Suite ;
Just
In : Coalition requests UN intervention to stabilize Spent Fuel Pool
No. 4 at Fukushima — Endorsed by nuclear experts
Title :
Urgent
Request to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
Source :
Green Action Japan
Date :
May 1, 2012
To :
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
An
Urgent Request on UN Intervention to Stabilize the Fukushima Unit 4
Spent Nuclear Fuel
Recently,
former diplomats and experts both in Japan and abroad stressed the
extremely risky condition of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent
nuclear fuel pool and this is being widely reported by world media.
Robert Alvarez, Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies
(IPS), who is one of the best-known experts on spent nuclear fuel,
stated that in Unit 4 there is spent nuclear fuel which contains
Cesium-137 (Cs-137) that is equivalent to 10 times the amount that
was released at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Thus, if
an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this
could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10
times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.
Nearly
all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies at the Fukushima Daiichi
plant sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with roughly 85
times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl.
Nuclear
experts from the US and Japan such as Arnie Gundersen, Robert
Alvarez, Hiroaki Koide, Masashi Goto, and Mitsuhei Murata, a former
Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, and, Akio Matsumura, a former UN
diplomat, have continually warned against the high risk of the
Fukushima Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool.
US
Senator Roy Wyden, after his visit to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant on 6 April, 2012, issued a press release on 16 April,
pointing out the catastrophic risk of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4,
calling for urgent US government intervention. Senator Wyden also
sent a letter to Ichiro Fujisaki, Japan’s Ambassador to the United
States, requesting Japan to accept international assistance to tackle
the crisis.
We
Japanese civil organizations express our deepest concern that our
government does not inform its citizens about the extent of risk of
the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool. Given the fact
that collapse of this pool could potentially lead to catastrophic
consequences with worldwide implications, what the Japanese
government should be doing as a responsible member of the
international community is to avoid any further disaster by
mobilizing all the wisdom and the means available in order to
stabilize this spent nuclear fuel. It is clearly evident that
Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool is no longer a
Japanese issue but an international issue with potentially serious
consequences. Therefore, it is imperative for the Japanese government
and the international community to work together on this crisis
before it becomes too late. We are appealing to the United Nations to
help Japan and the planet in order to prevent the irreversible
consequences of a catastrophe that could affect generations to come.
We herewith make our urgent request to you as follows :
1.
The United Nations should organize a Nuclear Security Summit to take
up the crucial problem of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear
fuel pool.
2.
The United Nations should establish an independent assessment team on
Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 and coordinate international assistance in
order to stabilize the unit’s spent nuclear fuel and prevent
radiological consequences with potentially catastrophic consequences.
30
April 2012
Shut Tomari (Japan) [...]
Green Action (Japan) [...]
Endorsed
by :
Hiroaki Koide Kyoto University Nuclear Reactor Research
Institute (Japan)
Mitsuhei Murata Former ambassador to Switzerland
and to Senegal
Board member, Global System and Ethics Society
(Japan)
Akio Matsumura Former United Nations diplomat
Robert
Alvarez Senior Scholar, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington,
D.C. (USA)
Masashi Goto Former Nuclear Plant Engineer (Japan)
Signing
organizations : 72 Japanese organizations have signed this petition
(as of 30 April 2012)
[...]
Read
the letter here
NYTimes :
Radiation in “small doses could actually be disproportionately
worse” says report — “Doses spread out over time might be more
dangerous than doses given all at once” — Renewed importance
after Fukushima
Title :
The
Low-Level Radiation Puzzle
Source :
NYTimes.com
Author :
MATTHEW L. WALD
Date :
May 2, 2012, 10:34 am
[In
the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists May-June issue Dr. Jan Beyea,
an environmental scientist who has opposed nuclear reactors
for
decades and worked on epidemiological studies at Three Mile Island,]
challenges a concept adopted by American safety regulators about
small doses of radiation. The prevailing theory is that the
relationship between dose and effect is linear – that is, that if a
big dose is bad for you, half that dose is half that bad [...]
Some
radiation professionals disagree, arguing that there is no reason to
protect against supposed effects that cannot be measured. But Dr.
Beyea contends that small doses could actually be disproportionately
worse.
Radiation
experts have formed a consensus that if a given dose of radiation
delivered over a short period poses a given hazard, that hazard will
be smaller if the dose is spread out. To use an imprecise analogy, if
swallowing an entire bottle of aspirin at one sitting could kill you,
consuming it over a few days might merely make you sick. [...]
Dr.
Beyea, however, proposes that doses spread out over time might be
more dangerous than doses given all at once. He suggests two reasons :
first, some effects may result from genetic damage that manifests
itself only after several generations of cells have been exposed,
and, second, a “bystander effect,” in which a cell absorbs
radiation and seems unhurt but communicates damage to a neighboring
cell, which can lead to cancer. [...]
Renewed
Importance
The
subject of low-dose radiation [...] has assumed renewed importance
since the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan in
March 2011. The accident contaminated the surrounding area, and
questions persist about whether residents should be allowed to return
or whether the radiation doses they would receive are too big a
threat to their health.
Read
the report here
Happening
Now : Radiation triples at Tokyo monitoring station — Levels spike at
multiple locations in last two hours
Title :
東京都新宿区・足立区・品川区のリアルタイム計測放射線量ガイガーカウンター
Shinjuku
Adachi Shinagawa Tokyo Japan Geiger Counter 放射能
高精度測定 ゲルマニウム半導体検出器による超高精度測定・核種分析
Source :
Security Tokyo
Date :
May 3, 2012
Adachi
Shinjuku
The
only other monitor at Security Tokyo (Shinagawa) shows no spike.
h/t
Anonymous tip
View
charts here
(Unable to post images due to copyright) ; Available for next 8 hours
Wind
Patterns (h/t Bobby1)
“Eye-Opener” :
Under 3% of children exposed to Chernobyl radiation while in womb
were diagnosed as healthy at age 7 -Asahi
