Fukushima News - 11/12/2013

Plan to lower radiation readings OK’d

Japan Times,

12 November, 2013

To facilitate the return of evacuees, the Nuclear Regulation Authority has approved a change in the way radiation doses are monitored around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station that will effectively result in lower readings, but observers warn this could raise public mistrust.

The change calls for basing monitoring on data from dosimeters held by individual residents.

It was proposed by the regulatory commission’s secretariat at its meeting Monday and gained broad-based consensus.

Dosimeter readings tend to be less than half of those using the existing method based on air dose rates, which assume that residents stay outdoors for a total of eight hours a day, according to the NRA Secretariat.

The proposal comes as the government is aiming to lift the evacuation advisory for areas where annual radiation doses are estimated at 20 millisieverts or lower.

The new method is expected to help promote the return of evacuees as well as reduce costs for decontaminating areas tainted by radioactive fallout from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant.

But a change in the monitoring method could heighten local residents’ mistrust of the government, observers said.

The NRA Secretariat’s proposal said that a key condition for allowing evacuees to return home is that annual radiation doses estimated from air dose readings not exceed 20 millisieverts.

The government will manage the doses of residents who return home by using dosimeters distributed to them. Over the long term, the goal will be to limit residents’ annual extra radiation exposure stemming from the disaster at the plant to 1 millisievert, the proposal said.

The government will also deploy counseling staff, including municipal officials, doctors and other medical experts, for returnees who are uneasy about radiation, according to the proposal.

Decontamination costs are estimated at ¥2.53 trillion to ¥5.13 trillion in Fukushima Prefecture, excluding radioactive waste disposal

In the city of Fukushima, Ichiro Kowata, 77, an evacuee from Iitate, called for the government to more fully explain the proposed method change. “Younger people say they can’t trust statements that suddenly declare areas to be safe when they have been called dangerous until now,” he said.

JAPAN FRAGMENTING

They started as tiny cracks, hairline fissures in the monolith of Japanese culture. Then the cracks became visible and widened to gaps. The gaps became fractures and the fractures will ultimately turn in chasms which will end in the disappearance of the monolith into entropy. This is true for all industrialized nations, not just Japan.

Japanese society is being torn and rent and that is an absolute prerequisite that goes part and parcel with the collapse of all industrial civilization. Because not until the foundations are removed can truly different structures emerge that might be capable of dealing with a crisis that was built in when the foundations were laid originally.

Until you change the way money works, you change nothing.

This is a hugely significant development, yet still far behind the curve of holding promise for true remediation of a problem that exists, persists and worsens -- unaffected by hubris and rhetoric. Koizumi is leading in a vacuum of leadership.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

---Mike Ruppert

_{Ex-Prime Minister: Creating Nuclear-Free Japan Would Be 'Magnificent, Fantastic'}

_{As Fukushima faces perilous clean-up stages, polls show majority of Japanese want end to nuclear power}

Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi spoke at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on Tuesday. "What a magnificent and fantastic project it would be," he said, to shutter all the nuclear plants and replace them with "nature's" energy. (Photo: AFP-JIJI)

_{Common Dreams,}

_{12 November, 2013}

_{Sitting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should follow the lead of the Japanese people by immediately abandoning nuclear power in the country, closing the existing plants and switching to safer and cleaner renewable energy options, urged two of Japan's former prime ministers on Tuesday.}

_{Abe, who has been in favor of restarting nuclear power plants in the country in spite of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe of 2011, "should use the power given to him to do what the majority of the people want," said the nation's previous Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in a speech at the Japan Press Club on Tuesday.}

_{"What a magnificent and fantastic project it would be. [Abe] can... use his power to utilize nature as resources. There are no other prime ministers who are as lucky as he." –former PM Junichiro Koizumi}

_{Recent polling shows the majority of Japan's population favors shutting down nuclear energy. A survey by the Asahi Shimbun published on Tuesday reveals that 60 percent support the "zero-nuclear proposal" proposed by Koizumi.}

_{"What a magnificent and fantastic project it would be. He can get to use his power to utilize nature as resources. There are no other prime ministers who are as lucky as he is," Koizumi added.}

_{Koizumi noted that Abe has abundant political capital for the task. "Even within the LDP [Liberal Democratic Party], there are quite a few lawmakers who at heart are leaning towards the zero-nuclear policy," he said. "A prime minister's power is enormous. If he proposed the zero-nuclear policy, no objections would emerge."}

_{"It can be achieved. Why miss this chance?" Koizumi asked.}

_{Koizumi was joined by another former prime minister, Morihiro Hosokawa, in the call for a nuclear free Japan. Raising the issue of nuclear waste—and Japan's lack of nuclear waste storage capabilities—Hosokawa told the Tokyo Shimbun on Tuesday that he couldn't understand why Abe and other leaders would support restarting the nation's nuclear reactors "when there is no place to discard the nuclear waste."}

_{"It would be a crime against future generations for our generation to restart nuclear plants without resolving this issue," he added—a sentiment shared by Koizumi in his press club speech.}

_{“We have not been able to find nuclear waste disposal sites for the last 10 years,” Koizumi said. “It is too optimistic and irresponsible for them to say that politicians should be responsible for not having a clear prospect (for radioactive waste sites) especially after the earthquake.”}

_{As Reuters reports, "Koizumi was one of Japan's most popular prime ministers before he stepped down in 2006, and his comments carry influence among the general public and within the ruling bloc, led by his old Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)."}

_{With increasing groundwater radiation contamination only one among a host of ongoing issues at the crippled Fukushima power plant, the plant's operator TEPCO began preparations last week to engage in the most dangerous part of the plant's cleanup thus far—the removal of the spent fuel rods within the unstable Reactor 4 building. The process unprecedent and dangerous operation has forced nuclear experts to raise alarm bells, warning that if something goes wrong it could trigger another massive and potentially apocalyptic nuclear disaster.}

See also: Abe Mentor Koizumi Reignites Post-Fukushima Nuclear Debate

Japan readies additional $30 billion for Fukushima clean-up: sources

Japan's government is finalizing plans to borrow an additional 3 trillion yen ($30 billion) to pay for compensating Fukushima evacuees and cleaning up the area outside the wrecked nuclear plant, said people with knowledge of the situation.

Reuters,

12 November, 2013

The additional borrowing would mark both a recognition of the project's mounting costs and the difficulty of hitting initial targets for reducing radiation levels in the towns and villages hardest hit by the fallout from the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

The new government borrowing program would increase the amount earmarked for Fukushima-related expenses to the equivalent of just over $80 billion, according to government officials with knowledge of the developing plan who asked not to be named.

That $80 billion excludes the cost of decommissioning Fukushima's six reactors, a process expected to take decades.

The new funding, which is being reviewed as part of the regular budget-setting process, would increase the amount earmarked for paying for work crews to decontaminate Fukushima towns and villages by about $500 million, according to the sources.

The rest of the extra funding raised by the government would be used to defray the cost of creating a storage facility for the radioactive waste, including topsoil and leaves collected from the evacuated zone, and would be available to pay compensation to more than 50,000 nuclear evacuees who remain shut out of their homes more than two and a half years after a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 triggered meltdowns and explosions at the Fukushima plant.

CHANGE OF TACK

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been considering a change of approach to the Fukushima clean-up. Lawmakers from his coalition this week urged that the government step back from the most ambitious goals for reducing radiation through a public-works style clean-up and begin paying new compensation to residents who have no prospect of returning home.

Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, the owner of the Fukushima plant, remains responsible for covering the costs of compensation and paying to clean up the surrounding areas under a framework set by the previous government.

But the government has issued bonds to pay the related costs up front. The embattled utility remains on the hook for paying back the money spent to the government over a period of decades under current arrangements.

The additional borrowing would take the amount budgeted for decontamination to just under 2 trillion yen from an initial allocation of 1.5 trillion yen. Total government borrowing related to Fukushima would increase to 8 trillion yen from 5 trillion yen, the sources said.

Japan's Ministry of Environment has contracted work to clean up the 11 most heavily contaminated townships, with the aim of bringing the average annual radiation dose to 20 millisieverts per year, based on a range suggested by the International Centre for Radiological Protection.

Current policy dictates that evacuation orders be lifted and compensation payments stopped when that level is reached. However, the government also set a lower, long-term target of 1 millisievert - twice the background radiation in Denver.

The evacuation area in Fukushima is a little larger than Hong Kong. The most contaminated area was predicted to remain uninhabited for at least five years and remains off limits.

Some 3.8 trillion yen has already been committed to pay compensation to evacuees of the 5 trillion yen that had been set aside. The additional borrowing framework would avoid a financing crunch for the project, the sources said.

($1 = 99.2400 Japanese yen)