Category: Nuclear

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

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

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

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

 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

français | 日本語訳

It is my important discovery from the Fukushima nuclear power accident that we failed to understand radiation from nuclear bombs and the radiation from the nuclear accident are little different in terms of the risk for human life. We have long accepted the dangers of attacks by state actors with nuclear weapons, and now we understand the threat of human error and natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes on nuclear power plants. It seems that we have missed one key piece. What about attacks on nuclear power plants? Above all, I am concerned with terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants in volatile countries.

I have met eminent opinion leaders who are against nuclear weapons but support nuclear energy because it greatly contributes to reduce carbon dioxide. Both opinions might have valid arguments but it seems to me that both have lost sight of the long term risk and consequences.

I have asked Dr. Scott Jones, an International Advisory Council (IAC) member of the Nuclear Emergency Action Alliance (NEAA), to write on the relationship of nuclear energy plants and nuclear weapons. Dr. Scott Jones was a career naval officer with extensive nuclear weapon experience. He was a qualified nuclear weapons delivery pilot, and in intelligence assignments, a Nuclear Weapons Deployment Officer, and created Nuclear Weapon Target Annexes for U.S. European Command War Plans. Following this he became special assistant to Senator Claiborne Pell He wrote an article entitled : Fading Memories and Lessons Learned.

– Akio Matsumura

 

 

  What is the Relationship of Nuclear Energy Plants and Nuclear Weapons?… Continue reading