Doubtful: Nuclear Proponents Claim iPhone Use Consumes as much Electricity as a Refrigerator

People who have viewed the film Pandora’s Promise, or read reviews and quotes from it, might recall that Michael Shellenberger claimed at one point that an iPhone uses as much electricity as a refrigerator. Because it’s a film for a mass audience, and not a scientific report, he didn’t have to provide evidence for this surprising statement. He did explain that it is not the phone that uses so much electricity, but the servers and wireless networks that add to the energy consumption, but still, it seems like an exaggeration.

The commonsense reason to doubt the claim is that if it were true, phone charges would be much more expensive. I have a recent model refrigerator that is fairly efficient, but still it consumes more than any appliance in the house. It seems to account for about 25% of monthly consumption. For other people, the figure may vary, depending on how they cook, heat, and do laundry. In any case, it is hard to imagine that my cell phone carrier is including in my bill a cost that is equal to what I pay TEPCO to run my refrigerator.

My suspicions about this iPhone allegation led me to look around to see what others might have said about it. It turns out that before it was used to say we need nuclear energy, it was used to say we need coal energy. Last August, Curtis Cartier of MSN News took up the issue in an article which is excerpted below:

“A new study claims that the smartphone in your pocket uses more energy than the refrigerator in your kitchen. The report, which was funded by a pair of coal industry lobbying groups, suggests that a tremendous amount of energy will be needed to keep powering the world's digital devices and that coal will provide the solution. But while the paper is making waves in the technology and energy world, its conclusions are being attacked by some researchers who call it “baloney” and “ridiculous.”

Among the claims made are that the worldwide computer IT infrastructure uses power "equal to all the electric generation of Japan and Germany combined," and that watching an hour of video per week on a smartphone or tablet "consumes annually more electricity in the remote networks than two new refrigerators use in a year."

The study is called "The Cloud Begins With Coal: Big Data, Big Networks, Big Infrastructure, and Big Power" and it's written by Mark P. Mills, the CEO of Digital Power Group, a tech-industry advisement firm. The study was sponsored by the National Mining Association and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy.

It turns out that this isn't the first time Mills has compared small, portable electronic devices with refrigerators. In 2000 he made the case that California's energy crisis was caused by computers, and showed data he said proved a Palm Pilot handheld device "can add as much new electric load as a refrigerator."

Jonathan Koomey, a research fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University, told MSN News that he "spent years debunking" Mills' claims and published a paper in 2000 that directly contradicted his findings. Koomey said he was shocked to see Mills "rehashing" his ideas now.

"If he is making this claim again, that would be just crazy, outrageous," Koomey said. "What we found in 2000 is that a refrigerator used 2,000 times more electricity than the networking electricity of a wireless Palm Pilot. He is not a credible source of information."

[Another academic] Gernot Heiser, echoed Koomey's sentiments that Mills' work was flawed.

[Another academic] Zhou said [Mills’] measurements for the power consumption of smartphones was at least "one or two magnitude" higher than they should be, [but] the subject of data center electricity usage is an important issue and it "should raise concern."

Mills emailed a statement to MSN News, defending his research and saying that "at least a dozen" scholarly articles give similar estimates for power usage, [and that the] intention in writing the paper was not to promote coal energy.

[As for] worldwide energy usage of computers, Mills' figures are nearly twice that of the source he cites. Also, his main contention, that a smartphone uses more energy per year "than two new refrigerators" is based on a complex equation he coined himself, which includes numerous variables, and is not found by itself in any of the sources he cites.

So this is another example of how Pandora’s Promise played fast and loose with the truth, dressing up disputed interpretations as established facts. These studies of energy use in the communications industry involve contentious methodologies  and have yielded nothing conclusive, but advocates of any stripe can run with them to make whatever point they want. Environmentalists could point to the refrigerator analogy and say this proves the Apple is not green. Coal and nuclear lobbyists can make us tremble in fear of losing our beloved devices. “Yes!” we should scream, cowering in a corner. “You’re right. I care about the environment, but not if it means losing my iPhone! OK? We need coal. We need nuclear! I’ll stop using a fridge. Just please, please, don’t take away my iPhone!”

Even if it were true that our iPhone used as much energy as a refrigerator, it would say nothing about the need to preserve the ecosystem for other life forms and cultures that don’t want to be slaves to the same conveniences as us. It says something about the values of the people making the argument that they would assume we would all agree that our gadgets and our parasitic economic system are non-negotiable givens, that it wouldn’t be more important to keep a country free of nuclear waste and find other ways to exist. No, actually, when it comes down to it, I’ll choose life.

And besides, didn’t they ever think that the comparison might be saying something good about the fantastic improvements in the energy efficiency of refrigerators?

Source:

Curtis Cartier, “Rumor: An iPhone uses more power than a refrigerator.” MSN News, August 19, 2013. 

Nuclear advocates claim to find empirical data in an imagined past

Much has been written lately about the nuclear propaganda “documentary” film Pandora’s Promise. When CNN announced that it planned to air the film, activists sprung to action and made sure CNN would give time to experts from the other side who wanted to rebut many of the film's assertions. CNN agreed to the request and aired a debate on the show Crossfire.
 The two hosts, Brian Schweitzer and Newt Gingrich, seemed to be on-side with Pandora’s Promise, but the former at least posed some challenging questions to the side he was favoring. I won’t rehash all the arguments against the film that have been done thoroughly elsewhere (see Beyond Nuclear’s work, or listen to the excellent interview with a spokesperson from this organization on the Nuclear Hotseat podcast). In this post, I’ll just discuss a few unusual remarks that appeared in CNN’s debate between Ralph Nader (anti-nuclear) and Michael Shellenberger (pro-nuclear).

This wasn’t the forum for a thorough discussion of all the important considerations to cover when asking whether nuclear is a solution for global warming. There was a short time constraint, so both men were hurrying to make their points rather than addressing everything that came up in the conversation.

The interview made it clear that the pro-nuclear movement is playing with a weak hand because Shellenberger had to resort to some dubious tactics. First, he flattered Nader for his famous work in the 1960s in consumer advocacy, but it was a backhanded compliment because the intent was obviously to set Nader up as yesterday’s man. Next, he sank to a lower level which can be understood if you think of a familiar scene in the movies, or maybe in real life, when you see a bitter old couple saying things like, “You would have been nothing without me. You’d still be doing _______ if I hadn’t come along.” Yes, Shellenberger stooped, not for the first time, to basing his argument on supposed “facts” based on past hypothetical speculations. He was citing the work of one of his familiars in nuclear promotion, the former NASA climate scientist James Hansen, as he claimed the science shows that existing nuclear energy plants in the USA saved 1.8 million lives — the lives that would have been taken by carbon emissions, if the electricity had been generated by other means. For some reason, in the case of nuclear accidents, no single death can be attributed to radiation, but when it is convenient to demonize another source of energy, individual deaths can be attributed to the coal industry. In this case, pro-nuclear people don’t say that coal miners smoke and drink too much, or that their maladies are caused by anxiety arising from an irrational “carbonphobia.” Shellenberger went further with his speculative “facts” and claimed that the anti-nuclear movement caused even more deaths by shutting down development of nuclear energy from the 1980s onward.

Nader let the comments pass because he had better points to make, and better things to do than argue about past hypotheticals, but I’ll say the obvious rebuttal here. Past hypotheticals don’t belong in the discussion because the imagined alternate past didn’t happen. There is no empirical evidence there to base an argument on. The perfect reply is that one or more nuclear meltdowns were avoided because those extra nuclear plants were not built. There’s no reason to hold back. We could say anything we want because it’s all about making things up and calling them facts. Perhaps every acre of farmland in the country was saved from nuclear contamination. Or we could say millions of lives could have been saved by stopping the coal industry decades ago and investing massively in alternative energy. We could have saved all those lives by improving energy efficiency and not building sprawling suburbs full of oversized foreclosed houses. We could have stopped American car manufacturers from making the SUVs that took over the roads in the 1990s. If only Ronald Reagan hadn’t ripped Jimmy Carter’s solar panels off the White House roof!

Nonetheless, Shellenberger may be onto something. It is a good exercise to speculate, as long as we can distinguish between fact and imagination. As I read the news from the Philippines today about the strongest typhoon in history, I’m glad that Marcos’ dictatorship was overthrown in 1986 and his nuclear project, the Bataan Nuclear Power station, was shut down by the incoming government. If climate change is bringing these monster storms, it’s a good thing if nuclear plants are not in their path.

Another lame tactic was employed by Shellenberger when the topic of terrorism came up. We know what happened in the past can’t be changed, so we shouldn’t waste too much time worrying about what might have been, but Nader made the excellent point that we should worry about what could happen in the future. All nuclear power plants are targets for terrorists, not to mention targets in a future air war, should there ever be one in which a state with nuclear power plants is vulnerable to attack. Nader made the striking point that I’ve not heard too often in such discussion: Why do you think Israel never built a nuclear power plant? The absence of them is more striking in light of the fact that Israel has a couple hundred undeclared nuclear weapons. Israel has had a few wars since it was founded in 1948, and they are vulnerable to attack by states with the power to strike from the air, not to mention attacks by rogue elements. If America had been considering building its first nuclear plant on September 11, 2001, would the plan have been rejected outright? D’oh! Forget it. That’s a past hypothetical.

When Shellenberger heard the word terrorism, he jumped at it but inadvertently seemed to score an own-goal. “There was an attack, actually, on a nuclear power plant with a bazooka. It was by Greens in Germany!” he interjected. The conversation moved on, so the audience never learned what he was referring to, but the point supported what Nader was saying about the danger of a terrorist attack. However, what Shellenberger was referring to was actually a bit of nuclear history that underscores just how strong the public opposition to nuclear has been. Furthermore, just to get the facts straight, it was a matter of a Swiss citizen who attacked a power plant in France. But maybe Shellenberger was just sure it had to be those crazy Germans because they were foolish enough to abandon nuclear energy.

By bringing up this incident, Shellenberger was trying to insinuate that it was Greens who attempted to terrorize a population by spreading nuclear contamination across “Germany,” but in fact the motive of the 1982 attack was to destroy the reactor before it was loaded with fuel. The attack was planned for a time when no one was in the building, and its aim was to shut down the Superphenix fast reactor (more details here). I don’t condone the tactics, but it’s kind of a shame for France that the plant wasn’t destroyed. The bazooka missed the mark. The Superphenix was soon completed, but it ran intermittently only for a decade and it is said to have consumed as much energy as it produced. After years of political opposition and technical problems, it was shut down in 1997, and now (and for many more years into the future) work continues on removing the fuel and the irradiated, highly volatile sodium coolant.

And what is the promise of Pandora’s Promise? None other than a retread of the fast reactor technology that France, and many other countries, tried but failed to master in the past. Don’t worry, though. This time it will be different, right?

If you didn't like the nuclear debate on CNN, go to this classic duel from 1979. Not much has changed, except the record of disasters.

Alpha and beta particles shoot horses, don’t they?

Alpha and beta particles shoot horses, don’t they?

How the plight of a horse breeder in Fukushima reveals the official denial of the humanitarian emergency

The title of this chapter is a reference to the 1935 novel by Horace McCoy, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and the 1969 film adaptation by Sidney Pollack. In the story, a Depression-era dance marathon, based on a real phenomenon of the time, is a sadistic spectacle that preys on the desperation of the participants who compete for the big prize of $1,500. The competitors are forced to destroy their bodies and turn on each other to elbow their way to the final, but in the end the prize is deceptively small after the contest owner makes his deductions for expenses. When the male half of the winning couple is asked by his female dance partner—her soul and body destroyed by the Depression and the contest—to help her commit suicide, he existentially considers the act no different from the shooting of lame horses once they are a burden to their owners and no longer of any profitable use.

The story is a fairly obvious and blunt allegory for the workings of capitalism, and the allusion to the story here is made to connect it to the disposability of Fukushima victims, the dashed dreams of Japan’s national energy policy of the late 20th century, and to a horse breeder in Fukushima,.

A report in the Guardian [1] told the story of a horse breeder in Iitate, Fukushima, a town which suffered some of the highest levels of fallout from the nuclear disaster:

As Iitate’s population plummeted in the spring of 2011, Hosokawa managed to find new homes for more than 80 of his horses. Then, in January this year [2013], he noticed that several among the 30 that remained [in Iitate], mainly foals, had become unsteady on their feet. Within weeks, 16 had died in mysterious circumstances. Autopsies on four of the horses found no evidence of disease and tests revealed caesium levels at 200 becquerels per kilo—twice as high as the government-set safety limit for agricultural produce, but not high enough to immediately threaten their health.

The last sentence of this paragraph reveals an important distortion or misunderstanding by the reporter. There is a significant difference between the risk posed to the consumer of cesium-contaminated flesh and the owner of cesium-contaminated flesh. A foal, or any other young animal, would suffer serious developmental problems with this body-load of cesium in every kilogram of flesh. But a person who consumed this flesh, probably much less than a kilogram of it, would suffer no long-term load of cesium in his own body.

As it turns out, scientists who have studied whole-body burdens of cesium have found that levels much below 200 becquerels per kilogram can cause problems, especially to fetuses, infants, and children. A report by Chris Busby, a professor and scientist who specializes in low-dose ionising radiation, created this chart to illustrate the impact [2]:

Belarussian scientist Yuri Bandazhevsky demonstrated the damaging effects of cesium on the fetal development of pigs, and also studied the high rate of heart abnormalities among children affected by Chernobyl. [3] Furthermore, medical practitioners are becoming more aware of the link between heart disease and medical radiation exposures [4]. The Harvard Medical School stated in one report, “Radiation therapy can induce heart disease if any part of the heart is exposed to radiation. Problems can occur several years after exposure and include accelerated coronary artery disease, stiffening of the heart muscle, inflammation and thickening of the pericardial sac, problems with electrical conduction, or damage to heart valves.” [5]

So it should be no surprise that young animals in Fukushima were experiencing a higher rate of death. The story about Mr. Hosokawa’s horses touched a nerve because we see other species as more blameless than humans, but it’s also an indirect, and thus permissible, way of pointing the finger at official abuse of the young humans of Fukushima.

To remind us all just how impossible it is for the public to look squarely at this crime, we had around the same time the “scandal” of an independent anti-nuclear politician expressing an appeal to the Emperor to speak up for the children of Fukushima. Taro Yamamoto, who sits in the upper house of the Diet (the national legislature), expressed his appeal in a note he passed to the Emperor at a garden party. [6] Almost all other national politicians, media, and citizens being spoon-fed their views by mainstream news organizations agreed that this was a serious breach of protocol. Under the post-WWII constitution, the Emperor is supposed to be completely removed from politics. Of course, it wouldn’t be right if all politicians made a habit of appealing to the Emperor this way, but was this an exceptional circumstance? There is an argument to be made that there was nothing wrong with Mr. Yamamoto’s action, if the matter is exceptionally urgent, and if this action differs little from the other ways that politicians exploit the Emperor for their own purposes. In any case, if the Emperor is just a powerless figurehead, what’s the harm in a little exchange of opinion?

If we go along with the view that the Emperor must be removed from politics, this implies that the Emperor was involved in politics before and during the war, and thus shared responsibility for it. Indeed, under the Meiji Constitution, the Emperor did possess significant power over the elected Diet. However, after the war, the ruling party, with American support, worked relentlessly to construct a narrative of an Emperor who was powerless to order or prevent any of the war crimes that others paid the penalties for. This view could never stand up to logic, for if the Emperor had been powerless, he would not have had the authority to surrender. But if he was blameless then, when he was deeply involved in all decisions and discussions with various organs of government and the military, what is the harm in him now hearing various viewpoints on the present condition of the country?

More importantly, we should consider what is being discussed. Was Mr. Yamamoto’s letter concerned with “politics,” or was it concerned with a unique, unprecedented emergency that the bureaucracy and government had been unable to respond to? Do desperate times call for desperate measures, some way of finding a respected person whose voice could prick the nation’s conscience? And what do we make of a conscience that is so concerned with protocol rather than the mistreatment of the people affected by the Fukushima Dai-ichi catastrophe?

This attempt to communicate with the Emperor came to nothing, but we can at least say that the Emperor is just a man, and Japan is a society that allows people to freely exchange their views. The Emperor can choose to respond, or not respond, but surely he might welcome the prospect of a dialogue that goes beyond the pleasantries of every other exchange he has with his subjects. After all, it was only a few days before, during his first visit ever to Minamata to speak to the victims of mercury poisoning, that the Emperor declared, “I became convinced anew that we should work together to build a society in which people can live truthfully.” [7] Those sound like the words of a lonely man who wants some meaningful connection with his fellow citizens. Mr. Yamamoto took him at his word, for living truthfully would require an honest exchange of opinions, whether one is talking to the Emperor or anyone else.

When it comes to involving the Emperor in “politics,” he has been frequently trotted out by the Japanese government for political purposes, often to suit the agenda of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. For instance, in the spring of 2013, when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe decided, for the first time ever, to commemorate the anniversary of the end of the U.S. Occupation in 1952 with the “Restoration of Sovereignty Day,” the Emperor was invited to this staged event. The obvious purpose of it was to ready national discourse for a revision of the constitution. Later in the same year, Princess Hisako was brought to Buenos Aires to lobby for the 2020 Olympics bid, something which was the “politics” of the LDP platform. These actions were met with mild criticism at the time, but there was nothing to match the livid protests and demands for resignation that came after Mr. Yamamoto dared to communicate something more than a pleasantry to the Emperor.

Finally, the notion that the ruling party knows how to keep its politics out of various institutions is proven false in another issue. On the same day that Mr. Yamamoto’s letter to the Emperor was a source of consternation in the media, the Mainichi printed an editorial that remarked, “PM Abe’s fingerprints all over NHK board nominations,” noting that four people nominated to take empty seats on the national “independent” broadcaster’s board have personal ties to the prime minister. [8]

Notes

[1] Justin McCurry, “Fukushima horse breeder braves high radiation levels to care for animals,” the Guardian, October 27, 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/27/fukushima-horse-breeder-radiation-animals

[2] Chris Busby, “Radiation exposure and heart attacks in children of Fukushima,” 2011. European Commission on Radiological Risk.

http://harmonicslife.net/Blog/2011/GensBlog/20111004/caesiumheart_v1.0_E.pdf

[3] G.S. Bandazhevskaya, V.B. Nesterenko, V.I. Babenko, I.V. Babenko, T.V. Yerkovich, Y.I. Bandazhevsky, “Relationship between Caesium (137Cs) load, cardiovascular symptoms, and source of food in ‘Chernobyl’ children – preliminary observations after intake of oral apple pectin.” Swiss Medical Weekly 134 (2004): 725–729.

http://www.smw.ch/docs/archive200x/2004/49/smw-10219.html

[4] Mark P. Little, Anna Gola, Ioanna Tzoulaki, “A Model of Cardiovascular Disease Giving a Plausible Mechanism for the Effect of Fractionated Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation Exposure,” PLoS Computational Biology 5(10) (2009), e1000539 DOI:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000539

[5] Harvard Medical School, “Cancer treatments may harm the heart,” Harvard Heart Letter, August 2012. http://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/cancer-treatments-may-harm-the-heart

[6] “Letter to Emperor Incident Sparking Huge Debate,” Asahi Shimbun, November 2, 2013. The article is no longer hosted on the publisher’s website and has not been saved at archive.org. However, it has been reproduced informally on other websites.

[7] “Emperor seeks to end discrimination against Minamata disease victims,” The Asahi Shimbun, October 28, 2013.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201310280096, as saved at web.archive.org (original article no longer hosted on the publisher’s website).

[8] “Editorial: PM Abe’s Fingerprints all over NHK Board Nominations,” The Mainichi, November 2, 2013.

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20131102p2a00m0na006000c.html, as saved at web.archive.org (original article no longer hosted on the publisher’s website).

If 100 mSv per year is safe, could a radiological weapon be harmless?

This is a good question to put out to the world before anyone has to seriously confront it for real, and I hope no one ever does. It would be interesting to know how the IAEA and various national nuclear regulators would answer it. Since the UN concluded its Chernobyl studies, and more so since the Fukushima catastrophe, these agencies that govern “nuclear safety” have been trying to get the world to calm down and accept the notion that people have nothing to fear from living in places that are up to 20 times above normal background levels of radiation.*

The public is told from time to time that another nuclear accident, dirty bomb terror attack, or nuclear bombing (accidental or intentional) could occur at some time in the future, and that it’s going to be important to stay calm and understand that we will be alright even in areas of elevated radiation. But here’s the problem. What are governments going to tell their people if a terrorist’s device spreads radioactive substances around a populated area? The attack will immediately be defined as an act of cowardly aggression that requires swift retribution, but if the device didn’t hurt anyone, and contamination levels are equal to or less than what the citizens of Fukushima City are being told to accept by global authorities on "nuclear safety," the attack would amount to no more than an annoying prank – by the standards of the United Nations. How could governments claim that they had been attacked by evil-doers when the contamination level was the same as what they excuse in a nuclear power plant accident?

*This may sound outrageous, but it is actually what is claimed by many "health physicists." The remarks quoted below come from the article Japan's Cut-Price Nuclear Cleanup:

“These workers may show a tiny increased risk of cancer over their lifetimes,” says Gerry Thomas, professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College, London University.

“100 millisieverts [about 20X above normal background radiation in Japan] is the dose we use as a cut-off to say we can see a significant effect on cancer rate in very large epidemiology studies. The numbers have to be large because the individual increase is minuscule. But, she added: “I would be far more worried about these workers smoking or feeling under stress due to the fear of what radiation might do to them. That is much more likely to have an effect on any one person's health.”

But Ian Fairlie, a London-based independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment is among those who have challenged the view of 100 mSv as a reliable threshold. Citing studies of tens of thousands of Japanese A-Bomb survivors, Fairlie concluded in a blog post last year that “very good evidence exists showing radiation effects well below 100 mSv”.

Justin McCurry and David McNeill. "Japan's Cut-Price Nuclear Cleanup." Truth-out.org. October 28, 2013.

Wrecks, Lies and Isotopes

   For the past few months, international attention has been on the waterworks of the Fukushima Daiichi ruins. The situation has been spiraling out of control, with TEPCO flailing like the hapless sorcerer’s apprentice in Disney’s Fantasia.

In addition to this fiasco, the precarious condition of the Unit 4 Spent Fuel Pool has also gained a lot of attention because TEPCO will soon be ready to start the delicate operation of removing 1,500 spent fuel rods contained within. The building was damaged by the earthquake and an explosion, leaving it vulnerable to earthquakes and open to the sky. All of the machinery for transferring the fuel rods was damaged, so until now there has been no way to resolve the dangerous situation. If the pool should go dry, or the building should collapse in an earthquake, the spent fuel fire would burn out of control, render the area too radioactive for people to work in, and create an unprecedented disaster. Or maybe not. The only certainties about Unit 4 are (1) that it scares the crap out of everyone, pro and anti-nuke, and (2), although it is exposed to the elements, it remains shrouded in mystery.

Into the void of unanswered questions, all manner of speculation has rushed in. Some say that Japan was running weapons fuel experiments at the time of the earthquake in reactor four, which would account for the secrecy and Japan’s reluctance to accept foreign help. According to this theory, the fire and explosion were in the reactor, not in the spent fuel pool. This could account for the contradiction we hear now. There was definitely an explosion in Unit 4, and some fuel rods burned and became distorted, but TEPCO now says everything should go well with the removal of the rods because none of them appear to be damaged. If this assessment is wrong, one mishap, one dropped fuel rod, could set off a civilization-ending disaster, or a mass species extinction. Or minor fumbles with the rods might just lead to regrettable incidents causing releases of radioactive xenon and iodine that will have to be funneled out the stack to drift over the ocean, or Tokyo, depending on how the wind blows. These will be setbacks, but they’ll go back to work.

When the fears about Unit 4 first appeared, there were occasional comments on blogs by nuclear engineers who tried to assure people that the fuel rods would be sufficiently cooled down within a couple years, and the doomsday scenario would not come to pass. These messages fell silent for a long time, but finally reappeared this week in an article in Bloomberg: Three Mile Island Veteran Optimistic on Fukushima Fuel Removal. It was curious that someone working on the operation was now made accessible to the media. The news story was long overdue after the media had been reporting on it for months from the viewpoint of outside critics who were deeply worried about the situation. Now, finally, there is some limited comment on the situation from the people officially in charge. I suspect TEPCO would have preferred to say nothing, but the international attention from alternative media and NGOs forced them to admit they have to say something to try to take control of the narrative (Here is their video production explaining the operation).

The Three Mile Island veteran working as an adviser for TEPCO said, “There’s no indication based on sampling of the water that the fuel has been damaged in any significant way… There’s a high confidence that the defueling of the pool can go in a normal way.”* The article mentions that two rods were removed as a test, and these were found to be unbroken. Based on this, and water sampling, it is assumed that all the remaining rods, over a thousand of them, are intact! It seems like another case of TEPCO failing to ask, “OK, but what if…” I guess we just have to take their word for it because who else, besides these nuclear industry cheerleaders, could do this job?

The notable reveal in the report was in comments by another voice for TEPCO, spokeswoman Mayumi Yoshida:

It hasn’t been decided where the fuel will eventually be taken for storage, Yoshida said. She said she couldn’t provide additional details about when the removal would begin, citing treaties aimed at reducing the risk of terrorist attacks.

So it seems like under those Tyvek suits officials have all been wearing diapers too, prepared to shit themselves at any time. Unit 4 has been sitting open to the sky for 30 months now, a very vulnerable target, with scarcely any mention of the terror risk having appeared in the mass media. It is reasonable to assume that the “international community” has been aware of the vulnerability and doing a lot behind the scenes, all the while ignoring the critics, petitions and campaigns to take action. The less said the better.

Security is the big obstacle to public information on this issue, and the best reason to be anti-nuclear. As it is in personal relations, if you’re doing something that provokes a high level of secrecy and fear, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it. 

The public deserves to know all the details of what exactly happened to Unit 4, and what the plan is to get the fuel out of it. The risks have been well explained by outside critics like Arnie Gundersen (listen to Libbe Halevy’s interview with him), Hiroaki Koide and Harvey Wasserman, and many others, so now TEPCO should address all the concerns that have been raised and make a full, convincing explanation of how they can remove those 1,500 fuel rods without a single mishap. The public deserves more than the pathetic press release that was spoon-fed to Bloomberg News this week. The assertion that the rods are intact is not credible, considering the number of experts who have noted that the rods were damaged, not to mention partially exposed and burning in March 2011. Or was it essential to cover up the fact that these things happened in the reactor?

If TEPCO can’t assure the public that this operation will go off without a hitch, wouldn’t it be better to reinforce the structure and let it cool off for a few more years? If not, why not? But we are not going to get squat in the way of a public discussion of this plan. Security trumps all.
The only reason to have a shred of hope is to think that maybe TEPCO has been sidelined or put under adult supervision for this important job. Perhaps the water show has been a convenient, though unintended, distraction while the really important job got done. The nuclear industry certainly should be motivated to get it done right, for the same reason we trust pilots to land safely: self-preservation. If they don’t, it will be the death blow for the industry (one would think — for a while I thought the 2011 accident would accomplish this). But then again, despite the rational motive, we have to remember there is nothing rational about nuclear power. If the industry really worked so cautiously, the accident never would have happened in the first place. Who knows the limit to human recklessness?

* A TEPCO spokesperson contradicted this rosy assessment a few days later in this report filed by The South China Morning Post:

“A spokesman for Tepco said… however, that it was not clear whether any of the rods were damaged or if debris in the pool would complicate the recovery effort. ”

What's On the Beach? Another danger from Fukushima that will be acknowledged too late

Chernobyl and Fukushima taught the world what
should have been on the back cover of this story

What’s On the Beach? The title refers to the famous 1957 novel (and later film adaptations) about the encroaching nuclear winter that comes to Australia after global nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere. Fifty years ago, everyone thought that this was the existential risk we faced, but the Cold War subsided and World War III was avoided. What caught everyone by surprise was Chernobyl and Fukushima, the risks of even greater accidents, and the lingering dangers involved in nuclear waste disposal, which really hasn’t even begun seventy years after the dawn of the nuclear age. Nuclear accidents have shown us that the threat all along was just as much in the slow motion nuclear war (a phrase coined by Robert Jacobs in this article) that accompanied the “peaceful” use of the atom.

This article asks not only “What’s On the Beach?” but also “What’s on the beach?” Now that the Japanese authorities have admitted the serious problems with leaking radioactive water from Fukushima Daiichi, and now that the world has grasped the risk posed by the site’s spent fuel pools, we may be ready to ask about the future implications of all this pollution spreading along Japan’s northeastern coast.

Much of the concern outside of Japan has been about the spread of radiation into fish stocks and across the Pacific Ocean. There have already been low levels of radionuclides measured in fish in California. While some scientist say the damage could be horrific, even some anti-nuclear critics are refraining from saying there will be an impact on health. Besides, the oceans have other problems such as acidification, over-fishing, nitrogen runoff from fertilizer, and the great Pacific garbage patch.

Chris Busby, well-known as a long-time critic of the nuclear industry, has said that people in California can relax. The ocean will dilute what Fukushima is dishing out. It would be better to consider how people are going to be impacted along the coast of Japan. In an interview with Russia Today, he described the problem:

The contamination of the sea results in adsorption of the radionuclides by the sand and silt on the coast and river estuaries. The east coast of Japan, the sediment and sand on the shores, will now be horribly radioactive. This material is re-suspended into the air through a process called sea-to-land transfer. The coastal air they inhale is laden with radioactive particles… We looked at small area data leaked to us by the Welsh Cancer Registry covering the period of 1974-1989, when Sellafield was releasing significant amounts of radio-cesium, radio-strontium, and plutonium. Results showed a remarkable and sharp 30 per cent increase in cancer rates in those living within 1km of the coast. The effect was very local and dropped away sharply at 2km… Make no mistake, this is a deadly effect. By 2003, we had found 20-fold excess risk of leukemia and brain tumors in the population of children on the north Wales coast… the sea-to-land effect is real. And anyone living within 1km of the coast to at least 200km north or south of Fukushima should get out. They should evacuate inland. It is not eating the fish and shellfish that gets you - it’s breathing.

So that’s something to think about for the Japanese government that wants to rebuild the communities that were destroyed by the tsunami. We might have to say now that the waves destroyed the towns, and the meltdowns made sure they would never come back. Or we have to say rather should never come back. The Japanese government is likely to ignore this hazard and encourage people to resettle the coast.

The problems with radioactive sand and silt are well-known near the old nuclear bomb and fuel factory in Sellafield, UK. The issue was covered by The Guardian last year. The article reports on the beach pollution that Dr. Busby discussed. It quotes a Health Protection Agency official as saying, "No special precautionary actions are required at this time to limit access to, or use of, beaches." A Sellafield spokesman concurred, saying, "… the overall health risk to beach users is very low and significantly lower than other risks people accept when using beaches. It should be noted that people visiting beaches in places on the south coast, such as Devon or Cornwall, will receive a far higher dose of radiation, from naturally occurring background radiation, than those visiting beaches close to Sellafield."

In these two brief quotes we see a rather stunning display of the moral confusion that is typical in the official dismissals of the concerns that the public has about man-made radiation. It consists of three features:

1.

The conflation of natural, unavoidable risks with those imposed by human agency upon non-consenting populations.

If I walk into a cancer ward and light up a cigarette, I can’t object to being told to step outside with it. I can’t say that the cigarette is insignificant compared to the overall health risks that cancer patients accept when submitting to chemotherapy and staying in germ-filled hospitals. Yet somehow this way of thinking is allowable in the official rationalizations of man-made pollution. Imposed, unnecessary risks are considered equal to unavoidable risks.

2.

Minimizing the effect of added man-made radiation by pointing to natural background radiation.

This is subset of point 1. It excuses a willful act of contamination by likening it to that which is not caused by human agency. The point is always made in a condescending way, as if the non-expert is too dim to understand the risks of the world he lives in. But it is actually the experts who have a diminished capacity here. A normal person can see that it is the same difference as between death by a lightning strike and homicide. We accept natural misfortunes but reserve our moral outrage for humans who commit deliberate harm.

3.

Willful neglect of internal emitters of radiation, namely beta and alpha emitters, and neglect of the chemical effects of pollution from nuclear facilities.

The Sellafield spokesman referred to background radiation, which is normally a measure of gamma radiation that can be picked up by any cheap dosimeter. Any amateur who has learned a little about radiation will agree that the gamma dose on these British beaches is not the thing to be concerned about. The official health studies of atomic bombings, in Japan and in nuclear testing throughout the world, persistently ignored the damage done by internal contamination, and this comment by the Sellafield spokesman shows that the tradition is still alive. We can be sure that it will continue as people begin to ask troubling questions about what is blowing in the sea breeze on Japanese shores.

The article in The Guardian pointed out that the Health Protection Agency (not the Sellafield spokesman) did concede that there are uncertainties in the beach monitoring. The article pointed out that the HPA added:

… the latest equipment might miss tiny specks that could be inhaled, as well as buried alpha radioactivity that  could give rise to a significant risk to health if ingested. Documents released under freedom of information law show that in 2010 the Environment Agency agreed that monitoring for contamination on the beaches should avoid peak periods such as during bank holidays. This followed a complaint from St. Bees parish council expressing "strong concern that this would have an adverse impact on tourism.

Ah, yes. Save the economy. During the Vietnam war, US officers claimed with knowing irony that they had to “destroy the village in order to save it.” In peacetime, the phrase becomes “destroy the people in order to save their jobs.”

Further reading on the novel and the 1961 film On the Beach: 
Mick Broderick, "Fallout On the Beach," Screening the Past, 37, June, 2013.

Finally, a somewhat gratuitous reference to Neil Young’s On the Beach. I don’t think Neil was thinking of nuclear meltdowns, but some of the lines evoke my present unease about being on the beach.

On the Beach (1974)

Neil Young

On the Beach, track 6, 19:00~

The world is turnin', I hope it don't turn away,
The world is turnin', I hope it don't turn away.
All my pictures are fallin' from the wall where I placed them yesterday…
Though my problems are meaningless, that don't make them go away…
Now I'm livin' out here on the beach, but those seagulls are still out of reach…
Get out of town, think I'll get out of town.
I head for the sticks with my bus and friends,
I follow the road, though I don't know where it ends.
Get out of town, get out of town, think I'll get out of town.
'Cause the world is turnin', I don't want to see it turn away.

Studies indicate thyroid cancer latency much less than four years

Some of the Chernobyl research indicates that the latent period of thyroid cancer was much shorter than what has been recently stated by experts. The implications about the present cases of thyroid cancer in Fukushima are obvious.

(revised on 2014/03/10)

Last month there was an important finding about thyroid cancer research in the blog written by Paul Langley. He points out a serious contradiction in the claims that prominent “health physicists” have been making about the cases of thyroid cancer that have appeared in Fukushima since the nuclear accident. At the time he wrote this, I expected the news to go viral, but I’ve seen scant mention of it on social networks, and of course, the mass media did not notice it.

The reason for this oversight may be that Paul Langley’s blog posts are superb, but long and heavy on detail. Casual readers may have passed over important information without recognizing its significance. So I will try to summarize the main points and post the most interesting citations.

After the second anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe, a sharp increase in childhood thyroid cancer was recorded in Fukushima Prefecture. Health officials hesitated to attribute the cause to the nuclear accident because they said that it was simply too early to be finding cases of thyroid cancer. The Chernobyl studies all indicated, they said, that the mean latency period was at least four years. Experts in health physics outside Japan also repeated this claim. They seemed to wish that no one would remember their middle school math lessons and point out that a mean indicates that in the sample many values were higher and lower than the mean. Thus it is not surprising that thyroid cancer cases would appear much earlier than four years after the accident. A high number of early cases should be cause for alarm because it would indicate many more are yet to come by the mean time of onset.

Paul Langley found several studies that stated the latency period was much shorter than four years. According to these studies, an increase in the rate of thyroid cancer incidence is exactly what one would expect to find two years after a nuclear accident. One of the authors was none other than Shinichi Yamashita himself, the former head of the Fukushima Prefectural Health Management Survey Review Committee.

Paul Langley, quoting an article in The Japan Times, noted that this committee has stated that Chernobyl data shows that the latency period for thyroid cancer is 4–5 years, and that the progression of disease was slow in the case of the Chernobyl children.

Paul then found this quote from a 1998 research paper of which Dr. Yamashita was one of the authors:

“The high incidence of childhood thyroid cancer in Belarus is suspected to be due to radiation exposure after the Chernobyl reactor accident…  All of the preceding thyroid carcinomas developed after longer latency periods, whereas tumors arising in the Chernobyl population began developing with surprising rapidity and short latency.” (Shirahige et. al.)

Other research papers say:

“… absence of marked latency period is another feature of radiation-induced thyroid cancers caused in Belarus as a result of this accident.” (Malko)

“[the latent period for thyroid cancer is] 2.5 years, based on low estimates used for lifetime risk modeling of low-level ionizing radiation studies.” (Howard)

So about that latency period, which is it? 1 year, 2. 5 years, 4 years or 5 years, and does it really matter anyway? The denial of a causal relationship is the worst sort of deflection and quibbling by people who are highly motivated to avoid the truth. Japanese authorities claim that the high number of cancer cases found in Fukushima is a result of having used very sensitive equipment, with very close attention paid to a particular group. They imply that the same rate of thyroid cancer would be found in any other group subjected to the same intense analysis, but they refuse to carry out such a comparison in a region far away from Fukushima. This is typical of official studies of radiological disasters. Hundreds of studies are done, except the ones which seem most likely to produce results unfavorable to institutions which would be legally responsible for damages to health and property.

Sources:

Howard, John. “Minimum Latency & Types or Categories of Cancer” Administrator World Trade Center Health Program, 9.11 Monitoring and Treatment, Revision: May 1, 2013.

Kyodo. “Thyroid cancer found in 12 minors in Fukushima.” The Japan Times, June 6, 2013.

Langley, Paul. The Characterization of Chernobyl Findings by Fukushima Medical University’s Thyroid Survey, September 8, 2013.

Malko, Mikhail V. “Chernobyl Radiation-induced Thyroid Cancers in Belarus.”
Joint Institute of Power and Nuclear Research, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. 2002.

Shirahige Y, Ito M, Ashizawa K, Motomura T, Yokoyama N, Namba H, Fukata S, Yokozawa T, Ishikawa N, Mimura T, Yamashita S, Sekine I, Kuma K, Ito K, Nagataki S. “Childhood thyroid cancer: comparison of Japan and Belarus.” Endocrine Journal, 1998 Apr;45(2):203-9.

Shinzo Abe likens Japan to The Sandman

Won't you stretch imagination for a moment and come with me

Let us hasten to a nation lying over the western sea…

Here’s a Japanese Sandman sneaking on with the dew

just an old secondhand man

He'll buy your old day from you…

There's the Japanese Sandman trading silver for gold

The Japanese Sandman

written by Raymond Egan and Richard Whiting

(1920)

 

The Fukushima Daiichi ruins, once said to be “under control” and in “cold shutdown,” have gathered world’s attention again because, in fact, it has become apparent that the situation there remains terrifying and unsolvable. Massive volumes of radioactive water have been stored on the site in a haphazard manner and irradiated groundwater leaks into the sea. No one knows what the effects will be, or whether the situation will worsen. The spent fuel pools pose a risk that some experts classify as potentially a threat to civilization, and certainly a grave risk to Japan.

During this time, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has managed to convince the IOC that Tokyo will be ready to host the Olympics in 2020, and he went to New York this week to sell his new Japan to American investors on Wall Street. Some call him a liar, others wonder if he keeps himself intentionally ignorant or is just incapable of comprehending the danger posed by Fukushima and the demographic collapse of the economy.

His speech in New York (full text here) was a bizarre hodgepodge of references to American culture, all loosely tied to his thesis that “Japan is back” in the high life again, the place it left thirty years ago when Sony ruled with the Walkman cassette recorder.

In the speech he began with the strange request, “Buy my Abenomics.” Then he seemed to be wishing to flatter his hosts, but he just reminded the world of Wall Street’s reputation for criminality by making reference to Gordon Gecko, the criminal, sociopathic stockbroker in the fictional films Wall Street and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. He also talked a lot about sushi, wasabi, bullet trains, LED lights, wind turbines and batteries. There was no mention of the enormous amount of economic growth that would be necessary to raise the revenue that could shrink the deficit and the national debt. But he did have this to say, straight faced, about Japanese nuclear technology:

Japan will also continue to make contributions to the world in the area of safety technology for nuclear reactors. There will be no abandoning them. I believe that it is incumbent upon us to overcome the accident in Fukushima and contribute to the world by having the highest level of safety in the world.

He also talked about his plan to finally give women a useful role in the labor force. Listeners might wonder why the sudden urge to do the right thing has appeared after sexual inequality has been a problem in Japan for so long. It seems the government has suddenly decided that if women don’t want to produce the tax payers of the future, they will have to be the tax payers of the future. The decision is purely economic rather than moral, just as it is in the decline of the nuclear industry in America. Recent plant closures have come because of financial pressures, not because of the moral arguments from the anti-nuclear movement.

Finally, Mr. Abe talked about baseball, the Yankees and Mariano Rivera’s recent last game with the team. From there, the topic jumped bizarrely to Metallica’s Enter Sandman, the song which was always used at Yankee stadium to herald Rivera’s entry onto the field. In this way, the song was appropriated by Rivera and the meaning of its words were somewhat forgotten. Mr. Abe appropriated the song for himself by saying,

Japan is once again in the midst of great elation as we prepare for the Games seven years from now. It is almost as if Metallica's ‘Enter Sandman’ is resounding throughout Yankee Stadium: you know how this is going to end.

This is precisely the problem with Mr. Abe’s attitude: actually, no, you don’t know how this is going to end. Will those hundreds of spent fuel rods in unit 4 be safely removed over the next two years, or will the whole thing come crashing down and create a bigger mess than ever? If Mr. Abe could show a little more nuance in his statements, and a little more awareness of the dangers ahead, we might have more confidence in him. We would all worry less if he would worry a little more and tone it down with the “guts pose” and other empty words and gestures about a yet unproven triumph. Sorry, but Japan is not back yet. Do the victory lap seven years from now, if things go well--but keep in mind that even a century from now, Fukushima Dai-ichi will be a radioactive sacrifice zone. There will never be a tidy restoration allowing anyone to say "job done." 

Since Mr. Abe’s speech writers did such a wonderful job in free-associating with so many diverse elements of American culture, I thought I would add a little more to the flow of this consciousness. I can play this game too. We can look more closely at the cultural history of the Sandman and ask what it means about the present Japanese government policy.

The Sandman was a character from European folklore, a benevolent spirit who sprinkled sand on the eyelids of children to give them a peaceful sleep. But in some stories he was a malevolent character, as he is in the song by Metallica. The child in the song can pray to God for protection, but he goes to sleep with a feeling of dread, as conveyed by lines such as these:

Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight…
Something's wrong, shut the light
Heavy thoughts tonight
And they aren't of snow white…
Dreams of war, dreams of liars
Dreams of dragon's fire
And of things that will bite...
Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight…
And never mind that noise you heard
It's just the beast under your bed,
In your closet, in your head

Indeed, when this pounding heavy metal song is used to signal Rivera’s arrival on the field, it seems to be an intentionally ominous signal of a force that has come to knock out opponents and deliver their worst nightmares. It may not be the allusion to peaceful trade and prosperity that Mr. Abe wanted to create. Instead, the message is that Japan is the monster under the bed, and in fact, that is how I feel many nights with the ruins of Fukushima Daiichi just a two-hour drive from my home.

Extending the Sandman reference farther back in American culture, we could recall the roaring 20s with mention of stories from that era like The Great Gatsby, or the contemporary period drama, Boardwalk Empire, which incidentally revived the period tune The Japanese Sandman. The song is an example of the sort of meaningless exotification of The Orient that was common then. There is no apparent reason why the Sandman had to be Japanese in this song, other than to just lend it a mood of escapism. But if Mr. Abe is suggesting that Gordon Gecko, Mariano Rivera and Metallica are all somehow relevant to Japanese economic policy in 2013, then I’ll use this and leave readers with the lyrics to this wistful song from a century past.

The Japanese Sandman

written by Raymond Egan and Richard Whiting

sung by Nora Bayes (1920), 

sung Lauren Sharp (2011) on Boardwalk Empire

Won't you stretch imagination for a moment and come with me
Let us hasten to a nation lying over the western sea
Hide behind the cherry blossoms here's a sight that will please your eyes
There's a lady with a baby of Japan singing lullabies 

Hear her as she sighs

Here’s a Japanese Sandman sneaking on with the dew

just an old secondhand man
He'll buy your old day from you
He will take every sorrow of the day that is through
And he'll bring you tomorrow just to start life anew
Then you'll be a bit older in the dawn when you wake
And you'll be a bit bolder in the new day you make
There's the Japanese Sandman trading silver for gold
Just an old secondhand man trading new days for old.

Then you'll be a bit older in the dawn when you wake
And you'll be a bit bolder in the new day you make
There's the Japanese Sandman trading silver for gold
Just an old secondhand man trading new days for old.

Enter Sandman

Metallica (1991)

Say your prayers little one
Don't forget, my son
To include everyone

Tuck you in, warm within
Keep you free from sin
Till the Sandman he comes

Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight

Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
Off to never never land

Something's wrong, shut the light
Heavy thoughts tonight
And they aren't of snow white

Dreams of war, dreams of liars
Dreams of dragon's fire
And of things that will bite

Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight

Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
Off to never never land

Now I lay me down to sleep
Pray the lord my soul to keep
If I die before I wake
Pray the lord my soul to take

Hush little baby, don't say a word
And never mind that noise you heard
It's just the beast under your bed,
In your closet, in your head

Exit light
Enter night
Grain of sand

Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
We're off to never never land

For more on this topic

Pesek, William. “Abe's Turn on Wall Street Is Lost in Translation.” Bloomberg, September 27, 2013:

Nine months into Abe's tenure, nothing has been done to better utilize the female workforce, reduce trade barriers, cultivate entrepreneurship, prepare for an aging workforce, internationalize corporate tax rates, find an alternative to nuclear reactors, wrestle government power away from a vast, unproductive and sometime corrupt bureaucracy and improve relations with Asian neighbors. It's great Abe is putting these issues on the table for discussion, but it's far too early to be telling Wall Street that Japan is back and better than ever. That day is years off, at best.

Abe's clumsy sales job is emblematic of Japanese governments, past and present. Japan has long had trouble capitalizing on its soft power around the globe. Abe certainly tried in New York, with references to baseball star Ichiro Suzuki, sushi, bullet trains and advances in maglev rail technology that Japan is itching to export to America's Northeast corridor. Yet nothing would sell Japan Inc. globally like success. Revive the economy, reinvigorate the biggest corporate names, unleash a wave of innovation among young Japanese, and the international clout Japan craves will follow.