Former Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan at a parliamentary commission in Tokyo. Photograph: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images Fukushima inquiry: I felt helpless, says former PM Naoto Kan urges Japan to abandon nuclear power, as the industry attempts to bring closed reactors back into operation Japan‘s prime minister at the height of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis has admitted [...]
Concerns Grow Over Stability of Fukushima Fuel Pool 4 Next strong earthquake could cause release of far more radiation than the initial meltdown – Common Dreams staff link http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/23-8 Whether the spent fuel pool at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant Unit 4 can withstand another strong earthquake has become a growing concern around the world. Fukushima’s [...]
The nationalization of TEPCO, together with a legal practice called “channeling of liability” in which all liability related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster has to be channeled to TEPCO, means Japanese taxpayers and ratepayers will foot most of the bill.(Photo: Reuters)Last week, the inevitable finally happened. The company responsible for the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Tokyo [...]
Ukrainians hold candles commemorating the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Kiev, Ukraine,Thursday, April 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov) Despite Fukushima and Chernobyl Has World Learned Nothing? On Anniversary of Chernobyl Ukrainians, Greenpeace Decry Nuclear Energy – Common Dreams staff link http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/26-1 “The Chernobyl disaster underscored that mankind [...]
An anti-nuclear protester takes part in a rally in front of Tokyo Electric Power Co’s headquarters in Tokyo. Calls for Nuclear Compensation Grow in Japan Radioactive contamination in shiitake mushrooms has raised public clamour for compensation by Suvendrini Kakuchi TOKYO – The discovery of radioactive contamination in ‘shiitake’ mushrooms grown in Manazuru town, Kanagawa prefecture, [...]
AP One year after the reactor accident in Fukushima, resistance to nuclear energy is growing around the world. But the atomic industry continues to push for the construction of new reactors, primarily in emerging economies. The German government even wants to support that expansion — despite the fact it has abandoned nuclear power back home. By SPIEGEL Staff. [...]
The Fukushima crisis “could have been prevented” if TEPCO had carried out simple preventive measures [EPA] Tokyo, Japan - The discovery of radioactive contamination in “shiitake” mushrooms grown in Manazuru town, Kanagawa prefecture, some 300 km away from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, has raised public clamour for compensation. Soon after the discovery, on [...]
The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant after the 2011 TÅhoku earthquake and tsunami} by Image courtesy of Digital Globe |Author =Digital Globe |Date =2011-03-16 Worldwide, safety regulators still see role as implementing nuclear industry plans opednews.com The ‘freeze’ on new nuclear has rapidly thawed. China, France and the UK have all announced the ‘all clear’. Even in [...]
Police officers remove “No Trespassing” signs at a checkpoint to the restricted zone of a 20km radius around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan March 31. Op-ed contributor Kenichi Ohmae says, ‘If you cannot equip a nuclear facility with a reliable last resort of power for cooling reactors, you shouldn’t operate the [...]
Why Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer to Global Warming There is no “nuclear renaissance” and there won’t be: it just doesn’t make sense economically. April 4, 2012 | link to article http://www.alternet.org/story/154854/why_nuclear_power_is_not_the_answer_to_global_warming?page=entire Despite the triple meltdown at Fukushima—which has driven tens of thousands of Japanese from their homes, cast radioactive fallout across the U.S., and will [...]
A sample of copepods taken during a June 2011 cruise aboard the R/V Ka’imikai-O-Kanaloa off the northeast coast of Japan. (Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) Fukushima Radiation Moving Steadily Across Pacific Concentrated levels found as scientists sample the Pacific for signs of Fukushima – Common Dreams staff Teams of scientists have already found debris [...]
Cancer Fears and Depression Plague Japanese Refugees By Cinthia Briseño and Heike Sonnberger link to article http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,820314,00.html REUTERS Ever since the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima power plant, many Japanese people have been living with the fear of cancer. Experts find it difficult to estimate how many people will actually fall ill, but they’re more concerned about the psychological [...]
Reactor 2 radiation too high for access 73 sieverts laid to low water; dose too high even for robots By MINORU MATSUTANI Staff writer Radiation inside the reactor 2 containment vessel at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has reached a lethal 73 sieverts per hour and any attempt to send robots [...]
Mystery of lost Fukushima radiation emails ‘a major cover-up’ Published: 23 March, 2012, 17:19 Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) workers stand before stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant at Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan (AFP Photo / Yoshikazu Tsuno) (35.5Mb)embed video TRENDS:Earthquake in Japan TAGS: Health, Natural disasters, Nuclear,Accident, Japan link http://www.rt.com/news/japan-fukushima-email-deleted-285/ The Fukushima Prefecture government apparently deleted [...]
It will not take long before the elites behind nuclear power are doing everything to get up and going again at full speed. After all profit is the only game to them. You may have noticed that there seems to be a call for more debate on nuclear power safety. What that means [...]
A year on, frustration dominates in Fukushima Those living closest to damaged nuclear plant deal with daily uncertainty, a year on from the earthquake and tsunami. D. Parvaz Last Modified: 11 Mar 2012 14:36 Email Print Share Send Feedback Fukushima City, Japan - In Fukushima Prefecture, home to the nuclear plant damaged in the March [...]
Muneo Kano has gone from fretting over his organic crops to studying patterns of radiation [D. Parvaz/ Al Jazeera] Iitate Village, Japan - Second-generation farmer Muneo Kano has not been able to tend to his cattle or grow crops since the Daiichi nuclear power plant contaminated land, air and sea after being damaged by last year’s [...]
Fukushima City, Japan - In Fukushima Prefecture, home to the nuclear plant damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, spirits are low a year after the disasters struck. “People aren’t genki,” said Jun Kitsunai, a community volunteer, using a Japanese term for being happy or upbeat. The 30-year-old who owns [...]
On the anniversary of Fukushima there has been quite a deal written about Fukushima and nuclear energy in particular. There is little doubt that there is a very vocal group in Japan and around the world who see the ‘nuclear industry‘ against a background of danger and uncontrollability. Quite recently there is a growing move [...]
SPIEGEL ONLINE A Lonely Missionary in the Radiation Zone By Heike Sonnberger in Tamura, Japan After the Fukushima disaster, residents fled from the village of Katsurao, located just outside the 20-kilometer exclusion zone. Now living in temporary emergency housing, many exist in an overwhelming state of doubt. But one man hopes to help them return to more [...]
Fukushima reactor facility fires A Meltdown in Communication: Nuclear Disaster and Corporate Accountability by Maria Tomchick A new report released by The Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation questions the safety of nuclear power, especially in the hands of private companies. A team of 30 lawyers, university professors, and journalists interviewed several hundred people involved with [...]
Greenpeace: Fukushima Disaster Caused by Japan‘s Nuclear Authorities, Not Tsunami – Common Dreams staff A new report released today by Greenpeace argues it was neither the 7.1 magnitude earthquake nor the raging tsunami that followed which deserve the real blame for the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Diachi power plant last year. Rather, according to ‘The Lessons of Fukushima’, [...]
Japan leaders ‘played down nuclear crisis‘ Investigation reports that government covered-up true scale of Fukushima disaster, and considered Tokyo evacuation. Japanese leaders did not know the extent of the damage in the wake of the nuclear crisis after the massive quake and tsunami hit the Pacific nation even as they tried [...]
In March 2012, a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. As tens of thousands of people were evacuated from nearby towns and villages, the world waited anxiously to see whether the radioactive fallout would spread across the country, or [...]
Japanese Govt Kept Secret Worst-Case Scenario Post-Fukushima Information “was so shocking,” would frighten the public Kyodo reports: – Common Dreams staff After the Japanese government was presented with a worst-case scenario by Japan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Shunsuke Kondo in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, they kept the report secret because “it was so [...]
Fukushima Fallout: Thousands Protest Against Nuclear Power in Japan – Common Dreams staff Thousands of demonstrators hit the streets of Yokohama, Japan on Saturday afternoon calling for an end to nuclear energy in Japan after the Fukushima March 11, 2011 disaster that sparked the planet’s worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl. The protest began a [...]
“Fukushima,” writes Wasserman, “has taught us that as long as reactors operate, the apocalyptic clock is ticking.” 2012 Is the Year to Finally Bury Nuke Power by Harvey Wasserman The year 2012 has opened with news that Fukushima’s radioactive cloud may already have killed some 14,000 Americans, according to a major study just published [...]
Cordula Meyer/ DER SPIEGEL For months, the 21,000 residents of Namie have lived in trailers and shelters across Japan. By abandoning their homes, they unwittingly fled directly into the path of Fukushima’s radiation cloud. As worried and angry as they may be, most just want to return home. Tamotsu Baba is mayor of [...]
Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Far from Resolved Japan Times Editorial Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Dec. 16 declared that the stricken reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have entered the state of “cold shutdown” and that it has been confirmed that the nuclear crisis has “been resolved”(Shusoku [...]
Published on Thursday, December 22, 2011 by Inter Press Service Mothers Rise Against Nuclear Power in Japan by Suvendrini Kakuchi TOKYO – Japan’s nuclear power industry, which once ignored opposition, now finds its existence threatened by women angered by official opaqueness on radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after it was struck by an [...]
Not waiting for government help, locals make their own Geiger counters and decontaminate soil [D. Parvaz] Nine months after the worst earthquake and tsunami to ever hit Japan, the rubble is still being cleared, but the issue of nuclear contamination will take decades to deal with. Japan’s government on Wednesday announced that decommissioning the damaged and leaking Fukushima [...]
Japan nuclear operator scraps plan to dump contaminated water in sea Tepco, operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant, forced to back down after fierce protests from fishing groups A Fukushima water purification building: the company had wanted to release water treated for radioactive contamination into the sea. Photograph: AP http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/09/japan-nuclear-operator-scraps-plans Tepco, the operator of Japan‘s Fukushima nuclear [...]
Returnees fear Fukushima’s invisible touch By Donald KirkMINAMISOMA, Japan – The lugubrious notes of Silent Nightwafted from an outdoor sound system on the near-empty main street to the station of this coastal city on the northern edge of the 20-kilometer “exclusion zone” around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The doleful refrain set the tone [...]
We’re Playing Nuclear Roulette By David Swanson http://warisacrime.org/content/were-playing-nuclear-roulette The International Forum on Globalization has published the most concise, useful, readable, and damning denunciation of nuclear technology I’ve seen. And it’s available for free as a PDF right here: Nuclear Roulette: The Case Against a “Nuclear Renaissance” Nuclear energy suffers from the following drawbacks: The energy [...]
Workers decontaminate the roof of an Okuma town office near the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Photograph: Kyodo/Reuters Fukushima plant leaks radioactive water Radioactive water might have found its way into the Pacific ocean and experts believe it could contain strontium Large quantities of highly radioactive water have leaked through a crack in the [...]
The Fukushima Daiichi plant as the tsunami approached. Seawater flooded power lines, causing a meltdown in three of the six reactors. Photograph: Reuters Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant operator ‘ignored tsunami warning’ Tokyo Electric Power rejected report warning the nuclear plant could be at risk from 10-metre high tsunami, media claim reddit this Justin McCurry [...]
Workers arrive at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Okuma, Japan. Local elections are being remotely held for the area, although it remains largely deserted. Photograph: David Guttenfelder/AP Japan’s nuclear disaster towns hold remote local elections Evacuated residents from Okuma and Futaba in Fukushima plant exclusion zone ballot for regional assemblies from afar reddit [...]
A radioactivity measuring station in Iwaki, Fukushima. Photograph: Wolfgang Kumm/EPA Far more radioactive caesium released into the atmosphere than previously estimated, according to study reddit this Associated Press in New York guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 October 2011 07.40 BST Article history The Fukushima nuclear disaster released twice as much radioactive caesium into the atmosphere as Japanese [...]
Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh has pledged to review safety standards for nuclear facilities in India due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but India has more than 20 nuclear facilities planned for construction [GALLO/GETTY] Japan’s nuclear disaster has fuelled fear and uncertainty among the world’s producers of nuclear power. For India, an energy-starved country, much is [...]
If you have been watching the endless debate about nuclear power you may be interested in this video report about the possibility of contaminated beef after Fukushima in Japan. It is interesting because the numbers are, as far as disasters are concerned quite small. So why beat up this type of matter. Whether or not nuclear power [...]
Government officials launched a PR campaign to ensure the accident at the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan did not derail plans for new nuclear power stations in the UK. Photograph: AP British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two [...]
Japan‘s desperate ‘nuclear gypsies’ Rights groups say country’s poorest people are being exploited to repair Fukushima plant. Last Modified: 30 Jun 2011 20 Economic downturn has forced many of Japan’s poorest people to work at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, risking exposure to dangerous levels of radiation. The growing number of so-called nuclear gypsies, who come [...]
Demonstrators pass the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, during an anti-nuclear power protest in Tokyo on Thursday. Photograph: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP Trace amounts of radioactive substances have been found in urine samples taken from children from Fukushima city, raising concerns that residents have been exposed internally [...]
Risky advice and immeasurable uncertainties Scientific policy is often based on a single interpretation of risk, and the dominant paradigm is not always accurate. Andy Stirling and Alister Scott Last Modified: 06 Jun 2011 11:35 Email Print Share Send Feedback Ignoring the difference between ‘uncertainty‘ and ‘risk’ can lead to an assumption that all possible consequences [...]
There is a video Euronews piece on the latest leaks at Fukushima power plant in Japan You can go to the video presentation which is quite short at http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6769 Related articles Fukushima reactor water leak risks delaying crisis plan – Reuters (news.google.com) REMEMBER FUKUSHIMA? Workers Discover Exposed Rods, And Damage Worse Than Thought (businessinsider.com) TEPCO now [...]
There is a tendency to rate disasters so that people seem uninterested unless the latest one is the biggest the worst and the like. Any nuclear event is a major problem even if it only shows up the need for better organisation etc or the need not to use that form of power at all. [...]
