九州経済産業局は、2015年12月末時点の再生可能エネルギー発電設備の運転開始状況・認定状況を取りまとめ公表した。
FIT開始後、新たに運転開始した設備出力は523万kWに
2012年7月の再生可能エネルギーの固定価格買取制度（FIT）の開始から2015年12月末までに、九州において新たに運転を開始した設備出力は523万kW（11月末比10万kW増）となり、累計の設備出力は約831万kWに達した。新たに運転を開始した設備を電源別にみると、太陽光発電は12月末時点で506万kW（11月末比6万kW増）。特にメガソーラーは184万kW（11月末比5万kW増）に達し、九州の再生可能エネルギーの36％を占める。全国でみると、運転を開始したメガソーラーは関東に次いで多く全国の23％を占める。FIT導入後の運転開始出力の割合は、再生可能エネルギー全体では28.1％で、11月末より0.5ポイントアップした。メガソーラーだけで運転開始出力の割合をみると21.5％だった。
もっと読む。
栃木県は六日、先月二十五日に同県栃木市の道の駅「にしかた」の農産物直売所で販売された山菜のコシアブラ二パックから、基準値を超える放射性物質が検出されたと発表した。県は食べても健康への影響はないとしているが、直売所が自主回収している。
厚生労働省の買い取り調査で、基準値（一キログラム当たり一〇〇ベクレル）をそれぞれ一五〇〇ベクレル、二一〇〇ベクレル上回っていることが判明。これまでに八十四パックが販売された。
県によると、出荷制限区域の山で採れたものを、県内の個人二人が制限区域外産と表示して販売していた。県は二人について、食品表示法違反などの疑いで調査している。
Is there any nuclear site in the United States that is not currently collapsing, leaking or otherwise posing a major health or environmental risk? Certainly there are, but that number is becoming smaller and smaller.
In addition to three other nuclear disasters unfolding across the country, a fourth has now arisen. This new disaster is located in Washington state in a facility known as the Hanford site.
One week after 19 workers were sent for medical evaluation as the nuclear waste tank was being transferred because of a leak, 3 more workers are now being reported as injured at the site. According to RT, the workers inhaled radioactive fumes – the same issue facing the 19 previously hospitalized workers. This brings the injured number of workers up to 22.
The Hanford site has reportedly been leaking massive amounts of radiation for more than two weeks. By no means a recent facility, the Hanford nuclear site is one of the original nuclear facilities in the United States, having been part of the Manhattan Project itself. Weapons-grade plutonium was stored at this facility for use in atomic weapons, one of which was dropped on Hiroshima.
[…]
Yaroshevsky measured the radiation levels of a rock laying well outside of the containment facility and, while the readings were not considered an emergency even the reporter’s handheld device registered a higher-than-normal level of radiation.
Yaroshevsky wondered aloud whether or not the radiation levels closer to the center to the containment facility would be much higher. The reports of the Hanford site leakage now add a West Coast dimension to the nuclear crisis that has escalated in the last few weeks.
In addition to Hanford, reports West Lake Landfill in St. Louis, Missouri which houses sizable amounts of nuclear waste is facing an approaching fire from an adjacent landfill that threatens to turn West Lake into a cauldron of radioactive air pollution. In addition, a nuclear power plant in Turkey Point, Florida is reportedly leaking polluted water into Biscayne Bay. New York’s Indian Point power plant is also threatening to become a major radioactive incident. Constant leaks, mishaps and other signs of an outright collapse have existed at Indian Point for quite some time but have increased in frequency over the last year.
Read more at Is This the 4th Recent Nuclear Disaster to Strike the U.S.?
Heather Matteson and Kristin Zaitz want to use motherhood and global warming to change the way Californians feel about nuclear power — before it’s too late.
Matteson and Zaitz both work at the state’s last nuclear power plant: Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo. Both are convinced California can’t fight climate change without it. And both worry that the seaside plant, which is nearly surrounded by earthquake faults, could soon close, if environmentalists and some state officials get their way.
[…]
“We feel we can’t just do nothing,” said Zaitz, 35, whose job involves studying how well the plant and its equipment can withstand earthquakes. “In general right now, people at the plant are optimistic. But they’re starting to wonder which direction the company is going to go and which direction the state is going to guide them.”
Both women have worked at Diablo for more than 10 years, and each lives near the plant: Zaitz in Los Osos and Matteson in San Luis Obispo. Both are raising children there, a point they emphasize when talking with people about nuclear power.
[…]
“If we were to take Diablo Canyon offline, we would lose a quarter of the state’s clean power right now, and we’d replace it with (natural) gas,” Zaitz said. “For a state that’s so proud of its efforts against climate change, that’s unacceptable.”
Diablo supplies roughly 8 percent of all the electricity generated within the state, and it does so without pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The plant’s supporters — including another group that formed this year, Save Diablo Canyon — cast it as indispensable to California’s climate fight.
Opponents of the plant remain unconvinced. They consider the danger of meltdown too great, particularly considering the number of nearby fault lines. And the large, unchanging amount of power Diablo places on the grid day and night, critics say, crowds out electricity from the state’s fast-growing collection of solar- and wind-power facilities.
Opposing mothers
“We’re in favor of free speech, so this group has a right to exist and get their message out,” said Jane Swanson, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit Mothers for Peace, which has opposed Diablo Canyon since the early 1970s. “I wouldn’t put them down for it. Of course, we disagree with their positions, totally.”
Matteson and Zaitz both say they spent years considering the pros and cons of nuclear power before becoming convinced of its safety. And they understand that their advocacy places them in a strange position with their employer.
In conversation, they take care to mention, repeatedly, that they’re speaking on their own and not as representatives of PG&E. The company, they say, has not contributed funding to Mothers for Nuclear, a point echoed by PG&E spokesman Blair Jones. Then again, the company isn’t going to discourage them either.
Read more at Mothers for Nuclear: New group tries to keep Diablo Canyon open
自然保護活動で知られる作家のＣ・Ｗ・ニコルさんが７日、里山の再生に取り組む長野県信濃町の「アファンの森」に、福島県いわき市の小学生４０人 を招待した。東京電力福島第１原発事故の影響で外遊びが不足しがちな子どもたちに、伸び伸び遊んでもらうのが狙い。３年間で福島県の子ども約千人を招く計 画だ。
参加者は抽選で当たった小学３～６年の男女児童。
日時：5月13日（金）の夕方 18:00-21:00
会場：札幌教育文化会館(小児科学会会場の近隣・徒歩１分)
http://www.kyobun.org/renthall/renthall.html
テ－マ：明白な甲状腺がん異常多発と健康障害増加の徴候 －障害の調査と避難の保障を－＜内容＞
報告：明白な甲状腺がん異常多発と健康障害増加の徴候
原発事故による甲状腺がん多発が環境疫学専門家で多数意見に（小児科の立場から）
講演：「低線量被ばく、甲状腺がん、最新の知見」
松崎 道幸 氏（道北勤医協 旭川北医院 院長）
討論：
参加費無料北海道の松崎先生にお話ししていただきます。
多くの人々にご参加をいただきながら、小児医療を担うものとして問題を深め、考えていきたいと思っています。
ご参加いただけることを心より願っています。主催：「5/13 第４回こどもたちを放射線障害から守る全国小児科医の集い」実行委員会
連絡先：たかまつこどもクリニック 高松 勇
FAX 06-6167-8902， meeting0522@gmail.com
Humble insects may be called as witnesses to the next nuclear accident. Shining UV light on their wings reveals how much radiation they have absorbed.
Staff at nuclear plants carry dosimeters, instruments that take real-time measurements of radioactive exposure, usually expressed in grays (Gy). Civilians in the surrounding areas probably won’t have these devices. In the event of an accidental release of radioactive material, this leaves a gap in the data on its dispersal and resulting radioactivity doses, making it hard to estimate health effects by location.
Part of the solution is to investigate how radiation alters materials in the body or in personal property – for example, nails or the glass of a mobile phone. And if no one is present close to a radiation leak, insects may do the job, says Nikolaos Kazakis of the Athena Research Centre in Xanthi, Greece.
“Insects are everywhere,” he says. Their short lives give them an advantage over phones: “They live only a few weeks, so you don’t have to make corrections for natural radiation when you want to measure the accidental dose.”
[…]
Kazakis acknowledges these drawbacks, but says neither is fatal. There is a place for instruments – or critters – that can record doses that will be literally off the scale for more sensitive instruments. As for sunlight being a spoiler, he says it is always possible to make measurements using insects that have stayed in dark places, trapped in an air duct or a basement or even behind furniture. And he has his eye on using a group of insects that keep their hind wings conveniently under cover: cockroaches.
Read more at Dragonfly wings can track radiation doses after a nuclear mishap
自民党の細田博之幹事長代行が２２日夜、ＢＳフジの番組で、「福島の不幸で原発をやめるのは、耐えがたい苦痛を将来の日本国民に与える」などと発言 し、東京電力福島第１原発事故を軽視して再稼働を進める考えを示しました。事故の原因究明や収束が進まないなか、自民党幹部の相次ぐ暴言に、福島の被災者 らから怒りの声があがっています。
細田氏は中国電力島根原発を抱える島根県選出議員で、原発再稼働を目指す自民党の「電力安定供給推進議連」の会長。１００人超が参加する同議連は６月、国のエネルギー政策で引き続き原発を重要電源と明確化することを求める提言をまとめています。
番組で細田氏は、「日本はいまガラパゴス化している。もちろん福島の原発事故があったんですけれど」「原子力発電を推進しようって、みんな世界中が言っているんですよ」などと繰り返し、原発廃炉を進めれば原発推進の「世界中の潮流」から取り残されると強調しました。
さらに、「日本は事故が起こったために残念ながら、（原発の）安全性に対して非常に大きな疑問が生じた」と続け、「もちろん福島の不幸はあったけ れども、それで全部やめてしまおうという議論を前提にやることは、やっぱりとても耐え難い苦痛を将来の日本国民に与えると逆に思いますね」と述べました。
原発事故の被害や教訓を軽視する自民党議員の暴言をめぐっては、６月に高市早苗政調会長が「東京電力福島第１原発事故を含め、事故によって死亡者が出ている状況ではない。安全性を最大限確保しながら活用する」と発言し、批判を受けて撤回したばかりです。
私たち「棄民」ですか
福島県農民連 根本敬事務局長
発言には言葉を失います。自民党は、「将来」ではなく今「耐え難い苦痛」に苦しんでいる人たちをどう考えているのでしょうか。私たちは「棄民」ですか。
福島名産のあんぽ柿は今もまだ生産してよいかどうかの判断がついていません。農家は、「どこまで頑張れば明るい将来が見えるか」、日々不安を抱えています。この苦しみがわかりますか？
原発を再稼働すれば、核のゴミも増え続け、次の世代にも多大な負荷を残します。それが理解できないなら政治家をやめていただきたい。
【4月29日 時事通信社】ロシア主要メディアによると、極東カムチャツカ半島ビリュチンスクのドックで解体中のオスカー２型巡航ミサイル原子力潜水艦「クラスノヤルスク」で２９日、火災が発生した。放射能漏れの情報はない。
当サイト既出関連記事：
France’s ailing nuclear giant, Areva, faced a major scandal on Tuesday after the country’s nuclear watchdog confirmed there have been “irregularities” in 400 parts produced in its reactors since 1965, and that “around 50 are currently in service in France’s nuclear power plant fleet”.
France’s independent Nuclear Safety Authority, ASN, said the “irregularities” were listed in an audit it had ordered from Areva after it detected a “very serious anomaly” in a reactor vessel in the country’s Flamanville EPR nuclear plant, the same model Britain plans to use for two new plants at Hinkley Point.
The fault in the vessel destined to house the plant’s nuclear fuel and confine its radioactivity was detected last year.
“These irregularities consist in incoherencies, modifications or omissions in manufacturing dossiers,” ASN said in a statement.
The revelation came hours after Areva’s director general admitted that 400 documents assessing whether parts of nuclear plants met required standards may have been “falsified”.
Continue reading at France’s nuclear giant Areva admits to ‘400 irregularities’ in power plant parts
A nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois. Taken by photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com).
