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Japan Wants to Dump Nuclear Plant’s Tainted Water. Fishermen Fear the Worst.

The water from the Fukushima disaster is more radioactive than the authorities have previously publicized, raising doubts about government assurances that it will be made safe.

Matoko Rich and Makiko Inoue

December 23, 2019

Republished from The New York Times

汚染水を廃棄したい日本の、最悪の事態を恐れる漁師たち

IWAKI, Japan — The overpowering earthquake and tsunami that ripped through northern Japan in March 2011 took so much from Tatsuo Niitsuma, a commercial fisherman in this coastal city in Fukushima Prefecture.

The tsunami pulverized his fishing boat. It demolished his home. Most devastating of all, it took the life of his daughter.

Now, nearly nine years after the disaster, Mr. Niitsuma, 77, is at risk of losing his entire livelihood, too, as the government considers releasing tainted water from a nuclear power plant destroyed by the tsunami’s waves.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet and the Tokyo Electric Power Company — the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, where a triple meltdown led to the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl — must decide what to do with more than one million tons of contaminated water stored in about 1,000 giant tanks on the plant site.

On Monday, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry proposed gradually releasing the water into the ocean or allowing it to evaporate, saying a controlled discharge into the sea would “stably dilute and disperse” it. The ministry ruled out alternatives like continuing to store it in tanks or injecting it deep into the ground. Mr. Abe’s cabinet will make the final decision.

The water becomes contaminated as it is pumped through the reactors to cool melted fuel that is still too hot and radioactive to remove.… Continue reading

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The false promise of nuclear power in an age of climate change

By Robert Jay Lifton, Naomi Oreskes, August 20, 2019

日本語訳

Republished from the Boston Globe and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant Units 1 & 2 cooling towers and containment buildings.

Commentators from Greenpeace to the World Bank agree that climate change is an emergency, threatening civilization and life on our planet. Any solution must involve the control of greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out fossil fuels and switching to alternative technologies that do not impair the human habitat while providing the energy we require to function as a species.

This sobering reality has led some prominent observers to re-embrace nuclear energy. Advocates declare it clean, efficient, economical, and safe. In actuality it is none of these. It is expensive and poses grave dangers to our physical and psychological well-being. According to the US Energy Information Agency, the average nuclear power generating cost is about $100 per megawatt-hour. Compare this with $50 per megawatt-hour for solar and $30 to $40 per megawatt-hour for onshore wind. The financial group Lazard recently said that renewable energy costs are now “at or below the marginal cost of conventional generation”—that is, fossil fuels—and much lower than nuclear.

In theory these high costs and long construction times could be brought down. But we have had more than a half-century to test that theory and it appears have been solidly refuted. Unlike nearly all other technologies, the cost of nuclear power has risen over time. Even its supporters recognize that it has never been cost-competitive in a free-market environment, and its critics point out that the nuclear industry has followed a “negative learning curve.”… Continue reading

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When will Californians wake up to the risk to children from nuclear radiation?

日本語訳 |français

Akio Matsumura

On March 7, the Inter Press Service (IPS) published my article, “Eight Years on, Fukushima Still Poses Health Risks for Children,” and I am very gratified to learn that it was the second most popular article published in IPS News that week. It also appears that many readers were surprised to learn that removal of the irradiated cores from the three crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima would take at least forty years.

This revelation reminds me of my conversation with the late Dr. Hans-Peter Durr, former Director of the Max Planck Institute of Germany, when the Fukushima accident occurred in March 2011. Hans-Peter called me to say that the Fukushima accident was much worse than the government of Japan and TEPCO were disclosing to the public and suggested that I talk to the Prime Minister of Japan on this urgent matter. When I asked Hans-Peter how long it might take to solve the Fukushima accident, he replied that it will take at least forty years. 

It shocked me to realize that the consequences of such a human accident would take so long to resolve. For example, twenty years after the complete destruction of Tokyo City during World War II, Tokyo City hosted the 1964 Olympic Games. In contrast, the huge area impacted from the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986 remains desolate 33 years later and will likely remain so for many more decades or even centuries.

World Wars I and II destroyed cities in huge urban areas, yet many of these cities were rebuilt within 20 years.… Continue reading

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Eight Years on, Fukushima Still Poses Health Risks for Children

日本語訳 | français

Akio Matsumura

High Radiation Levels Continue at Damaged Reactors

On March 11, 2019, we commemorate the 8th anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. To an outside observer, this anniversary passes as a technical progress report, a look at new robot, or a short story on how lives there are slowly returning to normal.

A child inspected in Fukushima prefecture, Japan

Yet in Japan, the government has not figured out how to touch or test the irradiated cores in the three crippled reactors, which continue to contaminate water around the site of the melt down. The government does not know where it will put that radioactive material once it can find a way to move it. Meanwhile, the government and site operator are running out of room to store the contaminated water, which is filling up more and more tanks. The cleanup is estimated to take forty years and the cost is estimated at $195 billion.

The latest publicly released findings of radiation levels are from 2017, when Tokyo Electric Power Company had to use a remote-controlled robot to detect the levels in Reactor 2, since no human can approach the crippled reactor. The rates read 530 sieverts per hour, the highest since the March 2011 meltdown. We have no reason to believe that they have fallen since then. Remote-control robots are being used in the other reactors as well, indicating that radiation levels are similarly high there. Even using the robot, work can only be carried out for very short times, since the robots can only stand 1000 sieverts of exposure – less than two hours in this case.… Continue reading

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Hidden Meanings and the Power of Individual Leadership: Remembering Grand Mufti Kuftaro of Syria

Akio Matsumura

日本語訳  | français

Grand Mufti Kuftaro of Syria (1915 - 2004)
Grand Mufti Kuftaro of Syria
(1915 – 2004)

President Trump announced this week that US soldiers will leave Syria, despite opposing messages from his advisers like John Bolton and Brett McGurk. Policy aside, this decision has helped bring the tragedy in Syria back to the top of the American news cycle and our minds.

When I see the news clips, I think of the children, the terror and fear they have suffered through and carry within them. I think of the dead, the half million people who lost their lives in the war. I think of the six million refugees trying to find a new life, and millions more who have been internally displaced, unable or unwilling to cross the border out. Outside those borders, others in the region suffer: from the Iraqi civil war, the Kurdish struggle for autonomy, and the ongoing struggle for political control and security in Israel and Palestine — I will always remember Prime Minister Rabin’s strong efforts to host another Global Forum conference, with Chairman Arafat, before his assassination.

Syria’s crisis was not inevitable. Men, political and religious leaders in Syria and abroad seeking profit or glory, steered Syria toward this crisis. Rather than assign blame, what I wish to emphasize is that people, not institutions, drove the change. Institutions implement, people lead.

At the same time, individuals are also the best possibility to make change for good. What would have happened if such counter-forces had been present in Syria in the lead up to the civil war?… Continue reading

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California’s Wildfires and Nuclear Radiation – A Personal Story

 

日本語訳 |français | español 

After the government of Japan announced last year that it would take at least forty years to remove the irradiated cores from three crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima, I shifted my focus to the dangers to marine life and the potential risk to people in North America resulting from the forty-year flow of radioactive wind and contaminated water from Fukushima.

If you ask Japanese volcanic scientists and seismologists about the possibility of the eruption of Mt Fuji and the strong earthquake in Tokyo in forty years, they will say it is almost sure to happen. So, even though major damage to human life, the environment, and the economy is likely to occur, people ignore it because they cannot think that far ahead. That’s just forty years. Meanwhile, radiation remains dangerous for thousands of years. How do we learn to connect these long time frames to our human lifetime?

I am pleased to introduce “California’s Wildfires and Nuclear Radiation,” written by Gregg Lien, an environmental and land use attorney practicing in Lake Tahoe, California. Going forward, I plan to introduce the opinions from observers and experts from many fields about the forty-year accumulation of radiation from Fukushima. I look forward to hearing what their suggestions for what actions we can take now to reduce the burden on future generations.

— Akio

California’s Wildfires and Nuclear Radiation – A Personal Story

Gregg Lien

When I purchased a commonly available radiation detector right after the Fukushima disaster in 2011 I never would have dreamed how it would impact the way I saw the world.… Continue reading

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7 Years after Fukushima, Problems Continue

日本語訳 

Dear friends,

Today, March 11, we commemorate the 7th 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

——-

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

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Paracelsus, the Nuclear Age, and Future Generations

 日本語訳  | français

Emilie Gaillard and Andreas Nidecker

The famous physician Andreas Paracelsus, who taught at the University of Basel in the early 16th century, wrote: “What sense would it make or what would it benefit a physician, if he discovered the origin of the diseases but could not cure or alleviate them?”

We are a lawyer and a radiologist, reporting from a recent three-day interdisciplinary symposium at the U of Basel. It was attended by physicians, lawyers, nuclear experts and scientists, entitled “Human Rights, Future Generations and Crimes in the Nuclear Age” and was sponsored by the Swiss branch of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA).

At our symposium we examined what effects policies relating to nuclear weapons have on the health and the environment. In that regard we considered the human rights situation of victims of nuclear tests and nuclear disasters. The recent success of 122 nations, which on July 7th accepted the UN “treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons” obliges in Article 6 nations to environmental remediation and to assistance for the victims, at least those of the use and testing of nuclear weapons.

Most of the discussions, however, focused on the implications of the nuclear weapons and civil use of nuclear energy for the future generations. It is they – our children, grandchildren and their descendants – who will continue to bear the risks of nuclear war and the potential health effects of the ongoing, progressive global nuclear contamination.… Continue reading

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Poisoned Flow: Fukushima is an American Problem

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.
… Continue reading
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The Potential Catastrophe of Reactor 2 at Fukushima Daiichi: What Effect for the Pacific and the US?

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