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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

• 0.37 microSv/h @ 12:30a JST (11:30a ET)

• Average : 0.10 microSv/h

Shinjuku

• 0.18 microSv/h @ 2:15a JST (1:15p ET)

• Average : 0.055 microSv/h

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