Steam was seen coming from Fukushima Unit 3 reactor building multiple times this week. enenews.com

Homeless are taken to work in Fukushima and they end up in debt to employers after food and housing fees deducted. enenews.com

Japan and Saudi Arabia have agreed to launch talks to conclude a bilateral nuclear power pact, which will allow Japan to export nuclear power infrastructure to the oil-rich Mideast nation. mainichi.jp

A petition is being circulated which is calling for West Coast Senators to launch an investigation into threats posed by Fukushima. change.org

Experts say that the Fukushima disaster victims will include up to 600,000 deaths, over 100,000 still-births, and over 100,000 children with genetic deformations. enenews.com

TEPCO released a brief report on the bent fuel assembly in unit 4′s spent fuel pool.  fukuleaks.org

The top foreign adviser to Iran’s supreme leader on Friday called for separate talks directly with the United States amid the multilateral negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.   foxnews.com

An environmental review of Duke Energy’s proposed Lee nuclear plant 40 miles southwest of Charlotte recommends that federal authorities issue it a construction and operating license. charlotteobserver.com 

          Last week the European Commission (EC) began an investigation into the support that the British government is giving to the project to construct a new reactor at Hinkley Point C in Somerset. The Chinese have bought into the project which has concerned some departments in the British Government that deal with foreign investment in British projects. Two Areva ERP reactor reactors are to be built by EDF, the French nuclear contactor. The new reactors are expected to be generating over three gigawatts of electricity by 2023.

          The EC is questioning whether the involvement of the British Government in the project to ensure predictable revenues for EDF for the next thirty five years will violate European Union (EU) rules covering state aid for commercial ventures. The British government could end up providing as much as twenty seven billion dollars to EDF depending on actual capital costs that EDF incurs. EU law says that a member state can give support to a commercial venture only to the extent that that commercial venture could have gotten the same level of support from the marketplace.  

           The deal between the British government and EDF stipulates that if the future price of electricity drops  below the agreed level, the British government will step in and pay EDF the difference. On the other hand, if the price of electricity rises above the market price, EDF will pay the difference to the British government. The British government explains that this will guarantee that the plant operator will “receive a fixed level of revenues and will therefore not be exposed to market risks for the duration of the scheme.”

          The British government offers the same guarantee to low-carbon energy sources including renewables such as wind and solar. Each type has a set strike price which the government supports. However, nuclear power plants do not have the same sort of blanket guaranteed support. Each nuclear project has to considered individually.

        The EC is worried that British governmental support could potentially distort the British energy market and even affect the entire EU energy market. This investigation is timely in that the British government has recently announced plans for a massive build up of nuclear power generation to bring sixteen gigawatts of new nuclear capacity online by 2030. If they provided the same sort of support for all the new reactors that they are planning for the Hinkley Point project, this could have a big impact on the EU energy market. In order to be successful, the investigation will need to have cooperation from all the public and private players involved in Hinkley Point.

         In the United States and other nuclear countries, the sort of price support the British are offering EDF for Hinkley Point are being abandoned in favor of letting nuclear power compete in the open energy marketplace. This change is already making conventional investment source reluctant to bet on nuclear given that there is an oil glut in the international market and cheap natural gas is lowering the price of electricity. Even renewable electrical generation such as wind and solar are beginning to beat out nuclear in bids for new generation capacity. I have said it before and I will repeat it. Nuclear power is just not commercially viable.

Cutaway drawing of a U.K. ERP reactor:

hinkley-point-up-close-920.jpg

The Environment Ministry said Thursday it now aims to finish cleaning up areas outside the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex most seriously tainted by radiation by the end of March 2017. japantimes.co.jp

Fishermen have been unable to hatch eggs or release young fish on five rivers in the prefecture because the hatcheries are located within the evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. ajw.asahi.com

Nesika Beach resident uses ‘ray gun’ to convert radioactive materials into inert elements. currypilot.com

According to news reports, China has committed $6.5 billion to finance the construction of a nuclear power plant in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi. nuclearstreet.com

          Various religions and cults have predicted the imminent end of the world for thousands of years. Some have been content to merely comment while others have actively sought to prevent it and others work to make it happen. There has been a worrisome trend among Christians who believe that we are currently in what they call the End Times and that Jesus will soon return to judge mankind. The Christian Dominionists believe that the U.S. should become a theocracy before the world ends. They have members and supporters in the U.S. Congress. Some of the U.S. support for Israel is predicated on the idea that certain things have to happen in the Middle East before Jesus can return. The reason that I bring up the subject is that I recently read about a doomsday cult in Japan that believes that nuclear war will inevitably destroy the world.

          The Japanese cult called Sukyo Mahikari is said to be the fastest growing doomsday cult in the world with over a million members. They believe in Jewish Freemasons are conspiring to take over the world. The holy book of the cult is called the Goseigen or the “Book of Warnings.” It was “revealed” by the “Creator God” to Yoshikazu Okada in the early 1960s. The book says that the “perishing , ending and collapse of civilization is imminent ” and that “the subhumans will be destroyed in nuclear fireballs. It says that “Earth must be burnt away with the Ball of Fire in order for God to descend from Heaven” and “the production of fireballs in the world cannot be stopped.” The chosen – members of the cult – will create a new holy Japanese empire after the necessary purging of the unworthy.

           The cult enjoys the support of high level politicians such as the neo-nationalist Shintaro Ishihara who is featured in cult literature and referred to as a friend of Okada. In order for an organization to have legitimacy in Japan, it must be sponsored by influential people. Ishihara was the mayor of Tokyo and became a leader of the Japan Restoration Party which was founded in 2012. It is dedicated to “reasserting Japan’s correct place in the world.” They currently have fifty four seats in the lower house of the Japanese Diet and nine seats in the upper house. They are opposed to the close relationship of the U.S. and Japan.

           Mixing politics and religions is a very bad idea. When doomsday religion intrudes into the halls of power, there is a danger that policy decisions might be aimed at bringing about the apocalypse, not avoiding it. Japan is a powerful industrial nation with mature nuclear industry. Their constitution forbids them from having nuclear weapons but there have been calls for that prohibition to end. With their plutonium reactor and their technological expertise, it would not take long for Japan to build nuclear weapons and delivery systems if they wanted to. Considering the unstable regime in North Korea which has been threatening Japan with nuclear attacks and the new belligerence of China in claiming control of disputed islands to the south of Japan, there is very real pressure on Japan to become a nuclear nation. If that should happen and the Mahikari cult continues to gain adherents and political power, the danger of a nuclear exchange in western Pacific increases.

Sukyo Mahikari Temple Number 2:

Sukyo Mahikari.jpg

Due to radiation fears, Fukushima Prefecture fishermen have to dump most of their catch. rt.com

Russian Experts say that Fukushima pollution is spreading all over Earth polluting a large amount of fish, seaweeds, and everything in the ocean. enenews.com

Chinese state media is once again bragging about Beijing’s military prowess, touting the fact that China’s new H-6K strategic bomber can attack U.S. military bases in South Korea as well as the Japanese mainland using long range nuclear cruise missiles. infowars.com

US nuclear plant operators must provide information to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by February about an electrical vulnerability that could affect safety systems and how each plant plans to mitigate it, the agency said in a letter made public Friday. platts.com