The Japanese government is launching a large-scale cleanup of the fields, forests, and villages contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. But some experts caution that an overly aggressive remediation program could create a host of other environmental problems.

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Ten months after the nuclear disaster, trust in the authorities is nearly nonexistent. Without it, Japan’s government risks the biggest cleanup fiasco of all: a decontamination effort that carries huge financial and environmental costs but still fails to convince Fukushima residents that their homes, farms, and forests are safe once again

According to a report this week by the International Energy Agency, which isn't an especially alarmist body, the chances grow every day that the world will warm by more than 2C (4F), which scientists estimate is the limit beyond which change becomes chaotic and unknowable, and much more dangerous. To stay within that limit, the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mustn't exceed 450ppm (parts per million). Its present level is 390ppm and last year, despite recession, more carbon dioxide from fossil fuels poured into the atmosphere than ever before. The world goes on gobbling up oil, coal and gas in increasing amounts and will continue to build power stations and steel mills that depend on their energy. "Fossil fuel lock-in" is the term, meaning an ongoing commitment to coal and oil that will be impossible to undo until long after 2020, which, according to climate science, is when carbon emissions need to start their decline.

Tepco said that the Daiichi reactors were emitting about 200 million becquerels of radiation per hour as of mid-September, about one four-millionths of the amount seen in the days after the March 11 disaster.

It said this translates to about 0.4 millisievert per year of radiation measured at the fringes of the plant, below the 1 millisievert legal limit.

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Temperatures at all four of its spent fuel pools had fallen to levels considered stable by August. As of Tuesday temperatures at all the spent fuel pools were below 40 degrees.

Japan's nuclear safety agency today rejected a claim in British newspaper The Independent that the earthquake itself, not the subsequent tsunami, destroyed cooling systems leading to meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

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An IAEA spokesman said that a report from the mission – led by Mike Weightman the UK's chief inspector of nuclear installations – contains detailed accounts of the failure of cooling systems in the early hours of the disaster which challenge the idea that the quake caused the damage, as claimed in The Independent.

Meanwhile, TEPCO said on Wednesday that overall radiation released from the three damaged Fukushima reactors is now a 10-millionth of peak levels recorded on 15 March, just after the accident.

Tests conducted by Minamisoma on about 900 residents showed low levels of internal radiation exposure and no one required immediate treatment, despite the city's proximity to the leaking Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, municipal officials said Saturday.

When converted to exposure over the next 50 years, one resident measured just above 1 millisievert of radioactive cesium, while tests on most of the other residents revealed exposure of 0.1 millisievert or less, they said. The maximum radiation exposure limit for a person not involved in nuclear-related work is 1 millisievert per year.

Kyodo News tweeted this morning that the number of foreign visitors to Japan dropped 62.5% in April. This, if true, is a shame, because the ailing Japanese economy (which was already in terrible shape before the earthquake) really could do with the money those visitors would have spent. A lot of them probably stayed away out of a fear of radiation. That’s worse, because then they stayed away unnecessarily.

Most foreign visitors go to Tokyo or Kyoto. Both these places are well out of the way of the radiation from the Fukushima power plant.

But haven’t elevated levels of radiation been detected in Tokyo? — Yes, but the levels are still much much lower than, for example, what you would be exposed to on a perfectly typical flight on a perfectly normal passenger plane. See, for example, this graph showing the levels of radiation detected throughout a business trip to Japan. The radiation in Tokyo is barely noticeable next to the huge spikes during the times the traveler was sitting on a plane. And those spikes would of course have looked the same if he had flown somewhere else instead.

If you don’t feel comfortable going to Japan right now after all that has happened there recently, sure, don’t go. (But do go later — Japan is an absolutely fascinating country.) Just don’t stay away because you’re afraid of being exposed to radiation. Living on Earth, we’re exposed to radiation all the time, from both natural and artificial sources, and a visit to, say, Tokyo would barely register next to everything else that you are already exposed to and that is very unlikely to have any impact on your health. For a bit of perspective, here’s a nice visualization of radiation from various sources.

Kyodo News tweeted this morning that the number of foreign visitors to Japan dropped 62.5% in April. This, if true, is a shame, because the ailing Japanese economy (which was already in terrible shape before the earthquake) really could do with the money those visitors would have spent. A lot of them probably stayed away out of a fear of radiation. That’s worse, because then they stayed away unnecessarily.

Most foreign visitors go to Tokyo or Kyoto. Both these places are well out of the way of the radiation from the Fukushima power plant.

But haven’t elevated levels of radiation been detected in Tokyo? — Yes, but the levels are still much much lower than, for example, what you would be exposed to on a perfectly typical flight on a perfectly normal passenger plane. See, for example, this graph showing the levels of radiation detected throughout a business trip to Japan. The radiation in Tokyo is barely noticeable next to the huge spikes during the times the traveler was sitting on a plane. And those spikes would of course have looked the same if he had flown somewhere else instead.

If you don’t feel comfortable going to Japan right now after all that has happened there recently, sure, don’t go. (But do go later — Japan is an absolutely fascinating country.) Just don’t stay away because you’re afraid of being exposed to radiation. Living on Earth, we’re exposed to radiation all the time, from both natural and artificial sources, and a visit to, say, Tokyo would barely register next to everything else that you are already exposed to and that is very unlikely to have any impact on your health. For a bit of perspective, here’s a nice visualization of radiation from various sources.

So, let’s suppose the whole of Japan was covered in caesium-137 to give everybody a dose similar to the helicopter crews flying over the Chernobyl reactor core. Let’s further suppose that there was subsequently a tripling of leukemia rates throughout the whole of Japan.

What are we up to? I’ve postulated a ridiculous worst case scenario over a ridiculously large area causing a rate of leukemia way above anything actually measured. The result would be that leukemia would rise to about 13 cases per 100,000 people per year. This is about half the rate of bowel cancer increase that has afflicted the country as a result of shifting from their traditional diet to one with more red and processed meat. It’s about a third of the male rate of bowel cancer.

This article has an idiotic title and, like so many other reports on Fukushima lately, contains a hefty dose of alarmist bullshit, but it also brings up a very valid issue: that of Tepco trying to escape its responsibility and generally pinch pennies by using subcontractors instead of employees, both in its cleanup efforts and in its daily operations.

Job offers come not from TEPCO but from Mizukami Kogyo, a company whose business is construction and cleaning maintenance. The description indicates only that the work is at a nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture. The job is specified as three hours per day at an hourly wage of 10,000 yen (about US$122). There is no information about danger, only the suggestion to ask the employer for further details on food, lodging, transportation and insurance.

Those who answer these offers may have little awareness of the dangers and they are likely to have few other job opportunities.

Tetsunari Iida, a former nuclear engineer who currently heads the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, says that the industry is dominated by a closely-knit nuclear establishment. Those who graduate from universities and graduate from schools with degrees in nuclear power engineering go on to work at power companies, energy-related manufacturers, or municipalities that host nuclear power stations. Everything comes down to personal networks, and who the graduating students go on to work for is largely influenced by the connections and interests of the students' professors. Regardless of whether the employers are public or private organizations, the newly inducted engineers are raised to become full-fledged members of the nuclear establishment.