mar 15th, 2011 CE
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: sri
Date: Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 4:12 AM
Subject: Prophetic 2004 article about Japan nuclear power
To:
Sunday, May 23, 2004 Japan’s Deadly Game of Nuclear Roulette
Leuren Moret http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20040523x2.html Of all the places in all the world where no one in their right mind would build
scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be pretty near the top of the list.
The Japanese archipelago is located on the so-called Pacific Rim of Fire, a
large active volcanic and tectonic zone ringing North and South America, Asia
and island arcs in Southeast Asia. The major earthquakes and active volcanoes
occurring there are caused by the westward movement of the Pacific tectonic
plate and other plates leading to subduction under Asia. Japansits on top of four tectonic plates, at the edge of the subduction zone,
and is in one of the most tectonically active regions of the world. It was
extreme pressures and temperatures, resulting from the violent plate movements
beneath the seafloor that created the beautiful islands and volcanoes of Japan. Nonetheless, like many countries around the world - where General Electric and
Westinghouse designs are used in 85 percent of all commercial reactors - Japan
has turned to nuclear power as a major energy source. In fact the three top
nuclear-energy countries are the United States, where the existence of 118
reactors was acknowledged by the Department of Energy in 2000, France with 72
and Japan, where 52 active reactors were cited in a December 2003 Cabinet White
Paper. The 52 reactors in Japan - which generate a little over 30 percent of its
electricity - are located in an area the size of California, many within 150 km
of each other and almost all built along the coast where seawater is available
to cool them.
However, many of those reactors have been negligently sited on active faults,
particularly in the subduction zone along the Pacific coast, where major
earthquakes of magnitude 7-8 or more on the Richter scale occur frequently. The
periodicity of major earthquakes in Japan is less than 10 years. There
is almost
no geologic setting in the world more dangerous for nuclear power than Japan -
the third-ranked country in the world for nuclear reactors. “I think the
situation right now is very scary,” says Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a
seismologist and
professor at Kobe University. “It’s like a kamikaze terrorist wrapped in bombs
just waiting to explode.” Last summer [2003], I visited Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka
Prefecture, at the request of citizens concerned about the danger of a major
earthquake. I spoke about my findings at press conferences afterward. Because
Hamaoka sits directly over the subduction zone near the junction of two plates,
and is overdue for a major earthquake, it is considered to be the most
dangerous
nuclear power plant in Japan. Together with local citizens, I spent the day
walking around the facility, collecting rocks, studying the soft sediments it
sits on and tracing the nearly vertical faults through the area - evidence of
violent tectonic movements. The next day I was surprised to see so many reporters attending the two press
conferences held at Kakegawa City Hall and Shizuoka Prefecture Hall. When I
asked the reporters why they had come so far from Tokyo to hear an American
geoscientist, I was told it was because no foreigner had ever come to tell them
how dangerous Japan’s nuclear power plants are. I told them that this is the power of gaiatsu (foreign pressure), and because
citizens in the United States with similar concerns attract little media
attention, we invite a Japanese to speak for us when we want media coverage -
someone like the famous seismologist Professor Ishibashi! When the geologic evidence was presented confirming the extreme danger at
Hamaoka, the attending media were obviously shocked. The aerial map, filed by
Chubu Electric Company along with its government application to build and
operate the plant, showed major faults going through Hamaoka, and revealed that
the company recognized the danger of an earthquake. They had carefully placed
each reactor between major fault lines. “The structures of the nuclear
plant are
directly rooted in the rock bed and can tolerate a quake of magnitude
8.5 on the
Richter scale,” the utility claimed on its Web site. From my research and the investigation I conducted of the rocks in the area, I
found that that the sedimentary beds underlying the plant were badly faulted.
Some tiny faults I located were less than 1 cm apart. When I held up samples of
the rocks the plant was sitting on, they crumbled like sugar in my
fingers. “But
the power company told us these were really solid rocks!” the reporters said. I
asked, “Do you think these are really solid?’ and they started laughing. On July 7 last year, the same day of my visit to Hamaoka, Ishibashi warned of
the danger of an earthquake-induced nuclear disaster, not only to Japan but
globally, at an International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
conference held in
Sapporo. He said: “The seismic designs of nuclear facilities are based on
standards that are too old from the viewpoint of modern seismology and are
insufficient. The authorities must admit the possibility that an
earthquake-nuclear disaster could happen and weigh the risks objectively.” After the greatest nuclear power plant disaster in Japan’s history at Tokai,
Ibaraki Prefecture, in September 1999, large, expensive Emergency Response
Centers were built near nuclear power plants to calm nearby residents. After
visiting the center a few kilometers from Hamaoka, I realized that Japan has no
real nuclear-disaster plan in the event that an earthquake damaged a reactor’s
water-cooling system and triggered a reactor meltdown. Additionally, but not even mentioned by ERC officials, there is an extreme
danger of an earthquake causing a loss of water coolant in the pools
where spent
fuel rods are kept. As reported last year in the journal Science and Global
Security, based on a 2001 study by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, if the
heat-removing function of those pools is seriously compromised - by, for
example, the water in them draining out - and the fuel rods heat up enough to
combust, the radiation inside them will then be released into the atmosphere.
This may create a nuclear disaster even greater than Chernobyl. If a nuclear disaster occurred, power-plant workers as well as
emergency-response personnel in the Hamaoka ERC would immediately be exposed to
lethal radiation. During my visit, ERC engineers showed us a tiny shower at the
center, which they said would be used for “decontamination’ of personnel.
However, it would be useless for internally exposed emergency-response workers
who inhaled radiation. When I asked ERC officials how they planned to evacuate millions of people from
Shizuoka Prefecture and beyond after a Kobe-magnitude earthquake (Kobe
is on the
same subduction zone as Hamaoka) destroyed communication lines, roads,
railroads, drinking-water supplies and sewage lines, they had no answer. Last year [2003], James Lee Witt, former director of the US Federal Emergency
Management Agency, was hired by New York citizens to assess the US government’s
emergency-response plan for a nuclear power plant disaster. Citizens were
shocked to learn that there was no government plan adequate to respond to a
disaster at the Indian Point nuclear reactor, just 80 km from New York
City. The
Japanese government is no better prepared, because there is no
adequate response
possible to contain or deal with such a disaster. Prevention is really the only
effective measure to consider. In 1998, Kei Sugaoka, 51, a Japanese-American senior field engineer who worked
for General Electric in the United States from 1980 until being dismissed in
1998 for whistle-blowing there, alerted Japanese nuclear regulators to a 1989
reactor inspection problem he claimed had been withheld by GE from their
customer, Tokyo Electric Power Company. This led to nuclear-plant shutdowns and
reforms of Japan’s power industry. Later it was revealed from GE documents that
they had in fact informed TEPCO - but that company did not notify government
regulators of the hazards.
Yoichi Kikuchi, a Japanese nuclear engineer who also became a whistle-blower,
has told me personally of many safety problems at Japan’s nuclear power plants,
such as cracks in pipes in the cooling system from vibrations in the
reactor. He
said the electric companies are “gambling in a dangerous game to increase
profits and decrease government oversight.” Sugaoka agreed, saying, “The
scariest thing, on top of all the other problems, is that all nuclear power
plants are aging, causing a deterioration of piping and joints which are always
exposed to strong radiation and heat.” Like most whistle-blowers, Sugaoka and
Kikuchi are citizen heroes, but are now unemployed.
The Radiation and Public Health Project, a group of independent US scientists,
has collected 4,000 baby teeth from children living around nuclear
power plants.
These teeth were then tested to determine their level of Strontium-90, a
radioactive fission product that escapes in nuclear power plant emissions.
Unborn children may be exposed to Strontium-90 through drinking water and the
diet of the mother. Anyone living near nuclear power plants is internally
exposed to chronically low levels of radiation contaminating food and drinking
water. Increased rates of cancer, infant mortality and low birth
weights leading
to cognitive impairment have been linked to radiation exposure for decades.
However, a recent independent report on low-level radiation by the European
Committee on Radiation Risk, released for the European Parliament in January
2003, established that the ongoing US Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Studies
conducted
in Japan by the US government since 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors
underestimated the risk of radiation exposure as much as 1,000 times.
Additionally, on March 26 this year [2004] - the eve of the 25th anniversary of
the worst nuclear disaster in US history, at the Three Mile Island plant in
Pennsylvania - the Radiation and Public Health Project released new data on the
effects of that event. This showed rises in infant deaths up to 53 percent, and
in thyroid cancer of more than 70 percent in downwind counties - data which,
like all that concerning both the short- and long-term health effects,
has never
been forthcoming from the US government. It is not a question of whether or not a nuclear disaster will occur in Japan;
it is a question of when it will occur. Like the former Soviet Union after Chernobyl, Japan will become a country
suffering from radiation sickness destroying future generations, and widespread
contamination of agricultural areas will ensure a public-health disaster. Its
economy may never recover. Considering the extreme danger of major earthquakes, the many serious
safety and
waste-disposal issues, it is timely and urgent - with about half its reactors
currently shut down - for Japan to convert nuclear power plants to fossil fuels
such as natural gas. This process is less expensive than building new power
plants and, with political and other hurdles overcome, natural gas
from the huge
Siberian reserves could be piped in at relatively low cost. Several US nuclear
plants have been converted to natural gas after citizen pressure forced energy
companies to make changeovers. Commenting on this way out of the nuclear trap, Ernest Sternglass, a
renowned US
scientist who helped to stop atmospheric testing in America, notes that, ‘Most
recently the Fort St. Vrain reactor in Colorado was converted to fossil fuel,
actually natural gas, after repeated problems with the reactor. An earlier
reactor was the Zimmer Power Plant in Cincinnati, which was originally designed
as a nuclear plant but it was converted to natural gas before it began
operating. This conversion can be done on any plant at a small fraction [20-30
percent] of the cost of building a new plant. Existing turbines, transmission
facilities and land can be used.” After converting to natural gas, the Fort St. Vrain plant produced
twice as much
electricity much more efficiently and cheaply than from nuclear energy
- with no
nuclear hazard at all, of course. It is time to make the changeover
from nuclear
fuel to fossil fuels in order to save future generations and the economy of
Japan. Leuren Moret is a geoscientist who worked at the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear
Laboratory
From: sri
Date: Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 4:12 AM
Subject: Prophetic 2004 article about Japan nuclear power
To:
Sunday, May 23, 2004 Japan’s Deadly Game of Nuclear Roulette
Leuren Moret http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20040523x2.html Of all the places in all the world where no one in their right mind would build
scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be pretty near the top of the list.
The Japanese archipelago is located on the so-called Pacific Rim of Fire, a
large active volcanic and tectonic zone ringing North and South America, Asia
and island arcs in Southeast Asia. The major earthquakes and active volcanoes
occurring there are caused by the westward movement of the Pacific tectonic
plate and other plates leading to subduction under Asia. Japansits on top of four tectonic plates, at the edge of the subduction zone,
and is in one of the most tectonically active regions of the world. It was
extreme pressures and temperatures, resulting from the violent plate movements
beneath the seafloor that created the beautiful islands and volcanoes of Japan. Nonetheless, like many countries around the world - where General Electric and
Westinghouse designs are used in 85 percent of all commercial reactors - Japan
has turned to nuclear power as a major energy source. In fact the three top
nuclear-energy countries are the United States, where the existence of 118
reactors was acknowledged by the Department of Energy in 2000, France with 72
and Japan, where 52 active reactors were cited in a December 2003 Cabinet White
Paper. The 52 reactors in Japan - which generate a little over 30 percent of its
electricity - are located in an area the size of California, many within 150 km
of each other and almost all built along the coast where seawater is available
to cool them.
However, many of those reactors have been negligently sited on active faults,
particularly in the subduction zone along the Pacific coast, where major
earthquakes of magnitude 7-8 or more on the Richter scale occur frequently. The
periodicity of major earthquakes in Japan is less than 10 years. There
is almost
no geologic setting in the world more dangerous for nuclear power than Japan -
the third-ranked country in the world for nuclear reactors. “I think the
situation right now is very scary,” says Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a
seismologist and
professor at Kobe University. “It’s like a kamikaze terrorist wrapped in bombs
just waiting to explode.” Last summer [2003], I visited Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka
Prefecture, at the request of citizens concerned about the danger of a major
earthquake. I spoke about my findings at press conferences afterward. Because
Hamaoka sits directly over the subduction zone near the junction of two plates,
and is overdue for a major earthquake, it is considered to be the most
dangerous
nuclear power plant in Japan. Together with local citizens, I spent the day
walking around the facility, collecting rocks, studying the soft sediments it
sits on and tracing the nearly vertical faults through the area - evidence of
violent tectonic movements. The next day I was surprised to see so many reporters attending the two press
conferences held at Kakegawa City Hall and Shizuoka Prefecture Hall. When I
asked the reporters why they had come so far from Tokyo to hear an American
geoscientist, I was told it was because no foreigner had ever come to tell them
how dangerous Japan’s nuclear power plants are. I told them that this is the power of gaiatsu (foreign pressure), and because
citizens in the United States with similar concerns attract little media
attention, we invite a Japanese to speak for us when we want media coverage -
someone like the famous seismologist Professor Ishibashi! When the geologic evidence was presented confirming the extreme danger at
Hamaoka, the attending media were obviously shocked. The aerial map, filed by
Chubu Electric Company along with its government application to build and
operate the plant, showed major faults going through Hamaoka, and revealed that
the company recognized the danger of an earthquake. They had carefully placed
each reactor between major fault lines. “The structures of the nuclear
plant are
directly rooted in the rock bed and can tolerate a quake of magnitude
8.5 on the
Richter scale,” the utility claimed on its Web site. From my research and the investigation I conducted of the rocks in the area, I
found that that the sedimentary beds underlying the plant were badly faulted.
Some tiny faults I located were less than 1 cm apart. When I held up samples of
the rocks the plant was sitting on, they crumbled like sugar in my
fingers. “But
the power company told us these were really solid rocks!” the reporters said. I
asked, “Do you think these are really solid?’ and they started laughing. On July 7 last year, the same day of my visit to Hamaoka, Ishibashi warned of
the danger of an earthquake-induced nuclear disaster, not only to Japan but
globally, at an International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
conference held in
Sapporo. He said: “The seismic designs of nuclear facilities are based on
standards that are too old from the viewpoint of modern seismology and are
insufficient. The authorities must admit the possibility that an
earthquake-nuclear disaster could happen and weigh the risks objectively.” After the greatest nuclear power plant disaster in Japan’s history at Tokai,
Ibaraki Prefecture, in September 1999, large, expensive Emergency Response
Centers were built near nuclear power plants to calm nearby residents. After
visiting the center a few kilometers from Hamaoka, I realized that Japan has no
real nuclear-disaster plan in the event that an earthquake damaged a reactor’s
water-cooling system and triggered a reactor meltdown. Additionally, but not even mentioned by ERC officials, there is an extreme
danger of an earthquake causing a loss of water coolant in the pools
where spent
fuel rods are kept. As reported last year in the journal Science and Global
Security, based on a 2001 study by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, if the
heat-removing function of those pools is seriously compromised - by, for
example, the water in them draining out - and the fuel rods heat up enough to
combust, the radiation inside them will then be released into the atmosphere.
This may create a nuclear disaster even greater than Chernobyl. If a nuclear disaster occurred, power-plant workers as well as
emergency-response personnel in the Hamaoka ERC would immediately be exposed to
lethal radiation. During my visit, ERC engineers showed us a tiny shower at the
center, which they said would be used for “decontamination’ of personnel.
However, it would be useless for internally exposed emergency-response workers
who inhaled radiation. When I asked ERC officials how they planned to evacuate millions of people from
Shizuoka Prefecture and beyond after a Kobe-magnitude earthquake (Kobe
is on the
same subduction zone as Hamaoka) destroyed communication lines, roads,
railroads, drinking-water supplies and sewage lines, they had no answer. Last year [2003], James Lee Witt, former director of the US Federal Emergency
Management Agency, was hired by New York citizens to assess the US government’s
emergency-response plan for a nuclear power plant disaster. Citizens were
shocked to learn that there was no government plan adequate to respond to a
disaster at the Indian Point nuclear reactor, just 80 km from New York
City. The
Japanese government is no better prepared, because there is no
adequate response
possible to contain or deal with such a disaster. Prevention is really the only
effective measure to consider. In 1998, Kei Sugaoka, 51, a Japanese-American senior field engineer who worked
for General Electric in the United States from 1980 until being dismissed in
1998 for whistle-blowing there, alerted Japanese nuclear regulators to a 1989
reactor inspection problem he claimed had been withheld by GE from their
customer, Tokyo Electric Power Company. This led to nuclear-plant shutdowns and
reforms of Japan’s power industry. Later it was revealed from GE documents that
they had in fact informed TEPCO - but that company did not notify government
regulators of the hazards.
Yoichi Kikuchi, a Japanese nuclear engineer who also became a whistle-blower,
has told me personally of many safety problems at Japan’s nuclear power plants,
such as cracks in pipes in the cooling system from vibrations in the
reactor. He
said the electric companies are “gambling in a dangerous game to increase
profits and decrease government oversight.” Sugaoka agreed, saying, “The
scariest thing, on top of all the other problems, is that all nuclear power
plants are aging, causing a deterioration of piping and joints which are always
exposed to strong radiation and heat.” Like most whistle-blowers, Sugaoka and
Kikuchi are citizen heroes, but are now unemployed.
The Radiation and Public Health Project, a group of independent US scientists,
has collected 4,000 baby teeth from children living around nuclear
power plants.
These teeth were then tested to determine their level of Strontium-90, a
radioactive fission product that escapes in nuclear power plant emissions.
Unborn children may be exposed to Strontium-90 through drinking water and the
diet of the mother. Anyone living near nuclear power plants is internally
exposed to chronically low levels of radiation contaminating food and drinking
water. Increased rates of cancer, infant mortality and low birth
weights leading
to cognitive impairment have been linked to radiation exposure for decades.
However, a recent independent report on low-level radiation by the European
Committee on Radiation Risk, released for the European Parliament in January
2003, established that the ongoing US Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Studies
conducted
in Japan by the US government since 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors
underestimated the risk of radiation exposure as much as 1,000 times.
Additionally, on March 26 this year [2004] - the eve of the 25th anniversary of
the worst nuclear disaster in US history, at the Three Mile Island plant in
Pennsylvania - the Radiation and Public Health Project released new data on the
effects of that event. This showed rises in infant deaths up to 53 percent, and
in thyroid cancer of more than 70 percent in downwind counties - data which,
like all that concerning both the short- and long-term health effects,
has never
been forthcoming from the US government. It is not a question of whether or not a nuclear disaster will occur in Japan;
it is a question of when it will occur. Like the former Soviet Union after Chernobyl, Japan will become a country
suffering from radiation sickness destroying future generations, and widespread
contamination of agricultural areas will ensure a public-health disaster. Its
economy may never recover. Considering the extreme danger of major earthquakes, the many serious
safety and
waste-disposal issues, it is timely and urgent - with about half its reactors
currently shut down - for Japan to convert nuclear power plants to fossil fuels
such as natural gas. This process is less expensive than building new power
plants and, with political and other hurdles overcome, natural gas
from the huge
Siberian reserves could be piped in at relatively low cost. Several US nuclear
plants have been converted to natural gas after citizen pressure forced energy
companies to make changeovers. Commenting on this way out of the nuclear trap, Ernest Sternglass, a
renowned US
scientist who helped to stop atmospheric testing in America, notes that, ‘Most
recently the Fort St. Vrain reactor in Colorado was converted to fossil fuel,
actually natural gas, after repeated problems with the reactor. An earlier
reactor was the Zimmer Power Plant in Cincinnati, which was originally designed
as a nuclear plant but it was converted to natural gas before it began
operating. This conversion can be done on any plant at a small fraction [20-30
percent] of the cost of building a new plant. Existing turbines, transmission
facilities and land can be used.” After converting to natural gas, the Fort St. Vrain plant produced
twice as much
electricity much more efficiently and cheaply than from nuclear energy
- with no
nuclear hazard at all, of course. It is time to make the changeover
from nuclear
fuel to fossil fuels in order to save future generations and the economy of
Japan. Leuren Moret is a geoscientist who worked at the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear
Laboratory
3 comments:
India has modified the CANDU reactor designs to include passive cooling, which is a vital difference compared to the older reactor designs which require active cooling. The Japanese Fukushima reactor dates back to the 1970s and requires active cooling - not a good idea.
Come on, San, wake up. India must strive for solar power. Germany is doing it, NaMo is doing it in Guj as well.
Solar can power homes and reduce the energy footprint of some buildings, but it's not enough to power infrastructure and the economy as a whole. The best way is to have a diverse basket.
Also consider that Thorium, found in abundance in the beach sand along India's coastline, is a safer fuel to use than uranium. It doesn't produce the same level of waste, and it fact burns up most waste.
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