The organisation set up to verify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) has a global network of air samplers that monitor and trace the origin of around a dozen radionuclides, the radioactive elements released by atomic bomb blasts – and nuclea
Tomas Kåberger 25.10.:" Den dåvarande japanska premiärministern Kan berättar i en intervju att kärnkraftbolagets anställda var på väg att lämna hela kraftverket dygnet efter olyckan. Premiärministern själv flög till kraftverket i helikopter för att förklara för personalen att det var uteslutet att de lämnade verket. Kan trodde att deras flykt skulle leda till spontan utrymning av Tokyo, en utrymning som i sig kunde få katastrofala följder. Denna rädsla var också skälet till att Japanska myndigheter inte ansåg det lämpligt att berätta allt och att ljuga om olyckans dignitet enligt den så kallade Ines-skalan. Verklighetsanknytningen kan också ifrågasättas när man nu talar om att få reaktorerna sluta läcka och vara i ”kallt, avstängt läge” före årsskiftet. Vad betyder det när man inte ens vet hur mycket av bränslet som ligger kvar i den trasiga inneslutningen eller kanske tiotals meter ner i berget?"
By HIROKO TABUCHI Published: December 16, 2011 TOKYO — Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan has declared an end to the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, saying technicians have regained control of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. "But even before Mr. Noda’s announcement, some experts called the news premature, an attempt to quell continuing public anger over the accident and paper over remaining threats to the plant. The experts argue that the devastated plant remains vulnerable to large aftershocks, which could knock out the jury-rigged cooling system that helped workers bring the reactors into a relatively stable state known as a “cold shutdown.” "
Conditions at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are far worse than its operator or the government has admitted, according to freelance journalist Tomohiko Suzuki, who spent more than a month working undercover at the power station. A book by Tomohiko Suzuki detailing many of his experiences at the plant and connections between yakuza crime syndicates and the nuclear industry, titled "Yakuza to genpatsu" (the yakuza and nuclear power), was published by Bungei Shunju on Dec. 15.
New York Times By MARTIN FACKLER Published: January 21, 2012 Quotation: “If the government treated us like adults, there would be no need for Mamorukai,” said Sachiko Sato, a network founder. “Japan must build an entirely new food-monitoring system that we average people can really trust.”
Nuclear power will not go away, but its role may never be more than marginal, says Oliver Morton Mar 10th 2012 | from the print edition "But if nuclear power teaches one lesson, it is to doubt all stories of technological determinism. It is not the essential nature of a technology that matters but its capacity to fit into the social, political and economic conditions of the day."
Heart disease and depression are likely to claim more lives than radiation after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, experts say By Katherine Harmon | March 2, 2012 |
Vulnerabilities found by the commission and identified in the draft report include a situation at four reactors in Finland and Sweden, where if the cooling systems failed or all electric power was lost, the operators would have less than an hour to restore safety functions before catastrophic damage took place. The draft report says that 10 reactors in countries including Spain, France and the Czech Republic lack adequate equipment to detect earthquakes. Mark Breddy, a spokesman for Greenpeace European Unit, the environmental advocacy organization, said: “Cozy relationships between nuclear operators, regulators and politicians were pivotal to aggravating the Fukushima disaster. The situation isn’t much better in Europe.” Given those relationships, he said, he questioned whether the European Commission’s stress tests were as thorough and as impartial as they should have been.
27 April 2013 : "Groundwater is pouring into the plant's ravaged reactor buildings at a rate of almost 75 gallons a minute. It becomes highly contaminated there, before being pumped out to keep from swamping a critical cooling system. A small army of workers has struggled to contain the continuous flow of radioactive wastewater, relying on hulking gray and silver storage tanks sprawling over 42 acres of parking lots and lawns. The tanks hold the equivalent of 112 Olympic-size pools."
MAKHIJANI: Well, I think there's no call--you know, it's not a panic type of situation. So if there are people who are panicking and talking about evacuations and so on on the west coast, I think that that is out of proportion. But at the same time, there is a real cause for concern because, as we know, there are hundred of tons of radioactive water that are flowing into the ocean every day.
July 13, 2014 The court ordered Kansai Electric Power Co. not to restart the two reactors at its Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture, saying that local residents can seek a halt to reactor operations because it is impossible for modern science to predict the scale of possible earthquakes. Part of the translated ruling says: “… this court considers national wealth to be the rich land and the people’s livelihoods that have taken root there, and that being unable to recover these is the true loss of national wealth.” The ruling also says, “… the operation of nuclear power plants as one means of producing electricity is legally associated with freedom of economic activity and has a lower ranking in the Constitution than the central tenet of personal rights.”