While fetal and neonatal deaths within the first week of life (termed perinatal mortality) have been decreasing in Japan consistently since 2002, data examined in Fukushima-affected areas during 2012-2015 show a break in this trend with an increase that, as of 2015, had not reversed.

This recent study examines numbers of perinatal deaths in areas affected by the ongoing Fukushima nuclear catastrophe and compared these data to other areas of Japan supposedly unaffected.

This research is just the latest showing a perinatal mortality increase following Fukushima. A number of studies in Europe also showed similar increases following the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.  

Increases in perinatal mortality in prefectures contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in Japan

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5044925/

By Shaun McGe

To finish this summary of his talk it would seem that the recent drive for tourism in the nuclear damaged Fukushima prefecture would actually be impacted during and after the Olympics. As the deadline for the games approaches clean up from the tsunami and nuclear disaster would be diverted into the Olympic infrastructure program as the tough IOC deadline approaches for July 2020.

In this article I wish to report on the issues with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. This is based on a presentation by Andrew Zimbalist the sports economist at the Foreign Correspondence Club of Japan on the 26th July 2017

As Prof. Zimbalist began his presentation he commented that the promised profits to the country as “Public dialogue is propaganda”.  He added to this by saying that there would be “no positive impulse to the economy”.

He followed up with a breakdown estimate of costs…

Kashiwazaki Mayor Masahiro Sakurai, left, explains the city’s conditions for the restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant at a meeting with Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. President Tomoaki Kobayakawa at the city hall in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, on July 25.

KASHIWAZAKI, Niigata Prefecture–Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s hopes of a phased restart of all of the reactors at its nuclear power plant here to save on fuel costs faces a new obstacle in the form of the local mayor.

Mayor Masahiro Sakurai said July 25 he will agree to the restart of two reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, but on the condition that TEPCO “presents a plan to decommission the remaining five in two years.”

The demand was made in the mayor’s first meeting with TEPCO’s new president, Tomoaki Kobayakawa. Sakurai handed over a document listing the city’s conditions for a restart.

In response, Kobayakawa merely said…

Opinion:

¶ “Small nuclear power reactors: Future or folly?” • Nuclear energy companies are proposing small nuclear reactors as a safer and cheaper source of electricity. A physicist with nearly two decades of experience researching and writing on nuclear reactor designs believes that one should be skeptical of these claims. [CanadianManufacturing.com]

Unfinished Bellefonte nuclear plant (Photo: TVA)

¶ “‘Clean Coal’ Is A Political Myth, Says Coal Company Owner” • Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, America’s largest privately owned coal-mining company, told the press at a conference on clean coal, “Carbon capture and sequestration does not work. It’s a pseudonym for ‘no coal.’ It is neither practical nor economic.” [CleanTechnica]

Science:

¶ Scientists are sucking carbon dioxide from the air with giant fans and preparing to release chemicals from a balloon to dim the sun’s rays as part of a climate engineering push to cool the…