It has been almost 18 months since the disastrous meltdowns struck four nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant in northern Japan. While daily news footage of exploding reactor buildings, emergency workers dressed like spacemen, and officials sweeping radiation detectors over children's bodies have disappeared, the impact of Fukushima continues.
While the Fukushima story is no longer a page-one news story, people must still be aware of how incredibly devastating the meltdowns were. This was no minor leak, but one of the two worst atomic meltdowns in history (Chernobyl was the other). Earlier meltdowns involved damage to just one reactor core; Fukushima destroyed three. Previous meltdowns never affected nuclear waste pools, but the Fukushima unit 4 pool sustained extensive damage and huge leaks. Other meltdowns contaminated the reactor's water source, usually a river; Fukushima poured its toxic chemicals into the Pacific, the world's largest ocean.
The question of how much radioactivity escaped into the air and water is an elusive question; estimates range between 20% and 300% of the Chernobyl amount. Likewise, we're still finding out how much of the radioactive gases and particles entered the air, water, and food. Measurements documenting extremely high levels have been taken near the Fukushima plant, an area evacuated by residents. But elevated radiation levels have been found in other parts of Japan. Because it took about six days for the radioactive plume to reach the West Coast and 18 days to circle the Northern Hemisphere, above-normal levels were also found in the U.S. and other nations, months after the meltdowns.
Of course, the most critical Fukushima questions involve harm to humans. How many workers at the plant became sick? How many local residents? How many living further away in Japan? Did infants and young children suffer more than adults? What types of diseases did they suffer from? But the biggest questions have generated the biggest silence. Thus far, there have been no official reports or publicly-announced data from Japanese health authorities on changes in disease and death rates after the meltdowns.
Buried in the many documents the Japanese health ministry places on its website is the monthly estimate of deaths. During the 12 months following Fukushima, the number of deaths for all of Japan jumped 57,900 above than the prior year. About 19,200 were additional deaths from accidents, almost all from the immediate impact of the earthquake and tsunami, but that left 38,700 excess deaths from other causes -- with no immediate explanation. While all of these cannot automatically be attributed to radiation exposure, they should be taken seriously and become the subject of extensive health studies.
Aside from the changes in health, Fukushima has also had a major impact on public policy. Within days of the meltdowns, Germany shut some reactors, four of them permanently; the Merkel government then announced a plan to phase out all remaining reactors by 2022. Belgium and Switzerland soon followed with similar phase-out plans. Italy, which has no operating reactors, placed a moratorium on plans to build new ones. Newly-elected French president Hollande campaigned on a pledge to drop the percent of French electricity from nuclear power from 75% to 50% by 2030.
But the biggest development has taken place in Japan, a nation that has now experienced atomic disasters from weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, and from the reactor meltdowns at Fukushima. Polls show the large majority of Japanese are fed up with nuclear power. They have taken to the streets in massive demonstrations, and have petitioned the government in Tokyo to close the country's 54 reactors.
The power of popular will, on top of the carnage at Fukushima, prompted new policies. The government shelved plans to build new reactors and gradually closed existing reactors for safety inspections, tests, and upgrades. Three months after Fukushima, the number of operating reactors had fallen from 54 to 17; by the end of 2011 it dropped to six; and for two months this spring all reactors were closed (two have since re-started). Industry and government officials view these shutdowns as temporary, even though many citizens continue to demand that they never restart.
Thus, in 2012, Japan has been operating with only a tiny fraction of the nuclear power it generated before Fukushima. No other country has ever made such a radical departure. Many would have thought it impossible just 18 months ago.
To help cover the electricity gap, Japan increased its usage of oil, coal, and natural gas, much of it imported. The approach of summer, when consumption of electricity is greatest, led public officials to set goals for less consumption.
With summer soon ending, fears that Japan couldn't function without nuclear power during summer periods of heaviest electricity demand are being proven unfounded. In Tokyo, and throughout densely populated southern Japan, July and August temperatures have been hotter than normal. But there have been no reports of massive blackouts -- even with only 0 or 2 reactors operating.
Oil, coal, and natural gas pose environmental health concerns, largely from greenhouse gas emissions. However, a Japanese environment ministry panel recognizes increased use of these sources is temporary. It will take years to build up the country's supply of safe, renewable power from sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass. Still, the panel reports that by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced to 25% below 1990 levels, with up to 35% of electricity generated from non-polluting renewable sources. These projections assume no nuclear power will be used.
Dire predictions of what would happen to the Japanese economy without restarting reactors haven't held up. Just before the New Year, the Japanese Institute of Energy Economics released an analysis that declared there would be virtually no growth in gross domestic product (+0.1%) during 2012 if reactors stayed closed. But in the first and second quarters of the year, the Japanese GDP grew +5.5% and +1.4%, even with most reactors shuttered.
With the Japanese electric needs met and with its economy functioning without nuclear power, health hazards play the major role in any decision to restart Japanese reactors. It will probably take many years for the true casualty numbers to emerge; for years, the party line held that only 31 emergency workers died from Chernobyl. The idea that casualties were small was shattered by a 2009 book by a team headed by Russian researchers, published by the New York Academy of Sciences and based on 5,000 reports and articles. It estimated that 985,000 persons had died from Chernobyl exposures by 2004, with more to come. The eventual toll from Fukushima will likely be on the same order of magnitude.
Many developed nations are functioning without reactors, including Albania, Austria, Australia, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Norway, Poland, and Portugal. Nineteen U.S. states have no operating power reactors. And now Japan is doing the same. Nuclear power does not, as some contend, have to be part of the electricity future. The extremely painful lesson of the Fukushima tragedy is that Japan can emerge from it, without continuing to subject its people to the terrible dangers of atomic power.
Samuel Epstein, MD, is professor emeritus of Environment and Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health and Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition. Epstein is author of the 2005 Cancer-Gate: How to Win the Losing Cancer War and the 2009 Healthy Beauty books.
Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, is executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project in New York. Mangano is author of Radioactive Baby Teeth: The Cancer Link.
By Adam Westlake / September 5, 2012
The Japanese government released an estimate on Tuesday that in order to completely end the country’s use of nuclear power by the year 2030, it would take an investment of 50 trillion yen (approx. $637.4 billion) in renewable energies. This information was presented at meeting to determine Japan’s future energy policy, and what it would take to go nuclear-free. Motohisa Furukawa, the national policy minister was in attendance, along with other member’s of Prime Minister Noda’s Cabinet, who said the final details of the new energy plan should be completed by next week.
Among the other true costs of phasing out nuclear power by 2030 include a near doubling of household’s monthly energy bills, from the 16,900 yen ($215) in 2010, to an average of 32,243 yen ($411).
http://japandailypress.com/japanese-government-says-637-billion-needed-to-end-nuclear-power-0511200
Doug Casey Uncovers the Real Price of Peak Oil
Source: Karen Roche of The Energy Report (8/24/12)
Speaking of concentrated types of energies, you have called nuclear the safest, cheapest and cleanest form of mass power generation, yet we still haven't seen the uranium price return. What's your view on the future of uranium?
DC: I have to be bullish simply because of reality. It really is the safest, cheapest and cleanest form of mass power, but unfortunately it's also the object of mass political hysteria. Many misinformed but well-funded non-governmental organizations simply hate uranium, for purely ideological reasons.
Actually, thorium would be an even better form of nuclear power than uranium.
Nuke power is more expensive than rooftop solar twice wind and wastes.
Nuke power leads to civilization ending proliferation.
But it makes trillions of dollars, so their are plenty of well paid trolls trying to convince you that nukes are cheap and safe.
Rooftop solar and offshore wind charging our commuter electric cares and backed up by waste energy and bio fuels is a complete system,. 24/7, forever, clean safe, cheaper than nukes or clean coal or wars for oil.
David Ropeik on March 5, 2012, 12:34 PM
Scarier, by far, than the evidence tells us the risk of radiation from a nuclear meltdown actually is. The problem, and the reason why this matters, is that fear is dangerous all by itself.
Public health officials are already seeing the same health pattern in Japan that followed Chernobyl, where a 20 year review of the health effects of that disaster by the World Health Organization found that fear did way more harm than the radiation itself. Beyond the profound psychological costs of this fear, chronic worry, even low-grade worry, causes stress, which raises the likelihood and severity of cardiovascular problems, depression, diabetes, and infectious disease, since stress weakens the immune system. In fact, a weakened immune system makes it more likely you’ll get cancer, or have a worse outcome if you develop cancer.
http://bigthink.com/risk-reason-and-reality/lessons-from-the-excessive-fear-of-fukushima?page=2
Sirs,
Don't you realize your statistical representation without uncertainty quantification is just pure folly?
I have read the Mangano paper on the 14,000 and I just need to understand why do you believe that number is valid when the models used to derive that number are invalid for the range of doses you consider?
Also, have you reconciled your analysis to Dr. Richard Wilson at Harvard?
http://www.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/publications/pp470.pdf
I would opine that your methods suit those that fund your work. Who pray tell, funds your work?
The Yomiuri Shimbun
It is irresponsible for a Cabinet minister in charge of promoting exports of nuclear power plants as part of Japan's growth strategy to state that the nation's ratio of nuclear power generation to total electricity output should become zero as soon as possible.
Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano recently visited Vietnam, where Japanese firms have won tentative orders to construct nuclear reactors, and signed an agreement with the Vietnamese government under which Japan would cooperate to create a system necessary for the introduction of nuclear plants.
Edano told the media Japan has a responsibility to contribute to the international community by disseminating nuclear safety technology abroad.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/editorial/T120820002753.htm
solar wind electric cars and waste are more than enough to replace fossils an nukes, forever, cheaper, 24/7, and safe.
By William Tucker
Muller points out the most obvious thing about radiation – it is everywhere and the minor amounts that are the residue of Fukushima are well within the range of variations throughout the world. He uses the example of Denver, where high altitude and proximity to the uranium-laden Rocky Mountains produce radiation exposure that is twice the background level of most other parts of the U.S. and 50 percent higher than what we generally receive from all sources, natural and medical. Applying the “no safe dose” hypothesis – the favorite tool of radiation fear-mongers –would mean that cancer rates in Denver should be higher than the rest of the United States. Yet they are distinctly lower.
http://www.nucleartownhall.com/blog/william-tucker-at-last-some-common-sense-on-fukushima/
6M people have already died from world nuclear power.
But you want more.
Trillions of dollars are at state for the nuke companies, but they claim it's those nasty university and the EPA that are out to get them
wake up folks.
I am thrilled to be able to express my thanks to you for your tireless work on educating the world on the dangers of radiation and toxins in food and cosmetics and cancer.
Thank you for your courage in telling the truth all these years.
I am a huge admirer of you and your books. Your books are a wealth of important information that should be read by everyone.
IMO, you are one of the "good guys" and a true humanitarian who cares about his "fellow man."
Thank you again, sir.
http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120809/srep00570/full/srep00570.html
In plain English, this is what the study says:
1) Butterflies collected in after Fukushima in May 2011 had relatively mild abnormalities
2) Offspring of these Fukushima-exposed butterflies had more severe abnormalities even after they were bred in a non-irradiated environment, as did ones collected from the contaminated areas in Sept 2011.
3) Similar results were reproduced applying external and internal radiation to previously non-irradiated butterflies.
This is a well-known and thoroughly studied butterfly and is considered an indicator species.
Here is what the BBC article on this study says: "...that the mutations to the butterflies' genetic material was still affecting the insects, even after the residual radiation in the environment had decayed away."
Add to this that internal cesium contamination was found in some people in Japan:
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/radiation-health-whats-new/2012/8/17/deception-in-sieverts-how-a-measure-of-radiation-damage-can.html (click through)
And the thyroid abnormalities in children post Fukushima:
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/children-health/2012/8/8/proof-enough-thyroid-abnormalities-in-children-after-fukushi.html (click through)
And we can see that those who support nuclear will have difficulty sweeping Fukushima under the rug. Hence the reactions to this article.
1) poor stats - sample size for female adult abnormalities=5, a statistically insignificant
2) poor data analysis - no clear correlation between first generation off-spring and radiation dose rates yet authors make unsubstantiated conclusions that there is a correlation.
3) no natural background radiation baseline - every location has natural background radiation, why didn't the authors account for this?
4) Motomiya, located 58.8 km from Fukushima, had roughly 3 times the radiation dose rate as compared to the Fukushima samples but had no abnormalities out of the butterflies collected in May?
5) Selected data for predetermined conclusions - Why didn't they discuss data that showed evidence contradicting their conclusions?
6) no correlation between increased dose rate and higher abnormalities in the F1 samples. The data appears to be random.
7) By the authors own admission, their data does not correlate to radiation levels: "the half-eclosion time and half-pupation time were correlated with the distance from the NPP but not with the ground radiation dose (data not shown)". This statement negates their other results saying there is a correlation.
8) Inconsistent data manipulation - the authors average/separate data that only support their conclusions.
9) No other confounders were accounted for - what about the effect from the tsunami itself, chemicals/other pollutants?
http://nucleardiner.com/archive/item/radioactive-mutant-butterflies-really
As to the rest of your points:
Radiation is sufficient to cause the damage we see in the wild butterflies and their subsequent generations. The researchers reproduced the same effects in the lab in butterflies not exposed to Fukushima radiation.
Other unidentified chemicals are NOT necessary to cause the effects we see. This is most likely a misdirection, as is the claim of an unidentified leukemia virus to explain the higher childhood leukemias around nuclear facilities.
Background radiation isn’t the issue. Background MUTATION is. “It is noteworthy that we obtained relatively high abnormality rates for the F1 populations from Motomiya, the parents of which showed no detectable abnormal phenotype.”
“In the F1 generation [the] …overall abnormality rate of the F1 adults was 18.3% [F2 was 33.5% 1.5 times the overall abnormality rate of the parent generation.” AND
“Although our mating system is nearly always successful and yields more than 100 offspring per female if both males and females are fertile, 3 females out of 10 produced only a limited number of offspring, i.e., less than 2 adult offspring.”
Yes, some sample numbers may be small, but the trajectory is incredibly disturbing.
An increase in genetic mutation and a decrease in reproductive viability? These are the hallmarks of radiation exposure to all but nuclear proponents.
...this is the only document which looks scientific and appears to support the wild claims made by greens about Chernobyl.
A devastating review in the journal Radiation Protection Dosimetry points out that the book achieves its figure by the remarkable method of assuming that all increased deaths from a wide range of diseases – including many which have no known association with radiation – were caused by the accident(15). There is no basis for this assumption, not least because screening in many countries improved dramatically after the disaster and, since 1986, there have been massive changes in the former eastern bloc. The study makes no attempt to correlate exposure to radiation with the incidence of disease(16).
Its publication seems to have arisen from a confusion about whether the Annals was a book publisher or a scientific journal. The academy has given me this statement: “In no sense did Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences or the New York Academy of Sciences commission this work; nor by its publication do we intend to independently validate the claims made in the translation or in the original publications cited in the work. The translated volume has not been peer-reviewed by the New York Academy of Sciences, or by anyone else.”(17)
http://www.monbiot.com/2011/04/04/evidence-meltdown/
the most toxic coal. Some of my German friends where totally stunned to see the dark smut
stained landscape of the East Bloc. As we have learned coal ash is radioactive and is toxic plus.
The toxic carcinogen soup thickens where it mutates is anybodies guess.
Enjoy.
Everyone know that Japan has a demographic problem of increasing numbers of old people, which can cause the death rate to increase. < http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CDRT.IN > The overall death rate is in the 1,270,000 per year range so his 38,000 number is down in the statistical noise range in a population that just had 20,000 physically killed by the earthquake and tsunami that displaced 590,000 people < http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0313/japan.html > -- just a little bit of stress being added that year.
For Dr. Epstein to make such an outrageous implications demonstrates that he is becoming even more foolish and self-deluded in his old age. He was always off the reservation in feeding his conformation bias, but this takes the cake.
Dr. Epstein is brilliant.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/rc00152.pdf
they are talking the difference between 15 and 25 mREM per year. That's .15 to .25 mSv. That's milli serverts.
The pro nuke nukes are claiming .1Sv is safe. The TPCO folks revised their estimate up by 100 times.
Guess what the difference is between the old REM and Seiverts it? 100 times.
They assumed, correctly, that most of use would see the old 100 milli somethings of radiation was the same as it ever was.
Nope.
The pro nuke forces have already increased the "safe" level 100 times and we did not notice.
"Taken together, the studies [epidemiological studies of high background radiation areas, up to five times above normal] may suggest that low-level radiation effects are either very small, or nonexistent."
p. 46, in a letter from the EPA:
"Both the EPA and the NRC use the LNT model." They go on to discuss how small the problem of groundwater contamination is at plants and how trivial the difference between 25 and 15 millirem is.
Read your sources before you submit them to make sure they don't refute your stance.
The limit for nuclear workers in America, such as myself, is 5 rem/yr to the whole body or 50 rem/yr to any specific organ or extremity, excluding the lens of the eye. We measure absolutely everything, down to the millirem. Where are your getting your 0.1Sv number? I find only that the limit in Japan for emergencies was 0.1Sv at one time (I'm not an expert on Japanese law; this might be wrong). That means you are allowed to go into an area and receive that dose only to save a life. Also remember that acute and chronic doses yield different effects.
I wish there were another forum we could talk in to clear up these matters and lay some sweet science on you without polluting this thread. Any suggestions? I'm willing to set up e-mails if you know a safe place to exchange them.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/18/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html
http://www.tokyotimes.com/post/en/1884/Japan+increases+radiation+exposure+limit+for+children.html
You could have searched for japan raises radiation exposure limit
Note, .1Sv was the safe level they were using.
That's 1000 times the 15 mREM the EPA and DOE were talking about.
I wouldn't expect much of a substantive response from Genders. She/He disregards science when it get in the way of her/his agenda to rid the world of all nuclear power.
This is the same assortment of unsubstaintiated allegations one might have seen here a year ago.
That you don't immediately know the reason for 37,800 mortalities, doesn't give you license to automatically imply any cause, not for even one. Asking a series of leading questions does not constitute an argument.
Your association with Mangano says it all, as does your repeating the absurd Chernobyl mortality claim; as does your assertion that the Japanese GDP grew 5.5% in a quarter for any reason.
Importing (and burning) fossil fuels is not any more sustainable now, than it was in 1941, than it was when Japan turned to nuclear power in the first place.
With all due respect, sir, this presentation is dishonest.
Chernobyl Deaths Top a Million Based on Real Evidence
http://nuclearfreeplanet.org/
http://www.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/publications/pp470.pdf
I acutally have Feynmans 3 volume lecture series. He was brilliant. I remember when the Challenger blew up. He had strong opinions being on that panel.
http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/challenger-appendix.html
Think though, if modern avionics were subject to the same level of scruitiny given to Fukushima, you would think no one would fly anymore.
However we fly all the time, and the real irony is that when you fly, you receive a radiatio dose. So there is a finite likelihood that you will get cancer when you fly.
You also know there is a finite probabilty of getting cancer just for sleeping next to someone right?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interact/facts.html
The FAA doesnt regulate the dose passengers receive. You think they should?
Joseph Mangano's Baby Tooth project is easily the least credible and most ridiculed study discussed among radiation scientists. Most of these scientists use it as an example of how not to do science. And yet he has the audacity to cite it here at the end of this article?
Incredible how removed from credible science that both Dr. Epstein and Mr. Mangano have been.
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Exposed Nearby City To Little Radiation
To find out how much radiation exposure these people have received, Japanese researchers measured levels of radioactive cesium in nearly 10,000 residents starting six months after the incident.
The researchers' study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that about a third of the residents had detectable levels of radiation.
But only one person appeared to have received a radiation dose higher than the maximum recommended by public health officials (the equivalent of about two mammograms). And levels in children were generally lower than in adults.
Another paper in the JAMA finds that discrimination and slurs were a major source of psychological distress for TEPCO employees.
The study of more than 1,700 workers found that hostile treatment after the disaster was a more powerful factor than witnessing an explosion at the plant or even having a near-death experience.
And as NPR's Richard Harris has reported, physicians in Japan don't generally treat mental health issues.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/08/14/158785822/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-exposed-nearby-city-to-little-radiation?ps=sh_sthdl
http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2012.9839
"Because this screening program started 6 months after the nuclear power plant disaster, higher exposure levels might have been detected earlier; it is not possible to ascertain whether the low levels of exposure were due to low ongoing exposure or decay from high exposure values. No information on individual exposure to environmental contaminants was available. Because data were collected from volunteers, the results may not be representative of the entire population in contaminated areas."
The largest dose rates are proportional to the source term, which the largest source term occurs at the onset of the accident. Decay of fission products takes a Way Wigner relationship of ~ t^-1.2 or some exponent greater than 1 but less than 2. So the fall off of fission products isnt as great over time as moving further away.
From inverse theory, one can look at the effect, then infer the source that caused that effect. Although the following link pertains to thermal radiation, the analog of Equation 1 to Boltzman transport equation (BTE) for radiation transport is apparent in the leakage flux term on the LHS, the interaction term in the integral, and the source term. Both equations can be solved using a quadrature yet the BTE has the extra component of angular scattering. If one assume isotropic, then the angular scattering reduces to two dimensions (azimuthal and axial) that can be approximated by the 4*pi distribution.
Thus the entire population can be modelled and the inverse method can be used to backtrack in time any exposure caused by that source in time.
So the method to construct (or reconstruct) doses and source term are there. There just isnt anyone around who has done it (or published it) yet.
http://144.206.159.178/ft/11513/867884/15144934.pdf