Beyond Nuclear International

“Coming out” on thyroid cancer from Fukushima is an act of bravery in today’s Japan

By Linda Pentz Gunter

In the midst of the arcane fight over whether to include nuclear power in the European Union’s green “Taxonomy”, five former prime ministers of Japan made an unprecedented statement. They roundly condemned any inclusion of nuclear power as a green or sustainable energy, even as a so-called bridging fuel.

The current Japanese government glossed over the climate arguments in the former prime ministers’ argument, quickly seizing upon one tiny phrase concerning conditions in Japan post-Fukushima that read: “many children are suffering from thyroid cancer”.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party even went so far as to approve a resolution condemning the five former prime ministers, one of whom, Junichiro Koizumi, is from that party. The resolution alleges that their statement was not “scientific” and that they were reigniting prejudice and encouraging people to view people from Fukushima as social outcasts. 

The party’s Policy Research Board said it would submit its resolution to current prime minister, Fumio Kishida.

On the same day — January 27, 2022 — as the former prime ministers’ letter was submitted to the EU, six young people who were children at time of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, filed a lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court against TEPCO, the owner and operator of the nuclear plant. 

The six, ages 17 to 27, hold the company responsible for the thyroid cancers each of them developed after being exposed to the radiation released by the nuclear disaster.

In filing suit and thus making the issue public, the six were immediately on the receiving end of an unprecedented level of abuse for speaking out. In this video of their testimony, they were obliged to keep their physical appearances concealed for fear of further reprisals.

“Coming out” on thyroid cancer — or indeed about any negative health impacts resulting from the Fukushima nuclear disaster — remains largely taboo in Japan.  Studies that conclude the medical impacts are significant or even substantial, are met with equal hostility, stoniness or just plain silence.

15 reactors plus Chernobyl in unprecedented warzone situation

Note: This statement was released on February 25. However, the situation is clearly evolving. Updates can be found on the Beyond Nuclear website.

A statement by Beyond Nuclear

Beyond Nuclear joins the chorus of voices calling for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine, a situation that could become orders of magnitude worse should any of the country’s 15 nuclear reactors suffer major damage due to military exchanges.

We are in an unprecedented situation, with, for the first time, a war happening in a region where there are operating nuclear reactors. This presents an extreme risk to human life unlike any we have seen in previous wars, even when traditional infrastructure has been bombed and destroyed.

The humanitarian tragedy is already enormous, with people fleeing, abandoning homes and businesses, with their lives upended and their safety and survival in jeopardy. However, should a major release of radioactivity occur due to the damage or destruction of any one of the country’s 15 reactors, the scale of the disaster would escalate to unimaginable proportions, affecting populations well beyond the boundaries of Ukraine and Russia.

Military activity around the Chernobyl nuclear site and within the Exclusion Zone is also of great concern. Reports are coming in showing elevated rates of radiation stirred up by the presence of troops, tanks and heavy equipment moving through the highly radioactively contaminated region, which is closed to regular human habitation. In April 2020, when a major wildfire consumed the area, radiation levels rose by 16 times.

The occupation of the site by Russian military personnel, reportedly the result of a firefight at the plant site, is already a concern. This takeover has called a halt to all activities on the site, which houses a significant inventory of radioactive waste.

And customers will pay for ballooning costs

By Stanley Dunlap, Georgia Recorder

Georgia Power’s parent company Southern Co. announced Thursday that the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project has hit another roadblock, delaying completion of the final reactor into 2023. Vogtle’s expenses ballooned to $30 billion after it was originally projected to cost $14 billion.

Further setbacks at the snakebit Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion are reportedly expected to result in delays lasting up to six months while the operator added a $920 million charge at the end of last year.

Thomas Fanning, president and CEO of Southern Co., said during Thursday’s earnings call that the parent company of Georgia Power took past repeated disruptions and challenges into account when it revised this timeline for completing the plant’s two final units, with the latest mishap caused by incomplete and missing inspection records that resulted in a backlog of more than 10,000 records.

The completion of the third and fourth reactors at Plant Vogtle, chiefly owned by Southern and its subsidiary Georgia Power, is now projected to be delayed three-to-six months, with the third unit coming on line in March 2023 and the final reactor ready by the end of the year, according to Southern’s report.

“Over the last year a number of challenges including shortcomings, and construction and documentation quality have continued to emerge, adding to project timelines and costs,” Fanning said. “In recognition of the possibility for new challenges to emerge, we further risk adjusted our current forecast by establishing a range of three to six additional months for each unit, and we’ve reserved for the maximum amount.”

Vogtle’s expansion construction costs are expected to rise to more than $30 billion, up from an initial estimate of $14 billion in 2012. As part of an agreement with Georgia Power, which owns 46% of the plant outside of Augusta, the $920 million charge includes $440 million from other utilities involved in the project.

Last year, Georgia Power exceeded a limit of $7.3 billion on how much its 2.6 million customers must pay in capital costs. However, once the expansion is complete, the company can request that the five-member Public Service Commission add other costs to customers’ bills instead of further cutting into its profits or passing them along to shareholders.

Nuclear power doesn’t belong in the Green New Deal

Note: On February 11, 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a press release full of false rhetoric, claiming that an injection of $6 billion under the Department’s Civil Nuclear Credit Program would end the shutdown of the country’s aging reactors because this has “led to an increase in carbon emissions in those regions, poorer air quality, and the loss of thousands of high-paying jobs“.

Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, compounded that mythology by repeating the nuclear propaganda line, unfounded in empirical data, that “U.S. nuclear power plants are essential to achieving President Biden’s climate goals”. In reality, diverting such sums to shore up old plants will significantly hinder and damage Biden’s climate plans. Last month, we endeavored to set the record straight in an article published by Truthout. It is reproduced below.

We should note that while the statement from the Sunrise Movement reflects an apparent support of the DOE position to keep existing nuclear power plants running, they are on record as being opposed to new nuclear in the Green New Deal. However, efforts to contact the group to clarify their position have received no response. Beyond Nuclear will continue to outreach to the Sunrise Movement on this.

By Linda Pentz Gunter, Truthout

Amid rising public outcry over government inaction toward the climate crisis, the nuclear power industry has attempted to advertise itself as “zero emissions,” “carbon-free” and even “renewable” in order to convince politicians and the public that it is essential to solving this world-historical disaster.

However, nuclear power is none of these things, and it in fact stands in the way of achieving an ecologically just society.

Unfortunately, a persistent and widespread public relations campaign by the nuclear power industry is endeavoring to convince some in the climate movement, as well as prominent Democrats in Congress, that nuclear energy has a role to play.

For example, after we checked in recently with the Sunrise Movement, the leading youth climate lobbying group on Capitol Hill, to see where the group stands on nuclear power, a volunteer signing his name “Josh” wrote to my organization, Beyond Nuclear, in an email that, “We don’t think shutting down existing [nuclear] plants makes much sense.” It’s not clear if this is a shift in Sunrise’s official position, since it contradicts the views on nuclear power in a position paper targeted at U.S. representatives that it signed onto in 2019, but, if so, we’ll be working to shift it.

This mythmaking had apparently infiltrated those backing the Green New Deal (GND) in 2019, when Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) said she was happy to leave “the door open on nuclear.”

What AOC, Sunrise, and others may have overlooked is that nuclear power violates the very cornerstone of the GND: a “Just Transition.” Supporting existing nuclear power operation ignores the fact that currently operating U.S. reactors still have to run on fuel manufactured almost entirely from imported uranium — predominantly from Canada and Kazakhstan — often mined by Indigenous peoples. The radioactive detritus left behind by uranium mining and milling has decimated these and other Indigenous communities around the world. These operations, often conducted by foreign corporations, perpetuate racist colonialism.