米スリーマイル島原発、廃炉前倒しも　１号機採算取れず via 朝日新聞

Posted on 2017/05/27 by kojimaaiko

米電力大手エクセロン社は２４日、運営するスリーマイル島原発１号機（ペンシルベニア州、加圧水型）が、２０２０年６月から１年間の電気を売るためのオークションで、販売枠を得られなかったと発表した。原発の電力価格が市場価格より高かったため。電気が売れなかったり、安く買われたりして収益が見込めなければ、事故を起こした２号機とともに早期廃炉に向かう可能性がある。

スリーマイル島原発は２号機が１９７９年に米史上最悪の炉心溶融事故を起こした。溶けた燃料の取り出しは９０年に終わったが、廃炉は運転を続ける１号機の閉鎖を待って行われる。１号機は２０３４年までの運転許可を得ているが、ここ５年採算が取れておらず、過去３回のオークションでも失敗している。

[…]

同社は声明で、「電力価格の低迷と、国や州の支援がないことが原因」だとして、ニューヨーク州やイリノイ州などのように、原発を温室効果ガスの排出ゼロの電源として優遇し、支援策を設けるよう訴えている。

[…]

全文は　米スリーマイル島原発、廃炉前倒しも　１号機採算取れず

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原発敷地内で乾式貯蔵も選択肢 使用済み核燃料で高浜町長 via 京都新聞

Posted on 2017/05/27 by yukimiyamotodepaul

関西電力高浜原発が立地する福井県高浜町の野瀬豊町長が２７日までに共同通信のインタビューに応じ、同原発で増え続ける使用済み核燃料の扱いについて、現在保管している原発内のプールから取り出し、専用の金属容器に入れて保管する「乾式貯蔵」を原発敷地内で進めることも選択肢との認識を示した。

原発外への搬出が前提となっている使用済み燃料を巡り、原発の地元町長が敷地内でのさらなる保管に言及するのは異例。野瀬町長は同時に、使用済み燃料を原発外でいったん保管する「中間貯蔵施設」建設に国が積極的に関与するよう求めた。

続きは原発敷地内で乾式貯蔵も選択肢 使用済み核燃料で高浜町長

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US nuclear lab’s future up in the air after recent fire via abc news

Posted on 2017/05/27 by yukimiyamotodepaul

A recent fire has put a national laboratory’s ability to operate safely into question.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board announced Friday that it will hold a hearing next month to discuss the future of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported (http://bit.ly/2qmP0CY). The board is an independent panel that advises the U.S. Department of Energy and the president.

A fire broke mid-April at the lab’s PF-4 plutonium building where the plutonium cores of nuclear weapons are produced. Lab officials said that the fire was put out quickly and only caused minor injuries.

[…]

The Department of Energy has announced plans to increase manufacturing of the plutonium pits at Los Alamos over the next decades. President Donald Trump’s budget proposal will also increase funding for weapons work in the next fiscal year.

The moves make local nuclear watchdog groups uneasy.

“Fattening up our already bloated nuclear weapons stockpile is not going to improve our national security,” said Jay Coghlan, the director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, in a news release issued Friday. “New Mexicans desperately need better funded schools and health care, not expanded plutonium pit production that will cause more pollution and threaten our scarce water resources.”

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福島飯舘村避難指示解除で村民は戻ってきたのか　via 日刊スポーツ

Posted on 2017/05/26 by nfield

東日本大震災から６年。今年３月３１日に東京電力福島第１原発事故の放射能汚染で全村避難となっていた福島県飯舘村の避難指示が解除された。事故発生当時から現場に入り、放射能汚染の測定を続けてきた科学者がいる。

[…]

飯舘村南部の空間放射線量は１時間当たり２０マイクロシーベルト以上。この被ばくを１日８時間、１年間以上続けると、約６０ミリシーベルト。日本の法律に定められた一般人の年間被ばく限度１ミリシーベルトの６０倍だ。

「僕は涙を流すしかない。ここの現状がどうで、どれぐらい被ばくするということは自分の責任である程度は言えます。ただ移住するとか避難するとかはそれぞれの人の判断です。僕からは言えません。専門家ができることは行政や普通の人々が判断できる情報をきっちり出していくことです」

現地調査は１０回近くに及び、福島市内では避難中の住民の声を何度も聞いた。科学者としての思いは１つ。専門家として正確な情報を伝える－。

今中さんは８６年の旧ソ連・チェルノブイリ原発事故の災害研究の第一人者でもある。９０年から科学者グループの１人として現地入りし、調査を重ねてきた。研究テーマは「原発事故という最悪の事態が日本で起きたらどうなるか」だった。

「原発が事故を起こしたら周囲２０～３０キロの地域と文化が丸ごと失われる。同じことが起きている」

[…]

 

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Open Now! Visit Turn Back the Clock at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Posted on 2017/05/26 by yukimiyamotodepaul

Open Now! Visit Turn Back the Clock at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is delighted to announce the opening of a new exhibit showcasing the rich history of our organization at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. The exhibit, Turn Back the Clock, highlights the Bulletin and one of the most provocative and important symbols of the 20th century—the Doomsday Clock. Created in partnership with the Museum, Turn Back the Clock showcases the urgency of two major challenges facing our world today: nuclear weapons and climate change.

As guests explore Turn Back the Clock, they will learn about the significance of the Doomsday Clock and how it has evolved to include risks we face today. Through compelling personal stories, innovative interactive media, and pop culture artifacts, the exhibit takes guests through seven decades of history—from the dawn of the nuclear age to significant policy questions our leaders face today. 

Guests will:

•    Interact with a digital representation of the Clock through time, offering a snapshot of the science, policy and culture at that moment.

•    Learn how the atomic age extended into pop culture, including inspiring comic book series, music, and films directed by Stanley Kubrick.

•    Walk through a visual, historic timeline of the nuclear age.

•    Learn how the existential threat of climate change has influenced the Clock since 2007, becoming more and more urgent as global leaders resist taking necessary action.

[…]

Visitor information

Press information

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東京から岩手、掃除機ゴミから高い放射線量検出…福島の母親「子供が使命感から廃炉作業従事…」 via Business Journal

Posted on 2017/05/25 by nfield

[…]

その目に見えない影響は、いつ、どのように健康被害として現れるのか予測がつかないという不安をもたらす。健康被害を最小限に食い止めるには、放射能に汚染された場所や物から遠ざかることがもっとも有効だ。そして放射線量を具体的な数字で知ることが重要になる。
放射能に対する地域住民の不安を少しでも軽減するため12年12月、いわき市小名浜花畑町に「放射能を識知する」ことを使命とする「いわき放射能市民測定室たらちね」が設立された。

[…]

たらちねで働くスタッフたちのほとんどは、地元の母親たちだ。彼女たちの声は、まさしく地域の母親たちの思いである。彼女たちは、こう話す。
「震災後、原発事故による広範な放射能被害の下で、不安な生活を強いられてきました。事故当初から学校での給食は選択制になり、『給食』『ごはん（米）のみ持参』『弁当持参』の3つから選べるかたちになっています。不安を少しでも減らすには、放射能汚染を数値で確認し、安心して食べさせることができる食材を使用するしかありません」

[…]

放射能測定の必要性

たらちねは、放射能の定点測定を行う。福島県教育委員会の許可のもと、県内200カ所を超える幼稚園、保育園、小・中・高校でのダストサンプルの放射線量測定を実施している。また、いわき市漁協の協力を得て定期的な海洋調査も手がける。その一方で、県内外からの放射線量測定の依頼も受けている。
いわき市行政も放射線量測定の依頼を受けているが、自家栽培した物に限られる。それに対し、たらちねに持ち込まれる検体は、農作物、スーパーマーケットで販売される食品、雑草、木の実から虫やみみず、腐葉土、薪ストーブの灰、掃除機のゴミなどさまざまだ。それも、地元ばかりでなく遠方からも数多く寄せられる。

[…]

放射線量は、セシウム量で示される。掃除機のゴミは、測定地点での比較になるという。測定するスタッフは、「北海道や沖縄などの検体に比べると、北は岩手から南は東京までの測定値は桁違いに高く、明らかに原発事故由来のものだと思われます」と話す。筆者は東京で暮らしているが、これまではそれほど放射能について気にかけていなかった。しかし、実際に数値が高いという事実を知り、不安を感じるとともに原発事故による放射能の影響について、自分も当事者であるという考えに変わった。

セシウム測定だけでは不十分

たとえば、スーパーで売られる福島産の生鮮食品などは、放射性セシウムの基準値（一般食品で100Bq／kg）に合わせて、店独自の基準が設けられている。その基準のほとんどは、セシウム量による評価だ。しかし、セシウムのみにフォーカスするのは不十分だ。注目すべきはストロンチウム90だ。セシウムもストロンチウム90も、継続的に摂取していると、時間とともにその蓄積量は増えていく。
ストロンチウム90が体内に蓄積して起きる健康被害は、すぐには見えてこない。まず骨に蓄積され、そこからベータ線を発して細胞を攻撃し続ける。その結果、骨や血液のがんになる可能性があるが、現段階ではその発現頻度は未知である。
たらちねでは、独自の測定法を確立し、ほかの機関よりも安価で依頼を受けている。セシウムに関しては食品1検体500円、ストロンチウム90に関しては1検体3000円で行っている。ストロンチウム90の測定には、検体から有機物などを取り除く前処理が必要であり、設備の整ったベータ線ラボが必要だ。民間でこのベータ線ラボを持つのは、たらちねのみだという。通常、ストロンチウム90の測定が可能な機関に依頼すると、1検体20～25万円の費用がかかる。一般の母親たちが、子供の弁当に入れるおかずひとつの放射能汚染量を知るために20万円は出せない。たらちねのスタッフたちも、「安価でなければ意味がない」と声をそろえる。

[…]

たらちねは、認定NPO法人である。事業収益はほとんどなく、企業、団体、個人からの寄付で成り立っている。フォトジャーナリズム誌「DAYS JAPAN」（講談社） の元編集長である広河隆一氏の協力のほか、多くの企業が寄付を寄せている。そして地元福島の母親たちを中心とした使命感溢れるスタッフにより運営されている。国からの補助金などを得ることが難しいため、資金の安定がひとつの問題ではあるが、2016年よりファンドレイジングにより資金を集め、17年6月には同施設内に内科・小児科「たらちねクリニック」がオープンする。たらちねクリニックでは、保険診療や甲状腺検診を行うほか、健康被害への不安や相談に応え、地域の健康増進・維持に努めていく。

[…]

また、母親たちが危惧する新たな問題がある。国は、事故を起こした福島第一原発について「30～40年後に廃炉を目指す」と掲げている。一方、震災後の福島の学校教育に大きな変化が起きている。工業系高校で、廃炉教育に力を入れているのだ。放射性物質について学び、廃炉の技術を学ぶためのカリキュラムが導入された。これについて、地元の母親たちは、複雑な気持ちをこう明かす。
「もちろん、誰かがしなければいけないのはわかります。しかし、私たち母親からすると、子供が使命感に駆られて廃炉作業に従事するのではないかとの懸念があります。複雑な気持ちです」

 

[…]

また、放射能が人体に及ぼす影響は、時間が経過しないとわからない。だが、すべての子供は、放射能から平等に守られる権利がある。経済的格差や知識の格差などによって、一部の子供たちが放射能に野ざらしにならないように私たちができることは、関心を持ち続けることではないだろうか。
たらちねの設立以来、英BBCをはじめアメリカ、フランスなど、多くの海外メディアが取材に訪れている。本来、日本でこそ福島のその後を伝えなければならない。筆者は、今後も福島の取材を続け、放射能の問題を社会に投げかけていきたい。
（文＝吉澤恵理／薬剤師）
ニュースサイトで読む: http://biz-journal.jp/2017/05/post_19221_3.html
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A predictable nuclear accident at Hanford via The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Posted on 2017/05/25 by nfield

By Hugh Gusterson

[…]

The Hanford complex, which dates back to 1943, produced the plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Half the size of Rhode Island, it is often described as the most contaminated place in the United States. Until its last reactor closed in 1987, it churned out plutonium for the roughly 70,000 nuclear weapons the United States built during the Cold War. As the historian Kate Brown documents in her book Plutopia, which explores the uncanny similarities between Hanford and its Soviet counterpart Ozersk, Hanford has been a slow-motion environmental disaster since its opening, constantly excreting radioactive contaminants into the air and water. More dangerous than the tunnels are the giant tanks of liquid nuclear waste: 177 of them containing 56 million gallons of radioactive soup whose composition is only approximately known. The contents of some have to be stirred periodically to prevent the formation of hydrogen bubbles that would cause the tanks to explode. One million gallons of this witches’ brew have already leaked into the groundwater from tanks that were built to last only 20 years. The US government projects that it will cost more than $107 billion to clean up the site, with remediation finished by 2060. Few knowledgeable people put much credence in either number.

It would be nice to say that Hanford is a unique canker on the US nuclear landscape, but it is not.[…]

At Ohio’s Fernald plant, which processed uranium for the weapons complex, operators dumped radioactive waste into makeshift pits where it contaminated local groundwater, and blew uranium dust particles out of the smokestacks when the filters failed, as they did with some regularity. Similar stories could be told for the nuclear weapons facilities at Savannah River in North Carolina and Oak Ridge in Tennessee, which hushed up criticality accidents while contaminating nearby air and water.

There are three reasons these Cold War nuclear facilities turned into such environmental catastrophes. First, the Cold War American state, fixated on winning the arms race, put a premium on beating the Soviets at all costs. Producing uranium, plutonium, and weapons components was a higher priority than protecting the health of nearby residents or the workers at the plants, a disproportionate number of whom died of cancer. Ironically, since 1945, American nuclear weapons, intended to keep the country safe, have mainly killed Americans.

A second factor was state secrecy. As leading Cold War public intellectuals such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Edward Shils argued, abuse thrives in the dark, and Cold War secrecy provided much cover of darkness to places like Hanford. For decades, government officials and the contractors that ran the plants were able to deflect civilian regulators, nosy journalists, local citizens, even congressmen, by hiding behind the skirts of national security. Officials defined vital nuclear secrets expansively, to include not just the design and deployment details of weapons, but also the secret harms inflicted on Americans through their production. Anyone who revealed the extent of contamination risked losing his clearance or being incarcerated.

[..]

Finally, we should not underestimate how novel and complex nuclear technology was in the early decades of the Cold War. Physicists, engineers, and technicians were still learning how the technology worked, how esoteric radioactive materials behaved in a range of conditions, and how toxic waste products were absorbed into the environment. As in any endeavor, you learn by making mistakes. Unfortunately, those mistakes left a legacy of contaminated Cold War production sites around the country that are beginning to look like a permanent archipelago of national sacrifice zones.

[…]

In a perverse way, radioactive contamination has gone from a shameful secret to be concealed to an asset to be milked. The cleanup campaign is becoming like the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, America’s longest war. It takes place on the periphery of American public vision; it greatly enriches contractors; and there is always light at the end of the tunnel, but the only way we get near the light is when the tunnel collapses.

 

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The ban treaty must address the scientifically predicted consequences of nuclear war via The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Posted on 2017/05/25 by nfield

The preamble of the treaty to ban nuclear weapons now under consideration at the UN will be greatly strengthened if it includes a summary of the long-term environmental consequences of nuclear war, as described by a series of peer-reviewed studies done by prominent scientists working at major US and Swiss Universities, as well as at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research. These studies are considered to be the most authoritative type of scientific research—subjected to criticism by the international scientific community before final publication in scholarly journals—and the findings of these studies remain unchallenged.

The research predicts that a nuclear war fought between emerging nuclear weapon states—with less than 1 percent of the explosive power contained in the global nuclear arsenals—can produce catastrophic long-term damage to global environment and weather. A war fought with 100 atomic bombs can result in the coldest average annual surface temperatures experienced in the last 1,000 years, and this prolonged cold (and drought) would last for several years before temperatures began to return to normal. Medical experts predict that this prolonged cold would lead to a global famine causing up to two billion people to starve to death. Climatologists also predict that such a war would cause major damage to the Earth’s protective stratospheric ozone layer, leading to a doubling of harmful UV-B radiation in the populated mid-latitudes.

The studies also forecast that a war fought with US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons would create post-war Ice Age weather conditions across the Northern Hemisphere in a matter of weeks. These catastrophic changes in weather would be the result of a global stratospheric smoke layer, produced by hundreds or thousands of nuclear firestorms, which would block up to 90 percent of sunlight over central North America and Eurasia

[…]

 

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Radiation and gender: One basis for new nuclear weapons treaty via Pressenza

Posted on 2017/05/25 by nfield

By the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

This week, an historic nuclear weapons ban proposal was unveiled at the United Nations. The proposed agreement recognizes, for the first time, that nuclear weapons and radiation put women and girls at greater risk than men and boys.

The “Draft Convention on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” will be taken up by the United Nations General Assembly beginning in June 2017. The draft convention consists of twenty-one articles elaborated over eight pages. This sturdy seedling of hope rests in part upon these words early in the preamble:

Cognizant that the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons transcend national borders, pose grave implications for human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and for the health of future generations, and of the disproportionate impact of ionizing radiation on maternal health and on girls,     [emphasis added]

Disproportionate impact of ionizing radiation tied to age and gender (a near ten-fold difference across the human lifespan), is a relatively recent finding. Underreported to date, it is rooted in the work of many. Dr Arjun Makhijani (et al.) published detailed gender-based and age-based findings of radiation risk in 2006, in a report called “Science for the Vulnerable: Setting Radiation and Multiple Exposure Environmental Health Standards.” The core of the radiation data and risk tables were reported in the National Academy of Sciences report: Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII Phase 2 (BEIR VII).  BEIR VII used data from the Life Span Study of the Survivors of US A-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 (a study led by the US-Japanese Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima) as well as subsequent epidemiological, biological, and cellular-level scientific data to arrive at its conclusions.

“Every nuclear weapon state has first of all harmed its own people in the course of weapons production and testing.  That harm has affected all of humanity through activities ranging from uranium mining and milling to nuclear weapon testing,” said Dr. Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland (USA).  “It is immensely gratifying that the draft nuclear weapons treaty recognizes the significantly greater radiation risk faced by girls and women for the same exposure, compared to men.  We protect the future of humanity when we protect maternal and child health.”

[…]

The A-bomb Survivors are a data-set (large controlled group); other data-sets include atomic workers, but these are all adult and largely male. The Japanese data is the product of unthinkable suffering, and results from acts of war; but it does include individuals of both genders and from childhood to old age. Survivors have now been tracked over decades, creating by 2006, a critical archive of the human cancer risk response to gamma and neutron radiation exposure.

NIRS Staff Biologist, Mary Olson did an independent review of the Hibakusha (Japanese A-bomb survivors) data in BEIR VII and made similar findings to Makhijani, et al., published as “Atomic Radiation is More Harmful to Women” in 2011.

“The Manhattan Project was the first time that people worked in radioactive environments. Nuclear weapons tests then spread radioactivity (fallout) worldwide, beyond the test sites. There was no pause between making radiation regulations based on men, for men, and then generally applying the same approach in regulations for the general public. Radiation is invisible, and disproportionate harm to female members of the public has yet to be seen or understood by the public. Regulation of allowable exposure of the public to radiation from industrial and military activities does not include gender-based provisions.  This combination has likely resulted in an under-estimation of radiation impacts across the world, and also through time,” said Mary Olson, NIRS Staff Biologist. “Dedicating the new Convention on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, in part, to the acknowledgement of greater harm to females and to children is a new seedling of hope.”

Olson has updated and presented her work many times, most recently in the United Nations Office of Disarmament “Civil Society and Disarmament 2016” booklet.

 

 

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A first draft of the world’s first nuclear weapons ban via The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Posted on 2017/05/25 by nfield

Forty-five years ago, the international community signed a global convention banning biological weapons. Two decades later, it concluded a similar accord categorically rejecting chemical weapons. Now, after decades of deadlock over disarmament, the United Nations is developing a treaty to prohibit the worst of all weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons.

At an event in Geneva on May 22, Costa Rican ambassador Elayne Whyte Gómez, who is presiding over negotiations on the historic treaty, unveiled the first draft text and took questions from the world’s media. The draft broadly reflects the discussions and input received during the first round of negotiations, held in New York in March.

More than 130 nations participated in that session. Notably absent were the nine nuclear-armed nations and most of their allies that claim protection under a “nuclear umbrella.” But this boycott—which had been widely anticipated—is no barrier to the treaty’s adoption. The new law will advance disarmament by stigmatizing nuclear weapons and establishing the foundations for their elimination.

Formal work on the “legally binding instrument” will resume on June 15. Many of the participating nations are quietly confident that agreement can be reached by July 7, the final day set aside for negotiations this year under the mandate given by the UN General Assembly. As there is no strict requirement for consensus, a troublesome few cannot block the process.

[…]

 

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