Category: Japan

日本語訳 

Dear friends,

Today, March 11, we commemorate the 7^th anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear accident.

The government of Japan has admitted that the process of removing the irradiated cores from the three crippled reactors will take at least forty years. We are concerned that the Fukushima nuclear crisis will affect human and environmental safety for many years afterward. Experts worry that the forty-year flow of the radioactive wind and contaminated water are reaching North America.

The Middle East and China are beginning to get more nuclear power plants, which many believe will be a major help for climate change. But what risks are we creating through nuclear development?

Nuclear disasters need not have natural origins Before long, we may see terrorist or cyber attacks on nuclear power reactors, whether in Europe, the Middle East, or elsewhere. If this occurs at one of France’s 18 nuclear power stations, for example, huge areas of Western Europe – cities and farms alike — will become uninhabitable for many years.

Political leaders, business leaders, religious leaders, scientists, universities, and environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club should bring their global perspectives to the immediate, specific problem of Fukushima.

In this regard, I am pleased to introduce two articles that cover the essence of the nature of the nuclear accident.

Akio Matsumura

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Fukushima Has Now Contaminated Over 1/3 Of the World Oceans  ( And Its Getting Worse )   in Awareness Act

Most people do not realize the repercussions that disasters like the Fukushima nuclear meltdown have on the world.… Continue reading

français | 日本語訳 

Fukushima Update

In December 2016, Japan’s government nearly doubled its projections for costs related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster to 21.5 trillion yen ($188 billion), increasing pressure on Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) to step up reform and improve its performance. Less optimistic observers estimate total cleanup costs will end up between $300 billion and $500 billion.

Although 34.5 billion yen ($309 million) in taxpayer money has funded an "ice wall" to keep out groundwater from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant site, the frozen barrier may not be meeting hopes and expectations. In theory, the ice wall should serve as a dam to prevent groundwater from the mountainside of the plant from flowing into the reactor buildings.

The groundwater level rose rapidly and the average daily flow of groundwater into the building basements for October was estimated to be 310 tons. That was close to the 400 tons that was flowing into the building basements before any measures were implemented to deal with the contaminated water. - Fukushima “Ice Wall “ Linchpin not living up to high hopes November 26, 2017 by The Asahi Shimbun

One Tepco manager shared the status at the plant in late November 2017:

We’re struggling with four problems: (1) reducing the radiation at the site (2) stopping the influx of groundwater (3) retrieving the spent fuel rods and (4) removing the molten nuclear fuel.

Seven years after the triple meltdown, they do not know what’s going on inside. Nobody knows, nobody can possibly know, which is one of the major risks of nuclear meltdowns.

français | 日本語訳 

The radiation level in the containment vessel of reactor 2 at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant has reached a maximum of 530 sieverts per hour, the highest since the triple core meltdown in March 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. said.

At 530 sieverts, a person could die from even brief exposure, highlighting the difficulties ahead as the government and Tepco grope their way toward dismantling all three reactors crippled by the March 2011 disaster.

An official of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences said medical professionals have never considered dealing with this level of radiation in their work.

Tepco also announced that, based on its analysis of images taken by a remote-controlled camera, that there is a 2-meter hole in the metal grating under the pressure vessel in the reactor’s primary containment vessel. It also thinks part of the grating is warped.

-  "Highest radiation reaching since 3/11 detected at Fukushima", Japan Times, February 3, 2017 .

Fumiya Tanabe, an expert on nuclear safety who analyzed the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the United States, said the findings show that both the preparation for and the actual decommissioning process at the plant will likely prove much more difficult than expected.

- "Radiation Level in Fukushima Reactor could kill within a minute", Asahi Shimbun, February 3, 2017.

It is clear to us now that the radiation level in the containment vessel of the crippled Reactor 2 is much higher than experts had believed.… Continue reading

français | 日本語訳

Akio Matsumura

Excerpts from the Asahi Shimbun Editorial on Nov 23, 2016:

For planet Earth, the passage of five years and eight months represents nothing but a flash. 

The Magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck eastern Japan on November 22, 2016, believed to an aftershock of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, served as a wake up-up call, for us humans whose memories are woefully short. 

This time, many people became alarmed when they learned of the temporary failure of the cooling water pump for the spent nuclear fuel pool at the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO). In the immediate aftermath of the March 2011 disaster, however, the shutdown of the cooling water pump at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant presented a serious threat to the spent nuclear fuel. A possible massive release of radioactive substances was feared.

We are concerned that this particular lesson from the 2011 disaster may have already been forgotten. 

We must all learn humbly from each disaster. It is up to all of society--individuals and corporations alike--to keep planning viable countermeasures steadily and surely. 

Ultimately, that is the only way to prepare for the next disaster, which may strike even today. 

Japan’s government and the Tokyo Metropolitan government flood the news with promotions of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games. With this excitement in the foreground, we take little notice of the fact that there is little to no news of how repairs proceed, whether the crews face difficulty, and how many areas cannot even be entered at Fukushima’s nuclear site.… Continue reading

français  |  日本語訳

Akio Matsumura

I announced the creation of the Nuclear Emergency Action Alliance (NEAA) on March 22, 2016. That same day, we witnessed the tragedy of a terrorist attack in Brussels. People began to contemplate the reality of increasing risk of terrorist attack on one of the 430 nuclear plants in 31 countries.

The Fukushima accident taught me that a nuclear power plant accident can have an unimaginable impact over human life for centuries. The accident has caused untold harm to those whose lives were disrupted by the plant. If things had gone worse, we don’t know how we would have calculated the cost of 24,000 years of environmental harm on future generations. It is my important discovery that we failed to understand the radiation from the nuclear bombs and the radiation from the nuclear accident are little different in terms of the risk for human life.

There are two strong different opinions in regard to the nuclear bomb and the economic necessity of the nuclear power plants. Japan, of course, is a country that has seen the downside of both technologies. When President Obama visited Hiroshima, he painted “a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare, but as the start of our own moral awakening.”

I believe this message was appreciated by hibakusha, the world’s younger generations, and the people of Japan. To some, President Obama’s trip was controversial; would President Obama apologize to the hibakusha? Should he?… Continue reading