原発の60年超運転を可能にするための法制度の見直しを巡り、経済産業省資源エネルギー庁が昨年8月、原子力規制委員会が所管する運転期間を規定した法律の改正条文案を作成し、規制委事務局に提示していた問題で、NPO法人・原子力資料情報室の松久保肇事務局長は14日、オンラインで記者会見を開き、「推進と規制の癒着が進んでいるのは明らかだ」と批判した。
松久保氏は、東京電力福島第一原発事故の反省から原子力の推進と規制を分離するために規制委が発足した経緯を踏まえ、「推進側が規制に干渉しており、非常に大きな問題。福島事故の反省を忘れている」と指摘した。
国会で審議中の法改正案は、運転期間の規定を規制委所管の原子炉等規制法から経産省所管の電気事業法に移した。松久保氏は「推進側におもねった形で今後の規制が行われるのではないか」と危惧した。
[…]
（小野沢健太）
主要7カ国（G7）気候・エネルギー・環境相会合は16日、札幌市で2日間の日程を終え、閉幕した。日独伊の閣僚による共同記者会見では、東京電力福島第一原発の処理水をめぐり、ドイツ側から西村康稔経済産業相が指摘を受ける場面もあった。
会合で採択した共同声明では「廃炉作業の着実な進展とともに、科学的根拠に基づき国際原子力機関（IAEA）とともに行われている日本の透明性のある取組を歓迎する」としたうえで、処理水の海洋放出についてIAEAの安全性の検証を「支持する」という内容だった。
西村氏は記者会見で「処理水の海洋放出を含む廃炉の着実な進展、そして、科学的根拠に基づく我が国の透明性のある取り組みが歓迎される」と説明。隣で聞いていたドイツのレムケ環境・原子力安全相は「原発事故後、東電や日本政府が努力してきたことには敬意を払う。しかし、処理水の放出を歓迎するということはできない」と反発した。
西村氏は会見後、報道陣に「私のちょっと言い間違えで、『歓迎』に全部含めてしまった」と釈明。処理水の放出については「IAEAの独立したレビューが支持された」と訂正した。
[…]
Linda Pentz Gunter and Maria Arvaniti Sotiroupoul
On March 21, 2023 Britain confirmed that it was sending depleted uranium (DU) weapons to Ukraine , prompting a response from Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that, “If all this happens, Russia will have to respond accordingly, given that the west collectively is already beginning to use weapons with a nuclear component.”
[…]
Possessing or threatening the use of nuclear weapons is a violation of the human rights that are embedded in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The use of depleted uranium weapons is also abhorrent, with compelling, if still somewhat anecdotal, evidence from the wars in the Balkans and Iraq/Kuwait to suggest these toxic exposures cause serious long-term health effects.
Despite Putin’s thinly veiled threat mount a nuclear response to DU weapons, the International Campaign to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW) points out that this would be disproportionate because “DU projectiles are not nuclear weapons at all, but conventional weapons of high chemical-radiological toxicity and harmfulness.”
Adds Dr. Frank Boulton of the British IPPNW affiliate, MEDACT: “Much if not most of the toxicity of DU is biological rather than radiological (DU is a heavy metal with biological effects similar to that of lead)”.
The US and NATO used around 980,000 rounds of uranium shells in Iraq and Kuwait, 10,800 in Bosnia, 31,000 in Kosovo , another 7,000 in S. Serbia and Montenegro, and an unknown number in Afghanistan, while Russia also used such weapons in Chechnya.
The ICBUW quickly spoke out against the export of DU weapons to Ukraine: “The use of DU munitions has been shown to cause widespread and lasting damage to the health of people living in the contaminated area,” the network said in a statement. “Military personnel and those involved in subsequent demining are also exposed to health hazards from DU (remnants). In addition, long-term environmental damage, including groundwater contamination, occurs as a result of DU use.”
Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the long-time British peace and disarmament group Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, also condemned her country’s decision:
“CND has repeatedly called for the UK government to place an immediate moratorium on the use of depleted uranium weapons and to fund long-term studies into their health and environmental impacts,” she said. “Sending them into yet another war zone will not help the people of Ukraine.”
The UK may not be the first country to introduce DU weapons into the current Russia-Ukraine war. In a statement, the ICBUW said that, “According to media reports, Russian forces in Ukraine have also recently received the more modern 3BM60 ‘Svinets-2’ ammunition.” The Guardian reported that “Moscow also has its own Svinets-2 depleted uranium tank shells in its stockpile,” without saying whether or not they had been deployed in Ukraine.
International Humanitarian Law prohibits weapons that cause unnecessary suffering, have indiscriminate effects or cause long-term damage to the natural environment, factors that should apply to outlawing DU weapons.
Several resolutions have been passed in both the UN General Assembly and in the European Parliament calling for a moratorium on the use of DU weapons. The latest such UN resolution was adopted by the General Assembly in 2022. Yet, no treaty regulating — let alone banning — DU weapons exists.
DU is used in weaponry because, due to its high molecular weight, it easily penetrates the steel of armored tanks. Missile-like uranium weapons will pierce any target they hit at 3,600km/h.
Known as uranium-238, DU is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process needed to produce the fuel for nuclear reactors. It is called ‘depleted’ because it has a lower content of the fissile isotope, uranium-235, than natural uranium. Depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
DU is highly toxic, especially when inhaled and can be present in the human body for many years as well as excreted in urine. According to the IPPNW pamphlet — Uranium Weapons. Radioactive Penetrators — “When uranium is inhaled or ingested with foods and beverages, its full pathogenic and lethal effects unfold. On entering the body it is taken up by the blood, which transports it to the organs. It can reach an unborn child via the placenta.”
The latency period after exposure to uranium-238 before disease manifests can be 5-10 years. However, as with any disease, other factors determine this, including the level of exposure and the individual’s constitution.
Back in June 2000, the decision by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) not to investigate the NATO bombings of that country, based on the recommendations of the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, was sternly critiqued by Paolo Benvenuti, then Professor of International Law at the University of Florence and now Professor emeritus of International Law at the University Roma Tre.
On the subject of depleted uranium projectiles he wrote:
“The assessment concerning arms, in particular of the use of depleted uranium projectiles and cluster bombs, is also disappointing. With regard to the use of depleted uranium projectiles. . . the Committee, after ascertaining that there is no specific ban on their use and that they appear to be dubious weapons, took into consideration the legitimacy of their use from the limited viewpoint of the protection of the environment and, moreover, did so without any serious analysis.
“Inexplicably, the Committee omits fundamental questions concerning the relevance of other principles governing weapons and their use. In fact, the principle of unnecessary suffering (aimed at protecting combatants) and the principle of distinction (aimed at protecting civilians) should also have been taken into account by the Committee, particularly in view of some fears recently expressed about a ‘Kosovo syndrome’ (similar to the ‘Gulf War Syndrome’).
“This omission is all the more inexplicable because the ICTY’s Statute explicitly extends the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to violations of the laws and customs of war, including the ‘employment of poisonous weapons and other weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.’”
In 2001, the Bar Association of Athens, Marangopoulos Foundation for Human Rights and Union of Greek Judges and Prosecutors for Democracy and Civil Liberties tried one more time, ultimately unsuccessfully, to persuade Carla del Ponte, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, to investigate and bring indictments against the political and military leaders of NATO for their roles in ordering the use of depleted uranium weapons during the war in Yugoslavia.
Gulf War Syndrome was found among both US and British veterans as well as among populations in Iraq and Kuwait. Given the strong evidence on the ground, and the known health impacts of both the chemical and radiological carcinogens contained within DU, many have drawn what seems like the obvious conclusion: that the use of DU in battle zones has harmed the health of troops and civilians.
However, making the definitive medical connection between DU exposure and illnesses has proven controversial. Medical studies so far have largely not been able to prove a correlation beyond a reasonable medical doubt. Indeed, a significant number suggest that the use of DU does not account for the negative health impacts now found in regions where it was used.
Accordingly, the US State Department continues to insist that “Scientific evidence does not indicate that depleted uranium has affected the health of Gulf War veterans.”
However, writing in the British Medical Journal of August 14, 1999, Malcolm Aitken described a medical conference in London at which presenters said “The incidence of cancer and congenital defects has increased significantly in Iraq after the Allied use of depleted uranium bullets during the Gulf war”.
And the BBC reports that “A study published in the journal Environmental Pollution in 2019 suggests there may be links between the use of depleted uranium weapons and birth defects in Nasiriyah, in Iraq.”
And the ICBUW has compiled an extensive list of such studies, including three new peer-reviewed papers that “illustrate not only acute health risks to humans and the environment but also long-term consequences of contact with DU.”
But caution, rather than the Precautionary Principle, prevails, putting the burden of proof on the victims to show there is harm, rather than the perpetrators to prove that they are not the cause of it.
In a November 2008 study of “Gulf War Illness and the Health of Gulf War Veterans”, for the Veterans Administration, the researchers noted that:
“Of direct concern for Gulf War veterans who continue to carry DU-containing shrapnel fragments in their tissues, New Mexico investigators have found that animals with DU fragments implanted in their muscles develop soft tissue sarcomas at increased rates around those fragments. In addition, rats with embedded DU pellets developed leukemia at a significantly elevated rate after being injected with hematopoietic cells. These studies indicate that continued concerns related to possible carcinogenic effects of DU are warranted, particularly in relation to embedded DU shrapnel fragments, and support continued monitoring of exposed populations.”
[…]
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports: “Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people. By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the increasing trend continuing.”
In the end, regard for the Precautionary Principle, as well as universal human rights, ought to take precedence when it comes to the deployment of DU weapons. Both Belgium and Costa Rica applied that principle in passing laws prohibiting the use of DU weapons. More countries could — and should — do the same.
As The Nuclear Resister’s Jack Cohen-Joppa wrote during an email discussion on the topic: “The paucity of good research is a challenge for health professionals seeking to quantify impact, but there is enough evidence to warrant a policy forbidding the use of DU.”
The situation in Ukraine creates a double jeopardy. First, the use of DU weapons by the Ukrainian military might provoke the Russians to use nuclear weapons. And second, simply transporting these weapons from Britain and using them on Ukrainian soil will constitute additional radioactive and heavy metal pollution with long-term effects on human health and the European environment.
Taking all of this into consideration, the known risks of DU weapons are already too great to justify their continued use.
[…]
The country is pulling the plug on its last three reactors on Saturday (15 April), betting it will succeed in its green transition without nuclear power.
On the banks of the Neckar River, not far from Stuttgart in south Germany, the white steam escaping from the nuclear power plant in Baden-Württemberg will soon be a memory.
The same applies further east for the Bavarian Isar 2 complex and the Emsland complex, at the other end of the country, not far from the Dutch border.
While many Western countries depend on nuclear power, Europe’s largest economy is turning the page- even if the subject remains controversial until the end.
Germany is implementing the decision to phase out nuclear power taken in 2002 and accelerated by Angela Merkel in 2011, after the Fukushima disaster.
Fukushima showed that “even in a high-tech country like Japan, the risks associated with nuclear energy cannot be controlled 100 per cent”, the former chancellor justified at the time.
The announcement convinced public opinion in a country where the powerful anti-nuclear movement was initially fuelled by fears of a Cold War conflict, and then by accidents such as Chernobyl.
The invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 brought everything into question. Deprived of Russian gas, the flow of which was essentially interrupted by Moscow, Germany found itself exposed to the worst possible scenarios, from the risk of its factories being shut down to the risk of being without heating in the middle of winter.
There’s no time to ‘go back’ to nuclear
With just a few months to go before the initial deadline for closing the last three reactors on 31 December, the tide of public opinion began to turn.
“With high energy prices and the burning issue of climate change, there were of course calls to extend the plants,” says Jochen Winkler, mayor of Neckarwestheim, where the plant of the same name is in its final days.
Olaf Scholz’s government, which the Green Party – the most hostile to nuclear power – is part of, finally decided to extend the operation of the reactors to secure the supply until 15 April.
“There might have been a new discussion if the winter had been more difficult if there had been power cuts and gas shortages. But we have had a winter without too many problems,” thanks to the massive import of liquefied natural gas, notes Mr Winkler.
For the mayor of the town of 4,000 inhabitants, more than 150 of whom work at the plant, “the wheel has already turned” and there was no time to “go back”.
Sixteen reactors have been closed since 2003. The last three plants supplied 6 per cent of the country’s energy last year, compared with 30.8 per cent in 1997.
Meanwhile, the share of renewables in the generation mix has risen to 46 per cent by 2022, up from less than 25 per cent a decade earlier.
The current rate of progress in renewables does not satisfy either the government or environmentalists, and Germany will not meet its climate targets without a serious push.
These targets “are already ambitious without the nuclear phase-out – and every time you deprive yourself of a technological option, you make things more difficult,” notes Georg Zachmann, an energy expert at the Brussels think-tank Bruegel.
The equation is even more complex given the goal of shutting down the country’s coal-fired power plants by 2038, many of them by 2030.
Coal still accounts for a third of Germany’s electricity production, with an 8 per cent increase last year to compensate for the absence of Russian gas.
Germany needs to install “four to five wind turbines every day” over the next few years to cover its needs, warned Olaf Scholz. This is a tall order compared to the 551 units installed in 2022.
A series of regulatory relaxations adopted in recent months should speed up the pace. “The planning and approval process for a wind power project takes an average of four to five years,” according to the industry association (BWE), which believes that gaining one or two years would be “a considerable step forward”.
震災・原発事故後の復興の起爆剤にしようと福島県双葉郡浪江町への設置が決まった「福島国際研究教育機構」（F-REI＝以下エフレイ）。今月1日の仮事務所開所式は岸田文雄首相や内堀雅雄知事らが出席して華々しく行われたが、その陰で「立ち退き問題」に苦悩している町民がいる。予定地の大半は農地だが、なかには避難指示解除を受けて町に戻り、新たに土地を購入して暮らしていたところに再び「国家プロジェクト」の名のもとに住まいを追われようとしている人も。住民はどれだけ「お国のため」に振り回されるのか。苦悩に包まれる現場を歩いた。
【「用地買収はこれから」】
「エフレイ」は福島復興再生特別措置法に基づいて設置された法人。研究機関などが入る施設の誘致に田村市、南相馬市、川俣町、広野町、楢葉町、富岡町、大熊町、双葉町、浪江町が名乗りを挙げたが、浪江駅の西側、川添字中ノ目地区を中心に設置されることが昨年9月の「第35回復興推進会議」で決まった。7年後の2030年度には50の研究機関が入り、約5000人の交流人口を生じさせるとされている。
福島県のホームページでは「福島をはじめ東北の復興を実現するとともに、日本の科学技術力・産業競争力の強化に貢献する、世界に冠たる『創造的復興』の中核拠点」、「福島イノベーション・コースト構想の取組により整備された拠点間の連携等を促進し、構想を更に具現化、発展させる」と紹介されているほか、内堀知事も昨年12月の県議会で「福島国際研究教育機構の設立に伴う研究員等の新たな居住や往来が見込まれております」と答弁するなど〝肝いり〟のプロジェクトだ。一方、浪江町民からは「何の施設ができるのかさっぱり分からない」との声も聞かれる。
今月1日には、岸田首相も出席して仮事務所の開所式が行われた。各省庁から集められた官僚など約60人が常駐することになるが、多くはいわき市など浪江町外から通うという。
法人が発足したばかりとあって、福島県も浪江町も「具体化はこれから」と口を揃える。
「いまは用地買収に向けて手続きをしているところ。相手（地権者）もあることなので、いつまでに（買収を終える）というのは決まっていない。国が住民説明会を開いたが、具体的な用地の取得はこれから」（福島県福島イノベーション・コースト構想推進課）
「いまはまだ用地買収の前の段階。予定地は完全に固まったわけではないので、あくまで仮定の話だが、住宅が引っかかる可能性がある。もし立ち退いてもらう必要が出てくるようであれば、しっかりご理解・ご協力いただける形で進めたい。いずれにしても具体化するのはこれから」（浪江町F-REI立地室）
だがしかし、実際には国や町が町民に具体的な立ち退き話を持ち掛けていた。「仮定の話」などではないのだ。
[…]
【拒否すれば強制執行？】
「立ち退いてくれってことですよ」
地権者の1人は、困惑した表情で話した。怒っているというより、弱り切った表情だった。
この地権者の自宅は建設予定地に面している。これまでに復興庁や町役場の担当者が何度か自宅を訪ねてきた。当初は自宅を避けて施設を建設するという話もあったが、役場職員から「国から（住宅を）どけてくれと言われた」と告げられたという。
「エフレイの建設予定地を見たら、うちが入っちゃってるんです。邪魔だということになっちゃった要は道路際から建てたいのでしょう。だから私の家があると邪魔なんです」
昨年12月3日、施設建設予定周辺に農地や宅地を持つ地権者たちを対象に住民説明会が町内で開かれた。町からは成井祥副町長が、復興庁からは福島国際研究教育機構準備室の江口哲郎参事官らが出席したが、そこで配布された「都市施設の区域（案）」と書かれた地図が、立ち退きがもはや「仮定の話」などではないことを物語っていた。施設建設予定地として塗りつぶされた約16･9ヘクタールの土地に、自宅敷地が含まれていたからだ。
「もし立ち退きに応じないで突っぱねたらどうなるの？」
この地権者は復興庁の官僚に尋ねた。官僚は「最終手段としては強制的に立ち退かせる方法もあるけど、そういうことはやりたくない」と答えたという。「私の家を強制的にどかしてでも道路際から建てたいということなのでしょう」と地権者。役場職員にも同じ趣旨の質問をしたことがあるが、寄り添った答えはなかったという。「最後まで突っ張ることもできるでしょうけど、家のすぐ横に高い塀とともに大きな施設を建てられたら、やっぱり嫌ですから…」。想いは複雑だ。
[…]
By Laura Feldman
To Downwinders everywhere
Over the years I’ve visited the site many times, almost as if summoned. Slowly and surely I have developed a relationship with this place that was certainly not my place. In the summer of 2021, I joined artist and educator Yukiyo Kawano along with history professor and OSU Downwinders Project co-curator Linda Richards on a trip to Richland, Washington. The purpose of our trip was to assist Yuki, a third-generation hibakusha¹, in assembling her Little Boy and Fat Man kimono bomb sculptures, which were to be filmed on the seventy-sixth anniversary of the US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as part of a documentary film project.
The worst radiological disaster in US testing history, the Castle Bravo test of a thermonuclear bomb on Rongelap in the Marshall Islands, took place in 1954, the year I was born. Near the neighborhood where I grew up in North Portland, Japanese Americans were interned at the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Building, now the Portland Expo Center. Not far away, the Vanport housing project was built for shipyard workers during the war and then wiped away by a flood in 1948. I never heard adults tell these stories of place, nor did I encounter them in school. When I was growing up, this part of Portland was where Jantzen Beach had been—the best amusement park, where we swam in an Olympic-sized pool and where my father’s annual carpenter’s picnic was held every summer.
During the 1960s, peak plutonium production years, we also used to swim in the Columbia, in water that bathed the hot fuel rods from Hanford reactors, which along with plutonium and other nucleotides were flushed back into the river. I remember the strange hot spots in an otherwise cold river. On the lower Willamette side of the peninsula we used to play down on Mocks Bottom, a swamp on Swan Island. My father and two of his brothers had worked at the Plylock Timber Mill further down the river, where the first plywood had been manufactured in the 60s. The lower eleven miles of the Willamette, an EPA designated superfund cleanup site since 2000, makes the river one of the most toxic in North America. Several years ago, it became part of my family’s history when both of my siblings developed cancer. I asked my sister’s oncologist if he thought her cancer had anything to do with growing up next to the Portland Harbor superfund site and downwind from Hanford. I intended it as more of a statement than a question because I didn’t expect an answer. To my surprise, he replied, “Yeah, probably.”
[…]
The next morning, I walk to a nearby Starbucks. People are sitting at tables, chatting—a couple of cyclists, a senior heading to the golf course that borders our hotel. Only the staff wear masks. Living here seems normal. Elsewhere, Covid is soaring; there are fires and droughts and leaking tanks—but not here. Here, the Columbia River is not dangerously low and hot, as it is in our valley, where salmon are dying due to high temperatures and dams. Here, residents are surrounded by desert, contained. An uneasiness emanates from this place—noticeable because it’s different from the uneasiness I’m used to in Portland. A healthcare worker once told me that her husband was from Richland, where his family still lives. She said there is a kind of mass depression here, like hard-to-get-out-of-bed-in-the-morning depression. An artist from Tri-Cities once told me that it is dangerous to drive at night because there is so much self-medicating going on.
We head out with the filmmakers, Irene LusztIg and Helki Frantzen, to the Hanford Reach to assemble Fat Man. This beautiful shrub-steppe landscape that acted as a security buffer around “the place” is open to the public without access restrictions, but it is not, I suspect, without contamination. We unload and begin to assemble the kimono-fabric bomb across the river from the ghost town of White Bluffs. It’s high noon, over one hundred degrees, and the putty that holds the cloth segments to the frame melts almost instantly. We are stalled for a moment by the loss of a crucial ring that will make this bomb take shape.
Fat Man, made from patches of kimonos belonging to Yuki’s grandmother, dyed the color of various shades of Earth, and sewn together with strands of Yuki’s hair, begins to take shape. Finally the bomb is launched upward, and my heart skips a beat. As it moves in the wind and flutters, I cry. This isn’t the first time I have been in the presence of Yuki’s kimono bombs. But it is the first time I experience this bomb as part of the place. The wind dances, a call back to the first bomb, the mother-and-child bomb, the innocence-ended bomb, the end-of-the-world-as-we-knew-it bomb.
Early evening back in Richland, at Howard Ammons Park on the river, we set up Little Boy among the family picnics, boats, and kids playing in the water. Linda and I sit outside, ready to chat with passersby, but we are almost completely ignored. Behind us in the community center, Yuki joins a group called World Citizens for Peace for their annual commemorative ringing of the peace bell. She had hoped to share questions given to her by some of the women activists in Fukushima with whom she meets regularly. They were interested in understanding how Richland residents cope with living in a contaminated landscape.
But Yuki comes out of the community center looking exhausted. Instead of posing the questions from the Fukushima women, she was asked to give an impromptu speech about the importance of reconciliation. She began by expressing disappointment at being the only person of color in the room, again. She noted that given the extensive culture of denial around Hanford, including the long history of violence against the tribes living here, she did not feel that reconciliation was yet possible. Reconciliation, after all, requires acknowledgement, and neither the MPNHP nor local leadership had fully acknowledged the true costs of the Manhattan Project and its Cold War legacies.
The ceremony did not remember the casualties of Nagasaki or the ongoing suffering of hibakusha like Yuki, who stood before them. But they did acknowledge American casualties from battles in the Pacific Ocean Theater. When it came time to ring the peace bell, people came up and rang the bell for a bevy of sins and causes, disasters and bad news around the world, all unconnected to that tragic day of August 9, 1945.
Had it not been for the curiosity of three young boys who, intrigued by Little Boy, stopped with their little dog to chat with us, I would have left Richland again feeling largely disconnected from the people of “the place.” Like most children probably anywhere in this region, they were still not being taught the legacy of weapons and waste produced at Hanford, just as I had not been taught sixty years ago. But they did know from family members who worked there that it was dangerous work, that it made some of them sick.
The distinct changes and shifts in the landscape on the long drive back home through the Gorge used to help me contain Hanford. Now they trouble the vast landscape—a dangerously contaminated history that the cities of Portland and Richland have been ignoring for decades.
We stopped at Cascade Locks on the way back. Linda had mentioned that her mother had been there for a family funeral recently and that it had a good vibe. I mentioned that my dad had died there while fishing in 1973 and that I’d only been once since then. My traveling companions graciously agreed to stop for me to visit my father’s last place.
Fishing was a strange leisurely activity I had never known my dad to have when I was growing up. A swirl of sadness surrounds his life—a World War II veteran who fought in the Pacific Ocean theater. I know from a framed photo of the USS Columbia, which hung on the wall in our basement party room, that he was proud of serving in the war to end all wars. But I also know that he floated on a sea of anger and sadness that he could not articulate. All he shared of his war experience was a story about Betty Grable bringing him up to dance onstage at a USO show and his distrust of Japanese people and anything made in Japan.
I don’t know if he ever knew about Hanford or the contaminated river he fished in.
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東京電力は31日、福島第一原発（福島県大熊町、双葉町）の1号機原子炉の内部調査で、核燃料があった圧力容器の真下を撮影した画像を新たに公開した。容器下に付いていた制御棒などの部品に溶け落ちた核燃料（デブリ）とみられる塊が付着していた。
容器を支える鉄筋コンクリートの土台（厚さ1.2メートル）は、壁の中心にある部材が露出しているのが確認され、厚さの半分以上のコンクリートが損傷してなくなった可能性が高いことも分かった。
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国際廃炉研究開発機構は、開口部の周囲約100度にわたって土台が欠損し、残りの部分も4分の1ほどがなくなった想定で耐震性を評価。その結果、健全性は維持されるとした。
現時点では、土台の損傷度合いははっきりしない。東電は「映像を解析して耐震性を再評価しないと健全性を判断できない」としながらも、圧力容器は上部にも支えがあるため、倒壊する危険はないと説明している。（小野沢健太）
By Tim Street, Harry Spencer, Shane Ward | April 6, 2023
In January 2023 British Pugwash and the polling company Savanta conducted a survey of UK public opinion on nuclear weapons issues and potential support for policies that advance nuclear arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation.
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Use of nuclear weapons. The UK government’s policy is to consider using nuclear weapons “only in extreme circumstances of self-defence, including the defence of our NATO allies.” UK and NATO policy does not rule out the first use of nuclear weapons.
Our poll found that 48 percent of UK adults oppose the first use of nuclear weapons by the United Kingdom, and only 40 percent support first use. This finding builds on the results of the survey British Pugwash conducted in 2021, which found that two-thirds of the British public want NATO to renounce the first use of nuclear weapons.
Replacing nuclear weapons. The United Kingdom is replacing all four parts of its nuclear weapons system: submarines, missiles, warheads, and associated infrastructure. The estimated cost of the four new nuclear-armed submarines is £31 billion (about $38 billion), and the estimated total cost of replacing nuclear weapons between 2019 and 2070 is at least £172 billion ($212 billion).
Our poll found that 42 percent of UK adults think the estimated cost of replacing the UK’s nuclear weapons does not represent value for money.
Stationing US nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom. The UK government has previously allowed US nuclear weapons and nuclear-capable aircraft to be stored, maintained, and operated from UK military bases. Although the United Kingdom has not hosted US nuclear weapons since 2008, in April 2022 an analysis of US Defense Department documents reported that a facility at the Royal Air Force’s Lakenheath base in Suffolk—which is used by the US Air Force—was being upgraded, potentially allowing the United States to again deploy nuclear weapons there.
British public opinion is split over allowing the United States to deploy nuclear weapons on UK territory. Our poll found that 34 percent of UK adults oppose, and 32 percent support, stationing US nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom.
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In 2017, 122 states voted in support of the Treaty, which prohibits the development, testing, production, acquisition, possession, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons, as well as any threat to use them. The United Kingdom has not signed or ratified the treaty. To join the treaty, the country would have to dismantle its nuclear arsenal or present a legally binding plan to do so.
Our poll found that 39 percent of UK adults support joining the ban treaty. Among 18- to 34-year-olds, 48 percent support joining the treaty, and only 13 percent are opposed.
Nuclear weapons possession. The United Kingdom is one of only nine countries possessing nuclear weapons. Our poll found that 40 percent of UK adults are in favor of possession. Women are far less likely than men to support UK possession (28 percent of women, compared with 53 percent of men). Some 27 percent of UK adults oppose UK nuclear possession, 29 percent neither support nor oppose nuclear possession, and 5 percent said they “don’t know” in response to this question.
Our poll also found that a minority of UK adults (39 percent) fully support the government’s decision to increase the UK’s nuclear warhead stockpile cap.
Even among supporters of nuclear possession, we found significant concerns about the government’s approach to nuclear weapons. For example, 23 percent of those who support nuclear possession don’t think the estimated cost of replacing the UK’s nuclear weapons represents value for money.
Furthermore, 38 percent of those who support UK nuclear possession do not want the military to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict. Notably, 35 percent of those who currently support the possession of nuclear weapons also want the United Kingdom to join the international ban treaty that would eliminate the country’s nuclear arsenal.
War in Ukraine. Our data indicate that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has significantly strengthened support for UK possession of nuclear weapons among those who already favored possession. Two-thirds of those who support nuclear possession said the conflict strengthened their position on this issue.
We also saw increases in support for nuclear weapons possession among those who otherwise oppose nuclear possession. In our poll, 16 percent of those who oppose UK possession of nuclear weapons said the Ukraine conflict had increased their support for possession.
Responses to this particular question likely reflect wider public support for UK involvement in the Ukraine conflict and may thus be temporary. Moreover, 39 percent of UK adults said the Ukraine conflict had “made no difference” to their view on UK nuclear possession. Overall, our data suggest that a key impact of the Ukraine war has been to reinforce support for UK nuclear possession among UK adults who already held this view.
Uncertainty and ambivalence. Nearly a third of respondents gave an “on the fence” answer to several of the questions posed. For example, 29 percent said they did not support or oppose the UK’s possession of nuclear weapons; 30 percent said they neither support nor oppose the rise in the nuclear warhead stockpile cap; 28 percent said they neither support nor oppose US nuclear weapons again being stationed in the United Kingdom; and 29 percent said they “don’t know” or are “unsure” whether the estimated cost of the UK nuclear weapons replacement program represents value for money.
These findings indicate that there is significant uncertainty about, and ambivalence toward, nuclear weapons among UK adults.
Why our survey matters. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the risk of nuclear war involving the major powers has risen significantly. Any use of nuclear weapons would have extremely severe consequences for the world. The United Kingdom is a nuclear weapon state, plays a leading role in NATO, and is strongly supportive of—and deeply involved in—US global strategy, to which nuclear deterrence is central. The United Kingdom thus has an important role in maintaining the global nuclear order, and a commensurate responsibility to reduce nuclear threats and advance disarmament. Yet, as noted above, the UK government is engaged in a huge and costly nuclear rearmament program, is increasing its nuclear warhead stockpile cap, and has renounced transparency for its nuclear operations in its Integrated Review of 2021.
London is also providing extensive military support to Kyiv, both to help Ukraine defeat Russia and to weaken Moscow’s ability to undertake future military operations. However, the unpredictable nature of the war means that the risk of it escalating to a wider conflict between Russia and NATO, including the possible use of nuclear weapons, is very real. The president and secretary general of Pugwash have therefore called on the major powers to focus on diplomacy to attain a ceasefire, and “to start and conclude a negotiating process … aimed at avoiding further strife in order to ensure a lasting peace in the whole region.”
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TOKYO (AP) – Images captured by a robotic probe inside one of the three melted reactors at Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant showed exposed steel bars in the main supporting structure and parts of its thick external concrete wall missing, triggering concerns about its earthquake resistance in case of another major disaster.
The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, has been sending robotic probes inside the Unit 1 primary containment chamber since last year. The new findings released Tuesday were from the latest probe conducted at the end of March.
An underwater remotely operated vehicle named ROV-A2 was sent inside the Unit 1 pedestal, a supporting structure right under the core. It came back with images seen for the first time since an earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant 12 years ago. The area inside the pedestal is where traces of the melted fuel can most likely be found.
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An approximately five-minute video – part of 39-hour-long images captured by the robot – showed that the 120-centimeter (3.9-foot) -thick concrete exterior of the pedestal was significantly damaged near its bottom, exposing the steel reinforcement inside.
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An approximately five-minute video – part of 39-hour-long images captured by the robot – showed that the 120-centimeter (3.9-foot) -thick concrete exterior of the pedestal was significantly damaged near its bottom, exposing the steel reinforcement inside.
About 880 tons of highly radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain inside the three reactors. Robotic probes have provided some information, but the status of the melted debris is still largely unknown. The amount is about 10 times the damaged fuel that was removed in the cleanup of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the United States after its 1979 partial core meltdown.
Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori urged TEPCO to “swiftly evaluate levels of earthquake resistance and provide information in a way prefectural residents can easily understand and relieve concern of the residents and people around the country.”
The video taken by the robot also showed equipment that slipped down as well as other types of debris, possibly nuclear fuel that fell from the core and hardened, piling up as high as 40-50 centimeters (1.3-1.6 feet) from the bottom of the primary containment chamber, Matsuo said. The pile is lower than the mounds seen in images taken in previous internal probes at two other reactors, suggesting that the meltdowns in each reactor may have progressed differently, company officials said.
Matsuo said the data collected from the latest probe will help experts come up with methods of removing the debris and analyze the 2011 meltdowns. TEPCO also plans to use the data to create a three-dimensional map of melted fuel and debris details, which would take about a year.
Based on data collected from earlier probes and simulations, experts have said most of the melted fuel inside Unit 1 fell to the bottom of the primary containment chamber, but some might have even fallen through into the concrete foundation – a situation that makes the already daunting task of decommissioning extremely difficult.
Trial removal of melted debris is expected to begin in Unit 2 later this year after a nearly two-year delay. Spent fuel removal from the Unit 1 reactor’s cooling pool is to start in 2027 after a 10-year delay. Once all the spent fuel is removed from the pools, the focus is to turn in 2031 to taking melted debris out of the reactors.
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A nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois. Taken by photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com).
