Health studies explode the myth of the ‘safe’ nuclear power plant — The Japan Times

” Dear Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Toshimitsu Motegi,

Despite the continuing disaster at Fukushima No. 1, there remains one final myth regarding nuclear power plants in Japan: Namely, that in the absence of a major accident, a normally operating nuclear power plant is safe. However, the now-verifiable reality is that it is not, at least not for residents living in the vicinity of the plant.

As early as 2007, Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection published a thoroughly researched study titled “Childhood Cancer Rates Near Nuclear Power Plants.” The study covered 24 years (1980-2003) and included 1,592 children with cancer and 4,735 controls living around 16 nuclear power sites throughout Germany.

At all 16 sites, the study found that children under 5 years of age had a higher risk of developing cancer the closer they lived to a plant. Risk was most increased within 5 km of the plants, i.e. by 60 percent. Seventy-seven children living within 5 km of a nuclear plant were found to have cancer, considerably higher than the 48 that would be expected statistically.

For leukemia, the risk increase was 120 percent: 37 cases instead of the expected 17. In other words, within the 5-km range, 29 children suffered from cancer (of whom 20 had leukemia) simply because they lived in these areas. Altogether, there were up to 275 more cases of cancer than would be expected statistically at these sites.

Even normally operating nuclear power plants constantly release radioactive elements into the air and cooling water. The excess cancers among children living near nuclear facilities are likely established during the embryonic stage when the embryo is extremely radiosensitive. This is the time when cells are proliferating rapidly and are much more vulnerable than in later, more stable growth phases. Damaged cells proliferate easily, paving the way for cancer and other diseases.

Additional studies have been conducted in both Britain and the U.S. with similar, if not even more disturbing, results. In 2006, in conjunction with Welsh broadcaster S4C, an environmental consultancy produced a report based on interviews with villagers in the vicinity of the Trawsfynydd nuclear power station in north Wales.

Researchers focused on almost 1,000 people of all ages who had been living in three communities close to the power plant throughout the 1996-2005 period. The incidence of cancer (of any type) among women younger than 50 was reported to be more than 15 times the national average. Furthermore, breast cancers in women aged 50-61 were five times the average level for women of that age. Overall, the survey revealed double the risk for cancer (of any type) relative to the average rates for England and Wales.

As for the U.S., on March 20 of this year, the Cape Cod Times reported the court testimony of Richard Clapp, who was the director of the Massachusetts Cancer Registry from 1980. He told the court: “In the first two years (of his tenure), we found an excess of leukemia in Plymouth and towns near the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. There was a fourfold excess of leukemia in people who lived and worked near the plant.”

On March 4, the Cal Coast News reported on a recent study conducted by the nonprofit World Business Academy business think tank concerning the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County, California. The study found that those living within a 25-km radius of the plant had a significantly increased incidence of various cancers, including thyroid, breast and melanoma.

Further, since the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant opened in the mid-1980s, San Luis Obispo County changed from a relatively low-incidence county in terms of cancer to a high-incidence county, translating to an additional 738 people diagnosed with cancer between 2001 and 2010.

Cancer incidence in San Luis Obispo County rose from 0.4 percent below the California average to 6.9 percent above that figure, giving it the highest cancer rate of all 20 counties in Southern California. After Diablo Canyon began operating, the incidence of thyroid and female breast cancer also showed a significant increase.

Perhaps most disturbingly, after Diablo Canyon began operating, both infant mortality and child/adolescent cancer mortality rose significantly. The incidence of melanoma soared from 3.6 percent above to 130.2 percent above the state incidence rate. It now has the highest rate of all the counties in California.

The preceding reports demonstrate yet again the scientifically established fact that there is no safe dose of radiation, no matter how small, bearing in mind that dangerous radioactive elements constantly accumulate in the body. Thus, with each nuclear reactor the Japanese government allows to restart, residents living as far away as 25 km will once again be placed at a higher risk of falling victim to life-threatening illnesses.

Finally, The Associated Press has just released an investigation showing that radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater, from buried piping that has corroded. What’s more, as America’s nuclear power reactors continue to age, the number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as U.S. regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors. Considering Japan’s own fleet of aging reactors, can you guarantee such leaks won’t occur in Japan?

In light of this evidence, let alone the possibility of future major accidents, Minister Motegi, are you and the rest of the Abe administration still determined to restart the reactors?

BRIAN VICTORIA

Kyoto ”

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Estimated radiation doses of Fukushima returnees withheld for half a year — The Asahi Shimbun; The Government’s response — Kyodo News

” The government withheld findings on estimated radiation exposure for Fukushima returnees for six months, even though levels exceeded the long-term target of 1 millisievert a year at more than half of surveyed locations.

Individual radiation doses were estimated to be beyond 1 millisievert per year, or 0.23 microsievert an hour, at 24 of all the 43 surveyed sites, including ones in the Miyakoji district in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, The Asahi Shimbun learned April 15.

The revelation comes just two weeks after the central government lifted the evacuation order for the district on April 1.

Last July, the Cabinet Office’s working team in charge of assisting the lives of nuclear disaster victims asked the National Institute of Radiological Sciences and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency to measure air dose rates and estimate individual radiation doses at 43 locations.

The survey covered seven types of living spaces, including private residences, farmland and schools, in the prefecture’s three municipalities of Tamura, Kawauchi and Iitate.

The government’s decontamination work aims at bringing radiation levels in contaminated areas to within 20 millisieverts a year before it gives the go-ahead for residents to return.

It also intends to bring readings to 1 millisievert or less eventually. The International Commission on Radiological Protection says a reading of up to 20 millisieverts is acceptable in areas where cleanup is under way.

The central government has also proposed to distribute devices that measure individual radiation to returned evacuees, so residents can monitor their radiation doses on their own.

But some evacuees from areas affected by the Fukushima No. 1 plant nuclear accident, which was triggered by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster, worry about the possibility they may be exposed to high radiation doses after returning to their homes.

For this reason, the government decided to study correlations between air dose rates and individual radiation doses around the crippled facility to prove that the amount of radiation to which residents will be exposed is sufficiently low, even when air dose rates are relatively high.

The National Institute of Radiological Sciences and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency last fall measured radiation levels at several dozens of spots at each of the 43 sites in the three municipalities. They found that individual radiation doses are typically 30 percent lower than air dose rates.

The government-affiliated bodies also discovered that average air dose rates exceeded 0.23 microsievert per hour at 27 of the 43 sites, while they estimated individual radiation doses at over 0.23 microsievert an hour at 24 locations.

In mid-October, the two agencies compiled a midterm report and submitted it to the government. But the Cabinet Office’s working team did not disclose the report until the evacuation order for the Miyakoji district was lifted. According to a member of the team, this was because the finding “has no direct relationship with lifting the evacuation orders.”

Although the government held numerous meetings with Miyakoji residents to discuss lifting the evacuation order, it never presented the survey results, nor did it even refer to the existence of the data.

The government only presented an outline of the results to the three municipalities earlier in April.

Asked to disclose the findings, the government released the survey results to The Asahi Shimbun and posted the midterm report on the website of the industry ministry.

The working team said it planned to reveal the survey’s findings and analysis of the data on April 18 after fine-tuning its final report. But the team changed its mind because The Asahi Shimbun’s request to disclose the findings made it realize that public interest in the survey was greater than expected. ”

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And the Japanese government’s response to the above headline’s accusation…

Motegi denies hiding radiation report around Fukushima plant – source

 
” Industry Minister Toshimitsu Motegi on Friday denied that the government hid for six months the outcome of a radiation study around the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, but apologized for having given “the impression” that the outcome announcement delayed.

An interim report on the study on radiation measurement with dosimeters carried by individuals was compiled in October, showing that the radiation level in some areas in the city of Tamura and other villages is beyond 1 millisievert per year — a level the government is eventually seeking to achieve in contaminated areas.

But the report was not made public before April 1 when the government lifted for the first time an evacuation order imposed on an area within a 20-kilometer radius of the Fukushima plant. The area was a district in Tamura. “

Reversing course, Japan makes push to restart dormant nuclear plants — The New York Times

” TOKYO — The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made its biggest push yet to revive Japan’s nuclear energy program on Tuesday, announcing details of a draft plan that designates atomic power as an important long-term electricity source.

The new Basic Energy Plan, which states that Japan will push to restart reactors that were closed after the disaster in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, overturns a promise made by a previous government to phase out the country’s nuclear reactors. The plan also leaves open the possibility of building new plants as well as restarting existing ones.

Japan’s minister for trade and industry, Toshimitsu Motegi, sought to play down the shift, telling reporters that Japan was still committed to “reducing its reliance on nuclear power.” But he also criticized the earlier commitment, first made by Prime Minister Naoto Kan in the months after the Fukushima disaster, to forgo nuclear power entirely, a policy Mr. Motegi called irresponsible for a resource-poor nation.

Still, the government’s own energy plan was vague, setting no specific targets for the percentage of power to be provided by nuclear energy. Mr. Motegi said the country needed more time to figure out the best mix of energy sources, which would also include renewables like solar, wind and geothermal power.

The Japanese have been struggling for three years to decide whether to return to nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster, which contaminated a vast area of northeast Japan and is still keeping tens of thousands of people from their homes as a cleanup effort continues. Mr. Abe has been promising to add nuclear power back into Japan’s energy mix since soon after he took office in late 2012, but he has been unable to budge national opinion even as a renewed reliance on fossil fuels has increased energy costs and helped drive Japan’s trade deficit to record highs.

Polls show lingering public misgivings about the safety of nuclear energy and the government’s ability to oversee it, with a majority of people supporting a gradual phaseout. The draft plan issued this week, the first under Mr. Abe, suggests that he plans to move forward despite a lack of agreement among citizens.

To ease public jitters, an independent regulatory agency has been evaluating whether Japan’s 50 operable reactors, which are all currently idle, can safely be brought back online. Even with regulatory approval, though, local opposition could still block or delay restarts. The national plan did not say when the government would begin trying to restart reactors, which are being upgraded to meet the agency’s new safety requirements.

The government is set to discuss the policy with opposition parties, but the cabinet can approve it at any time.

Mr. Abe may feel empowered to move ahead in part because the country’s organized opposition to nuclear power — which erupted in the months after the Fukushima accident into mass street rallies — has failed to materialize. In a closely watched governor’s race in Tokyo this month, a fractured field of antinuclear candidates appeared to split the opposition vote, helping to return a pro-nuclear governing party candidate to office. That victory has given momentum to Mr. Abe’s push.

Mr. Kan, the former prime minister who led the country’s response to the Fukushima crisis, blasted the turn back toward nuclear power.

“This government has not learned the lessons of Fukushima,” he said in a telephone interview. “Japan was on the brink, but now we want to go back to nuclear for economic reasons. But what happens to the economy if another disaster hits?”

Fears about nuclear safety were heightened on Tuesday by another mishap at the crippled Fukushima plant, where continued radiation leaks and errors have undermined cleanup efforts. The plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, said a damaged power cable had shut down a vital cooling system, forcing workers to suspend the delicate process of removing spent nuclear fuel rods from a wrecked storage pool.

The cooling system for the pool at Reactor No. 4 failed for about four hours on Tuesday before power was restored, Tokyo Electric Power said in an emailed announcement. It added that the pool temperature was stable and that it had not detected a rise in radiation levels at the plant.

The country’s new energy plan calls nuclear power an important “baseload” electricity source — one that can produce energy at a constant rate and at a lower cost than alternatives like solar or wind power. Proponents of renewable energy argue that safety risks and the costs of handling nuclear waste make nuclear power less reliable and more expensive than other options.

The plan also says that Japan will ultimately determine the appropriate size of its nuclear program after taking into account its future energy needs, as well as its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which have surged with the decline of nuclear power. That wording, Japanese news outlets noted, left the door open for the government to build new plants. “

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Tepco sidelined by Japanese government as Fukushima reactors leak radioactive water — The Sydney Morning Herald

” Tokyo: The Japanese government has lost patience with the efforts of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to get the crippled reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant under control.

Toshimitsu Motegi, the minister of trade and industry, visited the plant on Monday to determine progress on decommissioning three reactors damaged by an earthquake and tsunami in March, 2011.

Tepco admitted last week that hundreds of tons of highly radioactive water had leaked from a steel tank at the plant and that as much as 300 tons of contaminated water has been escaping into the sea every day since the earthquake…. ”

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