米国のシアトルにある、日本の工芸品を取り扱う会社Kagedo Japanese Art
http://www.kagedo.com/ が、友人や顧客に向けて発信したメールです。
Date: April 11, 2012 5:28:40 PM PDT
To: <kagedo@kagedo.com></kagedo@kagedo.com>Dear Friends and Clients,
Bill and I have just returned from Japan and wanted to get you this new report on the Japanese nuclear disaster. As well, we want to ask you all to consider taking a few minutes to sign the White House Petition (information on that is below), requesting the foundation of an international advisory team to propose practical methods for dismantling the unstable fuel pools at the plant.
Unfortunately, the situation at Fukushima Daiichi is anything but stable. The Japanese Government and TEPCO both certainly would like everyone to believe that all is well and that we can all ignore the Fukushima nuclear problems while living life as it was. Recently, some scattered reports in the United States news media contradict this policy line. However, they remain so few and random that hardly any people seem aware of the actual situation. As some of you may know, we were all told in December by the Japanese government and TEPCO that the reactors were in a state of “cold shutdown” (i.e. below the threshold of 100 degrees Celsius).
I’m afraid that this pronouncement gave many the impression that the situation was somehow stabilized and under control. There remains great skepticism in the International community about those claims, and it was recently confirmed that there is less than two feet of water in the Unit 2 reactor (compared with TEPCO’s assertion of 33 feet). This matter of water level is tremendouslysignificant, as the greater depth of water is desperately needed to cool the melted cores.
Units 1 and 3 are so highly radioactive that it is impossible to get electronic equipment (or robots) into them, as the staggering radiation levels disable electronic equipment. It will take new technology, skills and machinery not yet on the drawing boards to deal with the situation. Unfortunately, information even more distressing has come to light. Bill and I have been reading for some time now that nuclear experts were worrying a lot about the Unit 4 building, not because of the reactor but because of its spent fuel pool.
Its design (an American one used in our country as well) put the fuel pool on the upper levels of the reactor building. During the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, the Number Four Unit experienced very heavy damage as a result of the quake and explosions. It now leans precipitously and no longer has intact walls. To deal with the structure’s near failure, TEPCO has tried to reinforce the building with exterior beams and attempted to shore up the floor of the fuel pool.
What worries many, however, is the level of structural damage to Unit Four. Even a far smaller quake could crack the floor beneath the fuel pool, draining the cooling water from it and igniting an even larger fuel pool some 50 meters away. Should that happen, Japan and the world would face an unprecedented nuclear holocaust.
In response to an inquiry from Japanese diplomat Akio (注：Mitsuheiの誤り) Murata, Mr. Robert Alvarez, former Senior Policy Adviser to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment at the U.S. Department of Energy said:
In recent times, more information about the spent fuel situation at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site has become known. It is my understanding that of the 1,532 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No. 3 & 4 assemblies are fresh and unirradiated. This then leaves 1,231 irradiated spent fuel rods in pool No. 4, which contain roughly 37 million curies (~1.4E+18 Becquerel) of long-lived radioactivity. The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.
Even worse, Mr. Alvarez goes on to say:
Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi site, nearly all, which are in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 ? roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident, as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl , and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).
It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site, have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.Basically, if anything drains the water from the spent fuel pool at the Daiichi Plant’s Unit Number Four, then the fuel rods will catch on fire within a short period of time and cause a huge explosion likely affecting other spent fuel stored at the plant.
Such an explosion would release unimaginable amounts of radioactivity into the environment. Asahi TV (Link Below) reports that Professor Koide, a respected nuclear researcher at the prestigious Kyoto University , judges that if this were to happen Tokyo would become “uninhabitable.” The Northern Pacific Ocean, the United States , Canada and especially the Northwest Coast of North America would suffer massive amounts of radioactive pollution.
This is not just Japan ’s problem. In Japan, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the nuclear industry, and its friends in the supervisory ministries and government have only shown themselves interested in returning to the pre-disaster status quo. As in the United States, a great deal of money lies with companies whose self interest brushes aside the dangers of nuclear power, let alone the reality of an on-going disaster at Fukushima with which nobody yet has the technology to ameliorate, let alone repair.
Akio Matsumura continues to Robert Alvarez on this issue:I have to admit that my country’s strong national pride makes it unrealistic to see an independent assessment team form soon enough, and so I now turn to rely on U.S. leadership to act out of the need for common, global security before a strong earthquake comes in the near future.
If the reactor Unit 4 building collapses, we will face a global environmental and human catastrophe larger than ever before.Mitsuhei Murata, the former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland , also wrote recently to Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General, and appealed to him to set up an international panel to deal with this emergency.
That letter states: I was asked to make a statement at the public hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 23. I raised the crucial problem of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima containing 1535 fuel rods. It could be fatally damaged by continuing aftershocks. Moreover, 50 meters away from it exists a common cooling pool for 6 reactors containing 6375 fuel rods!It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on NO.4 reactor. This is confirmed by most reliable experts like Dr. Arnie Gundersen or Dr. Fumiaki Koide.Like many others, we believe it is time for the International Community to form a task force to tackle the problem at hand and attempt to prevent a major catastrophe.
What can we do as individuals? Sign the petition urging the United States government to address this danger and also inform your friends. The petition hopes for 25,000 signatures but the threat deserves much larger witness. Concerned citizens using social networking sites could immediately call a broader audience’s attention to this pressing and important issue.
White House Petition .
Link:https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/">:https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/commission-fukushima-international-scientific-advisory-team-save-spent-fuel-pool-4-and-stop/Y9mVpJWH?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Thank you once again for your time and concern.
Best,
Jeff Cline & Bill Knospe
Kagedo Japanese Art
参考：
村田光平元駐スイス大使が野田首相に送った書簡
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/afternoon-tea-club-2/d/20120502
『ロン・ワイデン米上院議員が福島視察で見たものは・・・』のプレスリリース本文
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/afternoon-tea-club-2/d/20120418
原発に関する優先順位
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/afternoon-tea-club-2/d/20120425
