Global Energy Policy Research

The health and economic prosperity of the human race depend on applications of science in engineering and medicine, and these have involved the outer (or electronic) part of atoms. Use of the inner (or nuclear) part has raised public and political apprehension when used for energy production but less so when used for human health e.g. following the legacy of Marie Curie. The cause of this concern is historical and cultural with no basis in science.

Many lessons can be learned from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. First, if an isolation condenser (IC) continues to operate, the accident would be terminated soon. A reactor core isolation cooling (RCIC) steam turbine also stopped due to loss of battery power in Unit #2 and #3. suppression pool (S/P) temperature and pressure were so high that the accident management water injection took took too long time. After the loss of ECCS and IC core cooling, Containment Vessel pressure increased. Hydrogen explosion occurred after venting. The analysis results show that the depressurization of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) started before RPV bottom failure. It is hoped that the lessons learned from this accident will help to improve the safety of nuclear power plants worldwide.

Editorial column, on September 17th. It views zero-nuclear negatively and as a “dream”.

Its editorial column of September 17th . It evaluates this policy as decisive, though its handling may change with future change of government, an economical argument and so on.

Low or moderate radiation doses and dose rates are harmless, but the public health effects of a misunderstood accident like the one at Fukushima are dangerous, to individuals and to the society and economy at large. Perceptions of the health threat posed by the released radioactivity have been magnified by overly cautious international "safety" standards. The consequential collapse of confidence and widespread fear are unrelated to the physical effect of the radiation on human life. Contrary to the view expressed by the recent NAIIC Report this is a significant international problem, not a purely national Japanese one.

Famous American website ”Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” reports Low-level radiation risks.

It expects for innovation and technology development in the field of clean energy with the support of federal government.

He points out that excessive fear for nuclear power had spread under the Cold War structure and emphasizes the necessity to face radiation rationally.

This was published in 2008, and is a guideline for radioactivity protections for nuclear disasters.

[ABSTRACT] This paper analyzes the impacts of the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, which were amplified by a failure of coordination across the plant, corporate, industrial, and regulatory levels, resulting in a nuclear catastrophe comparable in cost to Chernobyl. It derives generic lessons for industrial structure and regulatory frame for the electric power industry by identifying the two shortcomings of a horizontal coordination mechanism: instability under large shocks and the lack of “defense in depth." The suggested policy response is to harness the power of “open-interface-rule-based modularity" by creating an independent nuclear safety commission and an independent system operator owning the transmission grid module in Japan. We propose a transitory price mechanism that can restrain price volatility while providing investment incentives.

[SUMMARY] We made a quick review of electricity generating costs by major power sources and nuclear power economics. A balance of fixed costs and variable costs makes economic assessment more complex. Building new nuclear power plants is getting more difficult in advanced countries because of higher initial costs and higher risks, therefore, small modular reactors (SMRs) are the focus of feasible nuclear reactors in the future.

This article is to verify the possibility of health damage caused by low-dose exposure, using the follow up data of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors from atomic bombs. With the exposure to 200 millisieverts (mSv) or more, the risks of leukemia and solid cancer increases. Meanwhile, the relationship is not clear between low-dose exposure to less than 200 mSv and its effect on human health. We will make a commentary about this article soon.

Since the explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant owned by the Tokyo Electronic Power Company (TEPCO) occurred concurrently with the Great East Japan Earthquake which brought about more than twenty thousand deaths on March 11th 2011, giving the impression that it was a massive accident. However, no one has yet been reported to have died from radiation; two workers lost their lives in the basement of the nuclear power plant as a result of the tsunami, but no one has been exposed to a fatal dose of radiation. Why has this nuclear power plant accident become such a major issue? And why is there a view that TEPCO is likely to collapse?

The carcinogenic risk induced by low doses of ionizing radiation is controversial. It cannot be assessed with epidemiologic methods alone because at low doses the data are imprecise and often conflicting. Since the 1970s, the radiation protection community has estimated the risk of low doses by means of extrapolation from the risk assessed at high doses, generally by using the linear no-threshold (LNT) model.

[SUMMARY] We made a quick review of academic articles that assess (ionizing) radiation effects on human health. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors’ life span study (LSS) has been the most renowned and comprehensive data source. The Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF,　Hiroshima), which has been conducting this study, applied a linear dose response model based on the "Linear No Threshold (LNT)” model, and it has been the biggest basis of the International Commission of Radiological Protection (ICRP)’s recommendations. However, the effects of a low dose (less than 100mSv) are not statistically significant and there have been a lot of biological studies that advocate that low dose radiation risks are less than those induced by the LNT model.