Fukushima Nuclear Situation “Deteriorating”

By Richard Wilcox
Dissident Voice
August 20th, 2012

Were it not for certain nuclear whistle blowers and outside, independent experts, the public would have to rely on the glib and technically inaccessible reports from Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) or the Japanese government. Not that those reports are entirely without substance, but due to the incomprehensible technical jargon most people simply throw up their hands and hope for the best.

Luckily, in this day of the internet we can learn a lot about what is going on thanks to independent researchers and writers. To the extent that mainstream newspapers have covered the issue responsibly, and there has been substantive coverage, web sites like “enenews.com”; “fukushima-diary.com” and “rense.com” have served as information clearinghouses for mainstream news, academic studies and independent sources of journalism about the nuclear crisis in Japan.

One Year after Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

By Kenji Kunitomi
ESSF
6 March 2012

One year have passed since tremendous scale of earthquake and tsunami catastrophe which severely attacked and destroyed towns and villages in North-East coastal region of Japan. Nearly 20,000 people were killed and missing, 341,000 have been evacuated, and many people lived in affected zones lost their fundamental basis of daily existences, such as houses, public transport, health care, jobs, and their communities.

Furthermore, the worst nuclear accident of Fukushima Dai-ichi(No1) have caused increasingly devastating situations among population in Fukushima prefecture. The number of evacuee from towns and villages near the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is reaching 100,000. They will be not able to return their hometown for several decades, in fact indefinite period, because of radioactive contamination of land, river, sea and air.

Iran, Canada and the Petro State

By Andrew Nikiforuk

TheTyee.ca

March 5, 2012

Whenever North Americans fill up their vehicles with gasoline these days they should reflect on their ongoing contribution to the dysfunctional status of petro states and the Islamic Republic of Iran in particular.

Iran's civilian nuclear power ambitions, of course, have set off a grand political tiff with the United States and Israel. Both suspect the nation wants to make atomic weapons too.

The United States, which pioneered the globe's oil addiction, has imposed trade sanctions while pundits have begun to beat war drums. Israel, which has quietly eliminated a few Iranian nuclear engineers, has hinted about pre-emptive strikes.

As a consequence, North American motorists, whose driving habits and penchant for cheap oil transformed Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia into bona fide petro states decades ago, are now paying a higher price at the pumps for the most volatile of global commodities.

Border Security Deal's Ugly Twin Carries Major Energy and Environmental Implications for Canada

By Nelle Maxey 
The Common Sense Canadian 
December 19, 2011 

Harper's government officially announced in recent weeks a new Border Security deal with the US. However, little press space was given to the ugly twin of this deal - the Canada-United States Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC) and their "Joint Action Plan". The RCC was set up to "streamline" regulations in four economic sectors engaged in cross-border trade. These sectors are Food &Agriculture, Transportation, Energy and Environment and Personal Care Products.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the press release for the RCC's Joint Action Plan. The word "Energy" was dropped from the Energy and Environment sector. That's right. Never mind that energy, including oil, natural gas and hydroelectricity, is arguably the most important sector of Canada-US trade in today's constrained energy supply world.

'It's insane': Feds invest heavily in AECL even as they sell off reactor division

By Jason Fekete
Postmedia News
September 27, 2011

This is a July 8, 2009 handout photo from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. The federal Conservative government tossed more than $183 million into Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. in the first three months of the fiscal year — nearly double the total annual budget — even as it was selling off the nuclear reactor division for just $15 million, plus royalties.

Photograph by: Handout, CNS/AECL

The federal Conservative government tossed more than $183 million into Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. in the first three months of the fiscal year — nearly double the total annual budget — even as it was selling off the nuclear reactor division for just $15 million, plus royalties.

A new report from Canada's parliamentary spending watchdog also shows that while the Harper government is on pace to find its overall expected budget savings, it has seen massive expenditure hikes in some departments as the Tories implement their tough-on-crime agenda.

Japan’s Nuclear Disaster: Radiation Still Leaking, Recovery Still Years Away?

By Richard Wilcox
Dissident Voice
September 19th, 2011

If nuclear power is so ‘safe,’ why is it that nuclear power stations are not placed where the power is most needed – in or very near large cities? Because they are dangerous. OK, if they’re dangerous, why is it the operators are not terribly interested in safety measures?
– Tony Boys, Can Do Better Blog¹

Over six months have passed since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. What progress if any has been made to deal with what is surely one the worst industrial accidents in history?

The situation at the Fukushima No.1 power station site is far from being resolved. Although Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has said a “cold shutdown” of some of the reactors may be “within reach.”² 

Fukushima, Mon Horreur

The Dream of Economic Reason Gives Birth to Tremendous Catastrophes

By Elmar Altvater
Transform!
August 2011

Click here for film info

Co-President of the party DIE LINKE, Klaus Ernst, explained the meagre results of his party in the March 27, 2011 German regional elections (3.1% in Rhineland-Palatinate, 2.8% in Baden-Wuerttemberg) and the two-digit increase in the vote of the Greens after the heated electoral campaign focusing on nuclear policy in the wake of the catastrophe of Fukushima, in which the topic of social justice had been pushed to the background. In his words: “If everything is contaminated with radiation, even a minimum wage does not help”.

That is true. Even the global economic crisis which continues to cause pain and which has manoeuvred some states to the brink of bankruptcy, and the Euro-zone nearly to its collapse, is less often spoken about than the nuclear disaster in Japan, at 9,000 kilometres from Europe.

This is globalisation in its concreteness: supply and trade chains, financial transactions and migration, cultural exchange, the internet and mobile phones, not to mention the formal and informal meetings of the G-8, the G-20 etc., have created not only a virtual but a very real proximity. And now radioactively contaminated material in containers could be distributed from Japan to the entire world. Does the container – the symbol and vehicle of globalisation – have to be abolished, and is it necessary, after the liberalisation of customs and passenger security controls, to introduce new radioactivity controls? Where are the limits of globalisation?

The answer is: in nature, as Frederick Engels clairvoyantly explained in the reprimand in his “Dialectics of Nature”: “Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us … Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature … but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst…”. If the productive and destructive forces are sufficiently developed – and this is the case in the nuclear age –, economic rationality transforms itself not only into irrationality but into catastrophes.

Read more HERE.

Toward a Nuclear Weapons Convention: A Role for Canada

Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention

Five Canadian civil society organizations urged the Canadian government to act on motions already adopted by both the Senate and the House of Commons calling on the government “to deploy a major worldwide Canadian diplomatic initiative” for nuclear disarmament.

Expert Seminar, April 11 & 12th, 2011, Ottawa, Canada
More information HERE.

Recommendations of the Sponsoring Groups

The Ottawa Experts Seminar on a Nuclear Weapons Convention included participants from the academic community and civil society, as well as diplomats, parliamentarians, and government officials. The discussions addressed a broad range of legal, political, security, and verification requirements for progress toward a global legal ban on nuclear weapons.

Participants welcomed the unanimous motions in the Canadian Senate and the House of Commons encouraging "the Government of Canada to engage in negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention" and "to deploy a major world-wide Canadian diplomatic initiative in support of preventing nuclear proliferation and increasing the rate of nuclear disarmament."

Top 10 Great Works of Nuclear Cinema

By Scott Thill
Alternet
August 18, 2011

Threads poster

Despite the maddening lack of mainstream coverage, Fukushima remains a ticking time bomb, according to physicist Michio Kaku, who said Northern Japan was almost wiped off the map. In other words, there's really no good news.

The only positive outcome of the Fukushima clusterfuck is that nations around the world have now seriously considered abandoning their nuclear programs altogether. Germany and Switzerland announced they're finished with nukes, although not until 2022 and 2034, respectively. Italy is of a similar mind, and of course so is Japan, which is ready to scrap the Fukushima plant, along with its nuclear ambitions in general, if it can ever get close enough to the its still-lethal meltdowns without being irradiated to death.

Jaitapur, India: a New Nuclear Folly

By Danielle Sabai

Asia Left Reporter

August 16, 2011 

The Fukushima disaster has highlighted the fact that insecurity is inherent to nuclear energy. It is quite simply not possible to predict all the technical or human malfunctions or the outbursts of nature. 

This disaster, of a magnitude unequalled since Chernobyl and the extent of whose consequences is still not known, has reopened in India the debate on the safety of civil nuclear power and the Indian government’s policy of nuclear expansion.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Why World War II ended with Mushroom Clouds 65 years ago by Jacques R. Pauwels

Globalresearch

 

“On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, the nuclear bomb ‘Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshimaby an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, directly killing an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought total casualties to 90,000-140,000.”[1]

 

“On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki was the target of the world's second atomic bomb attack at 11:02 a.m., when the north of the city was destroyed and an estimated 40,000 people were killed by the bomb nicknamed ‘Fat Man.’ The death toll from the atomic bombing totalled 73,884, as well as another 74,909 injured, and another several hundred thousand diseased and dying due to fallout and other illness caused by radiation.”[2]

 

In the European Theatre, World War II ended in early May 1945 with the capitulation of Nazi Germany. The “Big Three” on the side of the victors – Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union – now faced the complex problem of the postwar reorganization of Europe.

 

The United Stateshad entered the war rather late, in December 1941, and had only started to make a truly significant military contribution to the Allied victory over Germany with the landings in Normandy in June 1944, less than one year before the end of the hostilities. When the war against Germany ended, however, Washington sat firmly and confidently at the table of the victors, determined to achieve what might be called its “war aims.”

 

As the country that had made the biggest contribution and suffered by far the greatest losses in the conflict against the common Nazi enemy, the Soviet Union wanted major reparation payments from Germany and security against potential future aggression, in the form of the installation in Germany, Poland and other Eastern European countries of governments that would not be hostile to the Soviets, as had been the case before the war. 

 

Moscow also expected compensation for territorial losses suffered by the Soviet Unionat the time of the Revolution and the Civil War, and finally, the Soviets expected that, with the terrible ordeal of the war behind them, they would be able to resume work on the project of constructing a socialist society. The American and British leaders knew these Soviet aims and had explicitly or implicitly recognized their legitimacy, for example at the conferences of the Big Three inTehran and Yalta.

 

 

That did not mean that Washington and London were enthusiastic about the fact that the Soviet Union was to reap these rewards for its war efforts; and there undoubtedly lurked a potential conflict with Washington’s own major objective, namely, the creation of an “open door” for US exports and investments in Western Europe, in defeated Germany, and also in Central and Eastern Europe, liberated by the Soviet Union. In any event, American political and industrial leaders - including Harry Truman, who succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt as President in the spring of 1945 - had little understanding, and even less sympathy, for even the most basic expectations of the Soviets. 

“Into Eternity” – A haunting look at the future of radioactive waste

Beyond Nuclear

Beyond Nuclear is proud to announce that we are the non-theatrical NGO distributor of  the new film, Into Eternity, hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a rare hybrid: an information-packed documentary crossed with an existential art film . . .  one of the most provocative movies of the year.” You can partner with us in screening this extraordinary and thought-provoking film.

Into Eternity explores the utter impossibility of storing nuclear waste for 100,000 or even a million years. It is, on the one hand, a documentary about the Onkalo storage facility presently under construction in Finland, and on the other hand, a startlingly beautiful work of art and an urgent provocation that ponders the question of who – or what – will remain on this earth when that time frame has elapsed.

Please log on here if you would like to collaborate with Beyond Nuclear –  and our partner, Specialty Studios – to screen this important film in your community – whether at a house party or at a larger public venue. Specialty Studios will work with you to provide promotional materials. Please contact Beyond Nuclear for printed information, follow-on action items, our flier and – where feasible and desirable – a speaker.

What is the secret to success of Germany's anti-nuke movement?

Beyond Nuclear
July 22, 2011

"Nuclear power? No Thanks!" in German

Intense grassroots organizing. Several decades worth.

In a story entitled "Germany's Anti-Nuclear Shift," Public Radio International's "The World" looks at the long history of Germany's anti-nuclear power movement, especially its resistance to the national radioactive waste dumpsite at Gorleben. That long history laid the groundwork for massive street demonstrations, as well as Green Party electoral victory, in the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. Even pro-nuclear Conservative Party Prime Minister Angela Merkel could not withstand the popular pressure, and announced a dramatic reversal to her previous plans to extend the operations of Germany's 17 atomic reactors: the immediate shutdown of the 7 oldest units, followed by the gradual shutdown of the 10 remaining units by 2022.

A companion piece shows that the replacement power will come from Germany's renewable and efficiency industries -- already world leaders -- redoubling efforts, despite challenges. Gerry Hadden, the reporter of the two stories above, added his thoughts in a blog entitled "In Nukes’ Shadow, Fearlessness and Fatalism," comparing and contrasting the feelings of those living near the permanently shuttered (for safety reasons, after a fire) Brunsbüttel nuclear power plant in Germany, with those living near the shattered Chernobyl Unit 4 in Ukraine. 

The deep green meaning of Fukushima

By Don Fitz
Links 
International Journal of Socialist Renewal
June 26, 2011

Humanity must decrease its use of energy. The decrease must be a lot (not a little bit) and it must happen soon. A failure to do so will lay the foundation for the destruction of human life by some combination of climate change and radiation.

How long will the disastrous consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan continue? A good estimate is about 4.5 billion years — the half life of uranium-238. [1] The March 11, 2011, meltdowns sounded alarms that environmentalists have rung for over half a century. There is also a deeper green meaning: the limits of economic growth have long since passed and we need to design a world with considerably less stuff.

Japan Workers Bear Brunt of Nuke Clean-up

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
June 25, 2011

Older workers are volunteering to help clean up the nuclear site

HAVANA TIMES, June 25 (IPS) — Twenty-eight-year-old Yushi Sato washes cars for a living, but they are no ordinary cars. Every day, Sato hoses down vehicles contaminated with radiation from the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant that was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami that hit north-east Japan Mar 11.

Sato, who has worked at the Fukushima plant for the past five years, used to be a welder, but after the disaster struck he was assigned the job of washing the plant’s various vehicles. “We wash on average around 200 vehicles that show higher than normal radiation levels,” he told IPS.

Global support for nuclear plummets - lower than coal

Beyond Nuclear
June 22, 2011

In the wake of new nuclear power plant build rebukes in both Germany and Italy, a new poll conducted by international research company Ipsos for Reuters News finds that global support for nuclear energy has dropped quickly to 38% (down 16 points from 54%) to now become lower than support for coal (48%)—fuelled by a 26% jump in new opponents to nuclear power (above 50% in India, China, Japan and South Korea) who indicate that the recent crisis in Japan caused their decision.

Ipsos also released a detailed power point presentation of their findings. The survey of nearly 19,000 people in 24 countries also showed that nearly three-quarters of people think nuclear energy is only a limited and soon obsolete form of energy. Solar energy topped the charts with 97% of respondents strongly favoring it, closely followed by 93% for wind power.

Fukushima report shows nuclear power can never be safe and cheap

The first "independent" review of the safety failures during Japan's nuclear disaster reveals some chillingly obvious "lessons" to be learned

Damien Carrington's Blog
guardian.co.uk
June 20, 2011

The first "independent" review of the Fukushima nuclear disaster was published today and it does not make reassuring reading.

Japan is perhaps the most technologically advanced nation on Earth and yet, time after time, the report finds missing measures that I would have expected to already be in place. It highlights the fundamental inability for anyone to anticipate all future events and so deeply undermines the claims of the nuclear industry and its supporters that this time, with the new generation of reactors, things will be different.

Northern Communities Discuss Nuclear Waste

By Mark Melnychuk
The Meadow Lake Progress
Saskatchewan, Canada
June 10, 2011

Jim Harding addresses the meeting in Beauval, Sask.

Both the benefits and risks of storing nuclear waste were up for discussion at an open forum in Beauval.

The Northern Forum for Truth on Nuclear Waste Storage was hosted by the Committee for Future Generations, and was held on June 2. More than 200 people attended the event.

Mayors and band councillors from as far south as Saskatoon were invited. Although community leaders were asked to show up, organizers said they didn’t want the forum to become a political battleground. Instead, they wanted to inform members of the public who could one day have the responsibility of deciding if they would like to store nuclear waste.

Nuclear Insanity

By Dr. Vandana Shiva
Global Research
May 25, 2011

Villagers protest Jaitapur nuclear plant

Fukushima has raised, once again, the perennial questions about human fallibility and human frailty, about human hubris and man’s arrogance in thinking he can control nature. The earthquakes, the tsunami, the meltdown at Japan’s nuclear power plant are nature’s reminders of her power.

The scientific and industrial revolution was based on the idea that nature is dead, and the earth inert matter. The tragedy in Japan is a wakeup call from Mother Nature — an alarm to tell us she is alive and powerful, and that humans are powerless in her path. The ruined harbours, villages and towns, the ships, aeroplanes and cars tossed away by the angry waves as if they were tiny toys are reminders that should correct the assumption that man can dominate over nature — with technology, tools and industrial infrastructure.

Nuclear Crisis in Japan

By Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Global Research

May 27, 2011

Thursday, May 26, 2011. Evidence is growing that the March 11 earthquake itself caused major damage to the Fukushima Daiichi reactors even before the accompanying tsunami knocked out offsite power and ensured the subsequent meltdowns.

According to Keiji Miyazaki, professor emeritus of nuclear reactor engineering at Osaka University, the earthquake likely damaged the high pressure coolant injection system, part of the emergency core cooling system at Unit 3 (as we reported below, it already has been believed that Unit 1 suffered severe damage from the earthquake). This system is supposed to work to cool the reactor even if power is lost, but at Unit 3, it didn’t. A review of pressure readings at Unit 3 indicate that there likely was a major steam leak that ultimately led to the speedy meltdown there. Article from Asahi.com here.