Group items tagged

book titled Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment in a publication called the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. The roots of the decision remain murky. Within a few months after the first printing of the book, Ted Rockwell, a long time member of the Academy, started working to convince NYAS leaders that the decision to print was a grave error that was bad for science and posed a significant risk to the reputation of the Academy as a source of sound, peer-reviewed information. As part of his effort, he encouraged the current editor of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences to appoint reviewers and to post the results of those reviews.

NOTHING happend to the fuel in the pools at Fukushima. I would like to see some evidence other than the word of an activist who frightens kids for a living to support Gunter’s rant about peices of fuel being ejected miles away. From the looks of that video, the fuel didn’t move an inch. There is also a poll associated with the article. The poll discloses that it is completely unscientific, since it allows anyone to vote and is not based on randomly selected participants. However, I think that the results as of 0315 this morning are pretty amusing since the antinuclear opinion piece has been posted for nearly a week.

95% disagree with “Beyond Nuclear”. Let’s make it 99% by Rod Adams on October 14, 2011 in Antinuclear activist, Politics of Nuclear Energy, Unreliables, Wind energy Share0 One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called “groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources as possible. We were taught how to avoid the kind of bad decision making that can result by surrounding oneself with yes-men or fellow travelers. The case study I remember most was the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion where virtually the entire Kennedy Administration cabinet thought that it would be a cakewalk. If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.Aside: Don’t we live in an amazing world? I just typed “Bay of Pigs groupthink” into my browser search box and instantly hit on exactly the link I needed to support the statement above. It even cites the book we used when I was a plebe in 1977, more than 33 years ago. End Aside. Not everyone, however, has the benefit of early leadership lessons about the danger of believing that a small group of likeminded people can provide actionable advice. Some of the people who are most likely to be victims of groupthink are those who adamantly oppose the continued safe operation of emission-free nuclear power plants. The writers who exclusively quote members of that tiny community have also fallen into the groupthink trap.  On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants . Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said. “Granted that some of that has been moved into dry cast storage, but the pool remains full to its capacity,” Kamps said. “And this was a re-rack capacity. Much later in terms of quantity of high level radioactive waste than it was originally designed for.” This represents 125 million curies of radioactive cesium-137 and the NRC has reported that up to 100 percent of the hazardous material could be released from a pool fire, Kamps said. “I would like to point out that Fukushima Daiichi units one, two, three and four combined in terms of the inventory of high level radioactive waste in their storage pools does not match some of these reactors I mentioned in terms of how much waste is in these pools,” Kamps said. “So the risks are greater here for boil downs and the consequences of a radioactive fire in these pools.” Fortunately, the people who are not a part of the antinuclear community are finally beginning to recognize their own strength and to realize that they do not have to remain silent while the lies are being spread. Here is how a knowledgable commenter responded to the above segment of the article: If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.

“It took a really extraordinary event for 95 percent of the people in the world to know about it,” he said. “If they know about Fukushima, they know about Mark 1 reactors exploding in the air and releasing toxic radiation across the world and they know that’s not a good thing. Something has to be done to make sure that never happens again.” I could not let that one pass without a comment; I am quite sure that Mariotte has once again fallen victim to the fact that he surrounds himself with people who echo his own prejudices. Here is my response.

Marriotte makes an interesting statement by he claiming that “95% of the people in the world” know about Fukushima. That statement might be true about the people in the United States, where advertiser-supported television news programs covered the events with breathless hype for several months. I am pretty sure that you would have a difficult time finding anyone in China, central Africa, the Asian subcontinent, South America or the Middle East who can even pronounce Fukushima, much less know anything about GE Mark 1 containments. Most of them would not even know that they should be worried about radiation because they have never been taught to be afraid of something that they cannot smell, feel, taste, or hear especially when it occurs at levels that have no chance of making them sick within their expected lifetime. Mariotte, Gunter, Kamps, Katz and Bridenbaugh are all members of a vocal, but tiny group of people who have been carrying the water of the fossil fuel industry for decades by opposing nuclear energy, the only real competitor it has. They are victims of groupthink who believe that their neighbors in Takoma Park are representative of the whole world.

Just before making this comment, I voted in the unscientific poll associated with the article. 95% say that Oyster Creek should keep on powering New Jersey homes and businesses. They are not impressed by the Beyond Nuclear FUD; they like clean electricity.

Howard and I planned thoroughly, as usual. We sent a press release. We sent e-mails to lists of people, inviting them to come. I put the rally on my blog and on the Save Vermont Yankee Facebook page. Howard sent a practical e-mail with directions to the plant and recommendations for dressing for the weather. He stressed the importance of wearing sturdy-soled shoes for standing on damp grass. We did everything we could to make the rally a success. We had held a rally before, early in the morning of the first day of the Entergy/Vermont trial. At that rally, we had 25 people, a good showing, and reporters noted that both opponents and supporters of the plant were present. (I blogged about this rally at ANS Nuclear Cafe). We hoped to have an equally successful rally this time.

Instead, this rally  “went viral.” About 25 people had said they would come. Instead, there were about 60 people! People told their friends. People brought their kids. One man of 92 years came to support the plant.  (He is sitting on the bench in the photo.) One couple came down from Vermont’s Champlain Islands. A man who owns the local tavern came with his son. Among all these people, I met some who I had previously met only on Facebook, and I met their kids, too! Two documentary filmmakers interviewed Howard, and one interviewed me. The people at the plant were very happy, honking, and waving at us. “Nuke Roadie” (look up his Facebook page) was there and posted pictures of the rally on his page. The plant posted great pictures of the rally on the Vermont Yankee Facebook page.  (I include some of those pictures here, by permission.)

An article that appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper was very positive about the event.  Since the supporters came and went during the rally, however, the article stated there were thirty people. Actually, there were about twice that many. Lessons Learned What are some of the lessons learned from this rally? Well, the rally was yesterday, and we haven’t quite digested all the lessons yet, but here are some:

Organizations grow. Success at one rally helps build success at the next one. People tell their friends. Afternoon rallies are better than rallies that start at 7:30 a.m., at least in terms of getting people to show up. (Yeah, this is obvious…) Some rallies let people stand up for nuclear in a potentially confrontational situation (our first rally). On the other hand, sometimes it’s great just to be among friends! This pro-nuclear rally was a great evening amongst friends!

Another bit worth noting here in case you haven’t been following along with the work Safecast has been doing so far, surface contamination is much higher than air contamination. There are two main reasons for this – “Fallout” literally means this radioactive crap fell out of the sky and found it’s new home on the ground, and much of contents of said crap are beta emitters. Beta radiation is lower energy than gamma so you need to get close to it to measure it – which in this case is the ground. If you only measure the air you miss the betas all together. Anyway. Surface is higher than air, and around 3000 CPM on the ground in the parking lot here is 10X the air levels. As occasionally happens when we are measuring out in public, people approach us to find out what we’re doing.

People are curious, and often they are concerned. Hiroko Ouchi was both. On top of that she was upset. She said that she hasn’t been able to get any information about the levels around them, the levels they are living in from the government or TEPCO. She said at first she wasn’t concerned because residents were told everything was fine and not to worry, but over time people started taking readings on their own and hearing about readings taken by others that suggested things weren’t all fine and this really stressed her out. This area is far enough away from the plant that no one is being officially evacuated, which means anyone who wants to leave has to do it on their own and pay for it themselves. This has caused a lot of trauma in the community as some people leave and some people stay. Ouchi-san said it is very upsetting for people to be in this position and have their questions go unanswered.

Once back in the car we decided to head east and see how close we could get to the exclusion zone. We watched the readings rise and fall, though generally increase on the whole the further we went. We have a device outside of the car, and several inside taking readings. At many points we would see a 25% increase depending on which side of the car we pointed a device towards. Very quick changes in very small areas here. At one point things seemed to be increasing very rapidly and at much higher jumps than we’d seen previously. We were so distracted by the drastic readings that we almost ran right into a roadblock staffed by several police officers who were standing around in the street. We turned past them and drove down the road a short ways and then stopped to look at our devices which were completely blowing up.

On my last transatlantic flight I measured over 800 CPM on the flight. Seeing over 1000 CPM in the car was a bit shocking, opening the door and putting the device on the ground in the middle of the street and seeing it climb, in a matter of seconds, to almost 16,000 CPM was, well, I still don’t even know how to describe it. I was completely taken aback by this. We were maybe one city block from where the officers were standing – outside and unprotected and decided we needed to go back and talk to them.

We measure radiation all the time, and were noticeably shaken after seeing the readings we just had, and these guys were being told there was nothing to worry about. Suddenly some sort of commanding officer arrived and told us we had to leave and everyone stopped talking to us. Like turning off a switch.

The officers were very polite and happy to talk to us. We asked them if they were concerned that they were standing outside all day with no protective gear and they told us their bosses have assured them it is perfectly safe and so they have to trust them. We told them about the readings we’d taken just steps from where they were and offered to show them personally that the levels were incredibly high – they declined saying they needed to trust the authorities. Which was weird, because to most people – they are the authorities

We got back in the car and drove about 1km away the other direction away from the roadblock.

There was a small restaurant that was closed up and seemed like a good place to stop, take some measurements and talk about what had just happened

This restaurant had signs taped in the window saying basically “Sorry we are closed for an undetermined period of time. Will try to reopen in the spring.”

It was here that we took our highest and most concerning readings of the day. The parking lot of the restaurant was active, but less than we’d just seen. But when we walked across the street – maybe 10 feet away, we measured over 20,000 CPM and 9 µSv/hr. We pulled out our SAM 940 to try and identify the isotopes and found things we weren’t expecting at all. So we grabbed some samples to send to a lab for professional analysis and got out of there quick.

As we were starting to wrap up a car drove by and came to a quick stop. Two gentlemen got out, one of them was a reporter for Asahi TV and the other was Tadao Mumakata, a resident of Koroyama who is working on a way to produce geiger counters locally. They knew about Safecast and were excited to run into us. We talked for a while and then decided to go get some food before heading back to Tokyo. We stopped at a smallish family restaurant and talked about our plans and goals, geiger counts and what we’d learned – hoping to pass some of this on and hopefully help someone skip over some of the early mistakes we’d made ourselves. They were happy for the info and we exchanged contacts for further discussion.

around 2:30 am we made it back and started dropping people off at their respective houses/hotels. But no spare moment could be wasted. At the final stop we uploaded the log files from the bGeigie – the geiger counter we had mounted outside of the car all day logging radiation and mapping it against GPS points. This produces a map of the whole drive, and dumps the data into our full database, filling in a few more pieces of the big picture.

And it really is a big picture. These places have never had the kinds of detailed measurements we’re taking, and the measurements that have happened haven’t been shared openly with the residents – who without question are the ones who need to have that info the most. I’ve known this since we started the project but seeing it first hand today and hearing people thank us for trying and for caring was heavy. This project is important and I’m so honored to be a part of it, and so glad to have others involved who have done the impossible to get us this far already.

Please contact Japan cat network (www.japancatnet.com)( my friends David/Susan) and /or JEARS (Japan earthquake animal rescue) on FB as they are doing great work in that evacuated area and perhaps would be interested in a collaborative effort to get data and ensure animal safety.

9. The Mediterranean

For years, there have been allegations that the ‘Ndrangheta syndicate of the Italian mafia has been using the seas as a convenient location in which to dump hazardous waste — including radioactive waste — charging for the service and pocketing the profits. An Italian NGO, Legambiente, suspects that about 40 ships loaded with toxic and radioactive waste have disappeared in Mediterranean waters since 1994. If true, these allegations paint a worrying picture of an unknown amount of nuclear waste in the Mediterranean whose true danger will only become clear when the hundreds of barrels degrade or somehow otherwise break open. The beauty of the Mediterranean Sea may well be concealing an environmental catastrophe in the making.

8. The Somalian Coast

The Italian mafia organization just mentioned has not just stayed in its own region when it comes to this sinister business. There are also allegations that Somalian waters and soil, unprotected by government, have been used for the sinking or burial of nuclear waste and toxic metals — including 600 barrels of toxic and nuclear waste, as well as radioactive hospital waste. Indeed, the United Nations’ Environment Program believes that the rusting barrels of waste washed up on the Somalian coastline during the 2004 Tsunami were dumped as far back as the 1990s. The country is already an anarchic wasteland, and the effects of this waste on the impoverished population could be as bad if not worse than what they have already experienced.

7. Mayak, Russia

3. Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan

6. Sellafield, UK

Located on the west coast of England, Sellafield was originally a plutonium production facility for nuclear bombs, but then moved into commercial territory. Since the start of its operation, hundreds of accidents have occurred at the plant, and around two thirds of the buildings themselves are now classified as nuclear waste. The plant releases some 8 million liters of contaminated waste into the sea on a daily basis, making the Irish Sea the most radioactive sea in the world. England is known for its green fields and rolling landscapes, but nestled in the heart of this industrialized nation is a toxic, accident-prone facility, spewing dangerous waste into the oceans of the world.

5. Siberian Chemical Combine, Russia

Mayak is not the only contaminated site in Russia; Siberia is home to a chemical facility that contains over four decades' worth of nuclear waste. Liquid waste is stored in uncovered pools and poorly maintained containers hold over 125,000 tons of solid waste, while underground storage has the potential to leak to groundwater. Wind and rain have spread the contamination to wildlife and the surrounding area. And various minor accidents have led to plutonium going missing and explosions spreading radiation. While the snowy landscape may look pristine and immaculate, the facts make clear the true level of pollution to be found here

4. The Polygon, Kazakhstan

Once the location for the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons testing, this area is now part of modern-day Kazakhstan. The site was earmarked for the Soviet atomic bomb project due to its “uninhabited” status — despite the fact that 700,000 people lived in the area. The facility was where the USSR detonated its first nuclear bomb and is the record-holder for the place with the largest concentration of nuclear explosions in the world: 456 tests over 40 years from 1949 to 1989. While the testing carried out at the facility — and its impact in terms of radiation exposure — were kept under wraps by the Soviets until the facility closed in 1991, scientists estimate that 200,000 people have had their health directly affected by the radiation. The desire to destroy foreign nations has led to the specter of nuclear contamination hanging over the heads of those who were once citizens of the USSR.

The industrial complex of Mayak, in Russia's north-east, has had a nuclear plant for decades, and in 1957 was the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents. Up to 100 tons of radioactive waste were released by an explosion, contaminating a massive area. The explosion was kept under wraps until the 1980s. Starting in the 1950s, waste from the plant was dumped in the surrounding area and into Lake Karachay. This has led to contamination of the water supply that thousands rely on daily. Experts believe that Karachay may be the most radioactive place in the world, and over 400,000 people have been exposed to radiation from the plant as a result of the various serious incidents that have occurred — including fires and deadly dust storms. The natural beauty of Lake Karachay belies its deadly pollutants, with the radiation levels where radioactive waste flows into its waters enough to give a man a fatal dose within an hour.

Considered one of the top ten most polluted sites on Earth by the 2006 Blacksmith Institute report, the radiation at Mailuu-Suu comes not from nuclear bombs or power plants, but from mining for the materials needed in the processes they entail. The area was home to a uranium mining and processing facility and is now left with 36 dumps of uranium waste — over 1.96 million cubic meters. The region is also prone to seismic activity, and any disruption of the containment could expose the material or cause some of the waste to fall into rivers, contaminating water used by hundreds of thousands of people. These people may not ever suffer the perils of nuclear attack, but nonetheless they have good reason to live in fear of radioactive fallout every time the earth shakes.

2. Chernobyl, Ukraine

Home to one of the world’s worst and most infamous nuclear accidents, Chernobyl is still heavily contaminated, despite the fact that a small number of people are now allowed into the area for a limited amount of time. The notorious accident caused over 6 million people to be exposed to radiation, and estimates as to the number of deaths that will eventually occur due to the Chernobyl accident range from 4,000 to as high as 93,000. The accident released 100 times more radiation than the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs. Belarus absorbed 70 percent of the radiation, and its citizens have been dealing with increased cancer incidence ever since. Even today, the word Chernobyl conjures up horrifying images of human suffering.

1. Fukushima, Japan

The 2011 earthquake and tsunami was a tragedy that destroyed homes and lives, but the effects of the Fukushima nuclear power plant may be the most long-lasting danger. The worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the incident caused meltdown of three of the six reactors, leaking radiation into the surrounding area and the sea, such that radiative material has been detected as far as 200 miles from the plant. As the incident and its ramifications are still unfolding, the true scale of the environmental impact is still unknown. The world may still be feeling the effects of this disaster for generations to come.

Instead of trying to explain the basis for those statements more fully, I’ll try to encourage people to consider the motives of people on various sides of the discussion. I also want to encourage nuclear energy supporters to look beyond the financial implications to the broader implications of a less reliable and dirtier electrical power system. When the focus is just on the finances, the opposition has an advantage – the potential gains from opposing nuclear energy often are concentrated in the hands of extremely interested parties while the costs are distributed widely enough to be less visible. That imbalance often leads to great passion in the opposition and too much apathy among the supporters. Over at Idaho Samizdat, Dan Yurman has written about the epic battle of political titans who are on opposing sides of the controversy regarding the relicensing and continued operation of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station. Dan pointed out that there is a large sum of money at stake, but he put it in a way that does not sound too terrible to many people because it spreads out the pain.

In round numbers, if Indian Point is closed, wholesale electricity prices could rise by 12%.

A recent study quoted in a New York Times article put the initial additional cost of electricity without Indian Point at about $1.5 billion per year, which is a substantial sum of money if concentrated into the hands of a few thousand victors who tap the monthly bills of a few million people. Here is a comment that I added to Dan’s post:Dan – thank you for pointing out that the battle is not really a partisan one determined by political party affiliation. By my analysis, the real issue is the desire of natural gas suppliers to sell more gas at ever higher prices driven by a shift in the balance between supply and demand.

They never quite explain what is going to happen as we get closer and closer to the day when even fracking will not squeeze any more hydrocarbons out of the drying sponge that is the readily accessible part of the earth’s crust.The often touted “100 – year” supply of natural gas in the US has a lot of optimistic assumptions built in. First of all, it is only rounded up to 100 years – 2170 trillion cubic feet at the end of 2010 divided by 23 trillion cubic feet per year leaves just 94 years.

Secondly, the 2170 number provided by the Potential Gas Committee report includes all proven, probable, possible and speculative resources, without any analysis of the cost of extraction or moving them to a market. Many of the basins counted have no current pipelines and many of the basins are not large enough for economic recovery of the investment to build the infrastructure without far higher prices.Finally, all bets are off with regard to longevity if we increase the rate of burning up the precious raw materia

BTW – In case your readers are interested in the motives of a group like Riverkeepers, founded and led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., here is a link to a video clip of him explaining his support for natural gas.http://atomicinsights.com/2010/11/power-politics-rfk-jr-explains-how-pressure-from-activists-to-enforce-restrictions-on-coal-benefits-natural-gas.html

The organized opposition to the intelligent use of nuclear energy has often painted support for the technology as coming from faceless, money-hungry corporations. That caricature of the support purposely ignores the fact that there are large numbers of intelligent, well educated, responsible, and caring people who know a great deal about the technology and believe that it is the best available solution for many intransigent problems. There are efforts underway today, like the Nuclear Literacy Project and Go Nuclear, that are focused on showcasing the admirable people who like nuclear energy and want it to grow rapidly to serve society’s never ended thirst for reliable power at an affordable price with acceptable environmental impact.

The exaggerated, fanciful accident scenarios painted by the opposition are challenging to disprove.

I just read an excellent post on Yes Vermont Yankee about a coming decision that might help to illuminate the risk to society of continuing to let greedy antinuclear activists and their political friends dominate the discussion. According to Meredith’s post, Entergy must make a decision within just a week or so about whether or not to refuel Vermont Yankee in October. Since the sitting governor is dead set against the plant operating past its current license expiration in the summer of 2012, the $100 million dollar expense of refueling would only result in about 6 months of operation instead of the usual 18 months.Meredith has a novel solution to the dilemma – conserve the fuel currently in the plant by immediately cutting the power output to 25%.

he Fukushima disaster has been rated as a "level seven" on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). This level, the highest, is the same as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, and is defined by the scale as: "[A] major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures."The Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters are the only nuclear accidents to have been rated level seven on the scale, which is intended to be logarithmic, similar to the scale used to describe the comparative magnitude of earthquakes. Each increasing level represents an accident approximately ten times more severe than the previous level.

Doctors in Japan are already treating patients suffering health effects they attribute to radiation from the ongoing nuclear disaster."We have begun to see increased nosebleeds, stubborn cases of diarrhoea, and flu-like symptoms in children," Dr Yuko Yanagisawa, a physician at Funabashi Futawa Hospital in Chiba Prefecture, told Al Jazeera.

r Helen Caldicott, the founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985, is equally concerned about the health effects from Japan's nuclear disaster."Radioactive elements get into the testicles and ovaries, and these cause genetic disease like diabetes, cystic fibrosis, and mental retardation," she told Al Jazeera. "There are 2,600 of these diseases that get into our genes and are passed from generation to generation, forever."

Al Jazeera's Aela Callan, reporting from Japan's Ibaraki prefecture, said of the recently detected high radiation readings: "It is now looking more likely that this area has been this radioactive since the earthquake and tsunami, but no one realised until now."Workers at Fukushima are only allowed to be exposed to 250 mSv of ionising radiation per year.

radioactive cesium exceeding the government limit was detected in processed tea made in Tochigi City, about 160km from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, according to the Tochigi Prefectural Government, who said radioactive cesium was detected in tea processed from leaves harvested in the city in early July. The level is more than 3 times the provisional government limit.

anagisawa's hospital is located approximately 200km from Fukushima, so the health problems she is seeing that she attributes to radiation exposure causes her to be concerned by what she believes to be a grossly inadequate response from the government.From her perspective, the only thing the government has done is to, on April 25, raise the acceptable radiation exposure limit for children from 1 mSv/year to 20 mSv/year.

This has caused controversy, from the medical point of view," Yanagisawa told Al Jazeera. "This is certainly an issue that involves both personal internal exposures as well as low-dose exposures."Junichi Sato, Greenpeace Japan Executive Director, said: "It is utterly outrageous to raise the exposure levels for children to twenty times the maximum limit for adults."

The Japanese government cannot simply increase safety limits for the sake of political convenience or to give the impression of normality."Authoritative current estimates of the health effects of low-dose ionizing radiation are published in the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation VII (BEIR VII) report from the US National Academy of Sciences.

he report reflects the substantial weight of scientific evidence proving there is no exposure to ionizing radiation that is risk-free. The BEIR VII estimates that each 1 mSv of radiation is associated with an increased risk of all forms of cancer other than leukemia of about 1-in-10,000; an increased risk of leukemia of about 1-in-100,000; and a 1-in-17,500 increased risk of cancer death.

She attributes the symptoms to radiation exposure, and added: "We are encountering new situations we cannot explain with the body of knowledge we have relied upon up until now.""The situation at the Daiichi Nuclear facility in Fukushima has not yet been fully stabilised, and we can't yet see an end in sight," Yanagisawa said. "Because the nuclear material has not yet been encapsulated, radiation continues to stream into the environment."

So far, the only cases of acute radiation exposure have involved TEPCO workers at the stricken plant. Lower doses of radiation, particularly for children, are what many in the medical community are most concerned about, according to Dr Yanagisawa.

Humans are not yet capable of accurately measuring the low dose exposure or internal exposure," she explained, "Arguing 'it is safe because it is not yet scientifically proven [to be unsafe]' would be wrong. That fact is that we are not yet collecting enough information to prove the situations scientifically. If that is the case, we can never say it is safe just by increasing the annual 1mSv level twenty fold."

Her concern is that the new exposure standards by the Japanese government do not take into account differences between adults and children, since children's sensitivity to radiation exposure is several times higher than that of adults.

Al Jazeera contacted Prime Minister Naoto Kan's office for comment on the situation. Speaking on behalf of the Deputy Cabinet Secretary for Public Relations for the Prime Minister's office, Noriyuki Shikata said that the Japanese government "refers to the ICRP [International Commission on Radiological Protection] recommendation in 2007, which says the reference levels of radiological protection in emergency exposure situations is 20-100 mSv per year. The Government of Japan has set planned evacuation zones and specific spots recommended for evacuation where the radiation levels reach 20 mSv/year, in order to avoid excessive radiation exposure."

he prime minister's office explained that approximately 23bn yen ($300mn) is planned for decontamination efforts, and the government plans to have a decontamination policy "by around the end of August", with a secondary budget of about 97bn yen ($1.26bn) for health management and monitoring operations in the affected areas. When questioned about the issue of "acute radiation exposure", Shikata pointed to the Japanese government having received a report from TEPCO about six of their workers having been exposed to more than 250 mSv, but did not mention any reports of civilian exposures.

Prime Minister Kan's office told Al Jazeera that, for their ongoing response to the Fukushima crisis, "the government of Japan has conducted all the possible countermeasures such as introduction of automatic dose management by ID codes for all workers and 24 hour allocation of doctors. The government of Japan will continue to tackle the issue of further improving the health management including medium and long term measures". Shikata did not comment about Kodama's findings.

Nishio Masamichi, director of Japan's Hakkaido Cancer Centre and a radiation treatment specialist, published an article on July 27 titled: "The Problem of Radiation Exposure Countermeasures for the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Concerns for the Present Situation". In the report, Masamichi said that such a dramatic increase in permitted radiation exposure was akin to "taking the lives of the people lightly". He believes that 20mSv is too high, especially for children who are far more susceptible to radiation.

Kodama is an expert in internal exposure to radiation, and is concerned that the government has not implemented a strong response geared towards measuring radioactivity in food. "Although three months have passed since the accident already, why have even such simple things have not been done yet?" he said. "I get very angry and fly into a rage."

Radiation has a high risk to embryos in pregnant women, juveniles, and highly proliferative cells of people of growing ages. Even for adults, highly proliferative cells, such as hairs, blood, and intestinal epithelium cells, are sensitive to radiation."

Early on in the disaster, Dr Makoto Kondo of the department of radiology of Keio University's School of Medicine warned of "a large difference in radiation effects on adults compared to children".Kondo explained the chances of children developing cancer from radiation exposure was many times higher than adults.

Children's bodies are underdeveloped and easily affected by radiation, which could cause cancer or slow body development. It can also affect their brain development," he said.Yanagisawa assumes that the Japanese government's evacuation standards, as well as their raising the permissible exposure limit to 20mSv "can cause hazards to children's health," and therefore "children are at a greater risk".

Kodama, who is also a doctor of internal medicine, has been working on decontamination of radioactive materials at radiation facilities in hospitals of the University of Tokyo for the past several decades. "We had rain in Tokyo on March 21 and radiation increased to .2 micosieverts/hour and, since then, the level has been continuously high," said Kodama, who added that his reporting of radiation findings to the government has not been met an adequate reaction. "At that time, the chief cabinet secretary, Mr Edano, told the Japanese people that there would be no immediate harm to their health."

n early July, officials with the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission announced that approximately 45 per cent of children in the Fukushima region had experienced thyroid exposure to radiation, according to a survey carried out in late March. The commission has not carried out any surveys since then.

Now the Japanese government is underestimating the effects of low dosage and/or internal exposures and not raising the evacuation level even to the same level adopted in Chernobyl," Yanagisawa said. "People's lives are at stake, especially the lives of children, and it is obvious that the government is not placing top priority on the people's lives in their measures."Caldicott feels the lack of a stronger response to safeguard the health of people in areas where radiation is found is "reprehensible".

Millions of people need to be evacuated from those high radiation zones, especially the children."

Dr Yanagisawa is concerned about what she calls "late onset disorders" from radiation exposure resulting from the Fukushima disaster, as well as increasing cases of infertility and miscarriages."Incidence of cancer will undoubtedly increase," she said. "In the case of children, thyroid cancer and leukemia can start to appear after several years. In the case of adults, the incidence of various types of cancer will increase over the course of several decades."Yanagisawa said it is "without doubt" that cancer rates among the Fukushima nuclear workers will increase, as will cases of lethargy, atherosclerosis, and other chronic diseases among the general population in the effected areas.

Radioactive food and water

An August 1 press release from Japan's MHLW said no radioactive materials have been detected in the tap water of Fukushima prefecture, according to a survey conducted by the Japanese government's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters. The government defines no detection as "no results exceeding the 'Index values for infants (radioactive iodine)'," and says "in case the level of radioactive iodine in tap water exceeds 100 Bq/kg, to refrain from giving infants formula milk dissolved by tap water, having them intake tap water … "

Yet, on June 27, results were published from a study that found 15 residents of Fukushima prefecture had tested positive for radiation in their urine. Dr Nanao Kamada, professor emeritus of radiation biology at Hiroshima University, has been to Fukushima prefecture twice in order to take internal radiation exposure readings and facilitated the study.

The risk of internal radiation is more dangerous than external radiation," Dr Kamada told Al Jazeera. "And internal radiation exposure does exist for Fukushima residents."According to the MHLW, distribution of several food products in Fukushima Prefecture remain restricted. This includes raw milk, vegetables including spinach, kakina, and all other leafy vegetables, including cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and beef.

he distribution of tealeaves remains restricted in several prefectures, including all of Ibaraki, and parts of Tochigi, Gunma, Chiba, Kanagawa Prefectures.Iwate prefecture suspended all beef exports because of caesium contamination on August 1, making it the fourth prefecture to do so.

yunichi Tokuyama, an expert with the Iwate Prefecture Agricultural and Fisheries Department, told Al Jazeera he did not know how to deal with the crisis. He was surprised because he did not expect radioactive hot spots in his prefecture, 300km from the Fukushima nuclear plant."The biggest cause of this contamination is the rice straw being fed to the cows, which was highly radioactive," Tokuyama told Al Jazeera.

Kamada feels the Japanese government is acting too slowly in response to the Fukushima disaster, and that the government needs to check radiation exposure levels "in each town and village" in Fukushima prefecture."They have to make a general map of radiation doses," he said. "Then they have to be concerned about human health levels, and radiation exposures to humans. They have to make the exposure dose map of Fukushima prefecture. Fukushima is not enough. Probably there are hot spots outside of Fukushima. So they also need to check ground exposure levels."

Radiation that continues to be released has global consequences.More than 11,000 tonnes of radioactive water has been released into the ocean from the stricken plant.

Those radioactive elements bio-concentrate in the algae, then the crustaceans eat that, which are eaten by small then big fish," Caldicott said. "That's why big fish have high concentrations of radioactivity and humans are at the top of the food chain, so we get the most radiation, ultimately."

It framed the data with reassurances like this oft-repeated sentence from the EPA: “The level detected is far below a level of public health concern.” The question, of course, is whose concern.

The EPA seemed to be timing its data releases to avoid media coverage. It released its most alarming data set late on a Friday—data that showed radioactive fallout in the drinking water of more than a dozen U.S. cities.

Friday and Saturday data releases were most frequent when radiation levels were highest. And despite the ravages newspapers have suffered from internet competition, newspaper editors still have not learned to assign reporters to watch the government on weekends. As a result, bloggers broke the fallout news, while newspapers relegated themselves to local followups, most of which did little more than quote public health officials who were pursuing strategy #1.

For example, when radioactive cesium-137 was found in milk in Hilo, Hawaii, Lynn Nakasone, administrator of the Health Department’s Environmental Health Services Division, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser: ”There’s no question the milk is safe.”

Nakasone had little alternative but to say that. She wasn’t about to dump thousands of gallons of milk that represented the livelihood of local dairymen, and she wasn’t authorized to dump the milk as long as the radiation detected remained below FDA’s Derived Intervention Level, a metric I’ll discuss more below.

That kind of statement failed to reassure the public in part because of the issue of informed consent—Americans never consented to swallowing any radiation from Fukushima—and in part because the statement is obviously false.

There is a question whether the milk was safe.

medical experts agree that any increased exposure to radiation increases risk of cancer, and so, no increase in radiation is unquestionably safe.

Whether you choose to see the Fukushima fallout as safe depends on the perspective you adopt, as David J. Brenner, a professor of radiation biophysics and the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center, elucidated recently in The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists:

Should this worry us? We know that the extra individual cancer risks from this long-term exposure will be very small indeed. Most of us have about a 40 percent chance of getting cancer at some point in our lives, and the radiation dose from the extra radioactive cesium in the food supply will not significantly increase our individual cancer risks.

But there’s another way we can and should think about the risk: not from the perspective of individuals, but from the perspective of the entire population. A tiny extra risk to a few people is one thing. But here we have a potential tiny extra risk to millions or even billions of people. Think of buying a lottery ticket — just like the millions of other people who buy a ticket, your chances of winning are miniscule. Yet among these millions of lottery players, a few people will certainly win; we just can’t predict who they will be. Likewise, will there be some extra cancers among the very large numbers of people exposed to extremely small radiation risks? It’s likely, but we really don’t know for sure.

the EPA’s standard for radionuclides in drinking water is so much more conservative than the FDA’s standard for radionuclides in food. The two agencies anticipate different endurances of exposure—long-term in the EPA’s view, short-term in FDA’s. But faced with the commercial implications of its actions, FDA tolerates a higher level of mortality than EPA does.

FDA has a technical quibble with that last sentence. FDA spokesman Siobhan Delancey says: Risk coefficients (one in a million, two in ten thousand) are statistically based population estimates of risk. As such they cannot be used to predict individual risk and there is likely to be variation around those numbers. Thus we cannot say precisely that “one in a million people will die of cancer from drinking water at the EPA MCL” or that “two in ten thousand people will die of cancer from consuming food at the level of an FDA DIL.” These are estimates only and apply to populations as a whole.

The government, while assuring us of safety, comforts itself in the abstraction of the population-wide view, but from Dr. Brenner’s perspective, the population-wide view is a lottery and someone’s number may come up. Let that person decide whether we should be alarmed.

The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident – by far the worst – is most instructive. In 2006, the Chernobyl Forum published an authoritative analysis of the health, environmental and socio-economic impacts of Chernobyl. The report concluded that 31 emergency workers died as a direct consequence of their response to the Chernobyl accident. The Forum was unable to reliably assess the precise number of fatalities by radiation exposure. The best it was able to do was speculate based on the experience of other populations exposed to radiation. By 2002, 15 deaths were reported from among 4,000 people exposed to radiation and diagnosed with thyroid cancer. These data are in stark contrast to a number of other poorly referenced sources which have speculated on large numbers of radiation-related deaths from Chernobyl.

Clearly, the fears about nuclear energy are based on perceptions, imagined or engineered, and not on the consequences of actual events. For example, in August 1975, the Banqiao hydroelectric dam in western Henan province, China, failed as a result of Typhoon Nina, 180,000 people died. Another example is that 1 billion gallons of oil from 21 disasters have been spilled in the oceans since 1967. A third example is that, in Nigeria, on Oct. 18, 1998, a natural gas pipeline explosion took the lives of 1,082 people. Members of the public would benefit from scrutinizing the comparative safety and track record of clean, emission-free nuclear energy. The nuclear industry would benefit by helping the public learn the basic concepts and principles of nuclear technology. Nuclear energy can help achieve quality of life for those who don’t have it and help sustain it for those who do.

Steven B. Krivit is the senior editor of New Energy Times, an online magazine specializing in low-energy nuclear reaction research.  He also is the editor-in-chief of the 2011 Wiley and Sons Nuclear Energy Encyclopedia.

A government panel investigating Tepco's finances estimated the cost of compensation to people affected by the nuclear disaster will exceed ¥4 trillion.

The bulk of radioactive contamination cuts a 5- to 10-km-wide swath of land running as far as 30 km northwest of the nuclear plant, surveys of radiation hot spots by the science ministry show. The government extended evacuations beyond the 20-km zone in April to cover this corridor, which includes parts of Iitate.

No formal evacuation zone was set up in Hiroshima after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city on Aug. 6, 1945, though as the city rebuilt relatively few people lived within 1 km of the hypocenter, according to the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Museum. Food shortages forced a partial evacuation of the city in summer 1946.

On April 26, 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl reactor hurled 180 metric tons of nuclear fuel into the atmosphere, creating the world's first exclusion zone of 30 km around a nuclear plant. A quarter of a century later, the zone is still classed as uninhabitable. About 300 residents have returned despite government restrictions.

Tepco's decision in the 1960s to name its atomic plant Fukushima No. 1 has today associated a prefecture of about 2 million people that's almost half the size of Belgium with radiation contamination. In contrast, Chernobyl is the name of a small town near the namesake plant in what today is Ukraine.

Some people believed A-bomb survivors could emit radiation and others feared radiation caused genetic mutations, said Evan Douple, associate chief of research at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima. An examination of more than 77,000 first-generation children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings found no evidence of mutations, he said.

While radiation readings are lower in Fukushima than Hiroshima, Abel Gonzales, the vice chairman of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, said similar prejudices may emerge. "Stigma. I have the feeling that in Fukushima this will be a very big problem," Gonzales said during a symposium held in the city of Fukushima on the six-month anniversary of the disaster. Some children who fled Fukushima are finding out what Gonzales means. Fukushima schoolchildren were being bullied at their new school in Chiba Prefecture for "carrying radiation," the Sankei Shimbun reported in April, citing complaints made to education authorities. An 11-year-old Fukushima boy was hospitalized in Niigata Prefecture after being bullied at his new school, Kyodo News reported April 23.

Radiation risks in the 20-km zone forced the evacuation of about 8 percent, or 160,000, of some 2 million people who live in Fukushima. Almost 56,000 were sent to areas outside Fukushima, prefecture spokesman Masato Abe said. More than 8,000 left on their own accord because of radiation fears, Abe said

side the evacuation areas, levels of radiation higher than the government's criteria for evacuation have been recorded at 89 of 210 monitoring posts. At 24 of the sites, the reading was higher than the level at which the International Atomic Energy Agency says increases the risk of cancer. Japan Atomic Energy Institute researcher Toshimitsu Homma used science ministry data to compare the geographic scale of the contamination in Fukushima with Chernobyl.

He estimates the no-go zone in Fukushima will cover 132 sq. km, surrounded by a permanent monitoring area of 264 sq. km, assuming Japan follows the criteria set by the Soviet Union in 1986. The two areas combined equal about half the size of the five boroughs that comprise New York City. In the case of Chernobyl, the two zones cover a land mass 25 times greater, according to Homma's figures.

"Contradiction in some official statements, and the appearance of nonscientifically based 'expert' voices, confused and added stress to the local populations in each case," said Evelyn Bromet, a distinguished professor in the department of psychiatry at State University of New York, Stony Brook. "Lies got told, contradictions got told. In the end it's easier to believe nobody," Bromet said in an interview, citing mental health studies she did on people in the areas.

What radiation hasn't ruined, the earthquake and tsunami devastated. Fukushima Prefecture welcomed 56 million domestic and overseas visitors in 2009, equal to 44 percent of Japan's population.

The coastal town of Minamisoma this year canceled its annual qualifying stage for the world surfing championship, part of a waterfront that lured 84,000 beachgoers in July and August last year, said Hiroshi Tadano, head of the town's economic division. This year, nobody visited the beaches in the two months. "Most of the beaches are destroyed," Tadano said. "And of course, radiation played its part."

The area's biggest festival, Soma Nomaoi, a re-enactment of samurai battles, attracted 200,000 visitors last year. This year 37,000 came. Of the 300 horses typically used in the event, 100 were drowned in the tsunami and another 100 were evacuated due to radiation, Tajino said. Minamisoma resident Miyaguchi, 54, lost his home and parents in the tsunami. He quit his job at Tepco, leaving him unemployed and housed in an evacuation center

Uncertain reports daily fuel the fears. One day people hear of a leak through which radioactive water is pouring into the sea, poisoning the fish that are a staple of everyone's diet. Next, there are stories of emissions of radioactive xenon gas and then a reading of radioactive cesium in powdered milk - enough for the Meiji Company to recall 400,000 cans of it this week "so people can feel their infants are safe".

At City Hall, Koshin Ogai, a young tax official, shared his fears. Ogai, originally from Osaka in western Japan, moved here a few years ago after marrying a local woman but sent his wife and their two children to his parents after explosions at the Fukushima first spread the fear of radiation. "I don't permit them to come back," he said. "I don't think the record here is safe." But what about all those assurances about the levels of radioactivity having fallen well within safe limits, I asked him. His answer was prompt. "The government is a liar." And how, I pressed, could he as a government employee, talk so frankly? "I work for the local government," he said, not the national government." One reason Ogai does not hesitate to express such views is that his top boss, Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai, gained fame after the tsunami for pleading with the government to assist with food and medicine.

Going north, the trains can only go as far as Soma, about 30 miles up the coast. Beyond that, on the way to the important port city of Sendai, the tsunami tore up the tracks

By now the city is on its way to partial recovery. Shops have slowly come to life, schools reopened in October and rail services resumed this month going north. Encouraging though such signs may appear, they suggest only partial recovery. Business is slow. Only a few people drift in and out of food stores. A number of restaurants remain closed or on limited hours. As for the railroad, the trains are not expected for many years to go south to Tokyo, once a three-hour run through a densely populated region. "The railroad fears radioactive substances passing by the Fukushima plant," said one person to whom I spoke. "They can't enter the area."

Mayor Sakurai is still asking volunteers to help while accusing central government officials and contractors of moving too slowly. People say TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, is slow to provide compensation.

The lobby of the City Hall now is crowded with people looking for relief payments while Ogai fends off complaints about taxes the city is still levying on residents.

Ogai may be more concerned about the expense of monthly flights from Sendai to Osaka to see his family. "I request compensation from TEPCO. I often call the call center of TEPCO." The operator says, 'I am not sure'," said Ogai. "That is always the answer" - about as vague as responses to when TEPCO will finish cleaning up the nuke plant or what will be the impact of radiation on people 10, 20 or 30 years from now.

The money trail can be tough to follow - Westinghouse, Duke Energy and the Nuclear Energy Institute (a "policy organisation" for the nuclear industry with 350 companies, including TEPCO, on its roster) did not respond to requests for information on funding research and chairs at universities. But most of the funding for nuclear research does not come directly from the nuclear lobby, said M.V. Ramana, a researcher at Princeton University specialising in the nuclear industry and climate change. Most research is funded by governments, who get donations - from the lobby (via candidates, political parties or otherwise).

“There's a lot of secrecy that can surround nuclear power because some of the same processes can be involved in generating electricity that can also be involved in developing a weapon, so there's a kind of a veil of secrecy that gets dropped over this stuff, that can also obscure the truth” said Biello. "So, for example in Fukushima, it was pretty apparent that a total meltdown had occurred just based on what they were experiencing there ... but nobody in a position of authority was willing to say that."

This is worrying because while both anti-nuclear activists and the nuclear lobby both have openly stated biases, academics and researchers are seen as the middle ground - a place to get accurate, unbiased information. David Biello, the energy and climate editor at Scientific American Online, said that trying to get clear information on a scenario such as the Daiichi disaster is tough.

The Center for Responsive Politics - a non-partisan, non-profit elections watchdog group – noted that even as many lobbying groups slowed their spending the first quarter of the year, the Nuclear industry "appears to be ratcheting up its lobbying" increasing its multi-million dollar spending.

"In the United States, a lot of the money doesn’t come directly from the nuclear industry, but actually comes from the Department of Energy (DOE). And the DOE has a very close relationship with the industry, and they sort of try to advance the industry’s interest," said Ramana. Indeed, nuclear engineering falls under the "Major Areas of Research" with the DOE, which also has nuclear weapons under its rubric. The DOE's 2012 fiscal year budge request to the US Congress for nuclear energy programmes was $755m.

"So those people who get funding from that….it’s not like they (researchers) want to lie, but there’s a certain amount of, shall we say, ideological commitment to nuclear power, as well as a certain amount of self-censorship."  It comes down to worrying how their next application for funding might be viewed, he said. Kathleen Sullivan, an anti-nuclear specialist and disarmament education consultant with the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs, said it's not surprising that research critical of the nuclear energy and weapons isn't coming out of universities and departments that participate in nuclear research and development.

"It (the influence) of the nuclear lobby could vary from institution to institution," said Sullivan. "If you look at the history of nuclear weapons manufacturing in the United States, you can see that a lot of research was influenced perverted, construed in a certain direction."

Sullivan points to the DOE-managed Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California in Berkley (where some of the research for the first atomic bomb was done) as an example of how intertwined academia and government-funded nuclear science are.

"For nuclear physics to proceed, the only people interested in funding it are pro-nuclear folks, whether that be industry or government," said Biello. "So if you're involved in that area you've already got a bias in favour of that technology … if you study hammers, suddenly hammers seem to be the solution to everything."

And should they find results unfavourable to the industry, Ramana said they would "dress it up in various ways by saying 'Oh, there’s a very slim chance of this, and here are some safety measure we recommend,' and then the industry will say, 'Yeah,yeah, we’re incorporating all of that.'" Ramana, for the record, said that while he's against nuclear weapons, he doesn't have a moral position on nuclear power except to say that as a cost-benefit issue, the costs outweigh the benefits, and that "in that sense, expanding nuclear power isn't a good idea." 

"'How is this going to affect the future of nuclear power?'That’s the first thought that came into their heads," said Ramana, adding, "They basically want to ensure that people will keep constructing nuclear power plants." For instance, a May report by MIT’s Center For Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (where TEPCO funds a chair) points out that while the Daiichi disaster has resulted in "calls for cancellation of nuclear construction projects and reassessments of plant license extensions" which might "lead to a global slow-down of the nuclear enterprise," that  "the lessons to be drawn from the Fukushima accident are different."

Among the report's closing thoughts are concerns that "Decision-making in the  immediate aftermath of a major crisis is often influenced by emotion," and whether"an accident like Fukushima, which is so far beyond design basis, really warrant a major overhaul of current nuclear safety regulations and practises?" "If so," wonder the authors, "When is safe safe enough? Where do we draw the line?"

The Japanese public, it seems, would like some answers to those very questions, albeit from a different perspective.  Kazuo Hizumi, a Tokyo-based human rights lawyer, is among those pushing for openness. He is also an editor at News for the People in Japan, a news site advocating for transparency from the government and from TEPCO. With contradicting information and lack of clear coverage on safety and contamination issues, many have taken to measuring radiation levels with their own Geiger counters.

"They do not know how to do it," he said of some of the community groups and individuals who have taken to measure contamination levels in the air, soil and food

A report released in July by Human Rights Now highlights the need for immediately accessible information on health and safety in areas where people have been affected by the disaster, including Fukushima, especially on the issues of contaminated food and evacuation plans.

A 'nuclear priesthood' Biello describes the nuclear industry is a relatively small, exclusive club.

The interplay between academia and also the military and industry is very tight. It's a small community...they have their little club and they can go about their business without anyone looking over their shoulder. " This might explain how, as the Associated Press reported in June, that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was "working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nationalise ageing reactors operating within standards or simply failing to enforce them."

However, with this exclusivity comes a culture of secrecy – "a nuclear priesthood," said Biello, which makes it very difficult to parse out a straightforward answer in the very technical and highly politicised field.  "You have the proponents, who believe that it is the technological salvation for our problems, whether that's energy, poverty, climate change or whatever else. And then you have opponents who think that it's literally the worst thing that ever happened and should be immediately shut back up in a box and buried somewhere," said Biello, who includes "professors of nuclear engineering and Greenpeace activists" as passionate opponents on the nuclear subject.

In fact, one is hard pressed to find a media report quoting a nuclear scientist at any major university sounding the alarms on the risks of contamination in Fukushima. Doing so has largely been the work of anti-nuclear activists (who have an admitted bias against the technology) and independent scientists employed by think tanks, few of whom responded to requests for interviews.

So, one's best bet, said Biello, is to try and "triangulate the truth" - to take "a dose" from anti-nuclear activists, another from pro-nuclear lobbyists and throw that in with a little bit of engineering and that'll get you closer to the truth. "Take what everybody is saying with a grain of salt."

Since World War II, the process of secrecy – the readiness to invoke "national security" - has been a pillar of the nuclear establishment…that establishment, acting on the false assumption that "secrets" can be hidden from the curious and knowledgeable, has successfully insisted that there are answers which cannot be given and even questions which cannot be asked. The net effect is to stifle debate about the fundamental of nuclear policy. Concerned citizens dare not ask certain questions, and many begin to feel that these matters which only a few initiated experts are entitled to discuss.  If the above sounds like a post-Fukushima statement, it is not. It was written by Howard Morland for the November 1979 issue of The Progressive magazine focusing on the hydrogen bomb as well as the risks of nuclear energy.

The US government - citing national security concerns - took the magazine to court in order to prevent the issue from being published, but ultimately relented during the appeals process when it became clear that the information The Progressive wanted to publish was already public knowledge and that pursuing the ban might put the court in the position of deeming the Atomic Energy Act as counter to First Amendment rights (freedom of speech) and therefore unconstitutional in its use of prior restraint to censor the press.

But, of course, that's in the US, although a similar mechanism is at work in Japan, where a recently created task force aims to "cleanse" the media of reportage that casts an unfavourable light on the nuclear industry (they refer to this information as "inaccurate" or a result of "mischief." The government has even go so far as to accept bids from companies that specialise in scouring the Internet to monitor the Internet for reports, Tweets and blogs that are critical of its handling of the Daiichi disaster, which has presented a unique challenge to the lobby there.

"The public fully trusted the Japanese Government," said Hizumi. But the absence of "true information" has massively diminished that trust, as, he said, has the public's faith that TEPCO would be open about the potential dangers of a nuclear accident.

 Japan's government has a history of slow response to TEPCO's cover-ups. In 1989, that Kei Sugaoka, a nuclear energy at General Electric who inspected and repaired plants in Japan and elsewhere, said he spotted cracks in steam dryers and a "misplacement" or 180 degrees in one dryer unit. He noticed that the position of the dryer was later omitted from the inspection record's data sheet. Sugaoka told a Japanese networkthat TEPCO had instructed him to "erase" the flaws, but he ultimately wrote a whistleblowing letter to METI, which resulted in the temporary 17 TEPCO reactors, including ones at the plant in Fukushima.

the Japanese nuclear lobby has been quite active in shaping how people see nuclear energy. The country's Ministry of Education, together with the Natural Resources Ministry (of of two agencies under Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry - METI - overseeing nuclear policies) even provides schools with a nuclear energy information curriculum. These worksheets - or education supplements - are used to inform children about the benefits of nuclear energy over fossil fuels.

There’s reason to believe that at least in one respect, Fukushima can’t and won’t be another Chernobyl, at least due to the fact that the former has occurred in the age of the Internet whereas the latter took place in the considerably quaint 80s, when a car phone the size of a brick was considered the height of communications technology to most. "It (a successful cover up) is definitely a danger in terms of Fukushima, and we'll see what happens. All you have to do is look at the first couple of weeks after Chernobyl to see the kind of cover up," said Biello. "I mean the Soviet Union didn't even admit that anything was happening for a while, even though everybody was noticing these radiation spikes and all these other problems. The Soviet Union was not admitting that they were experiencing this catastrophic nuclear failure... in Japan, there's a consistent desire, or kind of a habit, of downplaying these accidents, when they happen. It's not as bad as it may seem, we haven't had a full meltdown."

Fast forward to 2011, when video clips of each puff of smoke out of the Daiichi plant make it around the world in seconds, news updates are available around the clock, activists post radiation readings on maps in multiple languages and Google Translate picks up the slack in translating every last Tweet on the subject coming out of Japan.

it will be a heck of a lot harder to keep a lid on things than it was 25 years ago. 

On the other side of the nuclear fence are the industry friendly scientists who insist that the crisis is under control and radiation levels are mostly safe. "I believe the government and Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco, the plant's operator] are doing their best," said Naoto Sekimura, vice-dean of the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo. Mr Sekimura initially advised residents near the plant that a radioactive disaster was "unlikely" and that they should stay "calm", an assessment he has since had to reverse.

Slowly, steadily, and often well behind the curve, the government has worsened its prognosis of the disaster. Last Friday, scientists affiliated with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the plant had released 15,000 terabecquerels of cancer-causing Cesium, equivalent to about 168 times the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the event that ushered in the nuclear age. (Professor Busby says the release is at least 72,000 times worse than Hiroshima).

Caught in a blizzard of often conflicting information, many Japanese instinctively grope for the beacons they know. Mr Ichida and his colleagues say they no longer trust the nuclear industry or the officials who assured them the Fukushima plant was safe. But they have faith in government radiation testing and believe they will soon be allowed back to sea.

That's a mistake, say sceptics, who note a consistent pattern of official lying, foot-dragging and concealment. Last week, officials finally admitted something long argued by its critics: that thousands of people with homes near the crippled nuclear plant may not be able to return for a generation or more. "We can't rule out the possibility that there will be some areas where it will be hard for residents to return to their homes for a long time," said Yukio Edano, the government's top government spokesman.

hundreds of former residents from Futaba and Okuma, the towns nearest the plant, were allowed to visit their homes – perhaps for the last time – to pick up belongings. Wearing masks and radiation suits, they drove through the 20km contaminated zone around the plant, where hundreds of animals have died and rotted in the sun, to find kitchens and living rooms partly reclaimed by nature.

It is the fate of people outside the evacuation zones, however, that causes the most bitter controversy. Parents in Fukushima City, 63km from the plant, have banded together to demand that the government do more to protect about 100,000 children. Schools have banned soccer and other outdoor sports. Windows are kept closed. "We've just been left to fend for ourselves," says Machiko Sato, a grandmother who lives in the city. "It makes me so angry."

Many parents have already sent their children to live with relatives or friends hundreds of kilometres away. Some want the government to evacuate the entire two million population of Fukushima Prefecture. "They're demanding the right to be able to evacuate," says anti-nuclear activist Aileen Mioko Smith, who works with the parents. "In other words, if they evacuate they want the government to support them."

So far, at least, the authorities say that is not necessary. The official line is that the accident at the plant is winding down and radiation levels outside of the exclusion zone and designated "hot spots" are safe.

But many experts warn that the crisis is just beginning. Professor Tim Mousseau, a biological scientist who has spent more than a decade researching the genetic impact of radiation around Chernobyl, says he worries that many people in Fukushima are "burying their heads in the sand." His Chernobyl research concluded that biodiversity and the numbers of insects and spiders had shrunk inside the irradiated zone, and the bird population showed evidence of genetic defects, including smaller brain sizes.

"The truth is that we don't have sufficient data to provide accurate information on the long-term impact," he says. "What we can say, though, is that there are very likely to be very significant long-term health impact from prolonged exposure."

Economic cost Fukushima: Japan has estimated it will cost as much as £188bn to rebuild following the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis. Chernobyl There are a number of estimates of the economic impact, but thetotal cost is thought to be about £144bn.

Safety Fukushima: workers are allowed to operate in the crippled plant up to a dose of 250mSv (millisieverts). Chernobyl: People exposed to 350mSv were relocated. In most countries the maximum annual dosage for a worker is 20mSv. The allowed dose for someone living close to a nuclear plant is 1mSv a year.

Death toll Fukushima: Two workers died inside the plant. Some scientists predict that one million lives will be lost to cancer. Chernobyl: It is difficult to say how many people died on the day of the disaster because of state security, but Greenpeace estimates that 200,000 have died from radiation-linked cancers in the 25 years since the accident.

Exclusion zone Fukushima: Tokyo initially ordered a 20km radius exclusion zone around the plant Chernobyl: The initial radius of the Chernobyl zone was set at 30km – 25 years later it is still largely in place.

Compensation Fukushima: Tepco's share price has collapsed since the disaster largely because of the amount it will need to pay out, about £10,000 a person Chernobyl: Not a lot. It has been reported that Armenian victims of the disaster were offered about £6 each in 1986

Aid Fukushima: The UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported bilateral aid worth $95m Chernobyl: 12 years after the disaster, the then Ukrainian president, Leonid Kuchma, complained that his country was still waiting for international help.

Japan has been slow to admit the scale of the meltdown. But now the truth is coming out. David McNeill reports from Soma City

Asahi, slightly better perspective but not much, but the article does quite the organizers' number, 60,000 people:

and the US paper Forbes, without photo, says "tens of thousands of people marched", but the article title declares "Thousands march against nuclear power in Tokyo". Thousands??Many participants in Japan are indignant that their demonstration was called a "parade", as if this was some festival attraction. Well, give the media time to learn. To me, it's amazing that the MSMs like Yomiuri and Asahi covered the event at all, and even had photographs. Asahi and Mainichi sent in their own photographers for the event. (Yomiuri's looks like Jiji Tsushin's photo.) I would take it as a sign that the anti-nuke movement may be crossing the threshold in Japan in terms of the number of people, and the MSMs cannot simply ignore anymore.

Calling it a "parade" and using the lowest official estimate by the police as the number of participants is a classic way to belittle a movement.

For example, many of you have probably seen or read the Associated Press hit piece on the effort by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear industry to address the issue of aging nuclear power stations

The encouraging thing about that response is that it happened on the SAME DAY as the AP report was released. After Dan published his report, he notified the world via Twitter that the post was up. I have already had the opportunity to retweet his announcement and to share his link in a conversation related to a Huffington Post article titled U.S. Nuclear Regulators Weaken Safety Rules, Fail To Enforce Them: AP Investigation and in a conversation on Joe Romm’s Climate Progress titled AP Bombshell: U.S. Nuclear Regulators “Repeatedly” Weaken Safety Rules or are “Simply Failing to Enforce Them”.Think about that – it has been just 24 hours since the AP story hit the wires, yet nuclear professionals are already sharing a completely different side of the story without the filter of someone else deciding what is important.

However, the AP reporter, most likely someone who has never worked on an old car or repaired an old submarine, took a lot of stories out of context. He added a number of scary sounding inferences about the relationship between the regulators and the regulated. In response to the story, Dan Yurman, who blogs at Idaho Samizdat and was a professional journalist before he became a nuclear professional, reached out for real expertise.

He interviewed Dr. John Bickel, a man who has about 39 years worth of professional experience in plant aging, defense in depth and other safety related issues. You can read Dan’s excellent article at Associated Press Nukes the NRC on Reactor Safety.

It should be no secret to anyone that the average age of nuclear power plants in the US increases by almost exactly one year with every passing year. We are only officially building one plant right now, with four more that will enter that category as soon as the NRC issues the construction and operating licenses. It is also no secret that the NRC and the industry have been working hard to address aging as part of the effort to relicense plants for an additional 20 years, a process that is complete for more than 60 plants so far.

Another thing that is different about the fight over using atomic energy now, compared to the fight that happened in the late 1960s through the 1990s is that the opposition has a much less capable base of leaders. In the previous phase of the battle, the antinuclear movement grew out of a morally understandable effort to stop testing nuclear weapons in the earth’s atmosphere.

That effort was inspired by real world events like showering a Japanese fishing vessel with lethal doses of fallout from an ill-timed test in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It was led by some of the world’s most renowned atomic scientists, many of whom bore a deep moral guilt for their wartime efforts to build the Bomb in the first place.

When that effort succeeded in convincing the US, the UK and Russia to agree to stop atmospheric testing in 1963, some of the organizations that had been formed to do the heavy lifting saw substantial decreases in membership and contributions. After all, they could have easily hung up a large banner saying “Mission Accomplished” and closed up shop. Some did just that. Some persisted for a while with a variety of related issues like fighting against antiballistic missile installations and medium range rockets.

The groups organized against nuclear energy today are no longer led by world renowned scientists, though they do have some media celebrities with spotty professional histories and puffed up resumes. In many cases, they are grayer than I am and less well versed in the techniques of modern communications. Their fellow travelers on blogs and message boards routinely expose their own ignorance and sometimes their near illiteracy.

In contrast to the past, many of the renowned nuclear scientists and engineers in the profession today have no guilt at all. They did not participate in developing fearful weapons of mass destruction. Instead, they have spent their lives participating in an enterprise that provides massive quantities of emission free, low cost power to the people of the world. Seasoned professionals like Ted Rockwell, Margaret Harding, Meredith Angwin and Gail Marcus are out there blogging away and telling people what they know to be true about nuclear energy.

Enthusiastic younger people like Kirk Sorensen, Jack Gamble, and Suzy Hobbs are sharing optimistic visions for the future and explaining why they have chosen to support nuclear energy development, often in the face of numerous friends who disagree

I am encouraged. Atomic energy is alive and well; there is nothing that humans can do to eliminate its existence. We are entering a golden age of nuclear energy where facts and reality will overcome fictional tall tales spun by folks like Arnie Gundersen or Paul Blanche.

4. Winscale Fire, Great Britain Oct. 10, 1957 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) The uranium core of Britain’s first nuclear facility had been on fire for two days before maintenance workers noticed the rising temperatures. By that time, a radioactive cloud had already spread across the UK and Europe. Plant operators delayed further efforts in fighting the fire, fearing that pouring water on it would cause an explosion. Instead, they tried cooling fan and carbon dioxide. Finally, they applied water and on Oct. 12, the fire was out. British officials, worried about the political ramifications of this incident, suppressed information. One report, however, says that in the long run, as many as 240 may have died from accident related cancers. 5.

Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, US March 28, 1979 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) Failure of a pressure valve resulted in an overheating of the plant’s core and the release of 13 million curies of radioactive gases. A full meltdown was avoided when the plant’s designers and operators were able to stabilize the situation before contaminated water reached the fuel rods. A full investigation by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission suggests that there were no deaths or injuries resulting from the incident.

6. Golania, Brazil Sept, 1987 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) Scavengers at an abandoned radiotherapy institute found a billiard ball sized capsule of radioactive cesium chloride, opened it and then sold it to a junkyard dealer. The deadly material was not identified for more than two year, during which time it had been handled by hundreds, including some who used the glittery blue material for face paint. Of the 130,000 tested, 250 were discovered to be contaminated and 20 required treatment for radiation sickness. Four died, including the two who originally found the capsule, the wife of the junkyard owner and a small girl who used the powder as face paint. 7. Lucens, Switzerland January 1, 1969 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) When the coolant on a test reactor facility in a cave in Switzerland failed during startup, the system suffered a partial core meltdown and contaminated the cavern with radioactivity. The facility was sealed and later decontaminated. No known deaths or injuries.

8. Chalk River, Canada INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) May 24, 1958 Inadequate cooling lead to a fuel rod fire, contaminating the plant and surrounding labs. 9. Tokaimura,Japan Sept. 30, 1999 INES Rating: 4 (accident with local consequences) The nuclear plant near Tokai had not been used for three years when a group of unqualified workers attempted to put more highly enriched uranium in a precipitation tank than was permitted. A critical reaction occurred and two of the workers eventually died of radiation exposure. Fifty six plant workers and 21 others also received high doses of radiation. Residents within a thousand feet of the plant were evacuated.

10. National Reactor Testing Station, Idaho Falls, Idaho January 3, 1961 INES Rating: 4 (accident with local consequences) Improper withdrawal of a control rod led to a steam explosion and partial meltdown at this Army facility. Three operators were killed in what is the only known US nuclear facility accident with casualties. In addition to these, there have been a number of deadly medical radiotherapy accidents, many of which killed more people than the more commonly feared nuclear plant accidents: 17 fatalities – Instituto Oncologico Nacional of Panama, August 2000 -March 2001. patients receiving treatment for prostate cancer and cancer of the cervix receive lethal doses of radiation.[7][8] 13 fatalities – Radiotherapy accident in Costa Rica, 1996. 114 patients received an overdose of radiation from a Cobalt-60 source that was being used for radiotherapy.[9]

11 fatalities – Radiotherapy accident in Zaragoza, Spain, December 1990. Cancer patients receiving radiotherapy; 27 patients were injured.[10] 10 fatalities – Columbus radiotherapy accident, 1974–1976, 88 injuries from Cobalt-60 source. 7 fatalities – Houston radiotherapy accident, 1980.Alamos National Laboratory.[18] 1 fatality – Malfunction INES level 4 at RA2 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, operator Osvaldo Rogulich dies days later.

The decontamination done by the local authorities is both uncoordinated and thoroughly inadequate. The subcontractors they are using are badly instructed, risking their own health and spreading the radioactive contamination instead of removing it. We found radioactive run-off water from a decontamination process leaking directly into the environment. And because there is no storage site for radioactive waste from decontamination work, the waste is buried directly on people’s property, sometimes only a few meters away from their houses. The Japanese government doesn’t know how to deal with the massive contamination caused by the nuclear disaster. Instead of protecting people from radiation, they are downplaying the risks by increasing the allowed radiation levels far above international standards. And professors like Dr. Yamashita, who make statements like ‘If you smile, the radiation will not affect you’ are being employed as official advisors on radiation health risk.