After several radioactive Bluefin tuna crossed the Pacific Ocean and ended up off the southern coast of California, many here in the valley are worried about the safety of our seafood.
[…]
“Really shocked that that could even happen, it’s quite scary,” said Palm Desert resident, Sabine Skelton.
[…]
Fisherman’s Market and Grill Restaurants CEO Louis Pagano […] has worked in the fish industry all his life, and has some advice for seafood lovers.
“I’d be careful, stay away Blue Fin tuna for the time being, and at that point I don’t see any hazards in any of the other open ocean large swordfish, salmon, sea bass,” said Pagano.
Some people worry the radiation could get worse before it gets better.
[…]
Over a year, later the impacts of the Fukushima meltdown are still swimming towards us.
Goshi Hosono Admits to Harvard Professor: “We Should Have Admitted to a Core Melt Possibility”
Goshi Hosono, as the minister in charge of the nuclear accident, met with the Harvard political professor Michael J. Sandel, to whom Hosono said that his government should have admitted a core melt (meltdown) possibility earlier.
Well, the government actually did, very early, like the very next day of the disaster on March 11, 2011. But the Kan administration quickly replaced the official of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency who spoke about the possible core melt in the press conference at noon on March 12, 2011. So they officially admitted, as if by mistake, in the initial confusion. Then, they were busy backtracking from that statement until several weeks later. Even for those who heard and read about the statement, I don’t think it registered on them as people weren’t as educated about things nuclear at that time as they are now.
For that matter, the government, with Mr. Edano as the spokesman, didn’t officially tell the public that there was an explosion of Reactor 1 on March 12, 2011, until after 5 hours had passed.
If George W. Bush stood up before Congress and told the American people that the petroleum industry were run by secret Stalinists whose goal was to destroy America and the world, it would be less surprising than to have former Prime Minister Naoto Kan say that Japan is ruled by a nuclear industry dictatorship, comparing them to the men who bombed Pearl Harbor and led the nation into a war that left the nation in ruins. Japanese leaders rarely speak so bluntly.
Just as interesting is the apparent treatment of the story by the world media. The Voice of America blog, to my surprise, gave the fullest reporting of the comments. Most media outlets gave truncated versions. Der Spiegel gave some excellent contextual reporting, exposing the breadth of corruption through academia, the press, and the Parliament, but has not yet mentioned Kan’s testimony.
The former Prime Minister of Japan, Naoto Kan, has given striking testimony to Parliament, in which he accepted blame for his own poor response during the Fukushima meltdown, but also attempted to obtain some degree of absolution because of the degree of corruption of the nuclear industry. He also urged Parliament to abandon nuclear power. To my surprise, Voice of America had some of the best coverage, reporting Kan saying:
“TEPCO and the Electric Power Companies of Japan have dominated the nuclear power industry for the last 40 years. Through this nuclear clique and the rules they created, they expelled and isolated industry experts, politicians and bureaucrats who were critical, while the rest just looked on because of self-protection and an attitude of peace-at-any-cost. I’m saying this because I feel partly responsible.”
…
“This nuclear clique, which has been created by the vested interest, is similar to the former Imperial Japanese military. We have to totally destroy and eradicate the organizational structure of the vested interests and (the) influence it has on the public. I think this should be the first step in reforming the nuclear industry.”
Comparing the nuclear industry to the Imperial Japanese military is to call that industry a fascist state.
There’s a new article over at Japan Focus entitled:
A Lesson from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident 福島原発事故の教訓 by Yuki Tanaka
It describes the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdowns of FD1, the subsequent hardships for the people of Fukushima, the radiation, the psychological and financial stresses of leaving the prefecture, and the effects of “social discrimination”. It calls for the end of nuclear power in order to prevent a similar disaster form happening in the future.
Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s hoped-for 10 percent price hike for households will probably not kick in on July 1 because a government panel scrutinizing the plan faces no deadline for reaching a judgement, an official in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Wednesday.
“Tepco would have to officially notify the public of the price hike before July 1, which means the panel would have to approve the hike around June 20,” said METI official Manabu Nabeshima. “The panel has raised various concerns. They are basically concerned that Tepco could do more to cut costs.”
Radioactive Bluefin Tuna Caught Off Coast Of San Diego
Tests Show Tuna Contained Levels Of Radioactive Substances
SAN DIEGO — Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan’s crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance.
“We were frankly kind of startled,” said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But even so, that’s still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the U.S. and Japanese governments.
[snip]
To rule out the possibility that the radiation was carried by ocean currents or deposited in the sea through the atmosphere, the team also analyzed yellowfin tuna, found in the eastern Pacific, and bluefin that migrated to Southern California before the nuclear crisis. They found no trace of cesium-134 and only background levels of cesium-137 left over from nuclear weapons testing in the 1960s.
The results “are unequivocal. Fukushima was the source,” said Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who had no role in the research.
Radioactive Cesium of #Fukushima Origin in Pacific Bluefin Tuna Off California Coast
The researchers from Stanford University, California caught 15 tuna fish off the coast of southern California last August and measured radioactive cesium-134 and -137. Nine months later, it is in the news now that their research paper has finally been published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Neither the Wall Street Journal article below, or Reuters’, mentions the exact numbers for radioactive cesium, but Japan’s Kyodo News does:
Cesium-134: 4 Bq/kg
Cesium-137: 6.3 Bq/kg
Read the entire article (including Wall Street Journal article) at:
Japanese scientists say radioactive substances from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may have been dispersed all around the globe in about 40 days.A research team led by Akira Watanabe, a Fukushima University professor and meteorologist […] say the overall density is declining, but continues to rise and fall alternately in a 40-day cycle.
They say radioactive materials from the Fukushima plant fell to the ground in various parts of the world, carried by atmospheric air flows, and then gradually decreased.
KORIYAMA, Fukushima — New machines that can quickly detect radiation in bags of rice were demonstrated on Fukushima-grown rice here on May 28.
Five types of machines were demonstrated, scanning 30 kilogram bags of rice on conveyors. The machines can scan and pass or fail a bag based on the amount of radiation detected in as fast as around five seconds.
Ex-PM Kan apologizes for not preventing Fukushima disaster
Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan apologized for not having been able to avert the Fukushima nuclear disaster as the then leader of Japan, in his first open hearing by a Diet committee investigating the disaster on May 28.
“The disaster was triggered by a nuclear power plant that was maintained as part of national policy, and the government is predominantly responsible for it. I once again apologize for not having been able to stem the disaster as the person responsible for the country,” Kan testified to the Diet’s Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) as an unsworn witness.
Radioactive Japan: Someone Emailed “Go to Hell” to Shimada City, Shizuoka for Burning Disaster Debris
In tea-growing Shimada City in Shizuka Prefecture where the mayor of the city is in the waste management business, they have started to burn the disaster debris in earnest, now that the test incineration in the state-of-the-art melting furnace was done.
Someone was very unhappy about it, and let the city known in no uncertain terms.
[snip]
According to the city, the emails were sent from the same address between May 20 and 25, and contained the messages like “How dare you continue burning the debris!” and “Go to hell”.
Not that I have much sympathy for the city government, but it is just one example of how divisive the national government’s continued insistence on the wide-area disposal of disaster debris.
These emails could have also been sent by someone who is pro-incineration, to discredit the opponents.
The Japanese society has become not only radioactive but coarse, where pro-nuclear people and experts and anti-nuke counterparts not only go at each other but also scold or ridicule people in the “middle” who are trying to figure out what’s going on. That middle is not a “silent majority”. It is a silent minority dwindling fast, cowed by attacks from both sides.
“It’s all about money, isn’t it? If someone says no at 100 million yen, tell them you will double the money. If he still says no, then triple it. If he still says no, there will be someone else who will take that money anyway” – this is the gist of what Dr. Haruki Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission said in 2005 while he was still a professor at Tokyo University.
Dr. Madarame was talking about the nuclear fuel cycle and the final disposal site. It’s the same with the disaster debris disposal, with pro-government researchers and the government money.
TEPCO to Do Endoscopy of Reactor 1 Containment Vessel at #Fukushima, in Late August
After the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization (JNES) published its analysis that the water level inside the Containment Vessel of Reactor 1 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant may be only 40 centimeters deep, TEPCO announced the plan to probe inside the Containment Vessel with the endoscope, just as they did for Reactor 2.
Radioautograph of Japanese Cypress Leaves from Iitate-mura, Fukushima
Dr. Satoshi Mori of Tokyo University has a radioautograph of Japanese cypress leaves that he took from Iitate-mura in Fukushima Prefecture last year in his blog. He says he cannot help feeling pity for the tree:
as I pressed the leaves and took the radioautograph, I couldn’t help feeling pity for the Japanese cypress that was doused everywhere on the leaves and rachis with radioactivity. This image of irradiation may speak more volumes than the mere numerical information.These seeds would have popped out of the female fruits, landed on the ground, and damaging the chromosomes of their embryo buds from internal radiation exposure and the external radiation exposure from the environment (several microsieverts/hour) they would have entered the germinating period and started cell division.
Any biology researcher would think about inhibition of germination due to chromosome disorders, or malformation even if they germinate. If it were animals, they would be the equivalent of miscarriage, stillbirth, malformation, weak constitution due to immune depression. I’ve already reported on the numerous cases of malformed branches and leaves in Chernobyl.
The radioautograph shows the leaves uniformly sprinkled with radioactive fallout and irradiated.
I asked Dr. Mori about specific example of chromosome disorders. He said there are many types of chromosome disorders, including the following:
Normal structures (roots, stems, leaves) may not form because cell division is interrupted and cells become callused.
Chloroplast may not form in the leaves, and the plant cannot do photosynthesis (no carbon dioxide assimilation); or mitochondria is not formed, and the plant cannot breathe (no oxygen absorption). In either case, the plant will die.
Even if the plant survives, it cannot leave offspring if there is a formation disorder of pollens or ova.
So… what is the state of Japan’s forests? And where is all the “cleanup” debris of the trees they are creating in the process? Read the latest from Kanagawa Notebook:
Forests in Japan: Under Attack, and Under Construction
This episode from the film Stories from Fukushimaby Alain de Halleux tells the story of the Kowata family from Minami Soma, a town at the very edge of the 20km exclusion zone.
Seiko Kowata has moved with her two children to Yamagata, while her husband remains in Minami Soma, working and guarding the family home. Son Kento dreams of returning to Minami Soma and playing football with his friends. Daughter Yuko wants never to return….
Mountains of rubble stand in the way of decommissioning the No. 4 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, part of an unprecedented challenge facing Japan to decommission four crippled reactors.
[…]
A reporter from the Tokyo Shimbun described the scene on the fourth floor as looking like that of a “battlefield after being bombed.”
[…]
“Pipes were severely bent,” the reporter said. “Steel frames were also twisted and rusted. It was hard for me to believe such a thick wall was blown off over a wide area.”
[…]
The reporter said he was not entirely reassured by the utility’s promise that the structure will be sturdy enough to remain unscathed in another big quake despite no major, visible damage to the wall near the pool.
“TEPCO said that the pool can withstand a temblor equivalent to the quake last year, but I was not convinced of that,” the reporter said.
[…]
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TEPCO to remove unused fuel from No. 4 reactor
The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has decided to remove 2 unused fuel rods from a storage pool at the No. 4 reactor to look for damage.
This is in preparation for the removal of a large number of the 1,535 used and unused fuel rods stored in the pool, which could pose a threat in the event of another earthquake.
Tokyo Electric Power Company intends to remove the 2 fuel rods from the pool in July. Removal of unused fuel is not as dangerous as taking out used fuel.
If successful, TEPCO plans to start to remove the remainder of the fuel next year.
Fukushima Daiichi’s Unit 4 Spent-Fuel Pool Up Close
By Phred Dvorak
Reuters
The interior of the No. 4 reactor building is seen at the Tokyo Electric Power Co’s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture May 26.
On Saturday, Tepco let a bunch of journalists, as well as Goshi Hosono, the minister in charge of Fukushima Daiichi cleanup, into the Unit 4 building to take a look for themselves.
Starting out with some good news. Wonder what’s up with the final quarter… maybe they own too much stock in TEPCO?
Three-quarters of Japanese firms oppose nuclear power
(Reuters) – Nearly three-quarters of Japanese companies support abandoning nuclear power after last year’s Fukushima disaster, although a majority set the condition that alternative energy resources must be secured, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.
The poll offers fresh evidence of the deep public distrust of nuclear power, the role of which the government is reconsidering after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant, triggering a radiation crisis that caused mass evacuations and widespread contamination.
[snip]
Japan’s biggest business lobby, Keidanren, has voiced worries that a rise in electricity costs due to abandoning nuclear power could prompt Japanese companies to relocate overseas, costing jobs and growth.
Um, may I ask something? 1) Wouldn’t it behoove Japanese companies to cut their electricity usage? Walk though a company and you find wasted energy: old-fashioned lighting fixtures, machines left on when not in use, and the ever-present vending machines??? 2) A rise in electricity costs (even if unnecessary, but that’s for another blog entry) would be an excuse for moving abroad. There are far more important reasons why Japanese companies would/are following the U.S.’s lead in the race to the bottom.
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Just how tall do red onions get, anyway?
Someone sent Uh-Oh a picture of their onion field. They have one that reached over 80 centimeters in height (about 32 inches). They’re wondering if this is usual or not in Aichi Prefecture. Anyone out there know about red onions?
NYTimes: ‘The Web’ has amplified fears that are helping to undermine assurances by Tepco and the Japanese gov’t that Fukushima Daiichi in stable condition
Concerns Grow About Spent Fuel Rods at Damaged Nuclear Plant in Japan
New York Times
By HIROKO TABUCHI and MATTHEW WALD
May 26, 2012
[…]
Fourteen months after the accident, a pool brimming with used fuel rods and filled with vast quantities of radioactive cesium still sits on the top floor of a heavily damaged reactor building, covered only with plastic.
The public’s fears about the pool have grown in recent months as some scientists have warned that it has the most potential for setting off a new catastrophe
[…]
The fears over the pool at Reactor No. 4, amplified over the Web, are helping to undermine assurances by Tepco and the Japanese government that the Fukushima plant has been brought to a stable condition and are highlighting how complicated the cleanup of the site, expected to take decades, will be.
[…]
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Also from the article:
Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat whose state, Oregon, could lie in the path of any new radioactive plumes and who has studied nuclear waste issues, is among those pushing for faster action. After his recent visit to the ravaged plant, Senator Wyden said the pool at No. 4 poses “an extraordinary and continuing risk” and the retrieval of spent fuel “should be a priority given the possibility of further earthquakes.”
And…
“Some outside experts have also worked to allay fears, saying that the fuel in the pool is now so old that it cannot generate enough heat to start the kind of accident that would allow radioactive material to escape.”
Comment from someone on the Safecast listserv:
…What a totally bogus statement. Somehow, although it is a wild leap of the imagination to think this is possible, but somehow the spent fuel in the #4 Pool has now aged to where it is no longer able to generate heat or deteriorate. Really? Just how would it do that?
= ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = ~ = Plenty of photos over at EX-SKF about the reporters who were able to view Unit 4 of FD1 this week (see:
Former Fukushima Daiichi Worker: TEPCO screwed up by admitting it’s preparared to spray concrete on spent fuel — “They are really admitting they know that it might collapse!”
Chris Canine on Unit 4(Health Physics Technician, Chemist and Radiation Safety Instructor with 15 years experience. He has worked at over 20 plants throughout the United States, Japan and Mexico — including Fukushima #1 and #2 in the late 1970′s)
May 26, 2012 at 10:24 am
If the building is standing they can spray water on the pool and maintain some kind of cooling, enough to get by, especially now that the pool is cooler than 14 months ago.The concrete mixture idea can only be in response to a fuel pool collapse. So they are really admitting they know that it might collapse!! It is a completely crazy idea, those who have said the building would collapse if sprayed [with concrete-like mixture] in a standing pool are correct. But the idea was only generated if the building falls down on the ground. Then this idea might be better than doing nothing with fuel laying on the ground because it would slow the release of radioactive material. But it would mean that this pile would forever be dangerous and some releases would continue for years.
What a “Hail Mary” this is. TEPCO screwed up by admitting this, there have been several stories the last few days that are illuminating much more.
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Was informed of this site today. Some of the folks who are still homeless after 3.11 make these little elephants out of hand towels. According to Senrinomichi:
By adopting an elephant, you give hope to one or more of the hundreds of thousands of people made homeless following the triple disaster which struck north eastern Japan last March.
See this link for more information (Japanese only)
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano said Sunday that it was “clear” that Tokyo Electric Power Co. sought to withdraw all its workers from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant at one point in the early days of the crisis last year, contradicting the utility’s claim that it had no such intention.
Testifying to a Diet-appointed panel investigating the nuclear disaster, Edano, then chief Cabinet secretary, said he remembered Tokyo Electric President Masataka Shimizu “stammer” when he asked him over the phone whether the situation might get out of control if all staff were withdrawn from the plant.
“I do not remember the exchanges of words accurately…But it was clear that the company did not intend to leave some (of the workers),” Edano said at the panel’s hearing, which was open to the public.
The utility known as TEPCO has denied it had any intention of withdrawing all of the workers from the plant and has insisted it was trying to remove some staff not directly involved in handling the nuclear crisis.
May 27, 2012(Mainichi Japan)
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Observation…
Iran has enough uranium for five nuclear weapons, claims US think tank (26 May 2012)
Wow! Two positive comments in one week! I’m elated 🙂 (Even typed that happy face and all…) Thanks Iidaruth and “J”.
Guess there are live human beings checking this blog every once in a while. THANK YOU!!!!!!!
Ok, on to the news.
Does anyone really trust the JAEC as far as you could throw their sneaky little selves?
Only invite the folks that are in favor of what YOU want. No opposition. And not keeping records (agendas) of the meetings meant no trail. Slick, eh?
Mainichi uncovers more secret nuclear commission meetings
The Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) held secret “study” meetings on the nuclear fuel cycle project in 2004, internal documents obtained by the Mainichi Shimbun have shown.
The revelations come just days after the Mainichi news team discovered similar secret meetings held over 2011 and early 2012, with the latest on April 24. The government has invested vast sums in the badly delayed nuclear fuel cycle project, which foresees reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel into MOX fuel to be burned in special reactors.
The 2004 meetings, attended only by those in favor of the project, were held on 10 occasions up to April that year, while the JAEC was working out the current atomic power policy outline.
JAEC Chairman Shunsuke Kondo is quoted in one of the documents as telling attendees at a January 2004 meeting that the panel would immediately stop such meetings if they came to light, demonstrating the commission’s desire to cover up the secret discussions, which documents now show had been going on for some eight years.
Kondo denied that he had said the secret sessions would be stopped if they were exposed.
“We did hold study sessions, but we never distributed a list of issues on the agenda. Instead, we only studied examples of nuclear power policy overseas, and there’s no problem with that. I never made such a remark (about halting the sessions), but I told attendees to be careful.”
Yoroku: Dismantling the ‘black boxes’ of Japanese nuclear power
Japan’s nuclear safety administration, which downplayed the risks of a serious nuclear disaster and failed to take measures against a massive tsunami and loss of power, is responsible for bringing these troublesome black boxes into existence. It’s only natural that the nuclear policymaking process dominated by the “nuclear village” — the name given to the nation’s pro-nuclear collection of politicians, bureaucrats, academics, and utilities — has come to be looked upon with great suspicion.
Now, another black-box scandal in nuclear policymaking has emerged…
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Speaking of smelling fishy, here’s another little item.
“We can define a conflict of interest as a situation in which a person has a private or personal interest sufficient to appear to influence the objective exercise of his or her official duties as, say, a public official, an employee, or a professional.”
Source: Chris MacDonald, Michael McDonald, and Wayne Norman, “Charitable Conflicts of Interest”, Journal of Business Ethics 39:1-2, 67-74, August 2002. (p.68)
Today’s assignment, class, is to discuss the possible conflict of interest in the following report of the CHAIRMAN of NHK’S board of Governors taking a position as outside director of TEPCO.
Get it?
Test tomorrow.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
NHK Chairman Sudo set to quit, focus on Tepco
Jiji
Fumio Sudo, chairman of NHK’s Board of Governors, said he will step down to focus on his upcoming role as outside director of Tokyo Electric Power Co.
On the move: Fumio Sudo, NHK Board of Governors chairman, announces his intention to step down during a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday. He will become an outside director of Tepco.KYODO
Sudo, a consultant at JFE Holdings Inc., has faced criticism because his plan to double as Tepco outside director and chairman of NHK’s top decision-making body opened up questions about the neutrality of reporting by the public broadcaster.
Telephone Game for Nth Time: How “Fukushima’s cesium contamination amounts to four Chernobyls” Came About (It’s False, BTW)
I’ve lost track of how many telephone games there have been since March last year (here’s one, I wrote more in Japanese blog), but here’s the latest, and again it happened thanks to an English article written by a writer working for an English paper published by a Japanese newspaper. This time, it’s Yomiuri’s turn.
Here’s Yomiuri Japanese on TEPCO’s report of 900,000 terabequerels released from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant (part; 5/24/2012):
The total amount of radioactive materials released into the environment from Reactors 1 through 3 (iodine equivalence) is estimated to be 900,000 terabequerels (1 terabecquerel is 1 trillion becquerels), 1.2 to 1.9 times as much as the government’s estimates.
The Japanese reporter correctly notes the number is iodine equivalence.
Here’s Daily Yomiuri, Yomiuri’s English paper, reporting on the same TEPCO report, but with a different focus (part below; 5/24/2012). It is not the translation of the Japanese article but its original article, focusing more on the difference between TEPCO’s estimate and NISA’s estimate. It also focuses only on iodine and cesium-137:
TEPCO combined the two methods and repeated its calculations under different conditions. It reached a final estimate of 400,000 terabecquerels of iodine-131 and 360,000 terabecquerels of cesium-137.
The amount of radioactive substances discharged in the Chernobyl accident in 1986 was 5.2 million terabecquerels.
Not just in the above quote but nowhere in the Daily Yomiuri article does the writer says the number for cesium-137 is iodine equivalence. Either the writer assumes the readers would know the numbers are iodine equivalence, or he/she didn’t know how these numbers were calculated. I suppose you can infer that by looking at the number for the Chernobyl accident, but without the breakdown of the Chernobyl numbers you wouldn’t necessarily realize that Chernobyl number is also iodine equivalence (which it is).
The number for cesium-137 itself, 360,000, is not what TEPCO reported either. TEPCO said “10,000 terabecquerels of cesium-137 times 40 to get the iodine equivalence of 400,000 terabecquerels” for INES evaluation.
But the English sites that read Daily Yomiuri’s article (but not necessarily TEPCO’s press release) naturally compared the numbers this way:
Cesium-137 released from Fukushima: 360,000 terabecquerels
Cesium-137 released from Chernobyl: 85,000 terabecquerels
without realizing the Fukushima number is iodine equivalence, and the Chernobyl number isn’t. Thus the headlines like “Cesium-137 contamination: Fukushima amounts to four Chernobyls” at RT, for example.
But without the 40x multiplier on Fukushima, the numbers are (I use the correct number, 10,000 which would be 400,000 with 40x multiplier):
Cesium-137 released from Fukushima: 10,000 terabecquerels
Cesium-137 released from Chernobyl: 85,000 terabecquerels
Or with the 40x multiplier on Chernobyl to get iodine equivalence, the numbers are:
Cesium-137 released from Fukushima: 400,000 terabecquerels
Cesium-137 released from Chernobyl: 3,400,000 terabecquerels
As one of the readers of the blog commented, the meme, however false, that Fukushima contamination is 4 times worse than Chernobyl seems to have taken a life of its own and is spreading. It’s doubly ironic that it is all thanks to Yomiuri Shinbun, pro-nuke establishment newspaper whose owner Matsutaro Shoriki did all he could to bring about a nuclear Japan and succeeded.
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From ENENEWS at:
Asahi: ‘Major problems’ with radiation testing for children
Even if tests are conducted properly, there are still major problems with the reliability of some results. At a meeting of officials of municipal governments and hospitals responsible for WBC checkups and experts at the Fukushima Medical University on April 23, issues with the reliability of tests on young people were discussed.
Although children, who are believed to be more vulnerable to radiation than adults, are being prioritized, the equipment is not designed for them.
Ryugo Hayano, professor of atomic physics at the University of Tokyo who took part in the meeting, said: “WBCs were originally developed for adults. So it is difficult to measure (radiation levels of) small children accurately. We are now studying better methods.”
[…]
Earlier in the article, data is reported for tests conducted in Fukushima Prefecture during March 2012:
Cesium above detection limit
Adults: 9.9%
Children: 0.8%
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Did I miss the answer to her question?
Tepco has no clue for the worst senario of SFP4.mp4
Mayor: “We are definitely suffering from radiation exposure in our bodies” and want health care — Just 2% of Fukushima residents have had radiation testing by gov’t
a shortage of machines to carry out the checks means that thousands of people are still waiting for reassurance.
[…]
Many others have struggled to get tests. The Fukushima prefectural government started WBC checks in June 2011, focusing mainly on evacuees. However, the prefecture had to ask them to travel to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s office in neighboring Ibaraki Prefecture and other distant facilities with the appropriate equipment.
In late 2011, it introduced a fleet of vehicle-mounted WBCs that has now increased to six, and by the end of March 2012, a total of 32,000 people, or about 2 percent of the prefecture’s population, had received the prefectural WBC checkups.
[…]
“We, the Namie town government, bought a WBC by ourselves because the central government is late in dealing with this health issue. We are definitely suffering from radiation exposure in our bodies, and we want to implement appropriate health checkups for our residents,” [Namie Mayor Tamotsu Baba] said.
[…]
In order to measure radiation levels in human bodies accurately, radiation levels in the surrounding environment should be low, but the radiation level in Nihonmatsu city ranges from 0.1 to 0.5 microsievert per hour.
“That level is not low. But we were unable to secure an appropriate place,” said a Namie town government official.
[…]
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No “lean” on the property?
Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 4 Bldg Is Not Tilting, Says TEPCO with Data
TEPCO released the 17-page summary of its survey of the Reactor 4 building, as if to respond to the allegations by the experts foreign and domestic that the reactor building is “tilting” and on the verge of collapse. It is only in Japanese right now. (Well that was when I was writing the post. Now they have an unofficial English version. But since it took me long time to put English labels, I’ll present the Japanese version with my labels anyway.)
According to the summary, TEPCO did both the horizontal and vertical measurements, looked for cracks larger than 1 millimeter-wide, and did the non-destructive inspection using Schmidt hammer.
The result of the horizontal measurements have already been published.
The company says one location on the west wall near the elevator shaft has a bulge (33 millimeters), but all the measurement points were well within the spec of the Building Standards Act.
Problem of course is that there is no independent confirmation of the data.
The Harley-Davidson motorcycle was found by Canadian Peter Mark last month on a beach on Queen Charlotte Island, about 6,500 kilometers from Japan.
The vehicle’s license plate helped to identify the owner, 29-year-old Ikuo Yokoyama. He lives in a coastal area of Miyagi Prefecture that was devastated by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.
The US manufacturer of the bike had said it will restore the vehicle free of charge and send it back to its Japanese owner.
But the company decided to preserve the bike as it is after the owner expressed the wish that his vehicle will be used to help remind people of the disaster.
The bike will be transferred from the Canadian city of Vancouver to the Harley-Davidson Museum in the US city of Milwaukee.
The company says it will invite the finder of the bike and its owner when it displays the vehicle in the museum.
The Canadian finder told NHK that he understands what the owner wants to do and that showing the bike to many people is a good idea.
More on the pediatrician in Koriyama who is trying to do something to help the children who are being exposed to low levels of radiation in that city.
After the earthquake, children feared aftershocks and clung to their mother whenever they felt tremors. Some children stayed close to their mothers all day. The Japanese government recommended the citizens of Fukushima to stay home with the windows and doors closed to avoid radiation exposure. Due to a gasoline shortage, people were unable to use their cars and were obliged to stay home all day, anxious about the present and the future. This drastic change of lifestyle was reflected in children’s facial expressions, behaviors and physical conditions. The authors of this article were afraid that many children would develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Therefore, we consulted Dr. Hisako Watanabe, a child psychiatrist at Keio University Hospital, about the problems in Koriyama. Her advice was to secure a place where children could feel safe, and to take action to prevent them from developing PTSD.
[snip]
Although we survived the earthquake and its immediate and short-term aftermath, it has been a challenging time. Our success in the face of this adversity can be attributed to two factors. First, we had prepared for a large-scale disaster by establishing the baseball stadium as a primary evacuation facility and holding regular emergency drills at KMCH. Those facilities were our operations center during this disaster. Second, members of the medical association had a good relationship with each other and also with the administration. During this sudden crisis, mutual support and collaboration led to greater success. We again underlined the importance of disaster preparation and setting up a network of daily cooperation. We are now fighting against persistent low-level radiation; the solution has not yet been discovered. Although we had not prepared at all for large-scale radiation exposure, the presence of a child support center provided us a base for the promotion of activities to protect children. The solidarity of various groups working for children will improve the situation for the children of Koriyama.
The above was published in an article in the Keio Journal of Medicine which can be found at:
1Koriyama City Post-disaster Childcare Project, Fukushima, Japan
2Koriyama Medical Association, Fukushima, Japan
3Kikuchi Pediatric Clinic, Fukushima, Japan
(Received for publication on December 14, 2011) (Revised for publication on January 12, 2012) (Accepted for publication on January 12, 2012)
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Report regarding the number of deaths due to illnesses in “Fukushima children” Changes since the Fukushima accident based on the government’s vital statistics data.
By Seiichi Nakate, Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation
The number of deaths due to “cardiovascular diseases” has doubled. (This number includes cardiovascular deaths of children with congenital heart abnormalities.) This has not been seen in other prefectures which suffered damages from the earthquake/tsunami disaster. There are also increases in infectious diseases, cancer and leukemia, and pneumonia.
Check out the article and others on this site. Will add to the Blogroll!
In its report, the WHO [World Health Organization] said residents living near the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant northeast of Tokyo were exposed to whole-body doses of between 10 and 50 millisieverts
[…]
“The WHO estimates deviate considerably from reality,” said one anxious Japanese government source. “If those figures are taken at face value, that may spread disquiet and confusion among the Japanese public.”
[…]
“Overall, (the latest WHO figures) are overestimates,” said Yoshio Hosoi, a professor of radiology at Hiroshima University’s Research Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine. “In particular, they have sharply overestimated the doses of external exposure and food-derived exposure,” he said.
But the Japanese government’s System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI), which is designed to forecast the spread of radioactive substances, did produce larger thyroid gland dose estimates for 1-year-old infants in some districts of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture.
In that case, the WHO estimates “probably mostly reflect reality,” Hosoi said.
[…]
Initial Estimate
The WHO began compiling the dose estimation report last summer. Its first draft, which appeared last November, startled one Japanese government official.
The draft report estimated the whole-body doses for 1-year-old infants at 10-100 millisieverts in Namie and 1-10 millisieverts in Tokyo and Osaka.
The thyroid gland dose estimates for 1-year-old infants were 300-1,000 millisieverts in Namie and elsewhere and 10-100 millisieverts in Tokyo and Osaka.
Tokyo sent health ministry officials to the WHO headquarters and went through diplomatic channels to call for revisions.
“The figures are just impossibly high,” a government official said at the time. “If they are released, that will not only arouse unnecessary anxiety among the Japanese public but also serve as negative publicity.”
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TEPCO: 2-1/2 Times More Fukushima Radiation Released Than Previously Announced
– Common Dreams staff
The nuclear meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant released at least 2-1/2 times more radiation than Japan’s government had announced last year, the company responsible for the disaster said in a Tokyo news conference today.
TEPCO: 2-1/2 Times More Fukushima Radiation Released Than Previously Announced.
The severely damaged Fukushima Unit 4TEPCO, set to be nationalizedin July in exchange for a Japanese government bailout, estimated meltdowns at three Fukushima reactors released about 900,000 terabecquerels of radioactive substances into the air during March. The total radiation release at the Chernobyl accident was estimated to be about 5.2 million terabecquerels.
TEPCO’s new estimates suggest that its Fukushima reactor has released more than quadruple the amount of radioactive cesium-137 leaked during the Chernobyl disaster. But the method used to measure the damage may undervalue the hazard even further.
[…] it still seems to be just an effort to downplay the real scale of the event.
The report goes on to compare Fukushima with the Chernobyl accident of 1986, where it says 5,200,000 TBq of “radioactive substances” were leaked into the atmosphere.
The problem is that TEPCO only counts the amount of iodine-131 and cesium-137 leaked from the Fukushima reactor, and compares them to the whole range of isotopes that were discharged at Chernobyl.
And if compared properly, the numbers tell a different story.
[…]
Regarding the emission of cesium-137, Fukushima is far ahead its rival. Post-Fukushima estimations suggest that Chernobyl put out a total of 85,000 TBq of caesium-137 over the course of the disaster. The Fukushima reactor, however, has so far released 360,000 TBq of cesium-137, according to TEPCO.
[…]
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Hard lessons for U.S. nuclear safety from Fukushima meltdown
By Daniel P. Aldrich, Special to CNN
May 25, 2012 — Updated 0126 GMT (0926 HKT)
the meltdowns in Fukushima have punctured any “100% safe” myths that had survived Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Engineers and planners need to show humility when talking about risks to an ever-more-skeptical public
This blog is rated G (for all audiences), so I will refrain from calling these people the names that are floating in my head at the moment.
Atomic commission chief admits attendance at secret session on nuclear fuel cycle
Shunshuke Kondo, chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC), attended a closed-door meeting on a review of the nation’s nuclear fuel cycle policy on Dec. 8 last year, according to memos obtained by the Mainichi Shimbun.
The revelation comes after the JAEC was found to have held closed-door “study” sessions with only pro-nuclear members in attendance. The JAEC held such secret sessions over more than 20 occasions, and an official of the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, which is in charge of research and development of fast-breeder reactors, also participated.
Researchers now predict 70 percent chance of major Tokyo quake within 30 years
The probability of a magnitude-7 earthquake directly hitting the Tokyo metropolitan area within 30 years is 70 percent, a new calculation by University of Tokyo researchers has shown.
Researchers including members of the University of Tokyo’s Earthquake Research Institute recalculated the probability based on the latest seismic data. They concluded that the probability of a magnitude 7-level earthquake striking directly below the Tokyo metropolitan area is “70 percent within 30 years,” starting from January this year.
FYI, there was a 3.6 50 km directly beneath Tokyo’s Ward 23 this afternoon at 16:27.
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Radiation didn’t cause Fukushima No. 1 deaths: U.N.
Jiji, AP
Radiation exposure was not responsible for the deaths of six workers helping to contain the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, a U.N. committee said in a preliminary assessment Wednesday.
Thank you, J. I’m encouraged by your comments. And I REEEEEALY appreciate hearing from a reader. Gets lonely out here in Blogland sometimes.
Ok, will hang in there.
At times, will do a bit more commentating than in the past year.
For example, today’s tidbit. Went a bit early to the cafeteria where I work so that I could get in line. Everything they were serving was pork, pork, pork. Hmm, maybe not a good choice right now?
Oh, I know. That’s up in Koriyama (Fukushima). And they won’t sell it now that cesium has been detected, so no need to worry. Uh-huh.
A few months back I remember seeing the cafeteria offering fish from Sanriku. Hmmm, maybe another not-a-good choice?
Glad that I am a lacto-ovo-pullus-pescitarian who is cutting back on the pescitarian part.
A friend recently said, “Yeah, but there are chemicals in everything. There’s no way you can play it 100% safe. You might not choose vegetables from China or Tohoku, but whatever you eat has had pesticides sprayed on it, chemical fertilizer, irradiated citrus fruit from the U.S., and so on. In today’s world, it’s inescapable.”
True. I just figure that if by not buying certain things I am taking one more bullet out of the Russian Roulette game I play every day with my food. ‘Zat bad?
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant estimates that 900,000 terabecquerels of radioactive material have been emitted from the facility.
[snip]
It estimates that 900,000 terabecquerels of iodine-131 and cesium-137 were released from the plant since the accident.
The figure is 50 percent to 80 percent higher than those released separately by the Nuclear Safety Commission and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, but less than 20 percent of the amount emitted after the Chernobyl accident.
Can’t wrap me wee brain around this. How big is 900,000 TERABEQUERELS?
“Well, we don’t know, but at least it’s less than 20% released at Chernobyl. “
Why is it the MSM has to put this last comment in the article? To drive home the “fact” that the three melt-THROUGHS at FD1 – which are still spewing radiation – is somehow not as bad as the accident as Chernobyl?? They are both ongoing and devastating to the children, the local people, the farmers, the wildlife, and the rest of the planet.
Kitakyushu City Hall on May 23: Mothers vs City Officials
First, young mothers with small children (photo from @mama_jp):
The sign says, “Adults should protect the future of children. We’re against disaster debris burning. Protect Kyushu for Japan.”
Professor Yukio Hayakawa’s tweet was: “Mothers in Kitakyushu, have they all gone nuts?”
On his May 23 blog, he proclaimed, “This day will be long recorded as the day when the discrimination against Tohoku has started.”
He probably has not seen this picture of Kitakyushu City officials blocking the passage (photo from @Saikeman):
If he did, he may highly approve of the high-handed way the Kitakyushu City officials have treated the whole issue – from not bothering to tell anyone (residents, neighboring cities) to laughing at the protesters to calling the police to disperse the protesters yesterday. The professor is recommending that Kitakyushu City declare independence from the rest of Japan if the residents want to keep out the disaster debris.
UN Committee: “6 Deaths at #Fukushima I Nuke Plant Have Nothing to Do with Radiation”
That’s the conclusion of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). TEPCO and the Japanese government have said as much already.
Whether a pool where spent fuel is stored at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant could withstand another strong earthquake has become a source of growing concern.The concerns among activists, experts and politicians focus on Unit 4, which contains most of the plant’s spent fuel not stored in dry, hardened storage casks, Stars and Stripes reported.
After the 9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, an investigative report by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, an independent think tank started to investigate the causes of the plant disaster, cited among risks a loss of cooling water in Unit 4.
[…]
public trust in Tepco remains low, Stars and Stripes said, and calls for more efforts to empty and secure Unit 4 continue in Japan and beyond.
Skytree elevator has a glitch? Give me a F#$%&king break. Who the hell cares?
Hello blog.
I’ve been thinking about something for a few days now.
I know that this blog has turned into an aggregate for the daily Fukushima/radiation/earthquake/etc. news, but I’ve been deliberating the question of whether of not to continue in this vein. Am I doing a service that people want and/or need?
The list of my sources are at the right under “Blogroll”, and in all honesty, people who are sincerely concerned about the situation in Japan can peruse these sources at their leisure (which few of us have, these days, it seems) to find the latest news.
There are very few regular followers of this blog. This could mean that most people check in now and then to catch up. Or it could mean that they liked it one time or twice, and then got busy with other things. (Just like me :-).
It takes me 60 – 90 minutes every night to do this update. Someone today told me I should “get a life”. What kind of life? A year and almost three months after 3.11 I am still asking myself that question. How does one live their life knowing that it is teetering on the brink of…. And there really is no end for that sentence because none knows what will happen.
“But nobody knows the future. You can’t predict what will happen tomorrow. Why worry about something that might not even happen?”
I’m not worrying. At least not every minute of every day of every week of the year. However, every night when I sit down to look at the news, I am confronted with the REALITY that the people in Japan and the people in the Northern Hemisphere are confronted with (or should be).
A cousin of mine writes on her Facebook page: “I am a conservative. I love God and my country. God bless our troops.” Whether I agree with her or not is a question that has long grown old. I used to dally in American politics and hold strong political beliefs. 3.11 made me realize there are MUCH more pressing issues that should be dealt with than the price of gasoline in the U.S.
Because the mainstream media do not cover a wide range of discussion of the issues, we are left with “comfortable” limits of debate. Neighbors don’t want to talk about it. The media don’t want to talk about it. Where do we go to have a balanced, informative discussion about the current situation with regard to radiation and out safety – the safety of our children – within Japan and around the world?
I went in to the local convenience store last week. I bought a bottle of tea and took it to the counter. A woman in her 60s who usually waits on me looked at my face and heard me sigh. “Doushita no? (what’s wrong?)” she asked. I said, “This tea says it’s made in Japan. But where? How can I know that the tea leaves were not grown in Shizuoka?”
She said that she was also worried, especially for the children who are more susceptible to the effects of internal radiation. There is no guarantee that what we buy at the convenience store, in restaurants, or even the food we are served when we visit a friend’s home for dinner, will not contain ingredients from Tohoku – should we choose not to consume them, or now from cities that are agreeing to burn debris from the disaster, [
Debris truck raised atmospheric dose from 0.06 to 0.612μSv/h]
the levels of contamination of which have not been disclosed in mainstream media. One coworker today told of someone she knew who had been invited to dinner with friends who had received a “gift” of farm produce from their family in the Tohoku area.
How is the Fukushima meltdown going to affect our relationships? How are we going to be able to say, “Sorry, but I’ve already eaten” when you find out what is being served and the place from which it originated?
And what about the many, many people who still say, “I trust the government. They have tested the food, and it is all right to eat. I support the people in Fukushima”? It’s not about the people in Fukushima. It is about your health and the health of your family – your children.
Somewhere I recently saw this on the web:
and it sure rang true. Here, we’ve allowed an electric company and the government (and not just in Japan, mind you – it has happened all over the planet – soon to be in India) to poison the rivers and forests, plant the “fuel fleas” of internal radiation in the populace of the northern hemisphere, and radically change our feeling of security about the places we live, work, play, and eat.
Ghandi said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
At times I feel as though people are waking up. Other times I feel so depressed because of the people who say, “Everything’s all right. Why are you worrying?”
(UPDATED) Disaster Debris Standoff in Kitakyushu: City Officials Threatening Police Action
so that the trucks can enter the depot. The police are trying to remove the protesters including a pregnant woman.
Someone’s under the truck, trying to prevent it from entering the gate.
City official was heard laughing as he said protesters were pulled from under the truck. (Photo from @asat8)
Policemen were seen locking arms to protect the huge, brand-new truck that carries disaster debris.
Two people have been arrested, according to the tweets by people who have been watching the scene.
Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 1 Containment Vessel May Have Only 40 Centimeters of Water, Government Researchers at JNES Say
Move over, Reactor 2 (which has 60 centimeters of water)…
Tokyo Shinbun reports that the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry analyzed the parameters of Reactor 1 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, and concluded that there may be only 40 centimeters of water retained inside the Containment Vessel.
Tokyo Shinbun’s graphics shows the cooling water leaking from a downcomer.
The fuel debris (corium) is estimated to have eaten into the concrete floor of the Containment Vessel in Reactor 1, as announced in November last year. TEPCO’s estimate is about 65 centimeters, and the estimate by the Institute of Applied Energy is as much as 2 meters.
Absolutely Nuclear Heroes “SUISHINGER” English Subtitle ver.
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Radioactive Japan: Cherries from Fukushima City with 61.66 Bq/Kg of Radioactive Cesium
That’s not much reduction from last year, particularly when the extensive “decontamination” of fruit trees in Fukushima was carried out last year and earlier this year.
Supermarket chain Ichii, based in Fukushima City, measures radiation in food items that the chain sells to customers. In the result for May 21, 2012, the supermarket chain reports that 61.66 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected from cherries grown in Fukushima City.
According to Ichii, the cherries were not for sale but they were from a fruit farmer who wanted them tested prior to the shipment.
Last year, cherries from Fukushima City tested 70 to 96 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium, according to the Fukushima prefectural governmentwebpage for Fukushima produce.
Editorial: Healthy competition needed in liberalization of Japan’s electricity market
An Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry committee discussing reform to Japan’s electricity industry has agreed on fully liberalizing the electricity market — including electricity delivered to regular households. The ministry plans to bring the changes into effect after a warm-up period of several years.
If the monopolies that major electric power companies have held over their service areas are broken and competition emerges in the industry, the price of electricity could fall. However, there are still many issues to address, including how to ensure a stable supply of electricity. We hope that the government will plan a system that fosters a healthy competing market benefiting consumers.
Liberalization of electricity retailing was introduced in stages from 2000, but when regulations were relaxed in 2005 to cover businesses with electricity contracts of 50 kilowatts or more, major power companies dug their heels in, bringing changes to a halt. Now, households and small stores such as convenience stores have no option but to go with major power companies.
Just what are these issues with this? Article continues at:
Emotional stress over last year’s deadly quake and tsunami in the Tohoku region caused the brains of some survivors to shrink, according to scientists in Japan who had a unique chance to study the neurological effects of trauma.
On a quest to better understand posttraumatic stress disorder, the researchers compared brain scans they had taken of 42 healthy adolescents in other studies in the two years before the disasters new images taken three to four months after they hit.
Among those with PTSD symptoms, they found a shrinking in the orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain involved in decision-making and the regulation of emotion, according to a study published Tuesday in Molecular Psychiatry, a branch of Nature.
“The changed volumes in the orbitofrontal cortex are correlated to the severity of PTSD symptoms,” author Atsushi Sekiguchi said.
Previous studies had already suggested PTSD patients experienced changes to the brain, but this is the first to pinpoint which part of the organ is altered by trauma.
The full implications of the findings are so far unclear, but there could be an early benefit for doctors and patients. Telltale changes in brain volume may help in diagnosing PTSD and expedite treatment with psychotherapy.
French Researchers: Lower Bound Estimates of Atmospheric Release of Iodine, Cesium from Fukushima “about 5 to 10 times less than the Chernobyl atmospheric releases”
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 117, D05122, 16 PP., 2012 (Received 27 September 2011; accepted 23 January 2012; published 9 March 2012)
Estimation of errors in the inverse modeling of accidental release of atmospheric pollutant: Application to the reconstruction of the cesium-137 and iodine-131 source terms from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant
[snip]
Because of the poor observability of the Fukushima Daiichi emissions, these methods provide lower bounds for cesium-137 and iodine-131 reconstructed activities. These lower bound estimates, 1.2 × 10^16 Bq for cesium-137, with an estimated standard deviation range of 15%–20%, and 1.9 − 3.8 × 10^17 Bq for iodine-131, with an estimated standard deviation range of 5%–10%, are of the same order of magnitude as those provided by the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and about 5 to 10 times less than the Chernobyl atmospheric releases.
“To put it succinctly, nothing about the disaster has been established concretely; not the cause, not the current conditions, not where the responsibility lies.”
In his collection of essays titled “Sainan Zakko” (rough thoughts on disaster), physicist Torahiko Terada (1878-1935) included this insightful phrase: “People worry rather more about what’s in the rice bin for tomorrow than unpredictable tsunami.”
Terada wrote these somewhat desperate, biting words in his autumn years, when he was already worn down by his long advocacy for disaster prevention.
Last June, a report released by the Cabinet’s Reconstruction Design Council in response to the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami warned of a return to rice bin worries — economic over safety concerns — after the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. However, it must be said that “nuclear safety” itself is a dubious proposition.
One major news item last week was the hearings held by the Diet’s nuclear disaster investigation committee. One of the issues raised was whether or not Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) had requested government permission to abandon the power station after the hydrogen explosions at the No. 1 and 3 reactor buildings and the cooling failure at the No. 2 reactor. Banri Kaieda, minister of economy, trade and industry in those tense days in March 2011, stated that he did indeed receive a call asking permission to evacuate the plant. TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, however, continues to insist that “this is not true.”
The hearings were not the first time differences in government and TEPCO accounts of the disaster have been revealed. Naoto Kan and Yukio Edano, the prime minister and chief Cabinet secretary at the time, respectively, have made the same claim as Kaieda at other investigative committees. TEPCO executives have also maintained that the request was only to evacuate “some of the plant workers, not all.”
What surprises the most is not the discrepancy itself, but that the truth about what actually happened at this turning point in the crisis — when abandoning the plant may very well have meant evacuating all of eastern Japan — remains obscured.
In Terada’s book of essays, he relates the story of a university professor who, after an airplane crashed in the mountains of Kyushu, had all the parts recovered from the crash site sent to him so he could track down the cause of the accident. After studying the wreckage, the professor determined that one broken aileron wire and one missing screw had led to the crash. His investigations led to preventative measures, and Terada hailed it as a victory for the truth.
Now let’s look at the inquiries into the nuclear disaster. Was the catastrophe the result of the earthquake or the tsunami? We don’t know. We can guess at this and that, but since no one can get close to the reactors because of the radiation, it’s impossible to confirm the particulars.
In the case of reactor No. 3, which had a core meltdown, the latest measurements in the shattered reactor building put radiation levels at as much as 160 millisievert per hour. Even wearing protective gear, a worker in that environment for 25 hours would absorb a dose of 4,000 millisieverts, and have just a 50 percent chance of survival over the following 30 days.
To put it succinctly, nothing about the disaster has been established concretely; not the cause, not the current conditions, not where the responsibility lies. Unlike the airplane crash investigation praised by Terada, there is no hope for new and reasoned plans to prevent a recurrence based on a firm understanding of the disaster’s causes.
Even so, the fear of Terada’s empty rice bin — fear of lost employment, declining production and power outages during the summer heat — has fueled the movement to restart Japan’s idled nuclear reactors.
The government has slapped together a compromise, string-and-chewing-gum solution to nuclear safety issues, deploying auxiliary generators to plants and reinforcing the seawalls protecting them from the ocean. The very point the reconstruction design council was trying to make has been dropped from the discussion. That is the reality today.
Terada walked through the devastated areas following both the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the 1933 Sanriku Earthquake and tsunami, and he did his best to sound the alarm on disaster prevention.
“Natural disasters return the moment you forget them,” he is supposed to have said. In his volume of reflections on disasters, he laments that prompting people to act though they will not listen and will not open their eyes to danger “is harder-going than moving the stars in the sky.”
We continue to see news on changes in the Earth’s crust and volcanic activity. Most of the investigations into the nuclear disaster have been wrapped up, though because of high radiation levels it remains impossible to confirm the truth by direct observation of the reactors. We take this situation lightly at our peril. (By Takao Yamada, Expert Senior Writer)
May 21, 2012(Mainichi Japan)
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First Wave of Tsunami debris slams West Coast Shores
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Editorial: Summer electricity savings a step toward a society without nuclear power
The government has drawn up measures for summer electricity supply and demand on the assumption that none of Japan’s 50 nuclear reactors will be reactivated, calling for energy-saving efforts across the country except in Okinawa Prefecture.
Electricity shortages this summer would restrict people’s lives and economic activities. The government bears heavy responsibility for failing to quickly take effective measures while insisting on reactivating nuclear power plants. Electric companies, which have benefited from regional monopolies, should also reflect on their failure to fulfill their responsibility as power suppliers.
Nation’s wind power generation capacity grew fivefold in last decade
Kyodo
The nation’s wind power capacity has climbed about fivefold to 2.5 million kw over the past decade, sources say.
But growth in fiscal 2011 shrank to just under 100,000 kw — the slowest pace in the decade — following the termination of subsidies for wind plant construction the previous year, the sources said Saturday.
The government expects electricity produced by wind power and other renewable energy sources to continue expanding after the so-called feed-in tariff system kicks off in July. The system requires utilities in principle to buy, at fixed rates, electricity from other entities that is produced by environmentally safe methods, such as solar or wind power.
A government panel recently proposed fixing the price for electricity generated by wind power at ¥23.1 per kwh — a level deemed profitable enough for nonutilities to stay in the game, industry sources said.
EDITORIAL: Plan to restart reactors this summer must be scrapped
In a TV program recently aired by Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK), Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reiterated his intention of forging ahead with plans to restart the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture.
uhohjapan2 