Study: Possible water problem at storage sites in Fukushima via The Asahi Shimbun

Bags of radiation-contaminated soil could be sinking into the ground at temporary storage sites in Fukushima Prefecture, allowing water to accumulate within instead of flowing to outside tanks for testing, the Board of Audit said.

No confirmation has been made that the ground at the sites is actually sinking or if contaminated water has pooled inside. But Board of Audit officials are asking the Environment Ministry to consider additional safety measures if signs indicate that this is actually occurring.

The board’s study focused on 34 of the 106 temporary storage sites that the Environment Ministry set up for soil removed through decontamination work after the disaster in March 2011 unfolded at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

[…]

The Board of Audit studied 34 temporary storage sites where the bags are not waterproof. These bags were piled five deep or higher at those sites.

The study showed that at 31 of the sites, the weight of the bags may have not only flattened the mound in the center, but it also could have created an indent in the ground where the leaking water could accumulate.

If the water does not flow to the tanks, it will be difficult to determine the radiation levels.

The study also noted that the foundations at the sites were soft to begin with and may be unable to support the bags of soil. The sinking phenomenon could worsen as time passes.

The Environment Ministry played down the risk of the water contaminating areas around the storage facilities.

[…]

A total of 4.16 billion yen ($40 million) was spent to construct the 31 temporary storage sites.

The Environment Ministry designed the temporary storage sites under the precondition they would be used for only three years and then removed. For that reason, measures were not taken to strengthen the foundations to prevent the ground from sinking, even if soft farmland was chosen for a site.

The plan is to eventually return the land where the temporary storage sites have been built to its original state and return it to the landowners

However, the Board of Audit’s study adds another concern for residents, many of whom had opposed construction of the temporary storage sites in their neighborhoods.

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Gov’t to end nuclear power in 2025: MOEA via The China Post

Economics Minister Lee Shih-guang Wednesday stressed that Taiwan will definitely abandon nuclear power in 2025, amid renewed speculation about the fate of the nearly completed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.

Lee said there has been a national consensus on turning Taiwan into a “nuclear-power free home,” a goal that many hope will be achieved by 2025.

The policy is against extending the service lives of the three currently operational nuclear power plants, he said.

“There is no room for discussion. When 2025 comes, nuclear power will be abandoned,” Lee said at his first press conference since taking office on May 20, reiterating President Tsai Ing-wen’s promise of giving up nuclear power.

Addressing concerns that Taiwan cannot do without nuclear power, the economics minister expressed optimistically that there are still nine years to work out alternatives before 2025.

[…]

The minister pointed out that Taiwan’s IT industry already has sufficient know-how related to solar-power generation. It also has the capital and its supply only lacks facilities for producing photovoltaic (PV) modules.

He said the Council of Agriculture (COA) owns 10,000 hectares of land that could be turned into solar farms. But the minister said his ministry still needs to discuss the matter with the COA.

Taiwan is a major world supplier of solar cells. The panels usually seen in solar farms are modules made up of solar cells.

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台湾が原発全廃へ 福島第一事故受け、25年までに停止 via 朝日新聞

 台湾の蔡英文(ツァイインウェン)政権が2025年に「原発ゼロ」にすることを決め、行政院(内閣)は、再生エネルギー事業への民間参画を促す電気事業法の改正案を閣議決定した。太陽光と風力発電を中心に再生エネの割合を20%まで高めることを目指す。東日本大震災後の反原発の民意を受けたもので、改正案は近く立法院(国会)で審議に入り、年内の可決を目指す。

(略)

台湾では原発が発電容量の14・1%(15年)を占め、現在は第一~第三原発で計3基が稼働中。だが、東京電力福島第一原発の事故で台湾でも反原発の世論が高まり、原発ゼロを公約に5月に総統に就任した蔡氏が政策のかじを切った。稼働中の全原発は25年までに40年の稼働期間満了となる。同法改正案では25年までに全原発を停止すると明記し、期間延長の道を閉ざす。

ログイン前の続き改正案では再生エネルギーの発電と売電事業をまず民間に開放。送電は公営企業の台湾電力が引き受ける。これまでは台湾電力が電力事業を基本的に独占してきたが、同社を発電会社と送売電会社に分割。再度法改正を行い、再生エネ以外の電力事業も将来開放する方針だ。

政権は原発に代わる電力源として再生エネルギーに力を入れる。太陽光と風力発電を再生エネの柱とし、発電容量の割合を現在の4%から25年には20%に拡大することを目指す。石炭発電は30%、天然ガス発電は50%とする。また太陽光発電を今後2年で152万キロワット増やすなどといった短期的目標も設定。電力購入価格の20年間保証や融資優遇策などで民間投資を呼び込む。

全文は台湾が原発全廃へ 福島第一事故受け、25年までに停止

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「原発争点なら自民敗北」 新潟、鹿児島知事選で「うねり」via 東京新聞

[…]
小泉氏は二〇〇九年の政界引退後、約三年前から原発ゼロの即時実施を講演などで訴えている。一四年の東京都知事選で、立候補した細川護熙元首相と組んで原発政策転換を掲げたが、敗北した。
 インタビューでは、安倍政権が脱原発に転ずることはないとした上で「民意を無視する政党が、政権を持続できるわけがない」と非難した。民進党にも「最大の争点が原発だと分かっていない。野党がだらしないから与党は楽だ」と苦言を呈した。
[…]
◆小泉元首相インタビュー詳報 原発は金食い虫だ 推進論者の「安全」うそ  
小泉純一郎元首相のインタビューの詳報は次の通り。
 【原発と政治】
 -新潟、鹿児島両県知事選で、原発再稼働に慎重な候補が勝利した。
 「目に見えない、うねりが出てきた。原発に対する不安、懸念がいかに強いかを表している。衆院選に影響がある。野党が候補を一本化し、原発ゼロを争点にしたら、自民党が勝つか分からない。野党が勝つのではないか。小選挙区で候補者調整をすれば、自民党にとって脅威だ。今までは争点隠しされた。これからは影響がある」
 「(民進党は)最大の争点が原発だと分かっていない。野党がだらしないから与党は楽だ。野党が原発ゼロを言い出したら、原発再稼働について、自民党から『実は反対』という議員が出て、ごたごたする」
 -衆院選にどう関わるのか。
 「引退してから衆院選応援には行っていない。息子(小泉進次郎衆院議員)の応援にも一度も行っていないが、原発ゼロは言い続ける」
 -今、現職首相なら原発ゼロで信を問うか。
 「当たり前だ。野党は真っ青になる。首相が言えば、反対できない」
 -郵政民営化と比べるとどうか。
 「簡単だ。郵政はもっと厳しかった。自民党も反対、全政党が反対だった。非常識と言われながら本当によく勝った。野党は原発ゼロに反対していない。自民党は民意を無視している。民意を無視する政党が、政権を持続できるわけがない」
 -九月の故加藤紘一元官房長官の葬儀時、安倍晋三首相と会話した。
 「車を待っている時、『何で原発ゼロにしないのか』と言った。首相は苦笑して頭を下げながら、何にも言わなかった。聞いているだけだった」
 「昨年、首相には『原発ゼロにすれば、他の政策はもっとやりやすくなるよ』と伝えたが、分かってもらえていない」
 -首相は、原発ゼロに踏み切れないか。
 「ここまで(再稼働に)踏み込み、輸出までしている。変えたら逆に『ぶれた』と批判される」
 -「ポスト安倍」はどうすべきか。
 「野党が原発ゼロを争点にしたら、自民党は有権者の動向に敏感な政党だから、候補者の岸田文雄外相や石破茂前地方創生担当相は(どう対応するか)分からない。自民党総裁選にも大きく影響してくる」
 -原発ゼロの国民運動に手応えがあるのか。
 「感じている。国民はいずれ分かってくれると思い、講演を続けてきた。判断に間違いはない」
 【原発政策】
 -即、原発ゼロか。
 「もちろん。(東京電力福島第一原発事故から)五年。稼働中の原発はほとんどゼロだ。自然エネルギーで賄える。核燃料廃棄物は有害性が消えないのに、処分場がない。新規制基準は米国より甘い。避難計画もテロ対策も弱い。原発を攻められたら日本はおしまい。日本に向けた核爆弾を持っているようなものだ」
 「東京電力が支払えず、政府が(いったん肩代わりする形で)支援する賠償額は五兆円で足りず、九兆円に引き上げられた。最近また追加支援を求めている。原発は金食い虫だ。原発推進論者の『安全、コストが安い、クリーン』とのスローガンは全部うそだ」
 -首相在任中の原発政策を反省しているか。
 「専門家や電力会社の言うことを信じていた。引退し勉強して、うそと分かった。当時、分かっていれば、とっくにゼロにしていた。論語の『過ちては改むるにはばかることなかれ』だ」
 -高速増殖炉もんじゅの評価は。
 「三十年間で税金一兆円も費やした。夢の原子炉が、幻の原子炉だ。(核燃料サイクル政策)全てが駄目だ。必要ない」
 -使用済み燃料の再処理を認めた日米原子力協定のため原発政策をやめられないとの声もある。
 「うそだ。米国は日本が方針を決めたら、いやと言えない。(二〇一八年が期限の協定を)更新する必要はない」
[…]
【元米兵支援】
 -東日本大震災で救援活動をした元米兵の支援に取り組む理由は。
 「『トモダチ作戦』に参加した元兵士が病気だと聞き、今年五月に十人と米カリフォルニア州サンディエゴで会った。元兵士は原子力空母を東北沖に停泊させて活動していた。一、二年たち鼻血が止まらず内臓に腫瘍ができた。空母は海水を真水に変えてシャワーや料理に使う。外部と内部の両方の被ばくだ。妊娠していた女性は障害児を産み、(その子は)しばらくして亡くなった。みんな日常生活が送れずに除隊せざるを得なくなり(医療保険がないため)高額の医療費を取られている」
 「国防総省は米議会に『被ばくによる結果と断定できない』と述べ、日本外務省も『訴訟中のため日本政府としては何もできない』と言った。口だけの感謝では済まない。治療に役立つ額を渡す必要があると思い、基金を設立した」
 -いくら集まったか。
 「七千万円を超えた。来年三月までに一億円を集め、見舞金として渡したい。今年十一月十六日に会費一万円で全額を寄付する講演会を東京で開く」

もっと読む。

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LDP may lose next election if nuclear exit becomes main issue: ex-PM via The Japan Times

Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said the pro-nuclear ruling party of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could lose the next Lower House election if nuclear power becomes the main election issue.

Citing recent gubernatorial election wins for candidates concerned about restarting nuclear power plants in Niigata and Kagoshima prefectures, Koizumi said during a recent interview with Kyodo News, “(Anti-nuclear) opinions are beginning to grow . . . that could influence the (next) House of Representatives election.”

If opposition parties unite in fielding anti-nuclear candidates and make complete phase-out of the country’s nuclear plants one of the top election issues, they can defeat the ruling Liberal Democratic Party by tapping into voter fears following the 20111 Fukushima meltdowns, Koizumi said.

[…]
“The slogans by promoters of nuclear power that (nuclear power) is safe, low-cost and clean, are all lies,” Koizumi said.

He noted that the government would be forced to pour more funds into Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crippled following the 2011 quake-tsunami disaster, to decontamination costs at the plant and compensation.

The government should give up its nuclear-fuel recycling policy, including the use of the Monju fast-breeder reactor, Koizumi said. The government has not decided on the fate of the trouble-prone reactor, which was intended to play a key role in the recycling policy.

On Abe’s drive to revise the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution, Koizumi said it will not be possible due to a lack of sufficient public support.

Koizumi said a breakthrough on the decades-old territorial dispute over a group of Russian-held islands off Hokkaido will also be difficult as Russia will not accept Japan’s ownership of the islands.
[…]

Read more.

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Electric Stoves, Heaters Key for Japan’s Nuclear Utility via Bloomberg

The first Japanese utility to restart a nuclear reactor under post-Fukushima rules has restarted a campaign urging users to increase power consumption discontinued after the unprecedented triple meltdown in March 2011.
Kyushu Electric Power Co., which expects at least two nuclear reactors to be online next year, aims to start a television advertising campaign to promote the adoption of “all electric households,” according to spokesman Shinpei Ikeda. The company began a web campaign earlier this month, and is offering promotions for customers who purchase electric stoves and heaters. By using electricity instead of gas, the Fukuoka-based company is hoping that households boost stagnating demand and eat up some of its excess supply.
The push comes amid market reform introduced in April to increase competition and after power demand from the nation’s 10 regional utilities fell to an 18-year low. For the first time since Fukushima, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced on Tuesday that it won’t request companies and households to implement measures to cut power consumption, known as “setsuden,” this winter due in part to the boost in supplies following the restart of some nuclear reactors.
[…]

Read more.

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楢葉の高線量破片…原発事故が原因と推定 セシウムなど検出 via 福島民友

 東京電力は20日、楢葉町の井出川河口付近で9月に見つかった表面放射線量の高い破片2点について、付着した放射性物質は福島第1原発事故によるものとする推定結果を発表した。破片に放射性物質が付着した経緯は不明としている。

東電によると、破片は砂が付いたポリエチレンとみられ、放射性セシウムのほか、コバルト60が検出された。表面線量が最も高い部分で、毎時29マイクロシーベルトあった。破片と、発見場所で線量が高かった砂は回収し、福島第1原発構内に保管した。

続きは楢葉の高線量破片…原発事故が原因と推定 セシウムなど検出 

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Opposition to nuclear energy grows in Japan via DW

 Opinion polls show the Japanese people oppose nuclear plants going back into operation. It underlines the scale of the problem facing the government in convincing everyone that it’s safe. Julian Ryall reports from Tokyo.

Before October 16, Ryuichi Yoneyama had contested four regional elections and been soundly beaten each time. Now, however, the 49-year-old qualified doctor and lawyer is to be sworn in as governor of Niigata Prefecture after defeating a candidate who had the backing of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and was considered the firm favorite.

Yoneyama worked hard for his victory over Tamio Mori, a former bureaucrat with the construction ministry, but when the voters stepped into the voting booths there was a single issue that occupied their minds.

Mori and the LDP want to restart the world’s largest nuclear power station, the sprawling Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, which lies on the prefecture’s coast. They insist that as Japan moves towards the sixth anniversary of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, triggering the second-worst nuclear crisis in history, new safety measures have been implemented that ensure the same thing could not happen in Niigata.

The voters did not agree, with 528,455 supporting Yoneyama’s pledge to not grant approval for Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant to be restarted. In comparison, 465,044 voted for Mori.

Nationwide opposition

Those figures are broadly replicated across Japan, with a poll conducted by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on October 15 and 16 determining that 57 percent of the public is against the nation’s nuclear power plants being restarted, and just 29 percent supporting the resumption of reactors that have nearly all been mothballed since 2011.

[…]

Japan’s energy needs

Critics of this approach – of which the government is one – say Japanese industry needs a secure supply of energy right now and that Japan is presently importing 84 percent of its energy needs, primarily in the form of coal, gas and oil. And that is both expensive and to blame for the nation’s emissions of carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gases climbing.

Still, the Japanese public is far from convinced that nuclear energy is the answer.

“It’s complicated and we keep hearing from the government how important it is to have the nuclear plants operating again, but after Fukushima, I think, a lot of people no longer trust the operators or the government,” said Kanako Hosomura, a housewife whose family home is north of Tokyo and only about 250 km from the Fukushima plant.

Read more at Opposition to nuclear energy grows in Japan

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Residents Who Fled Fukushima Meltdown Fear Return to Ghost Town via Bloomberg

Weed-engulfed buildings and shuttered businesses paint an eerie picture of a coastal Japanese town abandoned after a monstrous earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns in the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Namie, one of the communities hardest hit by the 2011 disaster, had 21,000 residents before they fled radiation spewing from the reactors eight kilometers (five miles) away. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is now looking to repopulate the town as early as next year, a symbolic step toward recovery that might also help soften opposition to his government’s plan to restart Japan’s mostly mothballed nuclear industry.

“The national and local governments are trying to send us back,” said Yasuo Fujita, 64, a sushi chef who lives alongside hundreds of other Fukushima evacuees in a modern high rise in Tokyo more than 200 kilometers away. “We do want to return — we were born and raised there. But can we make a living? Can we live next to the radioactive waste?”

[…]

A poll published by the Asahi newspaper this week found 57 percent of respondents were opposed to restarting nuclear reactors, compared with 29 percent in favor. One of Abe’s ministers lost his seat in Fukushima in an upper house election in July, and the government suffered another setback when an anti-nuclear candidate won Sunday’s election for governor of Niigata prefecture, home to the world’s largest nuclear plant.

Some 726 square kilometers — roughly the size of New York City — of Fukushima prefecture remain under evacuation orders, divided by level of radioactivity. While the government is looking to reopen part of Namie next year, most of the town is designated as “difficult to return to” and won’t be ready for people to move back until at least 2022.

[…]

Haruka Hoshi, 27, was working inside the nuclear facility when the earthquake struck, and she fled with just her handbag. Months later she married another former employee at the plant, and they built a house down the coast in the city of Iwaki, where they live with their three-year-old son. They have no plans to return.

“It would be difficult to recreate the life we had before,” she said. “The government wants to show it’s achieved something, to say: ‘Fukushima’s all right, there was a terrible incident, but people are able to return after five years.’ That goal doesn’t correspond with the reality.”

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「原発争点なら自民敗北」次期衆院選で小泉純一郎元首相 安倍政権は改憲できず via 産経ニュース

小泉純一郎元首相は共同通信社の単独インタビューに退任後初めて応じた。次期衆院選で野党が統一候補を擁立して「原発ゼロ」を争点化すれば、自民党が敗北するとの見通しを表明。原発再稼働に慎重な候補が当選した新潟、鹿児島の県知事選に触れ「目に見えない、うねりが出てきた。衆院選に影響がある」と述べた。安倍晋三首相が目指す憲法9条改正は、民意不在を理由に「できない」と明言した。インタビューは19日、東京都内で行った。

安倍政権が脱原発に転ずることはないとした上で「民意を無視する政党が、政権を持続できるわけがない」と非難。民進党にも「最大の争点が原発だと分かっていない。野党がだらしないから与党は楽だ」と苦言を呈した。

続きは「原発争点なら自民敗北」次期衆院選で小泉純一郎元首相 安倍政権は改憲できず

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