Workers at Fukushima Complain of Bad Conditions.. So What?

The damaged nuclear reactor problem at Fukushima is becoming more and more stabilized. It's been more than a week since humans entered damaged reactor #. Of course, for the people living near the plant and the workers there, things are still terrible. For the rest of us, as is always prudent and wise, we must be ever diligent about what we buy and feed our children.

Complaining about harsh work conditions? Join the club.

Nevertheless, Fukushima hasn't become the disaster that some had claimed it would become.


The fact is that, in this country, as in life everywhere, the good must be taken with the bad. We have benefitted from nuclear power, we must bear the costs of that. Especially the people who lived near the plant who made livelihoods off nuclear power.


Whereas before, some elements of the mass media were screaming about nuclear holocaust, armageddon and nuclear winter, the hyperbole has slowly been dying away.


Once again, the scorecard must be examined, as I wrote in Radiation, Fukushima Facts and Blogger Frustration:

At Chernobyl, 237 people suffered from acute radiation sickness soon after the accident, of whom 31 died within the first three months.

Here's a fun fact for you about Fukushima: Total number of people reported to have acute radiation sickness from Fukushima; 0 (zero). Total deaths from Fukushima nuclear accident in first four + months; 0 (zero).    


Now, since millions haven't died, the news changes focus on the workers at Fukushima.

The Yomiuri Shimbun reports:

N-plant workers still labor under severe conditions

Severe summer heat causing heatstroke and poor accommodations have plagued workers at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, even though the government has announced that Step 1 of settling the crisis was nearly complete.

Improving worker conditions at the plant was one of the targets of Step 1. However, some employees are still not happy with their conditions.

Hoo hum. I bet that you could survey all employees in any field and find that most of them are not happy with their conditions.

On Tuesday, Goshi Hosono, the state minister responsible for dealing with the nuclear crisis, and Tokyo Electric Power Co., announced the near completion of Step 1.

Working conditions at the plant have improved to some extent. Worker exposure to radiation has been steadily reduced and efforts have been made to make workers more comfortable.

Currently, about 1,500 people work at the plant every day. A gymnasium at the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant, about 10 kilometers from the No. 1 plant, is now equipped with showers and bunk beds for 240 people. Temporary dormitories are also under construction in the area, but problems remain.

I guess the danger from radiation can't be so bad for us living so far away. If it is so dangerous, then how is it that 1,500 people could be working at the plant everyday?

At the special earthquake-resistant building at the No. 1 plant, housing the crisis headquarters, workers are still forced to sleep on blankets on the floor. "I can't sleep well here," a TEPCO employee said.

The summer heat has been hard on workers wearing heavy protective gear including full-face masks, as temperatures around the No. 1 plant have exceeded 30 C almost every day.

This is Japan. It's summer. It's hot. We don't really need a weather report. We also do not need to be reminded that, since this is Japan, people sleep on the floor. Funny that. I sleep on the floor every night too.

According to TEPCO, 32 workers had been diagnosed as suffering from heatstroke as of Monday. On Tuesday, a worker in his 20s suffering heatstroke symptoms was sent to the hospital. Another TEPCO worker said, "It's too hot. My cool vest [containing refrigerant] doesn't work well."

Even though air-conditioned rest stations were set up at 11 locations in the plant, workers' faces are flushed from the heat when they remove their masks, according to TEPCO sources.

As radiation-tainted debris has steadily been removed, radiation levels at the plant have decreased.

Well, the radiation levels at the plant have decreased? That's good news. Thirty two workers have heatstroke related problems in the summer in Japan because they are working in protective suits in 30 degree celsius (86 fahrenheit) temperatures and this is the news?!

You're kidding, right?

I have one piece of advice for the TEPCO workers at Fukushima; You accepted a job at a certain renumeration. No one forced you into taking that job. You decided to take it by yourselves. 

I hate to sound so cold, but, if you don't like it, then quit... Or ask for a pay raise. You guys took this job on your own volition. What did you expect?

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Radiation, Fukushima Facts and Blogger Frustration

Being a blogger is so frustrating... I guess it comes with the territory... 


At the top of this blog, it says, This blog is about "ALL THINGS ABOUT THE MEDIA, MARKETING AND JAPAN..."

I want to write about Japan and the media and marketing as, good bloggers are supposed to write about their expertise. It is the death-knell of any blogger to go off on subjects that they are not expert in. 

I consider myself an expert on mass media, Japan in particular. 

Surprisingly, this blog never was about nuclear power nor Fukushima. I only wrote about Fukushima when it concerned mass media sensationalism or media reporting. I wrote lots of those....

Especially when idiots said stuff like, "A large chunk of Japan will be  uninhabitable." 

Laughable...

Even so, people still attack my former comments on the prophets of doom. 

Here's one that just makes me want to pull my hair out:

You seem to have gone very quiet about the radiation and how safe we are in Japan since the beef story hit? You have no comment about such a big issue? Are we all still safe living with this risk? You think beef will be the last of it? It is amazing how much faith people have here in the authorities ability to manage such an enormous and complex situation. How they try to show support for the region by buying food that will now damage the thing they were trying to support. Is it not obvious that there is contamination and food safety issues relating to the release of radiation in the region??

I responded:

Anonymous! I've written about this much. I am not a radiation expert. I am a media expert. I have written that I wanted to stop writing about Fukushima. When I wrote about (Fukushima) I wrote about media and sensationalism. I don't eat beef - (Mad-cow, chemicals, hormones, etc. that will kill you)... I've even written that if you want factual information on the Fukushima disaster, go to the right of my blog to recommended blog and go to EX-SKF blog and/or Alexander Higgins blog. 

As I've said 100 times, living in Fukushima area near the plants are not... What do you mean, "(Is it safe) Here in Japan?" Do you mean, Okinawa? Nagoya? Osaka? From the information available, Tokyo is safe. The radiation levels are listed at the top of this blog everyday. See for yourself.

Eating beef from Fukushima is probably not (safe). I don't know. When we get a sensationalist story about how radioactive cows are killing "everyone who eats a burger or at McDonalds," I will probably have a comment. 


I've written several times that I want to stop writing about anything to do with Fukushima. Here is the post where I tried to send people to other blogs who need information on facts about Fukushima:

Need Facts on Fukushima Disaster?

I added a link on my blog to this: http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/

Japanese kid who writes well and his English is awesome! Factual reporting on Fukushima... Often makes my blog posts look stupid. Good stuff. Never ventures into conjecture or sensationalism.

I've also linked to my recommended posts a site run by my friend, Alexander Higgins. http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/ and to an excellent blog by Marc Shaffner: http://www.sheffnersweb.net/blogs/accuratemaps/ 

Anyhow, no. I have no intention of writing about anything that has to do with eating beef. In my, opinion, beef is not healthy - in some cases unsafe - to eat anyway. It is too expensive. We don't eat the stuff. Used to. Mad Cow disease finished us off on that... Never really were big beef fans anyway... 

Like I said, though, if some clown comes out in the mass media and starts making wild claims along the lines of "Fukushima beef is irradiating our food supply and 20,000 McDonald's customers are going to die from eating it!" I will write about it...

But, I would write, if only to say that eating McDonald's food regularly will probably kill a hell of a lot more people than the meat from a thousand cows from Fukushima will.

I've gone silent on this? Yes. 

Arnie Gundersen said that "20,000 people were going to die from Fukushima." 

Yawn! 

Many say that Fukushima is much worse than Chernobyl...

Here's fun fact for you about Chernobyl from Wikipedia: At Chernobyl, 237 people suffered from acute radiation sickness soon after the accident, of whom 31 died within the first three months.

Here's a fun fact for you about Fukushima: Total number of people reported to have acute radiation sickness from Fukushima; 0 (zero). Total deaths from Fukushima nuclear accident in first four + months; 0 (zero). Total number of affected cows; almost 1500.

Very bad news for the cows who will be destroyed.

Fukushima: You'd think that foreigners in this country would bother

to learn how to read second-grade kanji... You'd think wrong.

Afraid of irradiated beef? Don't eat beef... 

Also, here's another hint.... Learn to read and write basic Japanese. At ALL grocery stores in Japan they list where produce is from. If it says 福島　(Fukushima) and you are worried about it. Then don't buy it and don't eat it.

Simple. Problem solved. 


UPDATE: on Fukushima from Business Insider: Fukushima Stabilized. 


UPDATE TWO: The worst thing so far about this tainted beef is that 240 school children were fed it it Yamagata. Now there' some kids parents who, if I were them, I'd be screaming bloody murder!


Yamagata Shimbun Newspaper (7/20/2011) reports:

Concerning the beef from the cows from Asakawa-machi in Fukushima Prefecture that were fed with the rice hay that contained the high level of radioactive cesium, Sakata City (in Yamagata Prefecture) announced on July 19 that 3 nursery schools in the city purchased the beef in late April, and total 290 children and teachers ate the meat in school lunches.

According to Sakata City, the three nursery schools purchased the meat from the same food grocer in the city. The meat was cooked into "hashed beef" dish and served as lunch. 240 children and 50 teachers and administrators ate 20 to 40 grams per person.

The food grocer alerted the nursery schools . Sakata City traced the history of the meat, and confirmed that the meat that was delivered to the three nursery schools came from the Yokohama City Central Wholesale Meat Market, and the cow had come from Asakawa-machi in Fukushima Prefecture.The city notified the parents of children at these nursery schools on July 19, and decided not to use beef in school lunches until the safety is assured.  

NOTE: If you are worried about the government not testing and checking our food. All I can wonder is why in the world after all the recent deaths from food in the west does anyone in the west complain of Japanese government incompetence concerning beef. Just Google search "2010 food deaths" and you'll find 5,000 people die in the USA from tainted food every year and 40,000 die from eating junk food... The USDA doesn't test USA produced milk for radiation. Read here. That the government is incompetent is a foregone conclusion. Why anyone wants that same government to take over the nuclear power plants is beyond comprehension.

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Japan's Future and Nuclear Power?

Since the March 11 disaster involving the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear accident at Fukushima, I have been consistently stressing at least two important points concerning the nuclear situation in Japan.

First, when dealing with news about Fukushima, we can only deal with the facts and must resist the temptation to be prodded into panic by sensationalist and hyper-reactive "reporting" that is actually nothing but conjecture. And, two, the worst thing that could ever happen to Japan is for us to lose a cheap and clean source of energy. (For an example of wild conjecture, read this. For a great example of factual reporting see here.)


Interestingly, The Diplomat has a story that echoes my exact words:

Last month, thousands of Japanese took to the streets to demand an end to nuclear power in their country. For more than half a century, Japan had been in the uncomfortable situation of being both the only nation that has suffered an atomic attack, but also one of the countries that are most reliant on atomic energy. The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, though, has made it impossible to ignore this seeming paradox any longer. The Japanese people, known more for their restraint and willingness to endure than for their propensity to express outrage and challenge the status quo, appear to have found their voice. 

A newly empowered public voice would surely be a positive in a country whose democratically elected leaders have waffled with impressive ambivalence through Japan’s troubles over the last decade. However, if this public voice portends a new reality for Japan, Japanese political leadership will need to find the sophistication and fortitude to respect the difference between democratic leadership and popular capitulation. Notwithstanding the immediate task of bringing relief to hundreds of thousands of tsunami victims, perhaps the most important and imminent test for Japan’s leadership in this new era must be to defy the people’s demands and work immediately to ensure Japan’s nuclear energy supply. 

You can read more at the Diplomat.

From reading the above I flatter myself and imagine that this writer is a regular reader of this blog as I have made the exact same points for months, most recently in mid-June. But most probably not. It is common sense that Japan, a country that has little or no natural resources, as well as an aging society and massive debt to GDP; a country that is one of the most over crowded nations on earth; a country that went to war over resources just 55 years ago, needs nuclear power to survive.


What other choices are there except reverting back to the way things were 45 years ago with Japan's energy needs by burning fossils fuels and pollution? That would be a terrible and completely impractical choice. 

We must find a way to make nuclear power safe as well as economical or the land of the rising sun is a country of the setting sun. Japan is supposed to be a leader of the world in technology. We have no choice but to pursue the creation of safe and controllable nuclear power... Even if it means risking a Godzilla type creature rising up from Tokyo Bay (of course, I am joking!) 


If Japan does not pursue creating the technology and will to create safe nuclear power then Japan's time in the sun has passed.

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Is Fukushima the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind? A Comparison

Many pundits and supposed experts have claimed that Fukushima "is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind."


Sorry to inform you, but I think that is completely false. To even entertain that notion for a second is incredibly arrogant and ethno-centric thinking. It is ignorant and shows a complete lack of knowledge on human history. Be very suspicious of those who make these kinds of idiotic claims as they certainly are not steeped in factual information. But hey, don't believe me, in this article, I will let you be the judge.

SILHOUETTES - GET A JOB

Here is a list from Wikipedia on industrial disasters. This is a heavily edited list. There are many more at the Wikipedia site. I edited out many disasters as I figured that if there weren't at least a few hundred casualties, then it can't be much of a disaster (no disrespect to those who lost loved ones). Especially when you consider that, according to the International Labor Organization, at least 12,250 Chinese workers die in industrial accidents a month, every month, and an estimated 1.2 million people are killed in road crashes each year, and as many as 50 million are injured, a few dozen killed in an industrial accident seems like small potatoes. 


So far the death total from the Fukushima nuclear accident is zero. How many can you count from the list below that are much worse than that?

Chemical industry

• September 21, 1921: Oppau explosion in Germany killing 500–600 people and injuring about 2,000 more.
• 1932-1968: The Minamata disaster in Japan. Over 3,000 people died or suffered various deformities.
• April 16, 1947: Texas City Disaster at least 578 people died and another 3,500 were injured.
• December 3, 1984: The Bhopal disaster in India. Death toll range from 4,000 to 20,000. 
• April 22, 2004: Ryonchon Cargo Explosion at Railway Disaster in North Korea. 3,000 people killed or injured

Construction industry

• January 20, 1909: Chicago Crib Disaster. 100 men died. 

Defense industry

• July 17, 1944: Port Chicago Disaster. 320 people killed. 

Energy industry

• August, 1975: The Banqiao Dam flood in China. 100,000 immediately killed, plus over 150,000 died of subsequent epidemic diseases and famine. Total dead toll around 250,000, making it the worst technical disaster ever happened in history.
• March 16, 1978: The Amoco Cadiz spill. An oil tanker sank spilling of 68,684,000 US Gallons of crude oil (nearly ten times that of Exxon Valdez). This is the largest oil spill of its kind (from an oil tanker) in history.
• April 26, 1986: Chernobyl disaster. At the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Prypiat, Ukraine a test on reactor number four goes out of control, resulting in a nuclear meltdown. The ensuing steam explosion and fire killed up to 50 people with estimates that there may be between 4,000 additional cancer deaths over time. 

Food industry

• January 15, 1919: The Boston Molasses Disaster. Killing 21 and injuring 150.
• September 3, 1991: 1991 Hamlet chicken processing plant fire. 25 deaths.

Manufacturing industry

• January 10, 1860: Pemberton Mill Collapse. 145 workers killed and 166 injured.
• March 20, 1905: Grover Shoe Factory explosion 58 people killed and 150 injured.
• March 25, 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City. 100 garment workers died in fire or jumped to their deaths.
• May 10, 1993: Kader Toy Factory fire in Thailand. 188 workers were killed, mostly young women.

Mining industry

• March 10, 1906: Courrières mine disaster in France. 1,099 workers died, including children.
• April 26, 1942: Benxihu Colliery disaster in China. 1,549 workers died, in the worst coal mine accident ever in the world.
• May 28, 1965: 1965 Dhanbad coal mine disaster in India. 300 miners killed.
• October 21, 1966: Aberfan disaster killing 116 children and 28 adults.

There are many more disasters and accident listed at the Wikipedia site. There's thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, more that are not listed on Wikipedia. Lots of accidents and disasters. Lots of deaths. Fukushima nuclear reactor accident deaths as of today, four months after the disaster began? 0. Zero. None. Nada. Zip. 全然. 無し. ありません。


Oh, and if you want a disaster that displaced more than 1,000 people and is still going on decades later, here's an interesting one:

• May 1962: The Centralia, Pennsylvania coal mine fire began, forcing the gradual evacuation of the Centralia borough. The fire continues to burn in the abandoned borough in 2011, 49 years later (emphasis mine).

These are facts. They are etched into history.


People who make claims like, "Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind" are stating opinions involved with speculation and conjecture. Anyone care to debate the facts? 

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Fukushima Nuclear Disaster News - Debunking Arnie Gundersen

It's really getting tiring debunking everything that clowns like Arnie Gundersen say about Fukushima. It doesn't matter how many facts or data that I link to or how much I try to fact check what this guy says, people still write really stupid (and childishly rude) stuff to me and challenge me on it. 


Of course, I can tell the rude stuff comes from ill-educated hysterical Americans. It's pretty obvious.


What's even more tiring is getting mail from fools who actually believe that things are out of control. It really reminds me of the early days of the Global Warming idiocy. People were foaming at the mouth believing that too because they believed the crap they were told. What was their rationale?


1) It was a government cover up and conspiracy 
2) "They" were lying to us


Why do people think this way?


3) Most people are illogical and cannot have an original thought if it were the last thing they ever did


It's a victory for the public education system that it churns out so many people with such a poor level of education. 


I don't really mind being challenged on what's written here, but let's stick to the points, if we can, shall we? The lunatic fringe writing stuff to me like what I received yesterday was so totally out of whack that I deleted his comments. (Note: I do enjoy every one's comments and appreciate that they take the time to write them, but please do read the rules on commenting before you write. It is foolish to take ten minutes writing something that gets immediately deleted when you could read the rules in two seconds and make sure that doesn't happen).


Some of these guys actually write comments like this:


"Mike, you are full of sh*t... Care to debate me?"


Hmm.... What an intelligent, polite and marvelous argument this guy puts forth. What a fantastic invitation to debate the points. I can tell, by the quality of his writing, it would be like debating Neanderthal man. I don't know how I can counter such an excellently structured argument... 


Perhaps by hitting the table with a crude wooden bat and saying, "Korg no like!"...


Could he possibly mean that he wants to, "debate me on the point of the contents of my body?" If so, no. I do not... If he means that - judging by the excellent logic of his argument shown in his comment - should I debate him on the same level of childish insults as he does by, say, calling his mother various unsavory names? Then, no to that one too. 


I'm sure that his mother is a wonderful woman. Most moms are like that.


So, without further ado, here's another article debunking Gundersen. I hope it will be the last, but, alas, suspect it won't. First up, let's be fair. I will show you both anti-atomic power (Gundersen's comments) and "pro"-nuclear power comments. You be the judge.


From Atomic Insights: 

Arnie Gundersen has been making money by spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt about nuclear energy for more than a decade. His career has received a measurable boost since March 11, when a large earthquake and powerful tsunami successfully peeled off most of the many layers of protection at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.

Ever since that day, Gundersen has been giving scary interviews in a variety of media outlets that include a number of dire predictions. He claimed that the spent fuel pool for unit 4 had gone dry and that he had the video to prove it. That claim remains available on his web site, so he is apparently standing by his early evaluation despite all evidence that contradicts his claim.

(snip) 

He has been making the rounds of the advertiser supported media recently with stories about the dangers of “hot particles” that are so tiny they cannot be picked up by normal radiation detectors. (Note: Radiation can be measured at extremely low levels, far below the levels that can cause human health effects. There is a reason why doctors inject small amounts radioactive materials into their patients as tracers to assist them in diagnosing organ function – those tracers make bodily systems visible without endangering the patient. If the hot particles are so tiny and dispersed that they cannot be detected, they are nothing to worry about.)

You can read more about Gundersen here at Atomic Insights.

Of course, I also blasted Gundersen for these same ridiculous remarks on the very blog in "Wind Patterns and Rainy Season in Japan" where I derailed his ignorant and completely false claims that "the wind was turning and now blowing radiation towards Tokyo." I also dismantled his absurd claims of "anecdotal evidence" of people having a metallic taste in their mouths was proof of Iodine in the air as a byproduct of radiation in "Metallic Tastes in Mouths Proves Nuclear Disaster! Or Does it?"

Finally, and as an aside, one other reader complained that I bashed Gundersen for his foolish claims of radioactive air filters in cars. The reader claimed that he searched for third-party evidence of this claim by Gundersen and could find nothing. This reader then somehow concluded that this fact was proof that I was making up evidence against Gundersen and trying to discredit him (well, that's what he said. Yeah, I know. The logic is quite convuluted...) But I don't want to keep railing on the educational system of the USA. In that post about car air filters I even showed the results of a search in Japanese for what Gundersen was claiming and found nothing excepting links to his absurd claims. See it here in "Radioactive Air Filters in Cars?" 

For today here's more about what Gundersen claimed that is totally disproven by facts on the ground. Gundersen claimed in an article on Al Jazeera:

"So ten to 15 years from now maybe we can say the reactors have been dismantled, and in the meantime you wind up contaminating the water," Gundersen said. 

Is this true? You be the judge. Here's today's news from the Nuclear Energy Institute:

Contaminated Water Levels Beginning to Drop at Fukushima Daiichi

TEPCO is making headway in reducing the volume of contaminated water on site. In the last week, the new water filtration system has treated more than 13,000 tons of water. Recycling the treated water into the plant cooling systems also began last week, and the rate of water accumulation is now being reversed. The company says water levels in the basements of the reactor buildings could drop by more than three feet by next month. About 120,000 tons of water have accumulated in basements at the facility and in storage facilities. 

This seems to quite directly contradict Gundersen's claims, no? 

The article continues:

Also, the company has installed steel plates at the seawater intake structures for Fukushima reactors 1 through 4, closing off a path for leakage of contaminated water from the reactors to the ocean.

So, judging from the news these last two days, here are the facts and the timetable settled so far:

1) Radiation levels at the crippled plants are expected to be within safe limits so that human engineers can reenter the plants on July 17, 2011. That's eight days from today.

2) The contaminated water is being cleaned and contaminated water levels are dropping.

3) Radioactive water leaks have been stopped.

Of course this disaster at Fukushima is bad. But considering the claims of just a few shorts months, even weeks ago, when Gundersen was claiming:

"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind. Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed. You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively."

Gundersen likes to use words like "maybe" (see above) and words like "probably." That means that he is just guessing. Also, don't look now, but the reactors were being cooled months ago.

As far as being the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind, I'm sure that is debatable. I'm sure people near the BP oil disaster that has already killed at least eleven men and sickened hundreds, if not thousands, of people; as well as killing wildlife in the hundreds of millions if not more, would strongly disagree with you Gundersen.

So far the death tally from Fukushima nearly four months later: Zero. 

These are facts indelibly etched into history...Care to debate me?

Note: In my next post, I blow this, "Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind" claim to pieces. That claim is pure and total nonsense. How can people be so arrogant and ignorant of history to even entertain such a thought? Read it here.

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