Safety flaws in India’s nuclear power plants
AERB detects flaws at nuclear plants Business Standard, Sanjay Jog / Mumbai Sep 04, 2012, Regulatory inspections of nuclear power plants and research facilities have revealed there have been deviation from technical specifications and other regulatory stipulations, deficiencies and degradations in safety-related systems and procedural inadequacies.
The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), which carried out 47 regulatory inspections, comprising 25 scheduled and 22 special inspections in 2011-12, observed there were shortcomings in safetydesign and safety support systems based on operating experience,
including generic deficiencies.
The board has made a strong case for improvement in procedures and design by the respective nuclear power plants. It observed at Narora Atomic Power Station 1 & 2, continuous monitoring of healthiness and availability of seismic trips circuits did not exist. The unavailability of this trip due to loss of power supply or discontinuity in the wiring remain unnoticed till the next surveillance test. The scheme in this regard was under AERB’s review with the designers of Nuclear Power Corporation…….http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/aerb-detects-flaws-at-nuclear-plants/485318/
Chernobyl’s children better protected than Fukushima’s: Japan’s health catastrophe
Although thyroid cancer is highly treatable and is operable, this level of exposure for Fukushima’s children is nothing short of catastrophic. There is a scientific consensus that at least 4,000 excess cancer deaths occurred in the wake of Chernobyl’ (a consensus, by the way, not shared by the nuclear industry–surprise!), but careful epidemiologicalstudies sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists estimate as many as 25,000 excess cancer deaths.
the health threat of Fukushima, even with these shocking thyroid results known, is being systematically underplayed in the business press.
The thing is, there has been a consistent downplaying the likely health effects of the Fukushima accident and an over-hyping of nuclear power’s “green” energy profile
FUKUSHIMA–WORSE THAN CHERNOBYL’ FOR KIDS The Paltry Sapien, by Matthew Payne July 21, 2012 The shocking results of the latest epidemiological studies are in from Fukushima and they are not good. As summarized by Michael Kelly at Business Insider, the report indicates:
Of more than 38,000 children tested from the Fukushima Prefecture in Japan, 36 percent have abnormal growths – cysts or nodules – on their thyroids a year after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, as reported by ENENews.
This is startling. The Chernobyl meltdown threw much more atmospheric contamination out but has had a much slower progression in poisoning its local children–only about 1.74 percent of tested children in the test area around Chernobyl’ had thyroid nodules five to ten years after the nuclear catastrophe! How to explain this much higher virulence of radiation contamination in Japan? Well, first, they received a very high dose of radiation–mostly radioactive iodine isotopes. This was to be expected given prevailing wind patterns and the reason why the US NRC advised American nationals to evacuate to a distance of 50 miles, not the 20 to 30kilometers implemented by the Japanese government. That zone was not based on the clear computing modeling available to the Japanese government and it is hard to come to any other conclusion than that the government balked at evacuating the major city of Fukushima in the wake of the tsunami’s chaos. Frankly, even an evacuation zone of fifty miles was inadequate–ENENews has uncovered three children (4, 7, and 10) from one family with pre-cancerous cysts on their thyroids sixty miles from Fukushima Daiichi. Continue reading
Drop in water levels in Fukushima reactors coolant injections
Tepco: “Unknown whether the flow will recover” — No conclusive evidence of why reactors had sudden drop in water injections August 31st, 2012 By ENENews Follow-up to: Trouble injecting water into Fukushima Reactors 1-3 — Flow falls despite increasing coolant level — Tepco unable to identify cause, thinks pipes are clogged
August 31, 2012 report by Kyodo News translated by EXSKF:
After the amount of water being injected into Reactors 1, 2, and 3′s Reactor Pressure Vessels at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant had temporarily dropped below the level specified in the safety regulations, TEPCO announced on August 31 that the company flushed the pipes […] TEPCO will wait and see if the amount of water injected into the RPVs recovers before deciding whether the second flushing is necessary.
[…]
According to TEPCO’s Junichi Matsumoto, “There is no conclusive evidence to narrow down the possible causes, and it is unknown whether the flow will recover.”
Every minute of every day – radiation exposure to Fukushima’s children
He didn’t answer my question about the fuel rods melted out did he?”
No he did not answer that question. ( The molten fuel is still molten, and large amounts of it has leaked through the holes in the base of the pressure vessles. As of September 2011, TEPCO still cannot accurately measure the amount of water in the reactors, the levels have been recently found to be very low and the water keeps leaking from the holes in the bottom of the damaged reactor pressure vessels.
On completion of “Step 2″ in their road map, the government scrapped the 20km exclusion zone, “welcoming back” women and children.
…most will come back because the government is making false promises. They have no where else to go
“Our government is still telling us that there is no immediate effect on health. Also it is telling us that it will be safe to come back and live in Fukushima within one or two years after the clean up work is done. Children in Fukushima are the most victimized by these government lies. Children in Fukushima are being exposed to radiation everyday and every minute of the day. Only 10% of 300,000 children living in Fukushima Prefecture have evacuated. “
Evacuate Fukushima 福島の子供を守れ Part 07 – DAYS OF INFAMY http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/evacuate-fukushima-%E7%A6%8F%E5%B3%B6%E3%81%AE%E5%AD%90%E4%BE%9B%E3%82%92%E5%AE%88%E3%82%8C-part-07-days-of-infamy/
The Japanese government decides to return all evacuees within 20 km of Fukushima Diiachi …going deeper into the history books 30 September 2011 will also mention this Day of Infamy. When an entire nation abandoned its children at the hands of a Nuclear Mafia that purchased the souls of the very young ones that were supposed to protect them. Continue reading
Strong case against Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant Project (KKNPP).
Several questions on safety unanswered, cry activists
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/several-questions-on-safety-unanswered-cry-activists/287345-60-118.html 2 Sept 12, N Vinoth Kumar / ENS Anti-nuclear activists have expressed disappointment over the Madras High Court’s nod for commissioning Units I and II of the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant Project (KKNPP).
“It is a disappointment. No questions raised by us were answered in the judgment. We will soon appeal to the Supreme Court,” said G Sundarrajan, who filed cases against the KKNPP in the High Court. Similarly, Dr V Pugazhenthi, who worked among those affected by
radiation in Kalpakkam, said, “After the Fukushima incident, a committee constituted by the Centre gave 17 recommendations to the government.
As per the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) guidelines, a nuclear plant must be commissioned only after putting in place thorough Emergency Operative Procedures (EOP).
But as per the recommendations of the committee, it has given an assurance that the EOP can be finalised six months after the nuclear plant is commissioned. This is a complete violation.”
He has also alleged holes in the safety assessment of the KKNPP. “The expert panel on the KKNPP — headed by Prof Muthunayagam— said that there are no chances of a ‘Near Field Tsunami’ in the region. It also did not acknowledge the possibility of ‘slumps’, the under-sea
phenomenon that causes a tsunami. But, after we put out our report indicating the presence of such slumps, they modified their report. As per international norms, if any slump is found, its chemical composition must be studied.
The expert panel did not consider this,” Dr Pugazhenthi said. Dr Ramesh, a member of the fact-finding team on the mock drill held in Nakkaneri, alleged, “The final request made to the State was the conduct of an emergency preparedness drill. The claim that such a drill was conducted in Nakkaneri is a blatant lie.”
People’s Expert Committee member M G Devasahayam said there was ample evidence to support the case against the KKNPP. “The documents against the KKNPP are formidable and factual,” he said.
Corruption in Japan’s The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency
NISA is not effectively fulfilling its obligations related to nuclear safety, and was influencing the public perception of nuclear energy since its birth. NISA is governed by the Japanese ministry in charge of promoting the nuclear power industry, how could the agency be fully committed to ensuring that nuclear power plants were operating safely? No one can wholly serve conflicting interests, and will either choose to emphasize some, and mitigate the others. At some point the desire to increase market saturation or investment becomes an all-important driver of regulations, and the individual end-consumers become far less important to regulatory affairs.
In Japan, “The Atomic Village” has been likened to a cult, where the industry and its regulators are focused on a singular purpose of expanding the nuclear industry
Changing the rules – It’s not just regulatory capture, it’s a whole new game Enformable 30 Aug 12, NISA plans to ok operations at nuclear power plants built above faults Despite its conflict of interest, lack of public trust, and pending abolishment, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has released plans to accept new nuclear safety rules that OK operations even at nuclear power plants even if active earthquake faults are discovered beneath their structures, reversing its current mandate that reactors must not be built above faults.
NISA has announced new plans to classify faults under nuclear reactors into three types: active faults that could trigger quakes, auxiliary faults that are structurally connected to active faults, and faults deemed weaker than the other two. These last-minute efforts to set new seismic safety criteria have drawn criticism from experts, who suspect it is willfully creating loopholes to ensure the continued operations of nuclear plants.
Mitsuhisa Watanabe, a professor of geomorphology at Toyo University, said it would be hard to distinguish auxiliary faults from rifts with weaker power and both types could cause displacements. “The agency appears to be contemplating how to avoid the decommissioning of reactors just before its disbandment,” he said. Continue reading
Japan likely to go for zero nuclear power, and terminate nuclear reprocessing
Other options under consideration include termination of the commercialization program for “fast-breeder” reactors and of research on the experimental Monju prototype in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. As for the all-important nuclear fuel cycle, the government is actually discussing scaling down its reprocessing and recycling pursuits.
Zero option for nuclear power may be added to revamped energy plan http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120903a3.html Jiji Eliminating dependence on nuclear power is expected to be part of the government’s revamped energy policy, officials say.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda will reveal the new policy to his ministers after making a formal decision this month, government officials said Saturday. According to the officials, the government will make the 15 percent option its interim target for nuclear power dependence in 2030 before completely eliminating it from electricity generation at an unspecified date. Continue reading
Nuclear weapons for Myanmar
The producers of the DVB documentary say evidence of Myanmar’s nuclear programme has come from top-secret material smuggled out of the country over several years
Myanmar has developed the capacity and is now using laser isotope separation, a technique for developing nuclear weapons.
Myanmar develops nuclear weapon http://www.weeklyblitz.net/2522/myanmar-develops-nuclear-weapon September 2, 2012 Myanmar’s military junta has secretly gained nuclear
power and soon the country will emerge as the third nuclear nation in South Asia. The issue of developing nuclear bomb by Myanmar came into media’s focal point following broadcast of a documentary in Al Jazeera Television. Continue reading
Japanese online summary tampers with radiation report
The significance of this difference of expression relates to the fact that dose ranges below 0.20 Gy (200 mSv) are being ignored.
Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) “alters” a Japanese summary of their research paper http://fukushimavoice-eng.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/radiation-effects-research-foundation.html
Japan’s nuclear industry in the grip of the criminal yakuza
The Nuclear Mafia Derails Democracy in Japan Dissident Voice, by Richard Wilcox / August 31st, 2012
End of the day, factory whistle cries, Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes.
– Bruce Springsteen, “Factory”
Bring us the living dead. People no one will miss.
– Fukushima official’s request to Yakuza
TEPCO’s involvement with anti-social forces and their inability to filter them out of the work-place is a national security issue … Nuclear energy shouldn’t be in the hands of the yakuza. They’re gamblers and an intelligent person doesn’t want them to have atomic dice to play with.
– Japanese Senator1…. The exploitation of labor at nuclear plants depends on the tools of social engineering, of government, mass media and schools. This is the hidden and shameful side of today’s materialist society and belies our complicity in a criminalized culture.Inefficient and corrupt employment practices at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) are prolonging the disaster. Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) outsources 90 percent of the work to subcontractors, mainly utilizing Japan’s criminal syndicates, “the Yakuza.” Japan is still a middle class society and most people will not volunteer for nuclear work. Japan risks running out of workers who have not exceeded their legal radiation limits.
Considered to be “Japan’s largest organized crime group” — who are on the radar of the US Treasury Dept. (another big crime group) — the Yakuza offer a service to society by sopping up its losers and giving them a dodgy occupation….. These short video interviews offer a useful introduction into how the Yakuza operate. Tepco’s relationship with the Yakuza is a cesspool of corruption from the highest to the lowest levels in its organization. “A senior National Police Agency officer, speaking on grounds of anonymity said, ‘TEPCO has a history of doing business with the yakuza that is far deeper than just using their labor.’ Continue reading
People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy will take anti nuclear fight to Supreme Court
People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy to appeal in apex court
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/madurai/Peoples-Movement-Against-Nuclear-Energy-to-appeal-in-apex-court/articleshow/16097343.cms TNN | Sep 1, 2012, MADURAI: People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) had decided to appeal in the Supreme Court against the Madras high court verdict giving the go ahead for the Kudankulam nuclear plant. PMANE coordinator S P Udayakumar, expressing disappointment over the verdict said that the high court judgment will be challenged in theapex court. “We will continue our fight for justice,” he said.
Villagers of Idinthakarai village wore a dejected look as the information about the judgment by a bench comprising Justices P Jyothimani and M Duraiswamy dismissing the batch of petitions against Kudankulam nuclear plant reached them. The villagers have been protesting against the nuclear plant for more than a year. Besides rallies and slogan shouting, the villagers were on a relay fast for the past several months.
“We had placed all our hope on the high court. Now, the only recourse for us is the Supreme Court. We will approach the Supreme Court,” said Udayakumar.
Court sanctions Kudankulam nuclear plant, but PMANE will not give up the fight
Our struggle against the plant will continue,” said SP Udayakumar, convenor, People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy, which has been at the forefront of the anti-plant protest
Kudankulam plant gets HC nod; activists protest , Hindustan Times Chennai, August 31, 2012 The Madras high court on Friday gave all-clear to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tirunelveli, 650km from Chennai, Continue reading
Japanese renewable energy plan to eliminate nuclear power
Renewable energy plan sees no nukes Japan Times Sep. 1, 2012 Kyodo, Jiji Environment Minister Goshi Hosono released a new strategy Friday to boost power generation capacity by more than sixfold for four renewable energy categories by 2030 to make it possible to eliminate all nuclear power plants.
Announcing the promotion strategy after the day’s Cabinet meeting, Hosono said his ministry plans to increase the combined annual capacity of electricity generation using offshore wind, geothermal, biomass and tidal power sources to as much as 19.41 million kw by 2030, compared with 2.96 million kw in fiscal 2010.
Specific targets were set at 8.03 million kw for offshore wind power, 3.88 million kw for geothermal power, 6 million kw for biomass power, and 1.5 million kw for tidal power.
In fiscal 2010, offshore wind power generation totaled 30,000 kw, geothermal power 530,000 kw, biomass power 2.4 million kw and tidal power zero.
While the government is studying options to cut nuclear energy’s share of total power generation to zero, 15 percent, or 20 to 25 percent by 2030 in light of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the strategy is designed to allow for the zero percent option.
Hosono said floating ocean wind power generators should be developed by 2020 to achieve the target of generating the same output as eight nuclear reactors. … http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120901a1.html
Secrecy and poor radiation monitoring in Japan’s, (and France’s) nuclear industry
Faced with an ongoing radioactivity which is contaminating Japan’s food and water supply, what should be done? The Nuclear Mafia’s ethos is silken sewn into the socio-political Kabuki theater of a post modern Japanese society, which seems helpless to save itself. Maybe Ambassador Matsumura, with his international political connections of good will, and the Skilled Veterans for Fukushima would be good people to turn to for advice.
The Nuclear Mafia Derails Democracy in Japan Dissident Voice, by Richard Wilcox / August 31st, 2012 “….The Nuclear Workforce French sociologist, Paul Jobin, “began research on Japanese and Taiwanese nuclear plant workers in 2002, mainly at Fukushima Daiichi,” and he did follow up interviews after the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
Jobin notes that:
* Subcontracting labor at nuclear plants in Japan began shortly after their creation, in the mid-1970s. “In France, this trend would develop after 1988, reaching a rate of 80% by 1992.”
* “According to NISA’s data, in 2009, Japan’s nuclear industry recruited more than 80,000 contract workers against 10,000 regular employees.”
* Part time employment is carried out in order to limit labor costs “whether in France or Japan, the nuclear industry nurtures a heavy culture of secrecy concerning the number of irradiated workers.” Continue reading
Japan’s political problems delay appointment of a new nuclear regulatory agency
Nuclear panel limbo Renewable energy plan sees no nukes Japan Times Sep. 1, 2012 Kyodo, Jiji The Diet may not vote on appointments to the new nuclear regulatory
commission before the legislative session ends Sept. 8.
A vote is unlikely in the current session, a senior Diet affairs official in the ruling Democratic Party of Japan confirmed Thursday.
This is because some DPJ members, including ex-Prime Minister Yukio
Hatoyama, oppose appointing Shunichi Tanaka, former acting chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, as head of the regulatory body, describing him as pronuclear.
There is concern within the DPJ that forcing the votes could cause more lawmakers to quit the party.
Another DPJ executive said holding the votes would be difficult as the opposition parties have boycotted deliberations since the opposition-controlled Upper House passed a censure motion against Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Wednesday.
The government has until Sept. 26 to set up the nuclear regulatory body. If the Diet doesn’t act, Noda has the power to appoint the commission’s members as a stopgap measure.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120901a1.html
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