Will this whistleblower be heard by anyone?
RELEASES INTERNAL IAEA DOCUMENT PROVING COLLUSION WITH JAPAN OVER FUKUSHIMA RADIOACTIVE WATER RELEASE
A whistleblower-released document created by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on June 1, 2023, shows that “the fix is in” – IAEA is not only is planning to approve the release of 1.3 million tons of radioactive water from Fukushima but to manipulate their communication to the world in support Japan’s position despite facts showing otherwise, eliminating anything that might “be viewed negatively by the public.”
This is outrageous and dangerous for the entire world. Japan, with the IAEA’s support – NOT protection – is planning to commit its own nuclear assault on the world through this radioactive water release.
We’ve suspected and accused the IAEA and Japan of working together in the past, and now we have the proof.
Please, do what you can to get this word out – not just to our echo chamber, but to media.
*********************************************
Few days ago a well-intentioned whistleblower has sent me an internal document of the IAEA.
In this IAEA’s internal document the IAEA is seen coaching TEPCO about what to tell and what not tell to the public regarding the « treated » water to be soon discharged into the Pacific Ocean.
One thing that can be drawn from that document’s content is that the IAEA and TEPCO have no intention to be fully transparent about the radioactive contamination of the said « treated water », only the one to cushion insidiously the real facts to the public eyes.
« Treated water » is quite an euphemism as it is public knowledge that in 12 years the TEPCO’s ALPs filtering system has never been capable to fully remove all the 64 radionuclides present in that radioactive water. Not even to mention the radioactive mud which has accumulated at the bottom of all those water tanks. For them to mention in their press releases only the tritium as being present in that “treated” water is their habitual lying by omission.
According to the news, Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of IAEA, will visit Japan on 4 July. The IAEA’s final report will be published soon and the nuclear water will be discharged into the ocean after the report.
This internal document is quite certainly making us question their future transparency, and their intention to protect truly the marine life and the health of the people. Cheap expediency, lying by omission when not just plain lying, are part of their usual modus operandi.
This whistleblower, who wishes to remain anonymous for his own protection, took a real risk leaking this document out, ascting out of his conscience as he knows from the inside the dangers of such radioactive marine pollution. Will it be enough to wake up the consciences and stop such dumping of radioactive polllution into our ocean?
Time is crucial in this matter, as for sure soon after the visit of the director general of the AIEA TEPCO will start discharging that water, and then it will be impossible to have them to stop.
I am just a blogger blogging on this little blog, I am sending this message in a bottle out to the world in the hope that someone, some journalists will take up this information and use it to influence the various governments to pressure Japan to not use our Pacific ocean as its personal trash backyard. The Asian countries neighboring Japan and the Pacific nations should protect their population from such marine radioactive pollution.
With all my prayerful wishes, asking for your help. Please share this article widely so that document will be of some use.
Many thanks to the anonymous whistleblower who did his part, now it is our turn to do ours.
Fukushima nuclear disaster: Japan set to dump contaminated water in Pacific – a million tonnes
Beside the dangerosity of various radionuclides on our environment, our food chain and our health, we must also consider the fact that TEPCO is not trustworthy for its “transparency”, it has lied repeatedly numerous times during the past 12 years, and that the IAEA itself being for the nuclear industry it has shown well its tendency if not its policy to minimize the radiation risks if not to cover things up.
22 Feb, 2023
Outrage is growing over an “unjust” plan to dump more than a million tonnes of contaminated wastewater on Australia’s doorstep – within months.
In 2011, Japan was rocked by the Fukushima nuclear disaster – the worst of its kind since Chernobyl in 1986.
Responders scrambled to stop damaged reactors at Fukushima’s Daiichi nuclear plant from overheating by pumping massive amounts of water through them, with the contaminated water then being stored in massive tanks at the site.
But now, Japan has run out of space, and in 2021, announced plans to dump 1.3 million tonnes of the contaminated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.
The water would be treated before being released over a period of several decades, with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga saying at the time it was “a realistic solution”.
“We will do our utmost to keep the water far above safety standards,” he vowed.
In the almost two years since, Japan has been working out the finer details of the release, which is now due to begin as soon as the northern hemisphere’s spring or summer – Australia’s autumn or winter.
Countries across the Pacific are furious.
‘Catastrophic harm’
Writing for The Guardian soon after the plan was first announced, youth advocates from the region Joey Tau and Talei Luscia Mangioni described it as an “unjust act”.
“To Pacific peoples, who have carried the disproportionate human cost of nuclearism in our region, this is yet another act of catastrophic and irreversible trans-boundary harm that our region has not consented to,” they wrote.
They were referring to the long history of the Pacific being used as the world’s nuclear waste dumping ground, with hundreds of nuclear tests being carried out across the region in the decades since World War II.
High-profile individuals and groups from across the Pacific – including from Vanuatu, Fiji, the Marshall Islands and French Polynesia – have also spoken out against Japan’s plan for months on end.
“If it is safe, dump it in Tokyo, test it in Paris, and store it in Washington, but keep our Pacific nuclear-free,” Vanuatu stateswoman and veteran activist of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement Motarilavoa Hilda Lini said soon after Japan’s plan was unveiled.
“We are people of the ocean, we must stand up and protect it.”
In another moving statement released last year, environmental advocacy group Youngsolwara Pacific likened the release to “nuclear war”.
“How can the Japanese government, who has experienced the same brutal experiences of nuclear weapons in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wish to further pollute our Pacific with nuclear waste? To us, this irresponsible act of trans-boundary harm is just the same as waging nuclear war on us as Pacific peoples and our islands.”
But their pleas have fallen on deaf ears – and a string of experts have even voiced support for Japan’s controversial move.
‘Best option’
Writing for The Conversation recently, Jim Smith, professor of environmental science at the University of Portsmouth, said releasing the wastewater was the “best option”.
Prof Smith – who has worked on the impacts of radioactive pollutants in the environment for more than three decades – explained that before the water is stored in the first place, “the wastewater produced at Fukushima is treated to remove almost all of the radioactive elements”.
“These include cobalt 60, strontium 90 and caesium 137. But tritium – a radioactive form of hydrogen – is left behind,” he explained.
“When one of the hydrogen atoms in water is replaced by tritium, it forms radioactive tritiated water. Tritiated water is chemically identical to normal water, which makes separating it from wastewater expensive, energy intensive and time consuming. A review of tritium separation technologies in 2020 found that they are unable to process the huge volumes of water required.
“But as radioactive elements go, tritium is relatively benign and its existence as tritiated water reduces its environmental impact. Chemically identical to normal water, tritiated water passes through organisms like water does and so does not strongly accumulate in the bodies of living things.”
Meanwhile, a South Korean government study released this month also found the release of the wastewater would have little impact on South Korean waters.
“That change would be too small to detect,” an official at the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology said, according to Reuters.
And the nation of Micronesia has also recently dropped its opposition to the release of the water, with president David Panuelo telling reporters he was no longer worried.
But for many critics of the plan, plenty of concerns remain.
“We must prevent actions that will lead or mislead us towards another major nuclear contamination disaster at the hands of others,” the former prime minister of the Cook Islands Henry Puna said just last month, as the deadline for the release looms. –
Many errors in TEPCO’s nuclear power plant examination documents at Kashiwazaki Kariwa Unit 3
January 19, 2023
On January 19, TEPCO Holdings revealed that 149 errors were found in the examination documents for the Kashiwazaki Kariwa Unit 3 nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, which is under review by the Nuclear Regulation Authority before its 30th year of operation. 131 of the errors were made using information from Unit 2, which has already been examined.
TEPCO apologized at the review meeting on the same day, saying, “We should reflect on this. The Regulatory Commission said, “This is a matter that concerns the reliability of the documents, and we hope you will take it seriously,” and demanded that a recurrence of the problem be prevented.
According to TEPCO, because they did not know the names of the materials required for the documents, they used those of the Unit 2 reactor of the same type. The same document contained an error due to a programming error, which was discovered when the company checked for similar errors.
Kashiwazaki Kariwa Unit 3, which began operation in August 1993, is currently shut down and has not yet applied for an inspection to restart operations. Nuclear power plants are required to undergo an examination to check the management of their facilities before they reach 30 years of operation. Kyodo News
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUA19CCU0Z10C23A1000000/?fbclid=IwAR339KW18B9GAITAh2AdBAorc1cA-7vkU_OoWvyCT7G1ECB-RI8xeldvadc
Report on Fukushima water release plan to ‘provide confidence’: IAEA
The IAEA’s plan to provide confidence in TEPCO’s radioactive water dumping into the Pacific Ocean demands for sure a lot of gullibility on our part….
This Feb. 13, 2021 photo taken from a Mainichi Shimbun helicopter shows the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.
November 18, 2022
TOKYO (Kyodo) — An International Atomic Energy Agency official said Friday that a report to be released early next year on Japan’s plan to discharge treated radioactive water into the sea from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant “will provide confidence to Japanese society, neighbors, all the (IAEA) member states.”
The report will be an independent and scientific evaluation based on international standards, said Gustavo Caruso, director and coordinator of the IAEA’s Department of Nuclear Safety and Security, at a press conference in Tokyo following the completion of the organization’s second safety review.
During the five-day on-site assessment through Friday, an IAEA task force of experts led by Caruso discussed radioactivity measurements that should be taken when the water is released with plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
On Wednesday, the team inspected the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Tokyo decided in April last year to gradually discharge the water, treated through an advanced liquid processing system that removes radionuclides, except tritium, into the Pacific Ocean after dilution from around spring 2023.
Water that has become contaminated after being pumped in to cool the melted reactor fuel at the plant has been accumulating at the facility, mixing with rainwater and groundwater at the site. Tanks holding the water occupy a large area of the complex and are nearing capacity.
But even if the review by the IAEA finds that some aspects do not comply with international standards, it will be left up to the Japanese government to decide whether to postpone or cancel the water release, according to Caruso.
The IAEA will revisit Japan in January to exchange views with the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
“Before the water discharge begins, the IAEA will issue a comprehensive report on all collected findings until now,” Caruso said.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20221118/p2g/00m/0na/060000c
TEPCO announces method for measuring concentration of radioactive materials to be discharged into the ocean, targeting 31 species to be discharged from next spring
The radioactive polluting of our Pacific ocean is just a too important issue for us to trust Tepco, a company which has never been honest in the past 10 years with its announced facts and numbers.
November 14, 2022
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced on April 14 that it will measure the concentrations of 30 types of radioactive materials, including tritium, which cannot be removed by the purification facilities, to determine whether or not to discharge contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (Okuma and Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture) after purifying and treating it, immediately prior to its discharge into the ocean. The purification system removes 62 types of radioactive materials, but radioactive materials with short half-lives were excluded from the evaluation because they have decayed.
According to TEPCO, radioactive materials that are expected to be reduced by half in less than one year and that were determined to be almost nonexistent in the treated water were excluded from the evaluation. TEPCO will continue to measure the excluded substances before they are discharged.
At a press conference on the same day, Junichi Matsumoto, head of the TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning Promotion Company, explained that the reason for reducing the number of substances to be evaluated compared to the radioactive substances to be removed by the ALPS is “to prevent unrealistic evaluations under excessively strict conditions. The measurement details will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulation Commission, and the Commission will review whether they are appropriate or not.
The evaluation targets include radioactive cesium and strontium. It was confirmed that the total concentration of 30 types of radioactive substances other than tritium was below the government’s standard for release. Then, a large amount of seawater will be mixed with the treated water, which still contains tritium, to dilute the tritium concentration to less than 1/40th of the standard level, and the water will be discharged from the seafloor about 1 km offshore.
TEPCO is now digging undersea tunnels with the aim of starting tritium discharge in or after next spring.
https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/213918?fbclid=IwAR29ZLfidwVblCHKcRUglDDyMiz9hp5WvZFb8wjHb-n3nh6c9lChLxRor6k
Japan says repayment of TEPCO Fukushima cleanup delayed
The Japanese government says repayment of the more than 10 trillion yen ($68 billion) government funding for cleanup and compensation for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster has been delayed
Men in hazmat suits work inside a facility with equipment to remove radioactive materials from contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, run by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO), in Okuma town, northeastern Japan, Thursday, March 3, 2022
By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press
November 8, 2022
TOKYO — Repayment of the more than 10 trillion yen ($68 billion) government funding for cleanup and compensation for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster has been delayed, the Japanese government says.
The Board of Audit said in a report released Monday that the delay stems from technical difficulties and Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings’ worsening financial state. It said the entire process may take more than 40 years.
The nuclear plant suffered triple meltdowns following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, spewing radiation that contaminated areas nearby and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate.
Funding for the first 11 years of the disaster has already amounted to nearly half of TEPCO’s total estimate of a cost of 22 trillion yen ($150 billion) for the decades-long project.
The Board of Audit said that by April, the government had provided 10.2 trillion yen ($70 billion) in no-interest loans to TEPCO for the plant cleanup, decontamination of its surroundings and compensation to people affected by the disaster.
The government has shouldered initial costs of the compensation with money borrowed from financial institutions. TEPCO is repaying those debts out of its revenues including electricity bills.
According to the Board of Audit, the government raised its funding limit to 13.5 trillion yen ($92 billion) from an earlier 9 trillion yen ($61 billion) in anticipation of higher costs. Costs of the cleanup are funded by government bonds, so increases or delays add to the public debt.
TEPCO’s mandated repayments were cut to 40 billion yen ($270 million) a year from an initial 70 billion yen ($470 million) a year. In a worst case scenario, it could take up to 42 years for TEPCO to fully pay back the costs, the Board of Audit said, citing its own estimate.
Assessing the damage and details of melted debris inside of the reactors is technically daunting and dozens of lawsuits could raise the amount of compensation required.
TEPCO is facing other troubles on top of its burden of decommissioning the wrecked plants and paying compensation.
The expected startups of two of seven reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in northern Japan were delayed by technical and safety problems, so TEPCO restarted coal-fired plants to meet demands. Rising costs for fuel are an added burden.
Japan’s TEPCO ‘exaggerates’ nuclear wastewater safety with faulty dosimeter
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant run by TEPCO, Okuma town, northeastern Japan, March 3, 2022
October 9, 2022
The Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (TEPCO) has been exaggerating the safety of treated nuclear wastewater with a dosimeter that fails to detect certain radioactive substances at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, local media has reported.
When demonstrating the safety of treated nuclear wastewater, the company uses a dosimeter that fails to detect radioactive tritium, but only responds to high-concentration cesium emitted by gamma rays, the Tokyo Shimbun reported.
During tours at the plant, TEPCO staff put a dosimeter that detects only gamma rays near a bottle containing treated water, as a demonstration that the treated water is safe, according to the newspaper.
However, the water contained tritium which is about 15 times the amount of the release standard, it reported.
The gamma rays, which may affect the human body due to external exposure, are generated by the radioactive cesium contained in the radiation-tainted water.
Katsumi Shozugawa, assistant professor at the University of Tokyo, said the demonstration was “meaningless scientifically,” noting that even when the amount of cesium in the sample water is dozens of times higher than the release standard, it can not be detected, as the equipment would only respond to gamma rays emitted by highly concentrated cesium.
According to a plan released by TEPCO, nuclear wastewater from cooling core meltdowns of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant should be treated at least twice before it is discharged into the sea, with the treated water containing tritium that emits weak beta rays. Tritium can not be removed by TEPCO’s treatment facilities.
TEPCO said the demonstration had been shown to about 1,300 organizations and 15,000 visitors since July 2020.
The company claimed that the purpose of the demonstration is to explain that the gamma rays emitted by the treated wastewater are reduced, and admitted that the tritium emitting beta rays exceeds the standard amount, said the newspaper.
Struck by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami that hit Japan’s northeast on March 11, 2011, the No. 1-3 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant suffered core meltdowns, resulting in a level-7 nuclear accident, the highest on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale.
The plant has been generating a massive amount of radiation-tainted water since the accident happened. TEPCO started construction of facilities that will dump nuclear wastewater into the sea.
TEPCO to Decide on Price Hike Based on Resumption of Nuclear Power Plant Operations, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 7, for Businesses from FY2023
September 16, 2022
On September 16, Tomoaki Kobayakawa, president of TEPCO Holdings, announced that the company is considering raising electricity rates for businesses on the assumption that the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 7 nuclear power plant (in Niigata Prefecture) will be restarted in fiscal 2023. President Tomoaki Kobayakawa of TEPCO Holdings announced on September 16 that the company plans to calculate the range of the price increase based on the assumption that the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 7 nuclear power plant (Niigata Prefecture) will be restarted in 2023. The company aims to reduce the burden on contracted companies by about 200 billion yen. He also explained, “We aim to resume operations as soon as possible, but we have no concrete timetable for this.
The target is the “high-voltage” and “special high-voltage” rate plans used by commercial facilities and factories, with approximately 170,000 contracts. The company plans to raise the rates so that the market price of electricity can be reflected in the rates. At the same time, a system will be introduced to calculate the cost of nuclear power plants, which have lower generation costs, on the assumption that they will operate for nine months a year, thereby curbing the size of the price increase.
At the press conference, President Kobayakawa explained, “We are not specifying the timing of the restart. Even if we are not able to restart operations, we will curb the price increase. Although this will cause TEPCO’s bottom line to deteriorate, he said, “We will make efforts to reduce (costs). (Kyodo)
https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/202684?rct=economics&fbclid=IwAR17rA9cf0QQpGSjwSqXtnT9tdA5N8yYfWXgZBY6x25EXh-jxN9GLE8Lva8
Legal Battles Continue over TEPCO and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Cause.
PRESS CONFERENCE: Yuichi Kaido and Hiroyuki Kawai, Co-chairs of the National Association of Lawyers for a Nuclear Power Free Japan Yui Kimura, Secretary-General, TEPCO Shareholder Derivative Suit (The speech and Q & A will be in Japanese with English interpretation.) 11:00–12:00 Monday, August 8, 2022
104th protest in front of TEPCO’s head office, “Net for the Realization of No Exposure to Radiation” issued a full-length letter of offer summarizing the actual damage caused by exposure to radiation.
August 1, 2022
Children suffering from radiation exposure: “Acknowledge the relationship between the nuclear accident and childhood thyroid cancer
The Network for the Realization of No Exposure to Radiation Takae Miyaguchi
The Fukushima nuclear power plant accident spread enormous amounts of radiation.
After the accident, many people gathered in front of the TEPCO headquarters in protest. 14 years ago, a joint protest began on the first Wednesday night of every month, and this May marked the 104th such event.
About 100 people gather each time. Before the protest, drums are beaten and a microphone relay is used to protest and make a request to TEPCO. Each time, we hand the TEPCO a written request, and if there is any doubt about the response, we submit it again.
This is the first time that the “Network for the Realization of Exposure Free Japan,” which I am involved with, has submitted a written request to the TEPCO. The content of the letter is a reflection of the situation and thoughts I have been experiencing through my support for the “Children’s Lawsuit for Exposure to Radiation” and other activities.
The following is a summary of the letter.
Eleven years have passed since the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, but the declaration of a nuclear emergency remains in effect. At the Fukushima nuclear power plant, exposure work with no foreseeable future and convergence work continue amidst the remaining debris with high concentrations of radioactive materials that are inaccessible to humans. Radioactive materials have been released into the air and are flying into the Tokyo metropolitan area on the wind. The Fukushima nuclear accident has not ended.
TEPCO understands the despair, grief, and anger of the victims of the nuclear accident, and in an effort to hold TEPCO accountable, victims have filed lawsuits against TEPCO in various regions, and the courts have confirmed TEPCO’s responsibility for the nuclear accident, but the amount of compensation awarded by the courts to each person is shockingly small compared to the extent of the damage.
What the victims truly desire is the return of their hometowns as they were before the nuclear accident, where people made their living, families lived, children cheered, and people laughed, and where life was normal, rooted in the local climate, and connected to history! This is what we have been trying to achieve for the past 11 years.
Eleven years later, the evacuation designation has been lifted except for some areas that are difficult to return to.
The policy of forcing people to return to their hometowns because their annual exposure level is below 20 mSv, 20 times the allowable annual exposure level of 1 mSv for the public, is unacceptable. We denounce the depth of TEPCO’s crimes of spreading massive amounts of radioactive materials, polluting the mountains, rivers, and land of Fukushima, destroying our hometowns, and depriving people of their livelihoods.
In the face of radiation taboos and discrimination
Young People Who Courageously Stood Up Against Radiation Taboo and Discrimination
He continued.
In January of this year, six young people who had developed childhood thyroid cancer rose to their feet. Three or four years later, many of them were found to have pediatric thyroid cancer in a Fukushima health survey, and all of them underwent surgery.
Thyroid cancer is a slow-growing cancer, and the prognosis for surgery is good, according to the committee’s experts. However, some of the plaintiffs had recurrence after surgery, reoperation, RAI isotope treatment, and some were found to have distant metastasis in the lungs.
Their health did not recover even after the surgery, they dropped out of college, resigned from the company where they worked, were not hired when they were told they had cancer, etc. They have thought about, worried about, and suffered from the despair of having the door closed to them at the starting line of their lives, anxiety about the recurrence of cancer in the future, treatment costs, work, and whether or not they will be able to make a living independently.
Why is it that nearly 30 out of 380,000 children in Fukushima have developed thyroid cancer, compared to only one or two out of a million children in Japan? Why have nearly 300 cases been reported among 380,000 children in Fukushima? The Prefectural Health Study Review Committee acknowledges the high incidence of childhood thyroid cancer, but denies any causal relationship with the nuclear accident, saying that it is overdiagnosis.
Last July, the Hiroshima A-bomb “black rain” victims’ lawsuit recognized that internal exposure is not a matter of quantity, but that if even a small amount of radiation enters the body’s tissues and is deposited, it damages cells and causes cancer. In the case of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, a causal relationship between childhood thyroid cancer and the nuclear power plant accident was recognized. The plaintiffs want to clarify why they developed pediatric thyroid cancer.
The relationship between childhood thyroid cancer and the nuclear power plant accident” is a taboo subject, and the plaintiffs have been hiding their illness for a long time for fear of being discriminated against, but they want to make their illness public and have the court find a “causal relationship between childhood thyroid cancer and exposure to radiation. They have stood up courageously to make TEPCO pay compensation for their illness. We demand the following
TEPCO must admit that it is the perpetrator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident and the spreading of radioactive materials.
Please admit the causal relationship between radioactive iodine released from the Fukushima nuclear power plant and childhood thyroid cancer as soon as possible.
Please take responsibility for the future of these six young people.
We ask that you take responsibility for the future of these six young people.
The fight to leave a world without radiation exposure to children continues.
https://note.com/jinminshinbun/n/n137ff335aaa0?fbclid=IwAR2FJl-KiOLqm4GjfTdOT6uBxZ_xlAzh7BOiwkkUyeOXHsyAUXBc88jeFck
10 years after nationalization, Tepco still faces mounting challenges
July 31, 2022
Sunday marked the 10th anniversary since Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. was effectively nationalized after the devastating triple-meltdown nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Tepco has struggled to rebuild its business while attempting to restore its reputation and compensate for its role in the disaster that immediately followed the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. However, more competition, a string of scandals and other problems have prevented the restart of its nuclear power plants — a key to rebuilding the company — resulting in sluggish performance.
Recently, the soaring cost of oil due to the Russia-Ukraine war has taken its toll, further exacerbating uncertainties in its restructuring roadmap.
In 2012, the Japanese government placed Tepco under its control by injecting about ¥1 trillion into the firm through the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund to prevent the utility from bankruptcy and facilitate compensation efforts.
The total cost of the nuclear accident, which includes compensation, decommissioning and decontamination, is expected to be around ¥21.5 trillion ($161.3 billion), of which ¥15.9 trillion will be paid by Tepco.
Tepco, which shifted to a holding company structure in 2016 to improve management efficiency, announced a reconstruction plan in 2021 and aims to secure ¥500 billion annually for compensation and decommissioning costs. It also targets annual profits of around ¥450 billion after fiscal 2030.
But for fiscal 2021, the utility’s net profit plunged to ¥5.6 billion from ¥180.8 billion the previous year, as it saw a drop in electricity sales due to intensified competition and was hit by higher fuel costs from liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal.
In September, the fuel cost adjustment system, which allows higher fuel costs to be added to rates, will reach its limit, putting further pressure on the company’s operations. Tepco has not disclosed its outlook for this fiscal year.
Its major hope is to restart reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, as firing up one reactor is expected to improve earnings by about ¥50 billion. Yet the plant has been hit by a series of scandals, including inadequate anti-terrorism measures. The Nuclear Regulatory Authority, Japan’s nuclear watchdog, has issued a de facto ban on the plant’s operation.
Although Tomoaki Kobayakawa, Tepco president and CEO, claims that “we are working on nuclear reform with the restoration of trust from the community and society as our top priority,” restarting the plant will not be easy.
The stock price is also an obstacle to denationalization. The government hopes to cover the ¥4 trillion cost of decontamination efforts with the proceeds from the sale of Tepco shares. However, the closing share price on Friday was ¥523, far from the ¥1,500 needed to secure the cost.
As its attempt to reconstruct the firm has not proceeded as expected, Tecpo has repeatedly postponed its decision to denationalize.
A government official said that Tepco “was allowed to continue to exist by fulfilling its responsibility to Fukushima, in order to make steady progress in dealing with the accident.”
To steadily continue taking care of tasks related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Tepco will need to improve its business performance through strengthening its retail business by enhancing its services. The utility is also aiming to increase its corporate value by focusing on renewable energy.
Why was the tsunami countermeasure postponed? TEPCO resisted the NISA’s request for 40 minutes.
July 12, 2022
＜The “warning” that was not utilized
On July 13, the Tokyo District Court will issue a ruling on a shareholder lawsuit seeking to hold five former TEPCO executives responsible for the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The possibility of a giant tsunami off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture surfaced nearly 10 years before the accident occurred. Why were tsunami countermeasures continually postponed? Ahead of the verdict, we take a look back at the evidence presented in court. (Keiichi Ozawa)
TEPCO Shareholders’ Suit 48 shareholders are demanding that former TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and five others pay approximately 22 trillion yen in compensation to TEPCO for damages, decommissioning costs, and other losses caused by the former management’s failure to take tsunami countermeasures following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. The other defendants are former president Masataka Shimizu, former vice president Ichiro Takekuro, former vice president Sakae Muto, and former managing director Akio Komori. Katsumata, Takekuro, and Muto were indicted on charges of manslaughter in connection with the nuclear accident, but the Tokyo District Court ruled in 2007 that they were not guilty. In June, the Supreme Court ruled against the government’s responsibility in a lawsuit against nuclear power plant evacuees and confirmed that TEPCO must pay a total of approximately 1.4 billion yen in compensation to plaintiffs in four lawsuits in Fukushima, Gunma, Chiba, and Ehime.
In July 2002, the government’s Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion released a “long-term assessment” of earthquake forecasts, including those for the area off Fukushima Prefecture. The reliability of this long-term assessment is one of the points of contention in the lawsuit.
The long-term assessment is not a finding, but an opinion.
At the oral argument last July, Sakae Mutoh, former vice president of the defendant, stood in front of the witness stand and emphasized that the long-term evaluation is not a finding but an opinion. The former management team claims that the long-term assessment was not reliable enough to determine the tsunami countermeasures, as some experts disagreed with the assessment.
In August 2002, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) requested TEPCO to estimate the tsunami based on the long-term assessment. However, an e-mail sent by a TEPCO official to the relevant parties states that the company “resisted the request for about 40 minutes.
NISA further instructed TEPCO to investigate how the long-term assessment was prepared, but the person in charge merely sent an e-mail inquiry to Kenji Satake, a member of the promotion headquarters (now director of the Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo), who was skeptical about the occurrence of a tsunami off Fukushima Prefecture. The NISA did not pursue TEPCO any further.
Later, in December 2004, a tsunami caused by an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, submerged a nuclear power plant in India. The plaintiffs claimed that they could have learned from this accident, but TEPCO did not take any action.
In September 2006, the “Guidelines for the Examination of Seismic Design” for nuclear power plants were revised to include tsunami countermeasures, and the NISA was assigned to conduct “seismic backchecks. In October of the same year, the NISA gathered together the personnel in charge of the power companies and instructed them to “promptly study tsunami countermeasures and take action.
At the time, the tsunami height expected at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was 5.7 meters. The height of the tsunami that the facility could withstand was the same 5.7 meters, making it the plant with the least margin of safety in the nation. Even so, TEPCO did not initiate countermeasures. The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office’s report to the head of the NISA’s review team, submitted in the lawsuit, states, “(TEPCO) is really reluctant to incur costs. Frankly, I was angry at the slow response.
In response to such backward-looking attitude on the part of the former management, the plaintiffs said, “If there is a warning with reasonable credibility, we should take measures for the time being. The attitude of wasting time while leaving it unattended is unacceptable.
In 2008, TEPCO took a heavy stance. It sought advice from Fumihiko Imamura, a professor of tsunami engineering at Tohoku University and an expert in civil engineering, and began to study tsunami countermeasures. The issue was also discussed at the “Gozen Conference,” which was attended by the managing board and former TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, among others.
In March of the same year, however, the situation changed when the height of the tsunami was estimated based on a long-term assessment. The tsunami was 15.7 meters high, nearly three times the previous height. The policy to proceed with countermeasures began to waver once again.
https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/188953?fbclid=IwAR3JUUbELPYESXCxZuw7hZA1YlbR1ILncO3VyTaMQFAEGASEF4sv8rFCqnE
Fukushima nuclear plant compensation burden was secretly reduced
2022/07/04
An investigation by a non-profit organization has revealed that a portion of the cost of compensation for damages caused by the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, which is borne by the major electric power companies, has been secretly reduced without proper explanation.
Photo: CALI’s release on March 31 regarding the determination of the general burden. This alone does not reveal the actual situation.
The amount of reduction amounts to 29.3 billion yen for one year in FY2021. Hajime Matsukubo, executive director of the NPO Nuclear Information and Documentation Office, who discovered this fact, criticizes the way it was done, saying, “There is no proper explanation to the public, the electricity users, and the way it was done is opaque.
Reducing the burden on electric power companies by approximately 20%.
Under the Act on Compensation for Nuclear Damage and Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants, the nine major electric power companies, including Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Japan Atomic Power Company, and Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited, have been bearing a total of 11 companies’ costs called the general burden to cover the cost of compensation for victims of the nuclear accident.
A portion of this amount was paid in FY2011 and FY2012, and the full amount in FY2013 and thereafter was paid to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (hereafter referred to as “JNES”). In FY2020, an additional 30.5 billion yen was added as an additional burden, referred to as the “past portion” (see below).
When Makoto Yamazaki, a member of the House of Representatives of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, submitted a written question based on Matsukubo’s point of view, the government responded that the actual reduction in the general burden for FY2021 is 29.3 billion yen. The actual burden for the same fiscal year was 133.7 billion yen.
According to Matsukubo, the burden for the nine companies, excluding Chubu Electric Power and Japan Atomic Power Company, was reduced by about 20% from the FY2020 level. Chubu Electric’s burden was increased by 2.8%, and the reduction for Japan Atomic Power Company was about 14%. The company had the special circumstance that it had been decommissioning nuclear power plants even before the accident.
Regarding the reduction, a CALC official explained, “With the major electric power companies in a difficult business situation, the companies requested a reduction in the existing level of the general burden, which had been determined based on profit levels prior to the Fukushima nuclear accident.
The total amount of general contributions for FY2021, which CALI announced on March 31 after receiving approval from the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, was 194.7 billion yen, up 1.5 billion yen from the previous fiscal year. The aforementioned person in charge said, “The total amount of the general burden itself has not changed significantly compared to FY2020, and the burden on electricity users as a whole will remain the same. The total amount of the general burden itself has not changed significantly compared to FY2020, and the burden on electricity users as a whole has not changed.
However, there is a trick to this explanation.
There are two types of general contributions: one is the contribution related to compensation for the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. The other is a past general burden created in 2015 when it was discovered that the cost of compensation was much higher than initially expected, and the increased amount was added to the transmission charges (charges for the use of transmission and distribution lines) in order to recover it. The new fee is to be collected from the second half of FY2020, as it should have been collected from 1966, when Japan’s first commercial nuclear power plant went into operation, to 2011, when the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident occurred, but had not been collected.
The amount of the past due amount was approximately 61 billion yen in FY2021, when a full year’s worth of fees was collected. 30.5 billion yen in FY2021 was a year-on-year increase of the past due amount, which overshadowed the former amount of reduced fees (29.3 billion yen).
METI and CALI should provide a proper explanation.
A significant portion of the conventional general burden is included in the cost of electricity rates and passed on to users. If the general burden has been reduced, shouldn’t it be used as a source of funds to reduce electricity rates?
Another problem is that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which is in charge of approving electricity rates, has not provided proper explanations. When important utility rates are revised, the Consumer Affairs Agency and the Consumer Commission have a system to check the revision. However, the Consumer Affairs Agency says, “There have been no specific consultations and we have not received any information about the reduction of the general burden fee,” since it is not related to the revision of electricity rates.
On the other hand, one member of the Consumer Affairs Committee said, “This is the first time I have heard about this and I am surprised. The way it is done is opaque,” he told Toyo Keizai.
In addition to the complicated structure and method of determining electricity rates, costs related to nuclear power plants have been added to rates in the form of a roof over the head, with new fees collected retroactively after accidents have occurred. Moreover, “the method of determining the general burden is a black box” (Matsukubo).
Currently, the price of natural gas and other fossil fuels is soaring, causing electricity prices to rise, and households are finding it tougher to make ends meet. The fact that behind the scenes the electric power companies were secretly allowed to reduce their burden may cause suspicion toward the electric power administration. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) should reveal the actual situation of the reduction.
Cancer patients seek damages from Fukushima nuclear plant
By Mari Yamaguchi Associated Press
May 26, 2022
A Tokyo court has begun hearings in a lawsuit seeking nearly $5 million in damages for six people who were children in Fukushima at the time of its 2011 nuclear power plant disaster and later developed thyroid cancer
TOKYO — A Tokyo court began hearings Thursday in a lawsuit seeking nearly $5 million in damages for six people who were children in Fukushima at the time of its 2011 nuclear power plant disaster and later developed thyroid cancer.
The plaintiffs are suing the operator of the nuclear plant, saying radiation released in the accident caused their illnesses.
It is the first group lawsuit filed by Fukushima residents over health problems allegedly linked to the disaster, their lawyers say.
One plaintiff, identified only as a woman in her 20s, testified from behind a screen that she had to give up plans to attend university because of repeated operations and treatments.
“Because of the treatments, I could not attend university, or continue my studies for my future job, or go to a concert. I had to give up everything,” she said. “I want to regain my healthy body, but that’s impossible no matter how hard I wish.”
She and the five other plaintiffs are seeking a total of 616 million yen ($4.9 million) in damages from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings for allegedly causing their cancers.
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami destroyed the Fukushima plant’s cooling systems, causing three reactor cores to melt and release large amounts of radiation. Critics say the plant operator should have known that a large tsunami was possible at the site.
The plaintiffs, who were 6 to 16 years old at the time of the accident and lived in different parts of Fukushima, were diagnosed with thyroid cancer between 2012 and 2018, their lawyers said.
The plant operator told the court that they were not exposed to enough radiation to cause cancer, citing tests of 1,080 children from three cities around the plant that showed about 55% were not exposed and none received more than 50 millisieverts, the annual limit for nuclear workers.
An increase in thyroid cancer was found among children following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine.
The Fukushima prefectural government tested 380,000 residents aged 18 or younger at the time of the accident for thyroid cancer. About 300 were diagnosed with cancer or suspected cancer.
That occurrence rate, about 77 per 100,000, is significantly higher than the usual 1-2 per million and can only be linked to radiation from the accident, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said.
Prefectural officials and experts have said the high level of thyroid cancer found in Fukushima is due to an overdiagnosis, which might have led to unnecessary treatment.
Kenichi Ido, one of the lawyers, said none of the cases involve an overdiagnosis and that the plant operator should be held accountable for radiation exposure unless it can prove otherwise.
The plaintiff who testified Thursday said she walked from home to her high school five days after the tsunami, just as the reactors were undergoing meltdowns.
Three other plaintiffs who attended the hearing were also behind a partition to protect their privacy because of criticism on social media accusing them of fabricating their illnesses and hurting the image of Fukushima, the lawyers said.
Ido said many people with health problems feel intimidated to speak out in Fukushima and that he hopes the lawsuit will prove a correlation between radiation and the plaintiffs’ cancers “so that we can have a society in which people can talk freely about their difficulties.”
The government was slow in responding to the crisis, and evacuations in many places were delayed due to a lack of disclosure of what was happening at the nuclear plant. Residents who fled in their cars clogged roads and were stranded for hours outside while radiation spread from the damaged reactors. Some residents headed to evacuation centers in the direction of the radiation flow.
https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/international/2022/05/27/310693.htm
Class action lawsuit against the victims of thyroid cancer caused by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident begins
May 26, 2022
On May 26, a class action lawsuit began in which six people who were children at the time of the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant are seeking compensation from TEPCO for thyroid cancer they contracted as a result of the accident.
The six, who were between the ages of 6 and 16 when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident occurred 11 years ago, claim that they were living in Fukushima Prefecture at the time and that they developed thyroid cancer as a result of radiation exposure from the nuclear accident.
After the accident, they were diagnosed with thyroid cancer in tests conducted by Fukushima Prefecture, and have been forced to have their thyroid glands removed and undergo lifelong hormone treatment.
The trial will begin on March 26 at the Tokyo District Court, and the plaintiffs’ lawyers have stated that, “According to statistics from a national research institute, the average number of thyroid cancer cases in children was only one to two per million people per year for the 10 years until 2007, but in Fukushima, at least 293 cases have been confirmed in the 10 years since the accident. In Fukushima, however, at least a total of 293 cases of cancer have been confirmed in the 10 years since the accident,” and that “the cancer is presumed to be caused by exposure to radiation from the accident.
A female plaintiff stated, “I prioritized treatment over my dreams for the future and had no choice but to quit my university studies. I hope that through the trial, relief for the patients will be realized,” she tearfully appealed.
According to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, this is the first class action lawsuit to hold TEPCO responsible for the health damage caused by radiation exposure from the nuclear power plant accident, and TEPCO has indicated that it will fight the case.
The next meeting will be held in September, and TEPCO is scheduled to make a rebuttal.
The Fukushima Prefecture’s expert panel and the UN scientific committee’s opinion is
The Fukushima Prefectural Expert Panel and the United Nations Scientific Committee have each expressed their opinions on whether the thyroid cancer diagnosed in some children living in Fukushima Prefecture at the time of the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was caused by exposure to radiation from the nuclear power plant accident.
As part of its post-nuclear accident health survey, Fukushima Prefecture conducted a large-scale test using ultrasound equipment to check for thyroid cancer in approximately 380,000 people who were under the age of 18 at the time of the accident.
Fukushima Prefecture has established a committee of experts to analyze whether the cancers found were caused by radiation exposure.
Of these, 187 have been evaluated by 2019, and a report has been compiled stating that “no relationship between the thyroid cancers found and radiation exposure can be found”.
The reasons given were that the estimated radiation doses received by children in Fukushima Prefecture after the accident were much lower than those received in the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, and that there was no statistical bias in the regional distribution of cancer patients and no trend indicating an association with radiation exposure.
The expert panel is still analyzing the remaining 87 people diagnosed after FY2016, and the results of the evaluation have not yet been presented.
On the other hand, the UN Scientific Committee, which evaluates the effects of radiation on humans and the environment, estimated radiation doses last year based on the type and amount of radioactive materials released by the accident and the evacuation behavior of the residents, and concluded that “it is unlikely that any health effects directly attributable to radiation exposure caused by the accident will be observed in the residents of Fukushima Prefecture in the future. The report states that “the likelihood of health effects directly caused by radiation exposure in Fukushima Prefecture in the future is low.
The report also stated that the cases diagnosed in Fukushima Prefecture “are not the result of radiation exposure, but rather the result of highly sensitive ultrasound examinations that are likely to have diagnosed cancers that would not normally be detected,” and expressed a negative opinion on the causal relationship between thyroid cancer and the cases.
TEPCO “will listen to the plaintiffs’ claims in detail and respond appropriately.
TEPCO said, “We will listen to the plaintiffs’ claims and the details of their claims in detail and respond appropriately. TEPCO once again expresses its sincere apology to the people of Fukushima Prefecture and the wider community for the inconvenience and concern caused by the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
The plaintiff, a woman in her 20s, said
The six young people who filed the lawsuit claim that they were diagnosed with cancer and that it has affected the future they had envisioned.
One of the plaintiffs, a woman in her 20s from Nakadori, Fukushima Prefecture, was a junior high school student when the nuclear accident occurred.
It was in the spring, about four years after the accident, that she felt a change in her health.
She had just left her family in Fukushima and started living alone when she entered university.
Her body was swollen all over, her menstrual period came once every two weeks, her skin became rough, and she began to feel a strong discomfort in her throat and body pain.
After consulting with her family, she underwent an examination as part of the prefectural health survey conducted by Fukushima Prefecture after the nuclear power plant accident, and was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
The woman recalls her feelings at the time, “I had hoped that the surgery would improve my health, but even after the surgery, I continued to feel ill easily, and I became increasingly worried that the cancer might recur or spread.
However, her health did not improve as expected, and she had no choice but to leave the company after about a year and a half in order to prioritize her treatment.
Even now, regular visits to the hospital and medication are essential for her. “I had longed to be a career woman who worked hard, but I now have to prioritize my health in everything I do,” she said. I am worried that it will affect my future choices of marriage and childbirth,” she confides.
Regarding the relationship between exposure to radiation from the nuclear accident and thyroid cancer, the Fukushima prefectural government’s expert panel has so far stated that “no relationship has been found.
All of the plaintiffs, including the woman, are going to trial without revealing their faces or names publicly, as some have criticized them for claiming health problems caused by exposure to radiation as Fukushima is making progress toward recovery.
The woman said, “I was afraid that I would be discriminated against if people knew that I was from Fukushima Prefecture and had thyroid cancer, so I could hardly tell anyone until now,” adding, “I thought there were many people who suffered from cancer as well and had to give up their dreams such as higher education and employment, or who could not speak up for fear of discrimination and prejudice, and I became an adult first. I decided that I would be the one to show courage. I would like to clarify the facts through the trial and seek redress for the damage.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20220526/k10013644951000.html?fbclid=IwAR3esCBTOE5Qt6wSYOxfbjHDypiU4KBILUC3zFy-ko35Qyb2sf1iVCh_sk4
1.This Month
Small Nuclear Reactors Education Task Force: https://stop-smrs.weebly.com/bulletins.ht
24 May. The Vow from Hiroshima film is coming on PBS, this month https://www.thevowfromhiroshima.com/
3 June – FILM. SOS – The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy
6-7 July A summit and a rally in Washington D.C. https://nonatoyespeace.org/
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