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.

July 11, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Locals Appalled that Contaminated Soil Could be Used in Road Building, Poisoned Water Could be Dumped

Members of the International Atomic Energy Agency covered up to tour the tank farm holding millions of gallons of radioactive cooling water at the devastated Fukushima-Daiichi reactor complex. They recommend dumping it in the ocean.

Summer Quarterly 2018

Japanese Protest Government Plans to Build Roads Using Cesium-Contaminated Soil, and to Dump Cooling Water Into the Pacific

Skeptical Japanese survivors of the Fukushima-Daiichi disaster are protesting state and federal plans to disperse and abandon large amounts of radioactive waste that was generated by the triple reactor meltdowns.

Rachel O’Donoghue wrote in the London Daily Star April 29: “The country’s Environment Ministry wants to use the radiation-tainted material to rebuild a number of roads in the region that was devastated by a tsunami in 2011. But the proposal has sparked fury among residents over fears they could be poisoned by the soil.” An April 26 briefing about the plan “saw angry scenes erupt, with locals in the city of Nihonmatsu yelling about how the roads will be ‘contaminated.’ Authorities have been desperately trying to convince people that it will be safe, saying the soil will be buried under clean earth that will ‘block’ any harmful radiation.” Of course locals reply that the same was said about the reactors themselves. Roughly 28.7 million cubic yards of contaminated soil have been collected in 1-ton bags stacked in vast outdoor areas after being scraped from school yards, play grounds, hospital grounds and other public areas. Likewise, angry protests by fisherman have stalled government plans to dump millions of gallons of contaminated water now in storage into the Pacific Ocean. Seafood workers and others say more radioactive waste in the water will ruin the fishery.

A storage site for poisoned soil in the town of Tomioka, near the destroyed Fukushima reactors on Feb. 23, 2015. There are an estimated 29 million cubic yards of such soil. *Reuters/Toru Hanai*

US plaintiffs Involved in Disaster Relief Seek $1 Billion in Damages for Radiation Sicknesses

About 200 US citizens have re-filed a lawsuit against Tokyo Electric Power Co. which owns the Fukushima wreckage and an unnamed US firm seeking at least $1 billion for medical expenses related to radiation exposure suffered during the triple meltdowns. The suit was filed March 14 with federal courts in the Southern District of California and the District of Columbia by US participants in the relief effort made in the wake of the disaster. Hundreds of sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and others were heavily contaminated when clouds of radioactive fallout inundated the ship during relief efforts. Many of the plaintiffs are suing for a second time after a similar suit was dismissed by the Californian federal court in January.

New Public TV Documentary: Meltdown: Cooling Water Crisis

April 26, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Chernobyl Anniversary Begs Comparisons to Fukushima

Photo: The cement tomb built in 1986 over the destroyed Chernobyl reactor No. 4 in Ukraine needed replacement by 1996. It finally got re-covered in 2016. Similar abandonment has been recommended for three wrecked General Electric reactors in Fukushima, Japan.

The radiation dispersed into the environment by the three reactor meltdowns at Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan has exceeded that of the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe, so we may stop calling it the “second worst” nuclear power disaster in history. Total atmospheric releases from Fukushima are estimated to be between 5.6 and 8.1 times that of Chernobyl, according to the 2013 World Nuclear Industry Status Report. Professor Komei Hosokawa, who wrote the report’s Fukushima section, told London’s Channel 4 News then, “Almost every day new things happen, and there is no sign that they will control the situation in the next few months or years.”

Tokyo Electric Power Co. has estimated that about 900 peta-becquerels have spewed from Fukushima, and the updated 2016 TORCH Report estimates that Chernobyl dispersed 110 peta-becquerels.[1] (A Becquerel is one atomic disintegration per second. The “peta-becquerel” is a quadrillion, or a thousand trillion Becquerels.)

Chernobyl’s reactor No. 4 in Ukraine suffered several explosions, blew apart and burned for 40 days, sending clouds of radioactive materials high into the atmosphere, and spreading fallout across the whole of the Northern Hemisphere — depositing cesium-137 in Minnesota’s milk.[2]

The likelihood of similar or worse reactor disasters was estimated by James Asselstine of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), who testified to Congress in 1986: “We can expect to see a core meltdown accident within the next 20 years, and it … could result in off-site releases of radiation … as large as or larger than the releases … at Chernobyl.[3] Fukushima-Daiichi came 25 years later.

Contamination of soil, vegetation and water is so widespread in Japan that evacuating all the at-risk populations could collapse the economy, much as Chernobyl did to the former Soviet Union. For this reason, the Japanese government standard for decontaminating soil there is far less stringent than the standard used in Ukraine after Chernobyl.

Fukushima’s Cesium-137 Release Tops Chernobyl’s

The Korea Atomic Energy Research (KAER) Institute outside of Seoul reported in July 2014 that Fukushima-Daiichi’s three reactor meltdowns may have emitted two to four times as much cesium-137 as the reactor catastrophe at Chernobyl.[4]

To determine its estimate of the cesium-137 that was released into the environment from Fukushima, the cesium-137 release fraction (4% to the atmosphere, 16% to the ocean) was multiplied by the cesium-137 inventory in the uranium fuel inside the three melted reactors (760 to 820 quadrillion Becquerel, or Bq), with these results:

Ocean release of cesium-137 from Fukushima (the worst ever recorded): 121.6 to 131.2 quadrillion Becquerel (16% x 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq). Atmospheric release of cesium-137 from Fukushima: 30.4 to 32.8 quadrillion Becquerel (4% x 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq).

Total release of cesium-137 to the environment from Fukushima: 152 to 164 quadrillion Becquerel. Total release of cesium-137 into the environment from Chernobyl: between 70 and 110 quadrillion Bq.

The Fukushima-Daiichi reactors’ estimated inventory of 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq (petabecquerels) of cesium-137 used by the KAER Institute is significantly lower than the US Department of Energy’s estimate of 1,300 quadrillion Bq. It is possible the Korean institute’s estimates of radioactive releases are low.

In Chernobyl, 30 years after its explosions and fire, what the Wall St. Journal last year called “the $2.45 billion shelter implementation plan” was finally completed in November 2016. A huge metal cover was moved into place over the wreckage of the reactor and its crumbling, hastily erected cement tomb. The giant new cover is 350 feet high, and engineers say it should last 100 years — far short of the 250,000-year radiation hazard underneath.

The first cover was going to work for a century too, but by 1996 was riddled with cracks and in danger of collapsing. Designers went to work then engineering a cover-for-the-cover, and after 20 years of work, the smoking radioactive waste monstrosity of Chernobyl has a new “tin chapeau.” But with extreme weather, tornadoes, earth tremors, corrosion and radiation-induced embrittlement it could need replacing about 2,500 times. — John LaForge

_______________

[1] Duluth News-Tribune & Herald, “Slight rise in radioactivity found again in state milk,” May 22, 1986; St. Paul Pioneer Press & Dispatch, “Radiation kills Chernobyl firemen,” May 17, 1986; Minneapolis StarTribune, “Low radiation dose found in area milk,” May 17, 1986.

[2] Ian Fairlie, “TORCH-2016: An independent scientific evaluation of the health-related effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,” March 2016 (https://www.global2000.at/sites/global/files/GLOBAL_TORCH%202016_rz_WEB_KORR.pdf).

[3] James K. Asselstine, Commissioner, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Testimony in Nuclear Reactor Safety: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, May 22 and July 16, 1986, Serial No. 99-177, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1987.

[4] Progress in Nuclear Energy, Vol. 74, July 2014, pp. 61-70; ENENews.org, Oct. 20, 2014.

April 2, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Fukushima’s Triple Meltdowns, Seven Years On*

By John LaForge

Spring Quarterly 2018

March 11 marks the seventh anniversary of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and tsunami that killed over 18,000 people. The quake destroyed the foundations and pipes of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear reactor complex, and caused a tsunami that crashed the site’s emergency back-up generators resulting in a “station blackout” and the world’s only simultaneous triple reactor meltdown. The consequent mass radiation releases, mass evacuations and mass contamination of the Pacific Ocean are unprecedented. Only the 1986 Chernobyl disaster compares to Fukushima, although its radiation was dispersed largely to the atmosphere rather than the sea.

One of the first books on the subject was Takashi Hirose’s Fukushima Meltdown: The World’s First Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster. This passage from the introduction is a reminder of the avoidable risks of operating nuclear reactors in earthquake zones:

“…the fact that there is no way of putting an end to earthquakes and tsunamis is … something that we must accept….

“However, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster is neither a natural disaster nor ordained by fate. It is a human-made disaster brought about by bad faith. Unlike natural disasters, which are beyond human understanding, this was easily predictable and preventable. The officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co. [Tepco] say things like, ‘We could not imagine that a once-in-a-thousand-years earthquake might come,’ and ‘The tsunami was beyond our expectation,’ but these are only obfuscations. A major earthquake accompanied by a nuclear power plant accident was—as I will show in detail—something very much within the realm of possibility, a possibility these officials arrogantly refused to consider.

“If I, neither a scholar nor a specialist, was able to foresee this, and the nuclear power specialists from Tepco and from the government’s nuclear-related agencies were not, then for what do they exist?”

Minister Opposes Ocean Dumping Contaminated Water in Pacific

Japan’s disaster reconstruction minister announced at a press conference last July 15 that he opposes dumping contaminated cooling water from the disaster-struck Fukushima Daiichi site into the sea, citing protests by local fishermen. While the minister has no control over how the waste water will be disposed, his comments came after several experts endorsed the ocean dumping.

About 770,000 tons of waste water has been collected in over 900 densely crowded tanks on site, and the amount grows by 150 tons a day. With limited acreage Tepco officials have said it can keep adding tanks only until 2020, and the tank farm is vulnerable to earthquakes that could spill the waste.

The water becomes highly radioactive when it is poured over wreckage inside the three reactors in order to cool the three masses of “corium”—the hot uranium fuel and its cladding melted into a giant mass that has partially burned through the foundations. Most of the water is then treated in an experimental process that removes many radioactive materials but not the tritium, the radioactive form of hydrogen.

Reconstruction minister Masayoshi Yoshino spoke shortly after Takashi Kawamura, chairman of Tepco Inc., which owns the reactors and caused the catastrophe, said in an interview that the decision to dump the contaminated water “has already been made.”

Kawamura’s remarks were widely condemned and a Tepco spokesperson made a retraction saying, “The chairman meant to say that the decision to release is not yet final.” Minister Yoshino also asked dumping advocates “not to drive (fishermen) further towards the edge,” alluding to concern among local fishermen about the effects on their livelihood if the fish and other marine products they catch were to be contaminated.

Misinformation About Tritium**

Reporting about the millions of gallons of radioactive waste water accumulating at the Fukushima site, major media have called tritium harmless. Kyodo News Service said last July: “Tritium is a radioactive substance considered relatively harmless to humans.” The London Independent said last November, “Treatment has removed all the radioactive elements except tritium, which they say is safe in small amounts.” The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) notes that these assertions directly contradict the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Fact Sheet on tritium. That fact sheet says tritium is one of the “least dangerous radionuclides” but reminds readers that “As with all ionizing radiation, exposure to tritium increases the risk of developing cancer.” IEER notes, “The established science is that there is no threshold for cancer risk of radiation and therefore no level of exposure is ‘safe.’”

High Radiation Levels Found Outside Reactors

Tepco still knows so little about the state of the deadly melted fuel inside the three reactors that the most the company could say in January about its latest remote-controlled probe inside Unit 2 was, “the radiation reading [8 Sieverts] was taken near what appeared to be fuel debris.” (emphasis added). The harsh radiation environment inside the wrecked reactors is so novel and deadly that robotic probes and containment equipment haven’t yet been devised and have to be invented whole cloth. Seven years in, Tepco hasn’t yet positively located the melted fuel debris inside all three reactors.

What surprised the January inspectors was a reading of 42 Sieverts per/hour “outside the foundations of the reactor.” Mycle Schneider, an energy consultant and lead author of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, told the Independent, the company “hasn’t a clue what it is doing,” in decontaminating and securing the complex.

Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said that the high radiation reading from outside the foundations is “more of a concern as the cause is at present unclear.” Schneider said more directly, “I find it symptomatic of the past seven years, in that they don’t know what they’re doing.”

* For a detailed review of the ongoing Fukushima catastrophe, see “Key figures for the seventh anniversary,” published Feb. 17 by the group ACROnique Fukushima. The group offers daily monitoring of events related to the current radiation disaster in Japan, and more.

** For an excellent analysis of the dangers of exposure to tritium, see author Dahr Jamail’s Aug. 2017 report “Fukushima Plant Is Releasing 770,000 Tons of Radioactive Water Into the Pacific Ocean.”

March 7, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Fukushima: A Human-Made Disaster Brought on by Bad Faith

“Nearly seven years after the triple reactor meltdowns, this unique nuclear crisis is still underway,” Greenpeace International’s Shaun Burnie wrote in a blogpost last December. The word “unique” is an understatement but true. The March 11, 2011 meltdowns are the world’s first combined earthquake-tsunami-reactor catastrophe. Moreover, while other power reactors have run out-of-control, melted down and contaminated large areas, never before have three simultaneously suffered mass earthquake damage, station black-outs, loss-of-coolant and complete meltdowns.

The consequences of its meltdowns-cubed are uniquely over three times deeper, broader and more expensive than anyone was prepared to handle. In the days following the initial quake, tsunami(s), and explosions, the head of the emergency response said, “There is no manual for this disaster.” Managers have had to invent, design, develop and implement the recovery whole cloth. Evacuation was so haphazard that on August 9, 2011, one local mayor accused the government of murder.

The crisis is ongoing in many ways: radioactively contaminated water is still pouring into the Pacific Ocean (permanently contaminating and altering sea life which bio-accumulates and bio-concentrates the radioactivity); radioactive gases and perhaps even “hot particles” are still wafting out of destroyed reactor structures and waste fuel pools; the constant threat of earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan puts millions of gallons of radioactive waste (rad waste) water now stored near the shore in tanks at risk of spilling; and the dangerous work of collecting radioactive soils, leaves and tree trimmings from farmlands, school yards, parks and gardens continuously adds to vast collections of 1-ton radioactive waste bags.

The government estimates that 30 million cubic meters of this collected rad waste — a nearly unimaginable 29 million tons — will eventually require burial, incineration or reuse in road-building. The disaster is ongoing because the dangerous radiation exposures endured by the workers in these disaster response jobs is cumulative and irreversible — and the work will continue for 3 centuries or so. This is because: 1) cesium-137, one of the principle pollutants spewed by the meltdowns, takes 300 years to decay to other isotopes; and 2) in spite of the gigantic amount of contaminated material that’s been scrapped together and bagged — at over 1000 Temporary Storage Sites and elsewhere at 141,000 locations across Fukushima — the effort covers “only a small fraction of the total landmass of radioactively contaminated areas,” as Greenpeace’s Burnie reports. The “largest areas of significant contamination [are] the forested mountains of Fukushima,” Burnie notes, and will continue for three centuries to re-contaminate the soil down-wind and down-river, “through weathering processes and the natural water and lifecycle of trees and rivers.”

Fukushima’s endless radiation effects — from thyroid cancers, to contaminated sea food, from poisoned pregnancies to irradiated clean-up workers — should be the final insult from nuclear power and weapons. And they will be if the general public wises up to the unacceptable risks of continuing to operate nuclear reactors.

In “Fukushima Meltdown” author Takashi Hirose says, “The people responsible for the horror of this nuclear accident are the people who promoted nuclear power.”

In “Fukushima Meltdown” the first scholarly book to appear on the incident, author Takashi Hirose dashed off a grim warning after having published books and articles warning of the terrible danger of nuclear power since the 1980s. His cautions are more important now than ever, because commercial media will this week repeat the tragic-comic assurances that “no one died,” that Fukushima’s “released radiation was less than Chernobyl,” and that “nuclear power is clean.”

Natural disasters will never disappear, Takashi wrote, and there is no way of putting an end to earthquakes and tsunamis. “However, the Fukushima Disaster is neither a natural disaster nor ordained by fate. It is a human-made disaster brought about by bad faith.” In his terrifying 150 pages, Takashi methodically proves the case that the Fukushima catastrophe “was easily predictable and preventable.” In a nutshell, two principle government and corporate lies demonstrate how bad faith brought about the worst reactor accident in history. Exposing and rejecting these lies can prevent another meltdown.

Initially the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) asserted over and over that “there is no crisis” and even that “there will be no radiation release.” A month after the start of the disaster, the government admitted that radiation gushing to the sea and spewing to the atmosphere was at the same level as Chernobyl (the 1986 reactor disaster in Ukraine). Author Takashi calls this use of disinformation “as terrifying as what is happening at the actual site.” “From day one I had been saying that huge amounts of radiation were sure to be escaping.… From day one the situation had reached the highest level for nuclear accidents, Level 7, and from day one the government knew this, but it concealed that information from the people, thus causing far more people to be irradiated than otherwise would have been the case.”

The other glaring example of bad faith has been Tepco’s repeatedly saying, “We could not imagine that a once-in-a-thousand-years earthquake might come,” and further that “the tsunami was beyond our expectation.” These are lies. The destroyed Fukushima reactors were hit by an easily imaginable 14-meter tsunami. In 1896, the Meji-Sanriku quake’s tsunami reached 38.2 meters on the Iwate coast not far from Fukushima; the 1933 Hokkaido quake caused a 28.7 meter tsunami. Indeed, since the late 1970s experts have warned that a disaster like Fukushima was possible. In the late 1990s, seismology professor Ishibashi Katsuhiko at Kobe Univ. coined an explicit new term meaning “nuclear-power-plant-earthquake-disaster.” Because Prof. Ishibashi’s many books on the subject are well-known, “it is impossible that his warnings were unknown to the officials of Tepco,” who just want to dodge criminal charges.

The lessons for the 99 faulty reactors in this country and the other 300 around the world are clear enough. It’s absurd to put reactors near earthquakes or volcanoes or anywhere near the water. And, as Takashi says, “The people responsible for the horror of this nuclear accident are the people who promoted nuclear power.”

December 28, 2017 by Nukewatch 1 Comment

Japan Could Dump 1 Million Tons of Radioactive Water into the Sea from Fukushima

Winter Quarterly 2017-18

By John LaForge

The new Chairman of Tepco Holding, Inc., Takashi Kawamura, caused a public uproar in the coastal fishing community last April when he reportedly declared that almost 1 million tons of contaminated waste water stored in tanks onshore would be dumped into the ocean.

“The decision has already been made,” Takashi Kawamura, said in a recent interview with the foreign media, Japan Times. Newsweek also reported July 14 that, Kawamura told the media that “nearly 777,000 tons of water tainted with tritium …will be dumped into the Pacific Ocean.”

But the company faced an immediate backlash, especially among fishers whose livelihoods have been devastated since the March 11, 2011 catastrophe, and quickly reversed itself. The company now says it has “no plans for an immediate release” and can keep storing water through 2020 or 2023.

British newspapers reported Nov. 27, that “there are 900 tanks that could spill if there is another earthquake or tsunami.”The New York Times said last March there were “1,000 gray, blue and white tanks on the grounds… [that] already hold 962,000 tons of contaminated water, and Tokyo Electric is installing more tanks.”

In May 2015, the International Atomic Energy Agency urged Japan to dump the waste water in the ocean, and in Sept. 2016, Dale Klein, a former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, recommended ocean dumping too, telling Bloomberg News that ocean dumping “will not be a safety issue, but it will be an emotional issue.” Klein added, “I get nervous about just storing all that water when you have about a thousand tanks. You have all the piping, all the valves, everything that can break.”

Scientists have declared the three-reactor disaster the worst radioactive contamination of the ocean in recorded history.

About 300 tons of ground water rushes into three reactor basements through earthquake-destroyed foundations, mixes with the melted uranium fuel rods and becomes tainted with radiation. The waste water is then pumped out and filtered through an experimental process called Advanced Liquid Processing System. ALPS separates most of the dangerous isotopes but can’t remove tritium, the radioactive form of hydrogen. It is this “tritiated” water that is stored in the large tanks.

Japan’s government and Tepco argue that since nuclear reactors routinely release tritium to the air and water, the ocean dumping of 1 million tons of tritiated water to the sea would not be harmful.

Tritium is Dangerous, Long-Lived Cancer Agent

Tritium concentrates in aquatic organisms including algae, seaweed, crustaceans and fish. With a radioactive half-life of 12.3 years (half its radioactivity will decay in 12.3 years) it persists in the environment for 120 years.

Christina Mills, a staff scientist with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) notes, that “tritium can cross the placenta, become incorporated into the embryo/fetus, and irradiate rapidly dividing cells, thereby raising the risk of malformations and early failed pregnancies. Given that all of a woman’s ova get made while she is still in her mother’s womb, the risks can be multi-generational.”

IEER President Dr. Arjun Makhijani, reports that “Tritium is a highly radioactive isotope of hydrogen…. Since tritium has the same chemical properties as hydrogen, it can combine with oxygen to form water. Such tritiated water is radioactive, and has become one of the problem pollutants at many nuclear facilities. In some places it has contaminated groundwater and surface water and continues to do so. … Commercial nuclear power plants also discharge tritium into public water bodies.

“Since tritiated water is processed by plants, animals and humans like ordinary water, the tritium in it can become transformed into other chemicals, such as proteins needed by the body. It can become part of the DNA. It can affect developing fetuses.”

Makhijani reminds readers further that “The established science is, and has been for some time, that there is no threshold for cancer risk of radiation and therefore no level of exposure is ‘safe.’ While it is true that we all are exposed to natural background radiation, this does not mean that natural background radiation is ‘safe.’”

—The London Independent, & the Metro online, Nov. 27, 2017; Japan Times, & Newsweek, July 14, 2017; New York Times, March 11, 2017; Bloomberg, Sept. 5, 2016; IEER Press Conference, Red Wing, MN, Feb. 8, 2012; IEER, “Statement on Tritium,” Feb. 6, 2006

**Some of the 1,000 hastily-built tanks holding over 900,000 tons of highly contaminated cooling water at the Fukushima-Daiichi complex.**

US Sailors Continue $1 Billion Class Action Against Tepco, General Electric

Dozens of Navy personnel who were aboard the aircraft carriers USS Ronald Reagan and USS Essex when they went to Fukushima in March 2011 to render aid to survivors, have since suffered unusual health problems including fatigue, weight loss, swollen limbs, joint pain, stomach ailments and diminished eyesight.

Stonewalled by the Navy, 420 sailors have joined a $1 billion class action lawsuit in federal court in San Diego against Fukushima’s owners, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), and against General Electric which built the three destroyed reactors. Tepco and the Navy contend the sailors did not receive enough radiation exposure to have caused the illnesses. However, Japan, South Korea, and Guam later declared the USS Reagan too radioactive to enter their ports.

The court case is moving slowly—it was filed in 2012. According to Courthouse News, eight of the sailor-plaintiffs have already died—most from cancer—since the first case was filed. The sailors are represented by some high-profile attorneys, including, among others, former US Sen. John Edwards and his daughter Cate Edwards.

Cate Edwards told Courthouse News there are 23 plaintiffs living with cancer, many of whom served in Fukushima in their early 20s and some as young as 18. Beyond the group suffering cancer, many of the sailors have degenerative diseases, some have lost mobility, use of their arms and legs, some have back problems and eyesight loss.

A 26-month-old toddler born to a sailor-father who served in Fukushima died from brain and spine cancer. One female sailor opted to end a pregnancy after finding out the fetus had severe birth defects, Edwards reported. Another sailor, who was pregnant during the mission and her “Baby A.G.,” who was born in October 2011 with multiple genetic mutations, are also plaintiffs.

“Why are all these young, healthy, fit people getting cancer? Experiencing thyroid issues? It’s too strange to be a coincidence,” Edwards told Courthouse News. “That just doesn’t happen absent some external cause. All of these people experienced the same thing and were exposed to radiation at Fukushima. A lot of this is just common sense.”

No trial date has been set, but attorneys will argue a government “motion to dismiss” at a hearing Jan. 4. —Bianca Bruno, Courthouse News online, Nov. 29, 2017; Harvey Wasserman, EcoWatch/Nuclear, Feb. 26, 2014

Steel Maker Fraud Also Hit Reactors

For over 10 years, the Japanese manufacturing giant Kobe Steel falsified test data on certain substandard products to avoid the cost of massive do-overs. The scandal, in which the company faked data on the quality of aluminum, copper, wire and steel to cover-up unmet engineering standards, like strength. The fraud has impacted at least 500 industrial customers around the world where exacting safety requirements are vital, including builders of cars, bullet trains, aircraft and nuclear reactors. The country’s nearly collapsed nuclear power industry was also hit by the fraud. The Fukushima-Daini, on Japan’s northeast coast near the destroyed Fukushima-Daiichi complex, purchased some of Kobe Steel’s falsely certified copper piping. Tokyo Electric Power Co. claims that the substandard piping was never installed but was in storage.—New York Times, Oct. 14, Oct. 20, and Nov. 11, 2017

Tepco Starts Installing Device to Remove Wrecked Fuel from Reactor 3 Cooling Pool

Six and a half years since the three-reactor disaster began, Tepco just began installing equipment to be used for removing waste fuel rods from the heavily damaged storage pool for reactor 3. The equipment, weighing 72 tons, was lifted by two large cranes.

The storage pool, located in the reactor building on a floor 36 meters [ten stories] above ground level, holds 566 used and unused uranium fuel assemblies. Tepco plans to begin removing the fuel from the pool by the middle of next year. —The Japan Times, Nov. 12, 2017

Six Years Into Fukushima, Robots Finally Find Reactors’ Melted Uranium Fuel

The Great Northeast Japan Earthquake and tsunami in 2011 caused a total loss of cooling at Fukushima-Daiichi. Over-heating of the fuel went out-of-control at three reactors and melted uranium fuel burned hot enough to torch through steel containment structures “and even penetrate the concrete floors below,” Martin Fackler reported. Engineers laboring to find it repeatedly failed in attempts to photograph the wreckage with radiation-proof robots. This summer, new models, redesigned after multiple failures, finally found the fuel in all three reactors. “I’ve been a robotic engineer for 30 years, and we’ve never faced anything as hard as this,” said Shinji Kawatsuma, a director at the Naraha Remote Technology Development Center. “Until now, we didn’t know exactly where the fuel was, or what it looked like,” said Takahiro Kimoto, a general manager for Tepco. Tepco executives said early on that no manual anywhere explained how to confront three simultaneous meltdowns. —New York Times, Nov. 19, 2017

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