Nobel Laureate begins campaign to collect 10 Million Signatures to end Japanese Nuclear power.
TOKYO — Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe urged Japan's new prime minister on Tuesday to halt plans to restart nuclear power plants and instead abandon nuclear energy.
Oe cautioned Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda against prioritizing the economy over safety. Noda has said he will allow idled nuclear plants to resume operation when their safety is confirmed.
"The new prime minister seems to think that nuclear power plants are necessary for Japan's economy, and how to resume their operation is one of his key political agendas," Oe said. "We must make a big decision to abolish all nuclear plants."
Oe, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1994, said the accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant six months ago caused the Japanese public to want to reduce their dependence on nuclear power, but that feeling seems to be fading.
He spoke at news conference Tuesday about an anti-nuclear petition drive, accompanied by other members of the campaign.
The group, which is demanding that the government decommission aging reactors and promote renewable energy, aims to collect 10 million signatures and submit them to the government next March.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Cesium release into Ocean 3 times higher than TEPCO says:
TOKYO, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Radioactive material released into the sea in the Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis is more than triple the amount estimated by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co , Japanese researchers say.
Japan's biggest utility estimated around 4,720 trillion becquerels of cesium-137 and iodine-131 was released into the Pacific Ocean between March 21 and April 30, but researchers at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) put the amount 15,000 trillion becquerels, or terabecquerels.
Government regulations ban shipment of foodstuff containing over 500 becquerels of radioactive material per kg.
Takuya Kobayashi, a researcher at the agency, said on Friday the difference in figures was probably because his team measured airborne radioactive material that fell into the ocean in addition to material from contaminated water that leaked from the plant.
http://af.reuters.com/...
Mag: “Large quantity” of Neptunium-239 flew at least 60km from Fukushima meltdowns — Decays into Plutonium-239
“I heard it directly from a university researcher whose specialty is radiation measurement. Neptunium, the nuclide that decays into plutonium, flew at least to Iitate-mura [35km from meltdowns] and Date City [60km from meltdowns] in large quantity. The current survey method focuses only on gamma ray, and all it detects is radioactive cesium. The real danger is alpha-nuclides, which continues to be ignored. Iitate-mura may be being betrayed again…”
http://enenews.com/...
Original report seems to say that this report is about pre-peer reviewed report, released by whistle-blower. Uranium-239, whose half life is about 24 minutes, decays into neptunium-239 with a half life of about 2.5 days, which then decays into plutonium-239 whose
half life is 24,200 years.
(Right wing , out of power, long time government) Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Secretary-General Nobuteru Ishihara wants citizens stopped from testing radiation.
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“Geiger counters costing between 40,000 and 50,000 yen ($500-600) provide patchy measurements. We have to try and stop citizens from taking their own radiation measurements.”
http://enenews.com/...
(ed note: Headline says "japanese governemnt" but LDP is out of power... clarification needed. But The LDP's point seems to be, Stop It!)
Japan gov’t prepares for further large-scale radiation release from Fukushima — Emergency drill on Monday presupposed further meltdown of No. 3 reactor core
FUKUSHIMA -- The Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) and residents of the zone between 20 and 30 kilometers from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant held an emergency evacuation drill on Sept. 12.
The drill, held in preparation for any further large-scale emission of radioactive materials from the plant, was the first involving local residents. The GSDF held a similar drill without civilian participation in July.
The scenario for the drill presupposed further meltdown of the Fukushima plant's No. 3 reactor core, and a local accumulation of radioactive materials emitting 20 millisieverts of radiation within the next four days. A total of some 400 GSDF personnel were deployed for the drill held in the municipalities of Minamisoma, Tamura, Kawauchi, Hirono, Tomioka and Naraha. Thirty-two municipal workers and firefighters along with 18 local residents also joined the drill.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/...