出戸西方断層 来月にも追加調査/原燃 via Web東奥

 日本原燃の増田尚宏社長は26日、青森市の東奥日報新町ビルで開いた定例会見で、原子力規制庁の求めに応じ、六ケ所再処理工場に近い「出戸西方断層」の北側と南側で新たに地質調査を実施すると明らかにした。調査は5月にも開始し、期間は1~2カ月を予定。

続きは出戸西方断層 来月にも追加調査/原燃

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I Guarded Israel’s First Nuclear Device, Former Israeli Reveals in U.S. Testimony via Haaretz

Elie Geisler says he was asked during the Six Day War to guard a secret base in central Israel that held the device. He described a clash with Col. Yitzhak Yaakov, who demanded control of the base and threatened to break into it by force

From Nixon to Trump, America has always backed a nuclear Israel. This is why
What is Israel hiding about its nuclear program in the ’50s?
Israel had a plan to nuke Sinai in 1967. But how close did it really get to pushing the button?

A former Israeli is claiming that during the Six Day War, he commanded a secret base in the center of the country where a nuclear core was stored that could have been used in a nuclear weapon.

In an interview appearing on the website of the Woodrow Wilson Center, Elie Geisler, who was a trained radiation inspector, tells Prof. Avner Cohen that he had been assigned to guard the device for the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. He also told Cohen that he feared there could be armed internal Israeli conflict over control of nuclear power.

Geisler, who is now a behavioral sciences professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, has lived in the United States since 1973. He was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in 1963, and according to his testimony, served in a secret unit whose soldiers were assigned to the Nuclear Research Center in Dimona. He was a nuclear radiation inspector, a job he continued to fill as a civilian after his military service.

[…]

According to Geisler, he and others supervised the transfer of a small “package” in a wooden crate containing the nuclear device from Dimona to the new base. “We deposited the crate in one of the rooms inside the main building,” he said. “The room was empty of any furniture and without windows.” He said the room in which the device was stored was always locked, and he had the only key. There were 28 armed border policemen under his command, some of whom were stationed in the compound’s watchtowers and were equipped with heavy weapons. “I was told that one or two other cores were in other locations,” he said. From time to time, he said, he would discuss with another person the procedures for moving the core to an assembly point, where it would be connected to the remainder of the device for possible use.

[…]

Geisler’s primary task, he said, “was to verify the safety and security of the object – the core – and to ascertain that no radiation leakage was present.” Twice a day he would measure the radiation level emanating from the object and record his findings in a diary. There was indeed radiation emanating from it, “and hence, it was the real thing.” He describes a visit to the site by former chief of General Staff Moshe Dayan, who would soon be named defense minister instead of Levi Eshkol. “I recall that he was very excited to learn that this was a real core of a nuclear weapon,” Geisler said. “He asked me if this was the real thing, and I confirmed it was.”

[…]

Yaakov, later a brigadier general, gave his own account to Cohen in interviews in 1999 and 2000, whose contents were published in 2017, four years after Yaakov’s death. Yaakov testified that official Israeli figures had planned to explode a nuclear device on a mountain in Sinai to deter Arab states from attacking. “You have an enemy, and he says that he’s going to throw you into the sea. You believe him. If you have a way to scare him, you scare him,” he was quoted as saying. In his conversations with Cohen, Yaakov recalled that “there was some problem,” and the nuclear researcher believes that Geisler’s testimony reveals the “problem” Yaakov was referring to. Naturally, not all the details about the incident are clear or can be published, so questions still remain.

Read more at I Guarded Israel’s First Nuclear Device, Former Israeli Reveals in U.S. Testimony

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Novellas express anger after Fukushima disaster via Star Advertiser

By Oscar Boyd 

TOKYO >> An anger directed toward Tokyo underlies Yusuke Kimura’s two novellas, “Sacred Cesium Ground” and “Isa’s Deluge.” Born from a keen sense of abandonment felt by the Tohoku region in the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, and the subsequent nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, this anger plays out across stories exploring the post-disaster relationships between humans and animals.

The protagonist in “Sacred Cesium Ground” is a woman who travels to Fukushima Prefecture to volunteer at the Fortress of Hope, a farm where cattle irradiated by the Fukushima No. 1 power plant meltdown are tended to despite a government order to kill them.

[…]

“Isa’s Deluge” is the more readable of the two, with a flow and pacing that draws in the reader. Shortlisted for the Mishima Yukio Prize after it was first published in 2012, it follows a family of fishermen who relate the story of their uncle Isa and his “deluge” of pain and depression, an allegory of the 3/11 tsunami.

Both novellas highlight peripheral voices in the post-3/11 period and ultimately return time and again to that tension between a “sacrificial” Tohoku and an all-powerful capital. These perspectives are those not frequently heard and challenge the widespread narrative of an ever-dominant Tokyo.

Read more at Novellas express anger after Fukushima disaster

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原発稼働後、約6倍に増加 via 壱岐新報

驚愕の数値、専門機関による詳細な調査が必要
 
 玄海原子力発電所と原発周辺自治体との白血病死亡率増加について、原発と白血病発症についての因果関係を調べている魚住昭三弁護士(長崎市)と、市防災士会の辻樹夫会長が公表した資料から、本市における白血病死亡率の詳細な推移がわかった。資料は昭和44年から始まるデータを記載し、5年ごとの白血病死亡率をまとめたもの。対10万人数の白血病死亡率は、玄海原発稼働前と後とでは6から7倍に増加しているという驚愕の数値が並ぶ。また原発周辺自治体も同様に、昭和50年の玄海原発1号機の稼働開始以降から死亡率増加を示す推移を示している。
 
 各県保健部局が毎年発行している衛生統計年報(人口動態編)を引用した資料によれば、玄海原発1号機が稼働する以前の昭和44年から昭和52年までの期間は、本市における対10万人数の白血病死亡率は約3.6人と、同期間の全国平均3.5人とほぼ同じ数値となっている。

しかし昭和50年に玄海原発1号機が稼働を始め、その6年後の昭和56年に2号機が稼働開始、平成6年に3号機、平成9年に4号機が稼働を開始するに従い、白血病死亡率は増加の一途をたどっている。平成9年から平成23年までの期間は、全国平均5.7人に対して、本市は26.2人にも及ぶ。

玄海原発は白血病を誘発すると言われるトリチウムを放出する。放出量は全国にある他原発の中で最も多く、稼働開始から現在に至るまで大気中や海洋中に放出され続けている。トリチウムは放射能を含んでいると言われ、全ての原発や核燃料再処理施設では回収されず、自然環境に垂れ流しの状況から、世界中でも深刻な問題となっている。

本市は玄海原発の対岸にあり、島の周囲は海で囲まれているため、海洋に流されたトリチウムを周囲の海洋生物を介して、住民が食事などで摂取している可能性は高い。

一方で県北部の白血病率の高さは、ウイルス性による風土病とされている。特に長崎県はウイルスキャリアが多いことから、玄海原発1号機稼働開始前から発症の割合は全国平均よりも高い。昭和44年から49年の全国平均3.5人に対し、本市は3.9人とわずかな差であり、他の県北部自治体も同様の数値だ。しかし平成9年以降は全国平均から6倍近い明らかな差が生じている。

市防災士会の辻会長は「資料にまとめたデータは、各自治体が公表したもので改ざんする必要がない。相関関係の無視は許されない」と厳しい口調で語った。また「玄海原発の原子炉冷却海水は毎秒70㌧も壱岐水道に放出され、海水温度上昇により漁業にも影響がある」とし「市は九電に明確な調査と対応を要求すべき」と述べた。

続きは原発稼働後、約6倍に増加

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広島の高校生、核廃絶署名届ける=「被爆者の思い未来に」と中満次長-国連 via AFP

【5月1日 時事通信社】核兵器廃絶に向けた署名活動を行っている広島県内の高校の生徒8人が30日、米ニューヨークの国連本部で中満泉軍縮担当上級代表(事務次長)と懇談し、昨年4月からの1年間に集まった12万9筆の署名の目録を提出した。

(略)

署名には、生徒が街頭で集めたものや、全国の中学・高校から送られてきたものが含まれる。懇談には、広島市の松井一実、長崎市の田上富久両市長も出席した。

女子生徒の一人は懇談で、被爆者が高齢化し、「生の声を聞ける時間が少なくなってきている。署名活動のほかに何ができるか考えていきたい」と語った。中満氏は「皆さん自身が、世界をどのように安全にしていくかを考えてほしい」と呼び掛けた。(c)時事通信社

全文は広島の高校生、核廃絶署名届ける=「被爆者の思い未来に」と中満次長-国連

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How scientists traced a uranium cube to Nazi Germany’s nuclear reactor program via Science News

A radioactive relic from World War II wound up in the hands of physicist Timothy Koeth

BY  EMILY CONOVER

The mysterious cube arrived in the summer of 2013. Physicist Timothy Koeth had agreed to go to a parking lot for an unspecified delivery. Inside a blue cloth sack, swathed in paper towels, he found a small chunk of uranium.

It was about 5 centimeters across, with “a white piece of paper wrapped around it, like a ransom note on a stone,” Koeth says. On the paper was a message: “Taken from the reactor that Hitler tried to build. Gift of Ninninger.”

Koeth, a collector of nuclear memorabilia, was enthralled. “I just immediately knew what this thing was,” he says. During World War II, German scientists had attempted to build a nuclear reactor, until their uranium cubes — more than 600 of them — were confiscated by Allied forces and shipped to the United States.

Koeth, of the University of Maryland in College Park, thought his cube could be from that cache but wanted to confirm the hunch. In the process, he and University of Maryland graduate student Miriam Hiebert came to a striking conclusion, reported May 1 in Physics Today: Contrary to conventional wisdom, Germans scientists could have created a nuclear reactor during the war, but competition between teams stymied the effort.

[…]

Koeth eventually plans to loan his cube to a museum. For now, it’s ensconced in a custom-built, handheld display case, and is the jewel of Koeth’s collection of nuclear artifacts. Those other items include graphite from that first reactor at the University of Chicago, greenish glass from sand fused by an atomic bomb test and uranium-infused glassware known as Vaseline glass that glows green under ultraviolet light.
“I’m humbled” by the cube, Koeth says. Uranium fuels nuclear power, which could help free humanity from fossil fuel dependence, he says. But the element can also be used in devastating weapons. Nuclear physics “has the ability to save us and to totally destroy us. And that little cube represents all of that.”

The pair still want to chase down the remaining cubes from Heisenberg’s reactor attempt. They know the whereabouts of 10 others, including one at the Smithsonian Institution based in Washington, D.C., and another at Harvard University. Others are probably scattered around the United States. “They could be in people’s basements all over the country,” Hiebert says. Perhaps to some, it’s just “ ‘that weird cube that my dad had in his office,’ ” she says.

Read more at How scientists traced a uranium cube to Nazi Germany’s nuclear reactor program

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【寄稿】核抑止力という狂気=ゴルバチョフ氏 via The Wall Street Journal

私がサッチャー氏の説得を試みてから数十年、核の危険は深刻になる一方だ

By Mikhail Gorbachev
2019 年 5 月 1 日 15:26 JST

――筆者のミハイル・ゴルバチョフ氏は旧ソビエト連邦の元大統領
***
 「抑止力は間違いによる核使用や核を使ったテロから世界を守ることはできない」。ジョージ・シュルツ元米国務長官、ウィリアム・ペリー元米国防長官、サム・ナン元米上院議員は先ごろ、こう書いた。「米国、ロシア両政府間で持続的かつ意味のある対話がなければ、そうした事態が起きる可能性はさら高まる」とも書いている。米ロ間の戦略的な関与が緊急に必要であるという点について私も彼らと同じ意見だ。さらに私は、核抑止力が世界を守るのではなく、世界を恒常的な危険にさらし続けると確信している。
 この問題についてマーガレット・サッチャー元英首相との激しい議論を思い出す。われわれは多くのことを議論し、共通の立場を見いだしたことも少なくなかった。しかしこの問題については、サッチャー氏は最後まで譲らず、核兵器のおかげで第三次世界大戦を阻止できたと言い張った。

(略)

核兵器が世界を戦争から救うことができると信じる人達は1962年のキューバ危機を思い出すべきだ。ソ連による核兵器の設置をめぐる対立が世界を戦争の寸前にまで追いやった。最近公表された文書を読むと、世界がどれほど運命の一線に近づいたかが分かる。このとき世界を救ったのは核兵器ではない。ジョン・F・ケネディとニキータ・フルシチョフという当時の米国とソ連の指導者が正気に返ったことで世界は救われたのだ。2人は当時も、それ以降もじっくり考えたことだろう。核兵器についての2人の認識は大きく変わった。

それだけではない。両氏は大気圏内、宇宙空間、水中における核実験を終わらせることで合意に達し、その結果、質的な軍拡競争のペースを遅らせると共に、核爆発で生じる人を死に至らしめる物質から大気を守った。

その後、核軍縮を継続的に前進させる機会は失われ、軍産複合体が良識に勝利した。それからずっとあとの1980年代の終わりになってようやく、米国とソ連は核軍拡競争を止めることができた。米国とロシアは今、非常に危険な岐路に立っている。両国は立ち止まって考えなければならない。冷戦を生き抜いた賢者らが意見を表明した。次は両国の指導者らが行動を起こす番だ。

全文は【寄稿】核抑止力という狂気=ゴルバチョフ氏

当サイト既出関連記事:The Madness of Nuclear Deterrence via the Wall Street Journal

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‘Fukushima 50’ to Star Ken Watanabe and Koichi Sato via Variety

By PATRICK FRATER

Japan’s Koichi Sato (“Terminal,” “Whiteout,” and “Unforgiven”) and Ken Watanabe(“Inception,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Godzilla,” “The Last Samurai”) star in “Fukushima 50,” a forthcoming film recounting the events of the East Japan earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown of 2011. The survival action drama is directed by Wakamatsu Setsuro (“The Unbroken,” “Whiteout”).

Based on the book “On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi,” by Ryusho Kadota, the film’s narrative follows 50 workers who risked their lives by staying at the plant, in order to prevent total destruction of the overheating atomic reactors and minimise devastation. The adapted screenplay was written by Yoichi Maekawa, writer of “Gunji Kanbei,” “Shuhei Nozaki,” and “The Auditor.” Salo plays a power station supervisor, Watanabe plays a site superintendant.

Backed by the Kadokawa Corporation, the film shot in Japan from November 2018 to April. It is due for release in 2020.

Continue reading at ‘Fukushima 50’ to Star Ken Watanabe and Koichi Sato

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テレビ各局の“平成事件振り返り”から「福島原発事故」が消えた! 広告漬けと政権忖度で原発事故をなかったことにvia Litera


「平成」の終わりまであと数時間。この1、2カ月テレビ各局はこぞって「平成振り返り」特番を放送してきた。しかし、そのなかで、気になったことがある。どの番組を見ても、あの福島原発事故のことがほとんど出てこないのだ。

 たとえば、4月6日に放送された『池上彰のニュース そうだったのか! 3時間スペシャル』(テレビ朝日)。その内容は「平成30年大ニュース」と題し、平成の時代に起こった事件や出来事を「昭和」と比較し分析するというもので、ゆとり教育や消費税導入、テロの激増、そして「日本を大きく変えた自然災害」として西日本豪雨、雲仙・普賢岳などともに東日本大震災にも触れられていた。ところが、その震災についても「SNSが普及」「LINEに既読機能が」といった災害対策がメインで、多くの国民に甚大かつ深刻な被害を与えた福島原発事故についてはクローズアップしなかった。

フジテレビが3月31日に放送した『報道スクープ映像 昭和・平成の衝撃事件!大追跡SP』も同様で、昭和のロス疑惑まで取り上げているのに、原発事故にフォーカスすることはなかった。

 NHKでも同じ現象が起きている。『NHKスペシャル』ではこの間、「平成史スクープドキュメント」と銘打った回顧シリーズを放送していたが、「大リーガーNOMO」「山一証券破綻」「小選挙区制導入」「安室奈美恵」などがテーマで、原発事故は結局、テーマにならなかった。

 情報番組やワイドショーも、この間、レギュラー枠の中で平成ふりかえり企画を放送したが、やはり原発事故をクローズアップした番組は皆無。

 とくに、唖然としたのがきょう、平成最後の日の『情報ライブ ミヤネ屋』(読売テレビ系)だ。「年表で振り返る30年間」として平成の事件を振り返り、小泉政権の誕生、高橋尚子のシドニー金メダル、ライブドア事件などはたっぷり映像で放送したのだが、2011年になると、「災害の多かった平成、なかでも東日本大震災、いまだに復興道半ば」という短いコメントとともに、津波で押し流された町の写真パネルが一瞬、映されただけで、すぐに「それから2012年、東京オリンピック開催決定、スカイツリー開業、えーそんな前になんの?」と、宮根がおちゃらけトークで別の話題に移してしまった。

 そのあと、天皇・皇后の東日本大震災被災地慰問の映像が流れて、再び震災の話題になるのだが、ここでも不可解なことが起きる。「被災による避難者数」というフリップが映され、林アナが「およそ4万8000人の方が避難している、そのうちおよそ4万人は福島県の方」と解説したのだが、そのあと、原発のゲの字も口にせず、その「4万人の福島県の避難者」の原因についてネグってしまったのだ。

「この間、原発事故のことをきちんと取り上げていたのは『報ステ』やTBS、それも報道局が作った番組くらいじゃないですか。他の民放も、NHKも明らかに原発事故を避けていた」(民放関係者)

[…]

全文

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Spain to Shut Down Nuclear Plants And Push Forward Clean Energy Plan via South EU Summit

Amid a Europe-wide debate over the future of nuclear power in a renewable energy future, Spain has rolled out a schedule to close its seven nuclear power plants. This move comes as the government proposes an ambitious clean energy plan to shift away from fossil fuels completely by 2050.

Spain’s main electricity providers have reached a deal to close the Almaraz nuclear power plant in western Spain, in line with the Spanish government’s plans to shut down all seven of the country’s nuclear plants by 2035. Almaraz, the country’s oldest nuclear plant, is jointly owned by Iberdrola, Endesa, and Naturgy, who last week agreed to invest a combined 400 million euros – and up to 600 million if necessary – to operate the plant until its two reactors are closed in 2027 and 2028. The plan also guaranteed employment at the plant for the next 20 to 25 years, through the end of operations, and the long process of safely shutting down and decommissioning the facility.

The deal to close the Almaraz plan is paving the way for further negotiations about the closure of Spain’s other nuclear plants. For example, Iberdrola and Endesa, who together own the Vandellos II nuclear plant in Catalonia, have applied to the Ecological Transition Ministry for a ten-year extension of the plant’s operations, a prerequisite to reaching an agreement to finance the plant until it is closed.

Nuclear power currently provides close to 20% of the country’s electricity, but the Spanish government hopes to shift away from this energy source by 2035. Next slated to close, in 2029, is Endesa’s Asco I reactor in Tarragona, followed by Iberdrola’s Cofrentes reactor in Valencia the next year. Asco II and Vandellos plants, jointly owned by these two companies, will respectively close in 2033 and 2034. Last to close in 2035 will be the Trillo plant, where Endesa, Iberdrola, and Naturgy all own shares.

[…]

14 EU states produce nuclear power; in France, Belgium, Slovakia, and Hungary, nuclear energy makes up the majority of electricity production. Italy, in contrast, phased out its nuclear plants in 1990, while Portugal and Greece opted out of this power source. Safety and environmental concerns, reinforced by meltdowns such as Chornobyl in 1986, and the 2011 Fukushima disaster, have convinced many Europeans that nuclear power’s risks outweigh its benefits. […]

Nuclear energy does not fit neatly into either side of the energy debate. In Belgium, for instance, nuclear power is being phased out to mitigate safety risks and environmental hazards – only to be replaced by gas-fired plants. France, on the other hand, continues to build more nuclear plants to decrease fossil fuel consumption. Each EU member state decides its own nuclear policy, leading to international tensions over national policy. For example, nuclear-free Luxembourg plans to vote to allow its citizens to sue Belgian nuclear producers, in the event of a cross-border accident. Spain plans to dump the nuclear waste from the Almaraz plant at a site 100 km from the Portuguese border, near the Tegus River that flows through Lisbon. The Portuguese government has registered complaints with the EU, alleging that Spain did not take into account the cross-border impact when approving the plan. Aside from “stress tests” assessing the safety of plants across Europe, the EU has not spelled out clear directives on nuclear power, and so the debate among member states will continue.

[…]

Read more.

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