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Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War

2012-01-27T10:47:00.000-08:00

Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War:

The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation

ONLINE READER

by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28870

Global Research, January 25, 2012

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GLOBAL RESEARCH ONLINE INTERACTIVE READER SERIES

Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War

The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation

Michel Chossudovsky (Editor)

I-Book No. 3, January 25 2012

Global Research's Online Interactive I-Book Reader brings together, in the form of chapters, a collection of Global Research feature articles and videos, including debate and analysis, on a broad theme or subject matter.

In this Interactive Online I-Book we bring to the attention of our readers an important collection of articles, reports and video material on the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe and its impacts (scroll down for the Table of Contents).

To consult our Online Interactive I-Book Reader Series, click here.

INTRODUCTION

The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation.

The crisis in Japan has been described as "a nuclear war without a war". In the words of renowned novelist Haruki Murakami:

"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."

Nuclear radiation --which threatens life on planet earth-- is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities.

While the long-term repercussions of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are yet to be fully assessed, they are far more serious than those pertaining to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine, which resulted in almost one million deaths (New Book Concludes - Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer Global Research, September 10, 2010, See also Matthew Penney and Mark Selden The Severity of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster: Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima, Global Research, May 25, 2011)

Moreover, while all eyes were riveted on the Fukushima Daiichi plant, news coverage both in Japan and internationally failed to fully acknowledge the impacts of a second catastrophe at TEPCO's (Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc) Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant.

The shaky political consensus both in Japan, the U.S. and Western Europe is that the crisis at Fukushima has been contained.

The realties, however, are otherwise. Fukushima 3 was leaking unconfirmed amounts of plutonium. According to Dr. Helen Caldicott, "One millionth of a gram of plutonium ingested causes cancer".

An opinion poll in May 2011 confirmed that more than 80 per cent of the Japanese population do not believe the government's information regarding the nuclear crisis. (quoted in Sherwood Ross, Fukushima: Japan's Second Nuclear Disaster, Global Research, November 10, 2011)

The Impacts in Japan

The Japanese government has been obliged to acknowledge that "the severity rating of its nuclear crisis ... matches that of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster". In a bitter irony, however, this tacit admission by the Japanese authorities has proven to been part of the cover-up of a significantly larger catastrophe, resulting in a process of global nuclear radiation and contamination:

"While Chernobyl was an enormous unprecedented disaster, it only occurred at one reactor and rapidly melted down. Once cooled, it was able to be covered with a concrete sarcophagus that was constructed with 100,000 workers. There are a staggering 4400 tons of nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima, which greatly dwarfs the total size of radiation sources at Chernobyl." ( Extremely High Radiation Levels in Japan: University Researchers Challenge Official Data, Global Research, April 11, 2011)

Fukushima in the wake of the Tsunami, March 2011

Worldwide Contamination

The dumping of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean constitutes a potential trigger to a process of global radioactive contamination. Radioactive elements have not only been detected in the food chain in Japan, radioactive rain water has been recorded in California:

"Hazardous radioactive elements being released in the sea and air around Fukushima accumulate at each step of various food chains (for example, into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow's meat and milk, then humans). Entering the body, these elements - called internal emitters - migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, continuously irradiating small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years often induce cancer". (Helen Caldicott, Fukushima: Nuclear Apologists Play Shoot the Messenger on Radiation, The Age, April 26, 2011)

While the spread of radiation to the West Coast of North America was casually acknowledged, the early press reports (AP and Reuters) "quoting diplomatic sources" stated that only "tiny amounts of radioactive particles have arrived in California but do not pose a threat to human health."

"According to the news agencies, the unnamed sources have access to data from a network of measuring stations run by the United Nations’ Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization. ...
... Greg Jaczko, chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told White House reporters on Thursday (March 17) that his experts “don’t see any concern from radiation levels that could be harmful here in the United States or any of the U.S. territories”.

The spread of radiation. March 2011

Public Health Disaster. Economic Impacts

What prevails is a well organized camouflage. The public health disaster in Japan, the contamination of water, agricultural land and the food chain, not to mention the broader economic and social implications, have neither been fully acknowledged nor addressed in a comprehensive and meaningful fashion by the Japanese authorities.

Japan as a nation state has been destroyed. Its landmass and territorial waters are contaminated. Part of the country is uninhabitable. High levels of radiation have been recorded in the Tokyo metropolitan area, which has a population of 39 million (2010) (more than the population of Canada, circa 34 million (2010)) There are indications that the food chain is contaminated throughout Japan:

Radioactive cesium exceeding the legal limit was detected in tea made in a factory in Shizuoka City, more than 300 kilometers away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Shizuoka Prefecture is one of the most famous tea producing areas in Japan.
A tea distributor in Tokyo reported to the prefecture that it detected high levels of radioactivity in the tea shipped from the city. The prefecture ordered the factory to refrain from shipping out the product. After the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, radioactive contamination of tea leaves and processed tea has been found over a wide area around Tokyo. (See 5 More Companies Detect Radiation In Their Tea Above Legal Limits Over 300 KM From Fukushima, June 15, 2011)

Japan's industrial and manufacturing base is prostrate. Japan is no longer a leading industrial power. The country's exports have plummeted. The Tokyo government has announced its first trade deficit since 1980.

While the business media has narrowly centered on the impacts of power outages and energy shortages on the pace of productive activity, the broader issue pertaining to the outright radioactive contamination of the country's infrastructure and industrial base is a "scientific taboo" (i.e the radiation of industrial plants, machinery and equipment, buildings, roads, etc). A report released in January 2012 points to the nuclear contamination of building materials used in the construction industry, in cluding roads and residential buildings throughout Japan.(See FUKUSHIMA: Radioactive Houses and Roads in Japan. Radioactive Building Materials Sold to over 200 Construction Companies, January 2012)

A "coverup report" by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (May 2011), entitled "Economic Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Current Status of Recovery" presents "Economic Recovery" as a fait accompli. It also brushes aside the issue of radiation. The impacts of nuclear radiation on the work force and the country's industrial base are not mentioned. The report states that the distance between Tokyo -Fukushima Dai-ichi is of the order of 230 km (about 144 miles) and that the levels of radiation in Tokyo are lower than in Hong Kong and New York City.(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Current Status of Recovery, p.15). This statement is made without corroborating evidence and in overt contradiction with independent radiation readings in Tokyo (se map below). In recent developments, Sohgo Security Services Co. is launching a lucrative "radiation measurement service targeting households in Tokyo and four surrounding prefectures".

"A map of citizens' measured radiation levels shows radioactivity is distributed in a complex pattern reflecting the mountainous terrain and the shifting winds across a broad area of Japan north of Tokyo which is in the center of the of bottom of the map."

"Radiation limits begin to be exceeded at just above 0.1 microsieverts/ hour blue. Red is about fifty times the civilian radiation limit at 5.0 microsieverts/hour. Because children are much more sensitive than adults, these results are a great concern for parents of young children in potentially affected areas.

SOURCE: Science Magazine

The fundamental question is whether the vast array of industrial goods and components "Made in Japan" -- including hi tech components, machinery, electronics, motor vehicles, etc -- and exported Worldwide are contaminated? Were this to be the case, the entire East and Southeast Asian industrial base --which depends heavily on Japanese components and industrial technology-- would be affected. The potential impacts on international trade would be farreaching. In this regard, in January, Russian officials confiscated irradiated Japanese automobiles and autoparts in the port of Vladivostok for sale in the Russian Federation. Needless to say, incidents of this nature in a global competitive environment, could lead to the demise of the Japanese automobile industry which is already in crisis.

While most of the automotive industry is in central Japan, Nissan's engine factory in Iwaki city is 42 km from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Is the Nissan work force affected? Is the engine plant contaminated? The plant is within about 10 to 20 km of the government's "evacuation zone" from which some 200,000 people were evacuated (see map below).

Nuclear Energy and Nuclear War

The crisis in Japan has also brought into the open the unspoken relationship between nuclear energy and nuclear war.

Nuclear energy is not a civilian economic activity. It is an appendage of the nuclear weapons industry which is controlled by the so-called defense contractors. The powerful corporate interests behind nuclear energy and nuclear weapons overlap.

In Japan at the height of the disaster, "the nuclear industry and government agencies [were] scrambling to prevent the discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan's civilian nuclear power plants".1 (See Yoichi Shimatsu, Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant? Global Research, April 12, 2011)

It should be noted that the complacency of both the media and the governments to the hazards of nuclear radiation pertains to the nuclear energy industry as well as to to use of nuclear weapons. In both cases, the devastating health impacts of nuclear radiation are casually denied. Tactical nuclear weapons with an explosive capacity of up to six times a Hiroshima bomb are labelled by the Pentagon as "safe for the surrounding civilian population".

No concern has been expressed at the political level as to the likely consequences of a US-NATO-Israel attack on Iran, using "safe for civilians" tactical nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state.

Such an action would result in "the unthinkable": a nuclear holocaust over a large part of the Middle East and Central Asia. A nuclear nightmare, however, would occur even if nuclear weapons were not used. The bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities using conventional weapons would contribute to unleashing another Fukushima type disaster with extensive radioactive fallout. (For further details See Michel Chossudovsky, Towards a World War III Scenario, The Dangers of Nuclear War, Global Research, Montreal, 2011)

The Online Interactive I-Book Reader on Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War

In view of the official cover-up and media disinformation campaign, the contents of the articles and video reports in this Online Interactive Reader have not trickled down to to the broader public. (See Table of contents below)

This Online Interactive Reader on Fukushima contains a combination of analytical and scientific articles, video reports as well as shorter news reports and corroborating data.

Part I focusses on The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: How it Happened? Part II pertains to The Devastating Health and Social Impacts in Japan. Part III centers on the "Hidden Nuclear Catastrophe", namely the cover-up by the Japanese government and the corporate media. Part IV focusses on the issue of Worlwide Nuclear Radiation and Part V reviews the Implications of the Fukushima disaster for the Global Nuclear Energy Industry.

In the face of ceaseless media disinformation, this Global Research Online I-Book on the dangers of global nuclear radiation is intended to break the media vacuum and raise public awareness, while also pointing to the complicity of the governments, the media and the nuclear industry.

We call upon our readers to spread the word.

We invite university, college and high school teachers to make this Interactive Reader on Fukushima available to their students.

Michel Chossudovsky, January 25, 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: How it Happened

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: What Happened on "Day One"?

- by Yoichi Shimatsu - 2011-04-16

Fukushima is the greatest nuclear and environmental disaster in human history

- by Steven C. Jones - 2011-06-20

	Nuclear Apocalypse in Japan Lifting the Veil of Nuclear Catastrophe and cover-up - by Keith Harmon Snow - 2011-03-18
	Humanity now faces a deadly serious challenge coming out of Japan -- the epicenter of radiation.

VIDEO: Full Meltdown? Japan Maximum Nuclear Alert

Watch now on GRTV

-by Christopher Busby- 2011-03-30

Fukushima: Japan's Second Nuclear Disaster

- by Sherwood Ross - 2011-11-10

	Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant? U.S.-Japan security treaty fatally delayed nuclear workers' fight against meltdown - by Yoichi Shimatsu - 2011-04-12
	The specter of self-destruction can be ended only with the abrogation of the U.S.-Japan security treaty, the root cause of the secrecy that fatally delayed the nuclear workers' fight against meltdown.

Fukushima: “China Syndrome Is Inevitable” … “Huge Steam Explosions”

“Massive Hydrovolcanic Explosion” or a “Nuclear Bomb-Type Explosion” May Occur

- by Washington's Blog - 2011-11-22

Accident at Second Japanese Nuclear Complex: The Nuclear Accident You Never Heard About

- by Washington's Blog - 2012-01-12

VIDEO: New TEPCO Photographs Substantiate Significant Damage to Fukushima Unit 3

Latest report now on GRTV

- by Arnie Gundersen - 2011-10-20

PART II

The Devastating Health and Social Impacts in Japan

VIDEO: Surviving Japan: A Critical Look at the Nuclear Crisis

Learn more about this important new documentary on GRTV

- by Chris Noland - 2012-01-23

Fukushima and the Battle for Truth

Large sectors of the Japanese population are accumulating significant levels of internal contamination

- by Paul Zimmerman - 2011-09-27

FUKUSHIMA: Public health Fallout from Japanese Quake

“Culture of cover-up” and inadequate cleanup. Japanese people exposed to “unconscionable” health risks

- by Canadian Medical Association Journal - 2011-12-30

FUKUSHIMA: Radioactive Houses and Roads in Japan. Radioactive Building Materials Sold to over 200 Construction Companies

- 2012-01-16

VIDEO: Cancer Risk To Young Children Near Fukushima Daiichi Underestimated

Watch this important new report on GRTV

- by Arnie Gundersen - 2012-01-19

VIDEO: The Results Are In: Japan Received Enormous Exposures of Radiation from Fukushima

Important new video now on GRTV

- by Arnie Gundersen, Marco Kaltofen - 2011-11-07

The Tears of Sanriku (三陸の涙). The Death Toll for the Great East Japan Earthquake Nuclear Disaster

- by Jim Bartel - 2011-10-31

	The Severity of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster: Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima - by Prof. Matthew Penney, Prof. Mark Selden - 2011-05-24
	Uncertainty about the long-term health effects of radiation

Radioactivity in Food: “There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period,” - by Physicians For Social Responsibility - 2011-03-23

71,000 people in the city next to the Fukushima nuclear plant "We've Been Left to Die" - 2011-03-19

Tokyo Water Unsafe For Babies, Food Bans Imposed - by Karyn Poupee - 2011-03-23

PART III

Hidden Nuclear Catastrophe: Cover-up by the Japanese Government and the Corporate Media

VIDEO: Japanese Government Insiders Reveal Fukushima Secrets

GRTV Behind the Headlines now online

- by James Corbett - 2011-10-06

Fukushima and the Mass Media Meltdown

The Repercussions of a Pro-Nuclear Corporate Press

- by Keith Harmon Snow - 2011-06-20

Scandal: Japan Forces Top Official To Retract Prime Minister’s Revelation Fukushima Permanently Uninhabitable

- by Alexander Higgins - 2011-04-18

	Emergency Special Report: Japan's Earthquake, Hidden Nuclear Catastrophe - by Yoichi Shimatsu - 2011-03-13
	The tendency to deny systemic errors - "in order to avoid public panic" - is rooted in the determination of an entrenched Japanese bureaucracy to protect itself...

VIDEO: Fukushima: TEPCO Believes Mission Accomplished & Regulators Allow Radioactive Dumping in Tokyo Bay

Learn more on GRTV

- by Arnie Gundersen - 2012-01-11

	The Dangers of Radiation: Deconstructing Nuclear Experts - by Chris Busby - 2011-03-31
	"The nuclear industry is waging a war against humanity." This war has now entered an endgame which will decide the survival of the human race.

Engineers Knew Fukushima Might Be Unsafe, But Covered It Up …

And Now the Extreme Vulnerabilty of NEW U.S. Plants Is Being Covered Up

- by Washington's Blog - 2011-11-12

COVERUP: Are Fukushima Reactors 5 and 6 In Trouble Also?

- by Washington's Blog - 2011-11-14

Fukushima's Owner Adds Insult to Injury - Claims Radioactive Fallout Isn't Theirs

- by John LaForge - 2012-01-17

PART IV

The Process of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation

VIDEO: Japan's Nuclear Crisis: The Dangers of Worldwide Radiation

- by Dr. Helen Caldicott - 2012-01-25

	An Unexpected Mortality Increase in the US Follows Arrival of Radioactive Plume from Fukushima, Is there a Correlation? - by Dr. Joseph J. Mangano, Dr. Janette Sherman - 2011-12-20
	In the US, Following the Fukushima fallout, samples of radioactivity in precipitation, air, water, and milk, taken by the U.S. government, showed levels hundreds of times above normal...

Radioactive Dust From Japan Hit North America 3 Days After Meltdown

But Governments "Lied" About Meltdowns and Radiation

- by Washington's Blog - 2011-06-24

VIDEO: Fukushima Will Be Radiating Everyone for Centuries

New report now on GRTV

- by Michio Kaku, Liz Hayes - 2011-08-23

Fukushima: Diseased Seals in Alaska tested for Radiation

- 2011-12-29

Radiation Spreads to France

- by Washington’s Blog - 2011-11-15

Radioactive rain causes 130 schools in Korea to close — Yet rain in California had 10 TIMES more radioactivity

PART V

Implications for the Global Nuclear Energy Industry

Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry After Chernobyl and Fukushima

- by Gayle Greene - 2012-01-26

After Fukushima: Enough Is Enough

- by Helen Caldicott - 2011-12-05

VIDEO: Radiation Coverups Confirmed: Los Alamos, Fort Calhoun, Fukushima, TSA

New Sunday Report now on GRTV

- by James Corbett - 2011-07-04

VIDEO: Why Fukushima Can Happen Here: What the NRC and Nuclear Industry Don't Want You to Know

Watch now on GRTV

- by Arnie Gundersen, David Lochbaum - 2011-07-12

VIDEO: Safety Problems in all Reactors Designed Like Fukushima

Learn more on GRTV

- by Arnie Gundersen - 2011-09-26

VIDEO: Proper Regulation of Nuclear Power has been Coopted Worldwide

Explore the issues on GRTV

- by Arnie Gundersen - 2011-10-05

VIDEO: New Nuclear Reactors Do Not Consider Fukushima Design Flaws

Find out more on GRTV

- by Arnie Gundersen - 2011-11-24

Nuclear Energy: Profit Driven Industry

“Nuclear Can Be Safe Or It Can Be Cheap … But It Can’t Be Both”

- by Washington's Blog - 2011-12-23

VIDEO: Fukushima and the Fall of the Nuclear Priesthood

Watch the new GRTV Feature Interview

- by Arnie Gundersen - 2011-10-22

Why is there a Media Blackout on Nuclear Incident at Fort Calhoun in Nebraska?

- by Patrick Henningsen - 2011-06-23

Startling Revelations about Three Mile Island Disaster Raise Doubts Over Nuke Safety

- by Sue Sturgis - 2011-07-24

Radioactive Leak at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station

- by Rady Ananda - 2011-07-01

VIDEO: US vs Japan: The Threat of Radiation Speculation

Dangerous double standards examined on GRTV

- by Arnie Gundersen - 2011-06-25

Additional articles and videos on Fukushima and Nuclear Radiation are available at Global Research's Dossier on The Environment

TEXT BOX

Nuclear Radiation: Categorization

At Fukushima, reports confirm that alpha, beta, gamma particles and neutrons have been released:

"While non-ionizing radiation and x-rays are a result of electron transitions in atoms or molecules, there are three forms of ionizing radiation that are a result of activity within the nucleus of an atom. These forms of nuclear radiation are alpha particles (α-particles), beta particles (β-particles) and gamma rays (γ-rays).
Alpha particles are heavy positively charged particles made up of two protons and two neutrons. They are essentially a helium nucleus and are thus represented in a nuclear equation by either α or . See the Alpha Decay page for more information on alpha particles.
Beta particles come in two forms: and . particles are just electrons that have been ejected from the nucleus. This is a result of sub-nuclear reactions that result in a neutron decaying to a proton. The electron is needed to conserve charge and comes from the nucleus. It is not an orbital electron. particles are positrons ejected from the nucleus when a proton decays to a neutron. A positron is an anti-particle that is similar in nearly all respects to an electron, but has a positive charge. See the Beta Decay page for more information on beta particles.
Gamma rays are photons of high energy electromagnetic radiation (light). Gamma rays generally have the highest frequency and shortest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. There is some overlap in the frequencies of gamma rays and x-rays; however, x-rays are formed from electron transitions while gamma rays are formed from nuclear transitions. See theGamma Rays for more" (SOURCE: Canadian Nuclear Association)

"A neutron is a particle that is found in the nucleus, or center, of atoms. It has a mass very close to protons, which also reside in the nucleus of atoms. Together, they make up almost all of the mass of individual atoms. Each has a mass of about 1 amu, which is roughly 1.6×10^-27kg. Protons have a positive charge and neutrons have no charge, which is why they were more difficult to discover." (SOURCE: Neutron Radiation)

"Many different radioactive isotopes are used in or are produced by nuclear reactors. The most important of these are described below:
1. Uranium 235 (U-235) is the active component of most nuclear reactor fuel.
2. Plutonium (Pu-239) is a key nuclear material used in modern nuclear weapons and is also present as a by-product in certain reprocessed fuels used in some nuclear reactors. Pu-239 is also produced in uranium reactors as a byproduct of fission of U-235.
3. Cesium (Cs-137 ) is a fission product of U-235. It emits beta and gamma radiation and can cause radiation sickness and death if exposures are high enough. ...4. Iodine 131 (I-131), also a fission product of U-235, emits beta and gamma radiation. After inhalation or ingestion, it is absorbed by and concentrated in the thyroid gland, where its beta radiation damages nearby thyroid tissue (SOURCE: Amesh A. Adalja, MD, Eric S. Toner, MD, Anita Cicero, JD, Joseph Fitzgerald, MS, MPH, and Thomas V. Inglesby MD, Radiation at Fukushima: Basic Issues and Concepts, March 31, 2011)

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa. He is the Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal and Editor of the globalresearch.ca website. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America's "War on Terrorism"(2005). His most recent book is entitled Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011). He has taught as Visiting Professor at universities in Western Europe, South East Asia, Latin America and The Pacific, acted as adviser to governments of developing countries and as a consultant to several international organizations. Prof. Chossudovsky is a signatory of the Kuala Lumpur declaration to criminalize war and recipient of the Human Rights Prize of the Society for the Protection of Civil Rights and Human Dignity (GBM), Berlin, Germany. He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.

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I-BOOKS SERIES

To consult our Online Interactive I-Book Reader Series, click here.

	The Globalization of War: The "Military Roadmap" to World War III - by Michel Chossudovsky, Finian Cunningham - 2012-02-05
	The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously.

	Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation - by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky - 2012-01-25
	While the long-term repercussions of the Fukushima nuclear disaster are yet to be fully assessed, they are far more serious than those pertaining to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which resulted in almost one million deaths

	Libya and "The Arab Spring": Neoliberalism, "Regime Change" and NATO's "Humanitarian Wars" - by Michel Chossudovsky, Finian Cunningham, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya - 2011-12-25
	Washington's agenda for Egypt and Tunisia was to hijack the protest movement; what prevails in Egypt is the maintenance of a de facto military regime. In Tunisia, following the October 2011 parliamentary elections, the neoliberal policy framework remains unscathed.

1,143 Fukushima children with lumps on thyroid

2012-01-26T04:05:00.001-08:00

January 26th, 2012 at 02:20 AM EDT | EMAIL ARTICLE
By ENENEWS ADMIN
15 COMMENTS

Local Paper: Now 1,143 Fukushima children with lumps on thyroid gland, not 26 — Nearly 1 in every 3 kids tested — “Gov’t has decided they are benign”

Follow up to Gov't: 26 Fukushima children found with lumps on thyroid gland

Title: 1143 Children (Over 30%) of 3765 Tested for Thyroid Abnormalities in Fukushima Had Lumps
Source: EX-SKF
Date: January 25, 2012

From Fukushima Minpo (1/25/2012) [Translated by EX-SKF]:
[...] 26 children have been found with lumps with 5.1 millimeters or larger in diameter, and will go through further testing [...]
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 [the remaining] 3739 children [...] 1117 children have been found with lumps 5.0 millimeters or less in diameter. But the prefectural government has decided they are “benign” [...]

EX-SKF Analysis

[...] 1143 children, or 30.4% of children tested, were found with [thyroid] lumps of varying sizes. [...]
It decidedly does not look totally OK to me, and the explanation by the Fukushima officials sounds suspect.

Read the full report here

Babelfish Translation of A2 Below: “The knot below the 5.0㎜ and those which recognize the cyst below the 20.0㎜” at 1,117 children

h/t hemisfear311

Too Much Radiation to Cover Up

2012-01-24T01:13:00.001-08:00

Tepco Admits that Radiation Levels from Fukushima Are RISING

Posted on January 23, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog

Fukushima Operator Admits 20% Increase In Radiation

JiJi Press – one of Japan’s largest news sources – reports:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Monday reported an increase in radioactive materials leaking from damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima … plant.
The total amount of radioactive cesium that leaked from the containment vesselsof the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors reached 70 million becquerels per hour, up 12 million becquerels from the December level, the power firm said.
It seems that radioactive dusts were stirred up because plant workers went inside reactor buildings and removed rubble, TEPCO officials said.

While it is possible that the increased radiation is simply due to dust being stirred up, there is some evidence that the increase in radiation corresponds with recent earthquakes.

Or it could be due to the possible escape of nuclear fuel from the nuclear container vessels.

Indeed, a Fukushima whistleblower allegedly claims that radioactive fuel is coming out from beneaththe containment building:

***
These [highly-radioactive] yellow concrete slags come out from under the buildingone after one. It means that the container vessel is melting like honeycomb at least – doesn’t it? Otherwise why would metal uranium comes out of there ?

And see this.

Moscou protégée du nuage de Tchernobyl

2012-01-23T00:41:00.001-08:00

Moscou protégée du nuage de Tchernobyl di rikiai

Accident at Second Japanese Nuclear Complex

2012-01-16T02:53:00.001-08:00

Accident at Second Japanese Nuclear Complex

Posted on January 12, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog

The Japanese Nuclear Accident You Never Heard About

You’ve heard about the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex.

But there was another Japanese nuclear accident last year.

As I explained in March of last year:

The 6 problem reactors which have gotten all of the press are located within theFukushima Daiichi complex.
However, the same nuclear power plant operator that runs the Daiichi complex – Tepco – runs a separate nuclear complex 7 miles away, called Fukushima Daini. There are 4 reactors located at the Daini complex.
On March 12th, Tepco reported:
Unit 1
- At 8:19am, there was an alarm indicating that one of the control rods
was not properly inserted, however, at 10:43am the alarm was automatically called off. Other control rods has been confirmed that they are fully inserted (reactor is in subcritical status)
***
- At 6:08PM, we announced the increase in reactor containment vessel
pressure, assumed to be due to leakage of reactor coolant. However, we
do not believe there is leakage of reactor coolant in the containment
vessel at this moment.
- At 5:22AM, the temperature of the suppression chamber exceeded 100
degrees. As the reactor pressure suppression function was lost, at 5:22AM,
it was determined that a specific incident stipulated in article 15,
clause 1 has occurred.
(Article 15, Clause 1 of Japan’s Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness simply provides that there are elevated radiation levels or that “an event specified by a Cabinet Order as an event that indicates the occurrence of a nuclear emergency situation has occurred.”)
On March 14th, Reuters reported:
Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc said on Monday it had detected a rise in radiation levels at its Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant.
A company spokesman said that the cooling process at the plant has been working properly and that the rise was probably due to radiation leak at the nearby Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, where cooling functions were damaged by Friday’s massive earthquake and tsunami.
Today, Tepco announced that smoke was seen rising from Daini reactor number 1:
Smoke was spotted at another nuclear plant in northeastern Japan on Wednesday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
The company said smoke was detected in the turbine building of reactor No. 1 at the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant around 6 p.m. (5 a.m. ET).
Smoke could no longer be seen by around 7 p.m. (6 a.m. ET), a company spokesman told reporters.

Reuters noted in July:

The operator of Japan’s Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant, located near the tsunami-crippled Daiichi plant, on Thursday halted the cooling system at one of its reactors after electrical sparks were detected, Kyodo news agency reported.

But surely everything has been fixed at the Daini plant … otherwise we would have heard about it, right?

Unfortunately, Mainchi Daily News reports today:

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told Tokyo Electric Power Co. [Tepco] on Wednesday to prepare a report by the end of January on how to repair equipment at its Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant damaged by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, a senior agency official said.
The report is needed to “further ensure” the plant will remain in a stable state of cold shutdown, Kenji Matsuoka, chief of the disaster prevention section at the agency, said at a press conference, denying it is aimed at requiring the utility, known as TEPCO, to prepare for restarting the plant.
A cold shutdown is defined as a condition in which the bottom part of a reactor pressure vessel is kept below 100 C and exposure from the release of radioactive substances is being significantly contained.
The Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant was not so fatally damaged as the nearby Fukushima Daiichi plant by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami. In December, the government lifted its declaration of a state of emergency at the Fukushima Daini plant.
But facilities at the plant, including the emergency power generator and the cooling system for spent nuclear fuel pools, have been damaged, according to the agency.

Of course, the “cold shutdown” label is a political – rather than scientific – one. As such, it is difficult to know how severe the problems at the Daini complex really are.

In fact, while it has gotten no mainstream news coverage, Tepco’s president apologized for the accident at Daini on November 4th and again on January 11th (Daini is also called “Fukushima II“).

And a professor emeritus at Tokyo University specializing in metallic materials science said last week that Daini’s containment vessel was damaged by the earthquake.

And Japan’s TBS News allegedly reported in June that 3,000 tons of radioactive water were sitting in the basements of the Daini nuclear complex.

Daini and Daiichi are not necessarily the only problem nuclear plants in Japan. As Reuters noted in December:

Water containing radioactive materials leaked inside a nuclear power plant in southwestern Japan, but was contained and did not escape into the environment, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said on Saturday.
About 1.8 tonnes of water leaked from a pump at Kyushu Electric Power Co’s Genkai No.3 reactor on Friday, Tetsuya Saito, an official at the agency said.
The reactor has been closed since December last year for maintenance.
“The cause of the leakage is still unknown. Kyushu Electric is investigating now,” Saito said.
***
On Friday, Kyushu Electric issued a statement saying it had detected a rise in temperature at the base of one of the pumps which had triggered an alarm. But the statement did not refer to any leakage, although the company separately informed the nuclear agency about it, Saito said.

Earthquake (173, Jan 6 - 13, 2012)

2012-01-14T01:15:00.001-08:00

Earthquake (173, Jan 6 - 13, 2012)

Data: 14/01/12 07:49

The official releases, which are worth introducing for assessment from a scientific point of view, have decreased further this week. Although there are a large number of news reports related with Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster, most of them are covering political issues as well as amelioration/decontamination issues. I will continue to watch important releases in Japan, however, it may be a time for me to reduce this periodical update to "event-driven" update. In this update, I focused on my assessment of root cause of hydrogen explosion in 1F1, although it is not driven by a new information obtain this week. Currently I intend to send next update in a week or so. I. Hydrogen explosion scenario of Fukushima disaster - a recap of the proposed hypothesis 1. Background 1.1 Gross fuel meting scenario is increasingly unlikely Recently TEPCO published an updated report of internal Investigation Committee on Fukushima Disaster, describing that the IC-A (Isolation Condenser A) was re-activated by opening both MO-2A and 3A valves at 21:30 of March 11 and the timely water injection into the secondary side of IC was successful by using D/D FP (diesel-driven fire pump) followed with direct pure water injection into the RPV at 5:46 0f March 12 by employing fire engines. After reviewing this, I am increasingly confident that the gross core melt scenario is unlikely because the reactor core was kept cooled with the water level maintained at least above TAF-1700, not completely exposed the core from the water surface. The lower plenum of the reactor vessel never experienced a dry-out situation. This remarkable finding was explained in Earthquake (172, Dec 30, 2011 - Jan 6, 2012)) and Earthquake (171, Dec 23-30). I also believe that 1F1 did not experience the "long-term station blackout", as defined in the NUREG/CR-9850: Analysis of Long-Term Station Blackout Without Automatic Depressurization at Peach Bottom Using MELCOR (Version 1.8) presented by I.K. Madni Let me quote the relevant description: "In the Long-Term Station Blackout scenario, loss of all off-site and on-site AC power leads to the loss of all active engineered safety features except the steam powered emergency core cooling systems. The latter, however, require DC power for operation and would fail when the station batteries are depleted, which has been estimated at six hours after the start of the accident. Following failure of the emergency core cooling system, the primary system inventory is boiled off through the relief valves by continued decay heat generation. This leads to core un-covery, heat up, clad oxidation, core degradation, relocation, and eventually, vessel failure. This will cause further pressurization of the dry-well from steam and non-condensible gases, which may lead to containment failure. Multiple hydrogen burns can occur in the reactor building after the containment fails." The 1F1 experienced the "loss of off-site power", induced by the seismic damage of transmission lines at 14:46 of March 11 before arrival of the tsunami. The site operator manipulated the IC by remotely open/closed the MO-2A and 3A, as well as MO-2B and 3B valves, as planned. After arrival of the tsunami at 15:37, 1F1 went into a crippled "short-term station blackout," where the decay heat removal through IC was suspended, since the operator could not manipulate the valves without the instrumentation and control DC power. It has not been confirmed whether the HPCI (High Pressure Coolant Injection system) worked even partially or not, perhaps due to flooding of DC power centers. However, the decay heat removal was still automatically performed by "bleeding" steam from the reactor water through SRVs (Safety and Release Valves), where the "safety valve function" of the valves worked without the DC power, with the steam discharging into the suppression pool. At 21:30 of March 11, the operator re-opened both MO-2A and MO-3A valves to continue operation of IC-A, judging that there is a water inventory in the secondary side of IC-A. The operation became possible due to a temporal recovery of the DC power. Therefore, the "short-term station blackout lasted approximately 8 hours. During this period, the water level will be down to TAF-1000ã€œ-2000, in my "back of an envelope" calculation. As a matter of fact, at 16:44 of March 11, the water level inside of RPV was found kept at TAF+250 mm, and again at 21:19 of March 11, at TAF+200 mm, leading the headquarter to judge that IC-A had been working. The temporary confirmed water level was approximately 1ã€œ2 meters higher than my estimation. (The reason for this difference is unknown, however, there is a possibility that HPCI was recovered with the temporal recovery of the DC power. With its large capacity, temporal operation of several minutes should have been sufficient to recover a few meters of water level.) The crippled "short-term station blackout" further continued through 21:35 of March 11, when the D/D FP (Diesel Driven Fire Pump) started to inject fresh water into the secondary side of IC, until at 1:45 of March 12 when the D/D FP was found not running. The water level was recovered to TAF+530(A)/1300(B). At 5:46 of March 12, the direct water injection into the reactor vessel started by employing the fire engines. Although the details of the chronology may change, when TEPCO updated further, it indicate that 1F1 have stayed in the "short-term station blackout" state, with external water injection until now. It never went into the "long-term station blackout" situation with the total core "un-covery", heat up, clad oxidation, core degradation, relocation, and eventually, vessel failure. 1.2 Hydrogen generation is more likely through water radiolysis With the notion that 1F1 successfully evaded from going into the "long-term station blackout", which could have resulted in gross core oxidation, I renewed my interest on the original hypothesis that the source of hydrogen generation is through water radiolysis, where the produced hydrogen was accumulated during the station blackout (loss of AC power) and the hydrogen gas was separated from the reactor water which was kept within the RPV without circulation. I have been continue pointing out this possibility several times in the early phase of this series of update, including in Earthquake (20), sent on March 31. Let me copy and paste the relevant description below. "At the time of station blackout, an estimated decay heat should be down to around 1.3%. There are automatic pressure release and safety valves, which should have acted for ‘bleed cooling’, with battery powered ‘feeding’ until 16:36, resulting in a loss of water injection into the reactor vessel and reported an occurrence of an article #15 event. The ‘bleed cooling’ provided a cooling by releasing steam into the suppression pool water until 0:49 of March 12, until the time when the temperature of the suppression chamber reached at the boiling point of water, which made TEPCO to report an occurrence of another article #15 event. At this moment, an estimated decay heat was down to less than 1%. There is a possibility that a top portion of fuel rods could have lost its submerged condition for approximately 8 hours. Due to an increase in the pressure inside the reactor vessel, it became urgent, at 14:30 of March 12, to vent the steam into a ventilation duct of the Reactor Building Reactor Room Heating and Ventilation System. It is a system which discharges room air from the stack after filtering. Unfortunately, the H&V was out of electric power and most of the vented steam is likely released into the Fuel Handling Floor, located at the top of the Reactor Building, perhaps due to a back flow towards the inlet of H&V duct opened to this floor area. This should be confirmed by consulting with a detailed flow chart of the H&V system. Approximately one hour after the start of venting, at 15:36 of March 12, the hydrogen explosion occurred. A significant amount of hydrogen must have been accumulated at the time of venting. Whether this hydrogen is due to the Zr-water reaction or due to accumulation of hydrogen gas through water radiolysis is in the root of the differences in scenarios. Those people who support the Zr-water reaction scenario argue that a significant oxidization must have occurred by exposing the top half of the fuel rod out of the water level. However, those who argue against this scenario recalls an experimental result of fuel rod tests, partially submerged, sufficiently cooled by steam and droplets coming from the boiling water. This scenario indicates that a self-standing configuration is still maintained, even though some small fraction of fuel rods must have punctured to release rare gases and volatile species, accompanied with a small amount of cracked fuel fragments, into the reactor vessel. A question of how tough the Zr fuel clad should have been is also in the root of these arguments. A group of the Japanese fuel specialists explains that fuel clad is not so fragile to break so easily. Also, the lessons learned from the TMI accident showed that it is necessary for damaged fuels to pile up first, restricting core flow, to start melting. As a matter of fact those fuel rods located in the periphery region of the damaged TMI core kept the self-standing configuration and did not participate in the corium. " Also, in Earthquake (71) - with corrections to the H2 and O2 accumulation, I distributed a "back of an envelope" estimation of the amount of hydrogen generation through water radiolysis for 1F1 as attached. There are many new information accumulated since then, it is necessary to update the calculation made in the previous attachment. I intend to write a paper sometimes this year. Therefore, let me limit my follow on argument only from phenomenology, not by doing a detailed radiation chemistry calculation. 1.3 Some of the notable new information related to the water radiolysis scenario From a phenomenology point of view, let me recap some of the recent findings. 1.3.1 Source of oxygen for potential "internal hydrogen explosion" inside the RPV Although the radiation yield of hydrogen is well known, the yield of oxygen is not directly provided in the radiation chemistry data. The primary g-value does not provide g(O2) but only g(H2O2) and other radicals including G(e, hydrated electron), g(H), g(H2), g(OH) and g(HO2/O2-). Only through solving the detailed reaction chains by reaction rate equations, the final concentration of H2, H2O2 and O2 can be estimated. However, the hydrogen peroxide thus generated should ELECTROCHEMICALLY decompose into water and oxygen, as established in the Pourbaix Diagram (Marcel Pourbaix, Atlas of Electrochemical Equilibria in Aqueous Solutions, Pergamon Press (1966)), although the published data is limited at the ambient temperature. This reaction at the high temperature has been discussed in detail by G. Saji. Degradation of aged plants by corrosion: ’Long cell action’ in unresolved corrosion issues. Nuclear Engineering and Design 239 (2009) 1591–1613. In view of complexities, a stoichiometric volume from the hydrogen concentration was assumed, by referring to the hydrogen-explosion/pipe-rupture accident experience of Hamaoka Unit 1, as introduced in the attached one page summary of Earthquake (69). Another source of oxygen should be the environmental water (fresh- or sea water) injected into the RPV. In the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident sequence, it is likely that the top reactor cover region was filled with hydrogen gas after prolonged reactor isolation. With little oxygen concentration, the gas may not explode immediately. However, the water injection operation using environmental water may have transported oxygen in a form of saturated dissolved oxygen. in a "back of an envelope" calculation, the solubility of oxygen in air in water is approximately 0.0089 g/kg-water at 25â„ƒ. The following amount of oxygen gas was transported to the RPV through the water injection before the hydrogen explosion: Unit amount of injected environ. water before explosion amount of injected oxygen stochiometric amount of H2 1F1 80,000 kg 0.7 kg 0.1 kg 1F2 1.0E+06 kg 8.8 kg 1.1 kg 1F3 0.7E+06 kg 6.2 kg 0.8 kg With hydrogen and oxygen gas separated (by boiling) from water and accumulated at the top reactor cover plenum, there should be a risk of hydrogen explosion as occurred at Hamaoka Unit 1 BWR. In this accident, a hydrogen-explosion/pipe-rupture accident occurred during the scheduled ECCS test. Also, there were eight cases of similar hydrogen explosion accidents reported inside TEPCO at the small instrumentation pipes. Although the ignition source has not been identified, I believe a similar hydrogen explosion might have occurred inside of RPV of 1F1. The explosion induced pipe break followed with discharge of the hydrogen gas accumulated inside of RPV as well as PCV, although the leak paths are not known. The released hydrogen gas diffused widely in the reactor building through ventilation ducts. However, let me add that it was found very difficult to reproduce the spontaneous ignition in a confirmation experiment performed after the Hamaoka Unit 1 hydrogen-explosion accident. The spontaneous ignition started only with noble metals, deposited through the noble metal chemistry. With the station blackout in Fukushima Dai-ichi, it is hard to pinpoint exact ignition sources. References: (1) M. Naito et al., Analysis on Pipe Rupture of Steam Condensation Line at Hamaoka-1, (I) Accumulation of Non-condensable Gas in a Pipe, Journal of NUCLEAR SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY, Vol. 40, No. 12, p. 1041–1051 (December 2003). (2) M. Naito et al., Analysis on Pipe Rupture of Steam Condensation Line at Hamaoka-1, (II) Hydrogen Combustion and Pipe Deformation, Journal of NUCLEAR SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY, Vol. 40, No. 12, p. 1041–1051 (December 2003). 1.3.2 Venting and hydrogen explosion Many people suspect that the venting triggered a series of hydrogen explosions in 1F1 through 1F3, even including the hydrogen explosion in 1F4, where the reactor core was evacuated into the SFP (Spent Fuel Pool) for repair work of the RPV. I also share this view, since all of the hydrogen accidents occurred hours after venting. The H&V was out of electric power and most of the vented steam is likely released into the Fuel Handling Floor, located at the top of the Reactor Building, perhaps due to a back flow towards the inlet of H&V duct opened to this floor area. This should be confirmed by consulting with a detailed flow chart of the H&V system. The hydrogen gas diffusion mechanism, through H&V ducts, have recently been confirmed by TEPCO, who measured dose distribution along the H&V system as well as the current failure position of ventilation dumpers for 1F3 as reported in: http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111226_01-e.pdf Although no similar measurement have been released for 1F1, the results support the possible mechanism of hydrogen gas diffusion through ventilation ducts. 1.3.3 Stratification and ignition of hydrogen gas-air mixture This issue has been introduced in Earthquake (172, Dec 26, 2011 - Jan 6, 2012) with a summary of hydrogen explosion study performed for a BWR plant in Finland:. M. Manninen, A. Silde, I. Lindholm, R. Huhtanen, and H. Sjoval, 2002. Simulation of hydrogen deflagration and detonation in a BWR reactor building, Nuclear Engineering and Design 211 (2002) 27–50 (www.elsevier.com/locate/nucengdes) The objective of the work was to investigate, whether hydrogen can form flammable and detonable mixtures in the reactor building, evaluate the possibility of onset of detonation and assess the pressure loads under detonation conditions. The safety concern is, whether the hydrogen in the reactor building can detonate and whether the external detonation can jeopardize the containment integrity. The analysis indicated that the possibility of flame acceleration and deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT) in the reactor building could not be ruled out in case of a 20 mm2 leakage from the containment. The outcome of the performed 3D analyses of hydrogen distribution (Manninen et al., 2000) was that a significant hydrogen cloud, reaching well the flammability limits, would accumulate in the upper section of the room. The maximum amount of hydrogen in the room was 21 kg. Since the ignition energy of hydrogen deflagration is low, the reactor building room contains several candidate ignition sources, e.g. lamps and valves that may generate static electricity. However, a direct ignition of detonation in an unconfined geometry needs high energies and is not considered easily reachable (CSNI, 2000. State-of-the-art report on flame acceleration and deflagration-to-detonation-transition in nuclear safety. NEA/CSNI/R(2000)7). Thus flame acceleration was considered the greatest threat of reaching supersonic combustion. The purpose of performing 3D deflagration analyses was to study if the flame starts to accelerate in the specified cloud and room geometry. My "back of an envelope" estimations of hydrogen generation through water radiolysis indicated that the amount of hydrogen were in general not large enough to fill the the Reactor Building with a flammability limit of 4%. However, when the stratification is considered, it is a different story. The stratification should occur much easier, in Fukushima, since the heating and ventilation was stopped due to the station blackout. In addition, the initial temperature of the released hydrogen gas should have been around 100â„ƒ to facilitate thermal stratification and specific volume differences. The condensation of steams at the building walls facilitate the hydrogen gas separation. However, actual building configuration of the Reactor Building is much more complex in Fukushima Daiichi, since many of the rooms are interconnected with ventilation ducts of a huge Reactor Building Heating and Ventilation System, through which the radioactive gas has spread by reverse flowing from the venting ducts as recently revealed in the TEPCO's dose measurement in the system: http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111226_01-e.pdf 2. A hypothetical hydrogen explosion scenario 2.1 Intrinsic safety It is my strong belief that the magnitude of the accident and its sequence depends strongly on the intrinsic safety of the reactor, the safety provisions in place as well as operational issues. For example, the Chernobyl accident was initiated due to the vulnerability of the graphite-moderated water-cooled channel type reactors, combined with the positive void coefficient and violation of an extended low power operation by bypassing the ECCS. Among all the lessons learned from the Chernobyl accident, the most significant one is the importance of intrinsic safety characteristics as a prerequisite of safe nuclear power plants. Intrinsic safety is an essential part of prevention, in particular, the reactor should have self-limiting physics characteristics which prevent a large energy release beyond the control of even in an abnormal or accidental situation. (G. Saji, 2005. Management of Nuclear Risks by Intrinsic Safety, Siting, and Defense-In-Depth for Future Reactors: Lessons Learned from the Chernobyl Accident. In the Proceedings of the International Topical Meeting on Probabilistic Safety Analysis, PSA’05, 11-15 September 2005, USA) . Let me attach a preprint of my previous paper. Likewise, the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident has revealed the strong effects of intrinsic safety. 2.1.1 Intrinsic safety and design provisions with respect to CHC in BWRs One of the most important issues in the intrinsic safety characteristics of BWRs is in coping with the radiolytic decomposition of water. Since the water chemistry is not kept above the CHC (critical hydrogen concentration, which is the minimum concentration of dissolved hydrogen required to prevent the net radiolytic breakdown of water. Radiolysis is said to be in suppression when there is no net decomposition of the water due to the addition of excess hydrogen. ) , it is essential to incorporate active systems for removal of hydrogen during the entire operational modes, including the accidental situations. Such an active hydrogen removal system is necessary just as in the case of DHRS (decay heat removal system). During normal operation, the hydrogen is removed at the turbine condenser as an incondensable gas to keep high vacuum necessary for operation of turbine. This is performed by steam ejectors and the removed hydrogen gas is recombined into water before releasing into the environment. However, after the reactor isolation such as in the case of "loss of offsite power", the reactor is separated from the hydrogen removal system due to isolation. According to the PSAR of a BWR with Mark I containment vessel, there are "Burnable Gas Concentration Control System" and "Emergency Gas Processing System" (also called "Standby Gas Treatment System"), both of which appears to be designed to remove or purge from the PCV (Primary Containment Vessel) in an event of LOCA. The "Emergency Gas Treatment System" can vent the containment atmosphere after filtration to the stack. However, they are designed to release over-pressure of the PCV and not for removal of hydrogen from the RPV in isolation. With this negligence of safety function, the hydrogen gas produced through water radiolysis continue to accumulate inside of RPV and in the suppression chamber. With extended "station blackout", the accumulated hydrogen gas started to increase until reaching the CHC, from thereafter the hydrogen production rate should have reduced significantly. This timing appears to have started around March 22, according to the environmental monitoring data. The dose rates are reduced more than an order of magnitude from this date. I have been calling this time span as the "active period", d,ays between March 11 to 22. After the active period of ten days, spikes of environmental releases occurred on March 22, 23, 25 (twice), 28, 29 and 30, although from which unit has not been identified yet. Since the hydrogen generation should have continued, with much reduced rate, this recurrence of large release should be related with the environmental water injection into the RPV. (If the water was in circulation within a closed loop, such recurrence should not occur since the dissolved oxygen can be easily removed by irradiation.) After an "internal hydrogen explosion", the system goes into another incubation period to recover the oxygen and hydrogen concentration. This anomalous hydrogen gas oxidation appears to continue even now. TEPCO reported a mysterious gas temperature hump in the containment atmospheric temperature in http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_120106_01-e.pdf One possibility is that the hydrogen gas is burning slowly inside of the PCV. In the recent days, it is becoming more and more common to use the "hydrogen water chemistry" to mitigate IGSCC (Inter-Granular Stress Corrosion Cracking) in BWRs, however, the hydrogen concentration is limited, since it results in higher dose rate in turbine halls, due to increased N-16 concentration in the seam. Although the CHC is an important radiation chemical data, I have not found the report on this subject for BWR. For PWR, in recent studies with the goal of introducing an optimized DH level, the Studvik Nuclear team in conjunction with the Japan Atomic Power Company’s (JAPC) team performed in-pile experiments as well as model calculations for the radiolysis of the PWR-simulated primary circuit at the JAPC’s Unit 2 of the PWR Tsuruga [Takiguchi, H., Sekiguchi, M., Christensen, H., Flygare, J. Molander, A. and Ullberg, M., 2000. In-pile loop experiment and model calculations for radiolysis of PWR primary coolant, in: Conf. Water Chem. of Nucl. Reactor Sys. 8, BNES, Bournemouth; Takiguchi, H., Ullberg, M. and Uchida, S., 2004. Optimization of dissolved hydrogen concentration for control of primary coolant radiolysis in pressurized water reactors”, J. of Nucl. Sci. and Tech., Vol. 41, No. 5. P.6-1~6-9.] Their suggested value is below 6 cm3-STP/kg-1, is still debatable with only three widely scattered experimental values. I have also investigated CHC in pure water for fusion environment (G. Saji, 2012. Scientific Basis of Corrosion Control for Water-Cooled Reactors such as ITER. ICONE20-55046 20th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering, July 30 - August 3, 2012, Anaheim, California, USA (To be published) It is not known whether BWRs can be operated above the CHC to improve the intrinsic safety. If not feasible, active systems for hydrogen removal should become more important. Perhaps diesel-driven incondensable gas treatment system may become necessary to be able to prepare for extended station blackout. 2.1.2 Intrinsic safety and design provisions with respect to decay heat removal in 1F1 In the Long-Term Station Blackout scenario, loss of all off.site and on-site AC power leads to the loss of all active engineered safety features except the steam powered emergency core cooling systems. The latter, however, require DC power for operation and would fail when the station batteries are depleted. This threat was barely ameliorated by installing auto batteries to recover essential instrumentation and control power in 1F1. The plant also had a D/D FP (diesel driven fire pump) which was used for water injection into the secondary side of the IC (Isolation Condenser). The IC is a passive cooling system with a bundle of cooling tubes installed inside. The cooling water was designed to be supplied from the Reactor Components Cooling System, which became unavailable due to the "loss of ultimate heat sink." Fortunately, the IC had a large water inventory which was replenished with the D/D FP (diesel driven fire pump). Without the heat sink, the water inventory boiled off by continued decay heat generation at the core. These prudent design has obviously were effective in preventing the reactor into a worst possible situation of gross core melting. In addition to IC, the safety and relief valves automatically released steam from the RPV into suppression pool, through "feed and bleed" cooling capability. Although the tsunami induced "loss of ultimate heat sink" combined with "station blackout", 1F1 was successful in evading the worst scenario of the "long-term station blackout," thanks to prudent safety provisions and adequate operator actions. Although it is impossible to stop the decay heat, the safety features prepared for decay heat removal were effective by prolonging the time for core un-covery. II. Re-classification of evacuation zones On January 8, Yomiuri Shinbun reported the new evacuation zone classification schemes being coordinated with the local governments. The new scheme divides the previous "vigilance" zone of 10 km radius and "scheduled (and organized) evacuation" zone into: (1) "Difficult Resettlement" Zone (>50 mSv/y) Applies to those areas where more than 5 years is anticipated for the dose rate to decrease below 20 mSv/y. The Government is considering purchasing the affected properties. Estimated number of affected residents will amount to 25,000 people, 30% of the evacuees, with the following breakdown: Iidate-mura (900, 10%), Minami-Soma-shi (70, 0.1%), Namie-machi (4400, 20%), Kuzuo-mura (200, 10%), Futaba-cho (4800, 70%), Ookuma-cho (10,000, 90%) and Tomioka-machi ( 30%) (2) "Restricted Re-settlement" Zone (20-50 mSv/y) Applies to those areas where several years are expected for the dose rate to decrease below 20 mSv/y. Temporary home visits will be allowed. Re-settlement can be made when the dose rates are reduced by decontamination. An estimated number of affected residents is 30.000 people. (3) "Preparing Lift of Evacuation Order" Zone (

Fukushima larger than Chernobyl — Japan people deceived

2012-01-13T15:34:00.000-08:00

German Physician: Fukushima larger than Chernobyl — Japan people deceived — Can feel only helpless rage

http://enenews.com/german-physician-fukushima-larger-than-chernobyl-japan-people-deceived-can-feel-only-helpless-rage

*UPDATE* Translation Links Below

Der heiße Stein, Taz.de by Gabriele Goettle, Dec. 26, 2011 [Emphasis Added]:

Google Translation

Headline: The hot stone
Subheading: The doctor Dörte Siedentopf organized recreation for 20 years stays for Chernobyl children. She is bewildered about how to deal with Fukushima. [...]
“The worst thing is that the organizers have learned nothing from Chernobyl. I’m speechless over the handling of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, which is still larger than that of Chernobyl. Furthermore, the government’s evacuation zone does not increase accordingly, and women and children has not brought immediately to the south of the country in safety, one can only feel helpless rage. Instead, the population systematically lied to, they will not or are misinformed about the real dangers. This is completely irresponsible.What’s coming on now because the Japanese to diseases and problems, this is impossible. And the company policy and nuclear industry really buying into everything! Worldwide! [...]

Babelfish Translation

Headline: The hot stone
Subheading: The lady doctor Dörte simmering pot organizes since 20 years recuperative vacations for Tschernobyl children. It is speechless over handling Fukushima. [...]
“The worst is that the responsible persons did not learn anything from Tschernobyl. I am speechless over handling the reactor disaster in Fukushima, which is still more extensive than from Tschernobyl. Over the fact that the government expanded the evacuation zone not accordingly and brought women and children not immediately into the south of the country in security, one can feel only helpless rage. Instead the population is systematically deceived, her not at all or wrongly informed about the real dangers. That is perfectly irresponsible. Which comes there now to the Japanese, at illnesses and problems, that is inconceivable. And politics and economics of nuclear energy really accept that everything! World-wide! [...]

h/t EX-SKF

Read the article in German here

*UPDATE* Translation Links Below:

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/01/english-translation-part-1-dorte.html

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/01/english-translation-part-2-dorte.html

Hydrogen explosion of reactor 4 may have happened on 1/9/2012

2012-01-13T15:31:00.000-08:00

Breaking news : Hydrogen explosion of reactor 4 may have happened on 1/9/2012

Posted by Mochizuki on January 13th, 2012 · No Comments

http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/01/hydrogen-explosion-reactor-4-happened-1-9-2012/

Hydrogen explosion may have happened at reactor 4 and been concealed by the government ,said on the blog of Katayama Satsuki, a member of the House of Councilors of Liberal Democratic Party.

On the post of 1/13/2012 of her blog, she wrote like this below,

さきほど、南相馬の元市議会議員から市長に連絡がはいり、1月9日にまた、福島第一で（おそらく4号炉だと思うが）なんらかの爆発が起きており、それを政府が隠している、という話であった。真偽のほどはわからないが、水素爆発ではあっても、核爆発ではないであろう。（水素爆発でも、放射能の飛散がかなりの量でおきるのになぜそれほど平静なのか、地獄を見た方は違う、と、原発50キロ以内におられる方の背負ってきた凄まじい恐怖とストレスを、かえって痛感させられました。）

Now I heard that the city mayor of Minamisoma got the phone call from a former city councilor to tell, on 1/9/2012, at Fukushima plant, (Probably at reactor 4) some kind of explosion happened, and the government is concealing it.

I’m not quite sure if it’s true or not, but it probably is not a nuclear explosion but a hydrogen explosion. (Even by a hydrogen explosion, radiation is scattered in a huge scale. I wondered why the person can stay that cool in such a situation. Probably he has already seen hell, he might be used to dealing with the fear and the stress by living in the 50km area.)

On 1/10/2012, this blog posted about the unusual amount of helicopterobserved in Kanto area.

(Source)

EXPOSING CHEMICAL and DU WARFARE ON EGYPTIAN PROTESTERS

2012-01-11T09:55:00.001-08:00

After Fukushima: Enough Is Enough

2012-01-04T08:32:00.000-08:00

IHT MAGAZINE | GLOBAL AGENDA 2012 | ENERGY

After Fukushima: Enough Is Enough

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/opinion/magazine-global-agenda-enough-is-enough.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

Leandro Lima

By HELEN CALDICOTT

Published: December 2, 2011

REPRINTS

The nuclear power industry has been resurrected over the past decade by a lobbying campaign that has left many people believing it to be a clean, green, emission-free alternative to fossil fuels. These beliefs pose an extraordinary threat to global public health and encourage a major financial drain on national economies and taxpayers. The commitment to nuclear power as an environmentally safe energy source has also stifled the mass development of alternative technologies that are far cheaper, safer and almost emission free — the future for global energy.

Global Agenda 2012

International Herald Tribune Magazine looks back at 2011 and forward to the year ahead.

More Articles in the Issue »

Related in Opinion

Energy: After Fukushima: Now, More Than Ever (December 2, 2011)

When the Fukushima Daiichi reactors suffered meltdowns in March, literally in the backyard of an unsuspecting public, the stark reality that the risks of nuclear power far outweigh any benefits should have become clear to the world. As the old quip states, “Nuclear power is one hell of a way to boil water.”

Instead, the nuclear industry has used the disaster to increase its already extensive lobbying efforts. A few nations vowed to phase out nuclear energy after the disaster. But many others have remained steadfast in their commitment. That has left millions of innocent people unaware that they — all of us — may face a medical catastrophe beyond all proportions in the wake of Fukushima and through the continued widespread use of nuclear energy.

The world was warned of the dangers of nuclear accidents 25 years ago, when Chernobyl exploded and lofted radioactive poisons into the atmosphere. Those poisons “rained out,” creating hot spots over the Northern Hemisphere. Research by scientists in Eastern Europe, collected and published by the New York Academy of Sciences, estimates that 40 percent of the European land mass is now contaminated with cesium 137 and other radioactive poisons that will concentrate in food for hundreds to thousands of years. Wide areas of Asia — from Turkey to China — the United Arab Emirates, North Africa and North America are also contaminated. Nearly 200 million people remain exposed.

That research estimated that by now close to 1 million people have died of causes linked to the Chernobyl disaster. They perished from cancers, congenital deformities, immune deficiencies, infections, cardiovascular diseases, endocrine abnormalities and radiation-induced factors that increased infant mortality. Studies in Belarus found that in 2000, 14 years after the Chernobyl disaster, fewer than 20 percent of children were considered “practically healthy,” compared to 90 percent before Chernobyl. Now, Fukushima has been called the second-worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl. Much is still uncertain about the long-term consequences. Fukushima may well be on par with or even far exceed Chernobyl in terms of the effects on public health, as new information becomes available. The crisis is ongoing; the plant remains unstable and radiation emissions continue into the air and water.

Recent monitoring by citizens groups, international organizations and the U.S. government have found dangerous hot spots in Tokyo and other areas. The Japanese government, meanwhile, in late September lifted evacuation advisories for some areas near the damaged plant — even though high levels of radiation remained. The government estimated that it will spend at least $13 billion to clean up contamination.

Many thousands of people continue to inhabit areas that are highly contaminated, particularly northwest of Fukushima. Radioactive elements have been deposited throughout northern Japan, found in tap water in Tokyo and concentrated in tea, beef, rice and other food. In one of the few studies on human contamination in the months following the accident, over half of the more than 1,000 children whose thyroids were monitored in Fukushima City were found to be contaminated with iodine 131 — condemning many to thyroid cancer years from now.

Children are innately sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of radiation, fetuses even more so. Like Chernobyl, the accident at Fukushima is of global proportions. Unusual levels of radiation have been discovered in British Columbia, along the West Coast and East Coast of the United States and in Europe, and heavy contamination has been found in oceanic waters.

Fukushima is classified as a grade 7 accident on the International Atomic Energy Agency scale — denoting “widespread health and environmental effects.” That is the same severity as Chernobyl, the only other grade 7 accident in history, but there is no higher number on the agency’s scale.

Global Agenda 2012

International Herald Tribune Magazine looks back at 2011 and forward to the year ahead.

More Articles in the Issue »

Related in Opinion

Energy: After Fukushima: Now, More Than Ever (December 2, 2011)

After the accident, lobbying groups touted improved safety at nuclear installations globally. In Japan, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. — which operates the Fukushima Daiichi reactors — and the government have sought to control the reporting of negative stories via telecom companies and Internet service providers.

In Britain, The Guardian reported that days after the tsunami, companies with interests in nuclear power — Areva, EDF Energy and Westinghouse — worked with the government to downplay the accident, fearing setbacks on plans for new nuclear power plants.

Nuclear power has always been the nefarious Trojan horse for the weapons industry, and effective publicity campaigns are a hallmark of both industries. The concept of nuclear electricity was conceived in the early 1950s as a way to make the public more comfortable with the U.S. development of nuclear weapons. “The atomic bomb will be accepted far more readily if at the same time atomic energy is being used for constructive ends,” a consultant to the Defense Department Psychological Strategy Board, Stefan Possony, suggested. The phrase “Atoms for Peace” was popularized by President Dwight Eisenhower in the early 1950s.

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are one and the same technology. A 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor generates 600 pounds or so of plutonium per year: An atomic bomb requires a fraction of that amount for fuel, and plutonium remains radioactive for 250,000 years. Therefore every country with a nuclear power plant also has a bomb factory with unlimited potential.The nuclear power industry sets an unforgivable precedent by exporting nuclear technology — bomb factories — to dozens of non-nuclear nations.

Why is nuclear power still viable, after we’ve witnessed catastrophic accidents, enormous financial outlays, weapons proliferation and nuclear-waste induced epidemics of cancers and genetic disease for generations to come? Simply put, many government and other officials believe the nuclear industry mantra: safe, clean and green. And the public is not educated on the issue.

There are some signs of change. Germany will phase out nuclear power by 2022. Italy and Switzerland have decided against it, and anti-nuclear advocates in Japan have gained traction. China remains cautious on nuclear power. Yet the nuclear enthusiasm of the U.S., Britain, Russia and Canada continues unabated. The industry, meanwhile, has promoted new modular and “advanced” reactors as better alternatives to traditional reactors. They are, however, subject to the very same risks — accidents, terrorist attacks, human error — as the traditional reactors. Many also create fissile material for bombs as well as the legacy of radioactive waste.

True green, clean, nearly emission-free solutions exist for providing energy. They lie in a combination of conservation and renewable energy sources, mainly wind, solar and geothermal, hydropower plants, and biomass from algae. A smart-grid could integrate consuming and producing devices, allowing flexible operation of household appliances. The problem of intermittent power can be solved by storing energy using available technologies.

Millions of jobs can be created by replacing nuclear power with nationally integrated, renewable energy systems. In the U.S. alone, the project could be paid for by the $180 billion currently allocated for nuclear weapons programs over the next decade. There would be no need for new weapons if the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals — 95 percent of the estimated 20,500 nuclear weapons globally — were abolished.

Nuclear advocates often paint those who oppose them as Luddites who are afraid of, or don’t understand, technology, or as hysterics who exaggerate the dangers of nuclear power.

One might recall the sustained attack over many decades by the tobacco industry upon the medical profession, a profession that revealed the grave health dangers induced by smoking.

Smoking, broadly speaking, only kills the smoker. Nuclear power bequeaths morbidity and mortality — epidemics of disease — to all future generations.

The millions of lives lost to smoking in the era before the health risks of cigarettes were widely exposed will be minuscule compared to the medical catastrophe we face through the continued use of nuclear power.

Let’s use this extraordinary moment to convince governments and others to move toward a nuclear-free world. Let’s prove that informed democracies will behave in a responsible fashion.

Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician, is founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. A native of Australia, she left her Harvard Medical School post in 1980 to work full-time on anti-nuclear education.

Les disparus de Fukushima

2011-12-18T14:45:00.000-08:00

Dimanche 18 décembre 2011

Les disparus de Fukushima http://fukushima.over-blog.fr/article-les-disparus-de-fukushima-93065109.html

Alors que le gouvernement japonais vient de décréter l’arrêt à froid des réacteurs de Fukushima (comme s’il y avait encore des « réacteurs » à Fukushima !), un journaliste japonais indépendant, Tomohiko Suzuki, a donné vendredi une conférence de presse très instructive. Cet homme courageux, journaliste de terrain, s’était fait embaucher à la centrale de Fukushima Daiichi comme ouvrier par l’intermédiaire d’une filiale de Toshiba. Il a pu ainsi enquêter à l’intérieur même du site du 13 juillet au 22 août 2011, assigné à une tâche liée au retraitement de l'eau contaminée. Ses révélations décapantes nous amèneront à nous interroger une nouvelle fois sur la disparition de dizaines, voire de centaines d’ouvriers sur les listes administratives de la centrale nucléaire.

Aucun progrès

Tout d’abord, les déclarations de Tomohiko Suzuki (1) sont à l’opposé de la communication officielle qui proclame que tout est sous contrôle. Selon lui, aucun progrès n’a été fait vers une quelconque sortie de la crise nucléaire : seuls des travaux de façades ont été effectués pour faire croire à une maîtrise de la situation. On peut citer en effet l’installation de la tente de protection du réacteur n°1 et le nettoyage de la façade sud du réacteur n°4. Il s’agit d’actions concrètes et visibles propices pour donner une image de maîtrise de la situation. Or en réalité il n’en est rien. Ces actions de sécurisation à court terme ne règlent aucun problème :

- On ne sait toujours pas quoi faire de l’eau contaminée par le refroidissement des réacteurs, eau que l’on essaie de retraiter mais qui en fait s’entasse sur le site, au risque de la voir se répandre par des fuites diverses dues à des failles dans le sol, à des tuyaux de mauvaise qualité, à des normes techniques différentes selon les entreprises qui interviennent, et peut-être cet hiver à cause du gel de certains circuits exposés en plein air. Au 15 novembre, les réservoirs installés sur le site pouvaient contenir 106 000 tonnes d’eau contaminée. S’il n’y avait pas une pression de l’opinion public, TEPCo aurait déjà relâché cette eau dans la mer.

- Les 6 piscines des réacteurs et la piscine commune nécessitent un refroidissement constant car elles renferment ensemble 1964 tonnes de combustible. Aucune erreur n’est tolérable pour la maintenance de ces piscines, et il est difficile de comprendre pourquoi Tepco a laissé s’évaporer l’eau de la piscine n°4 jusqu’à ne plus avoir que 1,50 mètre de hauteur au dessus du combustible le 1er décembre alors que 7 mètres sont nécessaires. Ces piscines extrêmement dangereuses ne servent à rien. Elles nécessiteront des dépenses pharaoniques de surveillance et d’entretien durant des dizaines d’années alors que l’électricité qui a été produite avec les combustibles entreposés est déjà consommée depuis longtemps.

- Les coriums des réacteurs 1, 2 et 3, représentant au maximum 257 tonnes decombustible, ne sont pas localisés. Malgré des centaines de pages de rapports divers et des modélisations rassurantes, personne ne peut dire aujourd’hui où ils sont exactement. Comment peut-on affirmer contrôler quelque chose qu’on ne sait pas localiser ?

.Intégralité de la conférence de presse de Tomohiko Suzuki avec interprète anglophone

(durée : 1 heure 42 ; langue : japonais et anglais)

Un témoignage accablant

Tomohiko Suzuki témoigne également des conditions de travail inadmissibles, de l’absence de vérification de la qualification des intérimaires, de la guéguerre entre les constructeurs Toshiba et Hitachi qui dissimulent des données qu’ils devraient partager. Toutes ces informations sont habituellement cachées au Japon car les ouvriers du nucléaire n’ont pas le droit de parler, comme cela est stipulé dans leur contrat d’embauche (2). C’est pour cela que cette conférence de presse est exceptionnelle. Les informations sont de première main et c’est suffisamment rare pour être remarqué.

Vidéo réalisée par Tomohiko Suzuki à l’intérieur de la centrale (caméra cachée)

(durée : 17 minutes ; langue : japonais)

Pour lui, il fallait évacuer une zone de 80 km autour de la centrale, comme les Etats-Unis l’avaient préconisé pour leurs propres ressortissants. « Il ya des gens qui vivent dans des zones où personne ne devrait être. C'est presque comme s'ils vivaient à l'intérieur d'une centrale nucléaire », explique Suzuki.

Malgré l’absence de progrès notables dans la résolution de la crise, les nouvelles idées des ingénieurs sont aujourd’hui repoussées car il n’y a plus d’argent pour cela. On comprend mieux la précipitation du gouvernement et de TEPCo pour annoncer un « arrêt à froid » des réacteurs. Même si cela ne veut rien dire concrètement face à des réacteurs ruinés ayant perdu leur capacité de confinement, cela permet de réduire drastiquement le budget alloué à la résolution de la crise. Et tout cela aux dépens de la santé des travailleurs qui, pour la plupart, ne sont pas suffisamment prévenus des dangers des radiations. Cela explique sans doute le taux de mortalité important sur l’usine : depuis 7 mois, au moins 5 ouvriers sont morts de manière brusque.

Risques pour la santé des travailleurs

Tomohiko Suzuki a ainsi dénoncé les dangers et les risques pour la santé des travailleurs. Il existe d’ailleurs toujours des doutes sur l’état de santé des travailleurs que TEPCo a « perdu » de ses listes dans les premiers mois et qu’il serait « impossible » de retrouver aujourd’hui. Le 20 juin, TEPCo avouait avoir perdu 69 ouvriers. Le 21 juillet, NHK rapportait que 198 travailleurs avaient été perdus par l’entreprise. Enfin, selon Fukushima Diary, il manquerait officiellement840 ouvriers au 15 décembre. Que signifient ces chiffres ? TEPCo semble perdre certains de ses employés au fur et à mesure que le temps s’écoule. Au lieu de retrouver ces personnes pour pouvoir vérifier leur contamination et suivre leur état de santé, l’opérateur en perd de nouveau.

Ouvriers au réacteur n°4 : combien de temps sont-ils restés au bord de la piscine ?

En fait, on apprend avec notre journaliste freelance que, juste après les explosions de mars, TEPCo avait demandé à l’ensemble de ses entreprises de sous-traitance de recruter « des gens qui n’avaient pas peur de mourir ». Comment cela est-ce possible ? Hormis les Japonais qui effectivement, dans un esprit de sacrifice, ont accepté de risquer leur vie pour éviter que le Japon ne devienne un désert radioactif, qui d’autre pourrait accepter cette idée terrible ? Une autre information de poids rapportée par Suzuki pourrait l’expliquer en partie : le journaliste dévoile que les yakuzas sont très impliqués dans l’industrie nucléaire, étant responsables pour 10 % du nombre de recrutés dans la centrale de Fukushima. Les yakuzas formeraient la plus grande organisation criminelle au monde. Il faut savoir qu’au Japon, plus de 41 % des patrons de grandes entreprises japonaises affirment avoir été victimes de racket de cette organisation qui perçoit des « dîmes » régulières. On peut donc comprendre alors quels types de pressions peuvent être exercés sur des familles qui auraient des « dettes ». Car, selon Suzuki, les groupes yakuza ont longtemps envoyé des travailleurs dans les centrales nucléaires comme un moyen de rembourser les prêts consentis à des taux exorbitants.

Recrutements douteux

Une autre manière de recruter des ouvriers sur la centrale est le démarchage des personnes en difficulté. Certaines sociétés de sous-traitance sont allées très loin pour recruter des personnes dans le besoin, et surtout ne connaissant pas les dangers de la radioactivité. En témoigne ce tract alléchant distribué dans la région d’Ibaraki, et trouvé dans la boîte aux lettres d’un lecteur de ce blog au mois d’octobre. En voici l’image et la traduction :

« Travail de reconstruction dans la zone sinistrée suite à la grande catastrophe dans l'est du Japon

A l'intérieur de la zone de protection des 20 kilomètres (à l'extérieur de la centrale nucléaire) pour un travail de déblaiement.

4 heures par jour (par équipe de 24 heures)

Salaire journalier : 27000 yens

(2 mois = plus de 160 000 yens)

Prise en compte à partir du 10 du mois, paiement 7 jours plus tard.

Durée du travail : 2 mois (pas de vacances)

Logement offert

Frais de repas 1750¥ (3 repas/jour) possibilité de retenue directe sur salaire

Age : entre 40 et 70 ans, hommes uniquement

Travail sécurisé (équipement de protection fourni)

(Sans domicile fixe et membres de la mafia refusés)

Cette annonce sera renouvelée chaque mois, les premiers arrivants seront les premies inscrits.

"Jusqu’à la fin des travaux de déblaiement"

S.A.R.L Hosyo planning

Responsable : M. Nakamura : 047- 703 7122

(Joignable de 6:00 à 11:00) »

[NDT : Il semble y avoir une erreur d'impression entre le salaire journalier et le salaire bimestriel. A moins que le salaire journalier annoncé soit brut et qu’il faille décompter les charges sociales, les frais d'agence et de postage ainsi que la commission de l'agent recruteur, ce qui expliquerait un salaire net bimestriel très différent]

Véritable tract de recrutement ou arnaque ? Seules les personnes dans le besoin qui ont répondu à cet appel pourraient en témoigner. Quoi qu’il en soit, la catastrophe de Fukushima semble avoir créé une économie parallèle, où des salaires mirobolants sont versés à des gens prêts à tout pour sortir de la misère, et où on ne prendrait même pas la peine d’inscrire l’identité de certaines personnes appelées à faire des tâches quasi suicidaires. Sur internet, on trouve ce genre d’annonce avec un salaire mensuel plutôt de l’ordre de 200 000 yens (lien) mais le salaire journalier annoncé n’est pas non plus aberrant puisqu’on trouve aussi des annonces à 30 000 yens pour 3 heures de travail la journée (lien). Ces écarts de salaire s’expliquent sans doute par les différences des tâches à effectuer sur le terrain ou dans la centrale.

Un message secret

Il est impossible de savoir aujourd’hui où sont passés les ouvriers disparus. Etant donné que TEPCo ne communique pas sur ce sujet extrêmement délicat, des rumeurs ont circulé sur Twitter et sur la toile. Pour exemple, ce message troublant que l’on m’a transmis début novembre d’un « ancien professeur de math à l'Université de Kyoto, actuellement chef pour la relance des zones sinistrées » ; En voici la traduction :

Envoyé le : Jeudi 3 Novembre 2011 9h54 Objet : prof de Kyoto Univ.

(message original en japonais ici)

« Tepco a toujours affirmé qu'ils avaient perdu la trace d'une centaine d'employés concernant leurs suivis dosimétrique et médical, c'est faux.

La réalité est qu'ils sont morts à cause de la très forte radioactivité des installations endommagées.

Ces victimes ont été parfaitement prises en charges médicalement par les unités de "Fukushima medical university"

Le département qui les a pris en charge a archivé tous les éléments médicaux de tous ces patients (symptômes, analyses, prélèvement humains, évolutions).

Si cette information, concernant une entreprise privée ayant occasionné un certain nombre de victimes directes, venait à être connue, cela ferait un très gros problème compte tenu de la situation actuelle.

Ne pouvant cacher qu'un certain nombre d'employés avait disparu de leurs listes, la direction de Tepco, avec l'aval du gouvernement, a préféré mettre en avant une perte de contact administratif avec ces personnes concernant leurs suivis médical et dosimétrique.

Les familles des victimes ont reçus de très belles indemnités pour les faire taire.

A l'heure actuelle personne ne parle, car cela représente pour les familles dédommagées une menace si elles venaient à rompre leur silence.

Moi, j'ai longuement hésité avant de vous informer de ce constat, il est probable que ce message sera effacé assez rapidement par les administrateurs du site.

Les personnes qui me lisent et qui me diffusent, auront peut-être quelques petits dérangements, mais la censure de la réalité d'une situation ne peut pas aller en s'améliorant.

Je continuerai d'essayer à vous tenir au courant, mais il ne sera pas toujours simple d'être clair, je vous apporterai plus de précisions en messages privé. »

Info ou intox ? Qui aurait intérêt à diffuser ce genre de texte ? Il faut espérer qu’un journaliste d’investigation retrouvera un jour l’homme qui a écrit ce message lancé comme une bouteille à la mer. Cette lettre pourrait être malheureusement véridique car elle concorde avec d’autres sources plus explicites.

Les ouvriers « jetables » ?

Selon Fukushima Diary, un travailleur de 21 ans est mort d’un infarctus. Il avait travaillé à la centrale de Fukushima Daiichi de mars à juillet 2011. Il est mort chez lui, et aucune autopsie n’a été réalisée. Cette mort n’est donc pas comptabilisée. Cette information a été donnée par M. Sakuma, commerçant à Kawamata-machi ‒ à 22 km à l’est du site nucléaire ‒ lors d’une interview accordée au journaliste Iwakami Yasumi. Accablé par les banques à qui il devait 30 millions de yens, cet homme est allé travailler à la centrale tout en étant bien conscient des risques qu’il encourait. Grâce à son témoignage, on apprend que dans les zones les plus contaminées, les ouvriers « non référencés » sont obligés de travailler dans des conditions extrêmes : l’un de ses amis a dû aller dans le réacteur n° 3. Dans un endroit rempli de débris, le compteur montrait environ 1~2 Sv/h. Le lendemain matin, le même endroit avait été impeccablement nettoyé, ce qui signifie que cela avait été fait par des hommes et non par des robots. Certains travailleurs « jetables » pourraient ainsi être forcés à travailler dans des situations extrêmes, puis on les renverrait, enfin ils seraient marqués comme « manquants ».

La police ne serait pas mieux lotie. Les policiers qui gardent la zone d'évacuation de 20 km ne sont pas informés du niveau de rayonnement de l’environnement où ils travaillent (environ 100 microSv /h lorsque M. Sakuma l’a mesuré) et de ce fait, les décès des policiers ne sont pas plus comptabilisés car ils ne font pas partie de la liste des ouvriers.

Policiers en bras de chemise et ne portant qu'un masque à poussière dans la zone contaminée : savent-ils ce qu’ils risquent ?

Même quand ils ne sont pas forcés de faire des travaux dangereux, certains ouvriers font en sorte de ne pas toujours porter leurs dosimètres afin de pouvoir travailler plus longtemps, car dès qu’ils arrivent à la dose maxi, ils perdent leur emploi. C’est aussi ce qui explique que beaucoup d’ouvriers aient des dépassements de doses. D’ailleurs, l’ancien directeur de la centrale lui-même, souffrant aujourd’hui d’un cancer, avait avoué ne pas s’être inquiété des doses qu’il avait reçues. Depuis mars, d’après les données officielles de TEPCo, sur les 17 780 personnes qui sont venues travailler à la centrale de Fukushima Daiichi, 338 d’entre elles auraient reçu des doses supérieures à 100 mSv. Mais on ne sait pas si les « disparus » sont comptabilisés dans ce nombre. On ne sait pas non plus combien de ces employés sont encore en vie aujourd’hui. Tant que cette liste restera anonyme, il sera impossible de vérifier ces informations unilatérales.

Témoignages d’ouvriers sur ZDF (émission Frontal 21 du 4/10/11)

(durée : 8 min 21, sous-titrage en français)

Par ailleurs, un journaliste a tenté de poser la question du nombre de morts directement au gouvernement, représenté ce jour-là par le secrétaire parlementaire Yasuhiro Sonoda : il lui est en fait impossible de répondre à la question et se reporte toujours sur une demande faite à TEPCo. Sa non réponse implique donc que le gouvernement ignore combien de morts il y a eu à Fukushima depuis le 11 mars.

Des ouvriers en colères

Suite à l’annonce gouvernementale évoquée au début de cet article, il n’y a pas que le gouverneur de Fukushima qui a sursauté en regardant la télévision. Selon le Tokyo Shinbun (le Journal de Tokyo), les travailleurs de Fukushima sont également furieux d'avoir entendu leur premier ministre déclarer que non seulement la température dans les réacteurs avait baissé mais que la situation était désormais sous contrôle : « Le gouvernement ment » ; « Je ne comprends pas ce qu'il dit » ; « On ne peut même pas entrer dans les bâtiments et on ne sait même pas comment récupérer les combustibles ». Un des travailleurs qui regardait la conférence à la télévision commenta aussi : « J'ai cru que je ne comprenais plus le japonais. Je ne crois pas qu'il parle de la centrale que je vois tous les jours. Il nous faudra encore des années pour pouvoir gérer la situation... »

Et pendant ce temps-là, les grands médias francophones diffusent en continu une information officielle rassurante (Je vous laisse deviner qui titre quoi !):

L'accident nucléaire de Fukushima est considéré comme terminé

Fukushima : le Premier ministre japonais se veut rassurant

Fukushima: le gouvernement décrète l'état d'arrêt à froid

Etranger : À Fukushima, l'état des réacteurs stabilisé

Fukushima : les réacteurs sont froids, la situation se stabilise

Fukushima: une étape franchie pour la stabilisation du site

Fukushima: la situation se stabilise à la centrale

Fukushima: arrêt à froid des réacteurs

La centrale nucléaire de Fukushima stabilisée

Japon: la procédure d'arrêt à froid de Fukushima menée à bien

L'accident nucléaire de Fukushima est désormais considéré comme terminé

Fukushima : les réacteurs officiellement en "arrêt à froid"

Les réacteurs de Fukushima sont arrêtés

L'arrêt à froid des réacteurs de Fukushima confirmé

Réussite de la procédure d'arrêt à froid

Situation stable à la centrale de Fukushima

etc.

Alors que les Japonais soit pleurent, soit sont en colère en entendant leur premier ministre annoncer cet « arrêt à froid », le reste du monde est hilare ou ahuri devant ce mensonge d’état. Le monde entier ? Non, la France aux 58 réacteurs soupire d’aise et se donne pour objectif de construire 30 nouveaux EPR d’ici 2050…

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(1) Tomohiko Suzuki vient d’éditer un livre intitulé « Le pouvoir des yakusas dans le nucléaire », détaillant ses nombreuses expériences à la centrale de Fukushima Daiichi et les connexions entre les syndicats du crime yakuza et l'industrie nucléaire. Il a été publié par Bungei Shunju le 15 décembre 2011.

(2) Phrases relevées dans les contrats TEPCo : « Si le signataire accepte ce travail, qu’il soit à l’intérieur ou à l’extérieur de l’enceinte de la centrale de Fukushima, il doit rester dans un strict secret concernant toute information, qu’elle soit écrite, orale ou obtenue par observation. » ; « Le signataire n’acceptera jamais d’interview ou une quelconque enquête de la part de tout média, que ces requêtes aient ou non à voir avec le travail. » (source)

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sources :

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/incognito-journalist-tomohiko-suzuki-claims-fukushima-sham/story-e6frg6so-1226223330282

http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/yakuza-involved-in-fukushima-clean-up-reporter?utm_campaign=jt_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=jt_newsletter_2011-12-16_AM

http://www.scoop.it/t/fukushima-informations/p/826457940/eng-trad-tomohiko-suzuki-journaliste-et-ancien-travailleurs-temporaire-a-fukushima-daiichi

http://www.fccj.or.jp/node/7119

http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/national/news/CK2011121702000035.html

http://enenews.com/tepco-send-people-dont-mind-dying-video

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Pour aller plus loin :

autres articles et reportages sur les ouvriers de Fukushima

Les liquidateurs de Fukushima

http://kibo-promesse.org/2011/10/les-liquidateurs-de-fukushima/

Yakuzas et centrales nucléaires

http://www.netoyens.info/index.php/contrib/16/12/2011/chroniques-anti-nucleaires-yakuzas-et-centrales-nucleaires

Témoignages d’ouvriers sur Channel 4 news

(reportage en anglais)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ml5gKbStfY

Tokyo Freeters - Un film de Marc Petitjean

Le Japon compte aujourd'hui plus de deux millions de freeters, "travailleurs jetables après usage" : des jeunes précaires peu qualifiés qui, faute de moyens, ne peuvent se fixer.

http://www.arte.tv/fr/Comprendre-le-monde/Resistances--mode-d-emploi/3667448.html

À la rencontre des travailleurs de Fukushima

(reportage france24)

http://www.france24.com/fr/20111007-reporters-japon-liquidateurs-fukushima-centrale-nucleaire-ouvriers-debris-radioactifs-danger-seisme-tsunami

5 TEPCO Workers Have Over 250 mSv Of Internal Contamination

http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=4251

Fukushima (167, Nov 25-Dec 2)

2011-12-04T03:06:00.001-08:00

This mail bounced back from several recipients, due to exceeding the fixed mail size. Let me re-send by removing the bulky attachment as introduced in Chapter VI. A comprehensive set of viewgraphs of Fukushima Daiichi disaster (5.9 MB). Dear Colleagues: 259th - 266th day! Apology for delay in completing this mail. In the last few days, two very important reports were released from TEPCO as briefly introduced below. The reports are comprehensive, calling for detailed review in the coming several days for me. I intend to revisit these two reports in my next updates. I. Assessment of the damaged core status of 1F1 - 1F3 On November 30, TEPCO released a comprehensive report and viewgraph summaries of assessment of the damaged core status of 1F1 - 1F3 (only in Japanese. The reports of this kind have never been translated into English by TEPCO, I am afraid.). Previously, on May 15/23, TEPCO release their results of MAAP (Modular Accident Analysis Program) analyses, concluding that the in-vessel retention of core debris have been achieved, in spite of the severe accident induced by the tsunami. TEPCO revisited this issue,since many new information became available through amelioration activities after that. Their new results conclude the following: 1F1: Most of the molten core debris has moved down to the bottom of the reactor vessel. Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) has likely be destroyed with the corium 1F2/3: The damaged core debris has likely been moved to the bottom of the RPV in their conservative assumption, or, the damaged core debris is still retained in the reactor core region, If the actual indication of level gauge is trusted. TEPCO's view of the core status of 1F1has been substantially updated. Although the assessment of the core state was made from multiple viewpoints, including the MAAP assessment, a heat balance approach, the new level gauge data and nuclide assessment, I got an impression that the biggest impact came from the new level gauge data. In their previous assessment as introduced in Earthquake (138,July 28-30), the water gauges of 1F1 RPV was indicating approximately 0.53/1.30 m for Narrow range gauges A/B above the TAF (Tope of Active Fuel level) at 02:30 of March 12, the time of starting the water injection. If the water level was actually as high as the indication, the melt-through should not be the case. However, on May 11, TEPCO re-calibrated the level gauges and concluded that the water level should be -500 cm below the TAF after calibration. In view of this new information, TEPCO appears to have made a very conservative new assumption, that the reactor cooling was lost at the time of the earthquake, even before the "station blackout" induced by the tsunami. Although TEPCO tried to support this new core-melt scenario by other approaches, they are too weak in my view. II. TEPCO's Internal investigation committee report on Fukushima Disaster On December 2, TEPCO released an interim report (140 pages) of their Internal investigation Committee on Fukushima Daiich committee. (Currently, the Government has also launched Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations (http://icanps.go.jp/eng/) Their interim report is also expected soon, reportedly by the end of this year.) Media's evaluations are generally with harsh criticism, such as saying that now new facts have been disclose, full of excuses and insisting on responsibilities of the nuclear regulation. However, since TEPCO has an overwhelming information of the accident, it is highly expected to see a good final report, reported to be completed in June next year. III. Fukushima land contamination maps and effect of local topography I introduce this issue several time, the most recently in Earthquake (164, Nov 11-18). MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports) released, on November 25, the soil contamination maps of wider regions of the Japan mainland, extended as far as 450 km from the Fukushima Daiichi, through http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/ja/1910/2011/11/1910_1125_2.pdf in Japanese. This survey is the last of this series this year, since some of the districts are now covered with snow, reducing the dose rate significantly for remote (airplane) survey. MEXT plans to resume this activity next year to cover the entire Japan, since some contamination was identified even at Okinawa, which is located as far as 2,000 km from Fukushima Daiichi. In the recent report, MEXT included an interesting map, in which a contamination map is shown on top of the topology (terrain) of the contaminated areas. It is instructive to understand how the drifting of the plume occurred first towards NW then to the SW direction. Let me attach an English translation of this map. The map shows a projection taken from a hypothetical spot of 150 km NE from the coast at an altitude of 250km. In this map, please note that the Fukushima Dai-ichi is surrounded by mountains, Oou Mountain Chains and Echigo Mountain Cahins at the west. Abukuma Highland is located at the NW direction of the site. There mountains are gently slopping, eroded by tens of thousands years of erosion. There is a large river flowing down the "Naka-dori" flats from south to west direction. The elevation of "Naka-dori" is sloping from an elevation of 250 m to 60 m. Further south, the elevation is as high as 400 m. The Fukushima site is located in the "Hama-dori" flats near the shore line. Around the time of the accident, which occurred on March 11, the meteorological condition of the eastern Japan was unstable, sometimes in a pattern of three cold days and four warm days, marking the end of winter and the beginning of spring. This phenomena is not so clear in Japan as in the case of coastal regions of China or Korea. It is often induced by a migratory anticyclone produced in the coastal region of China. Without the occasional passage of the anticyclone, the wind direction was generally from the west to east, due to the prevailing westerlies. During the active phase of the accident, this general wind direction (towards the sea) greatly helped in reducing the in-land radiation contamination. During the active phase of the accident during ten days, March 11 to 21, as many as ten times of large releases occurred with largest three occurred between March 15 to 16. Even eight months after accident, exactly which release event correspond to which unit or event has not been identified. Although it is not known when and what event produced the in-land contamination, the land contamination density distribution is showing that the wind direction should have been toward NW direction until the plume run up onto the Abukuma Highland, finally reaching to the "Naka-dori" Flats. The plume was blown towards SW direction along the Oou Mountain Chains as well as other mountain walls located in the west edge of "Naka-dori"Flats, contaminating this region. When the plume arrived at the Abukuma Highland, due to reduced atmospheric pressure, the volume of the plume increased forcing he thermal energy contained in the plume in a form of steam condensing into a local rainfall along the plume passage through a mechanism of "black rain", producing the distinct strip mark of the plume passage with heavy contamination along the Abukuma Highland. When the plume reached to "Naka-dori" Flats, the plume contained only mist, still highly contaminated but should have been in higher altitude from the flats. The fallout from the remaining plume contaminated the flats widely along the "Naka-dori" Flats, perhaps due to mist rain or fog. The initial core diameter of the semi-sperical plume, with highest concentration of radioactive cesium should have been 2 km, surrounded with 1-2 km thick mist region of a lower concentration volume, which can be estimated from the Cs-137 contamination map near the plant. The diameter of the plume further increased while traveling further NW, likely as large as several kilometers due to atmospheric dispersion. However, the estimated initial plume diameter of 2 km corresponds to a thermal energy release of 15 GJ, when the methodology as explained in my previous paper is applied. (G. Saji, 2005. A Scoping Study on the Environmental Releases from the Chernobyl Accident (Part I): Fuel Particles. In: Conference CD of International Topical Meeting on Probabilistic Safety Analysis, PSA’05, 11-15 September 2005 Sir Francis Drake Hotel, San Francisco, California, USA. Let me attach the pre-print of this paper). This methodology has been successfully applied for characterizing the highly contamination strip observed in the Chernobyl accident as well as the Hiroshima atomic bombing. This energy can be compared with the energy released by the hydrogen explosion. Assume that the total volume of the room is 30,000 m3. Approximately 1200 m3 of hydrogen is necessary to reach a concentration of 4%. Since the standard enthalpy of hydrogen gas combustion is ΔH2(g)=285.83 kJ/mol, the total energy released by hydrogen combustion is 1.5E+10 J=15GJ. Although these two results agree very well, it can be just a coincidence, since the released energy is proportional to the third power of the diameter of plume and its accurate estimation soon after the release is indispensable. However, the highly contaminated corridor near the Fukushima Dai-ichi has not been inspected, since it is within 5 km region where air plane flight is prohibited. Although this approach leads to a conclusion that the highly contaminated corridor stretching NW direction from the Fukushima-Daiichi results from a hydrogen explosion, the temporary radiation monitoring data performed by using the monitoring cars did not show good correlation except in the case of the hydrogen explosion from 1F1 occurred on March 12, although the observed dose level was much lower among the 11 giant releases recorded with this temporary environmental monitoring method. This is likely due to the fact that the dose rate of the plume high in the sky should have been substantially reduced with distance from the detectors through shielding effect of atmosphere, according to my "back of an envelope" calculation reported in Earthquake (63) distributed on May 5. Let me quote the relevant parameters below. "(2) Radiation source – dose calculation Assumed the following: - Equivalents of one Sv of X- or Gamma radiation = 6.77E+02 MeV absorbed per cm3 of air. - Energy absorption coefficient mu = 3.35E-5 cm-1 - distance form the plume to the detector: Z meter - Dose rate: D(sphere) = Sa/2x(25-Z)/(25+z)x(exp(-mu x (Z-25)) - exp(- mu x (Z+25))) - Source density Sa=147.5MeV-PBq*0.000000335/677*3600 (3) Results: Z(meters) 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 D(mSv/h) 315 31.3 6.9 2.12 0.79 0.33 0.15 0.07 0.004 0.002 This means that I should have looked for the dose rate data as low as several to 100 microSv/h region for the detector located in 700-800 meter region. I revisited the dose rate data on March 12, to correlate with the hydrogen explosion from 1F1. Although I could barely identify a bip of a few microSv around the time of explosion, however, it does not positively support a significant increase in the dose rate due to hydrogen explosion. Unfortunately, the wind direction was towards NW and increased the distance from the nearest monitor, making the measurement more difficult. "ã€€However, the atmospheric shielding effect suggests that the ground level release, traveling near the monitoring station, appear to be the cause of "giant releases. The ground level releases do not accompany significant energy releases." The highly contaminated corridor stretching toward NW direction from the plant cannot be reproduced by the atmospheric dispersion methodology since the fundamental physical mechanism is different. In the dispersion calculation, the fallout of aerosol is through either the dry or wet (washed out by rain) deposition mechanism. It applies only in a flat terrain, such as covered with prairie, bushes or housings in some dispersion sets, and does not consider atmospheric pressure difference in height, which can induce condensation of steam into droplets, which transport the radioactive aerosols down to the ground. IV. Update of radiation release to the marine environment I covered this issue most recently in Earthquake (164, Nov 11-18). Due to the station blackout, which wiped out all of the on-site radiation monitoring stations, it is difficult to estimate the total amount of radionuclides introduced to the environment from data obtained from the in-site instrumentation. Following explosions and steam venting of the reactor containments, an atmospheric plume of contaminated aerosols was transported mainly to the sea between March 12 and March 23. Contamination of the marine environment following the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident results firstly from dry and wet deposition processes, from an atmospheric contaminated plume directed mainly toward the sea between March 12 and March 23 during the active phase of the accident; secondly from direct releases of highly contaminated waters into the sea; and thirdly of the transport of radioactive pollution by leaching through contaminated subsurface water. After some of the recent studies were introduced, an interesting observation was released by Asahi Shinbunn (http://www.asahi.com/english/). (I looked for the original paper, however, I have not been able to get it yet.) A team of scientists, from Kyoto University, Tsukuba University and Meteorological Research Institute, has been measuring the radiation contamination of runoff of the Abukuma River and its tributaries, flowing through the "Naka-dori" Flats. These rivers collect rain water from a major portion of the contaminated water with is wide watershed (5400 km2). The monitoring was performed between June to August. They found that an estimated runoff of the radioactive cesium reaches approximately 23.4 GBq of Cs-134 and 29.1 GBq a day in an average. More than 90% of cesium was found absorbed on fine particles of clay and other suspensions at the river mouth. The remainders were found dissolved in water. Whereas at Iidate-shi, near mid portion of the river, the radioactive cesium run-off was 83.9 GBq and 925 GBq, individually. This is showing some of the suspensions were deposited at submerged weirs, before reaching the river mouth. This runoff rate is much larger than the direct discharge of vey low waste water performed in April, dischagring 40 GBq. This operation was performed to empty the storage tanks to provide capacity for storing the highly contaminated water. Since September, the concentration of cesium in the several locations of the rivers indicated below detection limit. V. Estimation of the current effluent release rate from the Fukushima Daiichi The Japanese Government is targeting to achieve the "cold shutdown" status by the end of this year. Since the Fukushima Daiichi is damaged, it is necessary to define a technical definition of "cold shutdown". TEPCO's definition is to achieve (1) reactor temperature is sufficiently below 100â„ƒ and (2) an environmental release should be benign. In addition, it is indispensable that the damaged plant will not return back to another active state, such as through hydrogen explosion. TEPCO has been trying to improve an accuracy in estimating the radioactive effluent releases from the damaged plants for last several months. Because of the hydrogen explosions, the secondary containment (reactor building) was severely damaged. The heating and ventilation system, which has been keeping a negative pressure, is no longer available, resulting in releasing radioactivities from several openings not well accounted for. On November 26, TEPCO released an interesting overview report: "Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Unit 1-3 Evaluation method of the present amount of radioactive material released from the Reactor Building" through http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111126_02-e.pdf. Their methods consists of both atmospheric release from the plant to the land and to the marine environment as well as the underground liquid leakage into the ocean. The effluent leakage from the reactor building is being performed by "Extract and measure dust above the reactor building, near the ventilation system of the reactor building cover and the gas controlling system of the Primary Containment Vessel". How these sampling and measurement are being performed is illustrated in the handout. The current estimation of the results are summarized below: 1F1 : approx. 10 MBq/h 1F2 : approx. 10 MBq/h 1F3 : approx. 40 MBq/h Total : approx. 60 MBq/h The total amount is reported to be equivalent to approximately 0.1 mSv/y at the site boundary. The reason why the effluent release from 1F3 is four times larger as compared with the other two is likely from the fact that filtered venting system for 1F3 Reactor Containment System has not been installled yet. TEPCO appears to be facing much difficulties for human access near the RCV due to high dose rate, even after removal of debris by employing robots. http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111105_02-e.pdf VI. A comprehensive set of viewgraphs of Fukushima Daiichi disaster In June, the Japanese Government has released a comprehensive report of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster: Report of Japanese Government to the IAEA Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety - The Accident at TEPCO's Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations - through http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/kan/topics/201106/iaea_houkokusho_e.html Many of the information was supplied by TEPCO, which appears to be integrated into the Government report. Recently, I found the attached presentation compiled around this time. This set of viewgraphs is provided by TEPCO, although it appears to be not released, perhaps due to political confusion. Let me attach this document, titled: "Effects of the Earthquake and Tsunami on the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini Nuclear Power Stations, July 26, 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company for convenience of many of my international colleagues who have to speak about the disaster to the wider audiences. VII. Concern of aged plants in the wake of Fukushima disaster There exists a general concern of aging effects in the Fukushima Dai-ich, worrying about a possibility of worsened the accident progression. In order to clarify this possibility, NISA (Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency) held the first meeting on November 29 to hear opinions of the designated professors knowledgeable for material degradation issues. According to the meeting announcement, the objectives of the meeting is (1) two plants will reach the 30 years mark, and one plant will reach the 40 years mark, the time stamps necessary to have detailed aging assessment, (2) an unexpected rapid increase in ductile/brittle transition temperature was recently identified in a plant (3) to hear specialists opinion to cope with these backgrounds to help decision making, (4) such discussion should be made open. (However, NISA is also saying that the handouts may not be made open. There is not technical document posted in their webpage as of today. ) I got an impression that NISA is asking for an endorsement that there was no substantial aging effect, leading them to conclude that an ordinary regulatory procedures can be followed for life extension. It is true that no apparent aging effect has been identified so far during the accident. For example, the Mark I RCV (Reactor Containment Vessel) of 1F1 to 1F3 appear to have withstood nearly twice the design pressure before venting, although the temperature may have exceeded the design temperature of 171â„ƒ at some parts of dry well. The overheating may have damaged some of the elastomer gaskets. The Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) appears to be retaining the damaged core debris. Some engineers worried about a dislodging of the control rod housing, however, no apparent symptom has been reported supporting this phenomena. Nevertheless, there is a high possibility that leak-tightness of both RPV and RCV were seriously damaged. This is clearly shown by the series of radioactive releases, not correlated with venting events, and hydrogen explosions. In particular, in 1F1, a high dose rate was observed at the personnel hatch of the PCV as early as around midnight of March 11. There are several possibilities of such failures during the accident. (1) "Internal hydrogen explosion" such as occurred at Hamaoka Unit 1 in 2001. The hydrogen explosion/pipe rupture occurred during the normal operation at a ECCS pipe as explained in Earthquake (70). Minor incidents of such explosion have been disclosed experienced eight times inside TEPCO, occurred in small instrumentation piping. (2) SCC (Stress Corrosion Cracking) (3) The preceding seismic event, occurred one hour before arrival of the tsunami. The NISA appears to be interested in a structural assessment by combining Point (1) and (2). However, by some unknown reason, TEPCO seems to be indifferent to Point (1), which I believe is most likely when the RPV is isolated superimposed by the station blackout. This will make removal of water- radiolysis induced hydrogen gas impossible. (4) Met-through of corium For last several years, I have been mainly researching on the root cause of unthinkable severe corrosion degradation phenomena widely being experienced in water-cooled reactors. I am insisting that it is due to a "macro-cell" (I am using the word "long-cell" in honor of R. Pope, then Chair of NACE), where a gigantic batteries are short circuited through piping in LWRs. The batteries can be induced easily by radiation, temperature differences, flow, etc. The battery induces rapid electrolytic corrosion at its anodes. Some of my recent publications are as follows: G. Saji, Degradation of aged plants by corrosion: ’Long cell action’ in unresolved corrosion issues. Nuclear Engineering and Design 239 (2009) 1591–1613 G. Saji and B. Timofeev, Scientific paradigms of structural safety of aged plants—lessons learned from Russian activities, Nuc. Eng. and Des. 239 (2009) 1614–1627 G. Saji, Radiation induced ‘long cell’ (macrocell) corrosion in light water reactors, Nuc. Eng. Des. 240, 1340–1354 Although NISA seems to be more interested in material issues, the real issues are in obsolete safety design of aged plants, I believe. These vulnerabilities should be clarified through the Step 2 of the "stress test" currently underway in Japanese utilities. VIII. Update of radiation monitoring methods used at the Fukushima Dai-ichi I introduced this issue on Earthquake (166, Nov 18-25). Drs. Joyce Sloof and Joost Woittiez of Isotopics in Netherlands kindly responded to my request to comment on the analytical techniques that Tepco has published for the use of the determination of Pu and Sr and on the application of Gamma-Ray spectrometry. Their comments include: "Any information on pre-sampling considerations, sampling strategies and actual sampling procedures is absent. ...For example, there is no use in analyzing a 5x5x5 cm soil sample and report a result in Bq/kg, which is basically a volumetric assay, when one deals with a surface contamination issue, as is the case in Japan. Also, the analyst has to define a representative sample, i.e. he has to know the distribution of the contaminant in the sample population." "Pu analysis-The major issue of concern here, is that the use of a spike is not mentioned. A spike of some Pu isotope is absolutely essential to determine the yield of the chemical separation procedure." I made some research on this subject. I found that TEPCO seems to have been contracting a few laboratories, including Japan Chemical Analysis Center (http://www.jcac.or.jp/index2.html). This laboratory is perhaps one of the most highly evaluated organizations in Japan. I contacted them and found that their methodology of analysis closely follow guidelines established by MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sport) through http://www.kankyo-hoshano.go.jp/en/index.html. For analysis of Sr, the procedure is compiled in Radiation Measurement Procedure Series 2 and, for Pu, in Series 12. Unfortunately, these guideline are all in Japanese. They also told me that the methodology of Sr analysis published by TEPCO is completely different from the one used by JCAC, indicating that TEPCO may have used other results. In the Series 12, for analysis of soil sample, the following procedure is specified. (1) Fifty gram sample should be baked at 500â„ƒ in an electric furnace for 4 hours. (2) After natural cooling, the baked sample should be put into one liter beaker and add 2 ml of a standard solution of Pu-242 or Pu-236 (0.02Bq/ml). (3) Slowly add 250 ml of nitric acid (3+2) . In case of extensive bubbling, ad a few drops of octyl alcohol (4) Boil the hot liquor in a watch grass for two hours on a hot plate or in a sand bath (5) Filter with a fiberglass filter (GA-100) and washout the residues with a small amount of nitric acid (3+2) (6) Boil the liquor until condensed like sirupus (7) Add 100 ml of nitric acid and 100 ml of hydrogen peroxide. Decompose the hydrogen peroxide (8) After cooling, filter with fiberglass filter, collecting the filtration in a 500 ml beaker. Rinse with a small amount of nitric acid (3+2) Plutonium separation of the prepared solution is performed either by using nitric acid compatible negative ion exchange resin column (Dowex 1-X8) or by using TOA-xylen extraction method to make electro-deposition specimen for alpha counting. I think this chemical method of separation of plutonium be a practical way, however, the physical configuration of hot particles are lost by baking and extraction by nitric acid. It is well established, through the Chernobyl accident, that plutonium is released as hot particles in the reactor accident. The physical separation method as performed at the time of Chernobyl accident should retain the morphology of the hot particles, which may be more resourceful for further study, I believe. In addition, for radiation safety assessment, number of inhaled hot particles should provide more direct information in estimating exposures by using a lung dynamic models such as ICRA Pub. 30. Well. let me stop here, this evening! Genn Saji ________________________________________________________________________________________________ (Previous e-mail sent on Nov 25 as Earthquake (166, Nov 18-25) Dear Colleagues: 252nd - 259th day I. Update of effects of low level radiation exposure (Part 2) I have covered this issue several times in this series, the last one on Nov 11 as Earthquake (164, Nov 4 -11). So far, I have been covering mostly the internationally well-known approaches, however, I intend to introduce some of the recent Japanese publications. Some of the Japanese public seem to trust these books much more than the Government explanation based on the ICRP: (1) Akira Sugenoya, 2011. "Diary of Diagnosis and Treatment at Chernobyl - with Apocalipsis of Fukushima Accident. ("cherunobuiri sinnryouki"), shintyoubunnko. ISBN978-4-10-134641-0 (2) Shuntaro Hida and Hitomi Kamonaka, 2011. "Threat of Internal Exposure: from Atomic bomb to Depleted Uranium Bullets". ("naibu-hibaku-no-kyoui") Tchikuma Shinsyo. ISBN978-4-480-06241-3 C0236 (3) Ryuichi Hirokawa, 2011. "Nuclear Reactors Running Away." ("bousou-suru-gennpatsu"), Shougakkan. ISBN978-4-09-388190-6 Although these NPO authors are all strongly insist on abolishing the nuclear energy, however, these books contain many valuable scientific information as well. Since very little is known about the effects of low level exposure, let me extract some of the useful information from these books. Dr. A. Sugenoya, MD, is a surgeon, specializing in thyroid. He volunteered to work in National Thyroid Cancer Hospital of Belarus for 5 and a half years. He is now the Mayor of Matsumoto-shi, Nagano Prefecture. His book helped me to understand the real life of the cancer-affected Chernobyl children. By working closely with NPOs, he assisted to modernize the thyroid cancer diagnostics and treatment in Belarus. He is reporting how actual thyroid cancer diagnostics and treatment were being performed in Belarus during his stay of 1996 to 2001. When he first visited the hospital, there was no ultrasonography (USG). He arranged to present it working with a NGO. In the book, I also found that the thyroid tumor is removed by surgery, without further distinguishing whether it is malignant or not, considering a possibility of eventual development into cancer. These explanations alarms us to be careful in using the epidemiological data. A part of the recent rapid increase in thyroid cancer patients may be due to a selection effect of introducing USG. A majority of thyroid tumor is non-marignant. Due to their economic difficulties in Belarus, the hospital does not have a luxury of keeping the thyroid patients under periodical medical checking before surgery considering QOL of patients. Dr. S. Hida was an Imperial Army Doctor at Hiroshima, at the time of the Atomic bombing. He himself survived from the disaster after blown off by the blast, while he was making a house call to a child in suburbs of the city. He treated many dyeing sufferers by returning to Hiroshima. Although he did not received fatal dosage, he believes he suffered from internal exposure, which motivated him to look into this mode of exposure. However, while I was reading his book, I got an impression that he may have been more highly exposed externally, by radioactive fallout deposited on the ground through the "black rain." The internal exposure should have been through inhalation (including skin respiration) or ingestion. The radioactive species suspended in air should have been blown away quickly by wind or with rising current of wind, which later fell back on the ground with the "black rain." Anyway, in the book he mentioned about the "genbaku bura-bura" (atomic bombing induced inactive state of life) syndrome. The sufferers are generally weak in health, complaining "easy to get tired," or "lacking patience", although no outstanding causes of the difficulties were detected by ordinary diagnosis. The syndrome suggests some kind of low radiation induced troubles in the neuron-synaps signal transfer mechanism in cerebral nerve system, I think. I also read a similar syndrome in the health effects of Chernobyl in the Rupandin's book as "Chernobyl Sickness" (Chernobyl: Have the Prognoses Come True? Russian Journal PRIRODA (Nature), #9, 1992, pp. 70-74. His paper has been distributed previously, let me attach a private English translation once more for your convenience). Although it is very difficult to quantify such difficulties, we should be cautious in the cerebral damage due to low-level radiation. Mr. R. Hirokawa is a journalist and was a Representative of Fund for Chernobyl Children, who has been following the TMI and the Chernobyl accident. In the book, he performed a followup study of 25,564 evacuees from Pripyat City and Chernobyl City, Districts, villages and suburbs. The cohort comprises approximately 1/4 of the population of these two cities. For the control group, questions and answers from residents of Moscow (316 total) were also collected. His group made the survey by distributing questioners, in which 45 questions were grouped into 6 categories. They consist of (1) What did you feel or see during the first week of the accident; (2) Did you notice some physical changes during the first weak?; (3) What kind of food and drink did you take during the first week?: (4) Were you hospitalized?; (5) Explain your current health conditions; (6) Do you think there is some correlation between your current health conditions and the accident?. Let me only introduce summary of Group 2 and Group 5 responses from former residents of Pripyat (9501total answers), the closest city to the Unit 4. From the complaints as summarized in Group (2), I got an impression that they were suffering a typical near subacute radiation sickness syndrome which appears after receiving a fraction of Sv. (2) Did you notice some physical changes during the first weak? Pripyat headache 60.6% nausea 43.8 sour throat 40.7 dermis pain, burnt feeling 6.2 nosebleed 19.3 fainting 9.3 unusual tiredness feeling 56.3 behaving like intoxicated 19.2 others 10.3 (5) Explain your current health conditions Pripyat Moscow healthy 1.7% 54.7% headache 74.3 16.8 sour throat 38.0 8.5 anaemia 18.1 1.9 dizziness 51.1 7.0 nosebleed 19.3 3.2 easy to get tired 21.2 21.2 tend to catch cold 59.6 17.7 pain in bones of hands/feet 61.1 7.3 eyesight problems 29.2 16.1 thyroid anomaly 38.1 3.5 leukemia 0.5 0.6 tumor 4.6 2.5 borne with defects 0.4 0.0 others 18.1 7.0 II. Secondary confinement system and environmental qualification The US NRC accepted, on November 10, a petition of UCS (Union of Concerned Sientists), demanding for Request for Information (DFI) to a number of BWRs licensees with Mark I and II Containment Vessel Design, compelling each licensee to describe how the each facility complies with GDC (General Design Criteria) 44 "Cooling Water" and with 10CFR Part 50, Section 49 "Environmental Qualification of Electric Equipment Important to Safety of Nuclear Power Plants. The Petition Review Board (PRB) identified that the topic of the petition "the effects of the spent fuel pool during accident" as part of the lessons-learned from the Fukushima event. athttp://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/IDMWS/ViewDocByAccession.asp?AccessionNumber=ML11213A030. This issue is worth studied also in Japan, since the outcome of this issue may impact some of the aged BWRs. The SFP in BWRs with Mark I and II containment vessel is located at the top floor of Reactor Building (RB) also called as the Secondary Containment. Such a layout results from the Pressure Suppression System (PSS) located at the bottom of the RCV. The PSS helps reducing the size of RCV, Also, the control rods should be located at the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel, due to neutron flux distribution, in BWRs. These characteristics lead to the BWR design with Mark I and II RCV, which looks very efficient. However, the rooms in RB are interconnected either by heating and ventilation ducts as well as ladders in Fukushima Dai-ichi. This resulted in spreading the leakage of the radioactive species throughout the RB, making it extremely restrictive for the current amelioration efforts. In addition, some of the essential engineered safety feature pumps were flooded due to leakage of the injected water, since they were located at the bottom of "triangular corner" of the reactor buildings in Fukushima Dai-ichi, making it impossible to recover. For progress of this discussion, it is essential to establish the root cause of hydrogen explosion of 1F4 SFP. TEPCO's "official" position is "the reverse flow of hydrogen through venting in 1F3. " I am suspecting involvement of dissolved hydrogen gas (DH) release from the boiling SFP water, the DH induced by water radiolysis and accumulated before the accident. III. Behavior of 1F1 Isolation Condensers after arrival of tsunami On November 22, TEPCP released an interesting handout (in Japanese) analyzing the behavior of Isolation Condensers (IC) soon after the arrival of tsunami through http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111122_03-e.pdf. There are redundant ICs installed in 1F1, which was later improved into the turbine-driven Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) system in 1F2 and 1F3, to cope with the higher power duty. The IC is a natural circulation condenser on the primary side, whose secondary side (heat sink, shell side) uses Reactor Components Cooling Water System. Upon station blackout, the secondary side lost its heat removal capability. For operation of valves, DC power source was necessary, however, their failure mode appears to be "fail as is" upon loss of the DC power, from my observation obtained in following TEPCO's reports. On October 18, TEPCO's crew could inspect the current status of ICs by entering into the Reactor Building and found that the system did not seem to be seriously damaged, in spite of the hydrogen explosion. (http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/news/110311/images/111021_3.wmv) This motivated TEPCO to re-assess the behavior of IC during the accident. By the on-site examination, it was found that the secondary side water remained 65% in IC-A but 85% in IC-B, in which the normal water inventory is 80%. The water level indicates that IC-A should have worked, at least partially. It was concluded that IC-B has been manually tripped soon after the start of ICs, due to too rapid cooling rate exceeding 55â„ƒ/h (100°F/h). Due to the loss of the heat sink, the shell side water temperature gradually increased from the initial 23.0â„ƒ to 100â„ƒ around the arrival time of the tsunami. It is likely that the water inventory inside IC-A was not lost. (This is a bit strange, since before the arrival of tsunami, the Reactor Component Cooling Water System should have been working, removing heat from the secondary side, though.) Since the availability of IC could not be confirmed due to the station blackout, at 21:30 of March 11, the valves connected to IC-A were made open, whereas those connected to IC-B were closed. The decrease of water inventory in IC-A indicates that a part of the decay heat should have been removed, by boiling off the secondary side water inventory of IC-A. In reading the TEPCO's assessment, I found again their explanation ignores a capability of the "feed and bleed" operation. By boiling off the water inventory of the 1F-A, part of the decay heat should have been removed, although the stopping of IC-B made it impossible to make used of the precious heat removal capability through boiling heat transfer. The heat removal through boiling is far more efficient than using the specific heat of water. I also believe that the cooling the reactor faster than 55â„ƒ/h, which is to minimize thermal stress for heavy components in general, is far more important for the severe accident management. IV. Nitrogen gas injection into the Reactor Pressure Vessel On November 24, TEPCO announced their planning of nitrogen gas injection into the RPV (Reactor Pressure Vessel) of 1F1 through 1F3, in order to reduce hydrogen concentration in the PCV (Primary Containment Vessel), identified through operation of the Gas Control Facility. The newly installed gas control facility extracts the PCV atmosphere to remove radioactivity. The hydrogen gas concentration in 1F2, soon after the commissioning of 1F2 gas control facility went down to 0.9% from the initial high of 2.9%. After establishing negative pressure, TEPCO started to suspect that the hydrogen gas accumulated inside of the RPV started to leak into the PCV, since the RPV does not seem to be full with water, in spite of prolonged water injection of approximately 10 m3/h into the RPV. TEPCO intends to keep the hydrogen concentration below inflammable limit even in the condition without steam. Although no radiological assessment has been released, this operation will likely release Kr-85, accumulated inside of the RPV into the environment. http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111124_03-e.pdf http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111124_02-e.pdf V. Radiation monitoring methods used at the Fukushima Dai-ichi On November 19, TEPCO released a set of illustrative presentations (in English) of the health physics equipment being used at Fukushima Dai-ichi, through: http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111119_04-e.pdf In the presentation, I noticed the methodologies used for detection of plutonium, strontium and tritium. The following treatment procedures are being used before α/β spectroscopy: Pu: Incineration at electro furnace⇒heat ⇒filtration⇒liquid concentration⇒boil⇒cool⇒filtration⇒elution by ion exchange⇒evapolation solidification ⇒heat/melt⇒electrodeposition⇒bake Sr: Incineration at electro furnace⇒heat ⇒filtration⇒liquid concentration⇒boil⇒cool⇒filtration⇒elution by ion exchange⇒evapolation solidification ⇒heat/melt⇒electrodeposition⇒bake⇒Y-90 milking T: distillation⇒mixed with liquid scintillator in a 9ml low-potassium vial Since these methods appear to be significantly different from those used in Russia and Ukraine at the time of the Chernobyl accident, it is interesting to know how the international colleagues may say about these method. I have been appealing for TEPCO to arrange an international benchmark exercise in view of significance of there species for radiation protection purposes. In connection with this, the reported earlier detection of strontium in Yokohama, the detection performed by Radio-Isotppe Research Institute (http://www.radio-isotope.jp/index.html) (no English site), was recently denied by another independent measurement performed by Japan Chemical Analysis Center ( http://www.jcac.or.jp/index2.html) (no English site) by saying "there is a possibility to detect another isotope in the analysis method performed by the other way. I think the use of "elution by ion exchange" seems to be making the difference. it appears JCAC is supporting TEPCO's analysis needs. VI. Completion of removal of solid debris from the ground TEPCO announced completion of removal of solid debris scattered on the ground of Fukushima Dai-ichi site on November 19: http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111119_02-e.pdf The statistics were as follows: ãƒ»Term: 4/10~11/17 ãƒ»Area: approx. 56,000 m2 (not including debris inside of the buildings) ãƒ»Amount: approx. 20,000 m3 This will help facilitate remediation and decommissioning activities. For removal of highly contaminated debris collected near the reactor buildings, the debris above 1 mSv/h were stored in 730 containers of 8 cubic meters capacity. Those collected off the reactor buildings, the debris were classified at 10 mSv/h. For removal of highly contaminated debris, heavy construction vehicles with remote operation capabilities were employed. VII. Amelioration and decontamination On November 22, the Life Supporting Team for Affected People compiled a Handbook of Decontamination (in Japanese), through http://www.meti.go.jp/earthquake/nuclear/pdf/20111122nisa.pdf The handbook incorporates various experiences obtained through pilot decontamination activities, including the Government-contracted (to JAEA) pilot research for Establishing Guidelines for Decontamination of Fukushima Prefecture, EURANOS (Generic Handbook for Assisting in the Management of Contaminated Inhabited Areas in Europe following a Radiological Emergency) as well as the recent report distributed through Cleanup Subcommittee of Atomic Energy Society of Japan. In general, removal of surface soil, sludge, fallen leaves, moss, mud and dirts is effective, although the DF (decontamination factor) depends strongly on local environmental characteristics. It also depends on timing of decontamination. For example, in earlier experiments performed in June, the high pressure water blast technique was found effective and economical. However, in the recent experiments, it is not so when it applied to roofs or pavement. It appears that these loose deposits have already been washed away by rainfalls. Now it is found that wire-brushing with water is necessary to remove the radioactivity which is tightly bound on the surface of structures and pavement. It is necessary to develop a kind of rotary wire-brushing "shop-vac" with a recovery tank for the contaminated water. The "special disposition law of decontamination of radioactivities release by the east Japan great earthquake" was approved by the congress and will be in force starting January, 2012. It specifies that those areas with a dose rate between 1 to 20 mSv/y should be decontaminated by the local governments and those areas exceeding 20 mSv/y will be performed by the national Government. Both of them have launched pilot feasibility study activities. For example, Fukushima Prefecture has started "horizontal deployment (regional) decontamination" starting October 18 at Ohnami district to ameliorate 10 hr (10,000 m2). In this district, there is a variety of landscape, housings, a community house, orchard, paddy fields and forests. The local government is making a detailed soil contamination map of 2m x 2m mesh for the residential districts, and every 10m x 10m mesh at non-residential districts. In the pilot research activity, the local government planned to decontaminate all of the 367 housings by the end of this year. However, a pilot decontamination of six houses showed difficulties in reducing dose. Although 70% reduction in dose rates was achieved in gardens soils and unpaved/pebble-covered parking space, the DF went down to only 25% at the roof and paved garden, resulting in only 22% reduction inside of the houses in average. Well, let me stop here tonight! Genn Saji ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ (Previous e-mail sent on Nov 18 as Earthquake (164, Nov 11-18) Dear Colleagues: 245th-252nd day! I. INPO Special Report Recently, INPO released Special Report on the Accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi (INPO 11-005 November 2011) open to the public through several websites, including http://www.nei.org/filefolder/11_005_Special_Report_on_Fukushima_Daiichi_MASTER_11_08_11_1.pdf. This 104 page report is well written, summarizing the general understanding of the engineers in the nuclear community in Japan. Although their references are limited to official documentation of the Government, TEPCO and several other organizations in Japan, there are not much new information for me. Nevertheless, it helped a lot to clarify some of my misunderstandings and some un-awared-of issues. The report is easier to read in good English by summarizing the essential issues only in the first 45 pages, followed with "Chapter 7. Additional Information" and "Chapter 8. Event Progression and Time-Line". At the International Symposium on Nuclear Safety (iSONS 2011) held in Tokyo (Oct 31- Nov 1), Mr. Lee Gard (INPO USA) explained, in particular, that the Chapter 8 was developed by confirming line by line with TEPCO people as done also by JANTI in http://www.gengikyo.jp/english/shokai/Tohoku_Jishin/report.pdf These reports start with the Government Reports to IAEA, released through http://www.meti.go.jp/english/earthquake/nuclear/index.html#iaea Through these reports, the Chronology/Timeline of the event sequences are now confirmed well, I believe. However, I still feel there remain a lot of unknowns in the root causes of the accident sequences. For example, in the INPO report, it is stated that "There are various theories regarding the cause of the hydrogen explosion in Unit 4. .... The most widely accepted theory is associated with the back-flow of gases from Unit 3 during venting." Although it is true that most people seem to accept this theory, however, this kind of issues cannot be decided by a majority vote. It is very strange that the hydrogen explosion in Unit 4 occurred one day after the venting from 1F3. I have been suspecting the role of water radiolysis, where the dissolved hydrogen was released from the H2-saturated pool water due to boiling. I mentioned "the general understanding of the engineers in the nuclear community in Japan". In general, the Japanese public as well as most of the scientists outside of the nuclear community seem to have distrustful views against the Japanese nuclear community. It is often mentioned in blogs that "The Government's and TEPCO's report made no reference at all to the true consequences of the Fukushima accident. Shades of wartime Imperial Headquarters censorship." I think what is missing in these reports are scientific bases of facts leading to the important conclusions. In all of these reports, scientific bases are seldom published and only conclusions are advocated first through media. In most cases, it is impossible for me to follow their scientific bases or to reproduce their analytical steps, at least by performing independent "back of an envelope" calculations. II. Radiation release to the marine environment Due to the station blackout, which wiped out all of the on-site radiation monitoring stations, it is difficult to estimate the total amount of radionuclides introduced to the environment from data obtained from the instrumentation in the plant. Following explosions and steam venting of the reactor containments, an atmospheric plume of contaminated aerosols was transported mainly to the sea between March 12 and March 23. Contamination of the marine environment following the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident results firstly from dry and wet deposition processes, from an atmospheric contaminated plume directed mainly toward the sea between March 12 and March 23 during the active phase of the accident; secondly from direct releases of highly contaminated waters into the sea; and thirdly of the transport of radioactive pollution by leaching through contaminated soil. On the sea, it is very difficult to assess atmospheric deposition, which involves large surfaces and was quickly advected and dispersed. Only seawater measurements performed a few days after the release could give an estimation of the quantities. Moreover, atmospheric models have large uncertainties with respect to the dispersion and deposition parameters onto the sea. The influence of direct release of the highly contaminated water was particularly significant from March 26 to April 8 in the vicinity of the power station (mean concentration of 15 716 Bq/liter for Cs-137, maximum of 68 000 Bq/liter near the surface. Dr. Ko-ichi Nakamura, a marine geologist, introduced me the following two reports, one from CREPI (Central Research Electric Power Institute, http://criepi.denken.or.jp/en/index.html) and the other from IRSN, http://www.irsn.fr/FR/Actualites_presse/Actualites/Pages/20111027_Accident-fukushima_impact-rejets-radioactifs-milieu-marin.aspx): (1) Tsumune, D., T. Tsubono, M. Aoyama and K. Hirose, (2011b). Distribution of oceanic 137Cs from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant simulated numerically by a regional ocean model, Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, doi:10.1016/j.jenvrad.2011.10.007, in press. (2) Bailly du Bois, P., Laguionie, P. , Boust, D., Korsakissok, I., Didier, D., Firvet , B. 2011. Estimation of marine source-term following Fukushima Dai-ichi accident (http://www.irsn.fr/FR/Actualites_presse/Actualites/Pages/20111027_Accident-fukushima_impact-rejets-radioactifs-milieu-marin.aspx) Both of them estimated the total amount of the environmental releases as follows: Authors Fukushima direct release Fukushima fallout Tsumune 3.5±0.7 PBq some portion of 15 PBq Bailly 27 PBq 0.076 PBq Since only concentrations near the surface sampling are available, the vertical distribution concentration of radio-actioactive species depends much on technical judgement of authors. Dr. Bailey assumed 35 meter deep mixed layer, whereas Dr. Tsumune incorporated a shoaling beach topology near the Fukushima Daiichi with an average depth of 10 meters. The differences in the depth of mixing layer appear to account for a factor of 3 in their difference. Another difference seems to come from the treatment of varied concentration during April 1 to April 8. After April 8, the concentration near the discharge point showed a gradual decay pattern. The direct leakage of the highly contaminated water occurred during April 1 to 6, releasing 0.96 PBq of Cs-137. There were two peaks during this period. Another large difference appears to results from specifying the total amount of releases at April 8. Dr. Bailly obtained by extrapolation of the regression curve at the date of the April 8 to estimating the total amount of Cs-137 discharged at the end of the main release period (March 26 – April 8). The regression curve uses data from eight sampling points, taken at more than 5 km points, each of them recorded different time span, ranging from a starting time of April 11 to an ending time of July 4. The estimated quantity was 22.0 PBq. A 95% confidence interval gives values between 20.8 and 23.1 PBq. On the other hand, Dr. Tumune relies more heavily on the sampling data taken near the discharge points and assumes a sloping release rate curve with flat portion at both ends. I believe closer the release point, the more reliable the source term can be. As to the estimation of the fallout, the 15 PBq value Dr. Tsumune used is the official value released from the Nuclear Safety Commission, obtained by a reverse engineering of the dispersion calculation by SPEEDI. I do not think this value is correct, due to the inevitable uncertainties induced by atmospheric dispersion calculation. However, Dr. Tumune was successful in differentiating two major release pathways by analyzing observed I-131/Cs-137 activity ratios, direct release and atmospheric deposition. They found the I-131/Cs-137 activity ratios before 25 March were scattered and do not fall on the decay curve of I-131; therefore, before that date, the observed Cs137 concentrations originated from atmospheric deposition. They conclude that the contribution of direct release to the observed Cs-137 concentrations was larger than that of atmospheric deposition. I think this conclusion is very important. Based on the DOE/NNEA land contamination map of Cs-134 + Cs-137, the integrated deposition of Cs-137 to the land was 3.0 PBq, as introduced in Earthquake (159, Oct 7-11) in October 12, although in my estimation, the coverage of the contaminated areas were limited to Fukushima. I believe the actual measurements of the environmental release data does not support the Government designation of INES Level 7, rather it should have been in Level 6. I believe such a designation should have not been made without robust environmental contamination data. In both of these works, they ignored the radioactive terrestrial deposits partially leached by rainwater and then transported to the sea by run-off. The land deposition occurred during the dispersion of the atmospheric releases from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The most recent information observed was that the leached radioactive cesium reacts with fine particular suspension of cray in the liver water, transported with stream and gradually depositing at estuaries. For example, along the Nitta-gawa river flowing N-W direction of Fukushima, the cesium concentration measured at a upstream, near Iidate-mura recorded 3.2 kBq/kg of sediments, whereas at Minami-Souma-shi, located at the downstream near the estuary, 13 kBq/kg was recorded. The upstream concentration was reduced to 1/5 whereas the down-stream concentration increased three times, compared with the activity measured in May. These contaminated sediments will deposit at the seabed for many years along the coast line but input to the bulk of sea water may be negligible. III. Internal exposure from Cs-137 in livestock An interesting assessment was published by Dr. Manabu Fukumoto, MD, of Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer of Tohoku University pertaining to the internal exposure from Cs-137 (http://www.idac.tohoku.ac.jp/index.en.php). Before evacuation, as many as 3,500 livestock were release to the field, which became a kind of wild livestock. The Government decided to put down these animals, although less than 10% of them have been caught. Dr. Fukumoto and his team investigated 26 of such animals and measured the distribution of Cs-137 in various organs. When the Cs-137 concentration is 60 Bq/kg in blood, the following concentrations were identified in organs: Organs Cs-137 (Bq/kg) blood 60 femule (thigh) 1800 tangs and livers 600

Decessi di Militari per malattie tumorali

2011-11-24T08:40:00.001-08:00

SINDACATO UNITARIO PENSIONATI IN UNIFORME

Roma, 17 ottobre 2011

Oggetto: Decessi di Militari per malattie tumorali

Signor Presidente della Repubblica,

Le scrivo nella mia veste di Presidente del SUPU (Sindacato Unitario Pensionati in Uniforme), organizzazione sindacale apartitica e apolitica, che si è costituita tra gli appartenenti, non in attività di servizio, dell’Arma dei Carabinieri, della Polizia di Stato, della Guardia di Finanza, della Polizia Penitenziaria, del Corpo Forestale dello Stato, dell’Esercito Italiano, della Marina Militare, dell’Aeronautica Militare, delle Capitanerie di Porto, delle Polizie Municipali, dei Vigili del Fuoco, della Croce Rossa Italiana, delle Polizie Locali, delle Vigilanze Private, di quanti altri hanno comunque prestato servizio presso le Amministrazioni della Difesa, degli Interni e della Giustizia e degli Enti pubblici territoriali negli specifici ambiti, nonché presso gli Enti comunque erogatori di pubblici servizi, dei titolari delle relative pensioni di reversibilità, e si ispira alla concezione e alla tradizione sindacale italiana, che opera per l’emancipazione dei lavoratori e dei pensionati e per la tutela della loro dignità, professionalità e sicurezza nel mondo del lavoro.

Negli ultimi tempi sono stato più volte interessato da molti familiari di militari che sono deceduti a seguito di gravi malattie tumorali, contratte mentre espletavano il loro servizio in località in cui le forze della NATO utilizzavano materiali esplosivi, fra cui bombe, impregnati di uranio impoverito o di metalli pesanti, la cui pericolosità per la salute umana è allo studio di diverse commissioni di esperti, senza alcun esito.

Sembrerebbe che le malattie tumorali possano dipendere dalla prolungata esposizione a varie sostanze (quindi non solo l’uranio impoverito) che comunque producono gli stessi effetti, con il decesso di coloro che le aspirano o le assorbono.

Quando svolgevo il mio servizio nell’Arma dei Carabinieri, nel primo incontro con il personale dipendente, facevo presente che un buon Comandante riceve dallo Stato un numero ben indicato di militari vivi. Era sua somma cura restituirli tutti vivi.

Non mi pare che ciò sia accaduto con taluni Comandanti, che, sebbene fossero a conoscenza della rischiosa esposizione del proprio personale, poco o nulla facevano per segnalare il pericolo e scongiurare ulteriori vittime.

Questo Sindacato, sulla base delle proprie competenze statutarie, ha posto allo studio il fenomeno, al fine di verificare i danni prodotti al personale e di interrompere questa catena di morti, che nessuno ricorda. Eppure sono lavoratori anche loro e muoiono per un alto fine, in quanto tutelano innocenti, soprattutto anziani, donne e bambini, in missioni di pace.

Mi rivolgo a Lei, Signor Presidente della Repubblica, che interviene giustamente con durezza in occasione di morti sul lavoro, affinché il Ministro della Difesa si occupi di questi morti dimenticati con serietà ed impegno istituendo un gruppo di lavoro per lo studio del fenomeno e per la individuazione delle cause che originano questi decessi, anche al fine di trovare i giusti rimedi.

Questo Sindacato, unico a rappresentare tutti i lavoratori e pensionati in uniforme, sulla base dei principi della concertazione, si dichiara disponibile a partecipare a questo gruppo di lavoro.

Molte mamme e molti papà, che hanno avuto i loro figlioli morti, in giovane età, in queste sciagurate circostanze, mi hanno espresso il desiderio di potere essere ricevuti da Lei, per rappresentare a colui che è indicato dalla Carta Costituzionale quale Comandante Supremo delle Forze Armate, il loro dolore e la loro indignazione per la sottovalutazione di un fenomeno così grave.

Certo di un Suo autorevole intervento, La saluto con molta cordialità e la stima di sempre

Il Presidente del SUPU

(Gen. Antonio Pappalardo)

TEPCO Slated to Build Plants in Texas

2011-11-21T10:13:00.001-08:00

TruthOut.org / By Greg Palast

Obama recently asked Congress for a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors on the Gulf Coast of Texas -- involving Tokyo Electric Power.
Japanese Company Responsible for Nuclear Catastrophe Is Slated to Build Plants in Texas

March 14, 2011

I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations.

I don't know the law in Japan, so I can't tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.

But what will Obama plead? The Administration, just months ago, asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas -- by Tokyo Electric Power and local partners. As if the Gulf hasn't suffered enough.

Here are the facts about Tokyo Electric and the industry you haven't heard on CNN:

The failure of emergency systems at Japan's nuclear plants comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked in the field.

Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called "SQ" or "Seismic Qualification." That is, the owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or an exploding Christmas card from Al Qaeda.

The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from 'failed' to 'passed.'

The company that put in the false safety report? Stone & Webster, now the nuclear unit of Shaw Construction which will work with Tokyo Electric to build the Texas plant, Lord help us.

There's more.

Last night I heard CNN reporters repeat the official line that the tsunami disabled the pumps needed to cool the reactors, implying that water unexpectedly got into the diesel generators that run the pumps.

These safety back-up systems are the 'EDGs' in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn't work in an emergency is like a fire department telling us they couldn't save a building because "it was on fire."

What dim bulbs designed this system? One of the reactors dancing with death at Fukushima Station 1 was built by Toshiba. Toshiba was also an architect of the emergency diesel system.

Now be afraid. Obama's $4 billion bail-out-in-the-making is called the South Texas Project. It's been sold as a red-white-and-blue way to make power domestically with a reactor from Westinghouse, a great American brand. However, the reactor will be made substantially in Japan by the company that bought the US brand name, Westinghouse -- Toshiba.

I once had a Toshiba computer. I only had to send it in once for warranty work. However, it's kind of hard to mail back a reactor with the warranty slip inside the box if the fuel rods are melted and sinking halfway to the earth's core.

TEPCO and Toshiba don't know what my son learned in 8th grade science class: tsunamis follow Pacific Rim earthquakes. So these companies are real stupid, eh? Maybe. More likely is that the diesels and related systems wouldn't have worked on a fine, dry afternoon.

Back in the day, when we checked the emergency back-up diesels in America, a mind-blowing number flunked. At the New York nuke, for example, the builders swore under oath that their three diesel engines were ready for an emergency. They'd been tested. The tests were faked, the diesels run for just a short time at low speed. When the diesels were put through a real test under emergency-like conditions, the crankshaft on the first one snapped in about an hour, then the second and third. We nicknamed the diesels, "Snap, Crackle and Pop."

(Note: Moments after I wrote that sentence, word came that two of three diesels failed at the Tokai Station as well.)

In the US, we supposedly fixed our diesels after much complaining by the industry. But in Japan, no one tells Tokyo Electric to do anything the Emperor of Electricity doesn't want to do.

I get lots of confidential notes from nuclear industry insiders. One engineer, a big name in the field, is especially concerned that Obama waved the come-hither check to Toshiba and Tokyo Electric to lure them to America. The US has a long history of whistleblowers willing to put themselves on the line to save the public. In our racketeering case in New York, the government only found out about the seismic test fraud because two courageous engineers, Gordon Dick and John Daly, gave our team the documentary evidence.

In Japan, it's simply not done. The culture does not allow the salary-men, who work all their their lives for one company, to drop the dime.

Not that US law is a wondrous shield: both engineers in the New York case were fired and blacklisted by the industry. Nevertheless, the government (local, state, federal) brought civil racketeering charges against the builders. The jury didn't buy the corporation's excuses and, in the end, the plant was, thankfully, dismantled.

Am I on some kind of xenophobic anti-Nippon crusade? No. In fact, I'm far more frightened by the American operators in the South Texas nuclear project, especially Shaw. Stone & Webster, now the Shaw nuclear division, was also the firm that conspired to fake the EDG tests in New York. (The company's other exploits have been exposed by their former consultant, John Perkins, in his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.)

If the planet wants to shiver, consider this: Toshiba and Shaw have recently signed a deal to become world-wide partners in the construction of nuclear stations.

The other characters involved at the South Texas Plant that Obama is backing should also give you the willies. But as I'm in the middle of investigating the American partners, I'll save that for another day.

So, if we turned to America's own nuclear contractors, would we be safe? Well, two of the melting Japanese reactors, including the one whose building blew sky high, were built by General Electric of the Good Old US of A.

After Texas, you're next. The Obama Administration is planning a total of $56 billion in loans for nuclear reactors all over America.

And now, the homicides:

CNN is only interested in body counts, how many workers burnt by radiation, swept away or lost in the explosion. These plants are now releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Be skeptical about the statements that the "levels are not dangerous." These are the same people who said these meltdowns could never happen. Over years, not days, there may be a thousand people, two thousand, ten thousand who will suffer from cancers induced by this radiation.

In my New York investigation, I had the unhappy job of totaling up post-meltdown "morbidity" rates for the county government. It would be irresponsible for me to estimate the number of cancer deaths that will occur from these releases without further information; but it is just plain criminal for the Tokyo Electric shoguns to say that these releases are not dangerous. Indeed, the fact that residents near the Japanese nuclear plants were not issued iodine pills to keep at the ready shows TEPCO doesn't care who lives and who dies whether in Japan or the USA. The carcinogenic isotopes that are released at Fukushima are already floating to Seattle with effects we simply cannot measure.

Heaven help us. Because Obama won't.

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." View Palast's reports for BBC TV and Democracy Now! at gregpalast.com.

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