In an example of the kind of story that people who oppose nuclear power hate to read or consider, Japanese Prime Minister last week reneged on Japan's promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2020, because of Japan's future reduced reliance on nuclear power.
For the large number of well-meaning people who believe that renewable power (chiefly wind and solar) can take up the slack if fossil fuel usage is reduced, this kind of information must induce a level of cognitive dissonance that could cause an aneurism. Much easier to just ignore it. That is why articles like that receive relatively little coverage in the Japanese (indeed, the world) press while the announcement that TEPCO is releasing a little treated water sparks outrage.
The belief on the part of many people that renewable power can replace both fossil fuels and nuclear is rarely critically examined. The connection between rising emissions and a nuclear-less energy production industry is rarely made.
When the need for nuclear power is overtly pushed by scientists, even scientists who are famous for their contribution to climate change study, the result makes the green left very uneasy indeed. Known as NASA's point man of climate change, James Hansen is one such scientist. For decades he has researched climate change and has been informing governments about it. As such he is revered by green movements around the world and vilified by climate change deniers, but when it comes to his scientifically-backed assertions about how to deal with the problem, his green supporters just tune him out. In what I find to be an extraordinary document, clear and concise, Hansen lays out the case for why renewable energy, although being an important part of the mix, is never going to make the big time, and that people who believe otherwise may as well believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.
Thursday, 31 January 2013
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
Perceptions of safety, illusions of danger
A few days ago TEPCO announced that it would be releasing contaminated cooling water into the ocean, water that has been treated to remove radioactive substances so that it is below the legally permissible level of radioactive contamination.
This is necessary because water has been accumulating from efforts to continue cooling the three melted down reactors and the radiation will be reduced through a new process that removes 60 different kinds of radiactive substances. The resulting release will be orders of magnitude less radioactive than is necessary to cause harm to humans, and will then be diluted by nothing less than the Pacific Ocean, so that the radioactivity will be diluted billions of times more, to way, way below normal background levels of radiation in seawater.
You will not be able to find a respectable scientific source stating that this release will endanger the environment in any way. Yet the Japan Times article, as well as other pieces in the net, is followed by comments implying some kind of crime being committed by TEPCO.
This small example neatly illuminates much of the difficulty the nuclear power industry faces in dealing with public perception of safety. The excessive standards of safety and reporting forced on the industry do little to allay fears. On the contrary, they seem to merely enforce the perception that nuclear power is dangerous. Coal power plants, which emit radiation as part of their normal operations, never make any announcements about this at all. Behind all this is the false assumption that nuclear power is inherently more dangerous than other forms of energy production.
That this assumption has nasty add-on effects should hardly be surprising. One of the most important is that the extraordinary standards of safety that are forced upon nuclear power result in massive cost overruns in plant construction. ANS cafe has an extraordinarily informative post on this topic, finding that much of the cost of plant construction originates in unrealistic and self-defeating standards of Quality Assurance.
It is ironic that 'cost' is one of the main reasons given by anti-nuclear campaigners as to why nuclear power cannot provide electricity for the entire world. If those anti-nuke proponents were willing to rationally compare safety standards in terms of health effects across differenct forms of energy production, the costs of nuclear power plant construction could drop dramatically. Construction costs in China, for example, are a fraction of those in the West, much of which cannot be explained merely by the lower cost of labour.
This is necessary because water has been accumulating from efforts to continue cooling the three melted down reactors and the radiation will be reduced through a new process that removes 60 different kinds of radiactive substances. The resulting release will be orders of magnitude less radioactive than is necessary to cause harm to humans, and will then be diluted by nothing less than the Pacific Ocean, so that the radioactivity will be diluted billions of times more, to way, way below normal background levels of radiation in seawater.
You will not be able to find a respectable scientific source stating that this release will endanger the environment in any way. Yet the Japan Times article, as well as other pieces in the net, is followed by comments implying some kind of crime being committed by TEPCO.
This small example neatly illuminates much of the difficulty the nuclear power industry faces in dealing with public perception of safety. The excessive standards of safety and reporting forced on the industry do little to allay fears. On the contrary, they seem to merely enforce the perception that nuclear power is dangerous. Coal power plants, which emit radiation as part of their normal operations, never make any announcements about this at all. Behind all this is the false assumption that nuclear power is inherently more dangerous than other forms of energy production.
That this assumption has nasty add-on effects should hardly be surprising. One of the most important is that the extraordinary standards of safety that are forced upon nuclear power result in massive cost overruns in plant construction. ANS cafe has an extraordinarily informative post on this topic, finding that much of the cost of plant construction originates in unrealistic and self-defeating standards of Quality Assurance.
It is ironic that 'cost' is one of the main reasons given by anti-nuclear campaigners as to why nuclear power cannot provide electricity for the entire world. If those anti-nuke proponents were willing to rationally compare safety standards in terms of health effects across differenct forms of energy production, the costs of nuclear power plant construction could drop dramatically. Construction costs in China, for example, are a fraction of those in the West, much of which cannot be explained merely by the lower cost of labour.
Friday, 18 January 2013
Hopefully the Prime Minister takes my advice
The Japan Times this week has published my letter to the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, where I invite him to consider reason and common sense when it comes to the nuclear issue in Japan.
My little letter was sandwiched between two rabidly anti-nuclear opinion pieces. One is an emotionally-charged use of the 'nuclear waste is bad' argument. One could, of course, use 90% of it and just change the topic to 'not using nuclear power'. At least that way the charge of generational betrayal would be appropriate. Regarding the issue of waste, suffice it to say that 95% of nuclear waste can be recycled, and the disposal of the remainder is not so much a safety or technical issue as a political one.
The second piece is a somewhat random scare piece about the accumulation of strontium-90 in childrens' teeth. It's notable for its complete lack of claimed health effects - leading the reader nonplused as to what it was written for. I suspect the editor demanded scientific references for the supposed ill-effects of the reported strontium-90, and the authors were unable to come up with any.
One thing for sure. Now that I have read many, many anti-nuclear articles I am no longer afraid of trying to get my own stuff published. These writers may or may not be professional journalists, but if they are, they are professionals who are either deliberately deceitful or have an extraordinarily poor understanding of the scientific method.
My little letter was sandwiched between two rabidly anti-nuclear opinion pieces. One is an emotionally-charged use of the 'nuclear waste is bad' argument. One could, of course, use 90% of it and just change the topic to 'not using nuclear power'. At least that way the charge of generational betrayal would be appropriate. Regarding the issue of waste, suffice it to say that 95% of nuclear waste can be recycled, and the disposal of the remainder is not so much a safety or technical issue as a political one.
The second piece is a somewhat random scare piece about the accumulation of strontium-90 in childrens' teeth. It's notable for its complete lack of claimed health effects - leading the reader nonplused as to what it was written for. I suspect the editor demanded scientific references for the supposed ill-effects of the reported strontium-90, and the authors were unable to come up with any.
One thing for sure. Now that I have read many, many anti-nuclear articles I am no longer afraid of trying to get my own stuff published. These writers may or may not be professional journalists, but if they are, they are professionals who are either deliberately deceitful or have an extraordinarily poor understanding of the scientific method.
Sunday, 30 December 2012
Unnecessary fear of radiation causes obesity in Fukushima
According to data released on Xmas day, Fukushima children are the most obese in the nation. The Ministry of Education, which conducted the study, admitted that the cause may be 'restrictions on outdoor activities due to lingering fears of radiation'.
Fukushima kids are often forbidden from playing outside, even during designated school P.E. class, which often takes place in gyms.
The findings were significant for all childhood age groups. The percentage of obese children is still small compared to obesity levels in the U.S. and othe places: for example, 4.86 percent of 5-year-olds were obese, compared to 2.39 percent of all 5-year-olds in Japan. Yet, over the entire prefecture this adds up to thousands of individuals.
According to wikipedia, obesity has many deleterious health effects, and is one of the leading preventable causes of death in the world. As it is well-known that childhood obesity has a strong statistical correlation with lifelong obesity, we are essentially talking about a health effect that dwarfs any serious scientific predictions of health consequences stemming from exposure to Fukushima radiation. Obese Fukushima inhabitants can look forward to increased rates of cardiovascular disease, asthma, sleep apnea, osteoarthratis, diabetes, and (ironically) some cancers. Overall, obesity reduces your life expectancy by six to seven years.
This is another case of an irrational response to radiation causing measurably more harm than good. It would have been far better for these kids to play outside as usual, safe in the knowledge that local radiation levels are lower than natually occurring background levels in many parts of the world.
We can add this obesity to the list of negative consequences resulting from ill-considered measures taken in response to the Fukushima accident. It is yet another case where the Japanese action, far from addressing any real problem, has merely created one where it need not exist.
Fukushima kids are often forbidden from playing outside, even during designated school P.E. class, which often takes place in gyms.
The findings were significant for all childhood age groups. The percentage of obese children is still small compared to obesity levels in the U.S. and othe places: for example, 4.86 percent of 5-year-olds were obese, compared to 2.39 percent of all 5-year-olds in Japan. Yet, over the entire prefecture this adds up to thousands of individuals.
According to wikipedia, obesity has many deleterious health effects, and is one of the leading preventable causes of death in the world. As it is well-known that childhood obesity has a strong statistical correlation with lifelong obesity, we are essentially talking about a health effect that dwarfs any serious scientific predictions of health consequences stemming from exposure to Fukushima radiation. Obese Fukushima inhabitants can look forward to increased rates of cardiovascular disease, asthma, sleep apnea, osteoarthratis, diabetes, and (ironically) some cancers. Overall, obesity reduces your life expectancy by six to seven years.
This is another case of an irrational response to radiation causing measurably more harm than good. It would have been far better for these kids to play outside as usual, safe in the knowledge that local radiation levels are lower than natually occurring background levels in many parts of the world.
We can add this obesity to the list of negative consequences resulting from ill-considered measures taken in response to the Fukushima accident. It is yet another case where the Japanese action, far from addressing any real problem, has merely created one where it need not exist.
Saturday, 29 December 2012
Abe's new cabinet
Japan's new prime minister (for a second time), Shinzo Abe, has made statements that probably mean nuclear power will stay on in Japan as part of the energy mix. He has even hinted at the possibility of new nuclear plant construction.
That doesn't mean everything is okay in Japan, however. Far from it. Abe's new cabinet ministries demonstrate, with their Orwellian names and unnoticed irony, the intractable nature of some of Japan's problems.
Hakobun Shimomura is minister for, amongst other things, education reform. Judging by his party's record in past decades when it comes to education however, a more apt title would probably be Minister for the Prevention of Education Reform.
Akihiro Ota is the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism minister. Covering a wide array of sins, he bears responsibility for administering tens of trillions of yen of completely useless public works, plunging Japan's future generations into debt which it is statistically impossible to repay. The construction industry has been having continual celelebrations since the election. While the more realistic of Japan's commentators acknowledge that what the country really needs is a massive deconstruction program, this is very unlikely in what is basically a return to the dreamworld of the 60s and 70s. Looks like more bridges to nowhere and airports for cabbages. As for tourism, he will be managing the Irreversible Decline of Japanese Tourism as the country turns ever more inward.
Nobutera Ishihara is the State Minister of Nuclear Crisis Management. As the Daiichi plant in Fukushima achieved cold shutdown 12 months ago, and there have been no significant releases of radiactive materials since early 2011, it is hard to see what he will be managing. Having worked in a board of education office however, I can imagine what he will be doing. Having meetings about the chair arrangement in the next meeting, for example.
Masako Mori is the State Minister for Measures for the Declining Birthrate. If ever there is an impossible task, this is it. Japan's fertility is on a one-way trip to extinction, and real measures to address it (empowerment of women, free childcare, flexible work hours, immigration of young people) will certainly be out of her control. Possibly they chose her because it was thought she could reverse Japan's declining birthrate merely by virtue of being a woman herself. If she is planning to do it single handedly, she better get started.
Akira Amari is State Minister for Economic Revitalization. Another Mission Impossible. Japan's ageing and shrinking population, not mention moribund political, financial and cultural customs, make economic growth all but impossible.
Tomomi Inada is State Minister for Administrative Reforms and Public Servant System Reforms. Considering that real policy in Japan is controlled by the public servant system, which has no interest in reform and furthermore that the LDP campaigned more or less on a platform of reversing what reforms had been achieved by previous administrations, I predict that Tomomi Inada will be attending many meetings and not doing much else.
That doesn't mean everything is okay in Japan, however. Far from it. Abe's new cabinet ministries demonstrate, with their Orwellian names and unnoticed irony, the intractable nature of some of Japan's problems.
Hakobun Shimomura is minister for, amongst other things, education reform. Judging by his party's record in past decades when it comes to education however, a more apt title would probably be Minister for the Prevention of Education Reform.
Akihiro Ota is the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism minister. Covering a wide array of sins, he bears responsibility for administering tens of trillions of yen of completely useless public works, plunging Japan's future generations into debt which it is statistically impossible to repay. The construction industry has been having continual celelebrations since the election. While the more realistic of Japan's commentators acknowledge that what the country really needs is a massive deconstruction program, this is very unlikely in what is basically a return to the dreamworld of the 60s and 70s. Looks like more bridges to nowhere and airports for cabbages. As for tourism, he will be managing the Irreversible Decline of Japanese Tourism as the country turns ever more inward.
Nobutera Ishihara is the State Minister of Nuclear Crisis Management. As the Daiichi plant in Fukushima achieved cold shutdown 12 months ago, and there have been no significant releases of radiactive materials since early 2011, it is hard to see what he will be managing. Having worked in a board of education office however, I can imagine what he will be doing. Having meetings about the chair arrangement in the next meeting, for example.
Masako Mori is the State Minister for Measures for the Declining Birthrate. If ever there is an impossible task, this is it. Japan's fertility is on a one-way trip to extinction, and real measures to address it (empowerment of women, free childcare, flexible work hours, immigration of young people) will certainly be out of her control. Possibly they chose her because it was thought she could reverse Japan's declining birthrate merely by virtue of being a woman herself. If she is planning to do it single handedly, she better get started.
Akira Amari is State Minister for Economic Revitalization. Another Mission Impossible. Japan's ageing and shrinking population, not mention moribund political, financial and cultural customs, make economic growth all but impossible.
Tomomi Inada is State Minister for Administrative Reforms and Public Servant System Reforms. Considering that real policy in Japan is controlled by the public servant system, which has no interest in reform and furthermore that the LDP campaigned more or less on a platform of reversing what reforms had been achieved by previous administrations, I predict that Tomomi Inada will be attending many meetings and not doing much else.
Saturday, 22 December 2012
Which direction will Japan go?
In an interesting development, Prime Minister - elect Shinzo Abe today announced that he will consider revoking the ban on the construction of new nuclear reactors once he takes power.
"We'd like to review how to think about the issue nationwide."
Considering that Abe's party the LDP won by a landslide, one is tempted to think that the Japanese public's tolerance for continual energy uncertainty and unnecessary nuclear fear was waning, and thus many people voted for the LDP because they are the 'pro-nuclear' party.
If Abe continues in this pro-nuclear vein, he may run up against resistance in the form of the NRA. Japan's new Nuclear Regulatory Authority is proving to be a serious hindrance to the restart of Japan's reactors. So far the authority, which debuted in September, has put serious doubts over the restart of two seperate reactors in different parts of Japan, with the discovery of 'active geological faults' running under them. Considering that the NRA has recently rewritten the rules about what constitutes an active fault, we are talking about earth movments that occurred up to 400,000 years ago. In other words, if you go back in time to when the last quake occurred, the only inhabitants to notice might have been Homo Erectus. They then had 100,000 years to consider the earthquake before they became extinct, and then there was another 300,000 years before modern Japanese came along to worry about the next one. If the next quake affecting that fault line is a further 400,000 years in the future one could hardly be expected to write safety guidelines with the future inhabitants in mind. My guess is they would have other things to worry about.
"We'd like to review how to think about the issue nationwide."
Considering that Abe's party the LDP won by a landslide, one is tempted to think that the Japanese public's tolerance for continual energy uncertainty and unnecessary nuclear fear was waning, and thus many people voted for the LDP because they are the 'pro-nuclear' party.
If Abe continues in this pro-nuclear vein, he may run up against resistance in the form of the NRA. Japan's new Nuclear Regulatory Authority is proving to be a serious hindrance to the restart of Japan's reactors. So far the authority, which debuted in September, has put serious doubts over the restart of two seperate reactors in different parts of Japan, with the discovery of 'active geological faults' running under them. Considering that the NRA has recently rewritten the rules about what constitutes an active fault, we are talking about earth movments that occurred up to 400,000 years ago. In other words, if you go back in time to when the last quake occurred, the only inhabitants to notice might have been Homo Erectus. They then had 100,000 years to consider the earthquake before they became extinct, and then there was another 300,000 years before modern Japanese came along to worry about the next one. If the next quake affecting that fault line is a further 400,000 years in the future one could hardly be expected to write safety guidelines with the future inhabitants in mind. My guess is they would have other things to worry about.
Monday, 10 December 2012
Japanese election
Japan looks set to continue its recent tradition of changing prime ministers every year with a general elections set for Dec. 16. The public is seemingly unimpressed with any of the candidates; poll regularly report that more than 50% of the electorate does not prefer any of the parties.
Among the major contenders Shinzo Abe, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party is seen as most favourably inclined towards nuclear power. He has stated that nuclear electricity production will continue after safety checks have been performed on all reactors. The LDP is also the party most likely to end up in power. As far as it goes, this is good news for Japan; but the LDP is also the dinosaur party; they have ruled oligarchically since the 1950s and are said to be puppets of the bureaucrats. It is impossible to be optimistic in the face of another LDP government; Japan will just continue to the abyss, sleepwalking to oblivion. It is the LDP that is most responsible for pushing the country into the permanent decline it finds itself. For example, their economic policy is simply to 'promote public works to revive the economy', an action so unlikely to revive the economy that you may as well give the money to me and I'll spend it on sushi.
Abe's rivals do not exactly seem promising either. The current government of prime minister Noda is getting support in the single figures and will surely be thrown out. Then there is the rise of the so-called 'third force', which formed when maverick rightwingers Toru Hashimoto and Shintaro Ishihara joined forces to create the Japan Restoration Party. They have expressed contradictory attitudes to nuclear power (Hashimoto wants to get rid of it and Ishihara wants to keep it) and Ishihara is a right nutter. He is 134 years old, and his version of 'restoring Japan' is to discard the alliance with America and re-assert the country's rights against China, whilst re-writing the constitution to allow rearmament and possible nuclear weapons development! Way to go, you can make enemies of everybody! Unfortunately he is just stubborn and crazy enough to get some votes, and may end up kingmaker if nothing else.
Other minor parties seem to be dominated by the issue of nuclear power and how soon to get rid of it.
Overall, at best we can expect unimpressive mediocrity. Just lower your expectation and everything will be okay.
Among the major contenders Shinzo Abe, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party is seen as most favourably inclined towards nuclear power. He has stated that nuclear electricity production will continue after safety checks have been performed on all reactors. The LDP is also the party most likely to end up in power. As far as it goes, this is good news for Japan; but the LDP is also the dinosaur party; they have ruled oligarchically since the 1950s and are said to be puppets of the bureaucrats. It is impossible to be optimistic in the face of another LDP government; Japan will just continue to the abyss, sleepwalking to oblivion. It is the LDP that is most responsible for pushing the country into the permanent decline it finds itself. For example, their economic policy is simply to 'promote public works to revive the economy', an action so unlikely to revive the economy that you may as well give the money to me and I'll spend it on sushi.
Abe's rivals do not exactly seem promising either. The current government of prime minister Noda is getting support in the single figures and will surely be thrown out. Then there is the rise of the so-called 'third force', which formed when maverick rightwingers Toru Hashimoto and Shintaro Ishihara joined forces to create the Japan Restoration Party. They have expressed contradictory attitudes to nuclear power (Hashimoto wants to get rid of it and Ishihara wants to keep it) and Ishihara is a right nutter. He is 134 years old, and his version of 'restoring Japan' is to discard the alliance with America and re-assert the country's rights against China, whilst re-writing the constitution to allow rearmament and possible nuclear weapons development! Way to go, you can make enemies of everybody! Unfortunately he is just stubborn and crazy enough to get some votes, and may end up kingmaker if nothing else.
Other minor parties seem to be dominated by the issue of nuclear power and how soon to get rid of it.
Overall, at best we can expect unimpressive mediocrity. Just lower your expectation and everything will be okay.
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