Five in Hunger Strike Against Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant

[bananas]

http://www.cnic.jp/english/topics/new%20plants/kaminosekihunger29jan11.html

Five in Hunger Strike Against Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant

Press Release

Yamaguchi City, Saturday, January 29, 2011

Five young men (2 aged 19, 3 aged 20) are in the ninth day of a hunger strike outside the Prefectural Government offices in Yamaguchi City to protest land fill and sea reclamation work in preparation for construction of a nuclear power plant on the coast of the environmentally sensitive Seto Inland Sea. (See translation of their statement after this press release and photos at the bottom.) The Seto Inland Sea is sometimes referred to as Japan's Galapagos because of its rich environmental diversity.

They plan to continue their hunger strike at least until the tenth day (Sunday 30th), when they will conduct a one-hour sit-in from 12 noon outside the Prefectural Government offices. The sit-in will be joined by Diet Members from the Social Democratic Party and other supporters. Beyond Sunday, their plans will depend on their physical condition.

In October some of the hunger strikers joined the 800-kilometer "7 Generations Walk" from Kaminoseki to Nagoya, where COP 10 of the Convention on Biological Diversity was being held. Along with other activists from Japan and abroad they protested the threat posed by the Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant to the biodiversity of the Seto Inland Sea.

Related links

1. Video of hunger strikers
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/12254054#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=http://greenz.jp/2011/01/27/hungeryboy/&medium=12254054

2. COP10 International Appeal Against Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant
http://cnic.jp/english/topics/new%20plants/kaminosekinnaf18oct10.html

3. Article about Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant on Convention on Biological Diversity COP 10 NGO web site
http://cop10.org/issues/marine/73-kaminoseki

4. "7 Generations Walk" Japanese web site and English YouTube video
http://7gwalk.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYCG_3Qm0bI&feature=player_embedded

5. Hunger strikers' Japanese Blog and personal statement.
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/newgenerations

http://yaredeki2009.jugem.jp/?eid=866&guid=ON

Contacts
Naoya Okamoto (Kin-chan), Hunger Striker
Philip White, Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, Phone: [phone]

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Five Hunger Strikers' Appeal Against Construction of the Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant

We began a hunger strike on the afternoon of January 21 to call for the temporary suspension of land fill and sea reclamation work at the proposed site of a nuclear power plant at Tanoura, Kaminoseki Town, Yamaguchi Prefecture and for reconsideration of the approval for this work.

We decided to take this action because we do not want the radioactive waste that will arise and the radioactivity that will accumulate in the sea and the atmosphere as a consequence of constructing and operating this nuclear power plant to be left to our own and our children's generations.

<snip>

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Photos

<snip>

[kristopher]

1. The utilization rate for Japan's nuclear fleet has now dropped to 66.1%

To determine per kilowatt hour costs you divide the cost of construction and production by the number of hours the plant is generating electricity during its life.

To put the Japanese number into perspective, the proponents of nuclear power here are unwavering in their assertion that the 92% achieved in the recent past in the US is the "norm" we should use to establish the cost of electricity from nuclear. The world average is about 71%.

So when you read of any cost comparisons or claims that nuclear is "cheap" just remember that the nuclear industry LOVEs to lie with numbers so much it would make a crooked used car salesman ashamed. If Japan can't SAFELY operate a fleet with a utilization rate similar to the US, then it is worth considering that the regulatory regime guiding safety related decision making for nuclear here is no better than what was in place to oversee BP's Deepwater Horizon.

"The following is a list of nuclear power generators and the nuclear power plant utilisation rate for January, with year-earlier figures in parentheses."

January 2011
Company Run rate (%)

Hokkaido Electric Power Co (9509.T: Quote)... 63.1 (83.3)

Tohoku Electric Power Co (9506.T: Quote)..... 73.8 (101.4)

Tokyo Electric Power Co (9501.T: Quote)...... 54.2 (62.2)

Chubu Electric Power Co (9502.T: Quote)...... 4.3 (64.4)

Hokuriku Electric Power Co (9505.T: Quote)... 78.7 (32.4)

Kansai Electric Power Co (9503.T: Quote)..... 81.5 (73.9)

Chugoku Electric Power Co (9504.T: Quote).... 64.6 (101.5)

Shikoku Electric Power Co (9507.T: Quote)... 102.3 (65.6)

Kyushu Electric Power Co (9508.T: Quote)..... 79.6 (86.5)

Japan Atomic Power Co....................... 100.6 (59.4)

[Kolesar]

2. Japan seems perfect for geothermal generation

There are hot springs on those islands and Mount Fuji.

[bananas]

3. and offshore renewables (and unfortunately offshore non-renewables)

there are powerful ocean currents which could be captured,
they have a major project for space-based-solar-power with collectors located off-shore,
and they are also investigating offshore methane calthrates, which could be a large non-renewable half-the-co2-of-coal energy source.

[Nihil]

4. Yay, five less useless mouths ...

... unless - as expected - they chicken out because they are only after
their little moment of publicity before carrying on with their pointless
shallow existence, having benefited from the sycophantic praise of their
fellow dimwits and having lost a couple of stone from their fast.

(Sorry, you expected admiration?)