Beyond Nuclear International

Japanese Supreme Court exonerates government from blame for Fukushima nuclear disaster

July 13, 2022. Breaking: From The Japan Times:

“In a historic first, the Tokyo District Court on Wednesday ordered four former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. to pay ¥13.32 trillion ($97 billion) to the company for damage caused by the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant following the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, which led to three reactor meltdowns.

“The amount is believed to be the largest ever awarded by a court for a civil lawsuit.”

The Tokyo court’s presiding judge, Yoshihide Asakura, ruled that “the possibility of a major tsunami-related accident could have been avoided if measures to prevent flooding had been taken in the plant’s main buildings and critical equipment rooms,” according to the Japan Times story.

Statement by attorney Kimiko Fukutake, published by Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center

On June 17, 2022, the Supreme Court of Japan put an end to the four lawsuits filed by the evacuees of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Gunma, Chiba, and Ehime prefectures. The sole point of dispute in these lawsuits was whether the Japanese government, which did not exert regulatory authority on the utility company, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO), for the implementation of measures against tsunamis, is liable to compensate for damages according to Paragraph 1, Article 1 of the Law Concerning State Liability for Compensation. The top court absolved the government.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred when external power supply to the station was lost due to the earthquake, activating the emergency power supply system, which was then crippled by the tsunami that flooded the station above ground level. The loss of emergency power made reactor core cooling impossible, causing core meltdown and the discharge of huge volumes of radioactive substances. The plaintiffs claimed that, firstly, the loss of emergency power supply and consequent disaster had been foreseeable because it was possible to tell that tsunamis would flood the station above ground level, at which the reactor building and turbine building were situated, since the height and impact of tsunamis were calculated based on the Long-term Assessment released in 2002 by the governmental Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion. The second claim was that the disaster might have been prevented if the main buildings and main equipment rooms had been provided with measures to make them watertight, in addition to seawalls.

On the other hand, the government claimed that, firstly, the Long-term Assessment was not knowledge that could have been accepted as a just set of opinions sufficiently accurate and reliable to be incorporated into nuclear regulation, and that, secondly, even if tsunami countermeasures had been taken in response to the calculations based on the Long-term Assessment, tsunamis were calculated to arrive from the south, prompting a seawall to be built to the south of the station, such that the seawall would have had no effect against the tsunami experienced in this lawsuit, because the size and directions of the actual tsunami waves were completely different.

Promoting nuclear power as a solution to climate change is short-sighted

By Kim Friedman

We must think holistically about what constitutes “clean energy” when we consider climate change investments and our energy future. President Biden’s recent announcement of his $6 billion effort to save “distressed” nuclear (fission) power plants is misguided and short-sighted.

Although reducing carbon emissions is critical to slowing the pace of climate change, it must not be our only litmus test for moving toward a “clean” energy future, similarly to how our overall health cannot be measured solely by our blood pressure or weight.

In the case of nuclear power, we must consider its high cost compared to renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar. According to Climate Nexus, the minimum cost per megawatt hour to build a new nuclear plant is almost 3 times higher than utility-scale solar ($112 vs. $46, respectively) and almost 4 times higher than wind power ($122 vs. $30, respectively). That’s like paying $70,000 for a car when you could purchase an equivalent car, in terms of its overall value, for one-third or one-quarter of the cost.

There are also numerous environmental and community-based reasons to wean ourselves off of nuclear power. Intercontinental Cry, a non-profit newsroom that produces public-interest journalism centered on Indigenous Peoples, states that 75 percent of uranium mining worldwide occurs on Indigenous land, including in the United States. Furthermore, unlike solar and wind power, uranium reserves are not a renewable resource; eventually, we will run out of uranium.

We have spent over half a century trying to find a suitable storage option for spent fuel rods and have failed miserably. Consequently, these rods, which remain radioactive for as long as 10,000 years, are generally stored on site at active or shuttered plants all over this country. They are sitting ducks for domestic or international terrorists, and they pose a serious potential threat to surrounding communities’ drinking water supplies if radioactive water leaks and makes its way into the ground.

The buried waste from French nuclear tests in Algeria

By Jean-Marie Collin and Patrice Bouveret

The following is the summary from the longer report, which can be read here.

The Hoggar massif is located in the west of the Algerian Sahara. Prehistoric men have left stunning rock carvings there. The men of the 20th century left nuclear waste. 

Between 1960 and 1996, France carried out 17 nuclear tests in Algeria and 193 in French Polynesia. In Algeria, atmospheric and underground tests were carried out at the Reggane and In Ekker sites, in an atmosphere of secrecy and conflict between an Algerian nation under construction and a colonial power seeking strategic autonomy. A majority of the tests – 11 – were carried out after the Evian agreements (18 March 1962), which established Algeria’s independence. 

It was not until the 1990s that the first independent studies relating to some of the dark events of that period finally became available. Disclosure about accidents that happened during some of the tests, about the risk that populations and soldiers were exposed to, in Algeria and in Polynesia alike, led to the implementation of the law “on 5 January 2010, granting recognition and compensation for the victims of French nuclear testings“. But this law does not take into account any environmental consequences. 

In French Polynesia, the strong mobilization of many associations has enabled the environmental consequences to be taken into account and the first remediation steps to be put in place. For Algeria, the situation is different. Due to a tumultuous Franco-Algerian relationship, the absence of archives, and the absence of registers of local workers who participated in the tests, the data on the consequences of the tests remains patchy and incomplete. It was only in 2010, thanks to independent expertise, that a map from the Ministry of Defense was revealed, showing that the European continent was also affected by fallout from the nuclear tests carried out in the south of the Sahara. 

Even if today we have better knowledge of nuclear test accidents and their consequences, there is still a lack of key information as to the existence of large quantities of nuclear and non-nuclear waste to ensure the safety of populations and environmental remediation. 

From the beginning of nuclear tests, France set up a policy of burying all waste in the sands. The desert is seen as an “ocean”, from a common screwdriver – as it is shown in the study by “Secret Defense” documents and photos – to planes and tanks: everything that may have been contaminated by radioactivity had to be buried. France has never revealed where exactly this waste was buried, or how much of it was buried. In addition to these contaminated materials, voluntarily left on site to future generations, there are two other categories: non-radioactive waste (resulting from the operation and dismantling of the sites and the presence of the Algerian army since 1966) and radioactive materials emitted by nuclear explosions (vitrified sand, radioactive slabs and rocks). Most of this waste is left in the open, without being secured in any way, and is accessible to the local population, creating a high risk for health and environmental damage. 

Em meio à guerra, Ucrânia está ocupada em fazer acordos de negócios com uma empresa nuclear falida dos EUA para construir mais usinas nucleares

Por Linda Pentz Gunter, Brasil 247

Você poderia pensar que, estando no meio de uma guerra, a última coisa que você contemplaria seria construir mais usinas nucleares. Mas isto não parou a Energoatom – a operadora nuclear estatal ucraniana.

No início deste mês, a Energoatom assinou um novo acordo com a Westinghouse – dentre todas as empresas, é a corporação estadunidense que foi à falência ao tentar construir quatro dos seus reatores AP1000 nos estados da Carolina do Sul e da Georgia. Os dois na Carolina do Sul foram cancelados em plena construção, enquanto os dois na Georgia estão atrasados em anos no cronograma e custaram bilhões de dólares além do seu orçamento.

Porém, como um bom abutre corporativo, a Westinghouse mergulhou na Ucrânia para agarrar uma oportunidade de ouro. Já sendo a fornecedora de combustível nuclear para quase a metade dos reatores da Ucrânia, a empresa planeja aumentar aquele compromisso para cobrir todas as 15 usinas, substituindo a Rosatom russa; para estabelecer um Centro Técnico e de Engenharia; e, a coisa mais louca de todas, para construir nove novos reatores AP1000 lá.