16 new child thyroid cancers confirmed in Fukushima’s children
Fukushima medical survey confirms 16 new child thyroid cancer cases Rt.com 17 Feb, 2016 At least 16 cases of thyroid cancer in children have been confirmed in a follow-up medical survey of those exposed to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. According to the prefectural government panel, at least 35 more minors thought to have the disease.
The prefectural government is giving medical checkups to all 380,000 children aged 18 or younger at the time of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March 2011. Since the latest checkup began in April 2014, 16 children have been confirmed to have the potentially deadly condition that stems from radiation exposure, according to Japan Today.
In addition, the combination of two surveys showed that now at least 116 children are suffering from thyroid cancer with at least 50 other minors suspected of having the disease. Medical testing facilities involved in the study said that 51 children in the second round of the survey had tumors ranging from 5.3 millimeters to 30.1 mm in size.
The medics also estimated that the external exposure of 29 children in the four months following the catastrophe had gone up to 2.1 millisieverts. Ten minors had been exposed to less than 1 millisievert…….https://www.rt.com/news/332708-fukushima-survey-thyroid-cancer/
Court orders TEPCO to compensate evacuees
Court orders TEPCO to compensate evacuees
A court has ordered Tokyo Electric Power Company to compensate a family who chose to flee after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The Kyoto District Court issued the ruling on Thursday and told the utility to pay about 30 million yen, or over 260 thousand dollars.
The plaintiffs evacuated from Fukushima to Kyoto Prefecture and elsewhere on a voluntary basis.
They were seeking compensation of nearly 1.6 million dollars. They say they could not work since the accident due to insomnia, depression and other stress-related health problems.
The court said it’s reasonable that the plaintiffs voluntarily evacuated, as information on the danger of the unprecedented disaster had not been revealed.
The court also said the plaintiffs had to evacuate from familiar surroundings and that this caused considerable stress and illnesses.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20160218_31.html
TEPCO ordered to pay damages for voluntary evacuation from Fukushima
KYOTO — A court has ruled that the operator of the disaster-struck Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex is liable for damages stemming from voluntary evacuation by residents in Fukushima Prefecture, believed to be the first ruling of its kind.
The Kyoto District Court on Thursday ordered Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) to pay about 30 million yen in damages to a couple in which the husband lost his job and developed mental illness after the family voluntarily fled in the wake of nuclear disaster triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The sum the court awarded to the couple in their 40s is also much bigger than the 11 million yen proposed by a government-established center to mediate out-of-court settlements for nuclear accident compensation.
The plaintiffs said the ruling “set an example that there is no need to give up when evacuees do not feel satisfied with the sum” presented by the dispute resolution center. The couple, who have evacuated to the city of Kyoto, sought about 180 million yen from TEPCO in the lawsuit filed in 2013.
According to the ruling, the husband was managing a company before he and his family fled Fukushima in the wake of the nuclear disaster. The husband then developed sleeping problems and suffered from depression before becoming unable to work around May 2011.
Presiding Judge Masayuki Miki determined that the nuclear accident “was one of the main reasons” that the husband suffered mental and other problems. He also found that the financial loss the couple faced was the consequence of the accident.
Of the amount TEPCO was ordered to pay, about 21 million yen in damages is associated with lost employment income and expenses due to evacuation, the ruling said.
Another 1.7 million yen is compensation for being “forced to move to a land with no ties with Fukushima Prefecture which they were familiar with,” the court said, adding that they “lost a stable life.”
During the triple reactor core meltdown disaster, residents living within 20 kilometers of the TEPCO nuclear plant and some areas beyond were ordered to evacuate. Many others also fled from their homes at their own discretion.
http://www.japantoday.com/smartphone/view/national/tepco-ordered-to-pay-damages-for-voluntary-evacuation-from-fukushima
Criticism of Government Being Airbrushed Out News Shows Anchors Away
FOR a decade, millions of Japanese have tuned in to watch Ichiro Furutachi, the salty presenter of a popular evening news show, TV Asahi’s “Hodo Station”. But next month Mr Furutachi will be gone. He is one of three heavyweight presenters leaving prime-time shows on relatively liberal channels. It is no coincidence that all are, by Japanese standards, robust critics of the government.
Last year another anchor, Shigetada Kishii, used his news slot on TBS, a rival channel, to question the legality of bills passed to expand the nation’s military role overseas. The questioning was nothing less than what most constitutional scholars were also doing—and in private senior officials themselves acknowledge the unconstitutionality of the legislation, even as they justify it on the ground that Japan is in a risky neighbourhood and needs better security. But Mr Kishii’s on-air fulminations prompted a group of conservatives to take out newspaper advertisements accusing him of violating broadcasters’ mandated impartiality. TBS now says he will quit. The company denies this has anything to do with the adverts, but few believe that.
The third case is at NHK, the country’s giant public-service broadcaster. It has yanked one of its more popular anchors off the air. Hiroko Kuniya has helmed an investigative programme, “Close-up Gendai”, for two decades. NHK has not said why she is leaving, but colleagues blame her departure on an interview last year with Yoshihide Suga, the government’s top spokesman and closest adviser to Shinzo Abe, the prime minister.
Mr Suga is known for running a tight ship and for demanding advance notice of questions from journalists. In the interview Ms Kuniya had the temerity to probe him on the possibility that the new security legislation might embroil Japan in other countries’ wars. By the standards of spittle-flecked clashes with politicians on British or American television, the encounter was tame. But Japanese television journalists rarely play hardball with politicians. Mr Suga’s handlers were incensed.
It all shows how little tolerance the government has for criticism, says Makoto Sataka, a commentator and colleague of Mr Kishii’s. He points out that one of Mr Abe’s first moves after he returned to power in 2012 was to appoint conservative allies to NHK’s board. Katsuto Momii, the broadcaster’s new president, wasted little time in asserting that NHK’s role was to reflect government policy. What is unprecedented today, says Shigeaki Koga, a former bureaucrat turned talking head, is the growing public intimidation of journalists. On February 9th the communications minister, Sanae Takaichi, threatened to close television stations that flouted rules on political impartiality. Ms Takaichi was responding to a question about the departure of the three anchors.
Political pressure on the press is not new. The mainstream media (the five main newspapers are affiliated with the principal private television stations) are rarely analytical or adversarial, being temperamentally and commercially inclined to reflect the establishment view. Indeed the chumminess is extreme. In January Mr Abe again dined with the country’s top media executives at the offices of the Yomiuri Shimbun, the world’s biggest-circulation newspaper. Nine years ago, when Mr Abe resigned from his first term as prime minister, the paper’s kingpin, Tsuneo Watanabe, brokered the appointment of his successor, Yasuo Fukuda. Mr Watanabe then attempted to forge a coalition between ruling party and opposition. Oh, but his paper forgot to alert readers to all these goings-on. The media today, says Michael Cucek of Temple University in Tokyo, has “no concept of conflict of interest.”
It has all contributed to an alarming slide since 2011 in Japan’s standing in world rankings of media freedom. Mr Koga expects a further fall this year. He ran afoul of the government during his stint as a caustic anti-Abe commentator on “Hodo Station”. On air last year he claimed that his contract was being terminated because of pressure from the prime minister’s office. His aim, Mr Koga insists, was to rally the media against government interference. Yet TV Asahi apologised and promised tighter controls over guests. Now Mr Furutachi is quitting too. The government is playing chicken with the media, Mr Furutachi says, and winning.
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21693269-criticism-government-being-airbrushed-out-news-shows-anchors-away
More than 1,100 water storage tanks at Fukushima plant … and counting
Storage tanks to contain radioactive contaminated water continue being constructed at Fukushima
February 13, 2016 By Satoru Semba
The construction of large steel tanks on the site around Fukushima nuclear power plant to store highly contaminated water running through the nuclear site continues. There is a planned further construction of 20 more steel containers which are expected to store 30,000 tons of contaminated water. In addition to the steel tanks that are being constructed with no end in site, there are more than 9 million large black vinyl bags piling up in neat rows around the site filled with radioactive contaminated soil that has been scraped off the surface around the nuclear plant. Heavy rain during September, 2015 around the area of Fukushima caused flooding and swept more than 700 of these bags containing Fukushima-contaminated soil and grass into local rivers. Many of these bags are still unaccounted for with some spilling their radioactive content into the water system.
OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture–From the air, the rows of different colored water storage tanks at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant resemble a giant integrated circuit board.
As the fifth anniversary approaches of the earthquake and tsunami disaster that unleashed the nuclear catastrophe, the stricken facility is fast running out of space to position the tanks holding highly contaminated radioactive water.
As of Feb. 12, there were 1,106 massive water tanks on the premises.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the plant, constructed the tanks to store radiation-contaminated water that has been accumulating at the plant since the disaster unfolded in March 2011.
The utility plans to construct 20 more water storage tanks to accommodate 30,000 tons of water that is expected to be generated in the remaining months of 2016.
As the tanks occupy much of the parking lots, green spaces and vacant areas, TEPCO has no choice but to build new tanks in the narrow alleys between the huge containers.
The accumulation of contaminated water has been a persistent problem at the plant, which is only in the very early stages of decommissioning, a process that will take 30 to 40 years.
Storage tanks to contain radioactive contaminated water continue being constructed at Fukushima
Speakers raise issues haunting Fukushima in finance panel public hearing
KORIYAMA, Fukushima Prefecture–To a central government committee meeting here on Feb. 17, hotel operator Shoko Yamazaki aired out her frustrations at the restart of nuclear power plants in Japan.
“Nuclear power plants in the nation were restarted with very little thought when the nuclear crisis in Fukushima has not even been settled,” said Yamazaki, whose hotel is in Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture. “Have we learned nothing from Fukushima?”
Yamazaki was one of the invited speakers who spoke of their concerns for a region still feeling the devastation caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster of March 2011 in the hearing held by the Lower House Budget Committee.
The prefecture was chosen for the second time since the catastrophe for the special regional hearing as “March 11 will be the fifth anniversary (of the disaster), a landmark year,” said Wataru Takeshita, former reconstruction minister and head of the committee.
The opinions of four speakers recommended by both the ruling and opposition parties were heard at the hearing, which was held as part of the committee’s budget deliberation for the upcoming fiscal year.
Hiromi Watanabe, one of the public speakers, said it was urgent that the region rid itself of bad publicity from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant crisis that unfolded in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami.
“It continues to haunt not just agriculture and tourism, but various industries as well,” said Watanabe, the head of the Fukushima Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
He also urged the central government to put a stop to population decline and improve transportation in the region.
Meanwhile, Hajimu Yamana, the chairman of the Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corp., said, “Findings on the cause of the nuclear accident and studies on its effects on population migration can be considered research for the reconstruction of Fukushima. It will become valuable information for the entire world.”
Yoshiharu Saito, a senior member of the disaster victim support group Fukushima Fukko Kyodo Center (Fukushima reconstruction communal center), talked about the central government’s plan to lift the evacuation orders on all regions except “difficult-to-return zones” by March 2017.
“The wishes of residents who want to return home should be granted, but at the same time we hope for the central government to assist those who are unable to do so,” Saito said.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/recovery/AJ201602180062
Research center to use atomic-bomb studies to rebuild Fukushima communities
The presidents of Nagasaki University, Hiroshima University and Fukushima Medical University sign the agreement to establish a joint research center on the impact of low-level radiation doses and related themes in Hiroshima on Feb. 17.
Universities in Fukushima Prefecture and the atomic-bombed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will deepen collaboration on radiation exposure studies and expand a research network to help rebuilding efforts around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant.
Hiroshima University, Nagasaki University and Fukushima Medical University will establish a joint research center in Hiroshima in the 2016 academic year, which starts in April.
The education minister approved plans for the center last month, and the facility will be operated on government funds.
Hiroshima University and Nagasaki University both have core facilities that have conducted decades-long studies on radiation. The two schools have dispatched researchers to the Fukushima Medical University since April 2011 for studies on the health effects of the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in March that year.
The three universities are expected to build research networks and expand cooperation at the new center.
“The study of low-level radiation exposure is growing urgent,” Mitsuo Ochi, president of Hiroshima University, said Feb. 17, when the university presidents signed the agreement to set up the center.
“We would like to fulfill our mission to contribute to Fukushima’s rebuilding efforts based on the results of basic research conducted by our university.”
The center will solicit research themes from across Japan in 10 areas, including assessments of the impact of low-level radiation doses on patients, development of methods to diagnose internal radiation exposure in patients, treatments of patients, and radiation protective agents.
Scientists who respond to the center’s request are expected to work together with researchers of the three universities.
The research center is also expected to cooperate with the Fukushima prefectural government on a program that assesses possible correlations between diseases and radiation doses.
In addition, it plans to offer advice on training people who are tasked to provide health care to those exposed to radiation.
The project also envisages providing assistance for workers who are exposed to radiation levels beyond expectations during the decommissioning of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201602180036
Fukushima’s nuclear waste problems piling up
Problems Keep Piling Up in Fukushima Steve Herman VOA News 17 Feb 16 TOKYO—Experts say Japan’s nuclear energy problems are worsening, five years after a massive earthquake unleashed a tsunami that melted down the island nation’s nuclear reactors.
Nine million cubic meters of radioactive waste, much of it soil, are stored unsheltered in black bags throughout Fukushima prefecture, preventing tens of thousands of residents from returning home.
And the problem is going to worsen before it improves.
An estimated 13 million cubic meters of toxic soil is yet to be collected and technicians have yet to solve the contamination issue inside the Fukushima-1 Nuclear Power Plant. Government and industry officials acknowledge cleaning everything up — including decommissioning the crippled reactors — will take at least another 40 years and cost as much as $250 billion.
And that timeline and the costs – considered overly optimistic by some industry experts – are based on nothing major going wrong. If another major earthquake hits and results in a tsunami, there will be major setbacks, admits the nuclear plant’s manager, Akira Ono.
Thousands of workers are dedicated to keeping under control the plant’s six reactors, four of which either melted down or were severely damaged.
Japan has never decommissioned a nuclear reactor, much less reactors as damaged as those at Fukushima.
It has resisted offers from foreign companies to help formulate an adequate cleanup plan.
“Unfortunately the cleanup effort continues to suffer from an inability to face the long-term decisions that have to be made in order to develop and implement an efficient plan,” said former U.S. diplomat Kevin Maher, who was running the State Department’s Japan desk when the earthquake struck.
The cleanup plan, he argues, should be driven by where to ultimately dispose the contaminated debris, fuel and water.
“Instead, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) continues to delay those decision, so we see the continual buildup of more stored water, because TEPCO can’t decide what to do with it. An experienced program management company could make those decisions,” said Maher, a senior advisor at NMV Consulting in Washington.
Even if Fukushima residents with homes inside the exclusion zone are allowed to return, the thousands of bags of radioactive soil in the prefecture may give them pause……..
The question of whether Fukushima can ever be adequately decontaminated is also an open one.
Japan’s environment minister has had to walk back remarks she made about the government’s decontamination target.
Tamayo Marukawa last Friday apologized for saying the government aimed to reduce the radiation level near the Fukushima-1 plant to an annual dose of one millisievert or less, a goal that has no scientific basis. (The average yearly human dose globally from naturally occurring sources is about three times that amount, according to scientists.)……..http://www.voanews.com/content/problems-keep-piling-up-in-fukushima/3194401.html
9,600 members of Fukushima plaintiff association suing Japanese govt and TEPCO
Fukushima disaster plaintiffs form association
Nuclear & Energy Feb. 13, 2016 –
Nearly 10,000 people suing the central government and an electric power firm in connection with the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster have formed their first national association.
Representatives of 21 plaintiff groups joined a rally in Tokyo on Saturday to launch the association representing more than 9,600 members. Next month marks 5 years since the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
The groups are in class-action lawsuits to demand compensation from the state and Tokyo Electric Power Company over the accident.
The association plans to share information on the lawsuits.
It also intends to seek an extension of a free housing provision for voluntary disaster evacuees beyond March next year.
A co-representative of the association, Tokuo Hayakawa, said the accident deprived survivors of the right to live in their hometowns. He said he will join with the association members and fight until they win a victory.
Another co-representative Akiko Morimatsu said 5 years have passed since the accident, but that problems have yet to be solved. She added that the plaintiff groups will unite to claim that there will be no restoration without support for survivors.
Something is wrong here
By Fonzy (6th testimony)
I hesitated longtime to mention the following anecdote, because I do not want to talk about the false informations or hoaxes that often are told just to scare people. Also I am lacking there statistics or precise data. However, I now tell myself it’s time to talk, especially to make known to those who live far away and do not know what happens here every day. In short, it is the increasing number of the so-called “urgent sick” on public transports.
What is an “urgent sick”? It is someone who had a pretty severe discomfort or fainted on the train.
Indeed, for at least a year or two. transportation is often disturbed in Tokyo because of “an urgent sick” rescue,
Japanese trains have long had a reputation for being punctual. Alas, it was the Japan of yesteryear.
Now, there are daily trains that are late because of unplanned stops to take care of the sick.I quote the tweets of @ Charley charleycharley7 that counts the number of people who tweet “urgent sick” in the Kanto, Chubu and Tohoku regions (Eastern Japan).
The total number of tweets “urgent sick ” | daily average
2015
mi-February 209 13,9
March 497 16,0
April 671 22,3
May 668 21,5
June 725 24,1
July 724 23,3
August 664 21,4
September 730 24,3
October 855 27,5
November 843 28,1
December 921 29,7
2016
January 872 28,1
These are not official data. Finally, these are just tweets. Everyone does not tweet soon as he finds an urgent sick on the train. It is therefore possible that the same patient was tweeted by several people. Still, it’s serious to me. Now there are some who think that eight hundred is not a significant figure given the total population of the regions. However, I say this is significant because I had never heard of “urgent sick” in my life. It’s been thirty years that I travel by train to Tokyo, but only since last year or the year before that I hear on the train often enough as an announcement
‘We are sorry that our train is delayed because of an urgent sick’ .I also add that there are many people who share my opinion.
I recently saw a man of about sixty years who was lying on the dock. He was not unconscious, but required aid to an employee of the station, the hand on the chest.
It was the Shin-Osaka station, about 800 km from the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Yes, there are also cases in Western Japan. According Charley @ charleycharley7 on 1 February 2016, there were twenty to five tweets of the urgent sick in the East, against only eight in the West. It’s very little, but it exists.
Otherwise, as we see from time to time there are those who sleep like a log on a bench, on a platform or on the ground. I hear the siren of the ambulance every day, even every three or four hours .We have had since the beginning of the year four or five bus drivers who lost consciousness (one causing a serious accident that killed 15 people). This is not normal, but now the abnormal becomes almost normal here, although no evidence is linking this to radiation …
Update 16 February 2016
Adding a screenshot of tweet
Translation: “Around me there are more and more people who die or are ailing But it seems that on the train also now there are many.” Urgent sick “, here is the graph of the number of people had discomfort on trains in 2015. “
Comment
Reading this new testimony of Fanny, I remembered that I had written on the subject of health in late 2011 an item, “The effects of the Fukushima disaster on health.” At that time, I was surprised by statistical data on the evolution of three infectious diseases, pneumonia (Mycoplasma Pneumonia), acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis and the diseases of hand-foot-mouth.
So I looked again the graphics provided by the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center (Infectious Desease suveillance Center (IDSC), dependent on the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID)), based in Tokyo .
http://idsc.nih.go.jp/idwr/kanja/weeklygraph/index-e.html
The site still exists, I will again distribute these graphs, updated in 2012, only to realize that, of the three infectious diseases which had increased in 2011, two remained of concern because of the increase in 2012. Another pneumonia, Chlamydia pneumonia was also up in 2012.
Hemorrhagic acute conjunctivitis in red: back to normal in 2012
Hand, foot and mouth diseases in 2012 in red: the value exceeds before 2011
Pneumoniae (Chlamydia Pneumonia): increase in 2012
Pneumoniae (Mycoplasma Pneumonia): strong increase in 2012
Finally, I noticed another infectious disease that had not progressed in the right direction in 2012, is infection with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
Infections by respiratory syncytial virus: increase in 2012
Data for 2013, 2014 and 2015 are also available on another page of the site, harder to find, and this time only in Japanese. From the Infectious disease whose evolution was worrying in 2011 or 2012, remain today only of concern the hand-foot-mouth diseases with higher rates in 2013 and 2015 than in 2011, and the infections caused by respiratory syncytial virus
Hand, foot and mouth diseases: a new significant increase in 2015
Infections by respiratory syncytial virus: increase in 2014 and 2015
.
With the return to the normal average of hemorrhagic acute conjunctivitis and pneumonia, we would have liked to see a general improvement but two other infectious diseases now have a worrying development, exceeding the rate of the last 10 years: streptococcal pharyngitis and the fifth disease (the Erythema Infectiosum.).
Strep throat infections ( streptococcal pharyngitis),
Fifth disease (Erythema Infectiosum Infections),
Is there a link between the actual contamination, even at low doses, and the weakening of the immune system of the Japanese, especially children? These graphics alone can not prove it. However, they do not reflect a healthier population since 2011. This is also what led a doctor from Tokyo to relocate and encourage patients to live in western Japan.
http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2014/07/16/a-tokyo-doctor-who-has-moved-to-western-japan-urges-fellow-doctors-to-promote-radiation-protection-a-message-from-dr-mita-to-his-colleagues-in-kodaira-city-t/
Furthermore, in Fukushima Prefecture was detected an increase of about 30 times the number of thyroid cancer among young people aged 18 and under in 2011. This increase is not normal, as confirmed the Japanese epidemiologist, Professor Toshihide TSUDA University of Okayama.
Pierre Fetet
Source: Fukushima Blog
http://www.fukushima-blog.com/2016/02/ici-ca-ne-va-plus.html
Translation Hervé Courtois (D’un Renard)
NRA AFTER 5 DAYS CHANGES ITS DECISION
On the February 11th the NRA for safety reasons said no to Tepco starting the freezing of its Fukushima Daiichi ice wall, now 4 days later on February 15th the NRA says yes.
How could Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority change its mind that way so rapidly about a matter regarding safety…..
Corporate elites push their toxic nuclear products onto India
Perverted Logic of Powerful Corporate Interests drive the India-France Nuclear Connection Mainstream Weekly, VOL LIV No 8 New Delhi by Harsh Kapoor The French President was in India as the chief guest at the surreal nationalist military parade of January 26, 2016. As is the practice, he was accompanied by a high-powered delegation and many multilateral deals got signed between the two countries. There are big ones that have been in the news, have been in the making for many years and may still take time to fructify. These concern the sale by France of nuclear power plants and of flying war toys to India.
India’s proposed purchase of military weaponry and nuclear power plants from France constitute the big centrepiece—attention and money involved in the overall scheme of Franco-Indian ties of the moment. These involve the sale of the Rafale-Multi Role Fighter jets, made by Dassault, said to be the most expensive in the world, and the sales of EPR (European Pressurised Reactors) nuclear reactors, made by Areva, also in the league of the most expensive.
Both these, that is, the civilian nuclear programme and defence procurement, are holy cows that are tightly sealed off by a firewall insulating them from reasoned public scrutiny; all this is managed and scripted by bureaucrats, lobbyists and keepers of ‘national interest’ who hold the keys. The Indian establishment of recent times seems to have grown very big pockets and a big-time ‘folie de grandeur’ where the bigger, more expensive, noisier, higher, shinier are seen as better benchmarks. (A sign of times we are in, that India’s Prime Minister walks about in clothes with his name printed on it all over.) Undue influence of foreign vendors and big Indian and foreign firms and lobbyists is a new reality in the corridors of our decision-making circles. That a new corporate-military industrial complex is shaping India’s drive down this road is a matter which should be the subject of social and economic enquiry by the academia. That is the Indian side of the picture.
But what is driving the French establishment in this foray into India?
The French authorities and the corporate elites see India (and China) as the new market to push their wares. It’s as banal and straight as that. It’s mostly about shoring up economic ties and in the process principally to bailout two crises-ridden sections of the French economy, namely, the civilian nuclear sector and the sagging military-industrial sector. Both of these continue to exercise a considerable hold over the French elites……..
Let us look at the story of the crisis-ridden French civilian nuclear programme to under-stand why the sale of the French EPR reactors for the proposed Jaitapur nuclear park is important to the French……..
The European Pressurised Reactor or EPR was a new generation design and a big bet of the French reactor-maker, Areva NP. The initial optimism from the EPR and the orders for new plants—first in Finland in 2003 (Olkiluoto), then in France in 2006 (Flamanville) and thereafter in China in 2007 (Taishan)—has dissolved with both Olkiluoto and Flamanville now nearly three times over-the-budget and at least 10 years and five years late respectively. Even the Chinese plants under construction are running late. Not a single functioning nuclear plant running the EPR reactor exists so far. There have been huge problems with the reactor design and construction quality despite years of experience in nuclear plant engineering in France. The highly trusted and independent-minded French nuclear safety agency (ASN) has found problems with the pressure vessel forgings in the Flamanville plant……..
The initial cost of the French EPR reactor was to be 3 billion euros but current estimates say it would be close to 11.5 billion euros. [One billion euros come to Rs 7000 crores and one French reactor would cost more then Rs 70,000 crores whereas the annual plan outlay for Maharashtra is Rs 47,000 crores.] The very largely state-owned company, Areva, that made the EPR has been running huge losses. In 2014 the losses were close to 5 billion euros. In July 2015 Areva sold off its reactor business to the French state-run electricity utility, EDF, which is also the biggest operator of nuclear power plants. Now the EDF, which has been economically sound, will have to manage the many very economically risky foreign projects of the former Areva. Experts say the EPR’s design problems and costs have dragged down Areva economically and the EDF is unlikely to want a similar fate for itself. The EDF has been developing its own designs for smaller nuclear reactors. Given the construction and operation problems of the EPR there is a possibility that the EDF could shelve the EPR’s giant reactor programme and place it in long-term cold storage.
The in-principle sale of six EPR reactors to India is a bet for the rescue of the crisis-marked French nuclear sector — imagine an injection of 60 billion euros if the price is, say, 10 billion dollars a piece. There was a joint venture by Areva and L & T, the Indian engineering major, which is negotiating the price of building the Jaitapur reactors with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL). They say the will bring down the price by sourcing the parts under a ‘make an India’ bid. All this will need to be reworked with the EDF being the new French entity in charge……….http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article6209.html
Fukushima radiation monitored by citizen science
How Citizen Science Changed the Way Fukushima Radiation is Reported, National Geographic by Ari Beser in Fulbright National Geographic Stories on February 13, 2016 Tokyo – “It appears the world-changing event didn’t change anything, and it’s disappointing,”said Pieter Franken, a researcher at Keio University in Japan (Wide Project), the MIT Media Lab (Civic Media Centre), and co-founder of Safecast, a citizen-science network dedicated to the measurement and distribution of accurate levels of radiation around the world, especially in Fukushima. “There was a chance after the disaster for humanity to innovate our thinking about energy, and that doesn’t seem like it’s happened. But what we can change is the way we measure the environment around us.”
Franken and his founding partners found a way to turn their email chain, spurred by the tsunami, into Safecast; an open-source network that allows everyday people to contribute to radiation-monitoring……….
Since their first tour of Koriyama, with the help of a successful Kickstarter campaign, Safecast’s team of volunteers have developed the bGeigie handheld radiation monitor, that anyone can buy on Amazon.com and construct with suggested instructions available online. So far over 350 users have contributed 41 million readings, using around a thousand fixed, mobile, and crowd-sourced devices.
According to Franken, “We’re working with communities to install these sensors in people’s neighborhoods. We’re financed by donations only. We get donations so we put together a plan, volunteers provide space, and Internet access, and agree that the data collected are public.
“What we’ve come to determine in Fukushima is that radiation levels are spotty. They can vary from street corner to street corner. We’ve also been able to determine that the levels over the last five years have reduced, partly because of half life of cesium, and because of environmental factors. We’ve also seen an increase in official government data being released in a similar style to Safecast’s drive-by method versus spot checking.”
According to Franken, “There is no safe dose of radiation as it’s debated by scientists; the higher the level, the higher the risk is that it will trigger a cancer. Though, at low levels the risk is much smaller, it is not zero. ……..
One of the biggest problems in Fukushima is the anxiety and the uncertainty that people are suffering from the incident. I think what were doing is trying to alleviate that by giving them ways to educate themselves about the problem and giving them solutions where they can be empowered to do something about it, as a opposed to just going along with the current of the crisis.” http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/13/how-citizen-science-changed-the-way-fukushima-radiation-is-reported/
NRA decided to reduce 70 percent of radiation monitoring posts in Fukushima
THEY REALLY THINK THAT WE’RE STUPID, EVEN IF IT IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE
On February 10, 2016 The NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority) declared that from April 2017 it will discontinue 2500 of its 3600 radioactivity monitoring terminals in the Fukushima Prefecture.
The NRA says it’s due to lack of budget and resources.
The 2500 to be removed terminals are located in public institutions including schools.
The NRA states that there has been no significant change in radioactivity recently detected.
While all radioactivity measurements have been increasing in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant, how can someone responsible says that there is no significant change?
On 2/10/2016, NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority) announced they are going to abandon 2,500 of 3,600 radiation monitoring posts in Fukushima prefecture from April of 2017.
NRA states this is due to the limited resource such as budget and equipment.
2,500 posts to be removed are situated in public facility including schools.
NRA comments no significant change has been detected recently. However, the monitoring posts were also observed to become “under maintenance” occasionally.
Sources
https://www.nsr.go.jp/disclosure/committee/kisei/00000110.html
NRA decided to reduce 70 percent of radiation monitoring posts in Fukushima
Little progress made in securing land for interim storage facilities for radioactive soil
With thousands of bags of radioactive soil piling up, less than 1 percent of the land needed for interim storage facilities in Fukushima Prefecture has been acquired even a year after the project started.
The mountain of paperwork in finalizing the real estate transactions and insufficient manpower are the main factors behind the slow progress.
That, in turn, could affect plans to have Fukushima residents return to their homes after evacuation orders are lifted.
Because the interim storage facilities have not yet been completed, thousands of bags of contaminated soil are stacked up in the open in parts of Fukushima. Until those bags are moved to the interim storage facilities, local residents may not be willing to return because of the high radiation levels being emitted from the contaminated soil.
The Environment Ministry and local governments in Fukushima Prefecture are continuing with work to remove soil contaminated with radioactive materials. As of the end of September 2015, a total of about 9 million cubic meters of such contaminated waste were being temporarily stored in about 115,000 locations around Fukushima. Government officials estimate that a total of 22 million cubic meters of contaminated soil will eventually be collected.
That soil will all be moved to the interim storage facilities to be constructed in the Fukushima towns of Okuma and Futaba where the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is located. Total land of about 16 square kilometers will be acquired for the interim storage facilities.
Plans call for leaving the contaminated soil at the interim facilities for a maximum of 30 years before processing it somewhere outside of Fukushima Prefecture.
Land registration records contain the names of 2,365 individuals as owners of the land and buildings where the interim storage facilities will be constructed. However, as of the end of January, Environment Ministry officials have signed contracts with 44 landowners, or just 2 percent of the total. In terms of land, those contracts only covered about 0.15 square kilometer, which does not even total 1 percent of the total land that needs to be acquired.
Environment Ministry officials are trying to push ahead with appraising the land, but they face a mountain of problems as well as other issues unique to the Fukushima situation. In terms of land, about 10 percent is owned by individuals whom ministry officials have been unable to contact.
But in terms of the names on the land records, ministry officials have been unable to contact about 990 individuals, or about 40 percent of the total. Some of the people on the land records may be deceased, meaning that those with inheritance claims could run into the thousands.
Moreover, the lack of land appraisers with background about the Fukushima situation has meant that negotiations often have taken longer than expected. Some landowners also are hesitant about selling off land that has been in the family for generations, even if there are no prospects of returning to the family plot anytime soon because of the high radiation levels in the community.
In March 2015, the Environment Ministry began a trial project by leasing some of the projected land for the interim storage facilities and transporting in contaminated soil. Over 11 months, about 36,000 cubic meters of soil were hauled there, but that only represents about 0.2 percent of the expected total.
Environment Ministry officials are unable to put together a specific plan for full-scale transporting of the contaminated soil to the interim storage facilities because in fiscal 2016 only about 1 percent of the total land needed for the interim storage facilities will likely be acquired.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201602140022
Radioactive Cs in the estuary sediments near Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Cs-137 of estuary sediment impacted by the FDNPP was measured.
Physical and chemical properties were measured also.
Increasing radioactivity was observed from surface to bottom.
90% of the Cs-137 was strongly bound to clay minerals in the estuary sediments.
Cesium-137 is being transported from contaminated paddy fields to the estuary.
The migration and dispersion of radioactive Cs (mainly 134Cs and 137Cs) are of critical concern in the area surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP). Considerable uncertainty remains in understanding the properties and dynamics of radioactive Cs transport by surface water, particularly during rainfall-induced flood events to the ocean. Physical and chemical properties of unique estuary sediments, collected from the Kuma River, 4.0 km south of the FDNPP, were quantified in this study. These were deposited after storm events and now occur as dried platy sediments on beach sand. The platy sediments exhibit median particle sizes ranging from 28 to 32 μm. There is increasing radioactivity towards the bottom of the layers deposited; approximately 28 and 38 Bq g− 1 in the upper and lower layers, respectively. The difference in the radioactivity is attributed to a larger number of particles associated with radioactive Cs in the lower part of the section, suggesting that radioactive Cs in the suspended soils transported by surface water has decreased over time.
Sequential chemical extractions showed that ~ 90% of 137Cs was strongly bound to the residual fraction in the estuary samples, whereas 60 ~ 80% of 137Cs was bound to clays in the six paddy soils. This high concentration in the residual fraction facilitates ease of transport of clay and silt size particles through the river system. Estuary sediments consist of particles < 100 μm. Radioactive Cs desorption experiments using the estuary samples in artificial seawater revealed that 3.4 ± 0.6% of 137Cs was desorbed within 8 h. More than 96% of 137Cs remained strongly bound to clays. Hence, particle size is a key factor that determines the travel time and distance during the dispersion of 137Cs in the ocean.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969716301541
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