Restart of Japanese Nuclear Plants: Fukushima Vegetables, A Weaker Yen Unlikely To Help With Japan's Trade Deficit. Prior to the tsunami, nuclear power generated almost 30 percent of Japan’s electricity production. Now, with only two reactors still operating, this share has fallen to 3 percent. The high cost of continued fuel imports runs counter to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plans to restore economic growth. Japan, the world’s biggest importer of liquefied natural gas, is running a trade deficit as energy imports ramped up. The country racked up a ¥993.9 billion ($10.42 billion) trade deficit in May, compared with a ¥907.9 billion deficit in the same month of the previous year, the latest Ministry of Finance data showed. The officials attributed the deficit – the third-largest on record – to sharply higher imports of petroleum products and communications devices.
Power utilities in Japan increased liquefied natural gas imports by 18 percent year-on-year in 2011 and by 5 percent year-on-year in 2012, and according to BP's 2013 Statistical Review of World Energy. Radioactive Fruits and Vegetables? According to “MSN Now,” “It might be wise to steer clear of vegetables from Japan’s Fukushima area for, oh, say a few hundred years. A Korean website assembled this image collection of produce from towns and villages surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. And they are NOT pretty pictures…” The slideshow features pictures of tomatoes that appear to have tumors, octopus eggplants, and conjoined-twin corn cobs, along with other strange and mutated vegetables and fruit. While we all knew that the nuclear fallout from the Fukushima disaster wasn’t going to dissipate overnight, these images bring home the realities of the potential radiation that residents near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant face on a daily basis.
Related Stories: Designed to Fail? Veganism or Extinction? Could Veganism End World Hunger? 1389.pdf. A Preliminary Study on Gamma Radiosensitivity of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) and Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) A Preliminary Study on Gamma Radiosensitivity of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) and Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) Norfadzrin, F.; Ahmed, O. H.; Shaharudin, S.; Rahman, D. Abdul November 2007 International Journal of Agricultural Research;2007, Vol. 2 Issue 7, p620 This investigation was carried out to determine the LD50 and effect of gamma ray on germination, plant height, survival percentage and dry weight of seedlings derived from irradiated seeds of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) and okra (Abelmoschus esculentus).
End quote. Like this: Like Loading... OPERATION CROSSROADS. CYTOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF TRANSLOCATIONS IN CORN CHROMOSOMES RESULTING FROM IONIZING RADIATION OF THE TEST ABLE ATOMIC BOMB AND X-RAYS AND OF TRANSLOCATIONS FROM OTHER SOURCES: Amazon.co.uk: A E Longley. GetTRDoc. Wild mushrooms far from Fukushima show high levels of cesium. Wild mushrooms, a seasonal delicacy in many parts of Japan, have lost their magic.
Tourism industry officials and restaurant operators have been aghast to learn that wild mushrooms picked far from the site of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture last year are showing high levels of radioactive cesium. Last year, only wild mushrooms picked in Fukushima Prefecture were found to have cesium levels that exceeded legal standards. This year, however, wild mushrooms from as far away as Aomori, Nagano and Shizuoka prefectures, all more than 200 kilometers from Fukushima, have been found to be contaminated with cesium. The central government has asked 17 prefectural governments in eastern Japan to test wild mushrooms for cesium.
The task is difficult because differentiating types of wild mushroom is not easy. Another problem is that decontamination work in mountainous areas is extremely difficult. Under the Food Sanitation Law, the legal standard for cesium is 100 becquerels per kilogram. Conventionally “credible” journals begin to ponder cause of crop mutations in Fukushima.
Please see the previous posts: That said, what do you THINK of the proposition posed by the following article? By Philip Ross on July 15, 2013 6:11 PM EDT Like Us on Facebook. The effects of external gamma radiation from radioactive fallout on plants with special reference to crop production. The effects of external gamma radiation from radioactive fallout on plants with special reference to crop production * A.H. Sparrow, Susan S. Schwemmer, P.J. Bottino Biology Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, U.S.A.Radiation Botany Volume 11, Issue 2, 1971, Pages 85–118 Full text $31.50. This paper describes the major problems involved in attempting to predict for economically useful plants the degree of radiation damage which would arise from exposure to high level radioactive fallout.
A number of factors can modify the effects of the radiation and, hence, influence the accuracy of predictions of postattack injury. Survival and yield data obtained from irradiation of growing plants are presented for many species. Predicted YD50 values following FDS exposures are given for 89 crop plants and for 82 woody plants for a 16-hr constant rate exposure. Copyright © 1971 Published by Elsevier Ltd.