Archive for the ‘Fukushima’ Category

March 9, 2012

Plans to double the 1,080-megawatt nuclear-power complex in Matagorda County responsible for a full third of greater San Antonio’s power fell through after ballooning cost estimates gave way to internal bickering and lawsuits, but some local residents want the city to withdraw from pending applications to extend the operating licenses of the two-reactor South Texas Project and fully divest itself from what they consider an “unforgiving” power source.

And as the world recognizes the one-year anniversary of the multi-plant meltdown and hydrogen explosions in Japan at Fukushima, nuclear opponents will be on the street this Saturday night making their case in front of the federal building and CPS Energy offices.

"It looks like at this point no one has died [in Fukushima] and we’re very grateful for that. We don’t know what will happen down the road because a lot of people were exposed to radiation," said Cindy Wheeler, spokesperson for the organization Energía Mía. "It has pretty much wiped out the farmland around Fukushima for many, many years. They’re saying decades. My personal feeling is it’s going to be more than decades. … It’s been disastrous."

Unit 2 at STP has been offline for several months as crews work to replace a rotor in the main generator, it’s this sort of maintenance issue that opponents use to suggest that the plants should be retired by the end of their current licenses — not extended to serve until nearly 2050 as federal relicensing would allow.

But Buddy Eller, spokesperson from STP, told the Current he’s confident in the plant’s three emergency safety systems that include "locomotive-sized" diesel generators in flood-proof concrete bunkers will be able to keep STP functioning in safety in any emergency going forward into the coming decades.

Here’s the Energía Mía press release:

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS – Calling for an end to the use of nuclear energy by City Public Service (CPS) and a new vision for energy production using renewable geothermal, solar, and wind sources, Energía Mía or My Energy, will stage a vigil to mark the first anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan on Saturday, March 10, 2012. Energía Mía, a grassroots organization, will meet at the Federal Building at 727 E. Cesar Chavez and walk from there to the downtown offices of City Public Service (CPS) at 145 Navarro St. The event is being organized by the Energía Mía coalition of groups interested in energy choices. Those attending will be urged to wear white, carry luminàrias, and hand out leaflets.

WHO: Energía Mía and coalition groups
WHAT: Vigil to mark the 1-year anniversary of the nuclear energy accident in Fukushima, Japan
WHEN: Saturday, March 10, 2012 at 6:30 pm
WHERE: Federal Building on 727 E. Cesar Chavez to the City Public Service offices at 145 Navarro St.
VISUALS: Those marking the nuclear disaster will wear white and carry luminàrias and signs

Lessons We Must Learn and Actions We Must Take In Light of the Fukushima Disaster

Media Release
March 7, 2012

Contacts:
Karen Hadden, Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition
Rep. Lon Burnam, District 90, Ft. Worth
Chiaki Kasahara and Ivan Stout, a couple who lived in Japan, but left because of the Fukushima nuclear disaster
Robert V. Eye, Attorney, legally challenging proposed STP and Comanche Peak reactors,
Susan Dancer, South Texas Association for Responsible Energy

Austin, TX Concerned citizens in Texas are calling on U.S. leaders to do more to prevent a U.S. nuclear disaster. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster that began nearly a year ago, on March 11, 2011, resulted in explosions, releases of radioactive materials and complete meltdowns of three reactors. 160,000 people were evacuated. Radioactive Iodine-131 and Cesium-137 was detected around the world and large amounts of radioactive materials were released into the Pacific Ocean. Only two of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors are operating today and they are also expected to be shut down by the end of May. In light of the meltdowns, Germany now plans to shut down all 17 of its reactors and replace them with renewable energy. Post-Fukushima safety improvements have been recommended by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s task force.

"The lesson we absolutely must learn from Fukushima is that any nuclear reactor can have a meltdown. U.S. reactors are at risk from hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, floods, earthquakes, lack of cooling water and terrorist attacks, as well as accidents due to human error and mechanical failure," said Karen Hadden, Director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition. "We’re urging Congress to halt nuclear licensing and nuclear loan guarantees, subsidies which would allow billions of taxpayer dollars to flow into dangerous new reactor projects. Old reactors get metal fatigue and accident risks increase. They should be retired, not re-licensed for another twenty years."

The group calls on Congressional leaders, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy to prevent a US nuclear disaster by taking action to:

• Halt licensing of new reactors
• Halt nuclear "loan guarantees" that would use billions of taxpayer dollars for new reactors
• Halt re-licensing of aging reactors, which should be shut down on or before their original retirement date
• Plan for a transition away from nuclear power to safer, more affordable and reliable means of electric generation
• Initiate more thorough and realistic disaster scenario testing of U.S. diesel generators
• Better information through EPA regarding Fukushima radiation releases, hot spots, food supply safety and exposure risks from radioactive transport and product importation here and around the globe. Cows shipped in July 2011 from Fukushima Prefecture to Tokyo had three to six times the legal limit for radioactive cesium.
• Demand that detailed and accurate public health information be made available in Japan and in the U.S., including more radiation monitoring, and ensuring healthy food and water supplies. More evacuations may yet be needed.

"We cannot afford to have a Fukushima style disaster here in the United States. Nuclear reactors are inherently unsafe and the nuclear disaster in Japan provides additional evidence of the need to transition away from nuclear power to safer forms of electric generation," said Ft. Worth Representative Lon Burnam. "There is still no safe way to store the waste generated by nuclear reactors and now much of the country wants to dump their radioactive waste on Texas, at a site that risks radioactive contamination of fresh water supplies for generations to come."

The number of lives that will be lost due to cancers as a result from the Fukushima explosions and meltdowns is unknown. Eighteen years later, a Russian study found that 985,000 people had died as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, mainly from various cancers.

"In order to protect ourselves and our four-year-old son from radiation exposure, we had to leave the home we loved and had spent our adult lives working towards in Japan, and now live in Texas. We only had two hours to decide what to take with us and had to leave most of our belongings behind. It broke our hearts to leave family and friends that we loved without saying goodbye, but our health was at risk," said Chiaki Kasahara.

The nuclear industry and public officials minimized health risks, but the science is clear that exposure to radioactive contamination through the air, water or food leads to various illnesses that can take even decades to manifest." said Chiaki’s husband, Ivan Stout. "We worry about Chiaki’s mother, who stayed in Japan, and the many friends we left behind, especially the young children who may be impacted by radiation exposure. However, we understand the huge financial burden of moving out of a home no one is willing to buy. No one should be forced to decide between financial ruin and the health of their family."

The Comanche Peak and South Texas Project sites in Texas have two nuclear reactors each, but the counties in which they have operated for decades still have no paid full-time professional fire departments.

"What would happen if there were fires and explosions at the reactors here?" asked Susan Dancer, who lives eight miles from the South Texas Project reactors and is Director of the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy. "People were barely able to evacuate this area with several days notice of a recent hurricane, but there would be no advance notice for a nuclear disaster."

"The diesel generators didn’t hold in Japan and would probably fail here too. U.S. diesel generators aren’t tested for realistic disaster scenarios. They should started up quickly and run for two weeks or more to see if they could meet the demands of a real disaster, not simply tested for a matter of several hours."

"In the Comanche Peak, South Texas Project and other reactor cases, Information regarding nuclear reactor fire and explosion risks and the inadequate plans to address them is wrongfully being withheld from the public. Basic nuclear safety information is being labeled as classified, when in fact it is crucial information that the public not only has a right to know, but should know," said Robert V. Eye, attorney for intervenors opposing new reactors in Texas. "Congress should require that this most basic crucial safety information be made available to the public and not be kept hidden behind a veil of secrecy. The requirements put in place to protect against aircraft impacts and the Fukushima Task Force safety improvement recommendations have not been incorporated into new license applications. Issuing any new reactor license without doing so is irresponsible and likely to have consequences."

Texas events related to the anniversary of the Fukushima disaster include:

Austin – Saturday, March 10th at Noon, Prevent Fukushima Texas, to be held at the river (Lady Bird Lake) immediately across from the front of the Austin City Hall (301 W. 2nd St.) – just West of 1st Street. Speakers will include Chiaki Kasahara and Ivan Stout, who lived in Japan at the time of the nuclear disaster and had to leave their home, family and friends in order to protect their health and that of their young son. Sponsored by SEED Coalition and Nuke Free Texas. www.NukeFreeTexas.org

San Antonio – Candlelight Vigil, Saturday, March 10th at 6 pm, at the Federal Building at 727 E. Cesar Chavez Imagine a World Without Nuclear Disasters – www.EnergiaMia.org 210-667-5695

Dallas – March 11th at 3 pm at the Cancer Survivors’ Plaza, 635 N. Pearl. The Nuclear Free World Committee of the Dallas Peace Center will host an observation of the Fukushima Disaster Anniversary. www.DallasPeaceCenter.org

February 27, 2012

By MARTIN FACKLER
New York Times

Photo credit: Issei Kato/Reuters, via Bloomberg
Journalists, in protective gear, were taken on a tour last week of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, at the center of the crisis last year.

TOKYO — In the darkest moments of last year’s nuclear accident, Japanese leaders did not know the actual extent of damage at the plant and secretly considered the possibility of evacuating Tokyo, even as they tried to play down the risks in public, an independent investigation into the accident disclosed on Monday.
Related

The investigation by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, a new private policy organization, offers one of the most vivid accounts yet of how Japan teetered on the edge of an even larger nuclear crisis than the one that engulfed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. A team of 30 university professors, lawyers and journalists spent more than six months on the inquiry into Japan’s response to the triple meltdown at the plant, which followed a powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that shut down the plant’s cooling systems.

The team interviewed more than 300 people, including top nuclear regulators and government officials, as well as the prime minister during the crisis, Naoto Kan. They were granted extraordinary access, in part because of a strong public demand for greater accountability and because the organization’s founder, Yoichi Funabashi, a former editor in chief of the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, is one of Japan’s most respected public intellectuals.

Read more at the New York Times website…

February 12,2012
The Mainichi Daily News

(Mainichi Japan)

Restaurant operator Hiromi Sato, third from left, speaks to the camera during filming for a new documentary. She says she was unable to leave an area in Fukushima close to the crippled nuclear plant because she kept two dogs there.

Director Hidetaka Inazuka, known for his documentary on the late double atomic bomb survivor Tsutomu Yamaguchi, has turned his attention toward Fukushima Prefecture, covering the prefecture in a new film on people exposed to radiation from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.

The 61-year-old filmmaker’s new work is titled "Fukushima 2011: Hibaku ni Sarasareta Hitobito no Kiroku" (Fukushima 2011: Records of people exposed to radiation). It follows survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who are now living in Fukushima, as well as the people facing radioactive contamination of their hometowns. The film is due to be screened across Japan from mid-March. It will also be shown at the Los Angeles Japanese Film Festival in April.

One subject of the new documentary is a man in his 80s who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima at an army barracks in the city.

"Even when there were explosions at the nuclear power plant I didn’t feel scared. I’ve been hit by a bombing before, and it’s 30 kilometers (from my place to the nuclear plant)," he says.

After the war, the man took up dairy farming, but the nuclear disaster triggered by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami forced him to abandon his business.

"I had 46 cows, but I sold them off for 800,000 yen. I can get by for a year or two, but there’s no telling what’s in store after that. I think about my children and grandchildren every day," he tells the camera.

In April last year, Inazuka visited the United States for a screening of his documentary "Twice Bombed: A Legacy of Yamaguchi Tsutomu." The film traces Yamaguchi’s activities speaking about surviving the atomic bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yamaguchi died in 2010 at the age of 93. The documentary was well received in the United States, but after the outbreak of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japanese people in the U.S. complained that the effects of radiation were not being properly communicated in Japan.

Hearing such complaints, Inazuka recalled the words of Yamaguchi: "The world in which people live must be nuclear-free. We can’t prevent (nuclear) accidents with current technology. If we don’t become nuclear-free, the downfall of mankind will draw closer."

In May last year, Inazuka visited Fukushima Prefecture, and he focused his camera on the people in the municipality of Iitate before the whole village was evacuated, as well as on people in the city of Soma and other areas where many were killed by the March 11, 2011 tsunami. The film covers people’s efforts to restore and revitalize their hometowns, where bonds between families and communities have been severed as a result of the disaster.

Included in the film is 69-year-old Hiromi Sato, a restaurant operator in the city of Minamisoma.

"My neighbors starting leaving, and everyone sent me emails saying ‘get out of there’ so I started to get scared," she says. "But I didn’t want to live in a shelter." She reopened her restaurant after the "Golden Week" string of public holidays in May 2011.

"There are various circumstances among the people who stay, those who leave, and those who return," Inazuka says. "I want to cover the people who are confronting the issues of life wholeheartedly."

December 5, 2011

Helen Caldicott
New York Times OpEd

The nuclear power industry has been resurrected over the past decade by a lobbying campaign that has left many people believing it to be a clean, green, emission-free alternative to fossil fuels. These beliefs pose an extraordinary threat to global public health and encourage a major financial drain on national economies and taxpayers. The commitment to nuclear power as an environmentally safe energy source has also stifled the mass development of alternative technologies that are far cheaper, safer and almost emission free — the future for global energy.

When the Fukushima Daiichi reactors suffered meltdowns in March, literally in the backyard of an unsuspecting public, the stark reality that the risks of nuclear power far outweigh any benefits should have become clear to the world. As the old quip states, "Nuclear power is one hell of a way to boil water."

Instead, the nuclear industry has used the disaster to increase its already extensive lobbying efforts. A few nations vowed to phase out nuclear energy after the disaster. But many others have remained steadfast in their commitment. That has left millions of innocent people unaware that they — all of us — may face a medical catastrophe beyond all proportions in the wake of Fukushima and through the continued widespread use of nuclear energy.

The world was warned of the dangers of nuclear accidents 25 years ago, when Chernobyl exploded and lofted radioactive poisons into the atmosphere. Those poisons "rained out," creating hot spots over the Northern Hemisphere. Research by scientists in Eastern Europe, collected and published by the New York Academy of Sciences, estimates that 40 percent of the European land mass is now contaminated with cesium 137 and other radioactive poisons that will concentrate in food for hundreds to thousands of years. Wide areas of Asia — from Turkey to China — the United Arab Emirates, North Africa and North America are also contaminated. Nearly 200 million people remain exposed.

That research estimated that by now close to 1 million people have died of causes linked to the Chernobyl disaster. They perished from cancers, congenital deformities, immune deficiencies, infections, cardiovascular diseases, endocrine abnormalities and radiation-induced factors that increased infant mortality. Studies in Belarus found that in 2000, 14 years after the Chernobyl disaster, fewer than 20 percent of children were considered "practically healthy," compared to 90 percent before Chernobyl. Now, Fukushima has been called the second-worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl. Much is still uncertain about the long-term consequences. Fukushima may well be on par with or even far exceed Chernobyl in terms of the effects on public health, as new information becomes available. The crisis is ongoing; the plant remains unstable and radiation emissions continue into the air and water.

Recent monitoring by citizens groups, international organizations and the U.S. government have found dangerous hot spots in Tokyo and other areas. The Japanese government, meanwhile, in late September lifted evacuation advisories for some areas near the damaged plant — even though high levels of radiation remained. The government estimated that it will spend at least $13 billion to clean up contamination.

Many thousands of people continue to inhabit areas that are highly contaminated, particularly northwest of Fukushima. Radioactive elements have been deposited throughout northern Japan, found in tap water in Tokyo and concentrated in tea, beef, rice and other food. In one of the few studies on human contamination in the months following the accident, over half of the more than 1,000 children whose thyroids were monitored in Fukushima City were found to be contaminated with iodine 131 — condemning many to thyroid cancer years from now.

Children are innately sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of radiation, fetuses even more so. Like Chernobyl, the accident at Fukushima is of global proportions. Unusual levels of radiation have been discovered in British Columbia, along the West Coast and East Coast of the United States and in Europe, and heavy contamination has been found in oceanic waters.

Fukushima is classified as a grade 7 accident on the International Atomic Energy Agency scale — denoting "widespread health and environmental effects." That is the same severity as Chernobyl, the only other grade 7 accident in history, but there is no higher number on the agency’s scale.

After the accident, lobbying groups touted improved safety at nuclear installations globally. In Japan, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. — which operates the Fukushima Daiichi reactors — and the government have sought to control the reporting of negative stories via telecom companies and Internet service providers.

In Britain, The Guardian reported that days after the tsunami, companies with interests in nuclear power — Areva, EDF Energy and Westinghouse — worked with the government to downplay the accident, fearing setbacks on plans for new nuclear power plants.

Nuclear power has always been the nefarious Trojan horse for the weapons industry, and effective publicity campaigns are a hallmark of both industries. The concept of nuclear electricity was conceived in the early 1950s as a way to make the public more comfortable with the U.S. development of nuclear weapons. "The atomic bomb will be accepted far more readily if at the same time atomic energy is being used for constructive ends," a consultant to the Defense Department Psychological Strategy Board, Stefan Possony, suggested. The phrase "Atoms for Peace" was popularized by President Dwight Eisenhower in the early 1950s.

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are one and the same technology. A 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor generates 600 pounds or so of plutonium per year: An atomic bomb requires a fraction of that amount for fuel, and plutonium remains radioactive for 250,000 years. Therefore every country with a nuclear power plant also has a bomb factory with unlimited potential.The nuclear power industry sets an unforgivable precedent by exporting nuclear technology — bomb factories — to dozens of non-nuclear nations.

Why is nuclear power still viable, after we’ve witnessed catastrophic accidents, enormous financial outlays, weapons proliferation and nuclear-waste induced epidemics of cancers and genetic disease for generations to come? Simply put, many government and other officials believe the nuclear industry mantra: safe, clean and green. And the public is not educated on the issue.

There are some signs of change. Germany will phase out nuclear power by 2022. Italy and Switzerland have decided against it, and anti-nuclear advocates in Japan have gained traction. China remains cautious on nuclear power. Yet the nuclear enthusiasm of the U.S., Britain, Russia and Canada continues unabated. The industry, meanwhile, has promoted new modular and "advanced" reactors as better alternatives to traditional reactors. They are, however, subject to the very same risks — accidents, terrorist attacks, human error — as the traditional reactors. Many also create fissile material for bombs as well as the legacy of radioactive waste.

True green, clean, nearly emission-free solutions exist for providing energy. They lie in a combination of conservation and renewable energy sources, mainly wind, solar and geothermal, hydropower plants, and biomass from algae. A smart-grid could integrate consuming and producing devices, allowing flexible operation of household appliances. The problem of intermittent power can be solved by storing energy using available technologies.

Millions of jobs can be created by replacing nuclear power with nationally integrated, renewable energy systems. In the U.S. alone, the project could be paid for by the $180 billion currently allocated for nuclear weapons programs over the next decade. There would be no need for new weapons if the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals — 95 percent of the estimated 20,500 nuclear weapons globally — were abolished.

Nuclear advocates often paint those who oppose them as Luddites who are afraid of, or don’t understand, technology, or as hysterics who exaggerate the dangers of nuclear power.

One might recall the sustained attack over many decades by the tobacco industry upon the medical profession, a profession that revealed the grave health dangers induced by smoking.

Smoking, broadly speaking, only kills the smoker. Nuclear power bequeaths morbidity and mortality — epidemics of disease — to all future generations.

The millions of lives lost to smoking in the era before the health risks of cigarettes were widely exposed will be minuscule compared to the medical catastrophe we face through the continued use of nuclear power.

Let’s use this extraordinary moment to convince governments and others to move toward a nuclear-free world. Let’s prove that informed democracies will behave in a responsible fashion.

Originally published in the New York Times, 2 Dec 2011

Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician, is founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. A native of Australia, she left her Harvard Medical School post in 1980 to work full-time on anti-nuclear education.