Japan | Coalition Against Nuclear Energy South Africa

Scandalous SA Nuclear Industry rides on Fukushima Events to Promote Nuclear Energy

May 9, 2011 3:37 pm ⋅ 2 Comments ⋅ admin

The Nuclear Industry, particularly the South African sector have been using the terrible events of Fukushima in Japan as a vehicle to actually promote nuclear energy even more than before. Any normal person with half a brain cell can ask the question, did they even see what happened in Japan?

A nuclear forum is being held in South Africa on the 19th of May 2011 at Emperor’s Palace, Johannesburg, aimed at once again promoting nuclear energy in South Africa. As always these “forums” are not for free and are designed that way in order to keep out NGO’s and community driven organisations who simply do not have the funds to attend them. To give you an idea the cost of attending is R2850.00 per person which most NGO’s will not be able to afford, simple as that.

What happens with all these events is that 99% of the attendees are already pro nuclear so one wonders what’s the fricking point??

If the nuclear industry really wants to enter into debate with the South African public WHICH THEY DO NOT, they would make attendance for NGO’s and community driven organisations FREE but they DO NOT want to debate anything. They have an agenda and they will stick with it no matter what. In 5 years we have never been able to get anyone inside the highly secretive South African Nuclear Industry to debate anything, they cannot even answer the simplest of questions posed to them.

What is most annoying is an email promoting this event which was circulated by the company managing the event, namely Siyenza Managament (Pty) Ltd. In this email the author one Mabel Modipa spits out the biggest bunch of bogus unscientific garbage we’ve seen yet.

The email reads as follows:

Africa Needs Nuclear Power

In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant incident, resulting from the recent massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and following the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in the former Soviet Union, there has been much public debate internationally concerning nuclear power.

Much of the information projected to the public is misguided and inaccurate which leads to a public fear which in turn affects the formulation of government policy internationally. This in turn affects the costs of construction of nuclear power stations because, at times, unrealistic requirements are put in place, which then tend to drive costs up. The mystique surrounding the subject of nuclear power tends to confuse matters further, in the public mind. A confused public cannot make informed energy decisions relating to nuclear power.

In Fukushima province the first person to die as a result of the Fukushima nuclear incident has just been reported. He was a 64 year old farmer from Sukagama, 65km from the reactor. He hanged himself because the authorities would not let him sell his produce. To receive any meaningful radiation dose from his spinage a person would have to eat many tons of it, which would be impossible. It is sad that misguided policy caused his death.

Issues of nuclear construction costs and public perceptions of nuclear power will be discussed at the forthcoming nuclear power conference; Nuclear Forum 3, on 19 May 2011 at Emperor’s Palace, Johannesburg.

The conference will be opened by the Minister of Energy, The Hon Dipuo Peters.

A lot of debate around the use of nuclear as an alternate energy source has been debated this week at the Africa World Economic Forum in Cape Town. South Africa will be taking the lead in Africa, with the proposed implementation of nuclear as a reliable source of power for the country. This will no doubt raise the nuclear debate in the rest of the African continent.

ENDS
5 May 2011
Issued by: Siyenza Management
+27 11 463 9184

Mike Kantey, the chairperson of the National Coalition Against Nuclear Energy duly responded to Miss Modipa with the following response.

Dear Mabel

As the National Chairperson of the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy (see www.cane.org.za) and on behalf of the African Uranium Alliance, I take the strongest objection to the unscientific and emotional language employed in your press release appended below.

If this is the quality of business “intelligence” that is sold at high expense to political, investment, and business leaders in Africa, may Heaven help us over the next century.

Not only does the recently Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2010) for South Africa make it abundantly clear at Table 18 on page 43 that a non-nuclear future is perfectly and affordably obtainable, but the respected International Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA) declared the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident at its highest level of INES-7, equivalent to the worst accident ever at Chernobyl.

To trivialise and minimise this horrendous accident as your misguided “press release” appears to do makes a mockery of those Japanese citizens within a 20-km radius who have been forced to evacuate their lands and their homes, probably forever, and the risk to all those who are forced to consume foodstuffs and liquids with traces of Strontium-90 and Cesium-137. Unlike your ill-informed and disgraceful mockery of an old man’s death by suicide (an understandable response in Japanese society), as well as your simple ignorance of the basic rules of English spelling (“spinach” not “spinage”, which is what you appear to be practising), the smallest, micro-quantity of Cesium-137 or Strontium-90 will be sufficient to trigger a cancer or genetic defect, once it has been inhaled or swallowed.

I trust that your conference will not be another exercise in pulling radioactive wool over your monied classes, but an honest assessment of what really is in the best interests of the African masses.

Sincerely

Mike Kantey
National Chairperson
Coalition Against Nuclear Energy
www.cane.org.za

Source: http://www.environment.co.za

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Posted in: Nuclear Energy ⋅ Tagged: africa, conference, construction, emperors palace, energy, forum, fukushima, IAEA, Integrated Resource Plan, IRP2010, Japan, necsa, nuclear, power, power stations, reactors, siyenza, south africa, tsunami

Nuclear Agency Is Criticized as Too Close to Its Industry

May 9, 2011 3:33 pm ⋅ 1 Comment ⋅ admin

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/business/energy-environment/08nrc.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
By TOM ZELLER Jr., New York Times, Published: May 7, 2011

In the fall of 2007, workers at the Byron nuclear power plant in Illinois were using a wire brush to clean a badly corroded steel pipe — one in a series that circulate cooling water to essential emergency equipment — when something unexpected happened: the brush poked through.

The resulting leak caused a 12-day shutdown of the two reactors for repairs.

The plant’s owner, the Exelon Corporation, had long known that corrosion was thinning most of these pipes. But rather than fix them, it repeatedly lowered the minimum thickness it deemed safe. By the time the pipe broke, Exelon had declared that pipe walls just three-hundredths of an inch thick — less than one-tenth the original minimum thickness — would be good enough.

Though no radioactive material was released, safety experts say that if enough pipes had ruptured during a reactor accident, the result could easily have been a nuclear catastrophe at a plant just 100 miles west of Chicago.

Exelon’s risky decisions occurred under the noses of on-site inspectors from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. No documented inspection of the pipes was made by anyone from the N.R.C. for at least the eight years preceding the leak, and the agency also failed to notice that Exelon kept lowering the acceptable standard, according to a subsequent investigation by the commission’s inspector general.

Exelon’s penalty? A reprimand for two low-level violations — a tepid response all too common at the N.R.C., said George A. Mulley Jr., a former investigator with the inspector general’s office who led the Byron inquiry. “They always say, ‘Oh, but nothing happened,’ ” Mr. Mulley said. “Well, sooner or later, our luck — you know, we’re going to end up rolling craps.”

Critics have long painted the commission as well-intentioned but weak and compliant, and incapable of keeping close tabs on an industry to which it remains closely tied. The concerns have greater urgency because of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, which many experts say they believe was caused as much by lax government oversight as by a natural disaster.

The Byron pipe leak is just one recent example of the agency’s shortcomings, critics say. It has also taken nearly 30 years for the commission to get effective fireproofing installed in plants after an accident in Alabama. The N.R.C.’s decision to back down in a standoff with the operator of an Ohio plant a decade ago meant that a potentially dangerous hole went undetected for months. And the number of civil penalties paid by licensees has plummeted nearly 80 percent since the late 1990s — a reflection, critics say, of the commission’s inclination to avoid ruffling the feathers of the nuclear industry and its Washington lobbyists.

Although the agency says plants are operating more safely today than they were at the dawn of the nuclear industry, when shutdowns were common, safety experts, Congressional critics and even the agency’s own internal monitors say the N.R.C. is prone to dither when companies complain that its proposed actions would cost time or money. The promise of lucrative industry work after officials leave the commission probably doesn’t help, critics say, pointing to dozens over the years who have taken jobs with nuclear power companies and lobbying firms.

Now, as most of the country’s 104 aging reactors are applying for, and receiving, 20-year extensions from the N.R.C on their original 40-year licenses, reform advocates say a thorough review of the system is urgently needed.

The agency’s shortcomings are especially vexing because Congress created it in the mid-1970s to separate the government’s roles as safety regulator and promoter of nuclear energy — an inherent conflict that dogged its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission.

“It wasn’t much of a change,” said Peter A. Bradford, a former N.R.C. commissioner who now teaches at Vermont Law School. “The N.R.C. inherited the regulatory staff and adopted the rules and regulations of the A.E.C. intact.”

Mr. Bradford said the nuclear industry had implicitly or explicitly supported every nomination to the commission until Gregory B. Jaczko’s in 2005. Mr. Jaczko, who was elevated to chairman by President Obama in 2009, had previously worked for both Representative Edward J. Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat and longtime critic of the nuclear industry, and Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and current Senate majority leader who sought to block a nuclear waste repository in his state.

Mr. Jaczko acknowledges that the agency needs to move faster on some safety issues. But he defends its record. “I certainly feel very strongly that this is an independent regulator that will make what it thinks are the right decisions when it comes to safety,” he said. “There will be people who will agree, and some people who will disagree. That’s part of the process.”

For all the agency’s shortcomings as a regulator, even the most vocal critics acknowledge that it should not be compared to the Minerals Management Service, the scandal-plagued agency that oversaw the oil and gas industry and was reorganized by Mr. Obama after the BP oil spill last year.

Still, David Lochbaum, a frequent critic of the N.R.C. who recently worked as a reactor technology instructor there, said the agency too often rolled the dice on safety. “The only difference between Byron and Fukushima is luck,” he said.

Full article at this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/business/energy-environment/08nrc.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

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Posted in: Nuclear Energy ⋅ Tagged: exelon, fukushima, Japan, leaks, N.R.C., NRC, nuclear, reactor, repairs, shutdown

Nuclear Adviser Quits Over Handling of Crisis

May 2, 2011 11:56 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅ admin

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703567404576293201211871250.html
By WILLIAM SPOSATO, Wall Street Journal (Asia), April 30 2011

TOKYO — A special advisor to the Japanese government on radiation safety
resigned Friday, saying that he was dissatisfied with the handling of the
ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Toshiso Kosako, a professor at the prestigious University of Tokyo, said at
a news conference that the prime minister’s office and agencies within the
government “have ignored the laws and have only dealt with the problem at
the moment.” Holding back tears, he said this approach would only prolong
the crisis.

Following the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the Dai-ichi
nuclear power plant has become the site of the second-worst nuclear power
plant crisis in history. Three of its six reactors still pose a potential
threat as officials and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. work to
bring the situation under control.

Mr. Kosako was appointed on March 16. In announcing the appointment, chief
government spokesman Yukio Edano described him as someone who
“possesses outstanding insight and expertise in the field of radiation safety.”

Mr. Kosako was one of six special advisers to the administration of Prime
Minister Naoto Kan. According to Mr. Edano’s announcement, Mr. Kosako
was to provide “information and advice to the prime minister on the ongoing
incidents as the nuclear power stations.”

But he said that in the weeks since his appointment, it was difficult to
know who was actually in charge of dealing with the situation.

Diet member Akihisa Nagashima, a senior politician within the ruling
Democratic Party said in a statement that the administration had urged Mr.
Kosako to stay on and that his departure represented a “heavy blow” to the
government. A spokesman for the prime minister’s office had no immediate
comment.

Officials and foreign experts say that the situation at the plant has now
passed its most critical stages, with a much lower threat of a large release
of radiation that could cause widespread health problems.

Write to William Sposato at william.sposato@dowjones.com

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Posted in: Nuclear Energy ⋅ Tagged: adviser, advisor, crisi, daiichi, disaster, fukushima, government, Japan, kosako, nuclear, quites, reactor, tepco

Radiation Readings in Fukushima Reactor Rise to Highest Since Crisis Began

April 30, 2011 11:52 am ⋅ 2 Comments ⋅ admin

By Tsuyoshi Inajima and Michio Nakayama, Bloomberg, Apr 27, 2011
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-27/tokyo-water-radiation-falls-to-zero-for-first-time-since-crisis.html

Radiation readings at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi station rose to the highest since an earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems, impeding efforts to contain the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Two robots sent into the reactor No. 1 building at the plant yesterday took readings as high as 1,120 millisierverts of radiation per hour, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at Tokyo Electric Power Co., said today.

That’s more than four times the annual dose permitted to nuclear workers at the stricken plant.

[Note: these are measurements of the penetrating gamma radiation only; they do not include the less-penetrating beta and alpha radiation. (GE)]

Radiation from the station, where four of six reactors have been damaged by explosions, has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and contaminated farmland and drinking water.

A plan to flood the containment vessel of reactor No. 1 with more water to speed up emergency cooling efforts announced yesterday by the utility known as Tepco may not be possible now.

“Tepco must figure out the source of high radiation,” said Hironobu Unesaki, a nuclear engineering professor at Kyoto University. “If it’s from contaminated water leaking from inside the reactor, Tepco’s so-called ‘water tomb’ may be jeopardized because flooding the containment vessel will result in more radiation in the building.”

[Note: This is not clearly stated. If the containment vessel is flooded while it is leaking, there will be more radioactive material "flushed out" from the damaged core, leading to an increase in penetrating gamma radiation levels outside the vessel but still inside the containment building. (GE)]

Decontaminating Robots

Tepco plans to decontaminate the two iRobot Corp. Packbot robots before sending them into a building tomorrow or later to further investigate the damage, spokesman Takeo Iwamoto said. High radiation in the reactor buildings prevents engineers from working inside them, Iwamoto said.

The cores in reactors 1, 2 and 3 and the spent fuels rods in reactor 4 have been damaged. Tepco has been using fire trucks, concrete pumps and other emergency measures for nearly seven weeks to pour millions of liters of water to cool the units after the accident.

Tepco started moving the radioactive water, which leaked to the basements and trenches, to a waste storage facility on April 19. Tepco transferred 1.89 million liters of the water from the trenches near reactor No. 2 as of 7 a.m. today, Iwamoto said. The utility plans to install a second pump after transferring 2.5 million liters.

Tepco shares fell 3.3 percent to 412 yen today in Tokyo. The shares are down about 80 percent since the quake and tsunami struck on March 11, leaving almost 26,000 people dead or missing.

Less Damage

Reactors 1 and 2 are less damaged than estimated, Tepco said in a statement today.

As much as 55 percent of the No. 1 reactor core at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi station was damaged, compared with its earlier estimate of 70 percent.

“We revised the core damage data because some readings on the containment vessel monitors were wrong,” Matsumoto said. “There was also a recording mistake. We are investigating why this happened.”

The assessment for the No. 2 reactor was cut to 25 percent from 35 percent, while that for the No. 3 unit was raised to 30 percent from 25 percent.

“It seems a reasonable estimate that three reactor cores may be damaged to a similar extent,” said Unesaki. The new estimate “doesn’t indicate lower or higher risks at the plant.”

Radiation in Tokyo’s water supply fell to undetectable levels for the first time since March 18, the capital’s public health institute said today.

The level of iodine-131 in tap water fell to zero yesterday, and cesium-134 and cesium-137 also weren’t detected, the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health said today.

[Iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137 are man-made radioactive poisons that can only come from irradiated nuclear fuel. Iodine-131 has a half-life of about 8 days, so it will be completely gone from the environment in a few months. Cesium-134 has a half-life of about 2 years, so it will be completely gone from the environment after a few decades. Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years, so it will not be completely gone from the environment until several centuries have elapsed. (GE)]

Tokyo residents were told on March 23 that the city’s water was unsafe for infants after iodine and cesium levels exceeded guidelines.

To contact the reporters on this story:

Tsuyoshi Inajima in Tokyo at
tinajima@bloomberg.net;

Michio Nakayama in Tokyo at
mnakayama4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:

Amit Prakash at
aprakash1@bloomberg.net

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Posted in: Radiation ⋅ Tagged: breached, contaminated, dai-ichi, disaster, energy, fukushima, Japan, nuclear, power, Radiation, radioactive, radioactivity, reactors, tepco, tsunami

Joint Statement on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster On the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

April 26, 2011 10:53 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅ Pelindaba Working Group

April 26, 2011

(Endorsed by 87 Japanese NGOs)

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, precipitated by the huge earthquake and ensuing tsunamis that hit eastern Japan on March 11, has created fear of radiation exposure and radioactive contamination not just in Japan, but throughout the world.

The Japanese Government, electric power companies and academics who served them boasted that Japan’s nuclear power plants were completely safe, that a nuclear accident would not occur. Their responsibility is heavy indeed. Many people had long warned of precisely the situation that is now in progress – of the danger of a huge earthquake and tsunami, of an accident caused by a loss of power supply, of the danger of concentrating several plants on a single site, of the problems facing suicide squads required to respond to a major accident, of the defects of emergency response preparations which only covered a 10 kilometer radius – but these warnings were not taken seriously. The attitude of promoting nuclear energy no matter what is one of the reasons why the response on this occasion by the Japanese Government and Tokyo Electric Power Company has at each stage been too late. To nevertheless claim that this was “beyond expectations” is both immoral and criminal.

Reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station have not achieved cold shut down. The situation continues to be unpredictable. It is important to maintain cooling function and to take measures to prevent further contamination from releases and leaks of radioactive material. It goes without saying that in doing so sufficient consideration must be given to the safety of the workers. Radiation exposure standards for residents should not be set excessively high to meet accident circumstances. Rather, it is necessary to rapidly take all steps to enable the earliest possible adherence to the original standard of less than 1 millisievert per year. Decommissioning and disposal of the huge heap of radioactive waste that Fukushima Daiichi has become will probably be a long battle extending over decades.

We have continued to oppose nuclear power and nuclear facilities, calling for a phase out of nuclear energy through activities throughout Japan. Hoping for the earliest possible end to the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi, whatever we are able to do together we wish to do it now.

As a first step we are issuing this joint statement today, 25 years after the Chernobyl accident. At an appropriate time we will launch a large national action demanding a formal decision to permanently close down the Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Stations, to cancel the nuclear fuel cycle program, to cancel plans to build new nuclear reactors and to shut down aging nuclear reactors and we will propose a process for achieving a steady phase out of nuclear energy.

We refuse to allow the earth to be further subjected to radioactive contamination and radiation exposure. For the sake of all living beings, let us walk together towards the achievement of a nuclear-free society.

Contact

Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center

Email: cnic@nifty.com

Web: http://www.cnic.jp/english/

Tel.&Fax. 81-3-3357-3810

A list in Japanese of endorsing groups can be found after the Japanese statement on the following URL:

http://www.cnic.jp/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1098

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Posted in: Nuclear Energy ⋅ Tagged: chernobyl, fukushima, Japan, nuclear, protest, south africa, technology

Tag Archives: Japan

Radiation Readings in Fukushima Reactor Rise to Highest Since Crisis Began

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Scandalous SA Nuclear Industry rides on Fukushima Events to Promote Nuclear Energy

Nuclear Agency Is Criticized as Too Close to Its Industry

Nuclear Adviser Quits Over Handling of Crisis

Radiation Readings in Fukushima Reactor Rise to Highest Since Crisis Began

Joint Statement on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster On the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

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