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New Public TV Documentary on Fukushima: Meltdown: Cooling Water Crisis

A shocking new 49-minute documentary from Japan’s public television broadcaster NHK titled “MELTDOWN: Cooling Water Crisis,” reveals new information on how corporate policy undermined efforts to keep the three destroyed Fukushima-Daiichi reactors stable one week after the triple reactor meltdown disaster began. See video here. Hear an interview related to the film here.

October 10, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Slow-Motion Cancer Pandemic 

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2014
By Harvey Wasserman

In the 35 years since the March 28, 1979 explosion and meltdown at Three Mile Island, fierce debate has raged over whether humans were killed there. In 1986 and 2011, Chernobyl and Fukushima joined the argument. Whenever these disasters happen, there are those who claim that the workers, residents and military personnel exposed to radiation will be just fine.

Of course we know better. We humans won’t jump into a pot of boiling water. We’re not happy when members of our species start dying around us. But frightening new scientific findings have forced us to look at a larger reality: the bottom-up damage that radioactive fallout may do to the entire global ecosystem.

When it comes to our broader support systems, the corporate energy industry counts on us to tolerate the irradiation of our fellow creatures, those on whom we depend, and for us to sleep through the point of no return.

Case in point is a new Smithsonian report on Chernobyl, one of the most terrifying documents of the atomic age.

Written by Rachel Nuwer, “Forests Around Chernobyl Aren’t Decaying Properly,” cites recent field studies in which the normal cycle of dead vegetation rotting into the soil has been disrupted by the exploded reactor’s radioactive fallout.

“Decomposers — organisms such as microbes, fungi and some types of insects that drive the process of decay — have also suffered from the contamination,” Nuwer writes. “These creatures are responsible for an essential component of any ecosystem: recycling organic matter back into the soil.”

The Three Mile Island nuclear reactor complex in Middletown, Pennsylvania, shown here in 2011, continues to generate electricity with its Unit 1 reactor. TMI was the scene of the 1979 meltdown of Unit 2, one of the worst nuclear power disasters in United States history.
Photo by Bradley C. Bower/AP.

Put simply: The micro-organisms that form the active core of our ecological bio-cycle have apparently been zapped, leaving tree trunks, leaves, ferns and other vegetation to sit eerily on the ground whole, essentially in a mummified state.

Reports also indicate a significant shrinkage of the brains of birds in the region and negative impacts on the insect and wildlife populations.

Similar findings surrounded the accident at Three Mile Island. Within a year, a three-reporter team from the Baltimore News-American cataloged massive radiation impacts on both wild and farm animals in the area. The reporters and the Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed widespread damage to birds, bees and large kept animals such as horses, whose reproductive rate collapsed in the year after the accident.

Other reports also documented deformed vegetation and domestic animals being born with major mutations, including a dog born with no eyes and cats with no sense of balance. To this day, Three Mile Island’s owners claim no humans were killed by radiation there, an assertion hotly disputed by local down-winders.

Indeed, Dr. Alice Stewart established in 1956 that a single X-ray to a pregnant woman doubles the chance that her offspring will get leukemia. (See The Woman Who Knew Too Much by Gayle Green, University of Michigan Press, 1999.) During the accident at Three Mile Island, the owners crowed that the meltdown’s radiation was equivalent “only” to a single X-ray administered to all area residents.

Meanwhile, if the airborne fallout from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl could do that kind of damage to both infants and the non-human population on land, how is Fukushima’s continuous gusher of radioactive water affecting the life support systems of our oceans?

In fact, samplings of 15 tuna caught off the coast of California indicate all were contaminated with fallout from Fukushima.

Instantly, as always, the industry deems such levels “harmless.” The obligatory comparisons to living in Denver, flying cross country and eating bananas automatically follow.

But what’s that radiation doing to the tuna? And to the krill, the phytoplankton, the algae, amoeba and all the other microorganisms on which the ocean ecology depends?

Cesium and its Fukushima siblings are already measurable in Alaska and northwestern Canada. They’ll hit California this year. The corporate media will mock those parents who are certain to show up at the beaches with radiation detectors. Concerns about the effect on children will be jovially dismissed. The doses will be deemed, as always, “too small to have any impact on humans.”

But reports of a “dead zone” thousands of miles into the Pacific do persist, along with disappearances of salmon, sardines, anchovies and other ocean fauna.

Of course, atomic reactors are not the only source of radioactive fallout. Atmospheric bomb testing from 1945 to 1963 raised background radiation levels throughout the ecosphere. Those isotopes are still with us.

Burning coal spews still more radiation into our air, along with mercury and other lethal pollutants. Fracking for gas draws toxins up from the earth’s crust.

Industry apologists say reactors can moderate the climate chaos caused by burning those fossil fuels. But fight

The Three Mile Island nuclear reactor complex in Middletown, Pennsylvania, shown here in 2011, continues to generate electricity with its Unit 1 reactor. TMI was the scene of the 1979 meltdown of Unit 2, one of the worst nuclear power disasters in United States history. 

Photo by Bradley C. Bower/AP.

Filed Under: Chernobyl, Fukushima, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

July 18, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Extreme Sports: Fukushima-Style 

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2014

Last fall, the country enduring the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe became the site of the world’s biggest sporting event when Tokyo was chosen to host the 2020 Olympic Games. Addressing concerns that the capital city that will welcome millions of visitors is just 140 miles from the ongoing Fukushima-Daichii disaster, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a September news conference, “The government has already decided a program to make sure there is absolutely no problem, and we have already started.” 

Apparently that program includes the clean-up of “J-Village,” a former sports complex that has been used as the main housing hub for thousands of workers struggling to control the Fukushima nuclear disaster since the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the reactor facility in 2011. Located on the fringe of the 12-mile exclusion zone around the reactor complex, J-Village was modified in 2011 to include 1,000 new dorms, a medical center, a cafeteria and decontamination facilities for workers returning from the highly radioactive disaster site. 

Following the May announcement of the planned renovation, Japan’s sports minister told Japanese media: “We must improve the circumstances so that soccer players not only from Japan but also from abroad can hold training camps there in advance [of the Games].” 

In a related story, last August the San Diego Chargers partnered with the Navy to hold an NFL football camp onboard the USS Ronald Reagan — the same aircraft carrier that was dispatched to within one mile of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster just days after the earthquake and tsunami caused three nuclear meltdowns and four explosions. As Nukewatch reported in the Spring 2014 Quarterly, 79 USS Reagan veterans have filed a $1 billion class-action lawsuit against TEPCO, the reactor operator, based on radiation-induced illnesses (from blindness and leukemia to subsequent birth abnormalities) experienced after their exposure while onboard the ship. 

Approximately 100 children aged seven to 14 from military families took part in the camp — engaging in tackling, passing and kicking drills on the deck of the ship. — ASP 

— Reuters, Sept. 9; San Diego Chargers press release, Aug. 28, 2013; The Telegraph, May 14, 2014

Filed Under: Environment, Fukushima, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

July 18, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Protesters Succeed in Halting Construction of Taiwan’s Fourth Nuclear Power Facility

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2014
By Arianne Peterson

Taiwanese activists succeeded in forcing their government to halt construction of two new reactors at their country’s fourth nuclear power station April 27, after organizing several recent actions involving tens of thousands of anti-nuclear demonstrators.

Protesters opposed to Taiwan’s fourth nuclear power plant lie down to block Zhongxiao West Road in Taipei on April 27. Photo by China Times.

The island of Taiwan is situated near the junction of two tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean’s “Ring of Fire” earthquake zone, which also encompasses Japan. Concern about the vulnerability of Taiwan’s nuclear power facilities has risen dramatically since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi reactors, and this concern led to action. 

Following massive demonstrations marking the third anniversary of the March 11, 2011 Fukushima disaster, an alliance of anti-nuclear groups gave the government an ultimatum on April 21, saying that they would stage a continuous protest on Ketagalan Boulevard, a central Taipei thoroughfare, and besiege the Presidential Office Building until their conditions are met. On April 22, former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Lin Yi-xiong began a protest hunger strike. A series of events throughout the country supported the demand for an end to nuclear power, including student sit-ins, occupations of railway stations and civic forums. Protesters and their supporters wore yellow ribbons to symbolize the movement’s unity and ubiquity. Some university students even shaved their heads to show solidarity with the hunger strike.

More than 50,000 Taiwanese people took to the streets in Taipei over the following weekend, and on Sunday, April 27, President Ma Ying-jeou and others from his Kuomintang Party decided to seal the new facility’s first reactor after the completion of safety checks and immediately halt construction on the second. Premier Jiang Yi-huah personally delivered the message of the decision to Yi-xiong, expressing hope it would persuade him to end his hunger strike.

Construction began on Taiwan’s fourth nuclear power station in 1999. Its first reactor was finished and the second 91.5 percent complete when the decision was made. The project was halted once before, in 2000, for political reasons and has been significantly delayed. It was originally supposed to begin operating in 2004.

Taipower, the taxpayer funded state-run enterprise that owns the project, has spent $9.3 billion on the reactors so far. It claims the decision not to bring the two reactors online will force it into bankruptcy.

A final decision on whether the facility will begin operation will be made by a national referendum. The DPP has proposed a special statute to bypass the 2006 Referendum Act, which requires more than half of Taiwan’s eligible voters to participate in an election for a referendum to be valid. The DPP is calling for a change so that a “yes” vote by 25 percent of voting-age Taiwanese citizens would shutter the nuclear project for good. — ASP

— Agence France-Presse, Mar. 8; Taipei Times, Apr. 22 & Apr. 30; 

Filed Under: Fukushima, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, On The Bright Side, Quarterly Newsletter

January 18, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Unnecessary, Uneconomic, Uninsurable, Unevacuable and Unsafe

Why Atomic Energy Stinks Worse Than You Thought
Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2013-2014
By Ralph Nader 

It has been over two years since the earthquake and tsunami that brought about the nuclear reactor crisis in Fukushima — the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. The situation at the six reactors is still grim. Four of the reactors are damaged. Hundreds of tons of contaminated groundwater are reportedly seeping into the ocean every day. Nearly 83,000 people were displaced from their homes in the approximately 310 square mile exclusion zones. On Oct. 9, 2013, an accident resulted in six workers being doused in radioactive water. Accidents and mishaps at the Fukushima site are regular occurrences. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has now asked the world community for help in containing the ongoing Fukushima disaster, as it continues to spiral out of control.

Earlier this week, I participated in a panel discussion in New York City called “The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident: Ongoing Lessons.” The event featured notable long-time experts on nuclear technology discussing the crisis in Fukushima and the current state of the heavily subsidized nuclear industry in the United States. The panel participants were former US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Peter Bradford, former NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, and nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen.

Mr. Bradford presented a detailed power point that showed how competing forms of energy already are leading to the decline of the nuclear industry.

The panel discussed safety concerns regarding the Indian Point nuclear power plant located about 30 miles from New York City. Indian Point has long been rife with safety problems and its location near an earthquake fault is a source of great concern for many New York residents.

In the 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission determined that a class-nine nuclear power accident could contaminate an area the size of Pennsylvania and render much of it uninhabitable. A nuclear disaster at Indian Point would threaten the entire population of New York City and its outlying metropolitan area. The continued existence and operation of Indian Point is like playing a game of Russian Roulette with the lives and homes of the nearly 20 million people who live within a 50 mile radius of the reactor. Consider the difficulty New Yorkers have simply commuting to and from their workplaces during rush hour, and imagine the horror of a mandatory evacuation due to a nuclear emergency at Indian Point. The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that a serious accident could, in addition to massive casualties, “cost ten to 100 times more than Fukushima’s disaster” which would be in the trillions of dollars.

If Indian Point were closed today, there is enough surplus energy capacity to last the state until 2020 as alternative energy sources are developed and deployed. Governor Andrew Cuomo has called for the shutdown of Indian Point, as did Hillary Clinton during her time in the Senate. A principle reason is that an emergency evacuation of the population up to 50 miles around these two nukes is impossible.

So what’s the delay? Mainly, resistance from the nuclear industry and a compliant regulatory agency. The NRC has faltered in its watchdog role by acting to protect and even bolster the dangerous, expensive and unnecessary nuclear industry. The industry’s latest claim is that it avoids greenhouse gases. But as physicist Amory Lovins says, if the investment in nuclear reactors is shifted to renewables and energy conservation, it will produce less demand and more environmentally benign energy by far, and with more jobs.

Anti-nuclear advocates have warned against potential dangers such as earthquakes for decades. Although a new nuclear power reactor has not been ordered and built in the US since 1974, there are currently 65 nuclear stations operating 100 reactors here — many of them aging, many of them near earthquake faults, many of them still not in compliance with NRC fire prevention regulations, all of them significant national security risks. Under President Obama, the first two nuclear reactors since 1978 were authorized to be built at the Vogtle site near Atlanta, Georgia. Commissioner Jaczko was the lone dissenter in the 4-1 NRC approval vote.

To truly understand the cost of nuclear energy, one must consider the absurdity of the uranium fuel cycle itself. It begins with mining and its deadly uranium tailings, then the fabrication and refinement of the fuel, the risky transport of these rods to the multi-shielded dome-like reactors where they are installed, and then firing up the core so it goes critical with a huge amount of radioactivity. Dealing with volatile nuclear reactions requires flawless operation. And then there is the storage and guarding of hot radioactive wastes and contaminated materials that persist for 250,000 years. No permanent site has been located and licensed for that lengthy containment.

What is the end purpose of this complex and expensive chain of events? Simply to boil water — to generate steam to turn turbines to produce electricity.

With all the technological advancements in energy efficiency, solar, wind and other renewable energy sources, there are better and more efficient ways to meet our electricity needs without burdening future generations with deadly waste products and risking the radioactive contamination of entire regions — should anything go wrong.

It is telling that Wall Street, which rarely considers the consequences of gambling on a risk, will not finance the construction of a new reactor without a full loan guarantee from the US government. Nuclear power is also uninsurable in the private insurance market. The Price-Anderson Act of 1957 requires taxpayers to cover almost all the recovery, decontamination and compensation costs if a meltdown should occur.

No other industry that produces electricity poses such a great national security risk should sabotage or malfunction occur. No other means of generating electricity can produce such long-lasting catastrophic damage and mayhem from one unpredictable accident. No other form of energy is so loaded with the silent violence of radioactivity.

Nuclear energy is unnecessary, uninsurable, uneconomic, unevacuable and, most importantly, unsafe. The fact that it continues to exist at all is a result of a ferocious lobby, enlisting the autocratic power of government that will not admit that its product is unfit for use in the modern world. Let’s not allow the lessons of Fukushima to be ignored.

— Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and Green Party presidential candidate, is a lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, The Menace of Atomic Energy, and he contributed to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion. This article appeared in Counterpunch Oct. 14, 2013.

 

Filed Under: Chernobyl, Fukushima, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

January 18, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Bothering “His Imperial Majesty” Over Fukushima

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2013-2014

Japanese street artist “281 Anti Nuke” sends a warning and creates awareness of Fukushima. Stickers like this one appear all around Tokyo.

TOKYO, Japan — Taro Yamamoto is a lawmaker in the Upper House of Japan’s government who happens to be actively anti-nuclear. He made news in October, when he did the unthinkable and approached Emperor Akihito at a garden party and handed him a letter describing his concerns over

Japanese children being exposed to radioactive contamination from the Fukushima disaster in food, water and soil. The letter also warned of the dangerous working conditions for temporary workers involved in cleanup operations. Yamamoto’s approach was seen in Japan as grossly impolite. Since World War II, when Akihito’s father, Emperor Hirohito renounced his “divinity,” the Emperor has performed only a symbolic and nongovernmental role. Yet many conservatives still consider the Emperor divine, so for a “commoner” to dare to approach him was newsworthy. Overlooked in much of the coverage was the letter’s content regarding radiation exposure of children. In his defense, Yamamoto said, “I just wanted the Emperor to know the reality.” 

— Japanese Times, Oct. 31, and the Guardian, Nov. 7, 2013

Filed Under: Direct Action, Fukushima, Nuclear Power, Radiation Exposure

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