原発処理費 ４０兆円に拡大　税金・電気代転嫁、国民の負担に via 東京新聞

Posted on 2017/02/26 by yukimiyamotodepaul

東日本大震災と東京電力福島第一原発事故から間もなく六年。福島第一をはじめとする廃炉や使用済み燃料再利用など原発の後始末にかかる費用が膨張している。本紙が政府推計や予算資料を集計したところ国内の原発処理の経費は最低四十兆円に上ることが判明。原発のある自治体への補助金などの税金投入も一九七〇年代半ばから二〇一五年度までに十七兆円に達した。すでに国民が税などで負担した分を除き、増大する費用は電気代や税で国民が支払わねばならず、家計の重荷も増している。　（原発国民負担取材班）

　四十兆円は国民一人当たり三十二万円に上る。原子炉や核燃料処理費がかさむのは危険な核物質を処理する必要があるため。自治体補助金も「迷惑料」の色彩が強い。原発の建設・運営費も事故後は安全規制強化で世界的に上昇している。

　政府は福島事故処理費を一三年時点で十一兆円と推計したが、被害の深刻さが判明するにつれ、二一・五兆円と倍増。本来は東電が負担すべきものだが政府は原則を曲げ、電気代上乗せなど国民負担の割合を広げている。

　被災者への賠償金は、新電力会社の利用者も含め全国民の電気代に転嫁され、福島原発廃炉費も東電管内では電気代負担となる方向だ。除染も一部地域について一七年度から税金投入（初年度三百億円）する。

　一兆円を投入しながら廃止が決まった高速増殖炉「もんじゅ」についても政府は昨年末に後継機の研究継続を決定。税金投入はさらに膨らむ方向。青森県の再処理工場などもんじゅ以外の核燃料サイクル事業にも本紙集計では税金などで十兆円が費やされた。核燃料全般の最終処分場の建設費も三・七兆円の政府見込みを上回る公算だ。

（略）

　大島堅一立命館大教授によると一キロワット時当たりの原発の発電費は安全対策強化で上昇した原発建設費も算入すると一七・四円と、水力（政府試算一一・〇円）を六割、液化天然ガス火力（同一三・七円）を三割上回る。原発を進める理由に費用の安さを挙げてきた政府の説明根拠も問われている。

◆東日本大震災６年　家計の痛みは？連載始めます

全文は原発処理費 ４０兆円に拡大　税金・電気代転嫁、国民の負担に

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Does the nuclear option make sense for Japan? via The Japan Times

Posted on 2017/02/26 by yukimiyamotodepaul

Last March, in an interview with The New York Times, U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested it might not be a “bad thing” if Japan and South Korea developed nuclear weapons.

Really? In my view, this was a reckless suggestion, like so much else that Trump has proposed. He presents half-baked ideas while ignoring the negative consequences and sound advice on whatever subject he happens to be ricocheting off at the time.

Since becoming president, Trump hasn’t broached the subject, but conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer thinks that North Korean actions warrant Japan playing the nuclear card.

Going nuclear, however, won’t make Japan safer and won’t lighten the American security burden. Corey Wallace, a postdoctoral researcher at the Free University in Berlin, notes, “It all comes down to whether whatever option Japan chooses would actually buy more deterrence than it does provoke others to implement more aggressive military postures or actions.”

[…]

Japan’s most likely option would be a second-strike capability centered on submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

“Japan possesses already a good submarine force and, in principle, acquiring boats for the launch of nuclear missiles is not impossible,” Patalano says. “But the costs to maintain such a force and to develop it in a way to be an effective deterrent are, as the British experience proves, very high and demand a depth in the political debate that is currently absent.” A 2016 Genron poll found only 5 percent of Japanese support their nation possessing nuclear arms.

“Japan could produce a handful of rudimentary nuclear devices in probably a matter of months,” Wallace believes, but “the question then becomes whether the others would allow Japan to go about implementing such capabilities. One assumes that tensions would have to be quite significant for Japan to consider this option — and precisely because they are high, others may not sit quietly.”

[…]

Robert Jacobs, a professor at Hiroshima City University’s Peace Institute, also thinks that playing the nuclear card would be counterproductive, arguing that “no country is safer with nuclear weapons.” Nuclear weapons also carry wider implications in terms of committing Japan “to maintaining nuclear technologies (in part to produce weapons) that radically increase the amount of high-level and long-term nuclear waste they eventuate.” This, Jacobs says, “will plague these societies for millennia.”

Nuclear waste storage is already a growing problem for countries operating reactors, but Jacobs warns that “countries with military nuclear production face far larger and more intractable ecological disasters than those with only nuclear power.”

Jacobs asserts that the government is now promoting the use of MOX fuel — the mixed-oxide type developed from plutoniium and uranium — in nuclear reactors, even though it is one of the priciest options and not cost-effective, because this deflects international concerns about Japan’s large plutonium stockpile. In his view, the government maintains this stockpile partly to retain the nuclear weapon option.

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Fukushima nuclear plant still plagued by tainted water 6 years after meltdowns via The Mainichi

Posted on 2017/02/26 by yukimiyamotodepaul

[…]

The number of areas on the plant site requiring full face masks has decreased considerably, and the overall working environment has improved greatly. However, the issue of having to replace the tanks that hold radioactively contaminated water lingers.

Dealing with contaminated water requires significant manpower. According to TEPCO, about half of the approximately 6,000 people working daily at the No. 1 nuclear power plant are involved in handling contaminated water.

There are roughly 1,000 tanks of contaminated water inside the No. 1 plant site, forming a forest of containers with nowhere else to go.

[…]

Although covering the ground at the No. 1 plant with concrete has made it possible to work in about 90 percent of the site without a protective uniform, all those working near the old tanks must wear full face masks and Tyvek suits as the tanks once held highly contaminated water. Wearing this kind of protective clothing makes the work much harder to perform — as it can be difficult to breathe — and it is physically exhausting, even in the middle of winter.

Hiroshi Abe, 55, of Shimizu Corp. — the company overseeing the dismantling work — states, “As we work toward recovery from the disaster, we want to ensure that all workers are protected from radiation exposure and injuries.”

Presently, the level of radiation in the vicinity of the buildings housing the No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 reactors is high. During the Mainichi Shimbun’s visit to the site on Feb. 24, the radiation level near the No. 3 reactor was found to be more than 300 microsieverts per hour, and near the No. 2 reactor building, it was discovered to be 137.6 microsieverts per hour.

Read more at Fukushima nuclear plant still plagued by tainted water 6 years after meltdowns 

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福島の避難者、生活再建「不安」via Reuters

Posted on 2017/02/26 by yukimiyamotodepaul

　東京電力福島第１原発事故から６年となるのを前に、福島県からの避難者の生活再建や孤立解消を考える二つの集会が２５日、東京都内で開かれた。県が避難区域外からの自主避難者に対する住宅無償提供を３月末で打ち切ることに、避難者から不安を訴える声が相次いだ。

(略）

いわき市から子ども２人と都内に移住した３０代の女性は「４月以降の生活の見通しが立たず、とても不安な毎日」と訴えた。

集会では支援団体「東京災害支援ネット（とすねっと）」が避難者の生活実態調査の結果を公表。７９％が「生活が苦しくなった」と回答した

全文は福島の避難者、生活再建「不安」

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Community Power Offers Fukushima a Brighter, Cleaner Future via Truthout

Posted on 2017/02/25 by nfield

In 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami ravaged the Fukushima prefecture, in the Tohoku region of Japan’s main island of Honshu. The natural disaster was catastrophic 15,894 dead, an estimated 470,000 displaced, and more than 2,500 are still missing. In Fukushima, the scale of the “man-made disaster” that followed was just as devastating.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant melted down, forcing residents from numerous nearby villages from their homes. In a way, the power plant was a symbol of the prefecture’s vulnerability. Though it was located in Fukushima, it was providing power almost entirely to Tokyo’s metropolitan area.

The same could be said for the region’s numerous hydropower facilities. Owned almost entirely by a few large companies, the benefits of these corporate energy corporations flow to big investors and residents of Tokyo, and not to people in Fukushima.

“It is an energy monopoly,” says Tetsunari Iida, director the Japan-based Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies. “Only a small number of people [are in control], and they neglected other values, such as risk. They pushed nuclear on us with huge amounts of money and political power.”

[…]

The scale of the disaster is hard to comprehend. Today, nearly six years after the disaster, numerous villages in the region remain off-limits due to radiation fears. The clean up efforts are still ongoing. Yet, from the ashes of disaster, a new movement is seeking to transform the dynamics that left residents so vulnerable in 2011, and build a prosperous, clean energy future for the region.

One of the leaders of this movement is Yauemon Sato, co-founder of Aizu Power, and the operator of a ninth generation family run sake brewery in Aizu, Fukushima. Despite his strong ties to the region, the nuclear disaster was a wake-up call for him.

“This accident proved how unsafe we were,” Sato says. “We had the responsibility to change, or the future generations are going to question us as to why, even after this disaster, we didn’t change.”

Sato and others knew that waiting for Japan’s national leaders to lead would be a folly, as the big power monopolies still held considerable sway in Tokyo. So they decided to take matters into their own hands and start a new, local company called Aizu Power to bring new energy options to the region. Though set up as a corporation, Aizu Power is, according to Sato, run as a cooperative, with buy-in from local municipalities. Its goal is to empower locals to control their power generation options and gain income from Fukushima’s vast renewable energy resources.

Today, his company currently operates a dozen small-scale solar power facilities across inner Fukushima. All were built with community involvement, and show that even in a snowy region, solar is a viable option.

Aizu Power is just one example of a number of energy alternatives that are sprouting up in Fukushima. In nearby Tsuchiyu Onsen Village — the same village that saw tourist numbers drop to zero after the quake — a new, community-owned, geothermal plant is now providing energy to residents and others through the grid.

“Our goal was to create employment for younger people, produce energy by ourselves, and make the power plant a symbol of our reconstruction,” says Norimichi Chiba, s Iitate Power.

The geothermal plant is a truly community initiative, with more than 40 villagers having invested in the project, making them all part owners. All the plants’ revenues return to the village, providing a new source of income. It has also become a tourist attraction due to its unique visible binary design.

Community power also works in regions that were directly impacted by the disasters. Not far from Tsuchiyu Onsen village, Chiba’s company, Iitate Power, is developing innovative, small-scale solar installations in Iitate village, which was evacuated after the meltdown of the Fukushima power plant, when winds sent a radiation cloud to this valley and contaminated the land.

One of the company’s innovations is “solar sharing,” which are small, raised solar photovoltaic devices that can be installed above farmland. This allows farmers to continue farming, while also getting new income from solar. Currently, 13 of these are in operation in Iitate Village, with another 16 in various planning stages.

[…]

 

Read more.

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大間原発の津波　「想定は不十分」原子力規制委via北海道新聞

Posted on 2017/02/25 by nfield

　原子力規制委員会は２４日、建設中の電源開発大間原発（青森県大間町）が新規制基準に適合しているか調べる審査会合を開き、津波の影響について初めて議論した。電源開発は津波は最高６・３メートルにとどまると説明。規制委はさらに高くなる可能性があると指摘し、より詳細な想定に基づき検討しなおすよう求めた。

[…]

 

 

全文を読む。

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Hiroshima A-bomb museum draws record visitors in FY 2016 via Kyodo

Posted on 2017/02/25 by yukimiyamotodepaul

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum drew a record of nearly 1.6 million visitors in the year ending March, with visitor numbers rising in the wake of former U.S. President Barack Obama’s May visit.

As of Friday, the number of visitors eclipsed the previous record of 1,593,280 set in fiscal 1999, and the figure is likely to reach around 1.73 million by the end of March, the museum said.

Following Obama’s visit to the city as the first sitting U.S. leader in late May last year, the number of visitors to the museum rose 40 percent from a year earlier in June and July.

The museum had planned to stop displaying paper cranes presented by Obama but decided to continue the popular exhibit as it attracted many to the museum.

[…]

Museum director Kenji Shiga attributed the rise in the number of visitors to the display of the cranes dedicated by Obama and the popularity of “Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni”(In this corner of the world), a Japanese animated film set in Hiroshima before and during World War II.

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原発事故避難先で差別やいじめ「ある」６２％　共同調査 via 朝日新聞

Posted on 2017/02/25 by yukimiyamotodepaul

朝日新聞社と福島大学の今井照（あきら）教授（自治体政策）は今年１～２月、東京電力福島第一原発事故で避難した住民に対し、共同調査を行った。避難先でいじめや差別を受けたり、被害を見聞きしたりしたことがあると答えたのは６２％だった。

原発事故で避難したことによる「いじめ」「差別」について、今回初めて質問した。「自分や家族が被害に遭った」が３３人（１８％）、「周囲で見聞きしたことがある」が８１人（４４％）だった。

自由記述では、「お金があるのになんで働くの？と言われた。私には働く権利もないのかと悲しくなった」（３５歳女性）、「まとめ買いをしたら『ああ、避難者』と言われた」（５９歳男性）、「娘が転校した小学校で同級生に『キモイ』『福島に帰れ』と言われ、笑わなくなった」（４３歳女性）などがあった。

「ない」の回答は６０人（３３％）で、「避難先の職場の上司や同僚は普通に接してくれた。いい人に巡り合えた」（４８歳女性）と述べ、好意的に受け入れられたとする答えもあった。

避難先での「居づらさ」や「引け目」も垣間見える。避難中の人を対象に、避難していることを避難先で言いたくないと思うことがあるかを問うと、「ある」と回答したのは６１人（４１％）。自由記述で、「賠償金の話になるのではという不安がある」（４９歳女性）、「子どもがいじめられないか気になってしまう」（３１歳女性）などの意見があった。「ない」は５０人（３４％）、「どちらともいえない」は２６人（１８％）で、「知らない人にはあえて言わない。いつまでも避難者だと言っていても前に進めないから」（５６歳男性）と答える人もいた。

続きは原発事故避難先で差別やいじめ「ある」６２％　共同調査

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東日本大震災６年 福島第１原発事故　汚染水、果てなき闘い　タンク１０００基、林立 via 毎日新聞

Posted on 2017/02/25 by yukimiyamotodepaul

東京電力福島第１原発事故発生から６年を迎えるのを前に、毎日新聞は２４日、第１原発構内を取材した。全面マスクが必要なエリアは大幅に減り、作業環境は大幅に改善した一方、現場では放射性汚染水の貯蔵タンクの交換作業などが延々と続いていた。

　東電によると、第１原発で働く作業員は１日約６０００人で、そのうち約半分が汚染水対策に当たる。汚染水を処理した水の行き場はなく、敷地内には約１０００基のタンクが林立する。事故発生直後、敷地内には複数の鋼板をボルトでつなぎ合わせる「フランジ型」と言われるタンクが大量に設置されたが、老朽化などで漏れる恐れが高まったため、現場では古いタンクの解体作業が進む。

　構内では地面をコンクリートで覆い、放射性物質の飛散を防ぐ加工作業が進み、敷地の約９割では一般の作業服で働けるようになった。しかし、タンクには高濃度汚染水が入っていたため、解体作業に当たる作業員は全面マスクやタイベックスーツなどを着用する必要がある。息がしづらく、真冬でも体力の消耗が著しいという。

　解体作業を請け負う「清水建設」の阿部浩工事長（５５）は「復興に向けて、作業員の被ばくやけががないようにやっていきたい」と語った。炉心溶融した１～３号機の原子炉建屋周辺の線量は高く、３号機周辺では毎時３００マイクロシーベルト超。２号機原子炉建屋付近の線量表示板には毎時１３７・６マイクロシーベルトと記されていた。

　一方、地中に「氷の壁」を作り、原子炉建屋周辺を囲って地下水の流入を防ぐ「凍土遮水壁」は、想定通りの効果が表れていない。４号機周辺では、地中をハンマーでたたき、凍結状況を確認する作業員の姿もあった。

続きは東日本大震災６年  福島第１原発事故　汚染水、果てなき闘い　タンク１０００基、林立

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Smoke emerges at TEPCO’s Niigata nuclear plant via Kyodo

Posted on 2017/02/25 by yukimiyamotodepaul

Smoke emerged at a service building of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture on Thursday but it quickly halted after a firefighting effort by workers, its operator said.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. said there was no radiation leak in the incident. The utility has not identified the cause of the incident.

[…]

The building is not a radiation controlled area, according to the company.

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