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Trying to get 10 million signatures opposing nuclear power and a 3-11-2012 national march in Japan sayonara-nukes.org

TEPCO now injecting nitrogen direct to reactor pressure vessels at No. 1 and No. 2 Fukushima Daiichi plants at 28 and 26 m³/hr respectively
via Twitter - atomicnews

Remember, the very first nuclear power plants on earth were in Hanford, and were built explicitly to produce plutonium. They did not contribute electrical power to the civilian grid.

The US military is always planning decades, or even longer, into the future. Hence all of the current work on weaponizing insects. That won't pan out for years, but the contracts are there. In their imagination about how the US remains a dominant global power for millennium, a steady supply of plutonium under your own control is elemental (sorry). They can imagine scenarios in which they are denied access to this stockpile, from terror, from espionage, etc...

@bo I suppose then having a network of civilian reactors around a country creates that redundancy if one gets taken out. Though that just sounds like total insanity.

Towns avoid governmental help for decontamination because of fear that would lead to stigma: www.yomiuri.co.jp

An email from a professor at Sophia contains some fascinating points:

H-Japan
November 29, 2011


Online Editor: David Wittner <dwittner@utica.edu>


Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:01:26 +0900
From: David H. Slater <dhslater@gmail.com>
Subject: Levels of contamination: kegare in official designations,
in community activism, in young bodies

As the process of decontamination in Tohoku gets going, we see a range of
often chilling representations and bad options, pollution and risk
everywhere. "Contamination" today goes beyond the early reports of
avoidance behavior and school bullying. Fear of this stigmatization is
forcing some townships to forgo governmental relief and retarding local
protest efforts. These fears and choices are being played out in
municipalities, communities and individual images of life course.


Municipality Funding

In yesterday's Yomiuri there was an article about municipalities that have
refused governmental help with the decontamination processes for fear of
stigmatization. '"If the government designates our city [as subject to
intensive investigation of radiation contamination], the entire city will
be seen as contaminated. We decided to avoid such a risk," a senior
municipal government official said. Another official is quoted: "If our
town receives the designation, it may deliver a further blow to our image,
already damaged by radiation fears." This, despite the fact these townships have already received excessive radiation measurements. Usually, the townships are afraid of hurting tourism or exports of agricultural
products, but often the cost of decontamination is too high for them to pay
themselves. Here is the English version of the article:
www.yomiuri.co.jp



In Community Activism

In a set of interviews that I have been doing among Fukushima women
anti-nuke activists, one explained that it was very hard to enlist other
women from her community for similar reasons. "It is sort of crazy--even
though these women are afraid of radiation, and even though they actually
know that areas all around [their children's school] have high radiation,
they do not want to say anything.... because they are afraid of the being
singled out." This activist was frustrated with the other mothers, angry
because their reluctance to say anything weakened the voice of the
community in taking a unified position. She also understood their
reluctance, albeit with some impatience. "I know, I know. If you object,
then you are also bringing attention to yourself and maybe worse, to your
community, as dirty, as full of radiation. I know that story." But she
said, "If we do not say anything, are we really protecting our community or even our families?" Later in a more reflective moment in the interview,
when she was acknowledging the ambiguous progress that activism has made,
she said "We mothers know that activism might puts these ideas into other
people's heads sometimes, and this might hurt us, mark us, for years. It is
a hard situation, knowing what to do."


In Young Bodies

In my class on oral narrative of disaster, one group of my students at
Sophia U. is interviewing another group of college students from Fukushima
University, old high school friends now separated by radiation. The result
is alarmingly direct, intimate interviews. (Besides being gifted
interviewers, they are also of the same age, which seems to be important.)
In one interview, a Fukushima college student addressed her own fears in a
way that frightened my students. She resents those who call it the
"Fukushima" disaster, marking everyone who lives in the prefecture. And
yet, she also called herself contaminated, using the work *kegare*, a
Shinto term meaning unclean, impure, defiled. She wondered, seemingly more to herself than to the interviewers, if she would ever marry or have
children, knowing that this is how she will be thought of, knowing this is
how she thinks about herself. Then she snapped out of it to explain the
many active and constructive programs and events that the young people in
her college relief and support club were doing, how they were looking ahead
(*mae muki*) to a fresh start to the next year.


Not knowing how far to push this religious connection, my understanding is
that usually *kegare* is the result of natural occurring contamination,
unlike *tsumi*, which is more the result of human transgression. If
radiation were considered *tsumi* would there be some transgressive agent
who might be held responsible (Tepco)? In either case, is purification
possible? If so, does it coincide with the on-going decontamination
procedures? In any case, radiation is not just science nor just ritual
pollution, but because now it involves official government designation and
the transfer of funds (or not), these labels have consequences beyond the
reports of random discrimination that occurred almost as soon as people
began to evacuate. By linking contamination to official nomenclature and
funding schemes, marks of contamination might last far longer than the
excessive levels of radiation.

--
David H. Slater
Sophia U.

********************************************************
TO POST A MESSAGE TO THE H-JAPAN LIST
SEND MAIL TO
h-japan@h-net.msu.edu
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Official in Date City, Fukushima: "Residents Here Think They are the Victims of Accident Caused by TEPCO"

An official from Date City explained the situation in the city, saying "Even when we explain how to decontaminate to the residents of the city, they have this victim mentality of "TEPCO should do it", and they don't cooperate readily."

ex-skf.blogspot.com

Sorry, was at lunch. I know, always some excuse. I can email the author of the article and ask him for his content to have it used in an article, and also ask if he would like to connect to our humble community. I have seen emails from him on this list before, and by the way, anyone can subscribe to this list. I'll post the access info in a minute, and will email him today.

@bo cool thanks!

Now for my excuse - off to bed! :-)

Melted nuclear fuel eroded reactor container by up to 65 cm: TEPCO

TOKYO, Nov. 30, Kyodo english.kyodonews.jp

Japan's nuclear accords with 4 countries due to clear parliament

TOKYO, Nov. 30, Kyodo

Japan's bilateral civil nuclear cooperation accords with Jordan, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam could take effect in December, with Diet deliberations on them beginning Wednesday despite public concerns about exporting atomic technology in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

The accords, which will lay the legal foundations for Japanese companies to supply nuclear equipment and technology to other countries, are expected to be approved by the House of Representatives on Dec. 2, lawmakers said.

If all goes smoothly, they will come into force next year after also being approved by the House of Councillors during the current parliament session, which ends Dec. 9 unless extended. english.kyodonews.jp

@lillymunster very cool,our subscription ! :)

Fukushima recovery plan will seek scrapping of every reactor in pref.

FUKUSHIMA, Japan, Nov. 30, Kyodo

The Fukushima prefectural government will call for the decommissioning of all 10 reactors in the prefecture in its reconstruction plan to be compiled by the year-end, following the nuclear disaster triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Gov. Yuhei Sato said Wednesday.

The policy is in line with a petition adopted by the prefectural assembly in October, and seeks to have the six reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi plant and the four reactors at its Fukushima Daini plant nearby scrapped in the wake of the crisis at the Daiichi plant.

In an outline of the recovery plan, the prefectural government had already declared its policy of breaking away from nuclear power.

Sato has said he took the assembly's move seriously and it would be ''impossible'' to resume operations at the two plants.

Of the six reactor units at the Daiichi plant, the operator known as TEPCO and the central government have decided to decommission four troubled reactors. But they have yet to say whether the remaining two reactors at the Daiichi plant and the four at the Daini plant will be decommissioned.

==Kyodo english.kyodonews.jp

the nhk article is very different from the kyodo one.

this cannot be correct. this is a bunch of desinformation. what do they mean with 65 cm erosion ? the containment bottom ? it is only 37 cm thick ??? that means china syndrome. or what ?

i hope we get better info on this.

Those containments should be 1m thick with steel liner. The bottom has concrete poured into the curve to provide a flat surface for the pedestal and other equipment, worker access etc. It also doesn't say HOW they came to this conclusion. I think that is more important than the statement of how much they think eroded is how they came to that conclusion.

What I think this is, is warming people up for more bad news. TEPCO ordered some special cameras from a Swedish firm. The company has all of their corporate and product information behind a login so they must make something rather interesting. So I would not be surprised if they started some sort of drilling to send in cameras ala Chernobyl.