A United Nations study released this week found no radiation-caused illnesses in Japan related to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. While elsewhere in the country, a municipality raised a court challenge to block completion of a new nuclear plant in Aomori Prefecture.
Recent developments related to Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s severely damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant include:
UNSCEAR: No Cancer Increase Anticipated
The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation released a report Wednesday that concluded any effects of the Fukushima accident on nearby cancer rates would be too small to measure.
"No radiation-related deaths or acute diseases have been observed among the workers and general public exposed to radiation from the accident. The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants," the report read. (A detailed .pdf of the committee's findings is available here.)
The committee's analysis placed the average dose among adults within 20 kilometers of the plant at less than 10 millisieverts before and during the evacuation. For the whole of Fukushima Prefecture, the committee estimated that average effective lifetime doses from the accident would total just over 10 millisieverts, although that estimate does not factor in remediation efforts. For context, the Japanese population is exposed to about 2.1 millisieverts annually from naturally occurring sources.
The study also evaluated dose information from the 25,000 people who had worked at the site between the accident and October of 2012. It suggested that TEPCO's monitoring underestimated the internal doses of some workers by about 20 percent because it did not factor in short-lived isotopes like Iodine-133.
Municipality Moves to Block New Nuclear Plant
The government of Hakodate on the Island of Hokkaido filed a suit Thursday to prevent the completion of J-Power's Oma plant in neighboring Aomori Prefecture. Work on the Mox-fuelled plant began in 2008 but was suspended following the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident. The central government approved a restart of construction in October of 2012, the Mainichi Daily News reported. The lawsuit could determine whether a municipality that does not host a nuclear plant but is nearby will have a say in whether plants can enter service under Japanese law.