Nuclear plant on fault line causes fears of Fukushima repeat

The last remaining nuclear power plant still in operation in Japan since March 2011 could be situated above an active fault line in the earth’s crust, warns a Japanese geologist, risking a Fukushima-scale disaster.

Mitsuhisa Watanabe is a tectonic geomorphologist and one-fifth of a five man team charged by the Nuclear Regulation Authority with the task of investigating the tectonic landscape beneath the nuclear plant in Oi, Fukui Prefecture, the only plant to have resumed operation since last year’s nuclear disaster in Fukushima.

Watanabe’s research strongly suggests that the plant, including important water pipe equipment for half of the plant’s nuclear reactors, is located above an active seismic fault.

The geologist, along with other experts on the panel, have determined that the underground structure on which the plant stands has showed movement as long ago as 125,000 years. Watanabe suggests that this underground movement is due to faultline activity, and has called for the plant to cease operation immediately until further research has been carried out, concerned that failure to do so could result in a repeat of Fukushima, the tsunami-triggered nuclear meltdown that left hundreds of thousands of people without homes. “We are not seeking to decommission the plant,” Watanabe said. “We should first stop operation and then carry out underground investigation thoroughly before reaching a conclusion.”

Whilst it is against government regulations to run a nuclear plant under an active fault line (where ‘active’ is classed as any seismic fault that has shifted in the past 130,000 years), the plant is still in operation. Watanabe claims that the line has showed activity in the past 130,000 years, though other members of the team are reluctant to close the plant, suggesting instead that the land scarring is due to nothing more than a past landslide, rather than any seismic activity. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology researcher Norio Shigematsu has cautioned jumping to any conclusion until more experts are consulted.

The experts may remain in disagreement, but the several thousand protesters that joined together in Tokyo’s government district this Sunday spoke with a different voice, as shouts of “No need to wait for the panel’s finding! We must stop the Oi plant now!” could be heard outside parliament. After the Japanese government’s declaration in September of their plans to phase out nuclear power in Japan by 2040, the issue of nuclear power and public safety has never been so important.

Watanabe is keen that seismologists do not underestimate the possible effects of future earthquakes. “We have to sound the alarm as soon as we find the possibility of active faults,” he said. “The accident in Fukushima had really never been imagined. Scientists must learn from that.”

Sources include Japan Today

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Deformities found in butterflies near Fukushima plant

A recent butterfly study in Japan has found significant links between exposure to radiation after the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima last year and the mutation of butterflies in the area, establishing the first recognised link between the radiation emitted as a result of the disaster and physical deformity in living organisms. The scientists involved in the study collected a sample of butterflies, still in the larvae stage of development and analysed instances of deformity that occurred in the insects, which ranged from eye and wing problems to abnormality in their colouring. These findings were then compared with a sample of butterflies collected six months after the disaster, where the percentage of butterflies showing physical abnormality shot up from 28% to 52%, according to coverage by The Guardian. BBC coverage on this study’s findings also included photographs which clearly demonstrated the physical mutations observed by the scientists.

While experts emphasise that this study of the butterfly population in the Fukushima area does not necessarily entail similar consequences for the human population and that the deformities visible in the butterflies are due to both external and internal radiation exposure, as a result of eating plants also affected by radiation, it is difficult to ignore the very tangible and visible effects that radiation exposure can have on living creatures. In fact, it is a chilling reminder that these effects have the potential to escalate at an unpredictable rate and in unpredictable ways. In this sense the study almost acts as the starting pistol to a very long waiting game for those who were exposed to radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant….

News sources: The Guardian, The Japan Times, BBC online, The Seattle Times

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Report on Radiation Released as Japan Switches Off Last Working Nuclear Reactor

14 Months After Triple Catastrophe in Japan: Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima Disaster:

A preliminary report from the World Health Organisation (WHO) published this Wednesday has indicated that radiation levels in most of Japan are low. This news comes a year after the Fukushima accident, which led to pressure on the government to switch off all nuclear reactors in Japan. On 5^th May 2012 Japan switched off its last remaining nuclear reactor, leaving the country without nuclear-derived electricity for the first time in over 40 years.

The WHO report follows the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake which caused a 13-15m tsunami that flooded the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station. After the plant’s cooling systems failed, blasts occurred at four of the reactors, triggering radiation leaks. Thousands of people were evacuated from the surrounding area.

Now, one year on from the disasters, the WHO report has found that Namie town and Itate village, near the Fukushima plant, are currently exposed to radiation doses of 10-50 millisieverts (mSv). This is up to 20 times the normal background radiation level, although it remains within the WHO’s recommended emergency limits. However, in some areas of Namie, infants were estimated to have gotten a dose as high as 200mSv in the thyroid, where radiation can build up in the body.

By comparison, the rest of Fukushima is exposed to radiation doses of 1-10 mSv in the and most of Japan as a whole sees radiation levels of 0.1-1mSv. This is within the limits of the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

Not a lot is known about the potential long-term health effects of continued exposure to radiation below 100mSv a year. Cumulative exposure to 100 mSv is said however to raise the risk of death from cancer slightly (by 0.5 percent), according to Japan’s National Institute of Radiological Sciences.

Recently Japan’s trade minister, Yukio Edano, has been trying to win public support to restart two switched-off reactors at the country’s Ohi nuclear plant. This is an attempt to help ease expected power shortages of nearly 20% this summer. It remains to be seen whether this proposal for reactivation will go ahead. It is currently being considered by the Japanese government, although it seems unlikely to gain public approval.

The WHO is currently waiting for a second report on radiation levels this summer.