a tsunami.”
Building higher sea walls, for example, “is all good, but that is like fighting the last war”, Mr Brown said.
“It remains to be seen how well prepared they would be for some other unusual combination of disasters.”
Compared to five years ago, Tepco has improved its communication with the public, reporting information about the cooling pump at Daini almost as it happened on Tuesday morning.
The company also quickly said that it had suspended the treatment and transfer of contaminated water from the Daiichi plant, where an extensive clean-up and decommissioning process is underway. By the evening, those operations had been restored.
“What I can say is today’s response was decent and they seemed to be confident,” said Mr Tatsujiro Suzuki, director of the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition at Nagasaki University. However, it would be difficult to independently verify Tepco’s claims because the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority depends on the company to release information.
He added that he was not convinced that Tepco was being fully transparent about its decisions, particularly about the clean-up at the Daiichi plant.
“We should be informed fully whether this operation is reasonably done with cost-effectiveness and safety and making sure that the best technology is being used,” Mr Suzuki said.
Mr Daisuke Maeda, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulation Authority, said the agency had offices on the sites of the nuclear plants and worked with Tepco and other utility companies on Tuesday to confirm that the power stations were safe after the earthquake.
Regarding the longer-term situation, nuclear experts expressed concern about the safety of the clean-up operation at the Daiichi plant. The melted cores of three reactors have yet to be removed as they are still too radioactive for workers to approach.
Since the 2011 disaster, groundwater seeps into the reactors daily. The water, contaminated by the melted fuel rods, needs to be treated and stored on site. So far, Tepco has built more than 880 tanks of about 1,000 tonnes each.
The tanks are inspected four times a day to confirm that they do not leak, said Mr Okamura of Tepco.
And in an effort to halt the flood of groundwater into the damaged buildings, the company has built an underground wall of frozen dirt nearly 1.6km long encircling the reactors. The wall is not yet fully frozen, though, and groundwater continues to flow into the reactors.
Critics worry that the sea walls or storage tanks might not withstand a more powerful earthquake or tsunami. And Tuesday’s incident at the Daini reactor showed that quakes can set off problems even at plants that are not operating.
Most of the country’s 54 plants remain closed since the 2011 disaster, but the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to restart most of them.
A majority of the Japanese public is opposed to such a move. Candidates for governor who ran campaigns opposed to the revival have won elections in recent months in two prefectures that host nuclear plants.
According to Japanese daily Nikkei Shimbun, Mr Fumio Sudo, the chairman of Tepco, and Mr Naomi Hirose, the company’s president, were planning to meet on Tuesday with one of those governors, Ryuichi Yoneyama of Niigata, to try to persuade him to support a restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant there.
Mr Sudo and Mr Hirose returned to Tokyo after the earthquake.
Mr Kiyoshi Kurokawa, who oversaw an independent investigation of the Fukushima nuclear accident for the Japanese Parliament, said that building walls and storage tanks failed to solve the underlying problem of an earthquake-prone country relying on nuclear power. Instead, he said, both the government and utility companies should invest in developing alternative sources of power like solar or wind technology.
“I think we expect more of such readjusting plate movements and that has been reasonably predicted, and many volcanic activity and earthquakes have been rampant over the last five years,” said Mr Kurokawa, an adjunct professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. “So why are we continuing to restart nuclear plants?”
http://www.todayonline.com/world/asia/crisis-averted-n-plant-operator-tepco-prepared-bigger-quake
An aerial view of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after a strong earthquake hit off the coast of Fukushima on Tuesday. The operator of the plant said there were no abnormalities observed at the plant.
Japan Earthquake: Social Aftershocks of Fukushima Disaster are Still Being Felt
A fishing boat washed inland by the 2011 Tsunami next to a shrine inside the Fukushima nuclear exclusion zone.
At 5.59am local time on November 22, Fukushima was hit by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake, triggering a tsunami warning. For residents in the same region of Japan devastated by the major 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and its tsunami, the threat of a renewed disaster was very real.
The tsunami warning was lifted a few hours later, and the earthquake was later declared a long-term aftershock from the larger quake five years ago. But for people still coming to terms with that disaster and its aftermath, this new earthquake will severely test their resilience once again.
On March 11 2011, the 9.0 magnitude earthquake created a 15-metre tsunami that inundated the Fukushima Daiichi (Fukushima I) nuclear power station. Power was disabled to three reactors, which caused a serious nuclear accident as cooling systems failed. Large quantities of radiation were immediately released into the environment and approximately 100,000 people were evacuated.
The long-term social consequences of the original Fukushima Daiichi accident have been broad and far-reaching. Perception of risk, the likelihood of exposure to danger, has been at the heart of social controversy after the 2011 disaster. Radiation is invisible, and it is challenging to understand or percieve a threat that can only be detected by specialist scientific equipment. Often women and children are hit the hardest by this, regardless of socioeconomic status.
The concept of Fūhyōhigai, or the “harmful rumour”, was initially used by the media and local government to dismiss local women’s concerns about radiation exposure as weak and unscientific. However, this led to a cultural shift by women known as Fukushima’s “radiation brain moms”, who purchased monitoring equipment and took matters into their own hands, forming citizen radiation monitoring organisations (CRMOs).
By forming these groups of resistance, self-help and support, women rejected their culture’s social norms of obedience and subservience, that could have suppressed them from cultivating outrage over injustice and inequality. Participation in CRMOs has decreased over time, as the social memory of Fukushima Daiichi fades, but citizen science initiatives such as Safecast still provide useful information to many.
The recent earthquake temporarily halted the cooling system at the nearby Fukushima Daini (Fukushima II) reactor, and so there is likely to be a resurgence in monitoring, and a reunion of these support networks. Regardless of what happens now, there has already been a positive seismic shift in attitudes by both the government and scientists toward concerned mothers and community monitoring.
Living in ‘temporary’ permanence
Many impacts of the 2011 disaster have been hidden away in the private spaces of everyday life, with the tragedy putting enormous strain on family relations. Not only were thousands of families displaced from their homes, evacuation has meant the separation of family groups.
Two girls play on a swing next to a radiation monitor and their temporary housing in Minamisōma, Fukushima prefecture.
Where once three generations could live together in Fukushima’s close-knit rural villages, relocation to cramped prefabricated temporary housing has meant many are forced to live apart. Today, five years after the disaster, 174,000 people are still displaced in a state of “temporary” permanence. Disconnection from the familiarity of place and family, as well as the constant worry about radiation risk, even threatens marital relationships. “Atomic divorce” (Genpatsu rikon) is on the rise, with disagreements on radiation safety, or whether to relocate back to territory now deemed “decontaminated”. News of the recent earthquake will doubtless have jogged memories and resurfaced hidden tensions.
The Japanese government is gradually declaring sections of the 20km nuclear exclusion zone safe and habitable. Despite this, the desire to move back to previously contaminated land has been underwhelming. For example, four months after Naraha Town was declared safe in September last year, only 6% of former inhabitants decided to move home to one of Fukushima’s many atomic “ghost towns”.
In the town of Minamisōma, on the northern edge of the exclusion zone, thousands of mothers and children have refused to return, despite societal pressure not to “betray” their home communities.
Nuclear uncertainty
While Japan’s tsunami warning system worked well, there is still considerable uncertainty surrounding the consequences and likelihood of a further natural hazard causing a nuclear accident in Japan.
The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident had already permanently changed the Japanese nuclear landscape. The government has undergone a process of gradual nuclear decommissioning since October 2011, and Fukushima Daaichi and Dai-ni no longer produce energy. Yet, Japan is still heavily reliant on nuclear energy and since 2015 has restarted two of its nuclear reactors, with 24 other reactors in the process of restart approvals.
While social resilience to emergencies has improved since 2011 in Japan, the social aftershocks of Fukushima Daaichi are ongoing. Though many advances have been made that emancipate vulnerable populations and provide increased connectivity, it remains to be seen how much these new technologies and attitudes have improved social resilience and reduced the likelihood of anxiety within the community of Fukushima.
China’s ambitious plan, lifting poor communities by means of solar rooftops
Unlike many other developing countries, around 99% of all Chinese households already have access to the grid.
Solar PV can help China’s poorest, China Dialogue Suzanne Fisher Murray 23.11.2016 中文版本 In Anhui villages are hooking up to the grid to generate income and power, writes Suzanne Fisher-Murray The residents of Yuexi county, a mountainous area in eastern China, must have thought it was their lucky day when they heard they had been selected for China’s new solar poverty alleviation project.
The 382,000 residents are some of the poorest in the country, living below the poverty line of 2,300 yuan (about US$1 per day). This was the key criteria for their selection in the project, which is part of China’s 13th Five-Year-Plan, the roadmap for the nation’s development from 2016 to 2020.
In 2015, President Xi Jinping announced the Chinese government would eradicate poverty in China by 2020, which requires targeting the country’s 70 million people living below the poverty line. In April, 2015, China’s National Energy Administration released a plan to use solar photovoltaics (PV) to increase the income of 200 million Chinese households within 16 provinces and 271 counties.
The project is being piloted in Yuexi county, Anhui province before being rolled out across the country. Villagers identified as living below the poverty line will have rooftop solar panels rated at 3-5 kilowatts installed on their roofs and become shareholders in village solar power stations with a generating capacity of around 60-100 kilowatts. The aim is for the solar panels to earn each family 3,000 yuan (around US$430) in extra income each year. Local farmers could also earn additional income by leasing out non-arable lands or maintaining the solar farms.
So far, 182 villages (with 30,000 residents) in the county have been identified as eligible for the project. Construction has begun at a staggering pace: 57 solar parks were built in 2015, with the remaining 125 expected to be finished this year.
Unlike many other developing countries, around 99% of all Chinese households already have access to the grid.
“But it could have a huge impact. We are talking about the poorest families. They basically have nothing in their houses that use electricity [because they can’t afford to pay the bills].” The extra income they’ll earn could change that. “If you want to change the living standards of people, sometimes it’s not enough to just give them electricity. Electricity – that’s just a power supply. They need greater help,” he added.
Aside from the direct profits, the villagers would also likely benefit from subsidies paid to solar generation projects in China. The rates are set to go down in 2017 due to a solar power generation surplus, but, if paid, will also help increase the villagers’ profits. The village level solar stations will also be part of a Chinese emissions trading programme which is currently being established. The village solar stations that have certified emissions reductions certificates could trade 1000 kWh of their clean energy to replace one tonne of carbon dioxide emissions on the carbon trading scheme.
Probe of Fukushima Daini’s N°3 Reactor Cooling System Knocked Offline After Earthquake
Fukushima Daini
Japan Probes Nuclear Cooling System Shutdown After Earthquake
Japan is investigating why a cooling system used to store nuclear fuel rods was temporarily knocked offline at Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc.’s shuttered Fukushima Dai-Ni atomic plant after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck the same region devastated by a tsunami in March 2011.
The temblor early Tuesday caused water in the pool at the plant northeast of Tokyo to move, according to the utility known as Tepco. Sensors registered the motion as a decline in water levels, triggering an automatic shutdown, the utility said.
One of at least two cooling pumps supplying water to the spent fuel pool at Dai-Ni’s No. 3 reactor was shut around 6:10 a.m. Tokyo time, according to Tepco. The utility started another pump to resume cooling the fuel rods around 7:47 a.m., it said in an e-mailed statement.
More than five years after the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami that wrecked the utility’s Dai-Ichi nuclear plant and resulted in the shutdown of Japan’s atomic fleet for safety checks, just two of the country’s 42 reactors are back in operation. Returning the plants to service is a goal of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government and is critical to Japan’s aim for nuclear to account for as much as 22 percent of its energy mix by 2030.
“The fact that today’s earthquake caused the pumps at the Fukushima nuclear plant to shut down temporarily will certainly not help the government in its goal to restart the reactors,” Daniel Aldrich, a professor and director of the Security and Resilience Studies Program at Northeastern University in Boston, said by e-mail. “Perhaps one interesting change has been Tepco’s transparency about the ongoing problems at the site, including those that occurred during today’s earthquake.”
Government Response
Fifty-seven percent of the Japanese public oppose resuming operations of the country’s nuclear reactors, while 29 percent approve, according to an Asahi newspaper poll conducted in October.
Japan’s government quickly moved to allay any concerns following Tuesday’s earthquake, which was an aftershock of the magnitude 9 quake five years ago.
Safety is the top priority of Japan’s nuclear industry and the country has the world’s strictest rules for atomic plants, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters in Tokyo Tuesday.
The stoppage of the system wouldn’t immediately have led to a release of radiation, Suga said. Earthquakes and tsunamis are among possibilities envisaged under new safety standards for nuclear plants issued by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority since the 2011 disaster, he said.
Power would need to be cut for about a week before temperatures in the spent-fuel cooling system would reach the upper safety limit, according to Yutaka Ikoma, a spokesman at the regulator. Temperatures would rise about 0.2 degrees Celsius per hour without the cooling system, reaching 65 degrees Celsius in about seven days, according to the spokesman.
Tax Breaks Mulled to Aid Reconstruction in Fukushima No-Go Zone
The Abe government and ruling coalition are considering giving tax breaks to companies that do business in reconstruction footholds to be set up in the no-go zone heavily contaminated by the 2011 nuclear accident in Fukushima Prefecture, according to informed sources.
Officials believe such measures will help advance industrial recovery in the prefecture hurt by the reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant in March 2011, the sources said Tuesday.
Under consideration are corporate tax cuts to promote capital investment and employment of people affected by the crisis by firms damaged by the nuclear accident and companies that newly expand into the area.
The special reconstruction areas will be created starting in fiscal 2017. Priority will be given to decontamination work and infrastructure development in the footholds, so that evacuation orders for local residents can be lifted around the end of March 2022.
The tax measures will be included in the fiscal 2017 tax system reform package that the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition plans to draw up Dec. 8.
Similar tax breaks are provided in evacuation areas outside the no-go zone. Through the planned measures, the government hopes to encourage the opening of businesses necessary for residents to live in the area, such as convenience stores and gas stations, as well as promoting job creation.
The government and the ruling camp are considering the options of allowing companies to deduct from their corporate taxes 15 percent of the amounts of their capital investment made in the footholds and granting lump-sum depreciation of new equipment and facilities so they can reduce their taxable incomes by larger margins than under regular depreciation rules.
Another possible measure is giving a corporate tax cut equivalent to 20 percent of salaries for employees in the footholds that companies hire from among those affected by the nuclear accident.
Also under consideration extending by four years a corporate tax cut granted to the owners of housing for disaster victims in special economic zones on condition the buildings meet fire resistance and other requirements and that the owners give priority to disaster-affected people in choosing tenants.
Tepco’s Nov. 22 Post-Earthquake Information Release
Tepco released some post-earthquake informations about the situation of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station after the earthquake off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture that occurred around 5:59 am today, November 22.
“At Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, at 6:06 am after the earthquake occurred. As a precaution, contaminated water transfer from the reactor building basements was stopped after the quake. It was restarted at 3:19pm.
Similarly, the Reverse Osmosis desalination system was stopped at 6:17 am, and restarted at 3:44 pm. The cesium adsorption system was stopped at 6:23 am, and restarted at 4:47 pm. Other water treatment systems were stopped at 6:12 am and restarted at 4:20 pm.
Since we confirmed that there was no abnormality after the earthquake, we resumed operation.
Also, we patrolled each Unit 1 to 6 equipments, our patrol was completed by 4:06 pm and we confirmed the following troubles:
– Damages to the south side silt fences of Units 1 to 4 and the north side silt fences of 5 and 6 units on the port, these are used to try to keep small radioactive debris from leaving the port.
– A puddle (about 2 m × 3 m) was found near the common spent fuel pool, thought to be caused by sloshing of the pool during the quake.
We will carry out the restoration work as soon as preparations are completed.”
Tepco did not mention anything about the storage tanks up on the hill. Those aging bolt together tanks, still partially in use, containing contaminated water, are a major concern, being the most vulnerable to be damaged by an earthquake.
According to JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency), they observed over 85 aftershocks by 11:00 AM (JST) of 11/23/2016, out of which 7 quakes of seismic intensity over 3. They warn the same level of the earthquake (M7.4) may happen again this week, with possible Tsunami.
Sources:
Tepco 2016年11月22日地震情報（福島第一・福島第二原子力発電所関連） （続報5)
http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/quake_local_index.html
http://2ch-news.co/newsplus/1479879660/
Earthquake a reminder of Japan’s continuing nuclear danger
“I think we expect more of such readjusting plate movements and that has been reasonably predicted, and many volcanic activity and earthquakes have been rampant over the last five years,” said Mr. Kurokawa, an adjunct professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. “So why are we continuing to restart nuclear plants?”
New Quake Tests Resilience, and Faith, in Japan’s Nuclear Plants, NYT, NOV. 22, 2016 TOKYO — There was no avoiding fearful memories of the Japanese nuclear disaster of 2011 on Tuesday morning after a powerful earthquake off the coast of Fukushima caused a cooling system in a nuclear plant to stop, leaving more than 2,500 spent uranium fuel rods at risk of overheating………
Regarding the longer-term situation, nuclear experts expressed concern about the safety of the cleanup operation at the Daiichi plant.
The melted cores of three reactors have yet to be removed as they are still too radioactive for workers to approach. Since the 2011 disaster, groundwater seeps into the reactors daily. The water, contaminated by the melted fuel rods, needs to be treated and stored on site. So far, Tepco has built more than 880 tanks of about 1,000 tons each.
The tanks are inspected four times a day to confirm that they do not leak, said Mr. Okamura of Tepco. And in an effort to halt the flood of groundwater into the damaged buildings, the company has built an underground wall of frozen dirt nearly a mile in length encircling the reactors. The wall is not yet fully frozen, though, and groundwater continues to flow into the reactors.
Critics worry that the sea walls or storage tanks might not withstand a more powerful earthquake or tsunami. And Tuesday’s incident at the Daini reactor showed that quakes can set off problems even at plants that are not operating.
Most of the country’s 54 plants remain closed since the 2011 disaster, but the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to restart most of them.
A majority of the Japanese public is opposed to such a move. Candidates for governor who ran campaigns opposed to the revival have won elections in recent months in two prefectures that host nuclear plants.
According to the Nikkei Shimbun, a Japanese daily, Fumio Sudo, the chairman of Tepco, and Naomi Hirose, the company’s president, were planning to meet on Tuesday with one of those governors, Ryuichi Yoneyama of Niigata, to try to persuade him to support a restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant there. Mr. Sudo and Mr. Hirose returned to Tokyo after the earthquake.
Kiyoshi Kurokawa, who oversaw an independent investigation on the Fukushima nuclear accident for the Japanese Parliament, said that building walls and storage tanks failed to solve the underlying problem of an earthquake-prone country relying on nuclear power. Instead, he said, both the government and utility companies should invest in developing alternative sources of power like solar or wind technology.
“I think we expect more of such readjusting plate movements and that has been reasonably predicted, and many volcanic activity and earthquakes have been rampant over the last five years,” said Mr. Kurokawa, an adjunct professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. “So why are we continuing to restart nuclear plants?”http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/world/asia/japan-earthquake-tsunami-fukushima.html?_r=0
Vietnam’s legislature endorses scrapping of nuclear power plans
Vietnam Formally Scraps Plans for First Nuclear Power Plants http://www.voanews.com/a/vietnam-scraps-plans-for-nuclear-power-plants/3607042.html , 22 Nov 16 HANOI — Vietnam’s legislature on Tuesday endorsed the government’s decision to scrap plans to build the country’s first two nuclear power plants.
A statement from the government announcing the endorsement said cheaper renewable energy and power imports were available and that investment should be made in more urgent infrastructure needs.
The National Assembly in 2009 approved plans to build two nuclear power plants with combined capacity of 4,000 megawatts. Construction contracts had been awarded to companies from Russia and Japan.
Construction was initially scheduled to start in 2014 but was delayed several times.
State media have reported that the nuclear power plants were not economically viable because of cheaper sources of power and that the costs of the plants had doubled to $18 billion.
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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