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Nuclear Disasters and the Danger of a Marginalized Media

By Akio Matsumura

 

UPDATE: A Japanese translation of this article is available here.

Mr. Reiji Yoshida wrote in The Japan Times on November 12, 2011:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Friday for the first time let reporters into the base camp for thousands of workers striving every day to fix the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, showing off new dining facilities, a dormitory for single workers and the latest radioactivity monitors to check vehicles and clothing.

Tepco had long barred reporters from visiting J. Village in the town of Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture, the main gate police are using to control access to the 20 km no-go zone around the Fukushima plant.

On average, 2,100 workers a day are trying to tame the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, which experienced three reactor meltdowns in March.

Skilled engineers are badly needed at present to contain the crisis, as workers have to quickly finish their tasks before being exposed to dangerously high levels of radiation.

(Workers) should know the locations of valves, which pipes run where, and what’s inside them; cold water, hot water or steam,”

And they need to go quickly to their destination in the plant and speedily finish their work because the radiation is high.

 

I have focused for several months now on certain aspectsof the Fukushima disaster, especially the dangerous situation of reactor unit 4, where spent fuel rods are balanced on the second floor of a crippled building. It is heartening to see that people have taken interest.… Continue reading

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The Need for Independent Assessment of the Fourth Reactor

by Gordon Edwards, PhD

Read in Japanese and German.

In his recent blog, entitled “The Fourth Reactor and the Destiny of Japan”, Akio Matsumura correctly identifies the spent fuel pool in Unit 4 as the most serious potential threat for further massive radioactive releases from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

If not cooled by mechanical means for at least several years, the irradiated fuel in the spent fuel pool will overheat due to radioactivity alone. The heat generated by radioactivity must be removed as fast as it is being produced to keep the temperature of the nuclear fuel from soaring out of control.

If the temperature climbs toward 900 degrees C, the metal coating (“cladding”) on the outside of the fuel pellets rapidly deteriorates, releasing large quantities of radioactive gases and vapors.

At these elevated temperatures, the cladding also reacts with steam (H2O) to produce hydrogen gas (H2) which explodes with great force, as it did in Unit 4 on March 15 – blowing the roof off the building and providing a pathway for radioactivity to escape into the atmosphere.

At about 1000 degrees, the fuel cladding can catch fire, emitting tiny radioactive cinders – miniscule particles of irradiated fuel called “nuclear fleas” – particularly dangerous when inhaled or ingested.

Currently, the situation in Unit 4 is under control – but things could change quickly if the spent fuel pool collapses or the support structure is severely damaged by a strong aftershock.  It may then be impossible to cool the irradiated fuel effectively.… Continue reading

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The Fourth Reactor and the Destiny of Japan

By Akio Matsumura

This article is available in Japanese.

Since the accident at the Fukuhsima Daichi nuclear power plants, I have presented the opinions of several eminent scientists on the Fukushima disaster and we have received many insightful responses.  I as a layman am learning new terminologies and of potential problems that could continue to affect the area for hundreds of years.

From population to democracy, the issues I have studied in four decades of international work seem rather shortsighted when compared to a potential nuclear disaster that would affect our descendants for perhaps twenty thousand years.

As you are well aware, in January 2011 I began a campaign for the global survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The strong supporting articles several experts have contributed have encouraged me, and many political friends assure me that the message will not go unheard. They concur that my proposal is timely and would help increase the public awareness of risks associated with nuclear weapons.

However, the Fukushima nuclear disaster has convinced me that this campaign does not fully address the nuclear issue. I am now worried that nuclear power plants present a comparable risk to that of nuclear weapons—leaked radiation can make large areas uninhabitable for centuries. The area around Fukushima may come to be one. Thinking of the possible magnitude of such a disaster has led me to consider the balance between world energy needs and safety for human civilization.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon convened a high-level meeting on Nuclear Safety and Security on September 22, 2011, during the 66th UN General Assembly.… Continue reading

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Fading Memories and Lessons Learned

By Dr. Scott Jones

In a series appropriately named Lessons Learned, the U.S. military takes pride in documenting what it has learned from battles and campaigns. The assumption being that this record will guide strategies and tactics in future wars. The irony is not lost to the professional warrior that the major lesson to be learned from every war is that the next war starts with failure: peace has been lost.

A host of lessons were learned during my thirty years of military service.  While many memories have faded, some never will.  One in particular has specific relevance to the core purpose of this article.  In October 1952, on my second Korean War tour as a jet fighter pilot flying off a U.S. aircraft carrier, I was flying a low-level armed reconnaissance mission over North Korea.  U.S. forces controlled the air, and North Korean and Chinese forces rarely tried to move troops and supplies during the day.  Expectations were therefore low to see any movement of a military nature.  The assigned road for this mission made a zigzag climb out of the valley onto a plain leading to the Chinese border.  This was the end of my route and time to climb to a higher altitude for a direct return to the carrier task group.  However, as I climbed out of the valley I saw an oxcart on the road being escorted by soldiers.  The disciplined soldiers in their winter-white uniforms dove for protection into the deep ditches on either side of the road. … Continue reading

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Admiral Noel Gayler’s Call for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

Bill Wickersham
Adjunct Professor of Peace Studies, University of Missouri-Columbia

C.B. Scott Jones
President, Peace & Emergency Action Coalition for Earth (P.E.A.C.E., Inc.)

 

Admiral Noel Gayler, a World War II Navy pilot who served as the sixth director of the National Security Agency, and as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command in the 1970s, died on July 14, 2011 at the age of 96. He was one of several retired, high-ranking U.S. military officers who have called for the abolition of nuclear weapons from Planet Earth.

In December, 2000, Gayler published “A Proposal for Achieving Zero Nuclear Weapons” .  In that article, he said: “The argument for a nuclear component is no longer valid. The time is now for a concrete proposal that meets the problem. Process, as opposed to negotiating numbers, is the basic principle of the proposal that I suggest. It is nothing less than drastic: the continuing reduction to zero of weapons in the hands of avowed nuclear powers, plus an end to the nuclear ambitions of others.”

Recently, in response to Admiral Gayler’s passing, Dr. David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, California, outlined some of the common illusions surrounding the purported value of nuclear weapons which were included in Gayler’s proposal.  Those illusions include the following misconceptions:

  • Physical defense against nuclear weapons is possible;
  • Nuclear weapons can be used in a sensible manner;
  • Nuclear disarmament imperils our security; and
  • Nuclear deterrence is an effective defense.

Additionally, Krieger noted that  “Admiral Gayler’s proposal involves the delivery of all nuclear weapons to a central point where they would be irreversibly dismantled.”… Continue reading

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One Japanese Citizen’s View of Fukushima Anarchy

By Toshio Nishi, PhD

Is our Japanese government lying to us?  Yes.

Is “lying” too strong a word to depict the government’s spectacular public show of its bungling? Would, then being “mendacious” be more accurate and kinder?

Semantics is not even an issue here. Good manners should no longer be expected from ordinary Japanese men and women who have been inhaling highly radioactive dust and vapor since March 11, 2011.  But we continue to behave. I assume it is a matter of pride that each of us refuses to become selfish in a crisis.

Don’t Drink Green Tea

Cesium has shown up dangerously condensed in our national beverage, green tea. Green tea is supposed to be good for our health. Must be, because the Japanese live the longest in the world.

Japan’s largest tea farm is in Shizuoka, about 320km (200 miles) south from Fukushima. Tea farmers cannot harvest the rich green leaves any more, for they cannot sell them. Now, cesium and other radioactive elements have invaded our milk, chickens, pigs, beef cows, vegetables and fruits.

It is disheartening to realize that the sea off Fukushima is one of the world’s three richest fishing zones. Some desperate fishermen, perhaps being defiant against their misfortune, go out to sea, but who would dare eat their catches? We ordinary citizens fail to comprehend the apparent and hidden magnitude of radioactive contamination that threatens to never end.

From the beginning of the disaster at Fukushima and for the first two months, one nuclear scientist after another from famous universities and government agencies appeared on nightly TV news programs, and intoned with a special atmosphere of possessing superior knowledge that radioactive dust and vapor or fish caught off the shores did not pose “an immediate health risk.”

… Continue reading
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Fukushima: The Crisis Is Not Over

This interview is now available in Japanese.

We are pleased to share an updated, redacted version of an interview with Mr. Arnie Gundersen assessing the current situation of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant in Japan. Gundersen, a former vice president in the nuclear industry and chief engineer at Fairewinds Associates, believes the multiple risks are likely to deepen the crisis. Four of the plant’s six nuclear reactors were damaged in the earthquake and remain in a precarious state. Three of the units contained fuel, which now has coalesced into a difficult-to-cool molten blob. With time, however, their temperature will drop. The largest concern is with the fourth unit: its highly radioactive spent fuel pool is exposed and suspended above the reactor. Further damage to the site could cause the contents of the pool to spill out on the ground, moving the situation beyond the limits of of our scientific knowledge. The situation in the reactors with fuel all begins with increasing levels of heat.

Radioactive byproducts produce heat.

During the normal operation of a nuclear reactor, there is an accumulation of many man-made radioactive materials such as iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90, plutonium-239, and many others.

These radioactive byproducts continue to produce a lot of heat, even after the reactor is shut down, because radioactivity cannot be stopped.  This unstoppable heat is called “decay heat.”

Heat damages fuel, releasing hydrogen and radioactive gases.

Unless the decay heat is removed as fast as it is produced, the temperature will continue to rise, eventually damaging the fuel and letting radioactive gases and vapors escape.… Continue reading

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“Safe” and “Clean” Nuclear Power?

By Steven Starr

There are 440 commercial nuclear reactors now in operation in 30 countries around the world.  Each of these reactors creates and contains at least 100 times more long-lived radioactivity than was produced by the bombs which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thus a catastrophic accident at just one of these reactors has the potential to release as much radioactive fallout as would a nuclear war fought with 100 atomic bombs.

In other words, a nuclear reactor is a sort of nuclear-war-in-a-can, without the blast and fire that nuclear weapons produce, but with all of the long-lived radioactivity. If you happen to be a terrorist, this makes every nuclear reactor a radiological target-of-opportunity.

Yet most of our political leaders join with the representatives of the nuclear industry to tell us that nuclear power is a “safe” and “clean” form of energy.  Is it?  This concept may be hard to explain to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been forced to permanently evacuate their homes around Chernobyl and Fukushima, where radioactive fallout from previously “safe” and “clean” nuclear power plants has made the cities, towns and land uninhabitable.


Radioactive Waste

In fact, the potential for enormous releases of radioactivity exists at all U.S. and Japanese nuclear power plants, which for decades have stored their used or “spent” uranium fuel rods on site. There are 30 million used fuel rods stockpiled at U.S. reactors in “spent fuel pools”, which together contain about 20 times more long-lived radioactivity than was released from all atmospheric nuclear weapons tests.… Continue reading

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The Twenty Thousand Year Poison: Nuclear Safety and Our Long Future

日本語訳 | français 

By Akio Matsumura

It has been 25 years since the worst nuclear power accident in history at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, and we still aren’t certain what health damage it may ultimately cause. That gap needs to be filled by a vigorous research program — both to improve readiness to cope with another bad nuclear accident and to enhance understanding of the long-term effects of low doses of radiation. (New York Times Editorial, May 9)

Chernobyl’s explosion and ensuing fire spread radiation across the Western Soviet Union and Europe. The disaster released four hundred times more radioactive material than the Hiroshima bomb. My old friend Dr. Evgeny Velikhov, the Soviet Union’s top nuclear scientist, oversaw the delegation that investigated and cleaned up the disaster.

Dr Velikhov spoke of his first hand investigation at the 1988 Oxford Global Forum and impressed upon participants the scale of the disaster. At the same conference, renowned American scientist Carl Sagan appealed to both the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce their nuclear weapons. Carl probed further, asking participants from India and Pakistan why their countries were clandestinely producing nuclear weapons.  The Indian and Pakistani diplomats both denied they had a nuclear weapon program, and stuck with the official narrative: their countries were building nuclear power plants for peaceful energy production.

Ten years later, on May 11, 1998, the Indian government announced it had conducted three nuclear test explosions at the Pokharan site in Rajashan.  Later that month, on May 28, the Pakistani government announced it had conducted five nuclear tests.… Continue reading

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A Lifetime Chasing Osama: Implications and Possibilities for Our Generation

By Chris Cote

I have never fought in a war, but for the majority of my memorable life my country, the United States, has been in one. The United States emerged triumphant in the Cold War shortly after I was born and throughout the 1990s exerted its military power in a number of small affairs throughout North Africa and the Middle East. This involvement in the region expanded and escalated immensely during the 2000s. At the same time, Americans and many others willingly traded in political freedoms and compromised their democracies for nominally greater security. Three recent events—the end of the Iraq War, the continuing Arab Uprisings, and the surprising death of Osama bin Laden—have opened the way for the United States to reflect on its role in the global affairs. I am twenty four years old and I have acknowledged the shifting state in world affairs and America’s necessarily smaller role in them. I am looking forward to a future as an American whose country is not intractably occupied abroad and able to focus on more urgent priorities at home and a more narrow conception of vital interests abroad. Instead of clawing to its possessions and interests abroad, the United States should shrink its role abroad, and polish off its tarnished political system at home, the political system responsible for its initial greatness.

Growing up in Massachusetts

I was born on a snowy April day in the waning years of the Cold War. The long ideological and physical battle between the East and West—like the concurrent struggle between the Celtics and the Lakers—had to come to an end.… Continue reading