Good Night, and Good Luck!: Nuclear Energy

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Dienstag, 11. März 2014

Fukushima ... ongoing catastrophe for 3 years

This week, Japan has the tragic obligation to be remembered of 2 catastrophes that will have changed the country forever. There is first of all, the unprecedented Tōhoku earthquake, that rocked the empire of the sun with a 9.0 magnitude quake and the resulting tsunami cost the lives of over 15.000 people. As if this wasn't enough, the Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered 3 fatal meltdowns after being hit by the tsunami. The failure in all cooling systems led to the 2nd biggest release of radioactive material, the biggest since Chernobyl.

The Japanese reactors had been declared virtually prone to failure and accidents by the nuclear lobby. The argument that Nuclear accidents happen only in ramshackled old Soviet plants was finally broken: Not only did the triple meltdown at Daiichi Nuclear Powerplant in Fukushima cause environmental damage by radiation, but the health of the entire Japanese population is put at risk, with huge cost of a meltdown, which TEPCO, the exploiting firm will not be made accountable for. The heavy financial cost of a meltdown is inevitably borne by the public, not by the companies that created and operated the plants. None of the world's 450 nuclear reactors are invulnerable to human error, catastrophes, terrorism or ageing.

As a reaction to Fukushima and slow evacuation, 160,000 people fled their homes because of radioactive contamination, and continue to live without compensation in inhumane conditions. On this day, FYEG says NO to NUCLEAR POWER, and strongly calls upon the Japanese government to take on the fight of the people from Date-City, Tomioka, Minamisoma, Fukushima and many other cities ravaged by radiation. In a country that suffered the only dropping of a Nuclear bomb on a civil target... twice, we find it highly unusual that the brave people from Fukushima Prefecture are kept alone. On this date we reach out our hearts and thoughts to the victims of the Tōhoku earthquake, the Daiichi nuclear disaster, and all other victims that the civil and military use of nuclear energy have cost mankind.

This Article was written by Phillippe Schockweiler and published on www.fyeg.org

Dienstag, 12. November 2013

Mayak – A Chernobyl before Chernobyl

In 1957, a nuclear accident in the Soviet military complex of Mayak, left 23.000 square kilometers of the Russian mountain slopes in the Ural contaminated. I organized with a conference about the so called “Kychtym-Disaster” and invited the Russian human rights lawyer, Nadezhda Kutepova, the only lawyer that seeks justice for the victims of this immense nuclear accident. Brave Nadya does not stop in Russia, and fights for her clients rights, even in front of the Human Rights court in Strasbourg. This is her story:

Picture: Nadezhda Kutepova & me during the conference

The Quest for the Soviet Bomb

To tell a story one must normally know the ending. Truth, is in this case the ending is far from being written. After the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many countries began investigating the possibility of the “bomb”. The Soviet regime, at the height of their political power was aware that they had a few year gap in developing their nuclear capacities. It was then that the order came to build a top secret plutonium enrichment facility and several reactors at a disclosed location. This location is Mayak, the birth place of the Soviet bomb. In the peaceful region of the South Urals, that had known little activities before, accept for Lavrenty Beria's gulags of course. In a hurry, Stalin dispatched many of his top scientists to Mayak to build the site, among them, Soviet engineering and physicist Igor Kurchatov. Supervision of the project was in the hands of Stalin's closest ally, and notorious secret-police chief Beria.

First accidents and spills

In these pioneering days of nuclear exploitation, environmental standards where never a priority. The reactors and enrichment facility as well as the centrifuges were built at an enormous pace, leaving little time and place to look for a proper way to store low level and medium level radioactive waste (LLW, MLW). Most of the waste in the 1940s and up to 1952 was dumped into the nearby river and complex ecosystem of the “Techa” . It's only a few years ago that “RosAtom”, the state owned exploitation conglomerate of nuclear energy in Russia acknowledged, that this way of disposing of radioactive waste, was a common practice up until 2005. The Federal Russian Prosecutor's Office later found out, that in 2004 alone, 60'000m3 were released into the Techa river. By today, most of the Techa must be regarded as LLW to MLW, although the river is still the water reserve of many cities and villages in the Ural.

1957 “Kychtym” Accident and the most polluted and dangerous spot on earth “Lake Karachay”

The site of Mayak didn't proof well for supplying cooling water. The river Techa was too shallow and the next big cooling lake Kyzyltash became rapidly so contaminated as it was an open(!) cooling system. The short term solution was to dig nuclear containment vessels into the ground.

After numerous accidents, the most crucial one, happened on September 29 September 1957. An underground tank filled with medium to high level nuclear waste exploded. The explosion, visible for many kilometers left inhabitants scared. 23.000 square kilometers had been permanently contaminated. The fallout region is up to this date known as the “East Ural Radioactive trace”. As a consequence 34 villages and towns were evacuated, 20.000 people displaced and evacuated. The leftover radioactive waste from the accident (20 million cu) was dumped into Lake Karachay, up until today known as the most polluted place on the planet. The Lake was covered with concrete blocks to prevent sediment changes, as a huge dust storm left 400.000 people contaminated in 1967. With a concentration of 12-times the radioactive isotopes that were liberated in the Chernobyl accidents, a stay of 4-5 minutes would result in a deadly dose followed by acute radiation sickness and death by organ failure.

Ongoing Accidents and 3^rd Generation Nuclear Victims:

The contaminated region around the southern Ural city of Chelyabinsk has a unique feature: Here some people suffer from the consequences of radiation in the 3^rd generation. The workers that build the plant, liquidators from the 1957 and 1967 nuclear events, inhabitants of the south Ural. It goes that far that entire families have three generations of people dying of the consequences of the Mayak accidents. The errors and faulty plants existence and records were only published as a consequence of the Glasnost and Perestroika movements in the Soviet Union in 1990.

Since it is hard to pinpoint the responsible of these acts, the victims are left alone and face difficult conditions such as poor access to public health care.

Nadezhda Kutepova fights for the rights of these people. As a Russian human rights lawyer, she is representing her clients, victims from the contaminated region of the South Ural radioactive trace region in front of different courts in Russia and in front of the Human Rights court in Strasbourg.

Nadezhda, who lost both her parents and grandmother to “Mayak”. Her grandmother was one of the nuclear engineers assisting Kurchatov in building the Soviet bomb, her father was a liquidator of 1957 and her mother a physician in the emergency services of the site. The cases that Nadezhda takes on, are eerie examples of how Nuclear energy and weapon production is a threat to human life. On one hand, she has cases of victims from the early years of exploitation of Mayak: liquidators from 1957, children and pregnant women that were forcefully enlisted to destroy crops and fields that were heavily contaminated, 2^nd and 3^rd generation victims that suffer from genetic diseases, leukemia, cancer or other radiation-related diseases. Many of these liquidators and clean up experts where detailed to Chernobyl in 1986 to help with the unprecedented clean up task and building of the sarcophagus. Still today, there are cases or birth defects where Nadezhda fights for justice, with many cases won in front of regional and the Human rights court in Strasbourg. Her work has earned her a Nuclear Free Future Award in the Category “Resistance”.

By Nadezhda Kutepova & Philippe Schockweiler

November, 2013

Further Information:

ARTE Report on Nadezhda's work:

http://www.arte.tv/fr/russie-ozersk-ville-secrete-nucleaire/3791320,CmC=3791326.html

Interview:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mifSiUvzh9A
http://www.wecf.eu/english/articles/2009/06/courtcase-planetofhopes.php
http://www.chernobylcongress.org/speakers/artikel/5730b1ae9f5c73c4f4924d6f1478ea94/-0782c08f06.html

Donnerstag, 22. August 2013

Mainstreaming Fukushima - The Truth is out there

“This time no one dropped a bomb on us … We set the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives.”

Haruki Murakami, Japanese best-selling author and philosopher

Crippled reactor 4 - via Kyodo

The past two weeks were a breakthrough for the awareness of the situation in Fukushima...internationally. Whereas International media are quite accurately depicting the worsening situation in Fukushima and quite correctly pointing out the high chance of an international decade long catastrophe, the Japanese Media are still in a total blackout. This ignorance peaked yesterday in the reopening of the beaches in Fukushima City when international experts warn of a possible thousand year long contamination of the food chain and life in the Pacific ocean.

What is leaking in the moment & What you need to know

Leak Problem 1: Storage Tanks for radioactive waters

2-3 tanks for storing used highly-radioactive waste water from exploitation and processing are currently leaking and having been classed by the operation firm (Tepco) as an INES-3 "serious accident"

"The leak, which has not been plugged, is so contaminated that a person standing 50 cm away would, within an hour, receive a radiation dose five times the average annual global limit for nuclear workers. After 10 hours, a worker in that proximity to the leak would develop radiation sickness with symptoms including nausea and a drop in white blood cells" (via Japan Today via Reuters)

Leak Problem 2: Underground Water & Quench/Cleaning Water leak

Water from clean up processes but also tsunami water continues to sink into the ground, thus poisoning the groundwater but also escaping in large amounts into the Pacific. This process cannot be stopped. We fail the technology to stop such processes.

"Frankly, I don’t believe so. I think we will continue to release radioactive material into the ocean for 20 or 30 years at least. They have to pump the water out of the areas surrounding the nuclear reactor. But frankly, this water is the most radioactive water I’ve ever experienced. I work directly over a nuclear reactor cores during refueling outages. And the water directly over a nuclear reactor core when the plant is operating is a thousand times less radioactive than this water. (Arie Gundersen via GlobalResearch.org)"

Leak Problem 3: Ridiculous amount of Radiation released:

The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety(Japan) said the amount of the isotope that flowed into the ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant between March 21 and mid-July reached an estimated 27.1 quadrillion becquerels(Caesium-137). A quadrillion is equivalent to 1,000 trillion. [...]The report also said the Pacific was polluted at an exceptional speed because the plant stands in a coastal area with strong currents (Tepco via Kyodo-Agency via)

July, 2013: It is believed that more than 5,000 tons of radioactive water still remain in the pit ... and trenches after flowing from the No. 2 reactor building to the turbine building and, then, into the pit.

(Asahi-Media via enenews)

July 28 : A cable trench running under the turbine building of the No. 2 reactor [...] contained 2.35 billion becquerels [per liter] of cesium and 750 million becquerels of other, unnamed radioactive substances, including strontium, that emit beta rays. (Japan Today)

N.B the norm is 150bq !

Leak Problem 4: Fueltanks in miserable shape:

Like I have reported here previously, the leaks in the fuel tanks are still the biggest problem. Yesterday during recuperation of used fuel rods in the cooling fuel tanks a major reaction appeared as workers tried to pull out the radioactive rods. The momentary situation was very well resumed in yesterday's RT-Online article by Christopher Busby, European Committee on Radiation Risks, University of Ulster:

This showed that there would be some 200,000 extra cancers in roughly 10 million population in the 200km radius of the site in the next 10 years, and 400,000 over 50 years. (in 2011)

... Probably because it is now clear that the saturation of the ground from all the pumping water for cooling the several reactors and spent fuel pools has destabilized the foundations of the buildings, TEPCO is bringing forward its operation to try and deal with what is perhaps the most dangerous of the four sites, the spent fuel pond of Reactor 4. For this pond contains a truly enormous amount of radioactive material: 1,331 spent fuel grids amounting to 228.3 tons of Uranium and Plutonium buried inside a swimming pool which has already dried out once and exploded. That explosion blasted a significant, but unknown, quantity of lethally radioactive bits and pieces of fuel element around the site (where I heard they were bulldozed into the ground - who knows?), but it also blew the top off the building, covered the fuel elements under the water with rubble and pieces of crane machinery, and no doubt twisted and melted a large proportion of the remaining spent fuel. Then what happens? Not quite Armageddon, but as far as Japan is concerned, almost. I bet they have contingency plans to evacuate the northern island to Korea, China, anywhere. A lot of this radiation will end up in the USA, a long way downwind, admittedly, but then there is an awful lot of radioactivity involved.

Leak Problem 5: It's illegal but the last option:

The mass dumping of highly radioactive water (measured at 7.5 million times the normal allowed levels) into the Pacific Ocean is not just an environmental disaster; it’s also a violation of international law. The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, passed in 1972, forbids nations and companies from dumping toxic wastes into the ocean. (See Maritime Convention on Prevention of Pollution by waste and toxic matter dumping also named London Convention or L72)

In a nutshell:

The Fukushima power plant is leaking unstoppably for the next decades from many ends, with the highest amount of radioactivity ever measured. The sheer amount and speed in which it is dispersed into the Pacific ocean and starts pollution the environment and food chain (P.S: Bluefin tuna in Californian Waters are already spiking high amounts of radioactive isotopes) is leading towards the biggest man-made environmental disaster which could lead to millions of casulties.

What needs to be done:

- Harm Reduction

- Try to stop leaks where possible (Groundwater leaks virtually impossible to stop)

- Dispatch Military forces to help with the cleanup, JDF & International Troops

- Start an immediate international fund for relief

- Declare the North, Central and South-Eastern Pacific a fishing-free zone, monitor closely the situation

- Stop eating fishing and shellfish products from the pacific ocean

Sonntag, 21. Juli 2013

E.U subventions for Nuclear Industry

My Interview on the proposed EU subventions on Nuclear Energy by the EU Commission's Competitiveness Office, to subsidize Nuclear power the same way as sustainable and Green energy sources caused an uproar in Brussels and the anti-nuke community. (Pic: RTL.LU)
Interview in Luxembourgian: To be seen here:
http://tele.rtl.lu/waatleeft/replay/v/20130720/0/2996375/

Samstag, 8. Juni 2013

Cattenom or how I learned to live with the one of the most defectuous Nuclear Plants in the Western Hemisphere and stopped worrying?


Transformer Explosion Cattenom Unit1 7th June 2013

Yes, you can say that my focus has always been towards Chernobyl, Mayak and to Fukushima, I researched there, attended seminars, held trainings, blew whistles... But all theses disasters made me blind to see the one just outside my window. As for several years now, I traveled to different hot spots, helped different anti-nuclear movements across Europe, but really failing sometimes to take a glance outside my bedroom window, from where I can always see the cooling clouds of Cattenom, Luxembourg's capital city is just 25km outside this mega nuclear power plant.

Cattenom is the 8th biggest Nuclear power plant in the world, one of the biggest in Europe. The flagship of the French nuclear parc. Also it has another very scary record. It is the commercial plant with the most known incidents in the last year. In 2012, 47 incidents were reported to the French Government Atomic Security Agency (ASN). In February 2013, 2 workers died in a horrific work accident while renovating the ceiling of the containment. The sheer number of incidents made the ASN perform a new survey and special visit to Cattenom from June 4th to June 6th to review the plant. Next to lack of basic radio-protective material such as A-suits and that defects are fixed or identified too late out of economic reasons, the ASN report concludes: "An in-depth analysis shows that major incidents - even if they are not relevant for the functioning of the system - go back to an insufficient accuracy in the preparation or an inadequate coordination. Such inaccuracies, some with technical incidents that were not predictable in 2012 have led to the regular examinations had to be extended considerably. " The 2006 founded "independent" state body ASN is not known for uttering such clear messages and in the case of Cattenom it seems that they were very preoccupied about the general situation.

Only published days later but on June 5, traces of boron were found in the cooling system of the reactor which left engineers baffled as they are still trying to figure out where these traces come from. Normally boron is not used during the reaction but is mostly used to break up a dangerous chain reaction. Are the exploiting EDF (Electricitiy of France) again covering up something?

One day (!) after their special survey on 7th of June, around 13:30, the transformer of unit 1 caught fire and exploded quickly after that. The shock wave and bang was heard in a radius of approximately 15km. Scared local residents called the emergency services as black smoke came pouring out unit 1. It is believed that 50 vehicles and a 100 firefighters rushed to the scene, to deal with the dangerous and difficult task to extinct a transformer-fire. Shortly after the moment of the explosion, Unit-1 went into automatic shut down. As far as I was told from the State radio-protection, emergency-power units did not have to be started as the reactor was still being alimented by another transformer. Nevertheless this shows that one of the main lifelines, the main transformer and generator were comprehended. Generally it is the failure of several of those systems or circumstances that lead to a disaster as f.i. construction design, human error in Chernobyl or poor use, human error and multiple electric failure in Fukushima. The fire was thought to be extinct by 16:30. Unit 1 will be down until further notice, the reactor is in shut down and is being cooled at the moment.

On June 11th, the Cattenom power station simply uttered a small press release to the National Homefront and Radioprotection to announce that yet another auxiliary transformer, the emergency generator of Unit 3 was broken and not operational until further notice. Experts could not yet determine the source of the failure.

This incident from friday has revealed once more, that even after extensive stress test, national safety reviews, and numerous warning, and whistle blowers, a power plant can grow out of control within a very short time. Cattenom, which was built as the most modern, safest and powerful of all French plants, is the best example of it. And to tell you the truth, you kind of expect it to happen. The safety record is Cattenom is so so poor that you just wait for the worst. A higher dose of tritium in the cooling river, soil contamination, technical failures, you are used to hear only those kind of news from Cattenom. And at one point you live with it. Still you protest, you work against it, but somewhat also accept the faith that there is a high chance that things will go very wrong at a moment. Nevertheless, when I saw the black smoke, at the time of Friday's explosion I was about 12clicks outside of Cattenom, I got scared, and suddenly all the people you ever talked to in the exclusion zone, all the moved people from contaminated areas, everything comes together and makes sense, and as sometimes rather reluctant and sane person you start to accept and live with it.

Sign a petition against Cattenom on Avaaz:
http://www.avaaz.org/de/petition/AKW_Cattenom_abschalten_Kein_Fukushima_2_im_Herzen_Europas/?pv=12

Further Reading: (Selection of Press Releases from the Station, press articles, etc):
http://www.cattenom-non-merci.de/

Video of the fire:

Donnerstag, 23. August 2012

The Fairytale of Safe Nuclear Energy: Contaminated People, Highly radioactive fish and mutated butterflies in Fukushima

Since the Fukushima catastrophe, several politicians, publishers, "scientists" and journalists tried to sell us the story that nothing happened in Fukushima. We knew better from the beginning but the studies and results from the last week regarding the effect of Fukushima radiation on wild life has shown us once more, how dangerous nuclear power really is.

First of all, a study was published on Muration in butterflies around Fukushima. A large number of butterflies showes deformities in larvae and also in adult animals with deformed wings, antennae and eyes in several generations:

Radiation that leaked from the Fukushima nuclear plant following last year's tsunami caused mutations in some butterflies — including dented eyes and stunted wings — though humans seem relatively unaffected, researchers say.The mutations are the first evidence that the radiation has caused genetic changes in living organisms. (via kval.com)

It is likely that the first generation of butterflies suffered both physical damage from radiation sickness and genetic damage from the massive exposure to radioactive isotopes after the disaster, the researchers reported. This generation passed on their genetic mutations to their offspring, who then acquired their own genetic defects from eating radioactive leaves and from exposure to low levels of radiation remaining in the environment. The cumulative effect caused successive generations to develop more serious physical abnormalities. "Note that every generation was continuously exposed," said Otaki.

Mousseau said, "This study adds to the growing evidence that low-dose radiation can lead to significant increases in mutations and deformities in wild animal populations."

The findings are consistent with previous studies in Japan and at Chernobyl, Mousseau added. "The ecological studies that we have conducted found that the entire butterfly community in Fukushima was depressed in radioactive areas, as were the birds, and that the patterns seen in Fukushima were similar to what has been observed in Chernobyl. If the plants and animals are mutating and dying, this should be cause for significant public concern." (via livescience.com)

As a comparison: the highest caesium contamination found in a wild bore in Western Europe after the Chernobyl incident was 4900bq/kg in a Bavarian wild boar. Japanese Fishermen are not allowed to fish in the zone where this fish was caught, but the fishery exclusion zone spreads only a small area of 30 square miles.

Today, Nuclear activists around the world were shocked to hear that:

The operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said Tuesday it had found 25,800 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive caesium in greenling, 258 times higher than the government safety standard. Fishing in waters off the plant has been voluntarily restricted since the nuclear disaster at the plant, which went into meltdown after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Less than a month after the start of the disaster, Tokyo Electric dumped more than 11,000 tons of wastewater containing radioactive substances into the Pacific. (via times.co.za)

The radiation was caused by a meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima power plant after it was damaged by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. The disaster was so intense that contaminated fish were caught all the way across the Pacific Ocean, on the California coast. But it’s not only aquatic life that is suffering from side effects of the leaked radiation. According to researchers, the radiation has caused mutations in some butterflies, giving them dented eyes, malformed legs and antennae, and stunted wings. The results show the butterflies were deteriorating both physically and genetically. But the harmful risks don’t stop with butterflies. The radioactivity which seeped into the region’s air and water has left humans facing potentially life threatening health issues. Over a third of Fukushima children are at risk of developing cancer, according to the Sixth Report of Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey.The report shows that nearly 36 per cent of children in the Fukushima Prefecture have abnormal thyroid growths which pose a risk of becoming cancerous. (Via R.T)

Since these figures come from Tepco itself it is hard ower really is. After the Chernobyl Event, the European Union raised the limit from 30 Bq/kg to 360bq/kg allowing especially Eastern European mushroom and other farming products to be still imported to the E.U.

The health effect on children also becomes more and more threatening. Over a third of the kids of Fukushima are threatened by cancer or lumps:

After examining more than 38,000 children from the area, medics found that more than 13,000 have cysts or nodules as large as 5 millimeters on their thyroids, the Sixth Report of Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey states. In comparison, a 2001 analysis by the Japan Thyroid Association found that fully zero per cent of children in the city of Nagasaki, which suffered a nuclear attack in August of 1945, had nodules, and only 0.8 per cent had cysts on their thyroids, reports the Telegraph. Radiation enters the body and is distributed through soft tissue, especially in muscle, and then accumulates in the thyroid. It is this accumulation that can potentially lead to cancer. "Yes, 35.8 per cent of children in the study have lumps or cysts, but this is not the same as cancer," says Naomi Takagi, an associate professor at Fukushima University Medical School Hospital, which administered the tests.(via rt.com)

In another interesting contribution, Dr.Tsubokura Shoji from the Institute of Medical Science at Tokyo University who spends 2 weeks a months in Minamisoma City General Hospital where he gives support to families affected by the Fukushima disaster. The internal specialist and hematologist describes the following cases of people contaminated by eating local food like shiitake mushrooms and vegetables:

"A man in his 70-year-old and has consulted screening WBC. It was a result of 20000Bq (!) / Body cesium-134 and 137 together about the results...

Was consulted along with the wife. The result was a result of a total of about 10000Bq/body. Also fix per body weight, and 300Bq/kg. It has come to our inspection look at several hospitals, some of the highest value that I have seen in Japan so far. There is also the value as scattered in the report, such as Belarus. This person was a referral from a certain married couple actually. Another couple is visited a couple of weeks ago, the total cesium 14000Bq/body husband, wife that I was about 8000Bq/body. When asked about the diet, it was that you eat every day and shiitake stop shipment was decided early, leek or make yourself, you can come to collect near you, bamboo shoots, dried persimmons, and garlic" (via Health Blog of Asahi.com)

Sonntag, 1. Juli 2012

Huge Levels of Radidation in Fukushima

On Wednesday, a new videoscope of the basement of the crippled reactor 1 at the Fukushima Dai'chi Nuclear power plant showed disturbingly high levels of radiation. Japanese engineers inserted a camera trough the canalization system into the basement. Just above the radioactive waters, the engineers measured an alarming high level of 10300 milisieverts/hours. In this environment, means a Japanese nuclear power plant worker would reach his year limit within 15 to 20 seconds. 20 to 30 minutes would be enough to render a perfectly healthy adult very sick. Symptoms of acute radiation sickness would appear resulting in death by heart or multiple organ failure. Tepco announced yesterday that the other accidented units 2 and 3 don't show such a high level of radiation. Nevertheless over 1 Sievert (1000milisievert/h) have been measured in outside these units. Tepco announced that the demolition and clean up of the crippled reactors might take up to 50 years.

But also 70km away from Fukushima, a study shows high radioactive pollution of children's playgrounds(*) with up to 100 000 BQ/kg, again demonstrating how radiation has spread all over Japan. Samples were taken from Kashiwa and Saga-City playgrounds.

Meanwhile the biggest Japanese Anti-Nuclear and civil protests and demonstrations since the 1960s are rallying up to 200'000people. Protesters showed their anger about the Government's decision to restart nuclear reactors. However the protest is met by a country and region wide media blackout:

Sources & further Reading:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/06/27/tepco-detects-record-radiation-levels-at-fukushima/

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/record-radiation-levels-detected-at-fukushima-reactor

http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2012/06/27/fukushima-niveaux-records-de-radiations-dans-le-batiment-du-reacteur-n-1_1725442_3244.html

http://enenews.com/more-new-indoor-radiation-dose-record-at-fukushima-5-sieverts-per-hour-detected-at-reactor-no-1-may-be-higher-as-it-exceeded-capacity-of-measuring-device/comment-page-1

(*)http://anti-proton.com/japan/Report030812.pdf

Picture: (c) Kyodo Japan

Montag, 23. April 2012

Health issues & radiation sickness in Japan

For many months now, the first reports, studies and peer reviews have been published on the issue of health effects of the Fukushima-Dai'ichi disaster. Especially children are the most affected of radiation sicknesses and diseases such as thyroid problems, acute cardiovascular diseases, cancers, lumps and irrefutable cell damage, because their immune systems are not fully developed. A study conducted in the Fukushima prefecture on 3375 children showed:

"Total number of children tested: 3765
No. of children found with lumps 5.1 millimeters and larger: 26 (0.7% of total)
No. of children found with lumps smaller than 5.1 millimeters: 1117 (29.7% of total)1143 children, or 30.4% of children tested, were found with lumps of varying sizes. 26 children (0.7%) have been found with lumps with 5.1 millimeters or larger in diameter, and will go through further testing [at some time]. However, Shunichi Yamashita, the head of the commission and the vice president of Fukushima Medical University explains, "There is no malignant change due to the nuclear plant accident". Of 3739 children who will not need further testing (99.3% of children tested), 1117 children (29.7%) have been found with lumps 5.0 millimeters or less in diameter. But the prefectural government has decided they are "benign". (1)

Already last year, in May 2011 Satoshi Tashiro, senior professor of the Hiroshima University had discovered in 550 out of 1100 children's thyroids high and health threatening levels of radiation, up to 0,1 - 0,2 mSv/ h. (2) Regarding the fact that especially children are extremely vulnerable to radiation because their immune system is not yet fully developed and that they are irradiated and exposed to highly radioactive sources of radiation, and contaminated by local food, dust and water, we must unfortunately be ready to predict a high number of children cancers and genetic defects over the next decades, probably worse then Chernobyl. But also unborn life is severely affected by radiation: Examiner.com resumed the risks and threats very well in an article from June 2011:

"In the ultimate nuclear nightmare scenario now unfolding, Japanese local newspapers have attributed sickness in children to Fukushima's nuclear meltdowns, the radioactive levels now elevated throughout eastern Japan. Children over 32 miles from ground zero are suffering fatigue, diarrhea, and nosebleeds, the three most common of eight radiation sickness signs, the three in the earliest stage Tokyo Shinbun newspaper reported that many Japanese children have "inexplicable" symptoms. Each symptom described are among the first experienced with radiation sickness. Japan is dangerously contaminated by radioactivity over a far larger area than previously reported by TEPCO and the central government according to new reports from multiple sources," the Daily Kos reported. The prefectural government of Iwate released new data that shows radioactive contamination of grass exceeds safety standards at a distance of 90 to 125 miles from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plants. Children become radiated when they drink milk and eat dairy products from cows feeding on radioactive grass, even at low levels according to the world's foremost anti-nuclear campaigner, Dr. Helen Caldicott, and other independent scientists. Radioactive materials concentrate in milk" and many other food products. (5)

Pediatricians around Japan but mostly in a 200km radius around Fukushima report of more and more children attended by radiation sickness and describing the typical symptoms:

" Tomoyuki Yamazaki, a Japanese doctor ... in Wakayama Prefecture in western Japan who provides medical counseling at the information center every month, said in an email to ENInews that an increasing number of children he has seen “have nosebleeds that don’t stop, diarrhea, dark circles under their eyes, and incurable stomatitis [an inflammation of the mucous linings in the mouth]. A growing number of children [at the centre] have pains in their chests.” [...] (6)

The fear and growing rumors of miscarriages have been denied by the government although first analysis and statistics point in a different direction. The University of Fukushima disinforms the public by telling them that currently 28 pregnancies in Fukushima are resulting in a miscarriage out of 100 , but that would be a rather normal number. One third of the pregnancies ending in a miscarriage an this is supposed to be normal? The disinformation these days doesn't seem to know any limits. (7) Another less acadamical but interesting report came from the Morning-TV of AsahiTV. Apparently, mutations are also visible in botanic life: Reporters claimed that many mutations in flowers and plants have occurred and showed images of mutated dandelions. (8) The disinformation from the government takes unprecedented levels of absurdity. Sebastian Pflugbeil, a respected German Nuclear Expert and chairman of the Society for Radiation Protection, visited the Fukushima area and was shocked to find a beauty pageant in Fukushima for the prettiest girl who ate only food from Fukushima area. This pageant was supported and sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture. (9) The typical eye-swelling especially in small children has also occured in Fukushima and surrounding areas. Swollen red eyes, as observed in Chernobyl are a typical symptom of thyroid disorder and have been reported in Japan especially by parents whose children played in contaminated sand boxes or playgrounds. (10)

Leukemia cases and fear of Leukemia in Japan is on the rise. A senior Japanese journalist, covering the Fukushima case since march 2011 developed acute lymphocytic leukemia and died after 3 weeks (3). In a recent survey a lot of Japanese people show they are preoccupied about becoming sick and scientist talk about a massive psychotic disorder caused by both the accident and the coverup by Japanese authorities:

"Despite the fact that the Japanese government and TEPCO were caught red-handed underplaying the severity of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, a study has found that almost a quarter of Fukushima residents hospitalized in the aftermath of last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami were treated as having a “psychiatric disorder” because of their concerns over radiation. The phenomenon of authorities underplaying the threat posed by radiation or even characterizing concerns over it as a mental illness has become a dominant theme since the catastrophe just over a year ago. This is despite the fact that Japanese authorities were caught over and over again lying to cover-up the true scale of the disaster.“Some 24.4 percent of people who were hospitalized in Fukushima with psychiatric disorders in the wake of the outbreak of the crisis at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant had done so possibly because of fears of radiation exposure, according to the results of research conducted by psychiatrists at Fukushima Medical University,” reports the Mainichi Daily News" (11)

After 13 months, the whole impact of the catastrophe is yet far from being measurable. The fact that still 3 reactors are out of control and 6 spent fuel pools are beyond repair does however predict a rather pessimistic future.

Sources:

(1) http://ex-skf.blogspot.de/2012/01/1117-children-over-30-of-3739-tested.html via Fukushima Minpo Newspaper

via http://www.minpo.jp/view.php?pageId=4107&blockId=9927368&newsMode=article

(2) http://internationalnucleareventscale7.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/radiation-found-in-up-to-50-of-childrens-thyroid-glands

(3) http://enenews.com/journalist-dies-of-acute-lymphocytic-leukemia-was-living-inside-30-km-zone-to-support-fukushima

(4) http://fukushima-diary.com/2011/12/mhlw-ignores-the-medical-statistics-of-fukushima-and-a-part-of-miyagi/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FukushimaDiary+%28Fukushima+Diary%29
via http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/informationView.do?bcd=1

(5) http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/children-sickness-linked-to-fukushima-radiation

(6) http://www.eurasiareview.com/18042012-japan-fukushima-woman-organizes-radiation-information-centers-at-church/

(7) http://enenews.com/japan-times-28-of-every-100-fukushima-pregnancies-resulted-in-miscarriage-or-abortion-of-course-we-didnt-believe-the-rumor-but-we-just-wanted-to-confirm-that-it-was-groundless-says-survey-l

(8) http://enenews.com/report-asahi-tv-show-airs-photos-of-mutated-plants-in-tokyo-same-program-to-feature-dire-situation-at-no-4-fuel-pool-asked-audience-to-send-in-more-examples-photo

(9) http://japanfocus.org/events/view/142

(10) http://enenews.com/eye-swelling-is-a-symptom-of-thyroid-disorder-i-often-hear-how-children-eyes-become-swollen-after-going-in-radiation-contaminated-sandpits-remember-the-kitty-video

(11) http://www.infowars.com/fear-of-radiation-treated-as-psychiatric-disorder-in-fukushima/

Further information:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/world/asia/japan-studies-radiation-effects-on-children.html?_r=1

http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/04/yamashita-banned-recording-findings-suggestive-of-thyroid-nodule/

http://www.facebook.com/notes/chernobyl-children-fukushima-children/chernobyl-deaths/180964705325501

http://tekknorg.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/children-radiation-maps-2/

Mittwoch, 11. April 2012

Serious incidents in France and South Korea leave many questions:

On April 5^th, 2 fires in reactor 2, in the French Nuclear Power Plant “Penly” provoked a radioactive leak in the primary pumping system releasing 2300 litres of radioactive cooling water per hour. In a first reaction, Bruno Chareyron, senior researcher at the independent nuclear institute CRIRAAD announced that the accident is to be taken very seriously. A serious damage in the primary circuit on the pumping system that allows the reactor to be cooled down is a very serious matter. He asks how is it possible to have a malfunctioning pump with oil leaks, and what is the cause of it? Poor maintenance or low quality material? Furthermore the French Nuclear Safety Agency ASN has not yet commentated on the health state of both firefighters and workers who intervened at the NPP Penly. They can very well protect themselves against radioactive contamination but not against the irradiation from the source. In the case of Penly, regarding the fact that highly radioactive cooling water containing many sorts of radioactive isotopes escaped from the primary system, the irradiation of the workers and firefighters must have heen important. Furthermore the question of the consequences for the environment have not (yet) been addressed by French authorities: EDF, who exploit the NPP Penly reassured that all of the leaking water was caught in special buckets. The question remains how much more these containers could have retained if the leak had not been stopped. These waters will be treated and most probably thrown into the ocean. Knowing that tritium cannot be processed, an important tritium amount will thus be liberated into the Channel. (The nuclear power plant in Penly has already a certificate issued by ASN to drop 72 000 000 000 000 bequerels per year into the Channel) Saying that the impact on the environment is not a risk, is thus a very quick and false conclusion by French authorities. In the next weeks and months it is up to the authorities and also us to check if the tritium readings in the Channel by have substantially risen or not. In another reaction Greenpeace France calls for an immediate stop of all French Nuclear reactors and an urgent petitions EDF and ASN to quickly check all the pumping systems in the “French nuclear park”. The French blog “Le Blog de Fukushima” has published an not really scientific nor representative but yet interesting map of the fallout of Chernobyl and Fukushima applied to Penly. Possible scenarios would imply the evacuation of Bruges, Brussels, London, Eindhoven, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Paris, or important parts of France's Northern seaboard, South East England or entire countries like Belgium or Luxembourg.

Penly, was without any doubt a very close call. Another near accident happened several weeks ago in the South Korean nuclear power plant in Kori the country's oldest station. The incident itself had been kept in the dark for several weeks before South Korean authorities decided to publish it. On February 9^th 2012, the reactor was shut down for inspection. After that, the whole reactor system lost all power and diesel generators failed. The plant was without power for 12 minutes. This is a very serious incident. Electricity failures and problems with energy supply are the most critical events that can happen at a station: No power meaning that neither the reactor can be cooled nor can the chain reaction be controlled. After 12 minutes the electricity in Kori was restored and the workers could stabilize the reactor. One doesn't want to imagine what could have happened in South Korea if the workers hadn't had managed to reestablish the energy supply.

What do these incidents teach us? Especially the incident in Penly shows us that the E.U stress tests did not improve the security of French nuclear power stations. The disastrous state of some plants remain the same. A serious incident seems in France likely and only a matter of time.

Sources:

http://fukushima.over-blog.fr/article-si-penly-103019984.html

http://www.asn.fr/index.php/S-informer/Actualites

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/

http://leblogpolitiquedebernardfrau.20minutes-blogs.fr/archive/2012/04/06/grave-evenement-a-la-centrale-de-penly.html

http://www.irsn.fr/FR/base_de_connaissances/Nucleaire_et_societe/penly3_debat-public/Documents/IRSN_Reponse-CPDP-Penly-3_Q82.pdf

http://www.criirad.org/actualites/dossier2012/penly/penly.html

Images:
- Getty Images 2012 (c)
- (c) Fukushima "Le Blog"

Dienstag, 13. März 2012

Interview with Keith Baverstock

During the “Fukushima 1 Year” Conference, organized in the European Parliament by the Green Group (Greens/EFA) I had the chance to interview Keith Baverstock. “Docent (adjunct professor) in the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Eastern Finland, Keith Baverstock studies the effect of ionizing radiation on the cells and has taken over the years a special interest in effects of low doses of radiation, the toxicity of depleted uranium and the consequences of accidents such as Chernobyl and now Fukushima.”*

Photo: Christian Gapp (c)

Approximately 1 year after the Fukushima catastrophe, how do you see the situation in Japan:

Baverstock: Well, I think the situation is pretty desperate. But I am limited in what I can say and what that might involve in terms of health effects. Because we simply do not have enough information with which to do that. It's pretty clear that in the village of Iiate and around there, there are people which have been exposed to months to levels which are similar to levels which are present in the settlements around the Chernobyl reactor, and where people stay only for 12 days roughly, at the highest. Those people we haven't been able to study because they've been dispersed. But I think there should be a study of these inhabitants of Iiate, because this is potentially valuable information. But the situation in Japan is quite unprecedented: There are 3 cores that have melted down, actually melted trough almost certainly and the secondary containment has been blown away. So there has been no limit to the release and we saw this huge release of Xenon-133, that's an indication that the fuel has melted and all the volatiles have come of. It is perhaps surprising that not more cesium has come out, certainly there must be still a lot retained in the molten fuel but precisely what is the state of the molten fuel, is it just lying on the reactor floor? Has it eaten into the concrete? Is there a danger of eating all the way trough the concrete? That's getting more remote as time goes by. And nobody can find this out, because nobody can get close enough to see what's happening. So, it's an extremely desperate situation, not at all like the situation that national governments have tried to suggest that, well I mean that one of the most ridiculous things is that the IAEA(International Atomic Energy Agency) reporting several months after the initial meltdown, that in fact these reactors are under cold shutdown. “Cold shutdown” doesn't mean anything if the fuel has run out and is at the bottom of the reactor.

After “Chernobyl” it was difficult for scientists to refer to comparable data. Some people tried to compare at the time “Chernobyl” to the data which had been collected from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now we have a lot of data from “Chernobyl”, can we use it to compare it to Fukushima?

Baverstock: Well I think we do have a lot of data which I think is useful to compare to Fukushima, but even tough it's 26 years since the “Chernobyl accident”, this long delay periods for diseases to appear after exposure. So there's still a lot to learn from the Chernobyl accident, and the European Commission has commissioned a study back in 2008, to see what else could be learned from the Chernobyl accident. And that study, which I was a part of in 2010, with a main recommendation that a long-term lifespan study should be setup, along the lines of the RERS-Study. And so far no action has been taken. We are now in 2012. We've had the Fukushima accident and there's undoubtedly a huge amount of information that would be gained from further studies of the Chernobyl accident in terms of setting up from existing cohorts, a lifespan study. The second thing is at the time of Chernobyl, it may not have looked appropriate to compare the effects of a low dose of radiation spread over a long period of time with the Japanese bomb survivor data. But now, we have enough data from Tetcha-River (river contaminated by the “Mayak Incident”), from radiation worker studies, to show us that there is in fact no difference. In fact it is even possible that exposure at a low-dose rate is even more damaging than exposure to a very short-lived flash of radiation. So it is quite legitimate to use the precisely the values that you get from Japanese bomb survivors and apply them to situations like Chernobyl or Fukushima.

* http://www.kbaverstock.org/ (Keith's personal Webpage with lots of information on both Fukushima and Chernobyl, his publications and interesting data)

Dienstag, 14. Februar 2012

Increase of Death Rate in U.S due to Fukushima-Fallout ?

Is there a connection between Fukushima Nuclear fallout and excess deaths of 14'000 in the U.S ? Renowned nuclear expert Joe Mangano and Janette Sherman, toxicologist and contributing editor of the 2009 New York Academy of Sciences "Chernobyl, Consequences for People and Environment" says yes there is, and it's comparable to the excess rates of U.S deaths from Chernobyl

Furthermore Dr. Sherman told me that "the deaths from Fukushima will be greater than from Chernobyl" and that "the young will be adversely effected by the radiation - their immune and detoxification systems are not fully formed and operational, and based upon their small body weights, they receive a proportionally larger dose of radioisotopes than do adults."* This could explain the excess death rates of young infants in the U.S in the weeks following the Fukushima incident. The 18 page document published by Mangano & Sherman closes on this discussion:

"The Fukushima meltdowns, and the introduction of radioactivity across the

globe, indicate that accurate measurements are needed on subsequent changes in

environmental radioactivity and in health status. In the United States, there have

been limitations in both measures. Radioactivity samples in precipitation, air,

water, and milk were sporadically reported by the Environmental Protection

Agency. Many measurements failed to produce detectable levels, and on May 3,

2011, the agency reverted to its policy of making only quarterly measurements.

Some elevated concentrations were found to be up to several hundred times the

norm soon after the arrival of the Fukushima fallout, but no meaningful temporal

trends and spatial patterns can be discerned from these data.

Few aggregate data on health status are available until several years after a

death or specific diagnosis. Immediately after Fukushima, the only nationwide

health status data available in the United States were weekly deaths by age

reported by 122 U.S. cities (about 25% to 35% of all U.S. deaths), as reported

by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the 14 weeks after the

Fukushima fallout arrived in the United States, total deaths reported were

4.46 percent above the same period in 2010; in the 14 weeks before Fukushima,

the increase from the prior year was just 2.34 percent. The gap in changes for

infant deaths (+1.80% in the latter 14 weeks, –8.37% for the earlier 14 weeks)

was even larger. Estimated “excess” deaths for the entire United States were

projected to be 13,983 total deaths and 822 infant deaths.

Patterns of deaths among persons of all ages strongly reflect patterns among

the elderly, who account for over two-thirds of all deaths. For the older population,

explanations for excess deaths must be considered after exposure to higher

levels of radioactive fallout. If cancer in some patients becomes active again,

it may mean they already have cells carrying all but one of the three to four

requisite mutations to express cancer. Exposure to radiation (or a toxic chemical)

can provide the one final mutation to reactivate a quiescent tumor (17). Also

vulnerable are those elderly with depressed immune status, made worse by

exposure to radiation.

The CDC weekly mortality data have limitations. They represent only a 25

to 35 percent sample of all deaths, which may or may not accurately represent

the entire nation. Deaths are reported voluntarily and thus are subject to variations

from city to city and for unusual circumstances in a week or period (e.g., totals

during the Christmas holiday season appear to be much lower). Weekly totals

are sometimes reported as unavailable and so cannot be used in any analysis.

The deaths reported are by city of occurrence, whereas all final statistics are

by residence at time of death. Deaths are categorized when the death certifi-

cate is filed, not necessarily the date of death. Finally, the CDC weekly reports

provide raw numbers of deaths, not the more useful mortality rates, as popula-

tions or numbers of births are not given.

Nonetheless, 25 to 35 percent of the United States is not a small sample,

representing all large cities and many smaller ones in all regions of the nation.

When extended periods are used, the numbers become larger and more

meaningful, because any variations increasing or decreasing death counts are

more likely to balance each other out. The total of 155,015 U.S. deaths in the

14-week period after Fukushima, 2,722 of which are infant deaths, represents a

large database that is meaningful in a preliminary analysis of potential Fukushima

effects. Not to use them would mean a two- or three-year absence of any health

status data, until final figures are made public.

The statistically significant difference in increased number of reported deaths

(total and infant) for the 14-week period after Fukushima has an added dimen-

sion because of similar findings for the four months immediately after the

Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, using a 10 percent sample of U.S. deaths. The

post-Chernobyl increases, based on preliminary death data, were roughly com-

parable to the increases calculated from final death data (see Appendix Table 2).

The preliminary versus final 1985–1986 change for the period May–August in

total deaths was within 3.7 percentage points (+6.0% vs. +2.3%), and the count

of infant deaths was within 3.0 percentage points (+3.1% vs. +0.1%). Thus, it is

unlikely that, for Fukushima, final death counts would show results markedly

different from the finding that more Americans, especially infants, died than

expected in the 14-week period following arrival of the Fukushima fallout.

The 14-week excess death projections after mid-March 2011 (13,983 total,

822 infant) are relatively similar to actual excesses in May–August 1986 (16,573

total, 306 infant).

Recent assessments have suggested that the amount of radioactivity released

from Fukushima equals or exceeds that released from Chernobyl. Given the

continuing emission of radioisotopes from the melted reactors, the high density

of population around the plant, and the close proximity to food sources, we can

expect that morbidity and mortality will be high in Japan. The relative homo-

geneity of the Japanese population will allow for comparison of health conse-

quences for people living in areas with lesser and greater levels of contamination,

as has been done in areas affected by Chernobyl.

Adverse health effects may also be expected in the United States, even though

exposures have been far below those in Japan. Low-dose radiation exposure,

previously assumed to be harmless, has been linked with elevated disease rates

in children born to women who underwent pelvic X-rays while pregnant (18),

Americans exposed to atomic bomb fallout (19), nuclear plant workers (20),

and, for leukemia, children exposed to very low doses after Chernobyl (21).

In addition to physical diseases is loss of cognitive ability in adolescents fol-

lowing low-dose ionizing radiation in utero (22).

The human fetus and infant are especially radiosensitive, given their rapid

cell growth and cell division, as well as their small size that results in a propor-

tionately larger dose. These exposures include X-ray, alpha, beta, and gamma

radiation. Depending on the time of in utero radiation exposure, the result can be

expressed as spontaneous abortion, premature birth, low birth weight, stillbirth,

infant death, congenital malformations, and brain damage.

While this report concentrates on effects to humans, all life is sensitive to

nuclear radiation exposure, including plants, fungi, insects spiders, birds, fish,

and other animals (23). The best-studied group near Chernobyl (birds) shows

a 50 percent decrease in species richness and a 66 percent drop in abundance in

the most contaminated areas, compared with normal background in the same

neighborhood (24).

More importantly, the findings reported here, plus the disease patterns that

developed after Chernobyl, indicate that public health personnel can anticipate

and plan to put in place diagnostic and treatment procedures. Given the con-

tinued high levels of radioactive iodine, it is predicted that the incidence of

thyroid disease, including thyroid insufficiency in newborns and thyroid cancer

in children and adults, will increase (4, 25).

The health effects of exposure to radioactivity from the Fukushima meltdowns,

both in Japan and around the world, will take a long time to fully assess. The

paucity of data from the U.S. EPA is unfortunate and will hamper future studies.

A quarter of a century after the Chernobyl disaster, and more than 60 years after

the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, compilations of health casualties

are still being updated. It is critical that research should proceed with all due

haste, as answers are essential to early diagnosis and treatment for exposed

people, particularly children and the very young."

(Mangano & Sherman, Increase of U.S Mortality and Fukushima Fallout, 2011-2012)

Altough this is by far not a finished study, it gives disturbing and inconveniant hints that even low-level radiation doses cause serious health problems. The whole study can be read here:Mangano & Sherman Study

* Email correspondance with Dr. Janette Sherman from February, 8th 2012.