Japanese fishing industry leader is “greatly concerned” over the pending disharge of Fukushima radioactive water into the ocean.
The leader of a Japanese fisheries industry group told officials on Monday
he was “greatly concerned” about the discharge of treated radioactive water
set to be released into the sea from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.
The government is expected to decide soon, perhaps within days, when to
start releasing the water, equivalent to the contents of 500 Olympic-size
swimming pools, despite objections at home and abroad to the plan.
Reuters 21st Aug 2023
Threat from the skies: India steps up the fight against a major space danger.
By B R Srikanth, a veteran Bengaluru-based journalist reporting on space and defense, 21 Aug 23, https://www.rt.com/india/581397-india-space-debris-cleaning-mission/
New Delhi’s ambitious space plans include tackling the problem of floating debris, countless pieces of which orbit the Earth
A spectacular display of celestial fireworks? The momentous arrival of aliens? Or was it a work-in-progress sci-fi flick?
These questions weighed heavily on many minds as Melbourne’s night sky lit up for almost a minute on the night of August 7. The flame raced across the sky before breaking into blazing fragments. A sonic boom shook the ground for a couple of seconds, setting off a panic among residents. A day later, the Australian Space Agency confirmed it was space junk, likely “remnants” of a giant Russian rocket which had hoisted a new navigational satellite into orbit.
A few weeks earlier, a six-foot high cylindrical object, perhaps the fuel tank of an Indian rocket, had washed ashore at Green Head Beach, 250 km north of Perth, Australia. The artificial lighting, the loud explosion, and the large fuel tank found there reignited one question: How to vacuum-clean the graveyard in the deep, dark heavens to safeguard assets worth billions of dollars?
Such assets include satellites circling the Earth at 300 km to 36,000 km, in support of telecommunications, broadcasting, meteorology, civil aviation, telemedicine, distance education, and even espionage (by military satellites launched without fanfare).
Space junk
Outer space contains hundreds of dead satellites, millions of fragments of old satellites and rockets, and even paint flakes; each is hurtling through space at an incredible speed of 10 km a second, with a lethal punch of a 550-pound object. NASA estimates there are around 23,000 pieces of debris larger than a softball, half a million pieces the size of a marble or up to a centimeter, 100 million pieces one millimeter and larger.
Example of space junk include a glove lost by Edward Higgins White during America’s first spacewalk, Michael Collins’ camera lost near Gemini 10, a thermal blanket lost during STS-88, the first space shuttle mission, garbage bags jettisoned by cosmonauts during Mir’s 15-year life, a wrench, and a toothbrush.
Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams lost her camera during her spacewalk from the space shuttle in 2007, and astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper lost a briefcase-sized tool bag during her spacewalk the following year.
And if you think the Hollywood film ‘Gravity’, where a spacecraft is hit by a cloud of space debris (killing George Clooney’s character, and nearly marooning Sandra Bullock) was fiction, then consider that in 1996, a French satellite was hit and damaged by a French rocket that had exploded a decade earlier. Or that on February 10, 2009, a defunct Russian spacecraft collided with and destroyed a USA Iridium commercial spacecraft. The collision over northern Siberia added 2,300 pieces of large trackable debris and a bigger quantity of smaller trash to the existing space junk.
China did not help matters when in 2007 it used a missile to destroy an old weather satellite, creating 3,500 pieces of large debris. In 2016, a tiny piece of debris punched a hole in the solar panel of the European Space Agency (ESA) observation satellite, Copernicus Sentinel 1A. Even the Hubble Telescope’s solar array shows hundreds of tiny holes caused by dust-sized debris.
The risk of trash colliding with satellites could spiral higher in the future, K R Sridhara Murthy, Honorary Director and former vice president of Paris-based International Institute of Space Law (IISL), and a former senior scientist of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), told RT.
This is because a large number of private companies – SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon Kuiper, Guo Wang (China), Samsung (Korea), and Astrome Tech (India) plan to add a whopping 75,000 satellites within a decade to provide global communication networks (superfast internet services), and Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) to track ships (including those of pirates) among other benefits.
Though smaller than conventional satellites, they will crowd the low earth orbit (LEO), about 400 km from the ground, and multiply the number already in this sphere. “More companies are joining the race to position their satellites in orbit because the economics of satellite launch are changing drastically owing to reduction in the cost of putting a satellite into orbit and the deployment of reusable rockets,” Murthy added.
Need for self-discipline
Nations have not been unmindful of the hazards of space junk. The USA and the former USSR tracked objects measuring four inches or more from the Cold War era using a string of radars. NASA and the US Defense Department’s Space Surveillance Network (SSN) have cataloged more than 27,000 pieces of debris, and track each piece’s trajectory.
Not surprisingly, nations with ambitions in space, including India, are setting up facilities to track the burgeoning amount of trash.
The importance of tracking can be gauged when even the voyage of a rocket into space is delayed by a couple of minutes to prevent debris from causing a disastrous impact on missions, Dr. Mylswami Annadurai, the “Moon man of India” and former director of ISRO’s Prof. U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, told RT. He said that ISRO delayed the launch of its rockets three times to avoid a piece of space junk: a one-minute delay in the blast-offs in 2011 and 2016 and a three-minute hold in 2014
All space agencies realize the need for self-discipline in outer space and try not to disturb the operations of other satellites when decommissioning an old and defunct one. “For example, we (ISRO) brought down Megha-Tropiques (a satellite designed jointly and launched by ISRO and CNES of France in 2011 to study tropical atmosphere in the context of climate change) last year with the help of fuel available onboard without causing damage to any other satellite,” Rao said.
Last month, Indian space scientists reduced the altitude of the last stage of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket as part of its initiative to avoid creating more space junk. “Left alone at a 536 km circular orbit, the PSLV4 stage would orbit the Earth for over 25 years. As the number of satellites in LEO (low earth orbit) is growing and the space around this orbit is of particular interest, the orbit of the spent PSLV4 was reduced to 300 km,” said the ISRO’s spokesperson.
“Everybody wants to clear outer Space of debris, but how to do it is a billion-dollar question,” K Sivan, former Chairman of ISRO, explained to RT. “We are part of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC). This international governmental forum coordinates global efforts to reduce debris by sharing research and identifying debris mitigation options.”
When Sivan was at the helm, ISRO established a radar at the Deep Space Network Station on the outskirts of Bengaluru as part of a project, called ‘Nethra’, to track junk in outer space and to share the data with other space agencies. Earlier, ISRO established the Multi-Object Tracking Radar at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, the country’s spaceport just off the eastern coast in Odisha, to track the trajectory of 10 pieces of space junk and share the data with IADC.
According to Sivan’s predecessor, Gopalan Madhavan Nair, options include preventing new debris, designing satellites to withstand the impact of minor pieces, and improving procedures such as using orbits with less trash.
“Earlier, we used to allow the last stage of our PSLV rocket, along with some fuel, to drift away after launching the satellite, but now we make sure that the fuel (propellant) is exhausted to prevent an explosion of the last stage, or it is used to push the last stage closer to the Earth. Eventually, the last stage will drift further down and burn on re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere,” he said, alluding to the recent manoeuver.
Clearing efforts
In 2018, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNDIR) proposed three A-SAT (anti-satellite) test guidelines for preventing junk in outer space. No consensus, however, has been reached among space-faring nations on the policies.
To mitigate the hazards of vast amounts of junk in outer space, the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, has launched a project to develop a sprawling net akin to the one used by fishermen, to trap and drag down the trash. Many private companies are working on similar methods to cart away the garbage through operations that could fetch them millions of dollars.
ESA has teamed up with a consortium led by Swedish start-up, ClearSpace, to remove all ESA-owned, defunct satellites in the LEO. Their mission, ClearSpace1, will be launched in 2025 to capture a 100-kg upper-stage left orbit after the second flight of ESA’s Vega launcher in 2013. During follow-up missions, ESA will attempt multi-object captures.
Other space agencies and private enterprises could follow suit, each with unique techniques to reduce the trash in outer space by 2050. Space scientists, however, feel new satellite observation methods, too, ought to be developed to forecast the trajectory of orbiting satellites and debris to avoid collisions.
Poisoning the planet
Radioactive water dump is just latest example our reckless destruction of habitat
By Linda Pentz Gunter, 20 Aug 23, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/08/20/poisoning-the-planet/
Much has been made — and rightly so — about the potential impact on human health and the Japanese fishing industry if Japan moves forward with its proposal to dump 1.2 million cubic meters — that’s 1.3 million tons —of radioactively contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean from the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site.
Unfortunately, this looks likely to happen sometime this month or next despite the worldwide outcry. But when I say “happen”, that rather suggests a one-off dump. Instead, the discharge of these liquid nuclear wastes could go on for at least 17 years according to the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, but likely longer as decommissioning work at the site is expected to take at least 30-40 years.
It is perfectly right and reasonable that the Japanese fishing community sees its livelihood under threat from this proposal. Indeed, it has already taken a hit, as imports of Japanese fish stock to South Korea were down by 30% in May, before the dumping even began. This was clearly driven by jitters around the on-going safety of Japanese fish supplies once those radioactive discharges get underway.
And Pacific Island nations, along with an international team of scientific experts, have equally decried the plan as premature, unnecessary and in need of far greater confidence and further study before such discharges are executed, if ever.
But there is a greater moral issue here, one that speaks to humankind’s reckless and selfish behavior on planet Earth ever since mechanization and the various so-called industrial revolutions began.
For almost three centuries in the developed world, we have continuously and wantonly destroyed vast areas of precious habitat for numerous species. We have clear cut forests, sliced the tops off mountains, broken open the earth to mine minerals, exploded atomic weapons, spewed mercury and carbon into our air, drilled for oil, sprayed pesticides at will and filled the oceans with plastics, to name just a few environmental atrocities.
The toxic mess these activities leave behind has been dumped into rivers, streams, lakes and oceans, or on the lands where the less influential and powerful amongst us live — in the United States almost always in communities of color or on Native American reservations.
One of the worst offenders on this list is nuclear waste. In keeping with our heedless irresponsibility we have kept making lethal radioactive waste without the slightest idea how to safely manage or store it for the longterm. For years, barrels of the stuff were dumped into the sea, until a 1994 amendment to the London Dumping Convention, put an end to it.
But of course the nuclear industry found a way around this. Routine liquid discharges through a pipe circumvented this law. Institutions such as the LaHague reprocessing site on the northern French coast, have discharged radioactive liquids (and gases) for decades. Didier Anger, the now retired expert activist on the environmental crimes at La Hague, uses this history to warn us urgently and eloquently of the folly of discharging nuclear waste into our oceans.
At times, the liquid wastes from La Hague, measured at the discharge point by vigilant groups such as Greenpeace, could have been classified as high-level radioactive waste that would normally require a deep geological repository.
As we approach the moment when radioactive liquids are once more poured into the sea, this time in Japan, imposing a toxic burden on the creatures who are already struggling to survive there, we must ask whether human beings have some sort of divine right of kings to trash the habitat of other living things?
The answer should surely be ‘no’. That humans can generate a radioactive mess and “dispose” of it into some other creatures’ habitat, poisoning their environment is, frankly, both arrogant and abhorrent.
We have already done this everywhere and it has come with a terrible price to other creatures as well as to ourselves. The destruction and contamination of habitat has led to mass extinctions. The US has lost three billion birds since 1970. That’s one in four birds. We may have thought the birds were back in abundance during the start of the covid pandemic, but that was just us hearing what’s left of them more clearly, in the quiet of lockdown.
Bees, who perform around 80% of all pollination, are dying out and hives collapsing, all due to human activities. These include pesticides, drought, habitat destruction, nutrition deficit, air pollution, and, of course, the climate crisis.
Absent these and other essential members of the web of life, our own extinction is not far behind.
We need to stop this behavior and we need to stop it now. We should do it not only for ourselves but for the countless innocent creatures who should not be expected to offer up their homes as our dustbins.
Loading up the Pacific Ocean with liquid radioactive waste — whether it dilutes and disperses or not — is a crime of immorality representative of so many that have come before. If we are truly to change our plundering, polluting and profligate ways, banning the radioactive water dump at Fukushima would be an excellent place to start.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.
Japan’s nuclear plants are short of storage for spent fuel. A remote town could have the solution.
Chugoku Electric’s plan to build a nuclear power plant in Kaminoseki has been stalled for more than a decade since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, delaying subsidies for the remote town, whose population is aging and shrinking.
“The town will only get poorer if we just keep waiting,” Kaminoseki Mayor Tetsuo Nishi – “We should do whatever is available now.”
ByMARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press, https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/japans-nuclear-plants-short-storage-spent-fuel-remote-102373016 August 19, 2023
TOKYO — A Japanese town said Friday it has agreed to a geological study to determine its suitability as an interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel.
Kaminoseki, a small town in the southwestern prefecture of Yamaguchi, said it would accept the offer of a survey by Chugoku Electric Power Co., one of two major utility operators, along with Kansai Electric Power Co., whose spent fuel storage pools are almost full.
The Japanese government is promoting the greater use of nuclear power as a low-carbon energy source, but the country’s nuclear plants are running out of storage capacity.
The problem stems from Japan’s stalled nuclear fuel recycling program to reprocess plutonium from spent fuel for reuse. The government has continued to pursue the program, despite serious technical setbacks. A plutonium-burning Monju reactor failed and is being decommissioned, while the launch of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant in northern Japan has been delayed for almost 30 years.
After the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011, many reactors were temporarily taken offline and their restarts delayed, helping to reduce the spent fuel stockpile.
However, when Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government decided to reverse a phaseout and maximize nuclear power as clean energy, concerns over the lack of storage space were rekindled.
Earlier this month, Chugoku put forward a proposal to build a storage facility jointly with Kansai Electric, but the plan was met by angry protests from residents, who surrounded the mayor and yelled at him.
Chugoku Electric’s plan to build a nuclear power plant in Kaminoseki has been stalled for more than a decade since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, delaying subsidies for the remote town, whose population is aging and shrinking.
“The town will only get poorer if we just keep waiting,” Kaminoseki Mayor Tetsuo Nishi told a televised news conference Friday. “We should do whatever is available now.”
Kansai Electric, Japan’s largest nuclear plant operator, is urgently seeking additional storage for spent fuel: the cooling pools at its plants are more than 80% full. The company pledged to find a potential interim storage site by the end of this year.
About 19,000 tons of spent fuel, a byproduct of nuclear power generation, is stored at power plants across Japan, taking up about 80% of their storage capacity, according to the economy and industry ministry.
The continuation of spent fuel reprocessing program and the delay have only added to Japan’s already large plutonium stockpile, raising international concern. Japan also lacks a final repository for high-level nuclear waste.
An intermediate facility is designed to keep nuclear spent fuel in dry casks for decades until it is moved to a reprocessing or to a final repository. Experts say it is a much safer option than keeping it in uncovered cooling pools at their plants.
If the storage is actually built, it will be the second such facility in Japan. The only other one is in Mutsu, near Rokkasho, which is reserved for Tokyo Electric Power Co. and a smaller utility.
Fukushima water release poses test for Japan-South Korea unity
TOKYO/SEOUL – Japan Times , BY TIM KELLY, SAKURA MURAKAMI AND HYONHEE SHIN
REUTERS 18 Aug 23
U.S. President Joe Biden wants to lock in friendly ties between Japan and South Korea at a summit on Friday, but their readiness to shelve grievances will be tested when Tokyo begins pumping water from its wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.
Japan already delayed the release to avoid stirring up political opposition in South Korea before President Yoon Suk-yeol joins Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a meeting with Biden at the Camp David retreat on Friday, four officials in Japan and South Korea said.
The dumping of radioactive water may happen days after the summit, which the United States is billing as a “historical” trilateral meeting that will deliver a “bold counter” to regional rival China.
That puts less domestic political pressure on Yoon, said one of the officials, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Washington needs its Asian allies to work together because they see the military power balance in East Asia, including around Taiwan, shifting in China’s favor.
…………………….. Even if Fukushima fades as an issue, the risk of bad blood remains real. As relations soured in 2019, for example, Moon nearly scrapped a critical intelligence-sharing deal with Japan, reversing the decision at the last minute under U.S. pressure.
By accepting an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report last month that greenlit Japan’s Fukushima water release, Yoon could encourage fresh dissent that China will try to amplify, analysts say.
“There is certainly some possibility that Yoon will come under pressure over this, particularly if there is data that shows that the water is more dangerous than we otherwise thought,” said Christopher Johnstone, a former East Asia director of Biden’s National Security Council who is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Japan says it will remove most radioactive elements from the water except for tritium, a hydrogen isotope that must be diluted because it is difficult to filter.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday expressed satisfaction with Japan’s plans.
………………….a Gallup poll in late June showed that 78% of South Koreans worry about potential contamination of the ocean and seafood…………………………
more https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/08/18/japan/politics/south-korea-fukushima-radioactive-water/
Japan mothers’ group fears Fukushima water release could revive health concerns
By Kiyoshi Takenaka, Akiko Okamoto and Tom Bateman, August 18, 2023
IWAKI, Japan, Aug 17 (Reuters) – Waves crashing on a Japanese beach lashed a man and a woman wearing waders and hats as they demonstrated the use of a blue bucket to scoop some of the liquid into large plastic containers to be taken away and tested for radiation.
Members of a group that tracks such levels in food and seawater, they fear Japan’s plans to release treated radioactive water into the sea near the Fukushima nuclear plant could stir an anxiety among residents reminiscent of the 2011 disaster.
“The people of Fukushima endured the risks for the last 12 years and have confirmed the radiation level has dropped,” said Ai Kimura, director of non-profit group Mothers’ Radiation Lab Fukushima, also known as Tarachine.
“But if radioactive materials are released into the ocean now, it will again bring back the tragedy of 12 years ago,” she added, speaking at the lab in the city of Iwaki, 50 km (30 miles) south of the power plant.
Japan is preparing this summer to start discharging into the Pacific more than a million tons of water from the tsunami-crippled power plant, but has not yet revealed the date.
Although the government and an international nuclear regulator say the plan is safe, it has alarmed neighbours, particularly China, and the regional fisheries industry.
Tarachine comprises 13 members – mostly mothers – who had no experience in radiology when they started, but were taught by scientists and doctors how to run tests and keep records.
After losing a job cooking school lunches in the wake of the disaster, Kimura joined the group in 2014 and taught herself how to measure radiation, in hopes of protecting her daughters, who were teenagers at the time, as well as others.
Now she says she wants more dialogue between the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (9501.T) on one side, and citizens, fishermen and others on the other, to allay concerns over safety and other fears.
“Since the ocean has no walls … and what’s been released can’t be taken back, this issue is not only for Fukushima or for Japan to give consideration to, but for the whole world,” Kimura added.
…………… Kimura’s group vowed to continue its activities after the release begins.
“We will keep on providing data, so that fathers and mothers can decide for themselves, and children can also decide, when they grow up, whether to eat Fukushima fish or whether to go swimming in the sea,” Kimura said.
Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka, Akiko Okamoto and Tom Bateman; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Clarence Fernandez https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-mothers-group-fears-fukushima-water-release-could-revive-health-concerns-2023-08-17/
US tightens export controls of nuclear power items to China
By Timothy Gardner, August 19, 2023
WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The Biden administration has tightened controls on the export of materials and components for nuclear power plants to China, saying it would ensure the items were used only for peaceful purposes and not the proliferation of atomic weapons.
The steps are among the latest signs of strained relations between Washington and Beijing, which have clashed over spying allegations, human rights, China’s industrial policies, and U.S. export bans on advanced technologies.
The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), an arm of the Commerce Department, now requires exporters to get specific licenses to export certain generators, containers and software intended for use in nuclear plants in China.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the federal agency responsible for nuclear energy safety, also requires exporters to get specific licenses to export special nuclear material and source material.
That includes different types of uranium as well as deuterium, a hydrogen isotope that, in large amounts, could be used in reactors to make tritium, a nuclear weapons component.
The Biden administration sees the action as “necessary to further the national security interests of the United States and to enhance the common defense and security” the NRC said.
A U.S. official said the changes, made on Monday, were prompted by general policy toward China…………………….
Non-proliferation analyst Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists non-profit group said the changes were “more symbolic than substantive” and doubted China’s nuclear weapons program would be meaningfully impacted.
…………………………….U.S. company Westinghouse has four AP1000 reactors in China. In 2018 Donald Trump’s administration issued restrictions on exports of nuclear reactor technology newer than the AP1000 due to proliferation concerns. Westinghouse did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the U.S. requirements.
Reporting by Timothy Gardner; additional reporting by Michael Martina; editing by Barbara Lewis https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-tightens-export-controls-nuclear-power-items-china-2023-08-18/
South Korea’s opposition party to file UN complaint against Japan over nuclear waste
Democratic Party plans to visit Tokyo to oppose release of treated water from crippled Fukushima nuclear plant
Esra Tekin |14.08.2023 -ISTANBUL, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/south-koreas-opposition-party-to-file-un-complaint-against-japan-over-nuclear-waste/2967294
South Korea’s main opposition party announced on Monday its intention to lodge a formal grievance with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in the upcoming week, regarding Japan’s proposed strategy to release water from the Fukushima site.
According to representative Woo Won-shik, who leads the Democratic Party (DP) committee that opposes Tokyo’s proposal to discharge treated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean, the complaint will be formally submitted on Thursday, Seoul-based Yonhap News reported.
The DP asserts that the planned release, set to start as soon as late August, breaches several international agreements and lacks verified scientific safeguards.
The UNHRC assesses grievances originating from individuals, entities, or nations pertaining to instances of ongoing and severe human rights transgressions.
Alongside submitting the complaint, the DP intends to collect signatures from roughly 1.5 million citizens and deliver them to the office of the president.
Furthermore, DP members are making preparations for a visit to Japan by the end of this month to express their opposition to Tokyo’s scheme, subsequent to two prior visits made in April and July.
Japan is expected to release treated nuclear waste from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant this month or early next month.
Japan’s water discharge plan, announced in April 2021, faced significant criticism from China, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, and international organizations, including the UN.
The US supported the proposal, following years of discussions on dealing with over 1 million tons of water stored at the Fukushima nuclear complex since the 2011 disaster.
2 minor earthquakes strike near North Korea’s nuclear test site
Sunday’s tremors latest in series of earthquakes to hit Kilju region in recent months
By Anadolu staff 13.08.2023 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/2-minor-earthquakes-strike-near-north-koreas-nuclear-test-site/2966671
ANKARA
Two minor earthquakes struck on Sunday near North Korea’s nuclear test site, the latest in a series of natural earthquakes to hit the region in recent months, South Korea’s state weather agency said.
There were no reports of any damage.
The first earthquake of 2.7 magnitude struck about 40 kilometers (24.8 miles) north-northwest of Kilju, North Hamgyong Province, at 3:13 a.m. (local time), while the second of 2.3 magnitude struck 42 km (26 m) north-northwest of Kilju at 7:55 a.m, Seoul-based Yonhap News reported.
Kilju is home to the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, where North Korea conducted all six of its nuclear tests.
Eight natural earthquakes were reported to have struck the area in 2022 alone.
Who decides whether Bataan should go nuclear?
The plant is located near to not one but four volcanoes, in an area prone to earthquakes’
Rappler.com, AUG 13, 2023 LOLITA CASTILLO
Bataan, a beautiful peninsula located west of the Philippine capital, Manila, is most famous for a couple of things. One, it was where the Death March began following the defeat of the allied forces of American and Filipino soldiers led by Gen. Douglas McArthur against the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. Two, it is where the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) with a price tag of $2.3 billion idly resides, unoperated for nearly four decades.
Bataan residents did not have any sort of control or say in these two circumstances that brought their province to prominence. The former, BNPP’s construction amid opposition, was decided without their consent, and the latter a byproduct of the irrationalities of war and the fight for democracy.
Bataan is my birthplace and remains dear to my heart. Although I have been away for a few decades, I keep abreast of the potential threats to its security and stability. BNPP’s construction began when I was in grade school, and most people in Bataan were not even aware of it until cause-oriented groups outside of Bataan and the local informal leaders bravely protested against its operation in a militarized, political climate. Now, it’s an issue that has resurfaced, and it will test how democracy is manifested and mediated in local and national settings, and how crucial decisions and trade-offs will be made regarding safety, equity, and sustainable development.
Each year, the government allocates more than $1 million for the BNPP’s upkeep and maintenance. It remains a losing and wasteful investment that does not give back. It is important that a decision is made about the white elephant as delays in the decision come with opportunity costs.
The plant, the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, was designed to provide 620 megawatts of electricity, and was completed in 1984 in response to the oil crisis in the ’70s – but has never produced any single watt of electricity due to a combination of factors. The biggest of these factors are safety concerns.
The administration of Aquino and Ramos had ordered it mothballed in spite of its extremely high costs based on the findings from the technical audit conducted by the National Union of Scientists (NUS) in 1986, 1988, and 1990, citing over 4,000 technical defects concerning cover design, construction, quality assurance, workmanship, etc.
The plant is located near to not one but four volcanoes, in an area prone to earthquakes. Fear and uncertainty about the location, and the wake of the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979, the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and the more recent 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster restrained efforts to revive it.
As the Philippines seeks to retire its coal plants to meet its pledge and climate goals, as the impact of climate change around the globe, especially among the most vulnerable island countries, intensifies, and as demand for electricity increases, the discussions and debates whether to revive the BNPP or not, or whether to repurpose it, continues.
Nuclear energy is depicted as “cleaner” than coal, and Bataan’s power plants that send electricity to the Luzon grid rely heavily on fossil fuel. As of November 30, 2022, the total capacity of existing power plants in Bataan equals 3,676.7 MW. Renewable energy accounts only for 92.4 MW while fossil fuel-fired plants account for 3,528 MW. More solar and wind farms are slated for construction and operation by 2026, which will increase the output to 4,920.7 MW.
……………………………………… there are compelling dangers or risks as well: the plant is nearly 40 years old and would need substantial rehabilitation that require further spending. Rigorous safety protocols are imperative to ensure safety, as it is sitting on earthquake-prone area. It generates radioactive waste, and the disposal of waste is expensive, as well as poses potential environmental risks. The cost of repair, maintenance, and operation might be higher than if the government were to build and operate renewable sources of energy. In 2017, a South Korean firm estimated that rehabilitation and upgrade of BNPP would be up to $1.19 billion.
………………………….The residents of Bataan must always be included in decision-making on the path to development, as they are the ones who directly suffer from the consequences of bad economic and environmental policies. Moreover, Bataan is already disproportionally carrying the heavy burden of supplying energy to Luzon. It will be unequitable to force it to host an old nuclear plant that faces considerable uncertainties.
Whatever Bataan decides, the following questions loom: Would the national government respect its decision and local autonomy? Would it allow Bataan the right to self-determination? If Bataan were to demand the national government to fund the rapid expansion of renewable sources of energy and repurpose BNPP, would the current president support it or would he follow the path of his father? – Rappler.com https://www.rappler.com/voices/imho/opinion-who-decides-whether-bataan-should-go-nuclear/
In South Korea, activists march against Tokyo’s waste plan
Hundreds of people in South Korean took to the streets of Seoul on Saturday
to protest against Japan’s contentious plan to release treated nuclear
wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. Tokyo is set to release the water from
the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant later this month. It has been
approved by the UN nuclear watchdog, and a South Korean assessment found it
meets international standards. But protesters fear marine life will be
destroyed and seafood contaminated. Marching in central Seoul, they held
signs reading “Protect the Pacific Ocean” and “Nuclear Power? No Thanks!”.
BBC 12th Aug 2023
Secret Pakistan cable documents US pressure to remove Imran Khan
“All will be forgiven,” said a U.S. diplomat, if the no-confidence vote against Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan succeeds.
The Intercept, Ryan Grim, Murtaza Hussain, August 9 2023,
THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT encouraged the Pakistani government in a March 7, 2022, meeting to remove Imran Khan as prime minister over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a classified Pakistani government document obtained by The Intercept.
The meeting, between the Pakistani ambassador to the United States and two State Department officials, has been the subject of intense scrutiny, controversy, and speculation in Pakistan over the past year and a half, as supporters of Khan and his military and civilian opponents jockeyed for power. The political struggle escalated on August 5 when Khan was sentenced to three years in prison on corruption charges and taken into custody for the second time since his ouster. Khan’s defenders dismiss the charges as baseless. The sentence also blocks Khan, Pakistan’s most popular politician, from contesting elections expected in Pakistan later this year.
One month after the meeting with U.S. officials documented in the leaked Pakistani government document, a no-confidence vote was held in Parliament, leading to Khan’s removal from power. The vote is believed to have been organized with the backing of Pakistan’s powerful military. Since that time, Khan and his supporters have been engaged in a struggle with the military and its civilian allies, whom Khan claims engineered his removal from power at the request of the U.S.
The text of the Pakistani cable, produced from the meeting by the ambassador and transmitted to Pakistan, has not previously been published. The cable, known internally as a “cypher,” reveals both the carrots and the sticks that the State Department deployed in its push against Khan, promising warmer relations if Khan was removed, and isolation if he was not.
The document, labeled “Secret,” includes an account of the meeting between State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, and Asad Majeed Khan, who at the time was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S.
The document was provided to The Intercept by an anonymous source in the Pakistani military who said that they had no ties to Imran Khan or Khan’s party. The Intercept is publishing the body of the cable below, correcting minor typos in the text because such details can be used to watermark documents and track their dissemination………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Intercept has made extensive efforts to authenticate the document. Given the security climate in Pakistan, independent confirmation from sources in the Pakistani government was not possible. The Pakistan Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to a request for comment……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
more https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imran-khan-pakistan-cypher-ukraine-russia/—
Agency to test for tritium in fish after Fukushima water discharge
The Fisheries Agency will conduct daily checks of tritium levels in fish
caught off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture after treated water from the
Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is released into the ocean.
The agency announced on Aug. 10 that the results of the checks would be released two
days later. The study will continue for about a month after the start of
the discharge of water treated after being contaminated with radiation
within the plant grounds.
The government plans to begin releasing the
water, which has accumulated at the crippled plant for more than a decade
and is nearing the capacity of storage tanks on the site, later this
summer. China has been especially virulent in opposing the discharge of the
treated water due to environmental concerns. The results of the daily
checks will be released in Japanese and English by the Fisheries Agency.
Asahi Shimbun 11th Aug 2023
Nippon Life bans investments in nuclear arms firms, tobacco companies
The company’s ESG investment list already excludes cluster munitions and landmine manufacturers and coal power programs.
By Kenneth Araullo, Aug 10, 2023
https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/asia/news/life-insurance/nippon-life-bans-investments-in-nuclear-arms-firms-tobacco-companies-455734.aspx
Nippon Life, Japan’s largest life insurer, will not invest in nuclear weapons manufacturers as part of its new environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policy.
In addition to nuclear arms, tobacco-related companies – a first for a major insurer in the country – and palm-oil related businesses are also off its investment list. Nippon Life’s exclusion list already includes manufacturers of inhumane weapons like cluster munitions and landmines, in addition to coal-fired power generation programs.
With this change, Nippon Life is affirming its commitment to nuclear disarmament and abolition, an idea that is beginning to see huge strides ever since the G7 leaders’ “Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament.” According to The Mainichi, Nippon Life decided that it should “clarify a corporate policy of not investing in or financing nuclear weapons manufacturers, based on the mission of the life insurance business and its public nature.”
In addition to Nippon Life, Dai-ichi Life already bans investments or loans to nuclear arms firms; this makes two of the largest insurers in the country now following the same ESG policy regarding such weapons.
Elsewhere, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) has started its probe into four nonlife insurers which were alleged to have taken part in price fixing activities.
Another Washington declaration: U.S. nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula
Foreign Policy Research Institute, Joseph Su 9 Aug 23
- On July 18, the USS Kentucky docked in South Korea, marking the first visit by a potentially nuclear-armed US submarine since the 1980s on the heels of North Korean missile launches.
- After North Korea conducted a record amount of missile tests in 2022, South Korea has become increasingly worried about the nuclear threat and sought further nuclear security guarantees with the United States, signing the Washington Declaration to increase deployments of US strategic assets on the peninsula.……….
Sending Kentucky to Korea
On July 18, 2023, the USS Kentucky, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, docked in Busan, South Korea. The USS Kentucky is one of 14 Ohio-class submarines tasked with conducting nuclear deterrence patrols and carries up to 20 Trident II D5 nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. This visit marks the first port call by a nuclear-capable submarine since the 1980s and the 1991 decision to withdraw US nuclear forces from the Korean Peninsula.
…………………………………………………. The USS Kentucky is an Ohio-class submarine that joined the fleet in 1983 and continues to carry the United States’ nuclear forces at sea. Equipped with 20 launch tubes for the Trident II D5 missile which carries on average four nuclear warheads per missile, a single Ohio submarine could carry a nuclear payload 1,100 times more powerful than the two bombs combined that were dropped in 1945, even abiding by treaty limitations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/08/another-washington-declaration-us-nuclear-weapons-on-the-korean-peninsula/
1 This Month
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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