Japan PM accepts nuclear phase-out

Reports the Washington Post: Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said in a television address to the country Wednesday that Japan should decrease and eventually eliminate its reliance on nuclear energy. “We will aim to bring about a society that can exist without nuclear power,” he said. “Through my experience of the March 11 accident, I came to realize the risk of nuclear energy is too high,” Kan said. “It involves technology that cannot be controlled according to our conventional concept of safety.” At present, 35 of the country’s 54 reactors are offline, either damaged, halted by the earthquake and resulting tsunami, or down for routine repairs. As reactors come off line for maintenance  - and if they do not subsequently restart, Japan could be without nuclear energy entirely by April 2012.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 got 10 year license extension just the month before it melted down

As reported by the World Nuclear Association (see the third full paragraph, under the section titled  "Recent energy policy: Focus on nuclear"), Japan's Nuclear & Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) granted a 10-year licence extension for Fukushima I-1 (also known as Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1) in February 2011, after technical review and some modifications in 2010. Thus, if Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 had been shut down at the end of its 40 year license, in February 2011, then it likely would not have melted down within just the first several hours after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Unit 1 did scram the instant the earthquake struck, but because it was at 100% power, the loss of electricity to run cooling systems led to the reactor's complete melt down within just several hours. Had the shut down happened in February, although the core would still have needed cooling (or the high-level radioactive waste storage pool would still have needed cooling, if the core had been unloaded into there), it almost certainly would not have melted down in just the first several hours.

Fukushima residents dump radiated soil in absence of clean-up plan

"They scoop up soil from their gardens and dump it in holes dug out in parks and nearby forests, scrub their roofs with soap and refuse to let their children play outside.

"More than three months after a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear meltdown at a nearby power plant, Fukushima residents are scrambling to cope with contamination on their own in the absence of a long-term plan from the government.

" 'Everything and everyone here is paralysed and we feel left on our own, unsure whether it's actually safe for us to stay in the city,' said Akiko Itoh, 42, with her four-year old son in her lap." Reuters

45 per cent of Fukushima children had thyroid exposure to radiation

"The plant has been leaking radioactive substances since it was hit by a magnitude-9 earthquake and resulting tsunami on March 11.

About 45 per cent of children in Fukushima prefecture experienced thyroid exposure to radiation after the nuclear power there was damaged in March, officials said Tuesday." The Hindu

Areva of France takes full advantage of Fukushima nuclear catastrophe

In an article entitled "French nuclear power lobbyists used Fukushima smear campaign to promote own business," the Mainichi Daily News reports that the French nuclear establishment was playing a double game in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. While French President Nicolas Sarkozy and even CEO of Areva Anne Lauvergeon were in Tokyo offering their full support to the Japanese prime minister and Japanese federal government, Areva lobbyists were busily handing out booklets to U.S. Congress Members portraying the catastrophe as peculiar to Japan, and impossible with Areva reactors. The Areva sales team was so forceful in its sales pitch that it even convinced Tokyo Electric Power Company to choose it to provide the water decontamination system at Fukushima Daiichi -- which has failed repeatedly in the past few weeks. The article also reports that Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric's Chairman and CEO as well as President Obama's job creation czar, dodged meetings with Japanese federal government officials and questions from reporters for fear of being held liable for the catastrophe involving four GE Boiling Water Reactors of the Mark 1 design.