Concerns over radiation exposure and an increase in cancer rates following Japan's nuclear disaster in 2011 led to immediate evacuations of towns surrounding the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant. For the past two years residents have been closely monitored, and those efforts seem to have paid off. This week, a group of UN scientists reported that radiation leaked after the 2011 Fukushima disaster is unlikely to cause any health effects in the future. But that doesn't mean people can go home. The Japanese government says there's still a lot of contamination in the water and soil. This past week, Japan's public broadcaster, NHK, took a look at the report and what it means for local residents. The transcript of that piece is below.

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Reporter:
This year’s report was approved at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. It prioritizes reconstruction from the March 11th quake and tsunami, and the nuclear accident they triggered. The report says large amounts of radioactive substances remain in the environment more than two years after the accident. It calls decontamination of the affected areas a pressing issue, and it admits that government efforts have so far failed to dispel fears over possible low dosage exposure.

The report stops short of discussing nuclear power generation as a way to tackle global warming. Before the 2011 accident, the government used a report to promote the use of nuclear energy.

Nobuteru Ishihara, Japanese Environment Minister:
We hope more people will consider how to hand over a truly prosperous society to future generations.

Reporter:
The report also says values appear to be changing in Japan since the disaster, and that the country should shift away from assessing wealth only through GDP figures.

As Japan's citizens prepare for the next disaster, the fallout from the last one continues to influence Japan's nuclear power industry. The operators of four power plants want permission to restart their reactors in July. The units have been kept offline because of the accident at Fukushima-Daiichi. On May 28th, Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported on the latest in the struggle over Japanese nuclear power.

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Reporter:
Officials at Kansai Electric power Company and Kyushu Electric Power Company say they want to restart two reactors each. Executives with Hokkaido Electric Power Company say they hope to bring three back online. And those with Chikoko Electric Power Company are planning to restart one.

Makoto Yagi:
We hope to restart reactors as soon as their safety is confirmed.

Reporter:
Operators will be required to introduce tougher measures against accidents and natural disasters. They have to study the potential height of tsunami and the possibility of a volcanic eruption. And they'll have to present safety measures to deal with the risks. Officials from the nuclear regulation authority will study their applications and decide whether to permit any restarts. All but two of Japan's reactors are offline following the accident in Fukushima.

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Of the 50 commercial reactors in Japan, only two are currently online amid safety concerns after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi plant disaster.

Incidents like the one between Taiwan and the Philippines this past week are fueling an arms race in Southeast Asia and beyond. The annual defense fair in Singapore had plenty of visitors this week checking out the latest in military hardware. Japan's public broadcaster, NHK, reported on this weapons bonanza on May 15, and we have the transcript from the piece.

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Reporter:
The three day long arms show opens on Tuesday. It is held once every two years. And attracts mainly naval officers from Asia, and elsewhere. On display are mockups of the latest missiles and vessels along with radar equipment. Not just China and India, Asian countries like Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam are also keen to modernize their military assets. Participants from Southeast Asian nations appear to be more inquisitive than ever. They attentively listen to their exhibitors and try to collect up to date information on the arms on offer.

The background to all this activity is China's escalation of its maritime power. In March, a Chinese ship reportedly fired a Vietnamese fishing boat in the disputed South China Sea. In the same month, China conducted a large scale military exercise off Malaysia. Every year Beijing increases its defense spending by about 10 percent, putting great pressure on Southeast Asian nations.

Agus Setiadji:
We have planned to upgrade our system and then we tried to make our armed forces bigger.

Reporter:
Also on display at Singapore's Naval base are real vessels and warships from different navies. Showing the greatest presence was the United States. It showcased for the first time a vessel that can operate in shallow waters. It's called a Letoro Combat Ship, or LCS. And it can travel at more than 70 kilometers per hour. It's capable of a variety of missions including, mine clearing, anti-surface operations, and anti-submarine warfare. It's low height enables it to cruise shallow waters where conventional warships cannot maneuver. The US chose Singapore as the vessel's first deployment site. Last week the US Secretary of the Navy came to Singapore to inspect the vessel for the main event.

Ray Mabus:
Freedom and LCS's are tangible, essential elements of America's commitment to this strategy to this region, to the Asia Pacific. That commitment will not waver and is not in doubt.

Reporter:
The US continues its arms buildup in the Asia Pacific region despite domestic pressure to cut its defense spending. One expert says this US military shift will have an impact on China's Naval strategy. 

Euan Graham:
It sends a signal that the US is here and that it's putting some substance behind its declaratory commitments.

Reporter:
In the face of an emboldened China, the US is trying to maintain its influence. The struggle between the two major powers over the waters of Asia appears to be growing.

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Japanese politicians are in hot water for their take on history. And Osaka's mayor, Toru Hashimoto, put his foot in his mouth this week when he said that comfort women were necessary for soldier morale during World War Two. The term comfort women refers to sex slaves who were forced to cater to Japanese soldiers. On May 14, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported on reactions to Mayor Hashimoto's remarks.

Reporter:
Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto has a reputation for making attention grabbing remarks. Now that he's also the coleader of the National Japan Restoration party what he says has even more impact. His latest statement is no exception.

Toru Hashimoto:
The Comfort Women system was necesssary for brave soldiers who were in the line of fire. Anyone can understand that.

Reporter:
Hashimoto says the comfort woman system helped maintain discipline and that various countries had similar setups during the war. He argues the claim that Japanese systematically abducted women and forced them into prostitution hasn't been proven. At the same time, he says it was a tragic consequence of war if anyone served as a comfort woman against her will. The Japanese government issued a statement in 1993 admitting that comfort women were forced to work in military brothels. It apologized to the women. They came from Japan, the Korean Peninsula and other parts of Asia. Hashimoto made it clear he supports the apology. His remarks also touched on US military forces in Okinawa. Some troops have been involved in sex related crimes over the years. Hashimoto says when he visited the southern islands he made a suggestion to senior US military officers.

Toru Hashimoto:
I had asked them to let Marines in Okinawa use local sex related services.

Reporter:
Members of the government have lined up to criticize Hashimoto's views.

Tomomi Inada:
A comfort women system is definitely a breach of women's rights.

Haukubun Shimomura:
I think his remarks come at a bad time. I'm not sure why he said that. Considering the way the situation is right now.

Reporter:
South Korean leaders have recently criticized Japanese politicians for their approach to Japan's past wartime aggression. Media in South Korea have reacted harshly to Hashimoto's statement saying he used abusive words. The comfort women issue has long been a source of tension between the two nations. Hashimoto's remarks will likely make navigating this delicate issue even harder.

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In Japan, the achingly slow recovery of the country's nuclear power facilities continues to burden not only politics and the economy, but perhaps more importantly the environment. The risk of nuclear contamination has grown worse since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that disabled the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear reactor. Plant operators are running out of space to store the tons of water needed to cool the spent radioactive fuel, and now that water is leaking into the groundwater and ocean. This week, a non-governmental group of scientists are studying the impact of the radioactive water that has run into the Pacific Ocean. On May 14, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported on the scientific mission.

Reporter:
Scientists from Japanese and the US institution  are on a mission to check the health of the Pacific off Fukushima. Thirty-six researchers will spend 10 days aboard the ship testing the waters below. They will collect samples of water, sediment and marine life at 15 locations.

Ken Buesseler:
We're looking two years plus after the accident and now it's more the longer term fate of, say, cesium on the sea floor into the biota and the water concentrations are much lower. But still to try to determine how much is still continuing to come from the reactor area.

Reporter:
Officials with Tokyo Electric Power Company have conducted their own surveys of Fukushima-Daiichi. These researchers are the first from outside TEPCO to test the ocean within five kilometers of the plant.

Going without insurance is described as "going naked" in insurance industry lingo. Going without insurance for the worst hazards in the nuclear power industry is business as usual.

One need not look back very far to see the problem. In March 2011, the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, triggered by an earthquake followed by a tsunami that overwhelmed all of Japan's safeguards, melted down three reactors, displaced 160,000 people and caused an estimated $250 billion in damages and other still-unfolding economic consequences.

Today, in the United States, we have 104 operating nuclear plants producing electricity. The owners, operators, and government regulators who oversee them say an event like Fukushima will not happen here. And even if it did, they insist, there is enough liability insurance in place to cover the damages. The actual amount of that insurance coverage: just $12.6 billion.

You don't need an advanced degree in calculus or risk analysis to see that something doesn't add up, and to start feeling a bit...naked. But when it comes to nuclear insurance, naked is the fashion designed for the American public.

A catastrophic accident in the US could cost way more than $12.6 billion. A worst-case scenario study in 1997 by the Brookhaven National Laboratory estimated that a major accident could cost $566 billion in damages and cause 143,000 possible deaths. Another such study, by Sandia National Laboratories in 1982, calculated the possible costs at $314 billion. Adjusted for inflation, that would put both estimates close to the trillion dollar range today. So $12.6 billion wouldn't cover much.

After Fukushima, which was only the second worst such accident behind the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown in the former Soviet Union, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its staff scrambled to reappraise the adequacy of their own safety regimens for nuclear power plants. And they re-examined the sufficiency of the limited insurance available to indemnify the American people against property damage, loss of life and other economic consequences of nuclear accidents. Then the NRC hastened to publish the "lessons learned" from the Japanese catastrophe to show they were on top of things. Though the previously existing US system had been described as virtually fail-safe, federal regulators found that improvements were possible after all and ordered that they be made. 

But one not so small thing remained unchanged, post-Fukushima: the tightly capped insurance system. Of course, raising the amount of insurance required to operate nuclear plants would be expensive. The nuclear industry, which provides 20 percent of all of the country's electrical power, is not eager to incur additional expenses like higher insurance premiums for more coverage. Oh, but the nuclear power industry doesn't actually pay premiums on most of the insurance coverage that supposedly is available (more about that later.) 

First, a little history. After solving the scientific and technological issues of splitting the atom, the biggest problem the nuclear industry faced in its infancy was obtaining accident insurance coverage. Without insurance, investors were unwilling to provide start-up capital. But the insurance industry was nervous. After all, this was back in the 1950s, and who knew then how safe -- or dangerous -- this new power source might turn out to be? So insurers were refusing to assume unlimited levels of liability.

But President Dwight D. Eisenhower was determined to develop "Atoms for Peace," and he worked with a cooperative Congress to remove all roadblocks. Their solution to the insurance obstacle was a new federal law, the Price-Anderson Act of 1957, which simply imposed federally-decreed limits on liability from accidents at non-military nuclear facilities. The law, amended several times since then, allowed the creation of insurance pools to cover accidents. Today the plan has two tiers. The first tier is a $375 million insurance policy for which each nuclear plant must pay premiums ranging between $500,000 and $2 million a year, depending on plant size and other factors. If a plant has an accident and $375 million is not sufficient to cover resulting damages the second tier kicks in and all the other plant operators around the country must chip in up to $111 million each to indemnify victims until the $12.6 billion cap is reached.

By the way, if you live near a nuclear plant, or even many miles away, you cannot buy your own private insurance policy to protect your home against nuclear accidents, thanks to the Price-Anderson law.

The nuclear industry and the insurance industry both understood the hard realities of the risk. In testimony to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on May 24, 2001, John L. Quattrocchi, then senior vice president for underwriting at the American Nuclear Insurers pool, put it bluntly: "The simple fact is there is always a limit on liability -- that limit equal to the assets of the company at fault." 
     
Meanwhile, corporations that own nuclear plants have devised spin-off schemes, erecting legal firewalls to protect the parent company if their limited-liability subsidiary actually operating the plant goes under as the result of an accident.

Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant suffered a partial meltdown in March, 1979. Victor Gilinsky was the senior sitting member on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when that accident happened. According to Gilinsky, now retired, "There is no insurance for an extreme event."   
 
Now, as scientists warn of climate change, rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes and a host of other environmental threats related to global warming it might not be unreasonable to re-examine protections afforded the public. Small-scale accidents at nuclear plants continue to happen. A big one, like Fukushima or worse, may have a low probability level. But it isn't impossible. 

True, nuclear plants contribute little or no greenhouse gas emissions to the overburdened atmosphere compared to the coal-fired plants that add so much to global warming. But there is another factor to consider when weighing the nuclear option. Originally licensed for 40 years of operational life, most US nuclear plants are approaching or have already exceeded that period. So far, 73 such plants have been given 20-year extensions, and with retrofitting and extensive upgrades, some are expected to function to an age of 80 years.  Lets all keep our fingers crossed.

 

 

   

Miles Benson is a correspondent for Link TV's Earth Focus. He has a distinguished career as a daily print journalist. From 1969 till his retirement in 2005, was a correspondent for the Newhouse Newspaper group, which included 30 daily newspapers. He covered the US Congress for 15 years and then the White House for 16 years, wrote a weekly political column and covered national politics and public policy.

Two years later, radiation levels in Japan's Fukushima prefecture are only slightly higher than other regions. But parents with school-aged children are slow to return home following the 2011 nuclear disaster. And local schools have seen their enrollment fall dramatically. But community residents are keeping their school doors open in the hopes that families will soon return home. On April 24, Japan's NHK World NEWSLINE program reported on the story of a school and its only student.

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Reporter:
It's the start of the school year in Onami Elementary School on the rural fringes of Fukushima City. But it's rather a lonely ceremony. There's only one student, sixth grader, Takashi Sato.

Takashi Sato:
I'm the only student this year. But that gives me the opportunity to interact more closely with my teachers. 

Reporter:
After the explosion at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant, radiation levels in the Onami district were considerably higher than in other parts of Fukushima City. Before the disaster in March 2011, there were 30 children attending Onami Elementary. But most of them were taken out of the area and there's only one student left. Even so, the city's Board of Education decided the school should be kept open.

Kenji Fukuchi:
We must take into consideration the possibility that children will return to the school in  future. We should not rush to shut down the school or integrate it with another school merely foir the sake of economy.

Reporter:
The Board was swayed by people who stayed behind in the district. Hideo Sato is the head of the neighborhood association in Onami. Like his father, he studied at the school and so did his children.

Hideo Sato:
Children are our treasure and they are the ones who will build our future. School is therefore more important than anything else.

Reporter:
Strenuous efforts have been taken to reduce radiation levels in the area. Throughout Fukushima, the biggest issue has been where to store the radioactive waste. Onami was the first community in the city to set up its own waste storage site. Radiation in the area is down to a half or even a quarter of its earlier levels.

Hideo Sato:
Thanks to the decontamination  work its just point-three-six-nine micro-sieverts per hour. Our duty is to improve the environment so school enrollment will rise.

Reporter:
Sato is now receiving one-on-one lessons at the school. Steps are also  being taken so he can attend lessons and extracurricular activities at other schools, giving him the chance to interact with other children.

Masaaki Abe:
There are many local people who want to help our student so the school can survive.

Reporter:
Next year, two children in the Onami district will reach school age, raising hopes that the school has a future.

(LinkAsia: April 12, 2013)
Thuy Vu:
More bad news for Japan's nuclear energy industry. Radioactive water is leaking out of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and crews are rushing to contain it before it spills into the ocean. For more on the story, here's NHK.

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NHK World NEWSLINE
Airdate: April 9, 2013

Reporter:
This plant has sprung leaks, and lots of them. Water is seeping in from underground through walls damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. Once inside it's contaminated, so workers are forming a seemingly dangerous task removing the water to temporary storage tanks and underground pools.

Masayuki Ono:
There have been leaks since a state of cold shutdown was achieved, but the recent case is probably the largest ever.

Reporter:
The pools sit about 800 meters from the shore. But Ono says there's no fear that the water leaked directly into the ocean. TEPCO investigators suspect the problem rides with the design and construction of storage facilities. Each pool is six meters deep. Three layers of water proof sheets cover the sides and bottom. Crews poked a hole in the sheets so that they could insert a sensor to monitor any leakage. Spokespersons say the holes themselves became the problem. The water pressure pulled the sheets down and widened the holes, allowing the water to leak out. Trade and industry minister, Toshimitsu Motegi asked the TEPCO president Naomi Hirose, to fix the problem.

Toshimitsu Motegi:
I would like you to make sure that contaminated water won't leak into the sea.

Reporter:
The assurances from TEPCO have not calmed residents.

Fusayaki Nanbu:
The leaks should never have happened in the first place. Regardless of whether or not the water has reached the ocean. TEPCO should deal with the matter more seriously.

Reporter:
Crews face another challenge too. They are running out of space. They've been filling up the seven pools and hundreds of tanks. But the tanks are nearly full. And now, the integrity of the pools is in question. So the people who run the plant are searching for somewhere else to put water that just keeps on coming.

(LinkAsia: April 5, 2013)
Thuy Vu:
While much of Asia is looking anxiously at the two Koreas, China, Pyongyang's only friend, seems more worried about what's going on at home. There's been an outbreak of a new strain of bird flu in eastern China. Although the number of infections is still small, public health officials in China are on high alert, and the US-based Centers for Disease Control are trying to find a vaccine. Here's Japan's public broadcaster, NHK.

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NHK World NEWSLINE
Airdate: April 5, 2013

Reporter:
The latest bird flu infections emerged in Shanghai. Two men who died from the virus in the city developed fevers, coughs and other symptoms in February. In March, a woman in Anhui province came down with the flu. Four more cases were also confirmed in Jiangsu province. Two more cases were confirmed in Zhejiang province this week. Officials say one of the patients has died. Another five cases were announced on Thursday in Shanghai and Zhejiang. Three deaths have been confirmed. The 44-year-old woman infected in Anhui province worked on processing birds for human consumption.The manager of the market where she works said health officials visited the market, disinfected, and tested workers blood.

Market Manager:
She was very healthy. I don't know much about what has happened to her.

Reporter:
One of the victims in Shanghai reportedly sold pork. But local health officials say they are still investigating the infection route.

Xu Jianguang:
We've asked health institutions to file daily reports on patients who've developed pneumonia of unknown origin.

Reporter:
Following the recent infection, the government ordered health officials across the country to check patients who've developed pneumonia from unknown origins. It also ordered swift and accurate information disclosure. A doctor specializing in infectious diseases said that the central government should show responsibility and take prompt measures.

Jiang Suchun:
It has been expanding to several provinces. We should watch closely how the situation develops. The infection is expected to expand further. The important thing is we make use of our past experience in our assessment of the situation. We should provide doctors with the information we have. In addition, it's vital that we educate chicken farmers and other people on how to deal with birds. And how to prevent infection.

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Thuy Vu:
In Japan, a housing story of another kind. Authorities have eased restrictions on people visiting a town near the stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant. Here's NHK.

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NHK World NEWSLINE
Airdate: April 1, 2013

Reporter:
All 21,000 former residents of Namie are still unable to live within the town limits. More than two years have passed since a massive earthquake and tsunami set off a crisis at the nuclear plant. People who have homes in low radiation zones are now allowed to visit them during daylight hours. More than 80 percent of the former residents will be able to take advantage of the new rules. Michio Tanaka and his wife now live in another city in Fukushima prefecture. They spent their Monday visit cleaning their home.

Michio Tanaka:
I hope the government will speed up its efforts so all of us can live in the town together again.

Reporter:
Town officials say they hope to complete decontamination work, restore infrastructure, and make some parts of the town habitable within four years.

(LinkAsia: February 1, 2013)
Thuy Vu:
After a major meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi two years ago, Japan shut down the country's nuclear power plants. The government of the day promised to make the country nuke free. But the newly elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made it a top priority to reverse that policy saying Japan needs energy. In preparation for getting Japan's nuclear reactors up and running again, new safety measures have been announced. For more on the story, here's Japan's public broadcaster NHK.

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NHK World NEWSLINE
Airdate: January 29, 2012

Reporter:
An expert panel within the authority finalized the guidelines to be passed into law by July. The new regulations will define active faults as formations that have moved in the past 120,000 to 130,000 years. But that could be extended to 400,000 years ago if faults are hard to identify. The guidelines will force plant operators to prepare for the highest possible tsunami for all of the reactors. The operators will have to implement safety measures like sea walls to protect the plant from tsunamis and minimize flooding.

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Thuy Vu:
There's still a lot of work to be done to safeguard the country's nuclear reactors from another disaster. And researchers have just discovered that one reactor in central Japan may be resting directly over an active fault. Once again, here's NHK.

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NHK World NEWSLINE
Airdate: January 28, 2012

Reporter:
The experts drafted a report on the newly found fault under Tsuruga plant site in Fukui prefecture at a meeting on Monday. They said it might have moved after 120,000 to 130,000 years ago. The draft says that fractures direction and other  factors suggest that another fault could be directly under the plant's number 2 reactor. And could be active. Authority official Kunihiko Shimazaki expressed readiness to hear opinions on the matter from other experts and the plant's operator. Japan autonomic power company. He said learning from others would be helpful in compiling a thorough report. Government guidelines prohibit building key nuclear facilities directly above active faults.

(LinkAsia: January 25, 2012)
Thuy Vu:
North Korea has reacted bitterly to a UN resolution that condemned the North's rocket launch last month and imposes new sanctions. Pyongyang said the launch was to send up a communications satellite. The US and most other countries said it was designed to test a long-range missile and was part of North Korea's goal of acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Here's Japan's public broadcaster NHK.

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NHK World NEWSLINE
Airdate: January 23, 2013

Reporter:
Security Council members passed their resolution unanimously. It expands existing sanctions, adding four individuals and six organizations, including the space agency. Assets will be frozen, and individuals will also face a travel ban.

Officials in Pyongyang are showing defiance. Foreign Ministry representatives issued a statement, condemning the resolution as an attempt to deprive North Korea of its right to launch a satellite for peaceful purposes. The document says it is now clear the US has a policy of hostility toward North Korea. As a result, it says that the North will no longer recognize the joint statement from the Six Party Talks in 2005. That includes plans for the country to abandon all nuclear weapons and programs.

The statement goes on to say North Korean authorities will take practical steps to strengthen their defensive military power to counter pressure from US sanctions. It says that includes nuclear deterrence. The wording suggests North Korean officials could conduct a third nuclear test. They carried out one in 2006, and one in 2009.