Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeda
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on an article from the February 8^th, 2016 edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspapers)

(▼Click the image to enlarge it.)

Almost five years have passed since the meltdown began at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). While the disaster and its aftermath are far from over, TEPCO is busy in some areas of Niigata Prefecture, some 150 miles NNW of central Tokyo. Why? The power company is striving to restart its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP, one of the NPPs with the greatest power generation capacity in the world.

— At the central control office of a NPP. Two red lamps turn on, saying “High earthquake acceleration” and “Reactor scram.” “Check it out,” shouts the manager. The NPP’s director issues a state of emergency at the NPP’s emergency office, the center of command in case of an accident. Outside the reactor building, workers are busy starting up emergency power supply equipment. Other workers connect hoses to fire trucks and start pumping water. The workers, nine in number, promise they will “be thoroughly trained to handle whatever situation might arise.” —

This is a description of a TV commercial run by TEPCO only in Niigata. It first went on the air in June 2015, and there are five versions of the commercial, including this “training version.” In short, the commercial claims that the power company is doing everything it can to restart the NPP safely. It goes on air some 240 times every month. This is rather exceptional in that TEPCO has not been releasing TV commercials since the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in the Kanto Region.

When the commercial began to circulate around Niigata, TEPCO’s employees were going around there as well – in Kashiwazaki City and Kariwa Village, two municipalities hosting the Kashiwazaki Kariwa NPP. “Please take a look at the safety measures we take at the NPP, and rest assured.” Those employees, 115 in number, took four months or so to visit almost every household in the two municipalities, some 40,000 in all.

What makes TEPCO so desperate to restart Kashiwazaki-Kariwa? It is obvious. Without this NPP in operation, the power company is unable to rebuild its business. The company claims that every reactor restarted saves the company spending on fuel and thus helps it improve its balance sheet by some 14 billion yen every month. TEPCO’s business rebuilding plan presupposes restarts of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s Units 6 and 7. Thus, the power company is in desperate need for consent to the restarts from the relevant municipalities.

The one holding the key to such local consent is the governor of Niigata Prefecture. The current governor, however, still distrusts TEPCO. His prefectural government has set up a technical (accident investigation) committee of nuclear experts, independent of its counterparts in the national Diet and government. The Niigata committee is investigating the Fukushima meltdown, independently of the national government.

Now, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, has five boiling water reactors (BWRs), the type installed at Fukushima Daiichi, and two advanced BWRs. Together, the seven can produce more than 8.21 kW of power each hour This is among the largest power generating capacities of NPPs across the world. In case a major accident hits such a gigantic reactor, the resulting hazards would be much worse than those of Fukushima Daiichi.

The governor of Niigata has a pet phrase: “I will never discuss a restart (of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa) unless the Fukushima disaster is fully examined and the examination comes to a conclusion.” In the fall of 2015, TEPCO, responding to a request from the Niigata committee, interviewed its former CEO and some 30 employees relevant to the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown, and reported the results to the committee. Still, the governor has not permitted a restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa.

Irritated by the governor’s reluctance to permit a restart, the national government is applying pressure to the prefectural government of Niigata – “permit a restart, or we’ll cut the national subsidy to Niigata.” (For further details on this, please read the article titled “RESTART THE NUCLEAR PLANT, OR —“, dated February 12 on this website.)

This coming fall, Niigata has a governor election. The municipal assemblies of Kashiwazaki and Kariwa already adopted a petition for an early restart of the NPP. So, how will TEPCO’s home-to-home operation affect the election? We will soon find out.

Shortly after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown, all the NPPs across Japan stopped operating. Though this brought some tension to the power supply, we have been doing without any serious power problem these five years.

With all the ten power companies of Japan combined, the peak power demand in summer 2015 diminished by approximately 13.5% from the summer of 2010, the year before the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown. Many businesses and households learned to save power, while supply increased from new power suppliers. The existing power companies, however, held on to their old NPP-dependent business model.

A NPP brings its operator more profits the longer the plant runs. Though a NPP requires a huge initial investment, its fuel, uranium, is less expensive than fossil fuels. Thus, its running cost is smaller than that of a typical thermal power plant. The three restarted reactors, namely Units 1 and 2 of the Sendai NPP and Unit 3 of Kansai Electric Power’s Takahama NPP (located in Fukui, some 40 miles north of Kyoto), are 30 years old, counting from the year when they first went into operation. The other 26 reactors for which an application for a restart permission has been submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) are 25 years old, on the average. These reactors are, in short, at the place where their operators are collecting returns for the initial investments. Those operators hope to make stable profits out of them. Though those operators made more than JPY2 trillion of investments in additional safety measures to their NPPs, they say their NPPs, if restarted, can make up for the 2 trillion yen. However, the NPP regulations established after the 2011 meltdown require more investments in equipment and safety measures than ever before, whether an operator builds a new NPP or extends an existing NPP’s life beyond the basic age for decommissioning, 40 years. Today, the world’s economy is slowing down and the crude oil price is coming down, bringing down the price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as well. Thus, currently, thermal power is becoming less and less costly and the NPPs’ advantage in lower running costs is only temporary. They could well be money losers for their operators, and those operators have yet to discover what to do if that happens.

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on an article from the February 5^th, 2016 editions of the Asahi Shimbun and Fukushima Minpo newspapers)

(▼Click each image and read the summary.)

As of the end of 2015, some 170,000 t (374,782,000 lb.) of “specified” waste is being stored, distributed in 12 prefectures. Six of them, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, and Chiba, have especially large volumes of such waste. The Ministry originally meant to gather the waste at a single disposal location in each of those prefectures. Fukushima decided to collect the waste into a privately-owned disposal site for industrial waste. In the other five prefectures, the relevant authorities, who tried to build new disposal sites, met with protests from residents around the candidate sites. Meanwhile, now almost five years after the 2011 disaster, some radioactive substances have naturally decayed and some waste has gone below the 8,000 becquerel threshold.

According to the Ministry’s new regulation regarding lifting the specification, first it must be confirmed that the particular waste has gone below the threshold. Then, the Ministry consults with the relevant municipal government over whether or not to lift the specification. Once the specification is lifted, if the municipality treats and disposes of the waste, the expense is to be covered by the national government.

In Ibaraki, the prefectural government said it was planning to enhance leakage prevention measures at current storage sites for such waste and then keep the waste there for years to come. The prefecture once tried to build a new, single, large disposal site inside the prefecture, but faced protests from residents living around the proposed site. In response, the Ministry asked the mayors of the relevant municipalities what they wanted to do with such proposed disposal sites, and the majority of them said that they wanted to keep the waste in current storage locations.

There are now only ten such disposal sites in Ibaraki, all of them on the premises of public facilities, such as water treatment plants. For prefectural governments, storage of waste within such premises is easy to take care of. Governor Hashimoto of Ibaraki said, “This was the only feasible choice, as we wanted to take measures as soon as possible to safely store such waste.” However, some estimate that 25 years from now, still up to 0.6 t (1,322 lb.) of radioactive waste will remain above the 8,000 becquerel threshold.

Meanwhile, Tochigi (some 70 miles north of central Tokyo) has much more specified waste kept in many more storage sites. Its governor, Tomikazu Fukuda, expressed his concerns over the Ministry’s new policy. Most of the specified waste within his prefecture consists of straw and is temporarily stored at farming houses. Over the last several years, the prefecture has experienced many tornados. In addition, in September 2015, a downpour hit Tochigi, as well as some other areas of southern Tohoku and Kanto. Under such weather conditions, the specified waste can disperse and/or run out of its temporary storage. The prefecture’s Governor Fukuda believes the specified waste should be gathered into a single storage, as soon as possible.

Though the Ministry’s intention in this policy change was to facilitate the reduction of specified waste, there is no guarantee that the treatment and disposal of “formerly specified” waste will work without any obstacles. True, the waste is not “specified” any longer, but it still contains radioactive substances. Therefore, many municipalities could face protests from residents around a candidate disposal site for “formerly specified” waste. And such residents’ fear is not groundless. In the near future, some containers of this waste could be damaged which would create serious treatment problems. Also, in the long run, those prefectures will have more uninhabited houses, which will add more combustible waste with radioactivity.

The Ministry of the Environment is planning to win consent to this new policy, saying that “we have scientific and technical knowledge that waste below 8,000 becquerel can be safely treated together with common (non-radioactive) waste.”

* Specified waste:
If any waste contaminated with radioactive substances from a nuclear power plant disaster is found to contain more than 8,000 becquerel of radioactive cesium, the relevant municipal authority reports it to the nation’s Minister of the Environment, who specifies the waste as “specified waste.” The cesium concentration in such waste decreases year by year, since Cs 134 has a half-life of 2 years and Cs 137 30 years.

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on an article from the January 25^th, 2016 edition of the Akahata newspaper)

(Excerpt from the newspaper article)

“A friend of mine, living in Minamisoma, Fukushima, has a daughter whose favorite pastime is taking photos of car license plates from many places in Japan. Said the daughter, ‘Before the 2011 disaster, I had to go to the parking lot of Disney Land, close to Tokyo, to take these photos. Today, I just visit a neighborhood supermarket and I see cars from all over Japan there.’ This daughter’s dad, a friend of mine, smiled ironically.

“During the New Year holidays, most of the license plates I saw said “Fukushima” or “Iwaki” (part of Fukushima Pref.) This was because most of the construction workers at work in Fukushima, who come from all over Japan, returned to their hometowns during the holidays. (A few workers were not able to do so, though.)

“After the 2011 disaster, large vehicles have been running around here, and some residents sarcastically call their own neighborhoods “dump truck Hollywood.” Yes, there are so many, and when I walk down a sidewalk, I often feel the wind caused by such trucks.

“Now, on October 14^th, 2014, a certain girl, a 10^th grader of Haramachi High School, was killed by a truck on the day right before a school trip. My son was a student of that High School as well. Tears —-. The truck driver was a construction worker, aged 74.”

According to a story from a local construction business within 20km (12.5 miles) of Minamisoma, the decontamination work joint venture led by Takenaka Corporation was planning to hire 200 more workers by this coming March. 300 more would be hired by another decontamination joint venture led by Taisei, another general contractor. Another 200 would be hired by Shimizu, yet another general contractor, who takes care of the decontamination of farms.

Meanwhile, in the Tokyo region, construction workers are busy building facilities for the 2020 Tokyo Olympiad and working on the accompanying renewal of infrastructure. Thus, the demand for construction workers is overheated.

In a situation like this, those working on reactor decommissioning and field decontamination, as well as the rebuilding of areas devastated by the 2011 disaster, are day laborers and currently homeless workers from a prefecture where the minimum legal wage is lower than that of Fukushima.

Some of those workers are aged and have serious health problems, such as diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, hypertension, alcoholism, etc. Some of those workers become ill or injured at work, are carried to a hospital by ambulance where it is discovered that they have no coverage from Medicare-type public insurance, no money and no relative to help. We have seen many such cases.

In one such case, a certain construction worker passed away while working on the rebuilding of areas devastated in the 2011 disaster. The Minamisoma municipal government contacted his supposed relatives in what was thought to be his hometown. They found a person with his supposed name who was still alive. It was a pseudonym. Thus, the deceased worker was cremated as a “person who died on a journey” (a John Doe) as defined by the relevant Japanese law, and his bones are stored at a Buddhist temple in the municipality.

In 2014, Fukushima’s prefectural government declared an “emergency of fatal labor incidents.” Almost five years have passed since the 2011 earthquake and reactor meltdown, and I honestly wish the 2020 Olympiad was not going to be held in Tokyo. In a national election shortly after the 2011 disaster, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan promised to “rebuild Japan.” OK, then why not rebuild Fukushima, rebuild Tohoku first? The Tokyo Olympiads are a fantasy that should come after Fukushima and Tohoku.

Today, in Minamisoma, we are seeing crimes being committed by some of the workers hired for the rebuilding, decontamination, and work related to the nuclear power plant. Still, many people do not want to make this criminal activity public, since that would discourage refugees from returning to the city even more. At the same time, however, ignoring the issue would turn the city into a smaller scale Detroit.

In the coming years, as more evacuation orders are lifted, we will have even more workers from outside coming here. Many of us here are experiencing how tough it really is to rebuild a town or city devastated by radiation into a place where people can live in peace and with ease.

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on an article from the January 31^st, 2016 edition of the Fukushima Minpo newspaper)
▼Click the image and read the caption.

On January 29^th, 2016, Kansai Electric Power restarted the operation of Unit 3 of its Takahama Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), located in Takahama Town, Fukui, some 40 miles north of Kyoto. This was the third NPP unit to be restarted following the enforcement of the new NPP safety regulations, and the first one to be restarted using MOX fuel. (*)

* Known as “Plu(tonium in a) thermal (reactor)” in Japanese, “MOX fuel” is a mixture of uranium and plutonium, an element with deadly high radioactivity. Often, such fuel is used in a reactor designed for uranium fuel, and Takahama is an example of such a reactor. Though MOX fuel results in higher power generation than does uranium fuel, it carries a greater risk of an accident, since it creates more instability. And it produces higher concentrations of radioactive substances. Furthermore, in case a reactor needs to be stopped, the control rods and boric acid—a chemical substance that absorbs neutrons—are less effective on MOX fuel.

Now, Kansai Electric plans to restart Unit 4 of the same NPP late this February.

If things go as planned, it has been estimated that the NPP could produce some 18.5 t (40785 lb.) of used MOX fuel, an increase of almost 3.5 times more than before the restart, approximately 5.3 t (11,700 lb.)

Since MOX fuel emits more radiation than uranium fuel does, it can expose the workers engaged in fuel processing and transportation to more radiation. Therefore, prior to using MOX fuel in a reactor, vary tight control of such fuel is required. In short, MOX fuel is by far more dangerous than uranium fuel. And it remains so after use. Even uranium fuel, after use in a reactor, emits fearful doses of radiation. Used MOX fuel emits even more. This is very dangerous.

Furthermore, the NPP industry has yet to figure out what to do with used MOX. Most likely they will have to store such fuel inside NPPs for a long time. Of those thermal reactors using MOX in Japan, Takahama is expected to produce the greatest volume of used MOX.

Let’s think. Why has Japan been promoting the use of “MOX in thermal reactors”? On this issue, Mr. Hiroaki Koide, formerly an associate professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute (located in Kumatori Town, Osaka) comments as follows. (He has been blowing the whistle against nuclear power over the last four decades.) “Japan built an experimental fast breeder reactor named ‘Monju,’ which is now totally out of work. Meanwhile the nation has been extracting plutonium (out of NPP reactors) to use in the fast breeder reactor. The natural result is that Japan currently has an inventory of some 47 t (103,617 lb.) of extracted plutonium, for which there is no use. Plutonium can fuel atomic bombs as well, and 47 t of it can provide for some 4,000 Nagasaki type bombs. Any country having this much plutonium with no use for it is seen as a threat by most other countries. Now, Japan has made a pledge with the rest of the world that it will never have plutonium without any use for it. Thus, the nation has no other choice but to use plutonium in thermal reactors (common uranium-fueled reactors), although it is evident that this involves serious danger and makes no economic sense.

As described so far, “MOX in a thermal reactor” creates more danger than does a common “uranium-thermal” reactor. Still, Electric Power Development Co., Ltd. (commonly known as “J-POWER”) is now building the Oma NPP, which features the world’s first fully MOX-powered reactor, in Oma, Aomori on the northern end of Honshu Island.

Hazards from Fukushima Daiichi’s meltdown are still plaguing many, and we have yet to see an end to the disaster. The Takahama NPP, which will store a great volume of used MOX fuel, can do even more harm if there is a major accident. If we have more NPP restarts, as the Japanese government proposes, everyone in the archipelago will be exposed to the risk of an NPP disaster. I certainly hope every person will recognize once again how dangerous NPPs are.

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on an article from the January 27^th, 2016 edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper)

Kansai Electric Power is restarting Unit 3 of its Takahama Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), located in Takahama Town, Fukui Prefecture (some 40 miles north of Kyoto) on January 29^th, 2016. This will be the next NPP restart, following that of Units 1 and 2 of Kyushu Electric Power’s Sendai NPP.

Japan’s power companies have applied for restart inspections by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) for 25 of the nation’s 43 “workable” NPP reactors, as well as the start-up of one under construction. Following Sendai and Takahama, Shikoku Electric Power is planning to restart its Ikata NPP’s Unit 3 (located in Ehime, Shikoku).

The coast of Wakasa Bay, Fukui, accommodates 15 NPP reactors in all, including some being decommissioned. This is one of the heaviest NPP concentrations in the whole world. In this post-Fukushima age, we face a serious question: What would happen, if a disaster hits the coast and multiple reactors experience incidents simultaneously? No one has answered this question so far. The NRA has practically ignored this deadly possibility in its inspections so far.

In 2016, Kansai Electric Power, which has 11 reactors in Fukui, decided to keep using three of them that are more than 40 years old although it has decided to decommission two other smaller old reactors. Many have pointed out that the power company is reluctant to minimize the risks accompanying NPPs. What makes the Takahama restart even more worrisome is that it employs MOX fuel, a mixture of uranium and plutonium.

Moreover, the surrounding prefectural governments have evacuation plans for the residents around the NPP that are obviously impractical should there be a major NPP accident. The relevant law requires an evacuation plan to be set up for people living within 30km (18.8 miles) of a NPP. Within 30km of Takahama lie 12 municipalities in three prefectures, Fukui, Shiga, and Kyoto. The population within the radius amounts to some 179,000 people.

Around the end of 2015, “Genshiryoku Bosai Kaigi” (Nuclear Disaster Control Committee), led by the Prime Minister of Japan, approved the large-area evacuation plans prepared by the three involved prefectural governments. In the worst case of a NPP accident, according to those plans, those residents within 30km of the NPP are to flee to 56 municipalities in four prefectures, Fukui, Hyogo, Kyoto and Tokushima. Of those 56 municipalities, however, only seven so far have prepared a plan to accommodate such refugees, according to a survey conducted by the Asahi Shimbun. Most of the 56 came up with replies like, “We are not sure if we can secure the necessary facilities, personnel, commodities, etc.,” and “We are worried that some automobiles contaminated with radiation could come into our town.”

Responding to the anxieties shared by numerous residents, many of the municipalities within 30k of a NPP claimed to Kansai Electric that they have “consent rights” with respect NPP restarts. Kansai Electric denied the claims. The national government also denied them, saying that the consent required is that of the municipality directly hosting a NPP alone.

Now, have you ever heard of Iidate Village, some 50km (31 miles) from Fukushima Daiichi? Before the meltdown, this village was renowned for its natural beauty, and was listed among “Japan’s most beautiful villages.” Outside the 30km range of the NPP, Iidate was believed to be absolutely safe from a NPP accident when the plant was built. Thus, no financial compensation was paid to this lovely village when the NPP was constructed. Still, the meltdown brought devastation to the villagers. When the meltdown began, the air dose rate reached as high as 44.7 mSv/h in the village.

Nevertheless, the relevant governments—national, prefectural, and the village’s own government—covered up the hazard. Not until a month after the disaster began was an evacuation order given to the villagers. This delay was highly costly. Some 80% of those Fukushima residents exposed to 5 mSv of radiation or more shortly after the meltdown began were from Iidate.

Now, imagine a major accident at Takahama NPP with insufficient evacuation plans in place, even for those residents within 30km of it. And the NPP has many neighboring municipalities as well. What would happen then? I definitely hope the “NPP safety myth” will never come back again.

The current NPP restarts ignore the people’s voices and leave many serious issues unattended. In short, such restarts make light of human lives.

Original Japanese written by staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on an article from the January 25^th, 2016 edition of the Akahata newspaper)
▼Click the image and read the caption.

Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) conducted a pre-use inspection of Units 1 and 2 of Kyushu Electric Power’s Sendai NPP (located in Kagoshima, southern Japan), before the two units were restarted. The inspection discovered that the power company had confirmed the separation of different cables at only one location, among the many such locations in each unit. This cable-from-cable separation is necessary to prevent a fire. This whole cable separation issue first emerged at TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP, located in Niigata, some 150 miles NNW of central Tokyo. In some of the NPP’s units, several hundreds of cables were installed incorrectly in each unit. The NRA gave special treatment to some NPPs, such as Units 1 and 2 of the Sendai NPP, and failed to make complete inspections of them. We have to question the NRA’s attitude in this.

Japan’s new NPP regulatory standard requires installation of multiple systems of power cables connected to equipment that is crucial for safety, for instance, equipment necessary for an emergency stop of a reactor to reduce damages from a fire. And such cables must be separated from each other. On January 6^th, 2016, in response to the discovery that more than a thousand cables were installed incorrectly under the central control room’s floor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP, the NRA ordered every NPP operator to check on how cables had been installed at each NPP. However, Units 1 and 2 of Sendai and Units 3 and 4 of Kansai Electric Power’s Takahama NPP (located in Fukui, some 40 miles north of Kyoto), which is currently being prepared for a restart, were excluded from this cable check-up requirement, since a pre-use inspection had confirmed or was confirming the required cable separation.

There are voiced concerns over how effective such pre-use inspections really are. At a regular meeting of the NRA on January 6, a member of the NRA’s committee, Mr. Nobuhiko Ban, brought up a serious question: “In case the whole NPP operator’s organization tries to cover-up some wrongdoing, how can we detect it through only document inspections?” The Chairperson, Mr. Shun’ichi Tanaka, replied, “We still have work to do as we try to determine how detailed our inspections should be.”

(Based on an article from the January 27^th, 2016 editions of the Asahi Shimbun and Akahata newspapers)

At the safety inspection meeting held by the NRA on January 26^th, 2016, Kyushu Electric explained to the Authority, for the first time, that the power company had given up on the originally planned earthquake-proof building as the “emergency base,” which would have served as the field base for countermeasures in case of an accident at Units 1 or 2 of the Sendai NPP, located in Kagoshima. Kyushu Electric now hoped to do with a building having only some earthquake resistance instead. Responding to this, the NRA asked the power company to reconsider its restart plan, saying, among other things, “That change to the plan does not seem to improve safety.”

In the process of inspections for the Sendai NPP restart, Kyushu Electric originally announced that it would construct an earthquake-proof building (*) by the end of March 2016. In December 2015, shortly after the NPP’s two units restarted their operation, the power company all of a sudden changed the building plan. Now, it plans to continue using the small temporary emergency base that was originally built to serve until the earthquake-proof building was ready. The inspection for the Sendai NPP’s restart required construction of the earthquake-proof building, and the certificate of restart permission required it as well. Mr. Tanaka, chairperson of the NRA’s committee, revealed his suspicion that “Kyushu Electric might be concerned over passing the restart inspection alone, disregarding safety after the restart.”

There is an anti-nuclear citizen group named “Genkai Genpatsu Plu-Thermal to Zenbki wo Tomeru Saiban no Kai” (Plaintiff Group to Stop All the Units of Genkai NPP and Its MOX Operation), which blamed the power company for changing the plan to build an earthquake-proof building. The citizen group’s chairperson, Ms. Hatsumi Ishimaru, pointed out, “This issue (of the change in the building plan) reveals how serious the NRA is. The Authority should have suspended the restart permission, not just refusing to permit the building plan change. Whatever is inconvenient about a NPP restart can be ‘changed’ after the restart permission is given. Such a precedent must not be made.”

Behind those press reports, we see the attitude of both power companies and the NRA—“Just restart NPPs, and we can handle problems after that.” Japan’s government is striving to accelerate NPP restarts, shutting its eyes both to the victims of the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown, who are still living in agony, and to the majority of the nation’s people who are opposed to NPP restarts.

I believe that we, the people, have to watch carefully what the NRA and the power companies are doing, and we must speak out against restarts. We must not let the “NPP safety myth,” which convinced many of us before the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown, rise again.

** Earthquake-proof building — When a major earthquake hit central Niigata in 2007, at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP, located within the hard-hit area, the office building was damaged and became unusable. This incident taught the operator, TEPCO, a lesson and the power company constructed an earthquake-proof building at its NPPs. When Fukushima Daiichi was melting down, its earthquake-proof building played a crucial role as the emergency base for counteractions. Such a building has an earthquake-proof mechanism to drastically alleviate its shaking in case of an earthquake. The building also features power generators, communications equipment, radiation protection gear, as well as a rest area, storage rooms, etc. Though the latest NPP regulations do not require such a building, NPP operators are building them at many NPPs in Japan.

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on an article from the January 17^th, 2016 edition of the Fukushima Minpo newspaper)
▼Click the image and read the caption.

On December 21^st, 2015, Japan’s Ministry of the Environment determined that it would not decontaminate the forest of Fukushima some 20m (22 yards) or more apart from the nearest residence or farm. By making this decision, the Ministry rejected repeated petitions from the Fukushima Prefectural Government and municipalities for a total decontamination of the Prefecture’s forest, ignoring their claim that the forest is an essential part of the livelihood of Fukushima’s people. Mr. Norio Akasaka, director of Fukushima Museum, published a document on this issue, questioning the national government’s attitude from the viewpoint of his field of expertise, ethnology.

* Excerpt from the document – “In the suburbs of Sendai, Miyagi Pref., I once heard the phrase, ‘the front farm and the forest behind.’ Even in a rice-growing village located on a field, each farming household had to have two things in addition to their rice fields –vegetable fields, and their homestead woodland, named ‘igune,’ to make their living. This igune was not just a wind-break forest. They carefully chose and planted many different species of trees. Some bore fruit. Some provided fuel. Some provided short bamboo. Other trees provided the wood required when rebuilding the house. In short, igune was little ‘satoyama,’ the forest that was part of the community, the forest that was the ‘forest behind.’ I heard over and over again that the decontamination work has cut down such igune.

This reminds me of a long essay titled ‘Watanabe-ke no Saijiki (Seasons of the Watanabes)’ by Ms. Kazu Watanabe, contained in the first issue of a local publication named ‘Aizu Gaku (Studies of Aizu).’ (Translator’s note: Aizu is a region in the western part of Fukushima.) It described all the wealth of the culinary culture of the small families living in a small village deep in Aizu. The village celebrates many annual events, beginning with the New Year, and each event has its own ceremonial meal, prepared by the head woman of the household. The meal’s ingredients are all collected from nature and ‘satoyama’ surrounding each household.

The nuclear power plant meltdown has seriously hurt Fukushima’s traditional culinary culture. Here, each family and district have developed their own culinary culture. Fukushima’s women have created their own recipes thanks to the blessed ingredients from the abundance of mountains, fields, rivers, and ocean. To them, their livelihood is not limited to the radius of 20m from their houses. All the mountains, fields, rivers, and ocean surrounding them are necessary for their livelihood. If their forest is not decontaminated, what kind of a living can they make, if and after they return to their hometowns? I can hear their voices saying, ‘Give us back our mountains, rivers, and ocean!’”

The lifestyles and culture that people have built up over millennia are now on the verge of extinction, thanks to the nuclear power plant (NPP) built only some four decades ago. A NPP destroys what people need to live as people. No decontamination or compensation can ever restore such lifestyles and culture once they are lost.

Many people have a cherished environment and culture which are native to them, that they grew up with. And this cherished culture-nature complex is often a part of their psyche. I believe we should not let the national government force the refugees to return to their hometowns, if such a return is a national policy that ignores people’s right to live as people.

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on articles from the January 7^th, 2016 editions of the Asahi Shimbun, Fukushima Minpo, and Akahata newspapers)

On January 6^th, 2016, North Korea held an underground nuclear weapon test, and announced that the nation had accomplished its first successful test of a hydrogen bomb. This was North Korea’s fourth nuclear bomb test, following those of 2006, 2009, and 2013.

Using an atomic bomb as the detonator, a hydrogen bomb utilizes the extreme heat, high pressure, and radiation from the fission of the atomic bomb to start nuclear fusion, which creates deuterium and/or tritium. Such fusion emits tremendous energy, way beyond that of an atomic bomb.

Mr. Susumu Misaki, a member of the crew of “Daigo Fukuryu-maru,” a tuna fishing boat from Yaizu, Shizuoka, Japan, is a survivor from the Bikini Atoll hydrogen bomb incident of 1954. He turns 88 years old this year. On March 1^st, 1954, the U.S. held a hydrogen bomb test at the atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. The unlucky fishing boat was exposed to fallout from the bomb, which blew away the atoll. Though the boat was some 160km (100 miles) from the explosion, the fallout devastated the crew, 23 in number.

Says Mr. Misaki, “That’s how terrible a hydrogen bomb really is. It devastates to such a great extent.” Half a year after this exposure to radiation, the boat’s chief radio engineer, Mr. Aikichi Kuboyama, passed away at the age of 40. After the boat returned to the port of Yaizu, Mr. Misaki was hospitalized for a year and two months. Said he, “Hydrogen bombs today, I believe, are several times more destructive than they were back in 1954. If several such bombs hit Japan today, the nation might face its end. This thought frightens me.”

Another former crew member of the fishing boat, Mr. Hiroshi Kozuka (84), has a 56-year-old daughter-in-law who said, “The Bikini tragedy left unbearable burdens on my father-in-law, both mental and physical, which consumed most of his life after the disaster. I, as part of his family, find it unbearably tragic.” She went on to say tearfully, “We don’t want nuclear tests, for the sake of our children and their children. We don’t want a world where hydrogen bombs are used.”

2,379 nuclear bomb tests were held, in many nations, during the half century beginning in 1945. The total energy from all those nuclear bombs amounts to more than 35,000 times that of the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima.

A nuclear weapon test often goes beyond the purely military or scientific sphere and plays a role in political propaganda. Especially, the former USSR and China often claimed that their tests were “unavoidable” and “agonizing choices” in order to resist “U.S. imperialism.” At the same time, such nuclear tests were often meant to show off the might of the countries that conducted them. The tests held by North Korea were no exception.

At the nuclear bomb test site of Semipalatinsk (ex-USSR), there were 456 tests in all during the four decades between 1949 and 1989. At a hydrogen bomb test on August 12^th, 1953, the relevant authorities forced some adult males from the surrounding area to stay in the zone contaminated with radioactivity, probably as a human experiment. Just as Agent Orange did in Vietnam, radioactivity in and around this site caused some birth defects. Some victims’ bodies are still preserved in formalin. After the site was shut down, a medical examination discovered that fallout at the site had given some 200,000 residents in the area direct health hazards. Especially notable is the fact that those victims showed high rates of many types of cancer. Also, the examination found a correlation between exposure to radiation and thyroid abnormalities.

In the world today, people are more loudly voicing their concerns over the inhumanity of nuclear weapons and are demanding that such weapons be abolished. The UN General Assembly, in the fall of 2015, adopted, with an overwhelming majority, resolutions calling for “a humane pledge to prohibit and abolish nuclear weapons,” recognizing “a moral duty to build a world free of nuclear weapons,” and calling for a study of the “effects of nuclear weapons on humans,” along with other resolutions. While the rest of the world is calling aloud for the abolishment of nuclear weapons, North Korea has conducted nuclear bomb tests over and over again, “showing off” that it “has nuclear weapons.” The country has been running right against humanity’s yearning for freedom from nuclear weapons. This must not be tolerated.

Fukushima is irretrievable. Its radiation-free beauty before the meltdown will never be restored. Right now, right here (Translator’s note: The author is a resident of Koriyama, Fukushima), invisible radiation is harming the bodies and minds of many people. In spite of this tragedy, Japan’s government is still trying to use nuclear energy, and is attempting to cover-up such tragedies. Still, there is only one right direction for humanity to follow. Each and every one of us should follow this direction, and spread the message that we seek for a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear power.

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on articles from the December 22^nd, 2015 editions of the Fukushima Minpo and Asahi Shimbun newspapers)

▲Click each image and read the caption.

Concerning decontamination of forests in Fukushima Prefecture contaminated by the meltdown of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), Japan’s Ministry of the Environment has announced a new policy of not decontaminating any forest that is some 20m (22 yd.) or more from the nearest residence or farm. One reason for this decision was that no fallout of radioactive substances from such forests was detected that could affect the neighboring inhabited area. Yet another reason was that removal of fallen leaves in a forest could invite sediment runoff and other disasters.

Fukushima Prefecture is the third largest in area among all the 47 prefectures of Japan. Some 70% of the prefecture’s whole area is forest, which ranks No. 4 in forest area among the 47 – a vast amount of forest, indeed. Of the no-return areas in the prefecture, almost 80% is forest, whose total area extends to some 26,000 ha (64,220 acres). Ever since the forest was contaminated with radioactive fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown, no forestry work has been conducted there. Thus, the forest has been abandoned and is being ruined – a major social issue.

In response to the new policy announced by the Ministry, forestry organizations of Fukushima are raising their voices, calling for more thorough protective measures for logging workers to keep them safe from radiation exposure.

In November 2014, the Secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority conducted a survey of air dose rates in the evacuated areas’ forests. The highest rate measured was 31 mSv per hour. An estimate made by the Fukushima Prefectural Government says the prefecture’s forests will have an average air dose rate of 2.6 mSv, a decade from now, with the maximum reaching 12 mSv, taking into consideration the natural decay of radioactive substances. For the evacuation directive to be lifted, the rate must come down to 3.8 mSv per hour or below. This estimate, therefore, implies that much of the prefecture’s contaminated forest will still be a no-go area ten years later. Those related to the Fukushima Federation of Forest Owners’ Co-operative Associations pointed out the necessity to “pay special attention to the mental health of those workers working in a contaminated forest.” Moreover, they said they were thinking of asking the national government and TEPCO to provide financial aid so that such workers can receive special allowances and/or higher hourly wages.

With respect to the many “shiitake” mushroom beds (raw wood on which the mushrooms grow) in Fukushima there are plans to resume the production of such wood. It is, therefore, an urgent task to reduce the radiation doses in bed wood forests. In many parts of these forests, such wood carries radioactive cesium above the threshold set by the Forestry Agency (50 becquerel per kg [2.2 lb.]) today. Fukushima used to enjoy the greatest shipment volume of such wood in the whole nation, yet its shipment volume in 2012 drastically dropped to only 6% of what it used to be before the meltdown. The Prefectural Government’s Forestry Promotion Section described its concerns, saying, “With no decontamination done, recovery of contaminated bed wood forests will slow down even more.”

Those municipalities affected by the meltdown, which contain vast forests and have many residents who are engaged in forestry, are worried that the Ministry’s decision will discourage evacuees from returning and will slow down such municipalities’ rebuilding.

We can easily imagine how hard it is, technically and financially, to decontaminate the vast forests of Fukushima. Still, I do believe the Ministry should spend more resources and time on research and development to find an effective and feasible solution. At the very least, we need to find a new solution, other than the current decontamination, to make the forest safer. It is impermissible to simply ignore these people who have been seriously affected by the meltdown.

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA 

(Based on articles from the December 25^th, 2015 editions of the Fukushima Minpo, Asahi Shimbun, and Akahata newspapers)

▲Click each image to enlarge. We are sorry we have yet to provide English summaries of the newspaper articles below.

On December 24^th, 2015, the Fukui District Court overturned its own provisional ruling of April 2015 （※） which prohibited the restart of Units 3 and 4 of the Takahama Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), and gave a go-ahead to the restart, claiming that “the new regulatory safety standard and the examination results are reasonable and no specific danger is seen to the lives of neighborhood residents.”

[（※） Judge Hideaki Higuchi, who served the District Court then, in effect denounced the new safety standard, pointing out that there is a danger of ground motion beyond just the earthquake caused motion assumed by the Kansai Electric Power Co. Inc. which could lead to a severe accident at the NPP. Thus, the Judge suspended the restart. In response to this, Kansai Electric filed an objection to the District Court.]

Also, the Court’s Chief Judge Hayashi on December 24^th overturned the provisional ruling, made by then Chief Judge Hideaki Higuchi, which suspended the restart of Units 3 and 4 of Kansai Electric’s Oi NPP (Ohi Town [pronounced “oh-e”], Fukui Pref.).

Takahama’s Units 3 and 4 passed the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s restart examinations in February 2015, following the Sendai NPP of Kagoshima Prefecture. Also, Fukui Prefecture’s Governor Nishikawa gave consent to the restart. Furthermore, the relevant local authorities have consented. Thus, the December rulings by the District Court now enable Kansai Electric to place nuclear fuel in Unit 3 and have it inspected, along with making other preparations for the restart. The power company plans to restart Unit 3 in January 2016. Meanwhile, many neighborhood residents are dissatisfied with the court rulings and plan to file an appeal to the Kanazawa Branch of Nagoya High Court.

Kansai Electric has the greatest dependence on nuclear power among all the existing power companies in Japan. Prior to the meltdown of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi, almost 50% of Kansai Electric’s power came from NPPs. Since the nation’s electricity became temporarily free of nuclear power in September 2013, Kansai’s business has been in the red. The power company has raised its power rates twice since then. The company estimates that with both Units 3 and 4 at work at Takahama, its financial balance should improve by some 12 billion yen monthly. The power company plans to cut its rates to survive the coming deregulation of Japan’s power market that begins in April 2016.

Since the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown, there have been many court appeals to prohibit NPP restarts all over the nation.

In Japan, there have been court cases over nuclear power since the early 1960s. Plaintiff citizens won at a District Court in the cases of “Monju”—a fast breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture—and Hokuriku Electric Power’s Shika NPP, in Ishikawa Prefecture.

Those District Court decisions, however, were all overturned by the Supreme Court or a High Court. Thus, judicial decisions that “no specific danger is recognized” have become commonplace.

Later, following the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, there developed a movement to question NPPs’ safety with new anti-nuclear teams of attorneys formed nationwide. So far, some 30 provisional rulings and class actions have emerged, according to sources.

In May 2014, in one of those class actions, the Fukui District Court gave an order that Units 3 and 4 of the Oi NPP, Fukui Prefecture, must not be restarted. The same Chief Judge in April 2015 issued a decision that Units 3 and 4 of Takahama must not be restarted either. Almost a week later, however, the Kagoshima District Court turned down plaintiff residents’ petition for a provisional ruling to ban the restart of Units 1 and 2 of the Sendai NPP.

Ex-Judge Kazuo Kawasaki, who served the Kanazawa Branch of Nagoya High Court as Chief Judge, issued a decision in 2003 that annulled the installation permission for the “Monju” fast breeder reactor (Fukui Pref.)  Said the ex-judge, “Watching the court decisions at Kagoshima District and Fukui District, I feel like courts are going back to the age when the nuclear safety myth was commonly believed.” He also said, “Learning lessons from the Fukushima disaster, I think judges need to consider not just technical aspects, but whether or not the majority of the people are convinced by court decisions about nuclear power as well.”

In the coming years, the courts of Japan are expected to give provisional rulings and decisions over NPP restarts, and many fear that the Fukui District’s decision might provide a bad model for other courts to follow.

Many courts here seem oblivious to the Fukushima tragedy. We must not allow nuclear power to hurt and victimize another person. Each and every one of us, therefore, needs to keep Fukushima firmly in his/her mind and communicate the consequences of the disaster to the coming generations.