Disaster capitalism ongoing in Japan post-Fukushima

[robdogbucky]

U.S. used atomic power cooperation to remedy Japan's 'ignorance'

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The United States used atomic power cooperation with Japan in the 1950s to ease the Japanese public's aversion to nuclear weapons and remedy their "ignorance" about nuclear power, declassified U.S. papers showed Saturday.

The U.S. move, which eventually led the world's only country to have suffered atomic bombing to embrace nuclear power, was initially devised to counter the antinuclear sentiment among the Japanese public after a tuna fishing boat, the Fukuryu Maru No. 5, was exposed to radioactivity from a 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test while operating at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific.

The documents, collected by Kyodo News at the U.S. National Archives, show that President Dwight Eisenhower's administration, concerned about Japan's possible exit from the Western camp, accelerated cooperation with Japan in atomic energy technology to contain antinuclear and anti-U.S. sentiment among the Japanese.

In a memorandum to U.S. Secretary of State John Dulles, dated May 26, 1954, Eisenhower said he was "concerned about the Japanese situation," and asked Dulles to help ''have a better idea of what it is now possible for us to do to further our interests in Japan..."

(Mainichi Japan) July 24, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110724p2g00m0dm072000c.html





Contrary to power company figures, cost of nuclear power generation highest: research

...In a section of its website responding to questions sent in by elementary school children, Chubu Electric Power Co. informs us that nuclear power "is the cheapest." The media, including the Mainichi, have often cited the information provided to us by power companies.

However, Kenichi Oshima, a professor of environmental economics and policy at Ritsumeikan University, has done some calculations and has reached a completely difference conclusion. Oshima says that the cost for a kilowatt-hour of electrical power between fiscal 1970 and fiscal 2007 was 10.68 yen for nuclear, 3.98 yen for hydroelectric, and 9.9 yen for thermal generation, with nuclear-generated power coming out as the most expensive. These calculations were even presented at a meeting of the government's Atomic Energy Commission last September. So how does one explain these two different conclusions?

First of all, there is a huge gap between estimates given by power companies and figures derived from actual records.

The figure "5.3 yen per kilowatt-hour of power" as the cost of nuclear power generation is an estimate submitted in 2003 by the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC) to a subcommittee of the Committee for Natural Resources and Energy, an advisory body to the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. The estimate presupposed a power plant that began operations in the 2002 fiscal year and would run 40 years with a utilization rate of 80 percent. Construction costs were calculated based on an actual power plant that had recently begun operations, and foreign exchange rates and fuel prices needed to calculate the cost of importing fuel were derived from economic indices at the time. It's a government-endorsed figure that has continued to give nuclear-power generation the "low cost" seal of approval...

(Mainichi Japan) July 23, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/news/20110723p2a00m0na011000c.html


Utility executives began political donations after firms ended payments


TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Executives and retired officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and eight other electricity businesses started donating money to ruling lawmakers in 1976 at the latest, two years after power companies decided to stop making political donations amid public frustration about money and politics, an analysis of donation data by Kyodo News showed Saturday.

The data of donations to the fundraising arm of the Liberal Democratic Party, which held power in Japan for decades until 2009, showed executives of similar ranks at these nine companies handed out like amounts, suggesting an industry-wide orchestrated attempt at replacing corporate donations with individual contributions.

First executives' donations, confirmable from government gazettes and securities report filings, were made in 1976. Individual donations reported in gazettes in those early years were in amounts of 100,000 yen or more. Kyodo News checked the names on the gazettes and executive rosters of these companies in the corresponding periods.

Of the nine companies, executives of five companies -- Tokyo and Chubu, Kansai, Shikoku and Kyushu electric power companies -- made a total of 17.58 million yen in donations to the LDP's People's Political Association...

(Mainichi Japan) July 24, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110724p2g00m0dm074000c.html




Sunday, July 24, 2011

Tepco should partly cover cost of irradiated beef purchases: Kaieda

Kyodo

Tokyo Electric Power Co. should shoulder part of the costs of the government's planned purchase of all beef found to contain excessively high radioactive cesium, industry minister Banri Kaieda said Saturday.

Kaieda plans to hold discussions with the utility over compensation for people affected by the nuclear disaster at its Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

"The purchase is part of the compensation for damages from the nuclear disaster, so I want to hear how Tepco intends to pay compensation," Kaieda said. More than 2,600 cattle suspected of being fed contaminated hay have been shipped to all prefectures except Okinawa as of Saturday.

Kaieda also revealed that Prime Minister Naoto Kan has taken the unusual step of asking the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in writing to release all information about power supply and demand, including untapped electricity sources...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110724a4.html



Kan cautious about extending life of Kansai Electric's Mihama No. 2 reactor.

2011/07/24

Kansai Electric Power Co.'s request to renew its license to operate a nearly 40-year-old reactor could be in trouble if signals from Prime Minister Naoto Kan are an indication.

The utility submitted a report to the government July 22 seeking permission to extend operations of the No. 2 reactor at its Mihama nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture, saying it poses no safety problems.

The reactor, put into service in July 1972, is the fourth oldest in the country's fleet of 54. The request is the first such since the crisis began at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant on March 11.

Kan indicated in the Upper House Budget Committee session July 22 that extending the operational life of an aged reactor would be as difficult as building a new reactor, given the ongoing nuclear crisis...

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201107230304.html




TEPCO checks piping of decontamination system

Tokyo Electric Power Company is to examine the pipes of a system to decontaminate radioactive water at its crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant. The system continues to work below its target capacity.

TEPCO says the system, which was designed to treat 50 tons of water per hour, has actually been treating 39 tons on average since it began operating late last month.

It says the operating rate was 53 percent in the past week, far below the target rate of 80 percent.

The utility says it will examine the interior of the system's pipes as sludge and other materials may be clogging the flow of water...

Sunday, July 24, 2011 11:04 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/24_09.html



Aging Genkai nuclear reactor may have faulty vessel: study


SAGA (Kyodo) -- A nuclear power reactor unit which began operations 36 years ago at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Genkai plant may have a faulty pressure vessel, an analysis by researchers showed Saturday.

The possibility of a fault in the process of manufacturing a critical unit encasing nuclear fuel assemblies at the seaside plant's No. 1 reactor casts doubt over the credibility of previous inspections of nuclear reactors, the analysis led by Hiromitsu Ino indicated.

Ino, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, and other experts in metal materials, performed a close analysis of test data used to determine the degradation levels of steel used for the pressure vessel.

The analysis of the data, which were disclosed by the utility only in July, showed that disparities exist in the quality of steel used for the vessel, pointing to the possibility that there was a mistake in its manufacturing process, Ino said...

(Mainichi Japan) July 24, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110724p2g00m0dm073000c.html




No.1 reactor temperature falls below 100 degrees

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says the temperature at the bottom of the No. 1 reactor is being kept at the lowest level since a new cooling system went into operation late last month.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says the temperature fell below 100 degrees Celsius for 6 consecutive days through Sunday.

It says a thermometer attached to the bottom of the reactor registered between 96 and 97 degrees, the lowest since a new circulatory water injection system was started. The system is the key to stably cool the reactor.

TEPCO says the lower temperature was achieved by raising the amount of water injected into the reactor, and that it wants to maintain the current condition...

Sunday, July 24, 2011 13:05 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/24_15.html

[bananas]

1. "Contrary to power company figures, cost of nuclear power generation highest: research"

Good article, I saw it earlier and was going to post it.

[marions ghost]

2. K&R

[robdogbucky]

3. Radioactive beef scare widens.

Radioactive beef scare widens.

2011/07/24

Cattle fed on locally grown straw in Iwate, Miyagi and Tochigi prefectures were contaminated with radioactive cesium exceeding government safety standards, prefectural government officials announced July 22.

The latest announcement indicates that districts relatively distant from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant may have been directly affected by nuclear fallout.

Meat from one cow raised on local straw in the southernmost part of Iwate Prefecture, more than 150 kilometers from the Fukushima reactors, contained 1,210 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram. That is more than double the government's safety limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram.

The beef was shipped to Tokyo at the end of June and later distributed to Kyoto. Three cows raised in Tochigi Prefecture on Tochigi straw were shipped to Tokyo from a livestock farmer in Nasushiobara on July 10 but not distributed to consumers. Nasushiobara is about 100 km from the nuclear plant...

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201107230303.html

[robdogbucky]

4. Effects of March 11 disaster still felt at Tsukiji fish market

Effects of March 11 disaster still felt at Tsukiji fish market

BY EIICHIRO SUGANUMA STAFF WRITER

2011/07/24


The devastation caused to many fishing ports along the Sanriku and Joban coasts by the Great East Japan Earthquake has led to the loss of popular maritime products from the Tsukiji fish market.

The negative publicity arising from the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has also led to comparisons with 1954 when a fishing boat, the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, was showered by deadly radioactive fallout from the testing of a hydrogen bomb at the Bikini Atoll by the United States...

...On April 3, 1954, the Daigo Fukuryu Maru brought in its catch to Yaizu port in Shizuoka Prefecture after it was contaminated by radiation, and some of the tuna would make its way to Tsukiji.

While there was a huge uproar then about the selling of contaminated fish, Saito said the effect on sales ended after about three months. In the current nuclear crisis, he said his company's sales had dropped by half and still had not recovered...

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201107230315.html

[robdogbucky]

5. Nuke crisis refugee fought losing 18-year legal battle against Fukushima plant

Nuke crisis refugee fought losing 18-year legal battle against Fukushima plant

NIIGATA -- In 1992, Sanzo Onoda and his fellow plaintiffs lost their 18-year legal battle to have one of Fukushima's nuclear power plants shuttered. He and 400 others originally filed the case against the construction of the Fukushima No. 2 Nuclear Power Plant in 1975, pointing to the dangers of a catastrophe in the event of a major earthquake or tsunami.

The retired high school teacher, who continued to plead fruitlessly with plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) over the safety of the coastal reactors even after the case was dismissed, is now a nuclear crisis refugee here, some 200 kilometers from his home.

"We have no idea when the next major earthquake will come," says Onoda, 73. "Now is the time to rid ourselves of our dependence on nuclear power."

In 1975, when the national government gave permission for the building of the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 2 plant, Onoda decided to take legal action, thinking, "After building the No. 1 plant, TEPCO's going to construct another one even though it hasn't yet guaranteed its safety. We are not guinea pigs." He collected a total of 401 plaintiffs, his coworkers among them, for the class action suit to have the building permit revoked...

(Mainichi Japan) July 24, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110724p2a00m0na009000c.html

[robdogbucky]

6. Kaleidoscope of the Heart: The effects of disaster on the kindest among us

Kaleidoscope of the Heart: The effects of disaster on the kindest among us
By Rika Kayama, psychiatrist

It has now been more than four months since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. At my clinic in the Tokyo area, I have had a number of patients come to me with a condition called "sympathy fatigue," brought on essentially by feeling too much, too long for the people in the disaster areas. Symptoms I have observed many times include insomnia, depression, feelings of helplessness, and feeling physically drained. What is to become of these people?

Most of us, while mindful of conditions in the disaster-ravaged northeast, continue to live our lives as normal. There are also probably many of us who have come to feel thankful for the lives we have and appreciate the importance of each day because of March 11.

However, there are also those among us who have been filled these past months with pain and sorrow over the earthquake and tsunami. Even now just seeing disaster-related news can drive some people to cry so hard they can't move, and drain them of any ambition for family or work. These people, who are not in fact direct victims of the catastrophe, have nonetheless been traumatized to such a degree they could even be developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

PTSD is typically thought to emerge in people with direct experience of a terrible disaster, crime or warfare. However, with the earthquake and tsunami on every TV screen, it is possible that PTSD could develop even in people not directly affected. The scope of the disaster was enormous, as was the flood of news and images about it...

(Mainichi Japan) July 24, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/news/20110724p2a00m0na001000c.html