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SOURCE: News: Contamination has become 5 times worse than 3 months ago, Fukushima Diary by Mochizuki, October 5, 2011 According to an NGO,「ＦｏＥ　Ｊａｐａｎ, there are extremely contaminated hot spots in Fukushima city. They detected 300,000 Bq/Kg of cesium 134 and 137 in the worst place, and some other places became contaminated 5 times worse than 3 months ago. (9/14) They also measured 150,000 Bq/kg beside an after-school. [...]

Mochizuki on ‘Decontamination’ They have been trying to decontaminate radiation, but ironically, contamination is getting worse and worse [...]If decontamination is possible, people would have gone back to Chernobyl [...] We mustn’t be deceived by their new propaganda, “decontamination”.

SOURCE: Also from the point elevated levels of cesium = 3 months before the city’s high-NGO Fukushima, Jiji Press, October 5, 2011 Google Translation [...] And where the concentration is more than five times compared with three months ago, there were some cases were over 150,000 Becquerel been near the building where after-school care. [...]

The prefectural government of Fukushima on Sunday started ultrasonic thyroid examinations for children aged up to 18 when the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant began in March. In a move almost without precedent in the world, around 360,000 children in the prefecture will be examined at the Fukushima Medical University. Parents in Fukushima have shown concern over the issue as many children suffered thyroid cancer after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

An expert task force convened by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission called Japan's nuclear disaster "unacceptable" and concluded that nuclear power plants in the U.S. need better protections for rare, catastrophic events.

The series of recommendations, included in portions of a 90-page report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, will reset the level of protection at the nation's 104 nuclear reactors after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl by making them better prepared for incidents that they were not initially designed to handle.

The three-month investigation was triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that cut off all electrical power to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant

Deregulate The AtomHistory of the Antinuclear Movement, Part 2b var addthis_product = 'wpp-258'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":false}; The different and more diffuse class composition of the European antinuclear movement found visible expression in the tactics of the activists and the police, which were much more belligerent than in America. In Europe, antinuclear protesters carried out acts of sabotage against power-lines, railroad lines, construction sites, factories supplying nuclear plants, and installations of utility companies including bombs placed near nuclear construction sites or plants. Marches and rallies attracting upward of 50,000 were commonplace. Police responded physically against demonstrators, using tear gas, clubs, dogs, even grenades, causing hundreds of injured and even death (as in the case of Malville). Civil war-like street blockades, dozens of miles away from the demonstration-sites and at national borders were set up to block demonstrators. Compared to the small showings and relatively peaceful actions in North America, the European state of affairs was much more dynamic. The movement against the nuclear plants was one of the biggest mass movements of the 1970s and 80s in Germany. After a slowdown since, it has reappeared now like a phoenix from the ashes, The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was a pivotal event for Germany’s anti-nuclear movement, following the event, the Green Party strived for the immediate shut-down of all nuclear facilities. The SPD pushed for a nuclear phase-out within ten years. Länder governments, municipalities, parties and trade unions explored the question of whether the use of nuclear power technology was reasonable and sensible for the future.

May 1986 clashes between anti-nuclear protesters and West German police became common. More than 400 people were injured in mid-May at the site of a nuclear-waste reprocessing plant being built near Wackersdorf. Police used water cannons and dropped tear-gas grenades from helicopters to subdue protesters armed with slingshots, crowbars and Molotov cocktails. Starting from 1995, when the first transports of nuclear waste to Gorleben took place, there was a slow, but continuous new growth of resistance, with demonstrations and blockades of the railway. In 2002, the “Act on the structured phase-out of the utilization of nuclear energy for the commercial generation of electricity” took effect, following a drawn-out political debate and lengthy negotiations with nuclear power plant operators. The act legislated for the shut-down of all German nuclear plants by 2021

The Italian nuclear engineer and safety expert Cesare Silvi explains why he left his former pro-nuclear stance for solar and other renewable energy sources: “I soon came to the conclusion that neither international cooperation nor technological advancements would guarantee human societies to build and safely run nuclear reactors in all possible conditions on Earth (earthquakes, floods, droughts, tornadoes, wars, terrorism, climate change, tsunamis, pandemics, etc.). I am sadly reminded of this turning point in my life as I listen to the news about the earthquake, tsunami and extremely worrying nuclear crisis in Japan.”

Silvi warns that “there will definitely be worse accidents” if we continue with nuclear power: “Why not consider Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima as warnings of greater catastrophes to come and avoid the inevitable by shutting them down, much like changing your diet and/or lifestyle after finding out that your cholesterol or blood pressure is elevated, rather than continuing down the same path until a heart attack or stroke strikes?” According to Silvi the world could easily replace nuclear power simply by reducing our energy usage and introducing energy efficiency programs: “Nuclear today only generates about 12 percent of the developed world’s electricity. By instituting an energy efficiency program,” Silvi suggests, “we could fill the gap caused by shutting them all down and put this malevolent genie back into the bottle.”

It took Japan’s Fukushima disaster to make nuclear energy interesting to students in Karl Craddock’s advanced placement chemistry class at William Fremd High School in Palatine, Ill. Too bad the buzz was about radiation plumes, iodine pills, and potential deadly threats at nuclear power plants that generate more than half the electricity in Illinois. It wasn’t the sort of talk to get kids excited about a career in nuclear energy. “It doesn’t have the cool factor right now, that’s for sure,” says Craddock, who has taught science at the suburban Chicago high school for seven years.

Nuclear utilities in the U.S. will need to hire nearly 25,000 people to replace the 39 percent of its workforce that will be eligible for retirement by 2016, says Carol L. Berrigan, senior director for industry infrastructure for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based trade group. Meanwhile, U.S. universities awarded a total of 715 graduate and undergraduate degrees in nuclear engineering in 2009, the most recent year for which data is available.

After nuclear plant disasters at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in Ukraine, nuclear power lost political support in the U.S. Hiring slowed through the 1990s and nuclear workers under the age of 40 became a rarity as talk turned from expansion to shutting down existing plants. “That’s not an exciting prospect for a young person thinking about their career,” says K.L. “Lee” Peddicord, a professor of nuclear engineering and director of the Nuclear Power Institute at Texas A&M University.

Beef contaminated by radiation from Fukushima prefecture has been eaten by consumers in Japan, intensifying food-safety concerns and stoking criticism against a government testing program that checks only selected products.

About 437 kilograms (963 pounds) of beef from a farm in Minami-Soma city, 30 kilometers from the stricken Fukushima Dai- Ichi nuclear station, was consumed in eight prefectures, according to the Tokyo metropolitan government, which detected the first case of tainted beef from the farm earlier this month.

Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found to be contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers from Dai-Ichi. Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the stricken station, said June 14 it found cesium in milk tested near another nuclear reactor site about 210 kilometers from the damaged plant.

From Bloomberg: Moody’s Japan K.K. cut its rating on Tokyo Electric and warned it may reduce it further, saying the problems at Fukushima “appear far from being resolved” and the company is likely to remain unprofitable for a long time. Senior secured and long-term issuer ratings were downgraded to Baa1 from A1, Moody’s said in a statement. "Tokyo Electric’s shareholders may be wiped out by clean-up costs and liabilities stemming from the nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl. The company, known as Tepco, faces claims of as much as 11 trillion yen if the crisis lasts two years and potential takeover by the government, according to a March 29 Bank of America Merrill Lynch report."

The Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan has taken a massive toll on animals. The fate of wildlife is largely unknown, but domestic pets and livestock continue to suffer.   Livestock were forcibly abandoned and left behind to starve. Cows contaminated with cesium five times the permissible level have been slaughtered. Buried in the ground, their radioactive carcasses will continue to contaminate the land for decades if Chernobyl is any indication.   Family pets were left behind, tied, abandoned in homes, or left to roam the streets in search of food. Their owners were forbidden to return or were allowed to make brief visits to feed them, often too late. A rabbit born without ears is stoking fears of birth defects and genetic damage among humans while whales have been caught that are found to be contaminated with radioactive cesium. In the event of US reactor accidents, citizens are encouraged to evacuate with their pets. However, evacuation shelters and most hotels do not allow animals. Livestock, of course, cannot be evacuated.

A baby bunny apparently born without ears (photo at left) in the town of Namie, near the massively leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, has raised concerns about mutagenic effects caused by radioactivity in the environment. Naysayers abound, despite evidence of genetic mutations in animals (such as a two headed calf) and plants (including deformed flowers) in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island meltdown collected and documented by Mary Osborn; numerous scientific studies showing adverse impacts on wildlife populations in Chernobyl contaminated regions, such as on birds by Dr. Tim Mousseau of the University of South Carolina; and, further back in time, an epidemic of ewe deaths in southwest Utah immediately downwind of the Nevada Nuclear Weapons Test Site. An excellent book by John G. Fuller, "The Day We Bombed Utah," published in 1984, recounts how Mormon sheep farmers experienced unprecedented sheep and ewe deaths in the early 1950s, shortly after nuclear weapons blasts upwind in Nevada. The farmers sued the Atomic Energy Commission for damages. AEC research scientists swore, under oath, that they had no evidence that radioactivity could cause such a die off in sheep and ewes. However, over a quarter century later, it was shown by the sheep farmers and their attorney that the AEC had lied -- they had conducted experiments on sheep at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State: they observed die offs very similar to what occurred in Utah. The same judge who had presided over the original trial heard the new evidence as well, and ruled that the AEC had perpetrated a fraud upon the court. Fuller also wrote "We Almost Lost Detroit," published in 1975, about the 1966 partial meltdown at the Fermi 1 experimental plutonium breeder reactor in Monroe, Michigan.

The Tokyo metropolitan government has not checked imported foods for radiation since April, citing differences in the safety standards for domestic products after the accident at the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant. But since the suspension, the metropolitan government's four units of radiation check equipment have not been used even for domestic food examinations--and even when the nation was confronted with the pressing issue of locating cesium-contaminated beef this summer.

The Tokyo government started checking imported foods for radiation shortly after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. However, after the nuclear accident started at the Fukushima plant in March, the central government set provisional safety standards for domestically produced foods, including meats and vegetables, at 500 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram. The figure is 130 becquerels higher than the 370-becquerel standards for imported foods.

"We would not know how to deal with this issue if we found an imported food containing radiation levels between the two standards," a Tokyo government official in charge of this matter said. If a food item with 400 becquerels of radioactive cesium was detected, it would be allowed to stay in the market if it was produced in Japan. But it would be recalled if it had been imported. This could cause serious confusion among consumers, the government official said.

A visiting Belarusian scientist, who has offered advice to residents affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, said Wednesday that he believes Japan’s food radiation limits have been set too high and urged the nation to lower them to realistic levels. Vladimir Babenko, deputy director of the Belrad Institute of Radiation Safety in the former Soviet republic, told a press conference in Tokyo that he cannot understand the thresholds designated by the Japanese government for food and beverage products, saying they are much higher than Belarusian standards.

[Transcript Summary] At 6:15 in Chernobyl health effects are the biggest coverup in the history of medicine. WHO, IAEA, UN all covered up effects. At 7:20 in German gov’t study on children under 5 that lived within 5km of reactors showed double leukemia and high incidence of solid cancers… deformities (teratogenesis). The closer to reactor, the higher the malignancy. At 10:15 in Nuclear plants cannot prevent tritium (Radioactive hydrogen) from escaping… highly carcinogenic. It is probably what’s causing the cancers in the kids that live near power plants in Germany.

No one wants to think about the massive aqueous deposition of radioactive materials into the Pacific Ocean, that much is now clear. By September estimates of released contamination had risen to over  3,500 terabecquerels of cesium-137 released into the sea directly from the plant between March 11 and the end of May. Another 10,000 terabecquerels of cesium fell into the ocean after escaping from the reactors in the form of steam.

Initially reports had quieted concerns by stating that the materials would be diluted so vastly that the radioactivity would not be able to accumulate, and would not affect the environment.  The experts claimed they would track the deposition and floating radioactive debris field making its way on a trans-Pacific trip to the United States. Apparently, the experts in Japan didn't get the message.  The Japanese regularly tested the seawater only for 'popular' Iodine and Cesium isotopes instead of all known fission-produced radioactive materials, for the first 3 months after the disaster.  By March 31st, radioactive contamination concentration was 4,385 times the legal limit, up from 3,355 times on Tuesday, according to Kyodo. In response, the government had pledged to increase radiation monitoring on land and by sea and to consider increasing the evacuation zone — however time has shown little action would follow these vows.

Experts Don't Fear A Radiation Graveyard Water was constantly required for the workers to be able to get any cooling into Reactors 1-4, when water went in, steam came out.  The ocean quickly became the radiation dumping ground, as untold tonnes of contaminated water has been confirmed to have directly flowed into the ocean, and TEPCO continually assured Japanese citizens that the majority of dispersal would occur over the Pacific.

The operator of Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant has said the amount of radiation being emitted from the complex has halved from a month ago, in the latest sign that efforts to bring the plant under control are progressing. The Fukushima Daiichi plant, 150 miles north-east of Tokyo, was damaged in March by a devastating earthquake and tsunami in the world's worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago. "Radiation from the damaged reactors is 100 million becquerels per hour, which is one eight-millionth of the amount measured soon after the accident," Tokyo Electric Power's vice-president, Zengo Aizawa, said. Mr Aizawa said that this translates to about 0.2 millisieverts per year of radiation measured at the fringes of the plant, below the 1-millisievert safety limit according to government guidelines. The amount is half of what Tepco announced at its review a month ago. The company formally brought forward its plan to bring the plant to a state of "cold shutdown" within this year, instead of by January as initially planned.

His latest book, "Fukushima Meltdown: The World's First Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster," has just become available online as a Kindle book in an excellent and fluid translation by a team under the guidance of American author and scholar, Douglas Lummis. Originally published as "Fukushima Genpatsu Merutodaun" by Asahi Shinsho on May 30, 2011, this is the book that Hirose had hoped he would never have to write. For three decades he has been warning Japanese people about the catastrophes that could been visited on their country — and now his worst nightmare has become a reality. "This is called the '3/11 Disaster' by many," he writes, "but it did not happen on 3/11, it began on 3/11 and it is continuing today. ... Nuclear power plants are a wildly dangerous way to get electricity and are unnecessary. The world needs to learn quickly from Japan's tragedy." Hirose points out that from day one of the disaster the situation in Fukushima had reached the highest level of nuclear accidents, namely level 7 — and from the outset, the government was keenly aware of this fact. But it chose to conceal the truth from the people.

"In past nuclear-plant disasters — those at Chernobyl (in present-day Ukraine, in 1986) and at Three Mile Island (in Pennsylvania in the United States, in 1979) — only one reactor was involved in each. However, at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, four reactors went critical at the same time." On March 13, two days after the tsunami that followed the magnitude-9 Great East Japan Earthquake, Masataka Shimizu, the president of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), the operator of the stricken nuclear plant, said at a press conference: "The tsunami was beyond all previous imagination. In the sense that we took all measures that could be thought of for dealing with a tsunami, there was nothing wrong with our preparations." As Hirose and many other commentators have pointed out, Tepco executives and government planners knew perfectly well that tsunamis far exceeding 20 meters in height struck that very region in 1896 and again, 37 years later, in 1933. The 14-meter-high tsunami that inundated many of the Fukushima No. 1 plant's facilities was, in fact, well within the parameters of what could objectively be termed "expected" — and was simply not "beyond all previous imagination," as Shimizu claimed.

In fact, the willful absence of care by both industry and government comprises nothing less than a blatant act of savagery against the people of Japan. This book is full of enlightening technical explanations on every aspect of nuclear safety, from structural safeguards (and their clear inadequacy) to the nature of hydrogen explosions and meltdowns. Hirose warns us, with detailed descriptions of the lay of the land and the features of each reactor, about the nuclear power plants at Tomari in Hokkaido, Higashidori in Aomori Prefecture and Onagawa in Miyagi Prefecture; about other plants in Ibaraki, Ishikawa, Shimane, Ehime, Saga and Kagoshima prefectures; and perhaps most dangerous of all, about the 14 reactors along the Wakasa Coast in Fukui Prefecture, constituting what I would call Hōshanō Yokochō (Radioactivity Alley). Many of the reactors at these plants are aging and plagued with serious structural problems.

The rainwater data is just one example of failings in how Canada monitored radiation from Fukushima. The accident has exposed a pattern of nonchalance and seeming willful ignorance on the part of Canadian health authorities when it comes to the dangers of nuclear power. Drinking water is another example. In Vancouver, the city did its first test of the drinking-water supply on March 16, a few days after the Fukushima accident on March 11. No radiation was detected in that day’s sample. But this was to be expected because it took until March 18 and 19 for the radioactive plume from Fukushima to first hit the west coast of Canada. Instead of continuing with frequent monitoring, the city didn’t do another radiation test until March 25—nine days after the first test. On March 25, testing detected alpha radiation at 0.11 becquerels per litre in the drinking water at the city’s Seymour-reservoir intake. Alpha radiation comes from isotopes like plutonium-238 and is the most dangerous form of radiation when ingested or inhaled. The level at the Seymour intake was lower than the current Canadian and World Health Organization guideline of 0.5 becquerels per litre in drinking water. On the other hand, the WHO guideline used to be 0.1 Bq per litre before it was adjusted higher in the mid-2000s.

That nine-day hole between March 16 and 25 is exactly when SFU prof Starosta found massive radiation spikes in rainwater in Burnaby. Did the alpha radiation ever surpass the ceiling? We can’t say for sure. Because of the long gap between tests, it’s not clear how high radiation levels may have gotten and for how long. When the city tested its drinking water again on March 28, the alpha radiation was no longer detectable. Food is another big question mark. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency briefly tested Japanese food imports from the area around Fukushima, but it dropped those measures in June. Canada now relies on Japanese authorities to screen contaminated food. But Japan’s food inspections have proven to be highly controversial since Fukushima. The country has no centralized food-inspection system, and poor monitoring after Fukushima allowed food contaminated with radiation to be sold to Japanese consumers.

Meanwhile, it’s becoming clear that the radiation has spread much farther across Japan than government officials have acknowledged. Citizen monitoring groups have found 22 “hot spots” in Tokyo where radiation levels are higher than the level at which zones were considered contaminated near Chernobyl, the New York Times reported on October 14. The CFIA also told the Straight it has no plans to monitor food products from the Pacific Ocean fishery. You’d think this would be a concern, because many fish caught in the Pacific still have large amounts of radiation months after the accident, according to data reported on the website of the Japanese government fisheries agency. In September, 21 Japanese fish catches exceeded the Japanese radiation ceiling—the same number as in August. Two catches in September exceeded the ceiling for radioactive cesium by more than four times.

Japan on Sunday said cesium that is generating significant radioactivity at a location in China prefecture had likely been released from the damaged Fukushima atomic facility, the Japan Times reported (see GSN, Oct. 21). The six-reactor power plant was damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 20,000 people missing or dead in Japan. Radiation releases on a level not seen since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster forced the evacuation of about 80,000 residents from a 12-mile ring exclusion zone surrounding the site in Fukushima prefecture. A Sunday inspection by Japanese Science Ministry and Kashiwa city authorities located an area to which rainwater had likely been carrying contaminants from the plant. The city had previously played down the likelihood that the radioactive material had originated from the nuclear facility (Japan Times, Oct. 24). Fukushima prefecture on Thursday said two boys between 4 and 7 years old had received the highest levels of internal radiation contamination out of roughly 4,500 locals tested, Kyodo News reported. The contamination would amount to roughly three millisieverts of radiation over their lives and would not produce dangerous effects, officials said (Kyodo News/Mainichi Daily News, Oct. 21). The Japanese Forestry Agency indicated that as soon as November it would begin to test pollen from cedar flowers located in the evacuation zone for cesium contamination, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Monday (Yomiuri Shimbun, Oct. 24). The government's Science Ministry and Fisheries Agency are set to ramp up and broaden testing for radioactive materials in ocean water and marine produce, the Asahi Shimbun reported on Saturday (Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 22).

Greenpeace called on Tokyo to toughen radiation screening and food labelling rules on Thursday after it said low levels of radiation had been detected in seafood sold at Japanese stores.The environmental pressure group said it tested 60 seafood samples bought at stores in eastern Japan operated by five major supermarket chains and found 34 of them with radioactive caesium-134 and caesium-137.The survey discovered readings of up to 88 becquerel per kilogram with the radiation believed to be from the ongoing nuclear accident."While the samples are well below the 500 becquerel per kilogram limit set by the authorities, the contaminated seafood still represents a health risk, especially to pregnant women and children, and it is being distributed over a wide area," said Wakao Hanaoka, Greenpeace Japan oceans campaigner.

The Japanese standard compares with a 150 becquerel per kilogram limit in Ukraine after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the group said."More concerning, however, is that there is no labelling that notifies consumers if the seafood had been screened, making it impossible for them to make informed decisions," Hanaoka said in a statement.The announcement came as Japanese consumers remain frustrated over limited information about the exact level of food contamination, while the government has sought to calm public fears and overcome mistrust of official radiation surveys.Authorities say food is safe but consumers have generally avoided products from the regions near the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which went through meltdowns and explosions after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Greenpeace, which bought the samples in September and October, has requested the government and a retail industry body to improve seafood product screening and to publicise the level of contamination in the labels.The group has sent letters to the Japan Chain Stores Association demanding them to conduct radiation checks on their own and disclose the results to consumers.Comprehensive screening and labelling should help protect consumers and raise their confidence in food they purchase, said Greenpeace's Hanaoka, adding that it should eventually help the fishing industry."Japanese consumers have legitimate concerns about the food they buy," Greenpeace's Hanaoka said.

The top civilian nuclear disasters, ranked by International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. Worst Civilian Nuclear Disasters 1. Chernobyl, Soviet Union (now Ukraine) April 26, 1986 INES Rating: 7 (major impact on people and environment)

The worst nuclear disaster of all time resulted from a test of the reactor’s systems. A power surge while the safety systems were shut down resulted in the dreaded nuclear meltdown. Fuel elements ruptured and a violent explosion rocked the facility. Fuel rods meted and the graphite covering the reactor burned. Authorities reported that 56 have died as a direct result of the disaster—47 plant workers and nine children who died of thyroid disease. However, given the Soviet Union’s tendency to cover up unfavorable information, that number likely is low.  International Atomic Energy Agency reports estimate that the death toll may ultimately be as high as 4,000. The World Health Organization claims that it’s as high as 9,000. In addition to the deaths, 200,000 people had to be permanently relocated after the disaster. The area remains unsuitable for human habitation. 2. Fukushima, Japan March 11, 2011 INES Rating: 7 (major impact on people and environment) Following a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami, Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power facility suffered a series of ongoing equipment failures accompanied by the release of nuclear material into the air. The death toll for this currently is at two but is expected to rise and as of April 2011, the crisis still ongoing. A 12 mile evacuation area has been established around the plant.

3. Kyshtym, Soviet Union Sept. 29, 1957 INES Rating: 6 (serious impact on people and environment) Poor construction is blamed for the September 1957 failure of this nuclear plant. Although there was no meltdown or nuclear explosion, a radioactive cloud escaped from the plant and spread for hundreds of miles. Soviet reports say that 10,000 people were evacuated, and 200 deaths were cause by cancer.