Kick Nuclear, March 2026

 

FUKUSHIMA AFTER 15 YEARS

Following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster a 20km radius evacuation zone was declared around the plant (covering 12% of Fukushima prefecture) from which people were ordered to leave. There was also an area within 20 to 30 kilometres in which people were ordered to stay indoors. This led to150,000 to 164,000 being forced to evacuate or left voluntarily. Over 2.300 “disaster-related deaths”! were reported among evacuees by early 2026, often attributed to the stress of displacement.

Today there is still an exclusion zone, officially named a “difficult-to-return-to zone”, but reduced to 2.2% of the prefecture by 2024, with some areas outside this which people are allowed to visit but not stay in.

Many people have nevertheless been loth to return to their homes in the original evacuation zone and by early 2026 between 27,000 and 28,000 people are still considered evacuees or displaced people from their homes due to the 2011 disaster. The consequence is that in seven towns and villages evacuated after the disaster, in March 2025 only 12,300 people were living – just 17% of the population that lived there before it.

However, as around Chernobyl, wild life and nature in general have thrived as a consequence of the Fukushima disaster. Thus a retired Fukushima University professor who conducted research in the disaster zone explained that “Humans are generally the bane of nature and, if removed, nature seems to thrive, even in the presence of chronic radiation.”

As a Guardian reporter puts it: “Gardens have become jungles and homes place of nocturnal refuge – and food – for the [increasing numbers of] wild boar, raccoons and black bears that have free rein to roam the streets…”

However, in spite of the experience of the Fukushima disaster, Japan is planning a great expansion of nuclear power production. Thus, in February 2025, the Japanese cabinet approved what was called Japan’s “seventh basic energy plan” which it claims sets targets to meet growing demand for electricity while keeping the country on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The plan positions renewable energy as the main power source by increasing its current 20% ratio in the nation’s energy mix to between 40% and 50%. It also looks to “maximise” nuclear power by boosting its share from the 2023 mark of 8.5% to around 20% by 2040. Meanwhile reliance on fossil fuel–based thermal power generation will be reduced from the current mark of around 70%, bringing with it a sizeable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

This all marks a big shift from the post-Fukushima push for reduction in dependence on nuclear power. The new policy however still aims at a lesser dependence on nuclear power than prior to Fukushima when Japan depended on nuclear power for 30% of its electricity.

To mark the 15th anniversary of the Fukushima disaster on 11th March 2026 Kick Nuclear are holding a vigil from 11.30am-1.30pm outside the Japanese Embassy, 101-104 Piccadilly, with banners, leafletting, speakers etc. All anti-nuclear power people welcome to participate.

                    MEANWHILE, AT CHERNOBYL

The journal Science Alert reported on February 15 that, “DNA damage from ionising radiation erupting from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 is showing up in the children of those originally exposed to the radiation at the time of the disaster.” The study was carried out by researchers from Bonn University and focussed on finding specific, inherited genetic mutations in the children of people exposed to radiation. This new research focused on a different type of genetic signature than previous studies. This was on two or more mutations occurring in close proximity in a child that were not present in the parents, known as clustered de novo mutations (cDNMs).

The study found a “significant increase” in these cDNM counts in the offspring of irradiated parents, particularly those whose fathers were involved in the clean-up. Thus, children of exposed clean-up workers had an average of 2.65 cDNMs, compared to 0.88 in a control group.

The researchers found that the radiation likely caused breaks in parental DNA (in sperm cells) that were not perfectly repaired, passing on a “fingerprint” of the damage to the next generation.

NUCLEAR POWER WORLDWIDE

Worldwide nuclear power is very concentrated, with, in early 2026, five countries producing about 71% of global nuclear power.

The five are: the US operating 94 reactors having 97 Gigawatts of Energy (GWe), France having 57 with 63 Gwe, China having about 60 with 57 GWe, Russia having 34-37 with about 27 GWe. and South Korea having 26 with 26.5 GWe.

These countries have very different numbers of reactors in construction and planned. The US has none in construction but plans 10 more large reactors and also many Small Modular Reactors (SMRs); France has one in construction but has six more planned; South Korea has 3-4 in construction and two more planned, together with SMRs producing 700 MWe of capacity; Russia has 5-6 in construction, and plans dozens more; China has 37-38 in construction, nearly half the world total, and plans for 42-43 more.

26 other countries have operating civil nuclear power reactors, leaving some 164 countries not operating any.

The UK has nine reactors currently in operation with a capacity about 6.2 GWe, but plans eight new large-scale reactors, 12 Advanced Modular Reactors and up to 16 SMRs, which it is claimed would bring nuclear capacity up to 24 GWe by 2050.

 

                                                              “FISH DISCO” REPRIEVED?

It was reported in January’s Kick Nuclear that the government’s “Fingleton report” found that Electricité de France (EDF)’s plan for trying to prevent wild life from being sucked into Hinkley Point C’s reactors through inlet pipes required to feed in the vast amount of water from the Severn Estuary required to keep the reactor from overheating would be a waste of money. This was based on EDF’s own “modelling” had found that extremely few fish would be sucked into, including only an average of 0.083 salmon per year.

A very fishy claim – how an earth was such a figure arrived at? But if anything like the truth, obviously the Fingleton’s report’s conclusion that the idea should be scrapped is correct – and perhaps a better plan found.

But, hold your horses, a study, reported in February by Swansea University scientists, on behalf of EDF, has come to a very different conclusion, that the number of fish drawn into the two Hinkley reactors by the water intake pipes would be cut by 90% by the plan (though 90% of what number of fish that would otherwise enter?)

So whom do you believe?

The plan, known pejoratively as a plan for a “fish disco”, involves sound pulses delivered from more than 300 speakers around the entry points for water forcing fish to avoid the area around the inlet pipes.

Presumably only when the plan is in operation can its effectiveness be ultimately decided.

In the meantime EDF polishes its environmental image by claiming it is planning to spend an estimated £700m on what it claims is “more fish protection than any other power station in the world”.