Fukushima’s ¥8 trillion cleanup leaves foreign firms in the cold — The Japan Times

” Cleaning up the Fukushima nuclear plant — a task predicted to cost 86 times the amount earmarked for decommissioning Japan’s first commercial reactor — is the mother of all salvage jobs. Still, foreign firms with decades of experience are seeing little of the spoils.

Safely dismantling the Japanese power plant, wrecked by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, will cost about ¥8 trillion ($70 billion), the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said on Dec. 9, quadrupling the previous estimate. While a contract to help clean up the facility would be a windfall for any firm with specialized technology, the lion’s share of the work has gone to local companies that designed and built most of Japan’s atomic infrastructure.

The bidding process for Fukushima contracts should be more open to foreigners, as Japan has never finished decommissioning a commercial nuclear plant, let alone one that experienced a triple meltdown, according to Lake Barrett, an independent adviser at Japan’s International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning. While the Fukushima cleanup is unlike any nuclear disaster in history, foreign firms that have experience decommissioning regular facilities could provide much-needed support, according to Barrett, and even the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc.

‘Cultural Resistance’

“Internationally, there is a lot more decontamination and decommissioning knowledge than you have in Japan,” Barrett, a former official at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in an interview in Tokyo. “I hope the Japanese contracting system improves to get this job done safely. There is this cultural resistance — it is almost like there is an isolated nuclear village still.”

An opaque bidding process plays to the heart of criticisms put forward by independent investigators, who said in a 2012 report that collusion between the government, regulators and the plant’s operator contributed to the scale of the disaster.

Of 44 subsidized projects publicly awarded by the trade and economy ministry since 2014, about 80 percent went to the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning. The group, known as IRID, was established in the wake of the Fukushima disaster and is comprised entirely of Japanese corporations, according to the ministry’s website.

Japan’s trade and industry ministry awarded funds directly to only two foreign firms during the same period. Many of the contracts had only one or two bidders.

Of about 70 contracts awarded since the March 2011 disaster, nine have gone to foreign companies, according to an official in the ministry’s Agency of Natural Resources and Energy who asked not be named, citing internal policy.

To provide opportunities for foreign companies, the ministry has created an English website for bids and also provides English information sessions to explain the contracts, the official said.

Toshiba, Hitachi

IRID’s contracts are given to its members, including Toshiba Corp., Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., which have partnerships and joint ventures with foreign firms, spokesman Yoshio Haruyama said by phone. While it doesn’t directly contract work to companies overseas, IRID taps foreign experts as advisers and participates in international collaborative projects, he said.

Mitsubishi Heavy has about five or six contracts through IRID, but can’t share how many partnerships it has with foreign firms, spokesman Shimon Ikeya said by phone. Hitachi has sub-contracts with foreign suppliers related to the Fukushima cleanup, but can’t provide details about these agreements because they aren’t public, a spokesperson said by email.

As of March, IRID had about ¥30 billion worth of ongoing contracts primarily related to research and development of fuel removal and waste treatment. IRID, which aims to “gather knowledge and ideas from around the world” for the purpose of nuclear decommissioning, doesn’t disclose how much of their money ultimately goes to foreign businesses, according to its spokesman. Barrett, its adviser, said he thinks it’s “very low,” but should ideally be 5 percent to 10 percent.

‘Nuclear Village’

Japan’s biggest nuclear disaster isn’t void of foreign technology. Toshiba, which owns Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse Electric Co., and Hitachi, which has a joint venture with General Electric Co., are tapping American expertise. A giant crane and pulley system supplied by Toshiba to remove spent fuel from the wrecked reactors employs technology developed by Westinghouse.

“We bring in knowledge from foreign companies, organizations and specialists in order to safely decommission the reactors,” Tatsuhiro Yamagishi, spokesman for Tepco, said by email. While the company can’t say the exact number of foreign firms involved in the Fukushima cleanup, companies including Paris-based Areva SA, California-based Kurion Inc. and Massachusetts-based Endeavor Robotics are engaged in work at the site, according to Yamagishi.

For foreign firms, however, independently securing contracts is still a tall order.

“When it comes to Japan’s nuclear industry, the bidding system is completely unclear,” Hiroaki Koide, a former assistant professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, said in an email. “The system is designed to strengthen the profits of Japan’s nuclear village,” he added, referring to the alliance of pro-nuclear politicians, bureaucrats and power companies that promote reactors.

Tepco’s annual cost to decommission its Fukushima plant may blow out to several hundred billion yen a year, up from the current estimate of ¥80 billion, the trade and industry ministry said in October. As of June, almost ¥1 trillion has been allocated for decommissioning and treating water at Fukushima, according to Tepco’s Yamagishi.

‘Ripe for Corruption’

With that much money at stake, Japan has become ground zero for a plethora of companies looking to benefit from the cleanup work. The structure of Japan’s nuclear industry and the closed procurement preferred by the utilities that operate atomic plants means that the most lucrative opportunities for foreign companies are in the area of subcontracting, according to a report by the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation released in March.

“Foreign firms have long argued that the Japanese bidding process is one that is ripe for corruption due to a lack of openness and transparency,” Daniel Aldrich, professor and director of the security and resilience studies program at Northeastern University in Boston, said in an email. For nuclear decommissioning “there is even less clarity and transparency due to security and proliferation concerns,” he said.

Rigging Bids

The Japan Fair Trade Commission raided the offices of five companies last year in relation to rigged bids for maintenance contracts from Tepco, according to Jiji Press. Eleven road-paving companies were fined in September on projects to repair roads following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Jiji reported.

Andrew DeWit, a political economy professor at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, agrees that the contract-awarding process isn’t transparent. A lot of foreign companies seek Japanese partners to better their chances, he said.

Purolite Corp., a closely held water purifying company, spent millions of dollars developing and testing a system that could be used to treat radioactive water at Fukushima. Pennsylvania-based Purolite partnered with Hitachi to help win a contract to use its technology at the wrecked facility.

Those plans didn’t pan out. Purolite is suing Hitachi in New York and Tokyo, alleging that Hitachi is using its technology at Fukushima in breach of agreements made in 2011, shutting it out of more than $1 billion in contracts, according to court documents filed in September.

Hitachi doesn’t comment on ongoing legal matters, a spokesperson said by email.

“With a smaller pool of competitors, firms can expand their profit margins,” said Northeastern University’s Aldrich. “There are French and Russian firms that have the technical expertise to participate in nuclear decommissioning processes, but it is unclear if they will be able to compete on a level playing field with Japanese firms, which have far more experience with Japanese regulations and expectations.” ”

by Stephen Stapczynski, Bloomberg

source

Defiant to the end, last of Group of Six anti-nuclear scientists about to retire — The Asahi Shimbun

” KUMATORI, Osaka Prefecture–Tetsuji Imanaka is the last of the so-called Kumatori Group of Six, a maverick band of nuclear scientists at an elite university here that spent decades speaking out against nuclear energy.

At 65, Imanaka is now ready to collect his pension and part company with Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute–and he remains as steadfast as ever in his beliefs.

Imanaka cannot have found it easy to go against the government’s policy of promoting nuclear power, yet that’s what he’s done since he joined the institute in 1976.

He says he never experienced harassment, but then again he never got promoted beyond the post of research associate.

“Many people have commented that I must have been bullied because I banded together with my colleagues under the banner of building a nuclear-free Japan,” Imanaka told a 60-strong audience gathered here Jan. 28 for a lecture to mark his retirement in March. “But that was not the case. It is also true, though, that nobody has praised me for being anti-nuclear,” he added, drawing guffaws.

Imanaka’s other colleagues in the group with the exception of one are all retired. They are: Toru Ebisawa, 77; Keiji Kobayashi, 76; Takeshi Seo, who died in 1994 at the age of 53; Shinji Kawano, 74; and Hiroaki Koide, 66.

The group’s moniker came from the name of the town that hosts the research center.

Although all six scientists harbored doubts about promoting nuclear energy, Imanaka said, “We did not set out to become activists or form a clique.”

Rather, “We acted according to our own beliefs as individuals.”

The group was relatively unknown before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

But in the aftermath of the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the “rebels” increasingly came under the spotlight as civic groups scrambled to seek their expertise to grasp the ramifications of the nuclear accident and the potential dangers of nuclear energy.

Koide, who retired last year, has addressed 300 or so gatherings across the country since the catastrophe.

But the group’s efforts to educate the public about the potential danger of, and challenges facing nuclear energy, date back to 1980 when it initiated a series of seminars at the institute.

“Experts have a responsibility to explain science and technology in lay language to citizens,” Imanaka said of the endeavor.

With Imanaka’s departure, those seminars are about to end. After more than 35 years, the final 112nd session will be held on Feb. 10.

The group’s commitment to continue sounding the warning against nuclear power has been widely appreciated by the public at large.

But the members have all had to pay a price for openly defying the “nuclear village,” as the program involving the government, powerful utilities enjoying regional monopolies and academia is called.

None of the six ever got promoted to beyond the level of assistant professor.

Still, Koide, who finished his career also as a research associate, recalled his academic life fondly.

In his lowly position, he was able to focus on his research free from pressure and harassment.

The catalyst for the group’s anti-nuclear activities was a lawsuit filed in 1973 by a citizens group over a license issued to Shikoku Electric Power Co. to build the Ikata nuclear power plant in Ehime Prefecture.

In the suit, the plaintiffs demanded nullification of the license on grounds that safety screening of the plant by the government was insufficient. It was the nation’s first lawsuit involving the safety of a nuclear reactor.

The researchers stood by the plaintiffs over 19 years of court battles, offering their technical expertise and testimony, right up until the Supreme Court finalized the verdict against them.

Kobayashi, an expert on reactors, also helped residents who sought to shut down the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture.

The money-guzzling, problem-plagued project is the centerpiece of the government’s vision to recycle spent nuclear fuel. But the reactor has rarely operated since it went online in 1995.

Imanaka specialized in assessing the spread of radioactive contamination. He traveled to Ukraine more than 20 times to examine the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident site for contamination.

He, along with Seo, also estimated how much radiation was released in the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the United States.

After the Fukushima disaster, Imanaka embarked on a project to detect radiation levels in Iitate, a village to the northwest of the plant whose residents are still living as evacuees due to high radiation levels.

Keiji Miyazaki, professor emeritus of nuclear energy at Osaka University, was of two minds about the goals of the Kumatori Group of Six.

“We, as a promoter of nuclear power, could learn from the argument they made on scientific grounds,” said Miyazaki, 78, who assisted in the development of the Monju fast-breeder reactor. “But at times, they rather seemed to be activists than researchers.”

The Fukushima disaster showed that a nuclear accident far exceeding anyone’s expectations can happen in Japan, which is what the Kumatori Group of Six had been saying all along, despite the pro-nuclear power bloc always ruling it out as improbable.

Still, Koide said he was left with a “sense of defeat” because he and his peers failed to prevent it after all.

Five years on, the toll from the disaster continues.

Some 100,000 evacuees in Fukushima Prefecture are still displaced.

Kobayashi is pushing for a nationwide debate over whether Japan should embrace nuclear energy.

“It has been established that an accident can take place,” he said. “All of society, not just some officials and experts, should discuss whether we should continue to accept the risks involved in nuclear energy.”

The final session of the seminar will bring together Imanaka and the surviving members of the group together for the first time in a long while.

They will pose for a picture with the photo of the late Seo in the background and renew their resolve to carry on their mission to serve the public with their technical knowledge.

“The next seminar will be the last one at the institute, but we are ready to come together and fulfill our responsibility as nuclear scientists if an accident like Fukushima recurs,” Imanaka said. ”

source

What’s really going on at Fukushima? — Counterpunch

By Robert Hunziker: ” Fukushima’s still radiating, self-perpetuating, immeasurable, and limitless, like a horrible incorrigible Doctor Who monster encounter in deep space.

Fukushima will likely go down in history as the biggest cover-up of the 21st Century. Governments and corporations are not leveling with citizens about the risks and dangers; similarly, truth itself, as an ethical standard, is at risk of going to shambles as the glue that holds together the trust and belief in society’s institutions. Ultimately, this is an example of how societies fail.

Tens of thousands of Fukushima residents remain in temporary housing more than four years after the horrific disaster of March 2011. Some areas on the outskirts of Fukushima have officially reopened to former residents, but many of those former residents are reluctant to return home because of widespread distrust of government claims that it is okay and safe.

Part of this reluctance has to do with radiation’s symptoms. It is insidious because it cannot be detected by human senses. People are not biologically equipped to feel its power, or see, or hear, touch or smell it (Caldicott). Not only that, it slowly accumulates over time in a dastardly fashion that serves to hide its effects until it is too late.

Chernobyl’s Destruction Mirrors Fukushima’s Future

As an example of how media fails to deal with disaster blowback, here are some Chernobyl facts that have not received enough widespread news coverage: Over one million (1,000,000) people have already died from Chernobyl’s fallout.

Additionally, the Rechitsa Orphanage in Belarus has been caring for a very large population of deathly sick and deformed children. Children are 10 to 20 times more sensitive to radiation than adults.

Zhuravichi Children’s Home is another institution, among many, for the Chernobyl-stricken: “The home is hidden deep in the countryside and, even today, the majority of people in Belarus are not aware of the existence of such institutions” (Source: Chernobyl Children’s Project-UK).

One million (1,000,000) is a lot of dead people. But, how many more will die? Approximately seven million (7,000,000) people in the Chernobyl vicinity were hit with one of the most potent exposures to radiation in the history of the Atomic Age.

The exclusion zone around Chernobyl is known as “Death Valley.” It has been increased from 30 to 70 square kilometres. No humans will ever be able to live in the zone again. It is a permanent “dead zone.”

Additionally, over 25,000 died and 70,000 disabled because of exposure to extremely dangerous levels of radiation in order to help contain Chernobyl. Twenty percent of those deaths were suicides, as the slow agonizing “death march of radiation exposure” was too much to endure.

Fukushima- The Real Story

In late 2014, Helen Caldicott, M.D. gave a speech about Fukushima at Seattle Town Hall (9/28/14). Pirate Television recorded her speech; here’s the link:

Dr. Helen Caldicott is co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and she is author/editor of Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe, The New Press, September 2014. For over four decades Dr. Caldicott has been the embodiment of the anti-nuclear banner, and as such, many people around the world classify her as a “national treasure”. She’s truthful and honest and knowledgeable.

Fukushima is literally a time bomb in quiescence. Another powerful quake and all hell could break loose. Also, it is not even close to being under control. Rather, it is totally out of control. According to Dr. Caldicott, “It’s still possible that Tokyo may have to be evacuated, depending upon how things go.” Imagine that!

According to Japan Times as of March 11, 2015: “There have been quite a few accidents and problems at the Fukushima plant in the past year, and we need to face the reality that they are causing anxiety and anger among people in Fukushima, as explained by Shunichi Tanaka at the Nuclear Regulation Authority. Furthermore, Mr. Tanaka said, there are numerous risks that could cause various accidents and problems.”

Even more ominously, Seiichi Mizuno, a former member of Japan’s House of Councillors (Upper House of Parliament, 1995-2001) in March 2015 said: “The biggest problem is the melt-through of reactor cores… We have groundwater contamination… The idea that the contaminated water is somehow blocked in the harbor is especially absurd. It is leaking directly into the ocean. There’s evidence of more than 40 known hotspot areas where extremely contaminated water is flowing directly into the ocean… We face huge problems with no prospect of solution.” (Source: Nuclear Hotseat #194: Fukushima 4th Anniversary – Voices from Japan, March 10, 2015, http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/2468/)

At Fukushima, each reactor required one million gallons of water per minute for cooling, but when the tsunami hit, the backup diesel generators were drowned. Units 1, 2, and 3 had meltdowns within days. There were four hydrogen explosions. Thereafter, the melting cores burrowed into the container vessels, maybe into the earth.

According to Dr. Caldicott, “One hundred tons of terribly hot radioactive lava has already gone into the earth or somewhere within the container vessels, which are all cracked and broken.” Nobody really knows for sure where the hot radioactive lava resides. The scary unanswered question: Is it the China Syndrome?

Following the meltdown, the Japanese government did not inform people of the ambient levels of radiation that blew back onto the island. Unfortunately and mistakenly, people fled away from the reactors to the highest radiation levels on the island at the time.

As the disaster happened, enormous levels of radiation hit Tokyo. The highest radiation detected in the Tokyo Metro area was in Saitama with cesium radiation levels detected at 919,000 becquerel (Bq) per square meter, a level almost twice as high as Chernobyl’s “permanent dead zone evacuation limit of 500,000 Bq” (source: Radiation Defense Project). For that reason, Dr. Caldicott strongly advises against travel to Japan and recommends avoiding Japanese food.

Even so, post the Fukushima disaster, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed an agreement with Japan that the U.S. would continue importing Japanese foodstuff. Therefore, Dr. Caldicott suggests people not vote for Hillary Clinton. One reckless dangerous precedent is enough for her.

According to Arnie Gundersen, an energy advisor with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, as reported in The Canadian on August 15, 2011: “The US government has come up with a decision at the highest levels of the State Department, as well as other departments who made a decision to downplay Fukushima. In April, the month after the powerful tsunami and earthquake crippled Japan including its nuclear power plant, Hillary Clinton signed a pact with Japan that she agreed there is no problem with Japanese food supply and we will continue to buy them. So, we are not sampling food coming in from Japan.”

However, in stark contrast to the United States, in Europe Angela Merkel, PhD physics, University of Leipzig and current chancellor of Germany is shutting down all nuclear reactors because of Fukushima.

Maybe an advanced degree in physics makes the difference in how a leader approaches the nuclear power issue. It certainly looks that way when comparing/contrasting the two pantsuit-wearing leaders, Chancellor Merkel and former secretary of state Clinton.

After the Fukushima blow up, ambient levels of radiation in Washington State went up 40,000 times above normal, but according to Dr. Caldicott, the U.S. media does not cover the “ongoing Fukushima mess.” So, who would really know?

Dr. Caldicott ended her speech on Sept. 2014 by saying: “In Fukushima, it is not over. Everyday, four hundred tons of highly radioactive water pours into the Pacific and heads towards the U.S. Because the radiation accumulates in fish, we get that too. The U.S. government is not testing the water, not testing the fish, and not testing the ambient air. Also, people in Japan are eating radiation every day.”

Furthermore, according to Dr. Caldicott: “Rainwater washes over the nuclear cores into the Pacific. There is no way they can get to those cores, men die, robots get fried. Fukushima will never be solved. Meanwhile, people are still living in highly radioactive areas.”

Fukushima will never be solved because “men die” and “robots get fried.” By the sounds of it, Fukushima is a perpetual radiation meltdown scenario that literally sets on the edge of a bottomless doomsday pit, in waiting to be nudged over.

UN All-Clear Report

A UN (UNSCEAR) report on April 2, 2014 on health impacts of the Fukushima accident concluded that any radiation-induced effects would be too small to identify. People were well protected and received “low or very low” radiation doses. UNSCEAR gave an all-clear report.

Rebuttal of the UNSCEAR report by the German affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War d/d July 18, 2014 takes a defiant stance in opposition to the UN report, to wit: “The Fukushima nuclear disaster is far from over. Despite the declaration of ‘cold shutdown’ by the Japanese government in December 2011, the crippled reactors have not yet achieved a stable status and even UNSCEAR admits that emissions of radioisotopes are continuing unabated. 188 TEPCO is struggling with an enormous amount of contaminated water, which continues to leak into the surrounding soil and sea. Large quantities of contaminated cooling water are accumulating at the site. Failures in the makeshift cooling systems are occurring repeatedly. The discharge of radioactive waste will most likely continue for a long time.”

“Both the damaged nuclear reactors and the spent fuel ponds contain vast amounts of radioactivity and are highly vulnerable to further earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons and human error. Catastrophic releases of radioactivity could occur at any time and eliminating this risk will take many decades… It is impossible at this point in time to come up with an exact prognosis of the effects that the Fukushima nuclear disaster will have on the population in Japan… the UNSCEAR report represents a systematic underestimation and conjures up an illusion of scientific certainty that obscures the true impact of the nuclear catastrophe on health and the environment.”

To read the full text of the rejoinder to the UN report, go to: https://japansafety.wordpress.com/tag/saitama/

Fukushima’s Radiation and the Future

Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press (AP), June 12, 2015: “Four years after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, the road ahead remains riddled with unknowns… Experts have yet to pinpoint the exact location of the melted fuel inside the three reactors and study it, and still need to develop robots capable of working safely in such highly radioactive conditions. And then there’s the question of what to do with the waste… serious doubts about whether the cleanup can be completed within 40 years.”

“Although the Chernobyl accident was a terrible accident, it only involved one reactor. With Fukushima, we have the minimum [of] 3 reactors that are emitting dangerous radiation. The work involved to deal with this accident will take tens of years, hundreds of years,” Prof. Hiroaki Koide (retired), Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, April 25, 2015. “It could be that some of the fuel could actually have gone through the floor of the containment vessel as well… What I’ve just described is very, very logical for anyone who understands nuclear engineering or nuclear energy,” which dreadfully spells-out: THE CHINA SYNDROME.

According to the Smithsonian, April 30, 2015: “Birds Are in a Tailspin Four Years After Fukushima: Bird species are in sharp decline, and it is getting worse over time… Where it’s much, much hotter, it’s dead silent. You’ll see one or two birds if you’re lucky.” Developmental abnormalities of birds include cataracts, tumors, and asymmetries. Birds are spotted with strange white patches on their feathers.

Maya Moore, a former NHK news anchor, authored a book about the disaster: The Rose Garden of Fukushima (Tankobon, 2014), about the roses of Mr. Katsuhide Okada. Today, the garden has perished: “It’s just poisoned wasteland. The last time Mr. Okada actually went back there, he found baby crows that could not fly, that were blind. Mutations have begun with animals, with birds.”

The Rose Garden of Fukushima features a collection of photos of an actual garden that existed in Fukushima, Japan. Boasting over 7500 bushes of roses and 50-thousand visitors a year, the Garden was rendered null and void in an instant due to the triple disaster — earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown.

The forward to Maya’s book was written by John Roos, former US Ambassador to Japan 2009-13: “The incredible tale of Katz Okada and his Fukushima rose garden was told here by Maya Moore… gives you a small window into what the people of Tohoku faced.”

Roos’ “small window” could very well serve as a metaphor for a huge black hole smack dab in the heart of civilization. Similarly, Fukushima is a veritable destruction machine that consumes everything in its path, and beyond, and its path is likely to grow. For certain, it is not going away.

Thus, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) is deeply involved in an asymmetric battle against enormously powerful unleashed out-of-control forces of E=mc2.

Clearly, TEPCO has its back to the wall. Furthermore, it’s doubtful TEPCO will “break the back of the beast.” In fact, it may be an impossible task.

Maybe, just maybe, Greater Tokyo’s 38 million residents will eventually be evacuated. Who knows for sure?

Only Godzilla knows! ”

source

Nuclear scientist Hiroaki Koide explains Fukushima Daiichi to The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

Hiroaki Koide, nuclear scientist and former assistant professor of Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute for 41 years, explains the problems with managing Fukushima Daiichi and the release of radioactive materials like cesium-137 into the environment.

I paraphrased Koide’s speech below:

Fukushima Daiichi’s Units 1, 2 and 3 were in operation during March 2011. Unit 4 was not operating on March 11, 2011, and therefore, did not have fuel in it. However, Unit 4 also experienced a hydrogen explosion and its core was severely damaged. All of its fuel was in the spent fuel pool on the fourth floor. The spent fuel pool, which was exposed to air, contained enough cesium-137 that is equivalent to 14,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. At the time of the accident, there were serious concerns that if the cooling water in the spent fuel pool dried up, the fuel rods would melt, releasing an extreme amount of radiation release to warrant the evacuation of Tokyo.

Despite that the Japanese government and Tepco clearly knew of this danger, Tepco did not remove the spent fuel rods from Unit 4 until November 2013, a year-long task that was completed in December 2014.

No one knows where the melted fuel and cores of Unit 1 and 3 are. Radiation levels in those units are so high that a person would die in seconds if exposed. Tepco tried viewing the areas with robots, but all of them broke from the radiation.

The only way to control the situation as it is is to pump water into the plant, unavoidably creating massive amounts of radioactive water that is being produced at a rate of 300-400 tons daily. Workers are doing this extremely dangerous work day and night. Not Tepco workers, and not even subcontracted workers, but sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub contracted workers, eight or nine levels deep at the very bottom of the wrung. “So many commissions are taken from their salaries at they are not even receiving minimum wage.”

An even more grave issue is that the cores of Units 1, 2 and 3 are melted. “How do we deal with that?” Tepco plans on “plucking out” the “lumps” of melted fuel by reaching into the pressure vessel down into the containment vessel and extracting the fuel from the top. However, if they were to open up the pressure vessel to get in, a huge amount of radiation would be released into the air. To deal with this, Tepco plans on repairing the sides of the pressure vessel  and flooding it with water and then plucking out the fuel, which they believe sits together in the lump, like a “dumpling.”

Professor Koide’s response to this plan is:

1) We don’t have the technology to determine where the holes in the containment vessel are, let alone the means to repair it.

2) It is impossible that the melted fuel exists in a dumpling-shaped lump. It could have spread horizontally and even gone through the floor of the containment vessel.

3) If Tepco and the Japanese government try to extract the fuel from above, it will only be possible to remove some of the fuel, not all of it. Koide recommends dealing with this situation in the same manner as the Chernobyl plant by burying the plant in a concrete sarcophagus. However, we cannot start thinking about building a sarcophagus until the spent fuel rods are removed from the spent fuel pools at Units 1, 2 and 3.

How long will it take to remove the spent fuel rods at Units 1, 2, and 3? “I cannot even make a prediction. I probably won’t be alive when it occurs.” Even at Chernobyl, the concrete sarcophagus is aging and is being replaced. That was only one reactor. Fukushima Daiichi has three melted reactors. We must plan on burying the reactors in concrete and maintaining the sarcophagus with a centuries-long timeline.

The Japanese government gave a report to the IAEA with information of the cesium-137 released into the atmosphere. [Koide shows a diagram of Japan with color-coded grades of contaminated areas.] Unit 1 alone released six to seven times the cesium-137 that was released from the Hiroshima bomb. Unit 2 released the greatest amount. All together, Units 1, 2 and 3 released 168 times the amount of cesium-137 from the Hiroshima bomb. This is only the cesium-137 released into the air. Every day, more contaminated water is being produced and released into the sea. The total amount of cesium-137 released into the environment from Fukushima Daiichi is equal to several hundred times that of the Hiroshima bomb. The radioactive materials that were released into the atmosphere were carried by the “previaling westerly” winds not only all over the Kanto great plain of Japan, but also across the Pacific Ocean and contaminated the western coast of North America.

As a result of the contaminated areas in Japan, over 100,000 people are not able to return to their homes. The most highly contaminated areas (shown in red on the diagram) are designated as “radiation controlled areas.” Until now, there were very strict regulations for these areas. For example, a person could not legally remove anything from a radiation controlled area that emits more than 40,000 becquerels of radiation per square meter. However, the areas in blue have areas over 60,00 becquerals per square meter. Dark green areas have 30,000-60,000 becquerels per square meter. If one abides strictly by the law that says that nothing over 40,000 becquerels per square matter can be removed from a radiation controlled area, then Japan must designate 14,000 square kilometers of Japan to be radiation controlled areas. However, because this is an emergency situation, the Japanese government says that normal laws do not need to be followed. Instead, they have abandoned people to live in these highly contaminated areas.

Overall, 15,000 terabecquerels of cesium-137 were released into the atmosphere, 2400 terabecquerels of which fell on the Kanto region. In weight, the total radioactive cesium-137 would equal 4.7 kilograms, and 750 grams on the Kanto region. You cannot sense the radioactive materials. To reduce radiation exposure to Kanto citizens, people have tried removing contaminated topsoil, equal to tens of millions of bags of soil. This is only a temporary solution. The contaminated soil contained seeds that grew and broke through the bags.

source

36 years of three mile island’s lethal lies … and still counting — Harvey Wasserman via Ecowatch

Harvey Wasserman: ” The lies that killed people at Three Mile Island 36 years ago on March 28, 1979 are still being told at Chernobyl, Fukushima, Diablo Canyon, Davis-Besse … and at TMI itself.

As the first major reactor accident that was made known to the public is sadly commemorated, and as the global nuclear industry collapses, let’s count just 36 tip-of-the iceberg ways the nuclear industry’s radioactive legacy continues to fester:

1. When about half of TMI’s fuel melted on March 28, 1979, the owners, industry and regulators all denied it, and continued to deny it until robotic cameras showed otherwise.

2. Early signs that such an accident could happen had already surfaced at the Davis-Besse reactor in Ohio, which was also manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox. TMI’s owners later sued Davis-Besse’s owners for not warning them about what had happened.

3. When TMI’s radiation poured into the atmosphere the industry had (and still has) no idea how much escaped, but denied it was of any significance even though stack monitors failed and dosimeters in the field indicated high releases (plant owners claimed they were “defective”). Only due to the work of the great Dr. Ernest Sternglass, recently departed, was public attention turned to the potential harm this radiation could do.

4. When animals nearby suffered mass mutations and death, the industry denied it. When the plague was confirmed by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the Baltimore News-American, the industry denied the damage could be related to radiation.

5. Industry “experts” assured the public radiation doses to downwinders were similar to a single x-ray, but ignored well-established findings from Dr. Alice Stewart and others that a single x-ray to a pregnant woman could double the chances of childhood leukemia among her offspring.

6. Industry “experts” ignored the reality that radioactive fallout can come down in clumps rather than spread evenly, and scoffed at findings from neighborhood surveys done by Jane Lee, Mary Osbourne and others showing major outbreaks of cancer in certain downwind neighborhoods.

7. When humans nearby were born with Down’s Syndrome and other mutations, and then adults began dying, the industry denied it, then denied any connection to TMI, but then did pay at least $15 million in out-of-court settlements to affected families on condition they not speak about it in public.

8. When Chernobyl exploded in 1986, Soviet officials said nothing as massive clouds of radiation poured across Europe and into the jet stream that would carry it to the U.S. within 10 days.

9. The U.S. government did nothing of sufficient scale to monitor Chernobyl’s radiation as it came here, and did nothing to warn the public to avoid milk and other foods that might concentrate that radiation, and has repeated that behavior in the wake of Fukushima.

10. A massive bird die-off at the Pt. Reyes National Seashore came with the arrival of the Chernobyl cloud and was documented by resident ornithologist Dr. Dave DeSante, whose findings were ignored by the government; soon thereafter, DeSante lost his job.

11. Chernobyl’s radiation was tracked all across Europe where it continues to irradiate plants, animals and humans. The most credible study of Chernobyl’s human death toll put it at 985,000 in 2010.

12. Chernobyl still seethes with radiation, but the massive, hugely expensive movable sarcophagus meant to cover it is not yet in place.

13. When fire runs through the wooded areas around Chernobyl, massive quantities of radiation are re-released into the atmosphere.

14. Fifteen Soviet-era reactors remain operable in Ukraine, much of which is now a de facto war zone, raising serious doubts about what will happen to them and the rest of the downwind human race.

15. The Japanese government was repeatedly and passionately warned by thousands of citizens for more than 40 years that putting reactors in a tsunami zone surrounded by earthquake faults was not a good idea. They were dismissed as “alarmists” and repeatedly assured that the reactors at Fukushima and elsewhere around Japan could come to no harm.

16. Despite repeated public protests, when Fukushima Dai’ichi was built an 85-foot-high bluff was taken down so units 1 through 4 could operate more cheaply at sea level; as widely predicted, they were massively flooded on March 11, 2011.

17. Critical backup batteries meant to keep the reactor cores cool in case of melt-downs were placed in basements which were thoroughly flooded when the tsunami hit Fukushima. Workers later frantically took batteries from nearby parked cars to try to power up the stricken cooling systems and other critical components.

18. The exact whereabouts of the melted cores from Fukushima Units 1, 2 and 3 remain unknown.

19. After a half-century of industry assurances that American reactors could not explode, four General Electric reactors blew up at Fukushima.

20. By estimate of Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, some 30 times as much Cesium 137 has been released at Fukushima as was released during the bombing of Hiroshima.

21. Some 300 tons of radioactive water continues to pour into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every day.

22. Thousands of highly radioactive spent fuel rods remain scattered around the Fukushima site; thousands are also still suspended in damaged spent fuel pools 100 feet in the air atop weakened buildings above shattered, melted reactors.

23. A petition signed by more than 150,000 people demanding that Fukushima be taken over by the world community was submitted to the United Nations on November 7, 2013, but has yet to receive a response of any kind.

24. Fukushima is still owned and operated by Tokyo Electric Power, which built it despite massive public opposition and continues to mismanage it while turning the “clean up” into a profit center, with a labor force thoroughly infiltrated by organized crime.

25. Like Fukushima, California’s Diablo Canyon reactors were built despite huge public protests, and sit in a tsunami zone surrounded by earthquake faults whose potential seismic power exceeds Diablo’s structural capacities, according numerous experts, including NRC official Dr. Michael Peck, who worked at Diablo for the commission.

26. A continual stream of revelations indicate illegal collusion on safety and other issues at Diablo between its owners, Pacific Gas & Electric, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as the California Public Utilities Commission.

27. Diablo’s owners almost certainly violated regulatory requirements and the law in using components within the reactors that were not tested to meet seismic standards.

28. Earthquakes have already damaged at least two U.S. reactors, at Ohio’s Perry site and at North Anna, Virginia (that quake also damaged the Washington Monument in our nation’s capital).

29. Public money designated for use by PG&E to upgrade piping systems was diverted to executive bonuses, according to the Los Angeles Times. In 2010 unrepaired gas lines, which were known to have been deteriorating for a decade, blew up in San Bruno, killing eight people and doing millions of dollars in damage. Such a disaster at Diablo Canyon could kill countless thousands and do untold damage to the national economy and global ecology.

30. Diablo Canyon’s once-through cooling system violates state and federal water quality regulations by dumping huge quantities of hot, radioactive liquid into the Pacific, killing billions of marine creatures while unbalancing the ocean ecology and contributing to climate chaos.

31. Like most other old U.S. reactors, Ohio’s Davis-Besse is literally crumbling, with the concrete in its safety shield being pulverized by continual freezing, yielding ever-growing holes in the structure.

32. Like most other old U.S. reactors, Diablo Canyon, Davis-Besse, five reactors in Illinois and many more cannot compete in electricity markets against wind power, solar panels, other renewable sources or increased efficiency, and would shut down were it not for massive public subsidies.

33. Ohio’s Public Utilities Commission is being asked by FirstEnergy, Davis-Besse’s owner, for subsidies amounting to more than $3 billion to keep open that decrepit reactor, which opened in 1978, and the Sammis coal burner, which is even older.

34. Wisconsin’s Kewaunee reactor has shut for purely economic reasons despite being fully amortized and having no apparent outstanding maintenance or engineering crises.

35. California’s San Onofre reactors were shut in part due to violations of licensing requirements that are mirrored at both Diablo Canyon and Davis-Besse, where shut-downs could be required by law. Let’s hope …

36. As we commemorate this tragic anniversary, we must note that this list of reactor nightmares could go very very far past 36. But let’s hope it doesn’t take that many more years to realize the folly of this failed technology.

In honor of the many many victims of Three Mile Island, and of the great Dr. Sternglass and so many dedicated experts and activists, we must turn this sad litany into the action needed to shut down ALL the world’s reactors so we don’t have to experience this nightmare yet again.

The lives we save will be our own … and those of our children … and theirs … ”

source

Updated May 20: The Manga saga continues … — multiple sources

“Japan Forced to Talk About Fukushima Radiation After Nosebleed Comic” — read full article at Mashable

” More than three years have passed since the Fukushima disaster, but local officials remain extremely sensitive to any attempts at political satire or even critical commentary regarding the event.

A comic that recently depicted one of its characters as suffering from a chronic nosebleed after a visit to the Fukushima power plant has been suspended indefinitely after outrage from Japanese officials. The illustration, which was published by the long-running Japanese manga called “Oishinbo,” has now renewed discussion around the issue of health and safety as it relates to traveling to Fukushima and consuming products from the region. …

“There is freedom of speech and freedom of expression in Japan,” Suga said.

“But anything that is communicated should be based on facts and accurate information.”

Despite Suga’s comments, the issue of press freedom in Japan has become somewhat complicated in recent months. Late last year, the Japanese government enacted a strict new state secrets law that outlines stiff penalties, including up to 10 years in prison, for public servants and journalists who publish leaked information.

With the potential for possibly valuable leaks about the status of the region now greatly reduced, the official attention now directed toward even comic book commentary on sensitive topics may serve to only heighten the concerns of some already harboring doubts about the region’s relative safety. … ”

“‘Oishinbo’ editor defends manga” — read full article at The Japan Times

” The editor of “Oishinbo” defended on Monday the decision to depict characters in the cooking comic book as potentially hurt by radiation in Fukushima, calling it a “meaningful” attempt to sound the alarm about the grim, and largely overlooked, reality of life in the prefecture.

In Monday’s installment of the series — now suspended indefinitely — Hiroshi Murayama, who is also managing editor of the weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine the series runs in, includes an afterword in which he writes of feeling a strong pang of responsibility for the outrage caused by recent issues of the manga. …

Murayama said the story line was meant to spotlight the truth that “parts of Fukushima are indeed dangerous and uninhabitable” and “some local people are worried about health problems linked to radioactive fallout.”

Their voices, he said, are rarely heard because they are reluctant to complain of sickness for fear of being branded as “overly squeamish.” …

Monday’s issue devotes 10 pages to laying out the opinions of 13 experts and municipalities.

One of them, Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, says that from a medical point of view the connection between nosebleeds and radiation exposure can’t be entirely ruled out.

Backing Kariya, he adds: “The government is not only indifferent to taking responsibility for the accident, but determined to erase it from people’s memory.” Such irresponsibility, he insists, is “almost criminal.” … “

“Outrage derails manga series ‘Oishinbo’ for Fukushima nuclear crisis depiction” — read full article at Jiji via The Japan Times

“Shogakukan Inc. will suspend its “Oishinbo” manga series after recent installments came under fire for suggesting residents of Fukushima Prefecture had been sickened or hurt by radioactive fallout from nuclear disaster, sources said.

“Oishinbo” will not appear in the publisher’s weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine starting from the May 26 issue, the sources said Saturday. Shogakukan was to announce the decision in Monday’s issue.

Monday’s issue will contain comments by the weekly’s chief editor, Hiroshi Murayama, who is expected to note his responsibility for the criticism, while adding he and other editors will work to better review such depictions in the series.

The upcoming issue will devote 10 pages to the opinions of 13 experts about the scenes in question. It will also run letters of protest from the Fukushima Prefectural Government, the town of Futaba, which cohosts the damaged nuclear plant, and letters from both the city and prefecture of Osaka. … ”

*The following articles were originally posted on May 13, 2014.

The Asahi Shimbun, May 13:

” Politicians at the national and local level have taken offense with depictions of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in a long-running manga series that until now had focused on food and gourmet cooking.

Installments of “Oishinbo” published in the April 28 and May 12 editions of the weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine also touched a nerve among those in Fukushima who felt the representations jarred with reality. … ”

Jiji Press, May 10:

” Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara has criticized a manga story for linking nosebleeds to exposure to radiation […] He underscored the importance of keeping unfounded rumors in check [and] that doctors with special knowledge have denied a causal relationship between exposure to radiation after the nuclear accident and nosebleeds. ”

Mainichi, May 10:

” Katsutaka Idogawa, 67, [Futaba’s] former mayor […] is featured in the popular comic series “Oishinbo.” […] Idogawa says his nose bleeds regularly and that there are many others in Fukushima who have developed similar symptoms. […] Idogawa told a news conference on May 9 in Tokyo […] his nose bleeds every day, especially in the mornings. “There is no way I would retract my comments in the manga,” Idogawa said. Responding to Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara […] Idogawa commented, “The minister has no business with my physical condition.” ”

Author Tetsu Kariya interview, translated by Toshi Nakamura, Jan. 13, 2014:

” […] after I got back [from Fukushima] and was having dinner, I suddenly started bleeding from my nose, and it wouldn’t stop. I thought, “what on Earth?” I’ve rarely ever had a nosebleed so it was quite a shock. After that, I had nosebleeds at night for days after. But when I went to the hospital, they said “there’s currently no medical connection between nosebleeds and radiation” and they severed a capillary in my nose membrane with a laser. Also, after I went, I felt a great deal of fatigue. The staff who went with me and the chief of Futaba-machi suffered from nosebleeds and fatigue. They say the radiation levels are low so there’s no harm, but I wonder about that. ”

Japanese version

Statement from Tetsu Kariya summarized by Yoshihiro Kaneda, May 7:

” It is possible that those who have supported me would walk away from me. I don’t understand why people criticize the truth which I have collected data in Fukushima 2 years and I write it as it is. Do people want to close my eyes against the truth and write something good lies for somebody or other? […] I can only write the truth. I hate self-deceiving. Today’s Japanese society is surrounded by the atmosphere of hating inconvenient truth and desiring lies of feeling good. ”

Energy News source