#Radioactive Apartment in Nihonmatsu City, Fukushima, Measuring 1.2 Microsievert/Hr Inside

It looks the glass badge worn by a student who lives in the apartment helped identify the "hot" concrete.

A kind of perverse way to find out about radiation contamination...

From Fukushima TV News (1/15/2012):

二本松市のマンションのコンクリートから比較的高い放射線が確認され環境省ではコンクリートに放射性物質が混入したまま工事が行われたと見て調べています。

Relatively high levels of radiation have been detected from the concrete in an apartment building in Nihonmatsu City [in Fukushima Prefecture]. The Ministry of the Environment suspects that radioactive materials were in the concrete, and is investigating.

問題が発覚したのは二本松市で去年９月に建設されたマンションです。環境省などによりますと先月２７日、マンションに住む生徒が身につけていた積算線量計が３ヶ月で１・５ミリシーベルトと高い値を示したことから二本松市が周辺の調査を行いました。

The apartment was built in September last year in Nihonmatsu City. According to the Ministry of the Environment, the glass badge worn by a student who lives in the apartment registered 3-month cumulative radiation exposure of 1.5 millisievert on December 27, prompting the city to survey the surrounding area.

その結果マンションの基礎部分のコンクリートから毎時１・４マイクロシーベルト前後、室内からも１・２マイクロシーベルト前後が確認されたと言うことです。環境省ではコンクリート内に放射性物質が混入したまま工事が行われたと見て施工業者から事情を聞くなど確認を進めています。

The survey found 1.4 microsievert/hour from the concrete foundation of the apartment, and 1.2 microsievert/hour inside the apartment. The Ministry of the Environment thinks the apartment was built using concrete with radioactive materials, and is asking the building contractor for details.

I wonder if it is just concrete.

If you recall, 446,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected from the sewage sludge in Fukushima City on May 8, 2011. The sludge had been sold to cement companies until the detection at Koriyama City on April 30, when 26,400 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected from their sewage sludge. In the case of Koriyama City, over 900 tonnes of this radioactive sludge had been sold to one cement company (Sumitomo Osaka Cement) alone.

If the surface radiation level of the concrete is 1.4 microsievert/hour, I believe the concrete has at least 100,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in it, if the radiation measurements of sludge and rooftop sediment are any indication.

(UPDATE: I tweeted this news and the information about the radioactive sludge from last year as above in Japanese, and judging by the number of retweets, many Japanese weren't even aware of the highly radioactive sewage sludge was being sold until April 30. Retweets exceeded 100 in probably less than 15 minutes. The news was in the major newspapers then, but I remember people were still sleepwalking, in a way, back then.)

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#Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 2: 116 Degrees Celsius at the RPV Bottom

Some "cold shutdown". But you see, the thermometer that "determines" the state of cold shutdown is not this particular one that exceeded 100 degrees Celsius. So everything is fine and dandy at Fuku I. (Forget the leaks here and there, and trenches full of contaminated water.)

From Kyodo News (1/13/2011):

東京電力は１３日、福島第１原発２号機の原子炉圧力容器底部近くにある温度計の一つで、数値が上昇し１００度を超えたと発表した。付近の温度計は４０～５０度で安定しているため、計器不良とみている。

TEPCO announced on January 13 that one of the thermometers near the bottom of the Reactor Pressure Vessel of Reactor 2 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant registered the temperature exceeding 100 degrees Celsius. The nearby thermometers show a steady temperature between 40 to 50 degrees Celsius, so TEPCO considers it as malfunctioning.

　東電によると、数値が上がったのは、制御棒を動かすための装置が入った管に取り付けられた温度計。１２日午後５時に４８・４度だった温度が、同日午後１１時に１０２・３度と急上昇、１３日午前５時には１１６・４度を示した。

According to TEPCO, the thermometer that showed the high temperature is the one attached to the pipe that contains the equipment to operate control rods. It was 48.4 degrees Celsius at 5PM on January 12. It rose sharply at 11PM to 102.3 degrees Celsius, and at 5AM on January 13 it registered 116.4 degrees Celsius.

　冷温停止状態の基準となる圧力容器底部を計測する温度計は４８度台で安定。東電は、溶けた燃料が動いたり、再臨界が起きたりした可能性は低いとしている。

The thermometer that measures the temperature at the bottom of the RPV shows stable 48 degrees Celsius. That measurement is used as determining the cold shutdown state. TEPCO thinks it is unlikely that the melted fuel has shifted or the recriticality is happening.

So far I cannot find TEPCO's press release on this.

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Japan's Government-Industrial Complex to Create Small "Japan" in Southern India

The news was there on Yomiuri Shinbun on January 5, 2012, but little noticed until someone picked it up and spread on Twitter overnight.

The Japanese government in close collaboration with the big businesses in Japan is to build a city in southern India that will house 50,000 people, with "Japanese-quality" infrastructure including seaside resort, industrial park, hospital, shopping mall, and golf course (of course).

Many on Twitter are speculating that this is part of the plan by the Japan's political and business elites to abandon ship (Japan), and part of the reason for the Noda administration's insistence on the tax hike despite the incipient recession.

While there is a great need for money within Japan to actually rebuild tsunami-devastated areas (not the bogus "decon" projects), the Noda administration has been busy distributing money in Asia. The Bank of Japan has opened multi-billion dollar currency swap lines with India ($15 billion) and South Korea ($70 billion).

From Yomiuri Shinbun (1/5/2012):

日本政府は、官民一体のインフラ（社会基盤）輸出として、インド南部のチェンナイ近郊で、大規模な都市開発を行う方針だ。

The Japanese government, as part of the "infrastructure" export in close cooperation with the private industry, will develop a large-scale township in the suburb of Chennai in southern India.

　中小企業向けの工業団地と、日本人好みのショッピングセンターや病院なども併設した５万人が生活できる街をまるごと「輸出」する。

The plan is to "export" the entire town with an industrial park for mid/small size businesses, shopping centers that are tailored to Japanese taste and hospitals. The town is to accommodate 50,000 people.

　政府の新成長戦略に基づくインフラ輸出で、都市開発事業が具体化するのは初めて。

This will be first case of urban development as part of the infrastructure export, which is the new growth strategy of the Japanese government.

　枝野経済産業相が１０日、チェンナイを訪問し、州政府に支援要請する。

Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Edano will visit Chennai on January 10, and ask for the support from the Chennai government.

　みずほコーポレート銀行とプラント大手の日揮が現地開発会社に計４０億円を出資する計画だ。工業団地は２・３平方キロ・メートルで今夏から販売を始め、２０１３年に進出工場の稼働を予定している。

Mizuho Corporate Bank and JGC Corporation will invest 4 billion yen [US$52 million] in the development corporation in Chennai. The industrial park will be 2.3 square kilometer, and the sale will start this summer. The plants that will be housed in the park will start operation in 2013.

　併設される居住地区は２平方キロ・メートルで、インド洋を望む高級マンション群が中心の「リゾート都市」を１３年以降、順次開発する。日系のショッピングセンターやゴルフ場、日本人医師が常駐する病院なども整備する計画だ。日本人駐在員が家族で暮らせる高品質な街づくりを目指す。

The accompanying residential area will be 2 square kilometers. The "resort city" with the expensive condominiums facing the Indian Ocean will be developed starting 2013. Japanese shopping center, golf course, and hospitals with permanently-stationed Japanese doctors will also be built. The plan is to create a high-quality city where Japanese expatriates can live with their families.

The Yomiuri Shinbun makes it sound like it is yet to start. But the talk has been ongoing at least since last summer. Here's the announcement on August 6, 2011 of an Indian tour for people interested in building a community in India where Japanese people live and work in certain large enough numbers.

But the description of this "Japan town" in India - industrial park, resort city with pricey condominiums by the sea, golf course - sounds very familiar to me. Hmmm this is like Singapore.

Well, it turns out that the developer for the whole project is a Singaporean real estate developer Ascendas with large portfolios in China, India, Malaysia, Vietman, the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia. The countries that this company have businesses with happen to coincide with the countries that the Japanese ministers have frequented since last year.

The Times of India reports on January 11, 2012 the Tamil Nadu government has signed a memorandum of understanding with a Japanese investor group and Ascendas to build a "Japan Town" in Chennai, India:

1,500-acre Japanese township to come up soon on OMR

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu government has signed a memorandum of understanding with a Japanese consortium and real estate developer Ascendas to build a 1,500-acre integrated township with residential and industrial facilities for Japanese investors. It will come up 50km south of Chennai along Old Mahabalipuram Road.

Chief minister J Jayalalithaa signed the MoU on Tuesday with the Ascendas Development Trust ( AIDT), which has built an IT park in Taramani, and a consortium comprising corporate finance provider Mizuho Corporate Bank and JGC Corporation, a programme management contractor and investment partner.

Ascendas Group president Chong Siak Ching said, "We are happy to have the support of the government of Tamil Nadu and to work with Japan's leading companies Mizuho and JGC." The government has promised collaboration with local government agencies for the project's implementation. The township is expected to have lifestyle amenities for up to 40,000 people," Ascendas officials said. "The infrastructure will be eco-friendly."

I don't know what "eco-friendly" means but I assume it is about low carbon emission. After all, having spewed radioactive materials all over the northern hemisphere the Japanese government and many Japanese are worried about CO2 and anthropogenic "global warming".

I'm not sure how Indians would feel about 50,000 Japanese living in a totally separate community with high-rise condos and golf course, speaking only Japanese.

As to engaging a Singaporean real estate developer, there is a persistent rumor that ex-Chief Cabinet Minister and current Minister of Economy Yukio Edano evacuated his family to Singapore soon after the accident.

Dr. Haruki Madarame of Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission really spoke the truth when he said "It's all about money". It is all about money, whether "it" is a nuclear power plant, a nuclear waste facility, or a Japanese-only city in southern India.

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Shinzo Kimura: Minami Soma's Ms. Numauchi Suffers from Autoimmune Disease Caused by Stress

"Women are particularly sensitive to stress", he says, and they can't control themselves. In this particular case, it must be the fear of radiation that had stressed her so much before summer, and it manifested itself in fall when her teeth started to fall off.

In other words, he's saying she had stressed herself out from the fear of radiation, and became ill with stress-induced autoimmune disease.

What Shinzo Kimura, 44-year-old radiation specialist at Dokkyo University (radiation hygiene) and former researcher at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health and Labor), says about Ms. Emiko Numauchi's health problems doesn't quite add up.

On the one hand, he insists they are the symptoms of an unspecified autoimmune disease caused by the stress from the nuclear power plant accident, and she's more sensitive to stress because she is a woman. On the other hand, he says that there is no known mechanism whereby stress causes an autoimmune disease or any disease.

He pays a lip service to a possibility of her problems being caused by radiation, but quickly he assures it's feminine stress that caused an autoimmune disease that in turn caused her teeth, nails, and hair to fall off and her skin to be covered rapidly with blisters.

Kimura became a hero to many Japanese who wanted to know how bad the contamination from the nuclear accident was, when he was prominently featured in the NHK documentary series of "Mapping the radiation". A champion of people who quit his job at a government research institute to measure the radiation all over Fukushima Prefecture. Asahi Shinbun's "Trap of Prometheus" also created a series around him ("Resignation of a Researcher").

But what he said in an interview with Yasumi Iwakami the other day discussing Ms. Numauchi's condition and the way he said it have made me cautious that he may not be what people have made him to be.

What he said is the following. I used the transcript at this site. You can view how he said it in the video linked at the bottom, after 63 minutes 30 seconds into the video.

岩上氏：
沼内さんの場合は放射線によるものか、それともストレスによるものか、あるいは、その他の何かによるものなのか、どう思われますか。

Iwakami: What is Ms. Numauchi suffering from? Is it from radiation, stress, or something else? What do you think?

木村：
まず考えられるのが、ストレスによる自己免疫系疾患が大きいのかなと考えられますね。
歯が抜ける、爪がはがれる、髪が抜け落ちるというのは、自己免疫疾患の炎症反応の一種であろうと。
で、紅斑も、それに付随するもので、皮膚の炎症が起きるから紅斑が広がっていくというように考えます。

Kimura: Most likely, it is autoimmune disease from stress. Teeth falling off, nails peeling off, hair falling off, these must be a type of inflammatory reaction due to an autoimmune disease. Red spots on the skin is also from the autoimmune disease. As the skin inflammation happens, the red spots spread.

その自己免疫系疾患の原因として考えられるのが、ストレスであろうと。
そのストレスというのが放射線に対する恐怖というのが、時間をおいて、すぐに出てこないわけですよね。

It must be stress that causes the autoimmune disease. Stress, or fear of radiation, does not manifest itself immediately. It takes time.

人間の体というのは、タイムラグをおいて、発症するまでの時間が極度のストレスを受けた後に出てくるわけです。

In a human body, there's a time lag between the onset of an illness and the time of extreme stress.

で、夏までの非常に強いストレスが、秋から季節変動によって出てきたというのは、季節変動によって出てくる可能性が十分あるというように考えますが、ストレスというのも原発事故に由来するわけですから、放射能でなくても原発事故の被害者であるわけです。

So, the extreme stress by summer manifested in an illness in fall. It is very likely that the seasonal change triggered it. But stress was caused by the nuclear plant accident after all, so she is a victim of the nuclear plant accident even if it is not radiation sickness.

それは確かであろうと思います。

That much I am certain.

ただ個体差があります。
個体差によっては感受性が非常に強かったり、そういう場合には、このようなことが起きるかも知れない。
で、それが内部被曝による影響が強かったかもしれないし。

But there are individual differences. Some people are more sensitive [to radiation? stress?], and in that case this kind of thing [what's happening to Ms. Numauchi] may happen. It may be because of internal radiation exposure.

レントゲンとか、健康診断を受けたことがないような人ではないと思いますので、外部被曝は、ある程度まで被曝したことはあるとは思うのですが、それに何ら影響がなかったとしたら、何らかの内部被曝の影響があるのかもしれない。

I am sure she has done health checkups with X-rays, so she must have been exposed to some radiation. But if such radiation didn't have any effect in the past, then there may be some kind of internal radiation exposure.

南相馬でも、僕は3月28日に浪江町から相馬のほうに行くときに、国道6号線が使えないので、県道15号線だったかを通っていったんですが、そこでも分断されていたので、裏道を通ったときに、150マイクロシーベルトの場所があったわけですよ。

In Minami Soma, when I passed on March 28 from Namie-machi to Soma I used the prefectural route 15, instead of the national route 5. Even that was cut off, so I took the back route. There was a spot with 150 microsieverts/hour.

そういう地域に住んでいたとしたら、（沼内さんのような症状が出るということは）ありえるとは思います。
住んでいる場所によって、いちがいには言えないので分らないんですが。

If people live in such area, it may be possible (to develop symptoms like Ms. Numauchi). I don't know, because I can't make a sweeping statement. It depends on where you live.

ストレスが影響するというメカニズムまでは分らないと思うんですよ。

I don't think we will know the mechanism of how stress affects [health].

ただ、私や岩上さんは、非常にストレスに強いほうだと思うんですよ。
強い人間からは分らないんですよ。

But you, Mr. Iwakami, and I are resistant to high stress. We cannot tell from a stress-resistant person.

ウサギだって、飼い主がいなくなれば淋しさで死んでしまうという話があるくらいですから、同じことが人間にあってもおかしくないわけじゃないですか。
それだけ、ストレスというのは大きいわけですよ。

I hear rabbits die of loneliness when abandoned by the owners. The same can happen to humans, can't it? Stress play that big of a role.

特にストレスに対しては女性のほうが感受性が強いんですよね。
これは良い意味でも悪い意味でも感受性が強い。

In particular, women are more sensitive to stress. For good or bad, they are more sensitive.

その感受性のせいで、自己抑制がしにくいというのも女性の特徴なんです。
そういう特徴も含めた上で、ストレスというのは妥当なんではないかというふうに考えます。

It's also a female characteristic that, because of that sensitivity, they cannot control themselves. Taking that also into consideration, I think it is appropriate to identify stress as the cause [of her problems].

岩上：
自己免疫疾患が起きると、歯とか爪とか、そういうものを（自分のものでありながら）異物として捉える、という、それについては。

Iwakami: So, if you have an autoimmune disease, teeth, nails are attacked as foreign objects?

木村：
免疫低下によって、感染症が拡大すると、やはり免疫が賦活化します。
賦活化すると、それが手当たり次第に攻撃を始めるわけです。

Kimura: When the immune depression causes the spread of infection, the immune system is activated. Once activated, it starts to attack indiscriminately.

今まで自分の体として認識していたものが、認識しなくなって、これを外敵と認識してしまう可能性が高いわけですよね。

It starts to recognize the part of the body as foreign enemy [pathogen].

そういう自己免疫系疾患というのは、たとえばリウマチであったり、IgA（アイ・ジー・エイ）腎症、http://www.nanbyou.or.jp/entry/41※イムノ・グロブリンAという抗体があるんですが、扁桃体で作られるもので、それが大量にできると今度は腎臓を攻撃するんです。

Such autoimmune diseases include rheumatoid arthritis and IgA nephropathy. The antibody called IgA (immunoglobulin A) is produced in the corpus amygdaloideum, but once too many antibodies are produced they start to attack the kidney.

そのように自己免疫系疾患が出てきたり、さまざまな病気が出てくるんですよ。

So there are autoimmune diseases and all kinds of other diseases.

ですから、ストレスによって今度は腎臓病にもなってしまうという、さまざまな病気があってもおかしくないわけですよ。

Stress can cause renal diseases. It can cause all kinds of diseases.

炎症反応が出てきている、ということなので、自己免疫系疾患の可能性が高いな、と踏んだわけです。

Because of the inflammatory reaction, I think it is highly probable that it is an autoimmune disease that she's suffering from.

Ms. Numauchi has a deep, low voice and jovial, cheerful demeanor, and by looking at her and listening to her the last thing you would think is this is one stressed-out, super-sensitive woman. She looks like the man of the house, in fact, without seeing her husband.

Instead of insisting she suffers from stress-induced autoimmune disease, Mr. Kimura should have done what he became famous for: take samples of soil, vegetation in and around her house and measure the radiation, and check her with the special equipment that was featured in the NHK documentary that can measure internal radiation easily.

But he didn't, and Iwakami didn't ask him to do so.

Minami Soma City has just been found with 11 microsieverts/hour locations in the areas where the residents are returning.

Ms. Numauchi is not at all saying her problems are the result of radiation exposure. She says she just wants to know why they've been happening to her, her friend, and her husband. With a nationally known radiation specialist and a popular independent journalist telling her it's just stress because she is a woman, she must have been disappointed.

I guess her husband, who suffers numb feet and severe fatigue, must also be suffering from a feminine stress.

Here's the vid (probably against Iwakami's intention to restrict the video to his subscribers only and pay-per-view) uploaded by BakaTEPCO10 (meaning "stupid TEPCO 10"). Kimura appear safter 63 minutes 30 seconds into the video:

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Woodland in Minami Soma City, Fukushima Has 11 Microsieverts/Hr Radiation

The area - Haramachi District and Odaka District of Minami Soma City - used to be part of the "evacuation-ready zone" until September 30, 2011, where the residents should be prepared to evacuate at the moment's notice and where pregnant women and children were not supposed to be living there (but they did). The evacuation-ready designation has been abolished, and the government is eager to have the residents (who evacuated) go back.

But the Ministry of Education's air radiation survey revealed that the woodland surrounding the area measured 11 microsieverts/hour radiation. Will the government still return the residents?

11 microsieverts/hour radiation would be close to 100 millisieverts cumulative radiation in one year.

From Jiji Tsushin (1/13/2012):

文部科学省と環境省などは１３日、東京電力福島第１原発事故を受けて、昨年９月末まで設定されていた緊急時避難準備区域にある福島県南相馬市の里山などの空間放射線量が、最大で毎時１１マイクロシーベルトだったと発表した。

The government ministries including the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of the Environment announced on January 13 that the air radiation levels in the undeveloped woodland which was inside the "evacuation-ready zone" until September 30 last year in Minami Soma City in Fukushima Prefecture was maximum 11 microsieverts/hour.

　同市原町区と小高区の生活圏にある里山など４カ所を無人ヘリコプターで測定。地表から高さ５０センチの最大値は毎時１１マイクロシーベルト、同１メートルでは最大で毎時１０．９マイクロシーベルトだった。

The survey was done using unmanned helicopters in 4 locations in the woodland surrounding Haramachi District and Kodaka District of Minami Soma City. The maximum radiation level at 50 centimeters off the ground was 11 microsieverts/hour, and the maximum radiation level at 1 meter off the ground was 10.9 microsieverts/hour.

The Ministry of Education's announcement on January 13, 2012 says that four helicopters were used for the survey, and they measured the radiation levels in Haramachi District and Kodaka District:

• 3.8 microsieverts/hour and above radiation was measured in the entire area covered by Helicopter No.2, and almost all area covered by Helicopter No.4 at 1 meter off the ground;

• 2 microsieverts/hour in the area covered by Helicopter No.1; and

• 3 microsieverts/hour in the area covered by Helicopter No. 3

Note that this is only gamma radiation. As I posted in December, if you include alpha and beta radiation on the ground, the radiation levels in Haramachi District can be as high as 40 microsieverts/hour. And people have continued to live there since March 11, 2011, despite the evacuation-ready zone designation.

No matter. That city re-opened elementary schools in Haramachi District just a few days ago, and if anything happens to the children or the adults I am sure it will be declared as nothing but stress-induced autoimmune disease.

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Fukushima Promotes Safe Fukushima Milk for School Lunches

For your weekend entertainment, here's the promotional pamphlet by the Fukushima prefectural government telling the consumers it is so safe to drink Fukushima milk in school lunches. It uses the word "safe" so many times that many suspect they have something to hide, while others are simply scared of the cow in the pamphlet.

From Fukushima Prefecture's website:

On the second page, it brags that no radioactive materials have been detected in milk in Fukushima since April 25, 2011. In fine print, it says the detection limit is 5 becquerels/kg, but just above that line it also says "ND means the level is so low that the equipment cannot even measure". The equipment in Fukushima Prefecture may not be able to measure, but in other prefectures they have no problem measuring radioactive cesium in milk to one decimal point.

Remember in Fukushima that some school teachers excoriate students who are reluctant to drink milk in school lunches in front of the class, telling them they are "unpatriotic". I've heard similar anecdotal stories about wearing masks to school. Some teachers berate students wearing masks and order them to take the masks off. I'm sure it is just a baseless rumor. They wouldn't do such a thing, teachers, would they?

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"Baseless Rumor" from an LDP Upper House Politician: Explosion in Fukushima I on January 9?

Satsuki Katayama is an LDP member of the Upper House of the Japanese Diet and a former career bureaucrat in the Ministry of Finance.

In her official blog on January 13, 2012, Katayama relates the following rumor:

さきほど、南相馬の元市議会議員から市長に連絡がはいり、1月9日にまた、福島第一で（おそらく4号炉だと思うが）なんらかの爆発が起きており、それを政府が隠している、という話であった。真偽のほどはわからないが、水素爆発ではあっても、核爆発ではないであろう。

Just then, there was a communication from the ex-council member of Minami Soma City to the mayor [of Soma City] that there was some kind of explosion at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant on January 9 (probably at Reactor 4 building) and the government is hiding it. I don't know whether it's true or not, but if it is, it is probably a hydrogen explosion, not a nuclear explosion.

Katayama says she was speaking with Hidekiyo Tachiya, mayor of Soma City (north of Minami Soma City) when the mayor related the "rumor" to her. I have no idea why she's allowed to talk loose like this in her official blog.　

So far, it doesn't seem to have gathered much attention in Japan, and many on Twitter ridicule her. But some people are connecting this "rumor" to the massive deployment of the Self Defense Force helicopters on January 9.

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Cesium Level in Raw Milk in Southern Miyagi Is Rising

From Miyagi Prefecture's website, the result of measurement of radioactive cesium in raw milk collected at "Sennan Cooler Station" in Shiroishi City in southern Miyagi from March 25 till December 20, 2011:


November 22, 2011: 2 becquerels/kg
November 29, 2011: 4 becquerels/kg
December 6, 2011: 21 becquerels/kg
December 13, 2011: 14 becquerels/kg
December 20, 2011: 22 becquerels/kg

The raw milk from the area is mixed with other raw milk from other areas and regions and sold.

Why is it going up now? No idea. The safety standard for cattle feed is 300 becquerels/kg.

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The Economist: "A dangerous lack of urgency in drawing lessons from Japan’s nuclear disaster"

Here's The Economist's take on the Japanese declaration of "the cold shutdown state" and the end of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. The title of the article pretty much says it all.

The paper well summarizes the elementary incompetency of both TEPCO and the Japanese government, and says the government's interim report hasn't got much attention that it deserves, except among techies at Physics Forum. It also correctly points out these reports are nothing but confidence-building exercises in Japan.

The paper's conclusion:

"Until somebody in power seizes on the report as a call to action, its findings, especially those that reveal sheer ineptitude, suggest that the public has every reason to remain as scared as hell."

Indeed.

The Economist (1/7/2012):

THERE is a breathtaking serenity to the valley that winds from the town of Namie, on the coast of Fukushima prefecture, into the hills above. A narrow road runs by a river that passes through steep ravines, studded with maples. Lovely it may be, but it is the last place where you would want to see an exodus of 8,000 people fleeing meltdowns at a nearby nuclear-power plant.

Along that switchback road the day after the earthquake and tsunami on March 11th 2011, it took Namie’s residents more than three hours to drive 30km (19 miles) to what they thought was the relative safety of Tsushima, a secluded hamlet. What they did not know was that they were heading into an invisible fog of radioactive matter that has made this one of the worst radiation hotspots in Japan—far worse than the town they abandoned, just ten minutes’ drive from the gates of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. It was not until a New York Times report in August that many of the evacuees realised they had been exposed to such a danger, thanks to government neglect.

Negligence forms the backdrop for the first government-commissioned report into the Fukushima nuclear disaster, released in late December. Although only an interim assessment (the complete report is due in the summer), it is already 500 pages long and the product of hundreds of interviews. A casual reader might be put off by the technical detail and the dearth of personal narrative. Yet by Japanese standards it is gripping. It spares neither the government nor Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the operator of the nuclear plant. It reveals at times an almost cartoon-like level of incompetence. Whether it is enough to reassure an insecure public that lessons will be learnt is another matter.

Since the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979, it has become axiomatic to assume that complex systems fail in complex ways. That was broadly true of Fukushima, though often the failures appear absurdly elementary. In the most quake-prone archipelago on earth, TEPCO and its regulators had no accident-management plan in the event of earthquakes and tsunamis—assuming, apparently, that the plant was proofed against them and that any hypothetical accidents would be generated only from within. TEPCO had, in the event of nuclear disaster, an off-site emergency headquarters just 5km from the plant that was not radiation-proof, and so was effectively useless. On site, the workers in its number one reactor appear not to have been familiar with an emergency-cooling system called an isolation condenser, which they wrongly thought was still working after the tsunami. Their supervisors made the same mistake, so a vital six hours were lost before other methods for cooling the overheating atomic fuel rods were deployed. Partly as a result, this was the first reactor to explode on March 12th.

The government was almost as clueless. Naoto Kan, then prime minister, had a crisis headquarters on the fifth floor of the Kantei, his office building. But emergency staff from various ministries were relegated to the basement, and there was often miscommunication, not least because mobile phones did not work underground. Crucial data estimating the dispersion of radioactive matter were not given to the prime minister’s office, so that evacuees like those from Namie were not given any advice on where to go. That is why they drove straight into the radioactive cloud. The report faults the government for providing information that was often bogus, ambiguous or slow. Perhaps the biggest failure was that nobody in a position of responsibility—neither TEPCO nor its regulators—had sought to look beyond the end of their noses in disaster planning. No one seems ever to have tried to “think the unthinkable”.

In America official reports such as those on the September 11th attacks or the Deepwater Horizon oil spill have become acclaimed books. This one is hardly a page-turner. A privately funded foundation, headed by Yoichi Funabashi, a former editor of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, is doing a separate investigation, based partly on the testimony of TEPCO whistle-blowers. (One, according to Mr Funabashi, says the earthquake damaged the reactors before the tsunami, a claim that officials have always rejected.) It at least promises to have literary merit. Mr Funabashi, a prominent author, draws parallels between the roots of the disaster and Japan’s failures in the second world war. They include the use of heroic front-line troops with out-of-touch superiors; rotating decision-makers too often; narrow “stovepipe” thinking; and the failure to imagine that everything could go wrong at once.

Complex systems, jerry-rigged

For now, the risk is that the interim report does not get the attention it deserves. So far it seems to have aroused more interest on a techie website called Physics Forums, beloved of nuclear engineers, than in the Japanese press. The government, led by Yoshihiko Noda, has not yet used it as a rallying call for reform. One of its recommendations, an independent new regulatory body, will soon be set up. Others, such as new safety standards and broader evacuation plans, would take months to implement.

Such reports are, after all, confidence-building exercises. They are meant to reassure the public that, by exposing failures, they will help to prevent them from being repeated. In the case of Fukushima Dai-ichi there is still plenty to be nervous about. Although the government declared on December 16th that the plant had reached a state of “cold shutdown”, much of the cooling system is jerry-rigged and probably still not earthquake-proof. On January 1st a quake temporarily caused water levels to plunge in a pool containing highly radioactive spent-fuel rods.

Meanwhile, across Japan, 48 out of 54 nuclear reactors remain out of service, almost all because of safety fears. Until somebody in power seizes on the report as a call to action, its findings, especially those that reveal sheer ineptitude, suggest that the public has every reason to remain as scared as hell.

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Autopsy Planned (or Done) for the Worker Who Died at Fukushima I Nuke Plant?

(UPDATE from Ryuichi Kino: The police took the body right after the ambulance arrived at the hospital. So the worker had been dead. He's asking how TEPCO (who had the personnel at the hospital) considered the whole situation.)

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Additional information about the worker who died of a heart attack on January 9, 2012 while working at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant pouring concrete for the radioactive sludge storage facility.

According to the partial transcript of the TEPCO press conference on January 12, 2012 (independent journalist Ryuichi Kino asking TEPCO's Matsumoto):

• The worker was "treated" on-site for 2 hours by the TEPCO doctor, which Kino said was rather unusual in the case of cardiopulmonary arrest.

• When the worker arrived at the hospital in an ambulance, the hospital did no treatment and simply called the police, according to Kino, and TEPCO's Matsumoto didn't deny it. [So the worker was dead already.]

Then the hilarity ensued as the following:

Kino: "The hospital called the police to conduct an autopsy. Did TEPCO know about it or was involved in the decision?"

Matsumoto: "TEPCO had a personnel waiting at the hospital, but no we weren't involved in the decision to do the autopsy."

Kino: "TEPCO personnel was at the hospital? So you knew that the police would conduct autopsy?"

Matsumoto: "Well, not directly but from a subcontractor (construction company Shimizu) who was informed by the police that night."

Kino: "So you did know the worker was dead on January 9 but kept telling us he was receiving treatment, for two days?"

Matsumoto: "We had to be considerate to the family of the deceased. Besides, I didn't say he was receiving treatment. I said there was no new information from the hospital."

Kino: "You said in the press conference on January 9 that he was receiving treatment."

Matsumoto: "We heard about his death at 7:40PM on January 9. So at the time of the press conference at 6:00PM, our assumption was that he was still receiving treatment."

Pants on fire, but Matsumoto is totally comfortable lying through his teeth.

I am asking Kino for confirmation about the autopsy.

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10 Elementary Schools in Edogawa-ku, Tokyo Are Sending Kids to "Winter School" to Ski in Fukushima Prefecture

Information obtained from the Togetter log from concerned residents and local representatives in Edogawa-ku, situated in the eastern Tokyo where the radiation levels are much higher than the rest of Tokyo.

It's clearly not enough for the Edogawa municipal government and the Board of Education there to have exposed children since March last year to elevated radiation levels and have done next to nothing to mitigate the situation:

(From a local representative) I've been asking the Board of Education again and again to reconsider the "winter school" in Fukushima Prefecture for the elementary school children in Edogawa, but all they say is "If we cancel, that will fan the baseless rumors", "It's up to the school principals to decide".

However, the schools say, "It was the Edogawa-ku government who decided and booked the facilities in fall last year. We didn't have any say."

A principal of one of the schools says, "It is the decision by the Tokyo Metropolitan government and the Edogawa municipal government that it is safe, so I will abide by their decision."

He also says, "The Edogawa government instructed us not do anything [regarding the winter school] until after the end of August last year. In fall, there was no alternative left because everywhere else [outside Fukushima] had been booked already."

Food that will be served in the "winter school" in Fukushima: Fukushima produce that's sold in the market there. Milk is from Fukushima. The grocer there says "They are safe because they are sold in the market."

From the looks of it, the principals at these schools do have a decision-making power, but they do not exercise it for the fear of getting into trouble with the Board of Education. The Board of Education sits pretty because technically it is the decision by the individual school, even though it, along with the Edogawa government, strongly "suggests" what to do.

The air radiation levels in the area where the pupils will be sent vary from 0.06 microsievert/hr to 0.33 microsievert/hr, according to one of the tweets.

Net net, no one will be ever responsible.

Well, for Edogawa-ku, absolutely nothing happened on March 11, 2011 and ever since.

There you go. As long as you have captive consumers like elementary school pupils, you have no problem selling contaminated food (school lunches) and operating tourist outfits in the contaminated areas (summer schools, winter schools). You don't even need to launch a pricey promotional campaign.

Even the Imperial Japanese government toward the end of the World War II tried to save the future soldiers and factory workers and evacuated elementary school children from the heavily bombarded cities. But now, they are sending these small "soldiers" in the potential harm's way to conquer radiation, all to help Fukushima Prefecture's "recovery" and "reconstruction".

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Disaster Debris from Onagawa, Miyagi: 133 Bq/Kg of Radioactive Cesium

which, if incinerated all by itself, would become ashes with maximum 4389 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium, using the calculation by the Ministry of the (Destruction of) the Environment (multiply by 33).

The image below is from the information handed out to the residents who live near the incineration plants in Ota-ku and Shinagawa-ku in Tokyo, where the disaster debris from Onagawa-cho, Miyagi Prefecture was taken and burned in December. The entity in charge of burning the disaster radioactive debris from Miyagi in the 23 Special Wards ("ku") in Tokyo is the Clean Association Tokyo 23, who created the handout.

As you see, in the test conducted at Ishinomaki Clean Center, Onagawa-cho's regular waste is already radioactive, resulting in fly ashes with 2,200 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium. Then, they measured the radioactivity by mixing the disaster debris to the regular waste, with 20% of the mix from the disaster debris, and burning. That resulted in fly ashes with 2,300 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium.

This official information doesn't say whether the radioactivity of the disaster debris is the average or from one sample, or whether it was wood, plastic, or something else. It doesn't even say whether it was the debris with 133 becquerels/kg that was mixed and burned.

Now, many people who are all for bringing disaster debris from Miyagi and Iwate to Tokyo argue that since Tokyo is contaminated so much already, it doesn't make any difference, that Miyagi's disaster debris is less radioactive than Tokyo's regular garbage.

Is it?

Here's the latest test result (December 2011) of fly ashes at the municipal incinerators under the management of the Clean Association:

There are only three incineration plants whose radioactive cesium in fly ashes exceeds that of Onagawa-cho (circled in red), with two of them exceeding the level of Onagawa debris.

If we listen to those who believe it is logical to bring low-contamination debris/garbage to high-contamination areas and process, then most of the regular garbage should be shipped to Miyagi and be burned and buried there.

The mayor of Rikuzen Takata City in Iwate Prefecture thought it would be much better to process disaster debris in the city and wanted to build a new plant dedicated to disaster debris. He consulted the Prefectural government who turned down his request by saying the application procedure alone would take at least 2 years.

Disaster debris is as good as money. There are enough municipalities throughout Japan in a dire financial condition and willing to accept debris in exchange for subsidies. As Haruki Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission said 7 years ago, "It's all about money, isn't it?" He was talking about nuclear waste then.

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Child Leukemia Doubles Near French Nuclear Power Plants, French Researchers Say

From Reuters (1/11/2012):

Jan 11 (Reuters) - The incidence of leukaemia is twice as high in children living close to French nuclear power plants as in those living elsewhere in the country, a study by French health and nuclear safety experts has found.

But the study, to be published soon in the International Journal of Cancer, fell short of establishing a causal link between the higher incidence of leukaemia, a type of blood cancer, and living near nuclear power plants.

France has used nuclear power for three decades and is the most nuclear-reliant country in the world, with 75 percent of its electricity produced by 58 reactors.

The study, conducted by the French health research body INSERM, found that between 2002 and 2007, 14 children under the age of 15 living in a 5-kilometre radius of France's 19 nuclear power plants had been diagnosed with leukaemia.

This is double the rate of the rest of the country, where a total of 2,753 cases were diagnosed in the same period.

"This is a result which has been checked thoroughly and which is statistically significant," said Dominique Laurier, head of the epidemiology research laboratory at France's nuclear safety research body (IRSN).

INSERM has carried out similar research with the IRSN since 1990, but has never before found a higher incidence of leukaemia in children living near nuclear power plants.

"But we are working on numbers which are very small and results have to be analysed with a lot of care," said Laurier, one of the authors of the study.

Laurier said the findings indicated no difference in risk between sites located by the sea or by rivers, nor according to the power capacity of the plant.

The IRSN said it recommended a more thorough study of the causes of the leukaemia cases found near nuclear power stations and hoped to set up international research collaboration.

"It's a rare disease and working on a bigger scale would allow more stable results," said Laurier.

A 35-year British study published last year found no evidence that young children living near nuclear power plants had an increased risk of developing leukaemia.

The research, conducted by scientists on the Committee of the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE), found only 20 cases of childhood leukaemia within 5 km (3.1 miles) of nuclear power stations between 1969 and 2004.

The scientists said the rate was virtually the same as in areas where there were no nuclear plants.

Studies have been conducted around the world into possible links between the risk of childhood blood cancers and living near nuclear plants.

A study on Germany, published in 2007, did find a significantly increased risk, but the COMARE team said these findings were probably influenced by an unexplained leukaemia cluster near a nuclear plant in Krummel, north Germany, that lasted from 1990 to 2005.

Excluding Krummel, evidence for an increased leukaemia risk among young children living close to German nuclear power plants was "extremely weak", it said.

(Reporting By Muriel Boselli, Editing by Alexandria Sage and Tim Pearce)

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4170 Bq/Kg of Radioactive Cesium in Crickets in Iitate-mura, Fukushima

A researcher (vice president) at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology collected 500 crickets (1 kilogram) in Iitate-mura in Fukushima Prefecture, and found 4,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium. He also tested locusts in different locations in Fukushima, and found radioactive cesium in them.

Bio-concentration at work. No information whether he tested other nuclides like radioactive silver (Ag-110m). Professor Bin Mori of Tokyo University found radioactive silver highly concentrated (1000 times the amount in the environment) in Nephila clavata he caught in Iitate-mura.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (1/12/2012):

東京電力福島第一原発事故で、原発から４０キロ離れた計画的避難区域内に生息するコオロギから１キロ・グラム（約５００匹）あたり４０００ベクレル以上の放射性セシウムが検出されたことが、東京農工大の普後一(ふごはじめ)副学長（昆虫生理学）の調査でわかった。

A survey conducted by Hajime Fugo, vice president of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (specialty: insect physiology) found over 4,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in crickets (500 of them that weigh about 1 kilogram) from within the planned evacuation zone 40 kilometers away from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

　別の場所のイナゴからも最大２００ベクレルを検出した。

In another location, 200 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found from locusts.

　調査は、昨年１０月、原発から約４０キロほど離れた計画的避難区域の福島県飯舘村北部でコオロギ５００匹、６０～８０キロ離れた本宮市役所付近や須賀川市北部、桑折町役場付近、猪苗代町の猪苗代湖付近の水田でイナゴ計２０００匹を採集した。

The survey was done in October last year. 500 crickets were collected in the northern part of Iitate-mura in Fukushima Prefecture, which is in the planned evacuation zone 40 kilometers from the plant. 2,000 locusts were collected in locations 60 to 80 kilometers from the plant, including Motomiya City (around City Hall), northern part of Sukagawa City, Koori-machi (near Town Hall) and near Inawashiro Lake in Inawashiro-machi.

　飯舘村のコオロギからは１キロ・グラムあたり平均４１７０ベクレルを検出。須賀川市のイナゴは同１９６ベクレル、桑折町と本宮市は、それぞれ同８２ベクレルと７５ベクレルだった。

Average 4,170 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected from crickets in Iitate-mura, 196 becquerels/kg from locusts in Sukagawa City, 82 becquerels/kg and 75 becquerels/kg from locusts in Koori-machi and Motomiya City respectively.

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Cause of Death of the Fuku-I Worker: Heart Attack

As always, there is no connection between the death and the fact that he had worked at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant since May last year, according to TEPCO.

He must have died of stress, Mr. Shinzo Kimura and other experts may say.

For some unknown reason, it took 2 days since he had died for the information to be released by TEPCO.

From Jiji Tsushin News (1/11/2012):

東京電力は１１日、福島第１原発で９日午後に倒れ、心肺停止状態で福島県いわき市内の病院に運ばれた協力企業の６０代男性作業員について、搬送直後の同日夕、急性心筋梗塞で死亡していたと発表した。作業員は放射性物質を含む汚泥の貯蔵施設の建設作業に従事していた。遺族から元請け企業経由で１１日午後に死亡の連絡があったという。

TEPCO announced on January 11 that the worker from an affiliate company in his 60s who collapsed on January 9 afternoon at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant and was transported to a hospital in Iwaki City in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest died of acute myocardial infarction in the evening of January 9. The worker engaged in the construction of the storage facility for radioactive sludge. According to TEPCO, the family of the deceased notified the subcontractor who notified TEPCO in the afternoon of January 11.

　東電によると、作業員はコンクリートを使う建設作業の経験が長く、同原発では昨年５月から働いて外部被ばく線量は計約６ミリシーベルト、内部被ばく線量は計０．０１ミリシーベルトだった。東電は死亡との因果関係はないとみている。

According to TEPCO, the worker had long worked in the construction jobs using concrete. He had been at Fukushima I Nuke Plant since May last year, and his cumulative external radiation exposure was about 6 millisieverts, and the internal radiation exposure was 0.01 millisievert. TEPCO thinks there is no relationship between the death [and the radiation expposure of the worker].

Well, those are the "official" numbers. We now know how the workers get around the radiation limit by doing some tricks to lower the radiation on the survey meters. Besides, in the early days of the crisis, the survey meters were not available for every workers, because the survey meters at the plant had been swept away in the tsunami.

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(UPDATED) Video of Emiko Numauchi ("Numayu") Available at IWJ

but Yasumi Iwakami is only making it available for his paid subscribers.

Oh well.

For all his work, I suppose he is entitled to make his information available only to people who can support him financially. For those who cannot, well that's too bad they have to continue to rely on the official MSM.

If you understand the language and are willing to support Iwakami's work by becoming a paid subscriber to his news, go here. Regular subscription is US$13 per month, and supporter subscription is US$39 and up per month.

For more on Ms. Numauchi, see my posts.

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(UPDATE 1/12/2012: Someone uploaded the video. If you understand Japanese, you can view it here. If you do not, still click the link and see how she looks and sounds. And look how the radiation expert Shinzo Kimura looks and sounds.

I personally do not trust Mr. Kimura, by the way he gives non-explanation about auto-immune disease as something only a sensitive person suffers, by his mannerism.)

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Tokyo Metropolitan Government to Subsidize Tours to Fukushima Only Next Year

Did you even know that the Tokyo Metropolitan government had such a program?

Not satisfied enough by accepting and burning disaster debris of varying radiation levels from Iwate and Miyagi Prefecture (in case of the Miyagi debris, it is to be burned all over Tokyo) and collecting fat fees for "facilitating" the effort, the Tokyo Metropolitan government will now focus on the tourism industry in Fukushima Prefecture. It will subsidize tourists who will visit Fukushima, starting the next fiscal year which will start on April Fool's Day.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (1/11/2011):

東京都は来年度、福島県に日帰り旅行する観光客について、１人１５００円を、宿泊客には２泊まで１泊３０００円を助成することを決めた。

The Tokyo Metropolitan government has decided to subsidize tourists who will visit Fukushima Prefecture starting the next fiscal year [that will start on April 1]. Tourists who visit on a day trip will be given 1,500 yen [about US$20], and tourists who stay overnight will be given 3,000 yen [about US$40] per night up to two nights.

　東京電力福島第一原子力発電所の事故で、観光客離れに苦しむ福島県を応援する施策の一環。旅行会社を通じてツアーを申し込んだ都内在住、在勤、在学者が対象で、旅行代金から割り引く。

It is part of the measures [by the Tokyo Metropolitan government] to support Fukushima Prefecture who suffers decrease in the number of tourists to the prefecture because of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. The subsidy will be given to people who live, work or go to school, in Tokyo who book tours through travel agencies.

　都は今年度、岩手、宮城を含む被災３県へ旅行する観光客を対象に、１泊３０００円を助成しているが、福島県の観光は回復が鈍く、来年度は同県に限り助成する。

This fiscal year, the Tokyo Metropolitan government has been subsidizing the tourists who go to the three disaster-affected prefectures including Iwate and Miyagi with 3,000 yen per night. However, the tourism recovery in Fukushima Prefecture has been slow, and the Tokyo government will subsidize the tourists to Fukushima only in the next fiscal year.

Travel agencies, if they are like other businesses in Japan, will inflate the package price. The government bureaucrats will be the last people to take any responsibility in the future for any ill effect on health for promoting the destination whose air radiation levels easily exceed 1 microsievert/hour in many locations.

Caveat emptor.

Or as Professor Hayakawa of Gunma University often comments, "If you don't educate yourself now and fast, you'll die."

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Nuclear Fatigue Setting in Japan After 10 Months

That's the feeling I get from the two recent events I'm following. It is the feeling of "Let's just forget about it, there's nothing we can do anyway", which has served the country, for good or bad, for centuries.

First, there was a face-to-face interview (1/10/2012 Japan Time) by independent journalist Yasumi Iwakami of the Minami Soma City woman who's been documenting her health problems since the summer of 2011. Emiko Numauchi, aka "Numayu", happened to be a cheerful, forward-looking ex-high school teacher who said she intended to live until the age of 120 and that she was comfortable with "causes unknown" for her health problems. The video of the interview is not yet on the archive at Iwakami's website, but there are many tweets of people who viewed in Japan in real time.

This "Togetter" captures not just her remarks but the comments by Shinzo Kimura, radiation specialist who has appeared in many NHK documentaries on radiation contamination in the aftermath of the Fukushima I Nuclear Plant accident. On Ms. Numauchi's health problems, Kimura says, "stress, stress, stress, and stress":

ストレスによる免疫疾患。歯、爪ぬけおちる。髪ぬける。自己免疫疾患。皮膚炎症。タイムログ。出てくる可能性ある。放射能ではないが原発事故の被害者。固体差ある。被爆影響もあるかも。

It is an immune disease caused by stress. Teeth, nails, hair falling off, that's auto-immune disease. So is skin inflammation. Time-lag [?]. It is not caused by radiation, but she is still a victim of the nuclear accident. There's individual difference. There may be some effect of radiation exposure.

線量の違い。南相馬、県道を通った。裏道。3月に高線量があった。住んでいたら被爆影響の可能性もある。住んでる場所により線量低ければストレスの可能性もある。

Difference in radiation levels. I passed through Minami Soma City back in March. High levels of radiation. If you lived in that area it is possible that the radiation exposure has something to do with [the health problems]. Depending on where you live, if the radiation level is low, it is possible that the problems are caused by stress.

自己免疫疾患のメカニズムまで説明できない。ストレスは岩上さんは強い方。強い人間からはわからない。固体差があるから。うさぎは寂しさで死ぬという話。人間もあるかも。ストレスはだとう。

We cannot explain the mechanism of auto-immune diseases. For example, Mr. Iwakami can tolerate a lot of stress. You cannot tell from a person with high tolerance for stress. There's individual difference. A rabbit may die of loneliness. It's possible for humans. To say stress [is causing these health problems] is appropriate.

自己免疫系疾患。ストレスで腎臓病に迄なる。可能性は高い。認識してストレスと思わない事にはデータを。判断する。内部被爆もカウンセリングしながらやってる。

It is an auto-immune disease. Stress can cause kidney diseases. It is highly possible. If you don't think it is stress, then collect data and determine. Internal radiation exposure [is assessed] by counseling [??]

I won't know the exact details of what Kimura said in the program until I view the video yet to be uploaded. But from other tweets the above seems to summarize what he did say.

Does he make sense? If you live in areas with low radiation levels and you have health problems starting to happen after March 11, 2011, then these problems are caused by stress. If you live in areas with high radiation levels, it is probably still stress causing these problems.

Never mind that Ms. Numauchi kept saying she was far more stress-free after she quit her job as a public high school teacher.

There are so many tweets that outright bash Ms. Numauchi for speaking out. They say she is a disgrace to Minami Soma City, that she only thinks of herself (huh?), that she's a liar.

The second event that I think people in Japan may be resigning to whatever fate they think they will get is the efforts to hold anti-nuke plant referendums in Osaka and Tokyo. Citizens' groups in Osaka collected 50,000 signatures in no time, exceeding the required number of signatures to hold a referendum in Osaka Prefecture. In contrast, only one-third of the required number of signatures have been collected so far in Tokyo.

The latest meme from some of the anti-nuke plant people on the Twitter is this: "If we do hold a referendum on whether to stop all nuke plants and we lose, then the pro-nuke people will be all the more powerful and we won't be able to do anything to stop them. So, let's not do the referendum."

So it is all or nothing. If the anti-nuke plant referendum is defeated, that will be the end of their movement. That's just so Japanese. I personally think there are more pressing issues like radiation contamination being spread by the government, but why not scare the political class and show them that the citizens are not there just to collect taxes from? And if you lose once, so what? Why should it be the end of everything?

But surveying the tweets, message boards, blogs, and comments on the blogs, it does look like it's back in March/April 2011 again. The memes are "It's all due to stress, isn't it?", "We need nuclear power plants after all", and "If we lose the anti-nuke plant referendum, that's worse than doing nothing, so let's do nothing". "Nothing we can do now, the accident happened already." Ah the Noda administration has nothing to fear.

One of my teachers at my college was a French professor specializing in linguistics and in teaching Japanese to foreigners. He said the Japanese language pronunciation is one of the least "viscous" of all languages; as soon as the sound leaves one's lips, it falls off to the ground. It does not have a staying power. In contrast, the French language is very "viscous". The sound projects further forward. He was talking in terms of how to identify and learn the characteristics of a language so that one could learn faster.

But I think this nature of the Japanese language does shape how the Japanese people respond to events like a nuclear accident. No staying power. It is rather amazing that it lasted 10 months.

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Iran starts enriching uranium to 20 Percent, says IAEA

From RIA Novosti (1/10/2012):

The International Atomic Energy Agency officially confirmed that Iran has started enriching uranium to the 20-percent level, which can easily be turned into fissile warhead material.

"The IAEA can confirm that Iran has started the production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent using IR-1 centrifuges in the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant," the agency said in a statement.

However, IAEA Spokeswoman Gill Tudor said that all nuclear materials and operations in the Fordo facility are “under the Agency's containment and surveillance."

Iranian officials earlier said the Fordo plant, deep inside the mountains near the central Iranian city of Qom, was build to produce 20-percent uranium needed for a research reactor in Tehran, which produces medical isotopes to treat cancer patients.

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereydoon Abbasi said last August that Iranian authorities planned to transfer all enrichment facilities from a plant in Natanz to Fordo, citing insufficient security.

He also said Iran had no plans to enrich uranium to higher than 20 percent.

The news is likely to further increase tensions between Iran and the West over the country’s clandestine nuclear research. Western nations suspect Iran of pursuing a secret weapons program while Tehran says it needs nuclear research for peaceful energy purposes. Negotiations have been stalled for 12 months.

The IAEA statement has already triggered harsh statements from diplomats in the United States and Europe.

"This is a further escalation of their ongoing violations with regard to their nuclear obligations," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

"The fact that the IAEA has made clear that they are enriching to a level that is inappropriate at Fordo is obviously a problem," she went on.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague described the move as "a provocative act that undermines claims that the program is civilian in nature."

The German foreign ministry expressed hope that the European Union will agree on a fresh round of sanctions against Iran during a meeting on January 30, because the start of operations at Fordo was “a step of further escalation.”

“With it, the international community’s concern that the Iranian nuclear program is serving military purposes is growing,” the ministry said in a statement. “So long as Iran does not move, there is no alternative to tough sanctions,” the statement said.

The IAEA's chief Yukiya Amano, a Japanese career bureaucrat from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, got his job as the head of the IAEA in December 2009 after he spoke with the US ambassador and told him he was "was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program", according to Wikileaks. (From Wikipedia entry on Amano)

As Zero Hedge points out (1/9/2011),

At this point it is quite obvious that virtually everyone involved in the US-Israel-Iran hate triangle is just itching for someone else to pull the trigger. And the latest report out of the IAEA will only precipitate this. Who - remember the IAEA? The same IAEA which did not find nukes in Iraq in 2003 only to be overriden by Dick "WMD" Cheney to "justify" an invasion.

and

Finally, to anyone assuming China (and Russia) will sit idly by and wait as its marginal oil producer is subsumed by the west, even as it is now expected to overtake the US in oil imports in under 2 years, we have for sale a 5th lien on a reverse Chinese IPO of a company building bridges to non-existing timberlands.

(5th lien... Hehehe...)

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Dead Whale? Floating in Tokyo Bay

The Japan Coast Guard isn't sure what it is but it may be a whale. Mainichi Shinbun (1/10/2012) says it was found floating near the Aomi Container Wharf in Koto-ku. The wharf is right across from the landfill where the Tokyo Metropolitan government has been dumping the radioactive ashes from the incinerators and radioactive debris from Iwate and Miyagi. (No correlation expressed or implied.)

Some Japanese are getting nervous, not because of radiation but because the March 11, 2011 earthquake was preceded by beaching of whales.

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Noda Administration to Restrict Freedom of Assembly in "National Emergency" from Influenza

From Yomiuri Shinbun (1/10/2012):

政府は、強い毒性と感染力を持つ新型インフルエンザの流行に備えた特別措置法を制定する方針を固めた。

The Japanese government has decided to enact a special measures law in preparation for a new influenza epidemic with high toxicity and infectivity.

強毒性の新型インフル流行時に政府が「緊急事態」を宣言した場合、国民に外出自粛要請や集会中止を指示するなど、強制力を持った措置を取れるようにするのが柱だ。感染拡大や社会の混乱防止を「国家の危機管理」と位置づけるもので、緊急事態法制の新たな取り組みといえそうだ。政府は、通常国会に特措法案を提出し、成立を図る。

The main point of the new law will be the enforcement power given to the national government in an epidemic of a new virulent influenza. If the government declares "a state of emergency", the government can implement the voluntary ban on leaving home and order the cancellation of assembly. Under the new law, the government will define the preventive measures against the spread of infection and the social disorder as "national crisis management". It will be a new effort under the legal framework for the state of emergency. The government will submit the special measures law in the ordinary session of the Diet, and plans to win approval.

　日本では、２００９年に新型インフルエンザが大流行したが、ウイルスは弱毒性で、症状は比較的軽い人が多かった。だが、強毒性が流行した場合は、社会的混乱も予想される。政府は、感染拡大や混乱を防ぐには法的根拠に基づく強制措置が必要と判断した。

In Japan, there was an epidemic of a new influenza in 2009, but the influenza was avirulent and the symptoms were relatively mild. However, if a virulent influenza spreads, a social disorder can be expected. Therefore, the government has decided that the legal enforcement [of measures] is necessary in order to prevent the spread of influenza and the social disorder.

What are they going to do? Sending the riot police to disperse people when the administration declares, true or false, a virulent new strain of influenza is on the loose?

This Yomiuri article is categorized as "politics", meaning it was written by a reporter in the politics division at Yomiuri Shinbun. In any newspaper, the politics division usually has the most clout within the paper, an "elite" division compared to the "3rd page" society division or the science division, for example. They do not necessarily know the scientific or legal implications behind what they are writing.

Right now, probably more people than are comfortable to the government officials are gathering in all sorts of places, from a tent village near the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to a citizens' workshop to learn about nuclear reactor stress test in Europe. Or the spontaneous gathering on December 19, 2011 of people who were against the administration's policies ready to shout down the prime minister who turned around and head home on the news of the death of the North Korean dear leader.

Fast and furious. Preemptive strike of some sort, using an influenza epidemic/pandemic threat. (You can call me paranoid.)

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A Worker Suffers Cardiopulmonary Arrest at Fukushima I Nuke Plant, Cause Unknown, TEPCO Says

A worker in his 60s from an affiliate company suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest (CPA) at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant on January 9, 2012 and was taken to a hospital in Iwaki City.

From Mainichi Shinbun (1/9/2011):

東京電力は９日、福島第１原発で作業をしていた協力企業社員の６０代男性が作業中に倒れて意識を失い、心肺停止状態になったと発表した。この日の被ばく線量は５２マイクロシーベルトだった。原発での作業に携わった期間や、これまでの累積被ばく線量は確認中という。

TEPCO announced on January 9 that a worker in his 60s from an affiliate company working at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant lost consciousness and collapsed while he was working, and suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest. His radiation exposure for the day was 52 microsieverts. No immediate information from TEPCO as to how long he has worked at the plant or what his cumulative radiation exposure is.

　男性は同日朝から、原子炉冷却によって生じる汚染水処理で出た放射性物質の貯蔵タンク製造のため、コンクリートを流し込む作業をしていた。午後２時２０分ごろ体調不良を訴え、同原発内の医療室で医師の治療を受けたが、回復しないため同４時半ごろ福島県いわき市内の病院へ搬送された。同原発ではこれまでに３人の作業員が病気などで亡くなっている。

The worker was doing the concrete pour for the storage tank to store the radioactive materials from the contaminated water treatment since the morning of January 9. He fell ill at about 2:20PM, and was treated by a doctor at the medical room at the plant but he didn't respond to the treatment. At 4:30PM he was transported to a hospital in Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture. So far, three workers died of illnesses at the plant.

None of the "illnesses" has anything to do with radiation or with working at Fuku I, according to TEPCO.

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Just In: Japanese Expert Says Fukushima II (not I) Nuke Plant's Containment Vessel Has Been Damaged by the Quake

Information from Iwakami Yasumi's USTREAM channel netcasting the workshop of an Osaka citizens' group "Kansai network to stop the disaster-debris acceptance" with a panel of experts including European experts.

One Japanese expert, Hiromitsu Ino, said a Containment Vessel at Fukushima II (Daini) is broken, and they are trying to repair it. It was probably caused by the earthquake, not tsunami.

The workshop is on-going at this link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iwj-osaka1#utm_campaign=t.co&utm_source=8481429&utm_medium=social

Hiromitsu Ino is professor emeritus at Tokyo University. His area of specialty is metallic materials science. He is the head of the Group of Concerned Scientists and Engineers Calling for the Closure of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.

I still remember a tweet last summer (I think) saying an acquaintance fleeing from the area near Fukushima II Nuke Plant right after the earthquake saw a smoke coming out of one of the reactor buildings (there are 4). Fukushima II, unlike Fukushima I, has 4 Mark-II type boiling water reactors built by Toshiba and Hitachi.

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Free Medical Care for Children inside Fukushima Prefecture May Be Offered

as a means to halt the population decrease in Fukushima Prefecture. In other words, free medical care for children is offered as an incentive for the residents to stay put instead of moving out of Fukushima to escape high radiation contamination. It is being demanded by the Fukushima prefectural government.

Why is Fukushima demanding it? Because the population decrease means less subsidy money coming from the national government, which is based on the population. Less money, less power.

Even then, the national government balks at the potential cost for free medical care in Fukushima as too high.

How much money are they talking about? 10 billion yen (US$130 million) per year.

For your reference, Japan's special budget for energy (nuclear, practically) development is about 340 billion yen (US$4.4 billion) per year, whose funding comes from about 110 yen per month surcharge per account on electrical bills for the consumers. (If you read Japanese, here's Tokyo Shinbun's article on this special budget, 9/30/2011, saying half the money goes to organizations set up specifically to receive the retiring bureaucrats and politicians - amakudari, or "descending from heaven".)

This offer is not extended to children who are now out of Fukushima, or to children residing in other prefectures in Tohoku and Kanto regions with high radiation hot spots and significant radiation contamination.

From Asahi Shinbun Digital Version (1/9/2012):

野田佳彦首相は８日、東京電力福島第一原発事故の「収束宣言」をしてから初めて福島県を訪れた。首相は、県内の１８歳以下の医療費無料化について「大変重要な課題と受け止めさせていただいた」と、検討する考えを記者団に表明。政権内で調整していく方針だ。

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda visited Fukushima Prefecture on January 8 for the first time since he declared the end of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. Concerning the free medical care for anyone under the age of 18 in the prefecture, the prime minister said, "I take it as a very important task", indicating to the press corp that he may consider examining the issue. It will be coordinated within the administration.

　１８歳以下の医療費無料化は、福島県が求めている。放射線被曝（ひばく）への懸念から子どもが県外に避難しているため、人口の流出を防ぐねらいがある。この日、野田首相と会談した佐藤雄平県知事が改めて要請した。

Free medical care for people under the age of 18 is demanded by the Fukushima prefectural government. Since many children have evacuated from Fukushima for the radiation exposure concern, the plan is aimed at halting the population decrease. Governor Yuhei Sato, who met with Prime Minister Noda on January 8, pressed for the plan again.

　経費は年間１００億円弱と試算。だが、政府の復興対策本部は「線引きが難しく、風邪なども含めれば財政負担も多額になる」（幹部）と否定的だ。８日の福島復興再生協議会で、首相は「政府内にもいろいろな意見がある。難しい問題だ」とも述べたという。

The cost is estimated to be slightly less than 10 billion yen per year. However, the executive staff of the reconstruction headquarters of the national government are negative on the idea, saying "It's hard to draw a line. If illnesses like common cold are included, the fiscal burden [to the national government] would be [too] large." In the meeting of the Council for Fukushima Reconstruction on January 8, the prime minister was heard saying, "There are various opinions within the government. It is a difficult problem."

Ah, Sir Humphrey Appleby. Noda will consider considering the plan. When someone presses him a few weeks later, he will say it is a difficult problem that needs more time. A month later if someone still asks, he will say he will consider setting up an expert committee to consider it. When someone else asks him a few months later, he will say since it is so important, he will consider asking the experts to consider setting up an expert committee to consider it, and so on.

It is amusing if people's health and lives aren't at stake.

Even the scheming mayor of Futaba-machi, where Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant is located, is frustrated with the non-response from the Noda government. During the Council meeting, he said directly to Prime Minister Noda, "Do you consider us the residents of Futaba-machi as Japanese citizens?" according to Yomiuri Shinbun (1/9/2012).

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Was US Air Force WC135W "Constant Phoenix" on a Mission Somewhere In or Around Japan?

(UPDATE: The person who tweeted the tweet below says the Katena base has one WC135C, and a WC135W flew in on January 7. He speculates they may be deployed to monitor the Chinese nuclear testing later this month.)

---------------------------------------------------------

The information is unconfirmed.

The WC135 Constant Phoenix is "is a special purpose aircraft derived from the Boeing C-135 and used by the United States Air Force. Its mission is to collect samples from the atmosphere for the purpose of detecting and identifying nuclear explosions." (Wiki)

There's a chatter on Twitter in Japan that one of the WC135W Constant Phoenix flew in on January 7, 2012 and landed on the Kadena US Air Base in Okinawa Prefecture.

This tweet says:

米空軍で２機しか保有していない大気中の放射性物質を採取する大気観測機ＷＣ１３５Ｗ（コンタクト・フェニックス）が７日、嘉手納に飛来。って・・・これだったのか

The WC135W (Contact [sic] Phoenix) flew in to Kadena on January 7. The US Air Force owns only 2 WC135W. Was that about this?

By "this", he refers to the site that has the air radiation level measurement around Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

However, on checking the Kadena Air Base website, I find that one WC135 is stationed in Kadena, and operates out of Kadena.

So, I would take the tweet above to mean that the Constant Phoenix came back to the base from a mission to collect atmospheric samples for radiation somewhere. It could be Fukushima, where a spike in radioactive cesium fallout was measured on January 2, it could be North Korea which looks precarious under the new "dear leader", or could be Pakistan, or further afield.

From Wiki:

The WC135 Constant Phoenix is "is a special purpose aircraft derived from the Boeing C-135 and used by the United States Air Force. Its mission is to collect samples from the atmosphere for the purpose of detecting and identifying nuclear explosions. It is also informally referred to as the "weather bird" or "the sniffer" by workers on the program."

The WC-135W (tail number 61-2667) is a modified C-135B. The WC-135C (tail number 62-3582) is an extensively modified former EC-135C Looking Glass aircraft. The Constant Phoenix’s modifications are primarily related to the aircraft's on-board atmospheric collection suite, which allows the mission crew to detect radioactive debris "clouds" in real time. The aircraft is equipped with external flow-through devices to collect particulates on filter paper and a compressor system for whole air samples collected in high-pressure holding spheres.

The interior seats 33 people, including the cockpit crew, maintenance personnel, and special equipment operators from the Air Force Technical Applications Center. On operational sorties, the crew is minimized to just pilots, navigator, and special equipment operators, to reduce radiation exposure to mission-essential personnel only.

The Constant Phoenix WC-135 aircraft serves as an aerial collection platform for the Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) at Patrick AFB, Florida, supporting the detection and identification of debris from nuclear weapons detonations. Two Constant Phoenix aircraft, a WC-135W (AF Serial Number 61-2667) and a WC-135C (AF Serial Number 62-3582) are currently assigned to the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron, 55th Wing at Offutt AFB, Nebraska. This mission was previously conducted by a WC-135W, AF Serial Number 61-2665, which was retired in September 1996. Previously, as many as ten WC-135B weather reconnaissance airplanes flew in support of weather analysis, nuclear detection, and other scientific research.

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