nuclear

Several months after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, we are beginning to get a sense of the likely long-term impacts.

Radiation has spread across much of the northern hemisphere and parts of the southern hemisphere. Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency estimates the radioactive release at 770,000 terabecquerels in the first week of the crisis. Total radiation releases will probably fall somewhere between 10−40% of those from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Radiation releases have not been stopped and will continue for some months.

The long-term cancer death toll will probably be somewhere between several hundred and several thousand. For comparison, a reasonable estimate of the Chernobyl death toll is 30,000.

Allowable radiation dose limits in Japan have been thrown out the window, both for emergency workers and for the general public.

Estimates of the economic costs of the disaster range from $50 billion to $130 billion − but it wouldn't be surprising if the true costs are considerably greater.

Between 100,000 and 150,000 people cannot return to their homes because of radioactive contamination. Some may be able to return before the end of this year but permanent relocation is a likely outcome for those who lived in the most contaminated regions. Legal and political battles will take decades to play out.

Globally, the nuclear power 'renaissance' has taken a big hit. Germany, Italy and Switzerland have decided to abandon nuclear power in favour of renewable energy sources. Plans to introduce or expand nuclear power in many other countries have taken a big backwards step.

Nuclear power has no part in building a climate-friendly and sustainable future.

A large and growing number of scientific studies have detailed the wide range of energy supply and energy efficiency options that can be deployed to meet energy demand while sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The claim that nuclear power is a necessary or desirable part of the fight against climate change must be rejected. Nuclear power is at most a very partial and problematic response and presents unresolved and unacceptable problems.

Uranium is the first link in the toxic nuclear fuel chain, and is the primary source of radioactive materials used in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Many uranium mines have had serious adverse impacts on the environment and the communities that live near them.

Nuclear power plants around the world have already experienced many problems caused by natural and man-made disasters which are likely to become more frequent and more severe as a result of climate change − as seen in Japan. The nuclear industry has been very slow to address these problems. Meanwhile the nuclear power industry continues to survive because of huge taxpayer subsidies.

Hazardous radioactive wastes are generated at every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle. There is not a single permanent repository for spent fuel or high-level nuclear waste anywhere in the world.

In addition to the risk of accidents, nuclear power reactors are vulnerable to disasters from sabotage, terrorism, or the use of conventional forces to attack nuclear facilities during war.

Nuclear power is the one and only energy source with a direct and repeatedly-demonstrated connection to the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Doubling nuclear output by the middle of the century would require the construction of 800-900 reactors to replace most of the existing cohort of reactors and to build as many again. These reactors would produce over one million tonnes of nuclear waste (in the form of spent fuel) containing enough plutonium to build over one million nuclear weapons.

These are some of the very clear reasons why we MUST reject the nuclear industry.

A clean energy future, based primarily on renewable energy and energy efficiency and conservation measures, is viable, safe and affordable.

Friends of the Earth Asia Pacific is calling for Government's in our region like Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Australia to transition into nuclear free societies.

Friends of the Earth Asia Pacific region will pursue a nuclear free world as a region and in our individual countries.

We urge the citizens of Asian Pacific region to join us in taking action to build a nuclear free world.

Friends of the Earth Asia Pacific
Thursday 30 June 2011
Seoul, Korea

Japan's people desperately need help to ensure their children are safe from radiation exposure. Please support them by taking action now!

http://www.foejapan.org/en/news/110517.html

After you sign the petition, you will receive a confirmation email. To complete your action, click the link in the email to confirm your signature.

Thank you

On April 19, the Japanese government announced that it would be increasing the level of radiation deemed safe for children to 20 mSv/y. This is comparable to the maximum dose allowed for nuclear power plant workers in Germany.

Note

References

further information  

Nuclear power is unwanted and unnecessary.  Life within our means!
We do not need to make life more convenient.  Life without damaging someone!
There's not enough to use energy unlimitedly.  Life that children are not frightened!

The triple blow of the large earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident are now depriving the people of Fukushima, my home town, of foundation for living.  There are villages that decided to evacuate pregnant women, toddlers and babies. Vulnerable people who cannot line up for gasoline at a gas station are being forced to endure difficult living conditions with growing anxiety.

The nuclear accident is a man-made disaster. It is thought that Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), pro-nuclear politicians and academics are to blame for the accident, but that is not all.

The fact is that fifty years ago Fukushima Prefecture invited the electric power company to build nuclear power plants in order to promote regional development. The local anti-nuclear energy movement requested countermeasures against tsunamis but this did not happen. This is totally different from what happens in the United States. 

It may be a consequence of our choice and giving our silent approval. We should not only blame TEPCO and the government without understanding the point. It may be said that we made this disaster ourselves as we believed everything the politicians said.

What's the solution?

Providing energy education to learn nuclear power objectively and knowledge and wisdom to protect life is necessary. Reviewing a monopoly system of electric power companies to divide them into a generation company, a transmission company and a distribution company, and establishing a territorially distributed system of electric power supply. 

Let people choose their energy. Using different heat sources for residences. An oil stove is useful in case of disaster. Full electrification is easily affected by power failures. Reviewing electricity payment methods for electric power at peak times.

I feel so sad that the sea and fields in my home town have been contaminated in return for a convenient and gorgeous life in the Tokyo metropolitan area. "I don’t mind darkened stores." "Stores do not have to open 365 days a year. Revive regular holidays."  "Until now, it was too convenient and too bright." I hear those words spoken earnestly.

The nuclear accident triggers us to look into our daily lives and change the structure.  I will take actions praying for the repose of disaster victims in my home town.

Shouting, singing, and dancing, the participants expressed their own opinion about the nuclear power plants in various passionate ways. Last Sunday, April 10, I joined one anti-nuclear power action at Kouenji, one of the towns in Tokyo. Around 15,000 people gathered for this, the biggest demonstration against nuclear power plants in Japan after the triple-disaster of March 11.

Most of the participants in the action were in their 20’s and 30’s, including some parents with their children. There were also many people who were taking part in their first demonstration.   

"When could we change this situation, if not now?” "We don’t want to leave

this kind of big risk and burden behind for our children." These were the thoughts that moved more and more people to join in the demonstration. Many people found out about it through Twitter and the internet.

There were anti-nuclear actions in other Japanese cities on that day. I have a feeling the demonstrations will spread across the country.

Coverage of the demonstrations

“STOP Nuclear Power”  Action @ Kouenji on April 10, 2011-part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81ljAs4LAzc

“STOP Nuclear Power”  Action @ Kouenji on April 10, 2011-part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt0paTkGGTU

http://410nonuke.tumblr.com/

HH

On April 11, I visited Fukushima City with two activists from Citizens Against Fukushima Aging Nuclear Power Plants (Fukuro-no-Kai). We met four members from Fukushima Citizen’s Conference for Reconstruction from Nuclear Disaster, a citizen’s group established immediately after the events of March 3. 

We spoke about how we can convey their voices to the Parliament and Government of Japan and the possibility of further collaboration. As they spoke under the stress, the sense of duty for immediate actions and the stress and the ongoing fear of radioactive contamination / exposure, each and every word weighed heavily. 

During the meeting, there was a very strong earthquake. We interrupted our meeting as the TV reported that Fukushima Daiichi had lost its power sources. Several strong earthquakes were felt afterwards, but people didn’t seem to care, they just continued talking. I think they have become accustomed to the quakes.

Fukushima Citizen’s Conference for Reconstruction from Nuclear Disaster have been monitoring the amount of radiation at several schools and kindergartens in Fukushima and the southern part of Miyagi. As a result, some high values were monitored in some playgrounds. They aim to request and pressure the local government to monitor thoroughly and conduct necessary actions by presenting the data monitored by the citizens. Their intention was partly realised, as Fukushima Prefecture began the radiation monitoring at more than a thousand schools. Citizens Against Fukushima Aging Nuclear Power Plants (Fukuro-no-Kai) have collaborated by providing the Geiger counters and utilising the monitoring of results at a national level.

During our meeting, the activists stressed the following:

- People in Fukushima have accepted Nuclear Power Plants, which meant that we put priority on money over life and safety. This disaster is a direct consequence of it. It is the time to reverse the order. We have been struggling to change our society, which does not want to move under severe pressure and stress. But we must change.  We would like to build a foundation of the future society for our children.

- We feel a sense of urgency when we see children playing in the rain without umbrellas.

- The government should evacuate the children from all schools where high amounts of radiation have been recorded.　The governmental support is indispensable, thus, it must provide for the coordination of host communities and financial support”

- Independent monitoring by citizen's group is very important, but we do not have a sufficient number of Geiger counters and any measurement instruments for food and soil contamination. We need international support to continue our activism.

Further information

http://fukurou.txt-nifty.com/fukurou/2011/04/the-fukushima-c.html

Smile a cheerful smile !
Let today and again tomorrow be filled with your beaming smiles !!

Tell us about something wonderful you met today.
Tell us about something happy you got today.
Let your smiles be spread all over the world again today.

Your smile will surely put new life into all of us !!

Ikumi

I just happened to be at my cousin's home with my daughter when the first

strong earthquake hit North-west Japan. We felt quite a strong quake and I held the kids tightly until the quake stopped.

All the kids started to cry "Scary!!"

Calming down the kids, we couldn't stop watching TV... it was just like a

fiction disaster movie but it was all real. Also one of my best friends was

in Ishinomaki for a business trip, where had fatal tsunami hit. He came back

five days after the disaster by luck.

I couldn't sleep at all that night, I just prayed things would not get worse in

the midst of the frequent aftershocks.

If I were out for work on that day as usual and left my 22-month old

daughter at the child day care....? If something worst happened at the

Fukushima nuclear plant...?

Such thoughts kept giving me a shudder and I couldn't let my child away from

me even after the day care restarted.

It was extremely difficult to sort out the information for the first week

(it is still difficult though, and maybe getting worse), however,  I decided to follow my instinct as a mother and evacuate to my hometown in the south-west region!

So far, I'm satisfied with my decision to leave Tokyo for a while.

The biggest reason is now I'm free from the extraordinary tension in Tokyo.

I didn't notice that I was under such way-out stress until I left there.

Here I've got a sense of self-composure to join and organise some charity events. I just came back from the kids' English lesson and now I've become keenly aware that the smile of children always gives adults the right direction.

Last but not least at all, I truly appreciate so much for care and prayers from all over the world. Also, let me apologise for radioactive pollution from Fukushima. A lot of ordinary Japanese citizens feel that we shoulder part of the responsibility as we've neglected its danger in order to enjoy a semblance of quality of life. Nuclear is not a necessary evil any more but an absolute evil!

Shizuka

I would like to introduce an essay from one of our friends, who lives in Iwaki City, 40 km from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Two weeks after the hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant building, we've returned to Iwaki City at last. Iwaki is 40 km away from the Fukushima plant and is neither within the 20 km evacuation zone nor within the 30 km safety zone.

However, immediately after the nuclear explosion following the earthquakes and tsunamis, we were not able to determine the degree of risks involved and evacuated to Ibaraki Prefecture, 160 km from Iwaki city.

My wife works at a high school, 34 km from the Fukushima plant. Two days after the evacuation, she insisted on returning to Iwaki City. I was against this. At the time, there'd been a second hydrogen explosion. Upon hearing about this, my wife still persisted with her plans to return and we began to quarrel. One hour after the second explosion, the school finally got in contact with her with an official notice to stay on stand-by and not to return, my wife conceded.

I was relieved to settle this matter. We then began to worry about our cat that was left behind. This cat, being semi-wild, lies idly during the day in the neighboring field and returns home at night. We were certain that she would take refuge in the field and was not likely to starve, thus the problem was her radiation exposure.

The radiation monitoring began in Iwaki City and was reported to be about 1 micro sieverts per hour (Sv/h) in the atmosphere above normal levels. The soil contamination too appears relatively serious. As our cat lives in the field, she must be covered with the dirt. I wonder how much she has been exposed to.

Two weeks later as we returned to Iwaki city, our cat was fortunately alive and well. I wondered what she had been eating. We brought her into the bathroom immediately and washed her with some cat-shampoo. So as not to bring the radioactive material into the house, we had initially decided to wash her outside. However, the joy of finding her alive left us with no such reason.

The hardest part came afterwards. The cat naturally wants to go outside; she kept crying so that we could not keep her indoors any longer. As we told her, "outside you will be exposed to radiation", she would not listen and began rolling around in the field again.

Like many cats, our cat too dislikes getting wet; therefore we cannot wash her every day. We ourselves are wearing masks when outside and we take our clothes off in the entrance hall so as not to bring the radiation material into our bedroom. But is it any good at all if the cat comes in full of dirt?

Thus far when we brought her inside our home, we used disposable body-towels. However, since these towels are relatively expensive, and do not come in large amounts, we opted to use baby-wipes. We soak them very lightly and wipe her three times and needless to say they are then discarded.

We are well aware of the radiation risks and have some knowledge. Yet as we restart our lives, we end up not thinking of this risks as everyday needs and emotional needs take over. People living outside the immediate danger are far more sensitive to such risks. In fact, prior to our return to Iwaki City, our family members and friends living outside Fukushima Prefecture were very concerned and strongly opposed our return.

Despite this, my wife decided to return out of her sense of duty and out of her guilt for left behind. While I, with my affection for our cat, selfishly reasoned that "the plant will not explode immediately," "we can secure the gasoline if needed," "1 micro Sv/h does not present a high risk," and so on.

Upon returning, we found the shelves of the supermarket empty and about 100 cars lined up at the gas station. Yet here the sky is blue, and so ordinary is our everyday it makes it difficult to believe that only 40 km from here are the damaged nuclear plants.

Whether our cat is exposed to radiation is still unknown, and recently we nicknamed her Sievert. More accurately, as the cat is treated as a nuclear material, Becquerel is appropriate. Therefore, we thought of calling her Becky, however, my wife thought Sievert prettier and there was no use in arguing.

By continuing this life, the risk of radiation will be forgotten unless the situation worsens at the plants or until the onset of cancer emerges. I wonder for those who have settled here for good, this may well be a happier life.

Even if her life ends prematurely, our cat might be content to roll around in the field as usual. I too am defeated by my own emotion and no longer troubled by the thought of letting our cat into our home even if this means shortening my life a little.

Photo credit: DigitalGlobe

I have often been upset by so-called 'experts' when I watch nuclear issues being covered on the TV in Japan. 

A nuclear expert who used to work at Toshiba said, one day, 

"Japaese nuclear technique will possibly be praised and we should be proud of it, as we could avoid the worst of the worst." 

How could he possibly say such a thing in such a way, almost ignoring those affected already in many ways!? And, he still continues to be on TV.

Yesterday, another expert on radiation in the sea, said that the fish are safe to eat, as we have already been taking in plutonium previously releaed in the pacific from elsewhere. 

This cannot be the reason why we are safe!! 

I do not blame all the experts. But, it strikes me some experts are exposed to media just to defend safety or protect themselves.

NS

On 24 March a 64-age vegetable farmer in Fukushima committed suicide. It was just one day after the Japanese government declared restrictions on  eating several kinds of vegetables produced in Fukushima and neighbouring areas.

He had a cabbage patch growing 7500 cabbages. According to Mainichi Newspaper, his son said 'If we did not have the nuclear accidents, he would still be here today.'

In addition, last night, I saw on the NHK news that a very old Ryokan (Japanese Inn) in Fukushima was closed for the first time in more than 100 years due to cancellations after nuclear accidents.

The Ryokan was not affected by earthquake and tsunami, but it was 60km from the nuclear plants, outside of the evacuation zone. Rooms were fully booked up until mid-May. However, they were all cancelled after the nuclear accidents.

These are the stories covered by the major Japanese media, but I guess there are hundreds or thousands of similar stories.

It's really difficult to describe how I feel about this story.. It's just so sad. Those affected can ask for compensation or help from TEPCO, or the  government, but life will never be how it was before the accident.

NS

On Sunday 27 March around 1,200 demonstrators walked through Ginza, one of the most famous shopping areas in Tokyo, to appeal against Japanese nuclear policy.

Alarmed by the nuclear crisis in Fukushima, several anti-nuclear groups, as well as individual activists, organised the demonstration to appeal for an evaluation of nuclear policy and prompt updates on the situation in Fukushima.

The crowd's chants were loud and direct:

"We need no Genpatsu (nuclear power plant)!"
"Stop Genpatsu right now!"
"No more Fukushima, no more Chelnobyl."
"Life is more important than electricity !"

The parade started from Ginza, went via the Tepco head office and cumulated in an assembly in Hibiya park.

A young woman from a small town 5km from Fukushima's first nuclear reactor spoke to the crowd about the serious situation faced by local people and appealed to save them.

A young man who lead the demonstration insisted that we Japanese citizens now have to speak as one voice to get rid of nuclear policy.

Some foreign media reported the demonstration, but no Japanese media.

Euronews coverage
BBC coverage
TF1 coverage

AY