December 12, 2013

Dec 12, 2013 | Fukushima Accident Updates

  • More large one-time payouts are proposed for Fukushima evacuees. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has proposed lump-sum compensation payments totaling between $100,000 and $140,000 per person for emotional damage due to the Tokyo-mandated evacuation. This means a typical family of four could experience a windfall of between $400,000 and $640,000. The higher payout is intended for evacuees from locations that have radiation exposure levels of more than 50 millisieverts per year. Existing emotional damage payments have been $1,000 per person per month, or $4,000/month to a family of four. The money will be loaned to Tepco in order to make the payments, but the company will eventually have to repay the government. The amounts per person came from data used for loss of home and property caused by landslides and traffic accidents as references. It should be noted that under the proposed rule, a limit on property compensation will be determined by equating the average between initial cost of a home and the most recent property evaluation prior to 3/11/11. The draft says the maximum pay-out should be between 50 and 75% of that value. For those who have rebuilt in a new location, they will be additionally recompensed at 50-75% of the difference between their old home’s value and the cost of building the new one. The generous monthly stipends already given to all 84,000 qualified evacuees will not change. http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20131210p2a00m0na012000c.html  Predictably, some evacuees don’t like the MEXT proposal one bit. The few, loud outcries come from those who evacuated locations estimated to have long-term radiation exposures in excess of 50mSv/yr. One dissenter, Mayor Koichi Miyamoto of Tomioka, says no limits should be placed on the pay-outs because “It is impossible to decide on the entire amount of compensation while evacuees are still in the middle of their evacuations,” He added that no rebuilding plan should be viewed as complete until all evacuees are able to return to normal lives. A 62 year-old evacuee from Okuma said, “I cannot understand this” because he has not had a job since 3/11/11. He also complained that the $2,000 per month he and his wife receive for emotional stress is not enough to give them their desired 50% savings. http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201312100062
  • The International Atomic Energy Agency has posted its most recent Fukushima evaluation. The preliminary report covers their expert team’s visit of 11/25/13 to 12/5/13. The report has some very positive things to say about the station’s decommissioning effort. Some of the remarks include, “Japan has achieved good progress in improving its strategy and the associated plans…the Government of Japan and TEPCO have increasingly adopted a more proactive attitude and approach towards addressing the many difficulties at the site…Japan appears to have adopted a well-oriented set of countermeasures.” http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/fukushima/missionreport041213.pdf  As always, the international bell-cow of antinuclear dogma, Greenpeace, says the IAEA cannot be trusted and is in collusion with Tepco and the Nuclear Regulation Authority. The group says the triumvirate is trying to promote an “out of sight, out of mind” approach to what Greenpeace calls a “Permanent crisis at Fukushima”. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/permanent-crisis-at-fukushima/blog/47649/
  • The Industry Ministry (METI) says Tepco should intensify their F. Daiichi wastewater efforts. In addition to freezing the soil and building another wall along the nuke station’s shoreline, METI proposes paving the station with asphalt to prevent rainwater from moving surface soil contamination into the sea via run-off. METI believes current efforts have had dubious effectiveness and the two new barrier‘s construction will take too long. The panel also suggested expert teams be assembled to assess the risks and challenges associated with handling Tritium. METI minister Toshimitsu Motegi said the government should use state funds for technology deemed necessary for difficult projects. METI estimates that Tepco will not fully resolve all wastewater issues before 2020. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclear.html — http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2013/12/261063.html
  • A leading Asian news outlet says there is too much anxiety about Fukushima. The Diplomat, a Tokyo-based news magazine, asks “How worried should we be about Fukushima?” Their answer – “Not as much as many headlines suggest”. The article says there has been a recent rash of headlines about radioactive leaks, exposed workers and contaminated fish, which paints a bleak picture. However, “to be fair, all is not bad”. In fact, the report says PM Abe’s statement of F. Daiichi being “under control” is a legitimate claim. The article adds that many of the “tremendous recovery efforts” have been given little or no media attention. The Diplomat admits that Tepco’s efforts have not been perfect, but the company should be given credit for the things it has done right. For example, a few of the thousand-odd temporary water storage tanks have leaked, but the vast majority have maintained their integrity. In addition, something entirely missing from the Press reports is the fact that the contamination level in the water-filled basements of units #1 through #4 “…is down a hundred-fold from its peak because of the constant dilutive effects of both [processing] cooling water and the inflowing groundwater.” Perhaps the Diplomat’s most significant statement concerns Japan’s ridiculously-low radiation and contamination standards, “Although the government has set stringent environmental containment standards in a [honorable] bid to reassure the public, doing so also raises expectations to an unrealistic level and entails greater difficulty and exponentially greater expense. Setting expectations so high encourages the impression of failure for falling short. Right now, water can only be discharged [to the sea] if it meets standards that are nearly as strict as those for drinking water.Drinking water standards for the radioisotope cesium are 10 Becquerels per liter (Bq/L). For Fukushima [only], the clean groundwater discharge limit is <1 Bq/L, and for all other discharges the limit has been set to 25 Bq/L. To help put this into context, the amount of natural radioactivity from potassium in the average person’s urine is on the order of 50 Bq/L.” In summation, the lengthy article goes into considerable detail while providing a relatively complete overview of the situation at F. Daiichi, and with no agenda-fulfilling spin-doctoring. I strongly urge everyone to use the attached link and read the report in its entirety. http://thediplomat.com/2013/12/waterworld-how-worried-should-we-be-about-fukushima/
  • A Japanese political advisor says all nuclear plants should have a “black box” similar to ones used by the airline industry. Political Policy Professor Kiyoshi Kurokawa, who headed the 2012 Fukushima accident congressional investigation (NAIIC), says that without such recording devices nukes will never achieve the level of transparency needed. He criticized Tokyo’s watchdog agency thusly, “Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority seems very isolated” not only from the domestic power industry but also from counterparts abroad. “Isolation in one nation is a very dangerous thing.” Kurokawa has received world-renown for his accident report calling the Fukushima Crisis “Made in Japan”, citing irresponsible collusion between Tepco and the government to avoid executing adequate tsunami protection. Kurokawa also feels the current regime under Shinzo Abe has largely ignored the NAIIC report or else they would not be pushing to restart currently-idled reactors. He also feels that recovering and containing the three damaged fuel cores at Fukushima is “maybe not top of the agenda for Abe”. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/12/10/national/nuke-black-box-needed-investigator/#.UqcfnYAo4dU  The host town for Fukushima Daiini station wants all four units scrapped. F. Daiini is about 10 kilometers south of F. Daiichi and is fully functional. F. Daiini survived the 3/11/11 tsunami virtually unscathed. The town’s petition says it is highly unlikely that they will ever accept a request to restart for any of the station’s units because national energy policy has been called into question. Fukushima Prefecture has already called for the decommissioning of all units at Daiini and Daiichi stations, so the Tomioka petition seems intended to support the prefectural position. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20131211_43.html