Time for change

Bird numbers plummet around stricken Fukushima plant

Independent: Researchers working around Japan's disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant say bird populations there have begun to dwindle, in what may be a chilling harbinger of the impact of radioactive fallout on local life. In the first major study of the impact of the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years, the researchers, from Japan, the US and Denmark, said their analysis of 14 species of bird common to Fukushima and Chernobyl, the Ukrainian city which suffered a similar nuclear meltdown, showed the...
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United Kingdom: Renewables must benefit coastal communities says Aldous

BBC: Energy Minister Charles Hendry has said the eastern region is well placed to take advantage of the growing demand for new and off-shore energy. "In nuclear, carbon capture and storage and renewable energy, East Anglia has an extremely important role to play," stated Mr Hendry. "The skills base and the expertise which is already there is very encouraging and the ambitions of the companies involved gives us much to celebrate." He was speaking during a Westminster Hall debate called by Waveney...
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Japan governor wants nuclear safety pledge in writing

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese governor Tokihiro Nakamura believes nuclear power is vital for the resource-poor land, but even he says the central government must put safety pledges in writing before he'll agree to restart off-line reactors -- a sign of the tough battle ahead to repair tattered public trust after the Fukushima crisis.
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Analysis: Southeast Asia goes slow on nuclear

HANOI (Reuters) - After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Vietnam suspended its nuclear plans and waited for more than a decade before reviving them.
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Fukushima reactor leaks, radiation tiny: Tepco

TOKYO (Reuters) - More than 8 tonnes of radioactive water leaked from a reactor at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant but none reached outside the reactor building, Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Thursday as it strives to ensure damaged reactors are stable enough for work to start on dismantling them.
Read more [Reuters]

Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Update for January 27th – January 30th, 2012

(This post is by Christine McCann)

Here’s the latest of our news bulletins from the ongoing crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

State of Nuclear Politics in Japan

In spite of warnings by the nuclear industry that Japan will experience blackouts if nuclear reactors are not restarted this summer, Yukio Edano, the head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), said he does not expect power outages even if all reactors in the country are shut down. Although Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has indicated he would like to restart reactors, local officials have shown strong resistance and said they will not approve the move.

Nuclear disaster simulation tests performed in Shiga Prefecture show that the proposed government expansion of the so-called Urgent Protective Action Planning Zone (UPZ), a 30 km zone within which residents would be advised to remain indoors or evacuate in case of a nuclear disaster, may not be large enough. The Shiga simulation, which considered radiation levels, weather patterns, and geographic variables, revealed that radiation plumes could extend as far as 42 km; this would increase the number of potential evacuees to 42,000, up from 13,000. The government is expected to announce the 30 km UPZ zone—which it is increasing from the current zone of 10 km—in April.

Some nuclear power experts are criticizing Japan’s stress tests (designed to evaluate nuclear plants’ ability to withstand natural disasters, including earthquakes and tsunamis), asserting that the process has been rushed and it’s too soon to safely restart idled reactors. Masashi Goto, who formerly designed nuclear plants and now sits on the Advisory Panel to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), has criticized the way the tests are conducted. “The reality is that inspectors only look at the reactors’ design and then factor in possible problems such as earthquakes and tsunami…they do not take into account the various malfunctions that can result in a disaster, including human error and equipment failure.” Another advisory panel member, Hiromitsu Imo, Professor Emeritus at Tokyo University, complained about collusion between the nuclear industry and advisors at NISA. “The process of testing is exactly the same as it was before the March earthquake,” he said. “Professors who conduct research and promote the nuclear industry are also acting as advisors to the nuclear safety agency. There is no independence.”

NISA officials have admitted that they failed to share a secret US emergency plan for dealing with power loss at nuclear plants, with power companies, the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, or the public. The plan, which was compiled after the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and is referred to as B.5.b, was presented to Japanese officials in 2006 and 2008 and outlined contingency measures in case of complete loss of power. NISA now admits that sharing the information might have lessened the impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, because it could have saved precious time before the meltdowns occurred. However, the NISA officials believed that power loss was not a realistic concern, and shelved it.

A review of 15 government organizations that met to deal with the Fukushima nuclear disaster showed that 10 failed to compile minutes and/or meeting summaries, as required by Japanese law. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has apologized for the lack of transparency. Critics have complained that important lessons about the way the disaster was handled have been lost.

METI is encouraging nuclear activists to move tents from Ministry building grounds, but officials say that they will not force demonstrators to leave the premises. The activists, who are demanding that the government and nuclear power providers refrain from restarting offline reactors, have been protesting there since the six-month anniversary of the disaster, and say they will not leave until their demands are met. “We will never voluntarily leave here unless the government pledges not to restart nuclear power plants,” one protester promised.

TEPCO

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) was voted as the second worst company of the year in an internet poll sponsored by Greenpeace and the Berne Declaration, as part of the annual Public Eye Award. The annual award, which is held in conjunction with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is designed to “remind the corporate world that social and environmental misdeeds have consequences.” Eighty-eight thousand votes were cast in TEPCO’s favor, citing the company for “grossly neglect[ing] the structural safety of its atomic power plants in order to cut costs,” a move that ultimately led to three nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
 
Several Japanese banks are considering finalizing loans to TEPCO, after officials there agreed to accept an injection of funds from the government. The utility is expected to request 1 trillion yen to cover higher costs for thermal power. Until now, banks have been hesitant to finance loans because TEPCO’s solvency was in question.
 
Japan’s Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund is criticizing TEPCO’s proposed 17% rate hike for businesses. Fund officials questioned the calculations TEPCO used to determine the increase, saying that the utility has not made adequate efforts to reduce costs before attempting to pass them along to consumers. Although the Fund has no legal control over TEPCO’s electricity rates, it does have the authority to oversee restructuring.

Government plans to split TEPCO’s power generation and transmission functions into two entities have come to a halt, as members of the Diet turn their attention to other pressing political issues, including a consumption-tax hike. Meanwhile, some officials from the Finance Ministry are questioning the wisdom of nationalizing TEPCO, saying that doing so would place the government—and ultimately, taxpayers—at even greater financial risk if another nuclear disaster occurs.

Reactor Status

TEPCO has discovered 16 new leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, after cold temperatures caused cracks in piping and valves connected to water purification equipment and cooling systems. Officials believe more than 7,800 liters of water were released. As a result, cooling functions at the spent fuel pool of reactor 4 were stopped for an hour and forty minutes, but the pool’s temperature remained stable. TEPCO said that because some of the leaked water had already been purified, overall radiation levels were low, and it does not believe the water has flowed into the sea. NISA has once again ordered the utility to fix the leaks and to prevent them from happening again. Junichi Matsumoto, a TEPCO official, has admitted that the company failed to take appropriate measures to protect the piping. This summer, a reporter who worked undercover at TEPCO warned that makeshift plastic piping would not survive cold winter temperatures.
 
TEPCO plans to install new water decontamination systems, in an effort to filter more radioactive substances from contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Officials hope that the new system, slated to be installed in March, will effectively remove most radioactive cesium, strontium, cobalt, and manganese, although not tritium. The current system only removes cesium. The decision to install new purification equipment, whose design has not yet been determined, was spurred December’s discovery in of high strontium levels in seawater near the plant.

Scientists at the Chiba Institute of Technology have developed new robots, named Quince II and Quince III, which they hope will explore the crippled reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Currently, TEPCO workers cannot enter the reactors because radiation levels remain dangerously high. The robots are named after another robot named Quince, which was sent into the reactor but became stuck. Each robot is equipped with wireless receivers, allowing one to rescue another if one gets stuck. In addition, the cable used to control them is approximately 400 meters long, compared to the original Quince’s cable, which was only 30 meters in length.

Contamination (Includes Economic Impact and Human Exposure)

Radiation testing centers in Fukushima Prefecture and surrounding areas have been flooded with requests to test gravel and stone, after recent revelations that radioactive gravel from Namie was shipped to over 200 construction firms. At a testing center in Koriyama, located approximately 60 km from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, orders have increased by 500% in just the past two weeks. A local association of gravel companies is urging the central government to provide radiation standards and guidelines. In spite of encountering previous scares with other building materials, Japan currently has no laws regulating radiation limits in gravel.

Japan’s Environment Ministry has launched a study of plants and wildlife located near the Fukushima Daiichi plant, in order to examine the effects of radiation on DNA and reproductive systems.  

Decontamination

Environment Minister Goshi Hosono has released a decontamination schedule for areas affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Hosono said that workers will first focus on areas where radiation levels are currently less than 20 millisieverts per year, with the goal of reducing annual levels to 10 millisieverts or less by December 2012. By 2014, they plan to reduce areas measuring less than 50 millisieverts per year to 20 millisieverts or less. However, the Ministry still has no concrete, long-term plans for dealing with those areas where annual readings are greater than 50 millisieverts.
 
Compensation

Mayors from Fukushima Prefecture who are frustrated with TEPCO’s slow response in paying reparation to victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster met with Japan’s nuclear disaster compensation panel this week. The mayors requested that the utility make lump sum payments, rather than monthly ones, to those residents who may not be able to move back to their homes for many years, if ever. TEPCO only recently agreed to reimburse victims for homes that have been rendered uninhabitable, but continues to refuse to increase compensation for emotional suffering. The officials asked the panel to develop comprehensive guidelines dealing with the issue.

Other Nuclear News

The Blue Ribbon Commission on American’s Nuclear Future, which is studying nuclear waste disposal in the United States, said that the government must employ a “consent-based approach” as it searches for a central waste storage location. The issue, which the commission called “urgent”, has risen to the forefront since the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant highlighted the dangers of storing spent nuclear fuel near reactors. In addition, the commission is urging the government to create a new entity to oversee nuclear waste storage. Currently the Department of Energy oversees that function.

Ministers 'misled MPs over need for nuclear power stations'

Guardian: Ministers misled parliament over the need to build a new fleet of nuclear power stations, distorting evidence and presenting to MPs a false summary of the analysis they had commissioned, a group of MPs and experts alleged in a report published on Tuesday (PDF). If MPs had been presented with an accurate picture of the evidence for and against new reactors, the government's plans might have been challenged, according to the report. Both the previous Labour government and the current coalition overstated...
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California Nuclear plant shuts down reactor as precaution

Reuters: One of two reactors at the San Onofre nuclear power station in Southern California was shut down on Tuesday after a small leak was detected in a steam generator tube, but the incident posed no risk to the public or plant workers, the facility operator said. The reactor unit, which normally provides 1,100 megawatts of electricity, was shut down at about 5:30 p.m. local time as a precaution and will remain off line for a least a couple of days, said Gil Alexander, a spokesman for Southern California...
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No big Fukushima health impact seen: U.N. body chairman

VIENNA (Reuters) - The health impact of last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan appears relatively small thanks partly to prompt evacuations, the chairman of a U.N. scientific body investigating the effects of radiation said on Tuesday.
Read more [Reuters]

'Unusual Event' at Illinois Nuclear Reactor Causes Shutdown

Yahoo!: A nuclear power plant about 95 miles to the northwest of Chicago lost power Monday morning and shut down in an "unusual event," according to WIFR. The Byron Generating Station operated by Exelon Nuclear had a power loss at 10:18 a.m., causing a unit to shut down and generators to provide power as Byron Station began to vent steam to reduce pressure. * Steam venting at Byron Station is designed to reduce pressure in the event of a power loss and the steam contains low levels of the radioactive...
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NRC wants U.S. nuclear operators to adopt new seismic model

(Reuters) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday the agency wants nuclear plant operators in the central and eastern United States to use a new seismic model to reassess the potential for earthquakes in their area.
Read more [Reuters]

No big Fukushima health impact seen: U.N. body chairman

Reuters: The health impact of last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan appears relatively small thanks partly to prompt evacuations, the chairman of a U.N. scientific body investigating the effects of radiation said on Tuesday. The fact that some radioactive releases spread over the ocean instead of populated areas also contributed to limiting the consequences, said Wolfgang Weiss of the U.N. Scientific Committee on the effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). "As far as the doses we have seen...
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France must extend nuclear reactors' lifespan: audit

Reuters: France has no option but to extend the lifespan of its nuclear power plants as any investments to renew its nuclear capacity or to increase its reliance on other forms of energy would be too costly and come too late, the French Court of Audit said. The French independent government body, which is charged with conducting financial and legislative audits, said in a report that a lack of investment decisions to build new reactors meant there were few choices left. "...In the absence of investment...
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France must extend nuclear reactors' lifespan: audit

PARIS (Reuters) - France has no option but to extend the lifespan of its nuclear power plants as any investments to renew its nuclear capacity or to increase its reliance on other forms of energy would be too costly and come too late, the French Court of Audit said.
Read more [Reuters]

U.N. agency approves Japan's reactor stress tests

TOKYO (Reuters) - U.N. experts endorsed tests designed to show Japanese nuclear plants could withstand a repeat of last year's earthquake and tsunami on Tuesday, with the government keen for public acceptance to restart reactors and avoid a summer power crunch.
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IAEA approves stress tests on Japan reactors

Guardian: Japan's attempts to restart nuclear reactors that were shut down in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi accident were boosted after UN inspectors gave their backing to stress tests designed to confirm the reactors' safety. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] said the reactor assessments were "generally consistent" with the body's own safety standards, despite concern among some experts that the tests are flawed. The IAEA's upbeat appraisal was expected, and does not...
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Fukushima pets in no-go zone face harsh winter

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - Dogs and cats that were abandoned in the Fukushima exclusion zone after last year's nuclear crisis have had to survive high radiation and a lack of food, and they are now struggling with the region's freezing winter weather.
Read more [Reuters]

Canada: A Vast Canadian Wilderness Poised for a Uranium Boom

Yale Environment 360: Until her semi-nomadic family moved into the tiny Inuit community of Baker Lake in the 1950s, Joan Scottie never knew there was a wider world beyond her own on the tundra of the Nunavut Territory in the Canadian Arctic. She didn’t see the inside of a school until she was a teenager and didn’t venture south until she was an adult. But that all changed in 1978, when a Soviet satellite carrying 100 pounds of enriched uranium for an onboard nuclear reactor crashed into the middle of the wilderness...
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Fukushima pets in no-go zone face harsh winter

Reuters: Dogs and cats that were abandoned in the Fukushima exclusion zone after last year's nuclear crisis have had to survive high radiation and a lack of food, and they are now struggling with the region's freezing winter weather. "If left alone, tens of them will die everyday. Unlike well-fed animals that can keep themselves warm with their own body fat, starving ones will just shrivel up and die," said Yasunori Hoso, who runs a shelter for about 350 dogs and cats rescued from the 20-km evacuation...
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Power paradox: Clean might not be green forever

New Scientist: As energy demand grows, even alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and nuclear fusion could begin to affect the climate "A better, richer and happier life for all our citizens." That's the American dream. In practice, it means living in a spacious, air-conditioned house, owning a car or three and maybe a boat or a holiday home, not to mention flying off to exotic destinations. The trouble with this lifestyle is that it consumes a lot of power. If everyone in the world started living like...
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Japan emissions rising after atomic crisis: report

Agence France-Presse: Japanese manufacturer's greenhouse gas emissions are rising after the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, hurting the country's carbon reduction goals, a report said Sunday. The trend will deal a blow to Japan's target of reducing emissions by six percent from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol, the Nikkei business daily reported. Emissions by 399 leading manufacturers are projected to rise 0.2 percent year-on-year to about 388 million tonnes in the year to March 2012,...
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Japan finds water leaks at stricken nuclear plant

(Reuters) - Japan's stricken nuclear power plant has leaked more than 600 liters of water, forcing it to briefly suspend cooling operations at a spent-fuel pond at the weekend, but none is thought to have escaped into the ocean, the plant's operator and domestic media said.
Read more [Reuters]

Japan finds water leaks at stricken nuclear plant

Reuters: Japan's stricken nuclear power plant has leaked more than 600 liters of water, forcing it to briefly suspend cooling operations at a spent-fuel pond at the weekend, but none is thought to have escaped into the ocean, the plant's operator and domestic media said. The Fukushima plant, on the coast north of Tokyo, was wrecked by a huge earthquake and tsunami in March last year, triggering the evacuation of around 80,000 people in the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years. The operator of the...
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Anti-nuclear movement growing in Asia

Christian Science Monitor: Heonseok Lee has a simple way of describing how public sentiment toward nuclear power has changed in South Korea since the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant last March 11. “Before 3/11, I’d post an article criticizing the nuclear power industry, and right away there’d be hundreds of really nasty comments. After 3/11, there’ll still be a few dozen. But not hundreds,” says Lee, a full-time anti-nuclear activist in one of the world’s most pro-nuclear countries. Though nuclear...
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Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Update for January 24th – January 26th, 2012

(This post is by Christine McCann)

Here’s the latest of our news bulletins from the ongoing crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

State of Nuclear Politics in Japan

A 15-page document obtained by the Associated Press shows that although officials submitted a report to then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan, detailing possible outcomes of the nuclear disaster, including reactor meltdowns, explosions, and cooling system failures, the Japanese government kept the information hidden. The report assumed the real possibility of evacuating greater Tokyo, with a population of over 35 million people, but Kan and other government officials publicly said that those evacuations would not be necessary. Japan is still refusing to officially release the report. Earlier this year, officials admitted that they had failed to release System for Prediction of Environment Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI) data that would have allowed residents to avoid fleeing to more radioactive areas.
 
Japan’s Cabinet is expected to approve a new bill limiting the life of nuclear reactors to 40 years, but which would allow for a 20-year extension in “exceptional” cases. The original bill said that requests for extensions “must be endorsed,” provided that the operator fulfilled certain safety standards, which have not yet been defined by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA). However, that wording elicited considerable concern from lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), who said it was a virtual guarantee that reactors could stay online for 60 years. The new language says that extensions “may be endorsed.”
 
Nuclear Crisis Minister Goshi Hosono said that the new nuclear oversight agency, expected to be created in April under the authority of the Environment Ministry, will be called the Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA).
 
A government panel investigating the Fukushima nuclear disaster announced that it will issue its final report by the end of July. The panel’s interim report, published on December 26, was highly critical of both Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) and the government in their response to the crisis. Yotaro Hatamura, who is chairing the panel, said the group will continue to explore how the government made decisions, the ways in which the public was kept informed, and the extent of damage. The panel has invited a team of foreign experts to advise them in February.

Yukio Edano, head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), has apologized on behalf of government officials who took no meeting minutes during the Fukushima nuclear crisis, in spite of the fact that Japanese law compels them to do so. Edano was Chief Cabinet Secretary at the time. He said he has asked officials from NISA to try to compile minutes from notes taken by various attendees.

TEPCO has shut down reactor 5 at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture for routine maintenance, leaving just one reactor (6) providing service to the greater Tokyo metropolitan area, and just three active reactors in Japan as a whole. That reactor will go offline in March. The utility has submitted stress test results for reactors 1 and 7 to NISA, but has not yet published results for reactors 2 through 6.

Also this week, Chugoku Electric disabled reactor 2 at its Shimane plant for scheduled maintenance. Ninety-four percent of Japan’s reactors are now offline.
 
Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan spoke at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, encouraging the use of renewable energy. In an interview prior to the meeting, Kan said, “I would like to tell the world that we should aim for a society that can function without nuclear power.”   
 
The international non-profit organization Reporters Without Borders has released its annual Press Freedom Index, which analyzes freedom of press in nations around the world. Japan’s ranking dropped 11 places from last year’s Index, from 11 to 22.  The organization explained its decision in a press release: “Japan coverage of the tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear accident gave rise to excessive restrictions and exposed the limits of the pluralism of the country’s press.”

Records collected by the Mainichi Daily News show that in spite of a 1974 pledge by power companies to avoid making political donations, executives (including many from TEPCO) have made huge contributions to both political parties, purchased tickets to fundraising events, and made individual contributions to candidates.
 
An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team is conducting an inspection at Kansai Electric’s Ohi nuclear plant, after NISA approved the stress tests that the utility conducted on two reactors there. The IAEA team will submit a report by the end of this month.
 
NISA will instruct operators of nuclear reactors to prepare for earthquakes that strike 5 km or more from their plants, and advise them to equip plants to withstand a quake greater than the largest ever experienced in that area. The agency based the decision on new seismic data.
 
The Mayor of Hakodate, Toshiki Kudo, is demanding that METI shut down construction on the Oma nuclear plant in Aomori Prefecture in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Kudo said, “Building a new nuclear plant is unacceptable.”

Japan and the Ukraine are negotiating a formal bilateral agreement that will guarantee cooperation in nuclear accidents. Japan hopes to learn from the Chernobyl event, which occurred in the Ukraine in 1986.
 
TEPCO

TEPCO is negotiating with the government’s Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund to accept a 1 trillion yen injection of capital, in order to keep the company solvent. However, TEPCO officials will reportedly only accept the funding if they are allowed to maintain management independence, with no voting rights for the government even if it purchases a majority of shares. The Liability Fund has said it will not provide funding unless TEPCO is effectively nationalized, allowing the government to make major management changes.
 
Officials at TEPCO say that they will once again make no new hires through the next year, in an effort to cut costs to pay compensation to the victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The utility said that the hiring freeze might be extended to spring of 2014 if necessary.

TEPCO estimates that decommissioning the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant will cost 1 trillion yen in the first decade alone. That number will rise considerably, as the decommissioning process is expected to last 40 years.

Contamination (Includes Economic Impact and Human Exposure)

The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare is still trying to determine the location of almost 3,000 cesium contaminated cows, but admit that consumers have probably eaten some of the radioactive beef. In July, inspectors identified 4,626 cows that had been fed contaminated rice straw. Of those, 1,630 have been tested; 6.4% were found to have cesium levels higher than those permitted by law. However, six months later, officials have been unable to track the remaining 2,996 cows.
 
Fukushima Prefecture revealed that radioactive gravel was probably used to construct three temporary housing complexes. Earlier this month, officials discovered that contaminated gravel from a quarry in Namie had been shipped to over 200 construction companies; they are now trying to track its whereabouts.
 
Rice farmers belonging to the Japan Agricultural Cooperative said they will restrict rice planting in areas where measurements of radioactive cesium were high last spring. The group is trying to regain consumer confidence.

Decontamination

Critics are charging that the winning bid by Maeda Corp. to decontaminate the area around Nahara, which falls within the no-entry zone in Fukushima Prefecture, is “outrageously low.” Officials from the Environment Ministry said that the bid fell below their own undisclosed cost estimate. Maeda won the contract for 16.5 million yen. Tadasha Watanabe, Vice Chair of Nahara’s Reconstruction Council, who also owns a construction company, estimated the actual cost of decontamination at more than 100 million yen. Maeda insists that the low cost will not affect work quality.

The Mayor of Kawauchi Village, which straddles the no-entry zone within 20 km of the Fukushima Daiichi plant and the zone just outside of that area, is urging all residents to return to the village by March. The municipal government will decontaminate areas, including schools and homes, and provide temporary housing for those whose homes are in the no-entry zone, which remains uninhabitable. Residents have expressed concern about the viability of the plan and say they are worried about safety. One resident mused, “I don’t believe that the plant has been brought under control. What will happen if another powerful earthquake strikes? This is impossible.”

The Environment Ministry said it will complete decontamination in areas with less than 50 millisieverts per year of radiation by 2014, in an effort to repopulate the area. Ministry officials plan to concentrate decontamination efforts on schools, parks, hospitals, and fire departments.
 
Compensation

Residents from 26 municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture that are not eligible for compensation from TEPCO are continuing to demand recompense for emotional suffering caused by the nuclear crisis. Over 70 municipal officials met with TEPCO President Toshio Nishizawa this week to present their case. In the meantime, the central government plans to allocate 40 billion yen in additional assistance for those affected.
 
Other Nuclear News

A US government panel exploring the issue of radioactive waste has released a report, advising establishment of a permanent central storage location for spent nuclear fuel from the nation’s 104 reactors. Previously, officials had planned to store it at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. However, local opposition to the plan resulted in its shutdown. The report states, “This generation has a fundamental ethical obligation to avoid burdening future generations with the entire task of finding a safe, permanent solution for managing hazardous nuclear materials they had no part in creating.”

Is Spent Nuclear Fuel Really Waste?

New York Times: When the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future was established two years ago, after the Obama administration killed a proposed repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, one of the items on its agenda was to determine whether spent nuclear fuel was in fact waste. Among advocates of nuclear power, considerable disagreement exists about whether the spent fuel can be considered waste, given that it contains unused uranium as well as plutonium, which is created in nuclear...
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Experts cast doubt on Japan nuclear plant tests

Guardian: Advisers to Japan's nuclear safety agency have said power plant stress tests do not prove that a nuclear plant is safe, as the country faces the prospect of a summer without a single nuclear reactor in operation. Last year, the Japanese government ordered the nuclear authorities to conduct tests on all Japan's reactors after the 11 March meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi raised questions about the safety of nuclear power, particularly in a country prone to earthquakes and tsunami. Earlier this...
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Japan says can avoid summer power cuts even if nuclear

Reuters: Japan will be able to avoid power cuts this summer even if the nation's last few nuclear reactors cease operating due to public safety fears after the Fukushima crisis, the government said on Friday. Until the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, nuclear energy provided a third of Japan's power. But public anxiety since the disaster, which triggered a radiation crisis at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, has prevented the restart of reactors shut for routine checks. Only three of the nation's 54...
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Japan says can avoid summer power cuts even if nuclear

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will be able to avoid power cuts this summer even if the nation's last few nuclear reactors cease operating due to public safety fears after the Fukushima crisis, the government said on Friday.
Read more [Reuters]

Nuclear Waste Panel Urges ‘Consent Based’ Approach

New York Times: A commission appointed to find alternatives to a failed plan to store nuclear waste in the Nevada desert declared on Thursday that the United States would have to develop a “consent-based approach” for choosing a site because leaving the decision to Congress had failed. By securing local consent, the panel said, the government might avoid the kind of conflicts that led to the cancellation of plans to create a repository at Yucca Mountain, a site 100 miles from Las Vegas, in 2010. It noted that local...
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Nuclear Contamination Cleanup Near Stricken Plant to Start in Spring

New York Times: Japan said Thursday that it would begin a cleanup this spring of radioactive contamination near the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, with the goal of cutting radiation levels in half within two years. The Environment Ministry said the cleanup would cover about two-thirds of the 100-square-mile zone around the plant that was evacuated after last March’s accident. The ministry says radiation levels in these areas are low enough that the cleanup, along with the natural decay of radioactive...
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Panel Charts Path To New Home For Nuclear Waste

National Public Radio: A panel of experts Thursday set forth a plan for getting rid of thousands of tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste. Most of it is spent fuel from nuclear power reactors. It was supposed to go to a repository in Nevada called Yucca Mountain, but the government has abandoned that plan. Yucca Mountain was largely done in by Nevadans, led by powerful Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who didn't want their state to be the country's nuclear waste dump. Some also questioned how geologically...
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U.S. needs long-term site for nuclear wast: panel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States must urgently work to find a new central site to house its spent nuclear fuel and probe whether Japan's nuclear disaster has any safety implications for storage at the country's plants, a federal panel said on Thursday.
Read more [Reuters]

Japanese town's dependence on nuclear plant hushes criticism

OHI, Japan (Reuters) - Japan's nuclear disaster has eroded trust in utilities and shown residents of the rural, mountainous region of Fukui the risk of radiation, but a dependence on atomic plants for jobs and funds means speaking out against them is taboo.
Read more [Reuters]

Japanese town's dependence on nuclear plant hushes criticism

Reuters: Japan's nuclear disaster has eroded trust in utilities and shown residents of the rural, mountainous region of Fukui the risk of radiation, but a dependence on atomic plants for jobs and funds means speaking out against them is taboo. Nestled on the Wakasa Bay in central Japan, the town of Ohi -- lashed this week by a snowstorm that has blanketed much of northern Japan -- hosts four of the nuclear reactors that dot the coast of Fukui prefecture, known as the "Atomic Arcade" because it has more...
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Analysis: More, not less, oil this year despite Iran ban

LONDON (Reuters) - The world is likely to have more oil, not less, this summer even as Europe imposes sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.
Read more [Reuters]

At the World Economic Forum: Calling for a real transformation - now!

If I bump into Professor Klaus Schwab, who started and still runs the World Economic Forum here in Davos, I will challenge him on the purpose of the event. Schwab has described the WEF as “a platform for collaborative thinking and searching for solutions, not for making decisions”.

The Davos meeting may not be a bastion of democratic or transparent democracy and participation, but it is a place where solutions should be discussed and plans made to tackle the cacophony of crises that our planet in faces. But important decisions can also be taken here, decisions by corporations, politicians or CEOs.

The time has come for this gathering of powerful people to address the escalating public frustration over growing inequity both between and within countries. It is time they explained how we will shift from primary resource consumption to protection; how we will shift to production processes free of toxic materials rather than being dumped into the environment at the end.  It is also time for the privileged to explain how they will put an end to the corruption of our environment and shared global space for private profit.

I have first hand experience of how the seeds of good decisions and steps in the right direction can be made here in Davos. Last year, Facebook’s Marketing Director, Randi Zuckerberg heard Greenpeace demands to Facebook to “unfriend” coal and support clean energy. Randi listened and took our call - and t-shirt - back to Facebook’s office, and by the end of 2011 Facebook had agreed to support clean energy, committing themselves to having a clear preference for locations where clean and renewable energy is available to power their massive and energy hungry data centers.

We already know what the solutions are, what is needed now is leadership from governments, and commitment from CEOs to take urgent and ambitious actions to protect our environment, and to create a sustainable future for our children and grandchildren; governments need to start listening to the people, and not the polluters, or else they are consciously sleepwalking us into crisis of epic propositions, and jeopardizing all of our futures, including their own.

The Greenpeace energy revolution scenario, which was developed with business partners, shows that we can deliver energy to more people, especially the poor in developing countries, and cut carbon emissions by more than 80% by 2050 while creating more jobs in the process. This can be achieved through investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy instead of dirty fossil fuels and dangerous nuclear power. By implementing the Energy Revolution, governments could help businesses create 3.2 million more jobs by 2030 in the global power supply sector alone.

On behalf of Greenpeace, and all of its supporters I will be inside the WEF to hold corporations and governments to account and to ensure that the voices speaking against ecological destruction and rising inequality are heard inside the halls of the WEF. 

Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

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