Are the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi over? The answer is no. In Fairewinds’ latest video, Chief Engineer and nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen updates viewers on what’s going on at the Japanese nuclear meltdown site, Fukushima Daiichi. As the Japanese government and utility owner Tokyo Electric Power Company push for the quick decommissioning and dismantling of this man-made disaster, the press and scientists need to ask, “Why is the Ukrainian government waiting at least 100 years to attempt to decommission Chernobyl, while the Japanese Government and TEPCO claim that Fukushima Daiichi will be decommissioned and dismantled during the next 30 years?”Like so many big government + big business controversies, the answer has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with politics and money. To understand Fukushima Daiichi, you need to follow the money.
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Transcript:
English
Hi, I’m Arnie Gundersen with Fairewinds Energy Education. Every week we get emails and phone calls asking us questions like:
- Are the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi over?
- Have the problems been solved?
- Should we still be worried?
The answers are no, this catastrophe is not over; no the problems are not solved, and yes, we should continue to be very worried.
Let me tell you why.
Three of the nuclear cores at Fukushima Daiichi are in direct contact with groundwater. Nuclear power designers and engineers never anticipated that possibility.
Nuclear reactors never shut down completely. After a uranium atom splits to create its power, the radioactive rubble left behind remains physically hot for about 5 years. So when the earthquake and tsunami destroyed the cooling systems at Fukushima, the nuclear fuel pellets that are usually contained in suspended fuel rods melted and wound up on the bottom of the 8-inch thick nuclear reactor. The steel from the reactor then melted too, which is called a melt-through, leaving the hot nuclear core lying on the floor of the 4-foot thick concrete containment. Fukushima Daiichi units 1,2, and 3 were destroyed by the heat and radiation inside, allowing holes and cracks to form.
Did the nuclear fuel melt through the concrete too?
We know for sure that the Fukushima Daiichi containments are full of holes that allow groundwater to come in direct contact with each nuclear core. Whether or not the nuclear fuel melted through the concrete does not matter to the environment or the people of Fukushima.
Unfortunately, this groundwater is still leaking in and leaking out, at a rate of at least 300 tons per day. Lets put that number in perspective.
1. This picture is of a tanker truck.
2. Each tanker truck carries 5,000 gallons of water, which is equal to 40,000 pounds or 20 tons.
3. For you to have an idea of how much 300 tons of radioactive water is, imagine filling 15-tanker-trucks with radioactively contaminated water each day.
4. Now remember that more than 1,500 days have passed since the disastrous triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi and multiply that times 15 truckloads each day. Thus, the equivalent of 23,000-tanker truckloads of radioactive water have already leaked into the Pacific Ocean.
5. Worse yet, there is no end in sight.
During the first month following the Fukushima catastrophe, Fairewinds said that it was imperative that TEPCO stop the inflow of water to the site in order to prevent serious groundwater contamination.
1. Think of an overflowing bathtub
2. During the past four years, instead of stopping the inflow of water to the site, TEPCO just keeps adding more bathtubs to collect the overflowing water
3. The real solution is to turn off the tap! Stop the groundwater flow.
4. As Fairewinds anticipated, the Ice Wall is a complete failure.
5. Groundwater experts from around the world have contacted Fairewinds many times to discuss their proven methods and technologies that would stop the inflow of water to the Fukushima Daiichi site, but TEPCO and the Japanese Government have continued to ignore experts in these technologies.
6. There are ways to stop the groundwater. TEPCO is just not listening.
Viewers keep asking Fairewinds about the difference between the meltdown at Chernobyl in the Ukraine and the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan. The major difference right now is that the nuclear core at Chernobyl never came in contact with the groundwater. Here is a picture of the core, taken in 1987, one year after the Chernobyl disaster. It is called the elephant’s foot
Even today, almost 30 years later, if people stood in the room with the elephant’s foot shaped melted core, everyone would die in eight minutes.
Unlike Chernobyl, no one knows where the THREE melted nuclear cores are at Fukushima Daiichi. What is known is that the three cores are in direct contact with groundwater. As groundwater comes down from the hillside and infiltrates the site, it becomes contaminated with radioactivity. Then that radioactive water continues its movement and flows out of the reactors and into the surrounding area severely contaminating the ground and other water it touches as it continues its migration to the ocean. The ongoing migration of extremely radioactive water at Fukushima Daiichi is making the cleanup 100 times more complicated and 100 times more expensive than Chernobyl. To date, the cleanup of the Chernobyl site has cost more $3 Billion without adding in the cost of the ongoing exclusion zone wildfires that are spewing massive amounts of radioactivity back into the atmosphere. Fukushima will cost half a trillion.
To date at Fukushima Daiichi, not only have the equivalent of 23,000 truckloads of radioactive water been leaked into the Pacific Ocean, but the soil under the nuclear plants is now highly radioactive as well. The expanding radioactive contamination will necessitate at least a quarter of a million truckloads of radioactive dirt to be removed. What place on earth would willingly take that waste and how would it ever be contained for the 250,000 years necessary?
The press and scientists need to ask, “Why is the Ukrainian government waiting at least 100 years to attempt to decommission Chernobyl, while the Japanese Government and TEPCO claim that Fukushima Daiichi will be decommissioned and dismantled during the next 30 years?”
Quite honestly, the answer has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with politics and money. To understand Fukushima Daiichi, the press needs to follow the money.
Before the Fukushima Daiichi triple meltdown, Japan’s nuclear industry had 54 operating nuclear reactors. All are presently shut down.
However, every nuclear reactor in Japan that has been shutdown for the last four years has maintained their full staff of engineers, operators, etc even though they have produced no power during that time. Why? Where did the money come from to pay the approximately 700 employees at each of the shutdown 50 nuclear reactors?
The answer is that the Japan’s Energy Corporations borrowed tens of billions of dollars from Japan’s banks in order to pay nuclear power plant staff during the last four years.
The only way Japan’s banks can be compensated for this tremendous cash outlay is if those shutdown nuclear plants are restarted. My contacts in Japan continue to tell me that the banks are putting enormous pressure on Japan’s Parliament to start up Japan’s nuclear reactors so the banks can get paid back for their investments.
Polls show that vast majorities of Japanese people are against restarting any nuclear reactors in Japan. In an effort to convince the Japanese people, who no longer want nuclear power plants, that restarting these old nuclear reactors can be done cleanly and safely in earthquake fault zones and coastlines at risk for tsunamis, both Tokyo Electric and Japan’s government are attempting to showcase the decommissioning and dismantlement of the Fukushima Daiichi site, long before it is even feasible from a radiological contamination standpoint.
What is the truth that the Japanese people need to know?
1. It is impossible to dismantle and cleanup the Fukushima Daiichi site in 30 years. It will take longer than 100 years to do that cleanup.
2. Radioactive cesium, strontium and plutonium from Fukushima Daiichi will continue to bleed into the Pacific Ocean for decades because the groundwater flow is unmitigated.
3. The radioactive waste in at least one quarter of a million dump truck loads will have to be dumped somewhere in Japan in a shielded and contained area to prevent radiological contamination of a new area of Japan.
4. Thousands of young people involved in the decommissioning, demolition, and dismantlement of the highly radioactive site would receive huge radiation exposures.
5. The cost to cleanup the Fukushima Daiichi triple meltdown site will approach half of $1 trillion.
6. And finally, there is no place in Japan, or in the world, to store the three melted nuclear cores once they are finally removed, if it is even possible to secure and remove them. This is a technological feat that no engineer in the world has ever envisioned, since the nuclear industry never believed such a catastrophe could or would occur.
I believe that the Japanese people would not approve the restart of Japan’s old reactors if they were informed of how environmentally damaging and astronomically expensive the cleanup of Fukushima Daiichi really is.
What does the world see? It sees the Japanese government and the world’s nuclear industries continuing their promotion of nuclear power, while Japan’s Press looks on silently due to the real threat and constraints of the government’s secrecy act forbidding discussion of such issues. The true human, financial, and environmental costs of this nuclear power catastrophe are not publicized and discussed.
I’m Arnie Gundersen for Fairewinds Energy Education, and we will keep you informed.
Japanese
Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning: Follow The Money
福島第一原発の廃炉：金の流れを追え
Are the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi over? The answer is no. In Fairewinds’ latest video, Chief Engineer and nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen updates viewers on what’s going on at the Japanese nuclear meltdown site, Fukushima Daiichi. As the Japanese government and utility owner Tokyo Electric Power Company push for the quick decommissioning and dismantling of this man-made disaster, the press and scientists need to ask, “Why is the Ukrainian government waiting at least 100 years to attempt to decommission Chernobyl, while the Japanese Government and TEPCO claim that Fukushima Daiichi will be decommissioned and dismantled during the next 30 years?”
福島第一原発のメルトダウンは収束したのだろうか？答えはNoだ。
フェアウィンズの最新のビデオでは、主任エンジニアであり原子力の専門家であるアーニー・ガンダーセンが、メルトダウン発生現場の福島第一原発において現在何が起こっているのかについて報告している。日本政府と東京電力はこの人災の発生現場の廃炉ならびに解体をやっきになって押し進めているが、報道関係者や科学者たちからはこうした態度に対して次のような疑問の声が呈されている。すなわち「ウクライナ政府はチェルノブイリの廃炉に取りかかるのに少なくとも100年を要するとしている。一方、日本政府と東京電力は福島第一原発の廃炉と解体をこの30年以内に終了すると宣言している。これは、一体どういうことだ？」と。
Like so many big government + big business controversies, the answer has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with politics and money. To understand Fukushima Daiichi, you need to follow the money.
巨大組織としての政府と巨大企業との結びつきをめぐる数多くの論争の帰結に違わず、その答えは科学とは無関係であり、全ては政治と金の問題である。したがって私たちが福島第一原発を理解するためには、金の流れを追う必要がある。
Hi, I’m Arnie Gundersen with Fairewinds Energy Education. Every week we get emails and phone calls asking us questions like: こんにちは、フェアウィンズ・エネルギー・エデュケーションのアーニー・ガンダーセンです。ここには毎週のようにEメールや電話で次のような質問が寄せられます。
· Are the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi over?
· Have the problems been solved?
· Should we still be worried?
· 福島第一原発のメルトダウンは収束したのか？
· 問題は解決したのか？
· 今もまだ不安の種は残っているのか？
The answers are no, this catastrophe is not over; no the problems are not solved, and yes, we should continue to be very worried. No—この大惨事は終わってはいません。No—問題も解決されていません。そして、Yes—私たちは依然として予断を許さない状況にあります。
Let me tell you why.
その理由をお話しましょう。
Three of the nuclear cores at Fukushima Daiichi are in direct contact with groundwater. Nuclear power designers and engineers never anticipated that possibility.
福島第一原発の3基の原子炉の炉心は地下水に直接接触しています。この可能性について原子力発電所の設計士やエンジニアたちは全く想定していませんでした。
Nuclear reactors never shut down completely. After a uranium atom splits to create its power, the radioactive rubble left behind remains physically hot for about 5 years. So when the earthquake and tsunami destroyed the cooling systems at Fukushima, the nuclear fuel pellets that are usually contained in suspended fuel rods melted and wound up on the bottom of the 8-inch thick nuclear reactor. The steel from the reactor then melted too, which is called a melt-through, leaving the hot nuclear core lying on the floor of the 4-foot thick concrete containment. Fukushima Daiichi units 1,2, and 3 were destroyed by the heat and radiation inside, allowing holes and cracks to form.
原子炉の完全封鎖はできません。ウラニウム原子はエネルギーを生産する過程で分裂しますが、その後にできる放射性の核分裂生成物は物理的にはその後5年間は高温を発し続けます。地震と津波によって福島第一原発の冷却システムが破壊された時、通常は燃料集合体のなかにぶら下がっている燃料棒中の核燃料ペレットが溶け出し、8インチ(約20cm)の厚みをもつ圧力容器の底に溜まってゆきました。その後、圧力容器の鋼鉄も溶融し、メルトスルーと呼ばれる現象が起こり、高熱の核燃料が厚さ4フィート(約1.2m)の格納容器のコンクリート上に広がっていったのです。福島第一原発の一号機・二号機・三号機は、内部に発生した熱と放射能によって破壊され、穴やひび割れが形成されました。
Did the nuclear fuel melt through the concrete too? 核燃料はコンクリートも貫通したのか？
We know for sure that the Fukushima Daiichi containments are full of holes that allow groundwater to come in direct contact with each nuclear core. Whether or not the nuclear fuel melted through the concrete does not matter to the environment or the people of Fukushima.
確かなのは、福島第一の格納容器は今や穴だらけであり、そこから地下水が浸入し、炉心と直接接触しているということです。核燃料がコンクリートを貫通したかどうかは、環境や福島の人びとにとってはもはや意味のない問題です。
Unfortunately, this groundwater is still leaking in and leaking out, at a rate of at least 300 tons per day. Lets put that number in perspective.
不幸にも、地下水は現在も1日少なくとも300トンの割合で侵入・流出しています。この数字を他の視点から見てみましょう。
1. This picture is of a tanker truck.
1. これはタンカートラックの写真です。
2. Each tanker truck carries 5,000 gallons of water, which is equal to 40,000 pounds or 20 tons. 2. それぞれのタンカートラックは5,000ガロンの水、すなわち40,000ポンドあるいは20トンの水を輸送することができます。
3. For you to have an idea of how much 300 tons of radioactive water is, imagine filling 15-tanker-trucks with radioactively contaminated water each day. 3. では300トンの汚染水がどれくらいになるかを想像してみると、1日あたり汚染水を一杯に満たした15台のトラックが必要になります。
4. Now remember that more than 1,500 days have passed since the disastrous triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi and multiply that times 15 truckloads each day. Thus, the equivalent of 23,000-tanker truckloads of radioactive water have already leaked into the Pacific Ocean.
4. 福島第一原発のトリプルメルトダウンが発生してから現在までに1,500日以上が経過していますから1日15台×1,500日で計算してみましょう。すると23,000台のタンカートラックに相当する量の汚染水がすでに太平洋に流出していることになります。
5. Worse yet, there is no end in sight. 5. しかもなお悪い事に、この事態が収束する見通しは今のところないのです。
During the first month following the Fukushima catastrophe, Fairewinds said that it was imperative that TEPCO stop the inflow of water to the site in order to prevent serious groundwater contamination. フェアウィンズは福島の大災害直後から1ヶ月以内には、深刻な地下水汚染を回避するために東京電力は地下水流入阻止の対策を取るべきであると訴えていました。
1. Think of an overflowing bathtub 1. バスタブの水が溢れ出る様子を考えてみてください。
2. During the past four years, instead of stopping the inflow of water to the site, TEPCO just keeps adding more bathtubs to collect the overflowing water.2. 過去4年間、東京電力は水の流入を止める代わりに、溢れる水を受けるためのバスタブの数を増やし続けているのです。
3. The real solution is to turn off the tap! Stop the groundwater flow. 3. 本当の解決とは蛇口の栓を締めることだというのに！つまり地下水の流入を止めることです。
4. As Fairewinds anticipated, the Ice Wall is a complete failure. 4. フェアウィンズの予想通り、凍土壁は完全な失敗に終わりました。
5. Groundwater experts from around the world have contacted Fairewinds many times to discuss their proven methods and technologies that would stop the inflow of water to the Fukushima Daiichi site, but TEPCO and the Japanese Government have continued to ignore experts in these technologies. 5. フェアウィンズには地下水に関する世界中の専門家たちからコンタクトが寄せられ、福島第一原発の地下水流入阻止の方法について、検証済みのメソッドやテクノロジーについて何度も話し合いを重ねています。しかしながら東京電力や日本政府はこうした専門家たちの技術を無視し続けているのです。
6. There are ways to stop the groundwater. TEPCO is just not listening. 6. 地下水を止める手段はあるのです。ただ東京電力はその方法に耳をかさないだけなのです。
Viewers keep asking Fairewinds about the difference between the meltdown at Chernobyl in the Ukraine and the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan. The major difference right now is that the nuclear core at Chernobyl never came in contact with the groundwater. Here is a picture of the core, taken in 1987, one year after the Chernobyl disaster. It is called the elephant’s foot. フェアウィンズの視聴者からはウクライナのチェルノブイリ原発でのメルトダウンと日本の福島第一原発でのトリプルメルトダウンの違いについての質問を受けます。現時点での大きな違いは、チェルノブイリの炉心は地下水との接触が全く無かったという点です。ここに炉心の写真があります。これは事故から1年後の1987年に撮影されたもので、この部分はエレファント・フット(象の足)と呼ばれています。
Even today, almost 30 years later, if people stood in the room with the elephant’s foot shaped melted core, everyone would die in eight minutes. 約30年を経過した今日においても、仮に炉心の溶融で形成されたエレファント・フットのあるこの部屋に私たちが入った場合、8分以内で全員が死亡するでしょう。
Unlike Chernobyl, no one knows where the THREE melted nuclear cores are at Fukushima Daiichi. What is known is that the three cores are in direct contact with groundwater. As groundwater comes down from the hillside and infiltrates the site, it becomes contaminated with radioactivity. Then that radioactive water continues its movement and flows out of the reactors and into the surrounding area severely contaminating the ground and other water it touches as it continues its migration to the ocean. The ongoing migration of extremely radioactive water at Fukushima Daiichi is making the cleanup 100 times more complicated and 100 times more expensive than Chernobyl. To date, the cleanup of the Chernobyl site has cost more $3 Billion without adding in the cost of the ongoing exclusion zone wildfires that are spewing massive amounts of radioactivity back into the atmosphere. Fukushima will cost half a trillion.
チェルノブイリと違い、福島第一原発では「３つの」溶けた炉心がどこに位置しているのかは全く分かっていません。ただ分かっているのは、それらが地下水に直接接触しているということです。丘側から流れ込んだ地下水は施設に侵入し、そこで放射能汚染されます。その後も汚染水の動きは止むことなく原子炉から流出し、周辺の土地や水など触れるもの全てを極度に汚染しながら海へと向かってゆきます。今なお続く福島第一原発の高度放射能汚染水の流れは、チェルノブイリに比べて現場の汚染除去を100倍も複雑にし、また100倍の費用を要するものとしています。現在までにチェルノブイリ原発の除染に要した費用は30億ドル以上です。この数字には、現在発生中の立ち入り禁止区域内の山火事によって再度大気中へとまき上げられた大量の放射性物質への対応費用は含まれていません。福島第一原発においては5,000億ドルはかかるでしょう。
To date at Fukushima Daiichi, not only have the equivalent of 23,000 truckloads of radioactive water been leaked into the Pacific Ocean, but the soil under the nuclear plants is now highly radioactive as well. The expanding radioactive contamination will necessitate at least a quarter of a million truckloads of radioactive dirt to be removed. What place on earth would willingly take that waste and how would it ever be contained for the 250,000 years necessary? 現在までに福島第一原発では23,000台のトラックに相当する汚染水が太平洋に流れ込んでいるといいましたが、それだけではなく、原子炉建屋の下にある高度に放射能汚染された土壌も問題なのです。拡大する放射能汚染を考えると、少なくともトラック25万台分の土壌を取り除く必要が生じます。いったい地球上のどこにそれだけの汚染土を喜んで引き受けてくれるところがあるでしょうか？また、どうやって250,000年という必要な期間中、それをしっかりと封じ込めておけるのでしょう？
The press and scientists need to ask, “Why is the Ukrainian government waiting at least 100 years to attempt to decommission Chernobyl, while the Japanese Government and TEPCO claim that Fukushima Daiichi will be decommissioned and dismantled during the next 30 years?” 報道関係者や科学者たちは「ウクライナ政府はチェルノブイリの廃炉に取りかかるのに少なくとも100年を要するとしている。それなのに日本政府と東京電力は福島第一原発の廃炉と解体をこの30年以内に終了すると宣言している。これは、一体どういうことだ？」と疑問を投げかけねばなりません。
Quite honestly, the answer has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with politics and money. To understand Fukushima Daiichi, the press needs to follow the money. 正直に言って、その答えに科学的根拠は全くありません。全ては政治と金の問題なのです。したがって私たちが福島第一原発を理解するために、報道関係者は金の流れを追う必要があるのです。
Before the Fukushima Daiichi triple meltdown, Japan’s nuclear industry had 54 operating nuclear reactors. All are presently shut down. 福島第一原発のトリプルメルトダウン以前、日本の原子力産業会は54基の原発を所有していました。その全てが現在は停止されています。
However, every nuclear reactor in Japan that has been shutdown for the last four years has maintained their full staff of engineers, operators, etc even though they have produced no power during that time. Why? Where did the money come from to pay the approximately 700 employees at each of the shutdown 50 nuclear reactors? しかしながら過去4年間停止中の日本国内の全原発施設において、今なお全てのエンジニアやオペレーター、その他さまざまな職員が雇用され続けています。その間に電力の生産は全く行われていないにも関わらずです。なぜでしょう？停止中の50基の原発それぞれにおよそ700人の被雇用者がいるとして、彼らを雇用する資金はいったいどこから来ているのでしょう？
The answer is that the Japan’s Energy Corporations borrowed tens of billions of dollars from Japan’s banks in order to pay nuclear power plant staff during the last four years. その答えは、日本の電力会社は何百億ドルという金を日本の銀行から借り受けているからです。その金で原子力発電所の職員へ過去4年間の支払いを行っているのです。
The only way Japan’s banks can be compensated for this tremendous cash outlay is if those shutdown nuclear plants are restarted. My contacts in Japan continue to tell me that the banks are putting enormous pressure on Japan’s Parliament to start up Japan’s nuclear reactors so the banks can get paid back for their investments.
日本銀行がこの巨額の債券を回収できる唯一の方法は、現在停止中の原発を再稼働させることです。わたしがもつ日本の情報網は、原子炉再稼働にむけて銀行からの巨大なプレッシャーが日本の国会にかけ続けられていることを報告しています。それによって銀行はかれらの投資した金を回収できるようにするのです。
Polls show that vast majorities of Japanese people are against restarting any nuclear reactors in Japan. In an effort to convince the Japanese people, who no longer want nuclear power plants, that restarting these old nuclear reactors can be done cleanly and safely in earthquake fault zones and coastlines at risk for tsunamis, both Tokyo Electric and Japan’s government are attempting to showcase the decommissioning and dismantlement of the Fukushima Daiichi site, long before it is even feasible from a radiological contamination standpoint.
世論調査からは日本国民の大多数が原発再稼働に反対していることが分かります。これ以上原発の存在を望まないこうした人びとを説得しようと、日本政府と東京電力は活断層地域や津波の被害が想定される海岸沿いの地区においても古い原発の再稼働が手際よくかつ安全に行えるのだと見せかけるため、放射能汚染の観点からすれば実行可能時期よりはるかに早い時点で福島第一原発の廃炉ならびに解体を始めているのです。
What is the truth that the Japanese people need to know? 日本の人びとが知るべき真実とは何でしょうか？
1. It is impossible to dismantle and cleanup the Fukushima Daiichi site in 30 years. It will take longer than 100 years to do that cleanup. 1. 30年以内に福島第一原発を解体し汚染除去を完了するのは不可能です。汚染除去には100年以上の歳月を要するでしょう。
2. Radioactive cesium, strontium and plutonium from Fukushima Daiichi will continue to bleed into the Pacific Ocean for decades because the groundwater flow is unmitigated. 2. 地下水の流入は依然として続いているため、放射性のセシウム、ストロンチウム、そしてプルトニウムは今後何十年にもわたって太平洋へ流入し続けるでしょう。
3. The radioactive waste in at least one quarter of a million dump truck loads will have to be dumped somewhere in Japan in a shielded and contained area to prevent radiological contamination of a new area of Japan. 3. 少なくとも25万台のダンプカーに相当する量の放射性廃棄物は、日本国内のどこかに廃棄されることになりますが、これ以上新たな土地が放射能汚染されるのを防ぐため、廃棄エリアは周囲から厳重に隔離し遮断されなければなりません。
4. Thousands of young people involved in the decommissioning, demolition, and dismantlement of the highly radioactive site would receive huge radiation exposures. 4.廃炉・解体・撤去作業にたずさわる何千人もの若者たちが、高度に放射能汚染された環境のもと大量の被爆を被ることになるでしょう。
5. The cost to cleanup the Fukushima Daiichi triple meltdown site will approach half of $1 trillion.
5. 福島第一原発のトリプルメルトダウンの汚染除去にかかる費用は5000億ドルにも達するでしょう。
6. And finally, there is no place in Japan, or in the world, to store the three melted nuclear cores once they are finally removed, if it is even possible to secure and remove them. This is a technological feat that no engineer in the world has ever envisioned, since the nuclear industry never believed such a catastrophe could or would occur.
6. そして最後に、たとえ溶融した炉心が最終的に取り除かれたとしても、日本の、いや世界中のどこにもそれら３つの溶融炉心を保管できる場所などありません。そもそも溶融炉心を安全に取り除くこと自体、可能かどうか定かではないのです。原子力産業会はこのような大惨事が起こるなどとは考えてもいなかったのですから、世界中のエンジニアにしてもこうした事態への技術的な対応は想定外なのです。
I believe that the Japanese people would not approve the restart of Japan’s old reactors if they were informed of how environmentally damaging and astronomically expensive the cleanup of Fukushima Daiichi really is.
福島第一原発の汚染除去がどれほどの環境破壊をもたらすか、またそれにかかる天文学的コストについての実態が明るみにでれば、日本の人びとは国内の古い原発の再稼働を許すことはないだろうとわたしは信じています。
What does the world see? It sees the Japanese government and the world’s nuclear industries continuing their promotion of nuclear power, while Japan’s Press looks on silently due to the real threat and constraints of the government’s secrecy act forbidding discussion of such issues. The true human, financial, and environmental costs of this nuclear power catastrophe are not publicized and discussed.
世界は何を見ているでしょう？日本政府と世界の原子力産業会は依然として原子力を推進し続ける一方、こうした問題について議論する事を禁じる政府の特定秘密保護法案による真の脅威と規制のために日本の報道機関は事態をただ静観しています。したがってこの原子力災害の人的・財政的・環境的なコストについて報道されもせず、また議論もされずにいるという事態を見ているのです。
I’m Arnie Gundersen for Fairewinds Energy Education, and we will keep you informed.
フェアウィンズ・エネルギー・エデュケーションのアーニー・ガンダーセンがお伝えしました。今後も引き続き関連ニュースをお伝えしてゆきます。
（翻訳：齊藤由香）