Japan’s government announced on Tuesday (April 13) that it will dump more than a million tons of contaminated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. The highly contaminated water contains more radioactive material than previously acknowledged.

Roughly 1.25 million tons (1.13 million metric tons) of water have accumulated around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan since 2011, after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami devastated the region. The twin disasters killed nearly 20,000 people, according to NPR, and caused meltdowns in three of the plant’s six reactors, triggering the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

To keep the remaining reactor cores from melting, officials with the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) have been pumping nearly 200 tons (180 metric tons) of cooling water through the site every day, according to The New York Times.

The contaminated wastewater is stored in more than 1,000 enormous tanks on site and automatically filtered to remove most of the radioactive material, except for tritium — a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that is considered hazardous to human health in large amounts, according to the nonprofit Health Physics Society.

Now, 10 years after the disaster, TEPCO is running out of room to store the wastewater.

The disposal plan, which was approved in a government cabinet meeting on Tuesday, will see the wastewater gradually discharged into the Pacific Ocean, most likely over the course of several decades.

One large concern is that TEPCO’s claims about the water’s safety may be wrong. A study published in the journal Science in August 2020 found traces of several other radioactive isotopes in the Fukushima wastewater, many of which take much longer to decay than tritium, some with a toxic radioactive half life of hundreds of years..

Hiroshi Kishi, head of Japan’s National Federation of Fisheries, told reporters that his group was still opposed to the ocean release. Neighboring countries including China and South Korea have also expressed concerns.

Responding to Japan’s decision, the U.S. State Department said in a statement, “In this unique and challenging situation, Japan has weighed the options and effects, has been transparent about its decision, and appears to have adopted an approach in accordance with globally accepted nuclear safety standards.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency welcomed Japan’s announcement and said it would offer technical support. It called the plan to release the water into the sea in line with international practice.

It is also equally safe to assume the information made publicly available by TEPCO on the disaster and its planetary health impacts are incomplete at best and remain mostly unknown 10 years later.

What is known, the only effective decontamination methodology TEPCO and the Japanese government have agreed upon is the release of the radioactive contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean, and first to “dilute it” as a means of mitigating the environmental health impacts.

Plutonium 239 – a dangerous legacy of nuclear power

Byproducts of the TEPCO meltdown contained Plutonium-239, one of the three main isotopes demonstrated usable as fuel in thermal spectrum nuclear reactors, along with uranium-235 and uranium-​233.

In fact, the uncontrolled radioactive releases leaking into the ocean at TEPCO did in fact contain plutonium 239, considered one of the most toxic substances on Earth with a radioactive half-life in excess of 24,000 years.  It is safe to assume that the TEPCO holding tanks today also contain plutonium 239 as part of the planned ocean release of wastewater, the likely answer is yes.

Much of the existing water has already been filtered by a process designed to remove more than 62 radioactive contaminants, details as to the effectiveness of the filtration methods employed and which radioactive elements have been filtered out, and to what extent, remains unknown to the public and independent observers.

Since the meltdown at Fukushima, both TEPCO and the Japanese government have been less than forthcoming as to extent of the disaster/ TEPCO’s mismanagement of the meltdown aftermath, and the extent and radioactive contents of the meltdown wastewater have been less than revealing in any attempt to perform an independent analysis.

Japan’s neighbors including China and South Korea opposed the plan. Environmental group Greenpeace as well as local residents and fishermen also have raised their concerns.

The best the International Atomic Energy Agency (oversight and lobbying group for the nuclear power industry) could say about the TEPCO plan …“Japan’s chosen water disposal method is both technically feasible and in line with international practice.”

The IAEA blank check endorsement failed to recognize International Maritime Organization laws which prohibit the intentional release of radioactive material in the open ocean — rules that were created following Russian low-level dumping in the Sea of Japan during the 1990s.

There is no easy alternative answer.

Certainly, EM’s product claims fall short in offering an effective alternative, which leaves TEPCO with only one other option: expanding the storage capacity for the radioactive water in either above or below ground storage.

In that alternative option, that would require at least 97 per cent of the tritium to decay before deemed safe and that would take another 60 years due its short half-life, but that still does not address the question of other post-filtration radioactive elements which may also by in the wastewater, including plutonium 239, stored in tanks in an earthquake-prone region.

There are no good or environmentally safe answers to the TEPCO disaster, only that it should have never occurred.

Pacific Islanders fight back

“Today’s decision by the government of Japan is a milestone that will help pave the way for continued progress in the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant,” the agency said in a statement. The decommissioning process is expected to take decades.

To Pacific peoples, who have carried the disproportionate human cost of nuclearism in our region, this is yet another act of catastrophic and irreversible trans-boundary harm that our region has not consented to. 

While Japan’s plan is for the water to be diluted first and discharged over the course of about 30 years, and the Japanese government has tried its hardest to convince the wider public of the treated water’s safety through the use of green mascots and backing from American scientists, Pacific peoples are once again calling it for what it is: an unjust act.

“We need to remind Japan and other nuclear states of our Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement slogan: if it is safe, dump it in Tokyo, test it in Paris, and store it in Washington, but keep our Pacific nuclear-free,” said Motarilavoa Hilda Lini, Vanuatu stateswoman and veteran activist of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement, after Japan’s announcement. “We are people of the ocean, we must stand up and protect it.”

Many in the Pacific have lived experience of nuclear harm with the continuing irradiation of our environments, while survivors and their descendants continue to experience harrowing maladies such as lymphatic cancers, thyroid and reproductive health issues.

Since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki detonations in 1945, 315 nuclear tests have been undertaken across the Marshall Islands, Australia, Kiribati and Maohi Nui. All of which were, at the time, described by nuclear nations to be scientifically sound and safe.

Indeed, both Japan and Pacific states share the trauma of nuclear testing. However, the Japanese government has since enthusiastically embraced the nuclear power industry.

One would think that Japan’s proposal to dump nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean is something novel but there is a history of precedent. The shady practice was virtually a global norm in the past for the likes of nuclear nations like Japan, America and Europe. Things came to a head in 1979, when Japan’s clandestine proposal to dump nuclear waste in neighbouring Northern Marianas was exposed. Japan severely underestimated a united front from political leaders, non-governmental groups and grassroots activists from the Northern Marianas, Micronesia and the Pacific.

President Biden tells the world ‘time is short’; together we must address climate change… before it’s too late

President Biden unveiled a national pledge at today’s White House climate summit with world leaders… declaring that the United States is ready to reclaim its leadership role in combating  climate change.

The president announced Thursday that America would aim to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.  That’s one of the more aggressive near-term targets among wealthy industrialized nations, although the cuts are arguably not quite as large as what the European Union and Britain have already promised.

For President Biden’s target cuts to be achieved, a rapid shift to electric vehicles and clean energy, coupled to the expansion of forests nationwide, and the development and deployment of complex new carbon-capture technology  will be needed, along with other transformational national initiatives.

By the end of the decade, studies suggest that more than half of the new cars and S.U.V.s sold at dealerships will need to be powered by electricity, not gasoline. Nearly all coal-fired power plants would be shut down – a transition in a renewable energy trajectory that is already underway.  As carbon sinks, forests would also need to be expanded, and represent a “proven and most cost effective” means of carbon sequestration. The number of wind turbines and solar panels dotting the nation’s landscape are also projected to quadruple.

Just in the past decade, we have seen a rapid decline in renewable energy costs, with wind and solar now fully competitive with fossil fuels.  Greater technology advances in PV, battery storage, and wind power generation together have leveled the playing field. Hawaii already has some limited examples of this beneficial transition off fossil fuel dependencies.

Greater cost and technology efficiencies have also made their way into the advancements of electric vehicles, the foundation for Hawaii and the world to achieve a successful transportation transition to a clean energy economy.  Yes, it’s achievable, experts and researchers agree.  But such a transformation from business-as-usual represents an enormous challenge for all of humankind.

To get there, the Biden administration will need to put in place an array of new federal policies, many of which will face obstacles from fossil fuel stakeholders and their agents in Congress, the media, and in the courts.

Policymakers also recognize it will take more than flipping a switch to make the necessary economic, social and technology transformation.  It will require crafting measures that do not cause serious economic disruption or widespread job losses, while at the same requiring swift and decisive actions more akin to fighting a war, than the slow and deliberate pace of political obstruction,

For now, the United States has a head start. The nation’s greenhouse gas emissions have already fallen roughly 21 percent since 2005, according to estimates by the Rhodium Group, an energy research and consulting firm. Much of that decline came as electric utilities retired hundreds of their dirtiest coal plants shifting to cheaper and cleaner natural gas (50% of coal-fired  emissions), and zero emissions wind and solar power, most recently, with the addition of batteries and pump hydro power storage, providing a full time and 100% power replacement option for legacy fossil fuel power plants.

Politics vs. American Invocation

President Biden has already proposed a number of new climate measures. His administration’s infrastructure proposal, estimated at between $3 trillion and $4 trillion is an important and vital to a timely transition for America, and by example the world, into a sustainable and clean energy global economy. This is a time for bold actions, as the science of global warming and climate continue to painfully demonstrate – time is running out!

Tax incentives for clean energy and electric vehicles are a small but important component to a clean energy economy and a significant reduction in emissions. Separately, the Environmental Protection Agency will likely enact stricter regulations addressing for tailpipe pollution from cars and trucks, and separately, production-related oil and gas methane emissions.

The Biden Administration has also floated the idea of a national clean electricity standard that could require utilities to get all of their electricity from low-carbon sources such as wind, solar, nuclear or even natural gas with carbon capture by 2035. But that policy faces an uphill battle in a nearly evenly split two-party Congress of Democrats and the GasOilPollution Republican party. Even if the Biden administration can’t enact some of the more insightful and ambitious proposals, such as a clean electricity standard, there are other governance options available to the president.

With global warming concerns now at the top of some national polling, the United States could potentially make significant progress toward its climate goal by significantly expanding federal tax credits for a variety of clean energy technologies — including electric vehicles, charging stations, wind, solar and carbon capture — an idea that has historically found a more receptive audience in Congress and is popular with voters.

There is some precedent for this approach. President Obama expanded tax incentives for wind and solar power during his two terms, which helped drive down the costs of both technologies and fostered large new industries that now employ hundreds of thousands of workers. In December, during the Trump administration, bipartisan majorities in Congress agreed to extend tax credits for technologies like wind and solar power with relatively little fanfare

Another tool for change the Biden Administration can use is the Environmental Protection Agency.  The EPA can enact new regulations for automakers, as well as coal and gas plants and oil drillers to help fill the emissions reduction gap. While those rules would not require Congress’s approval, they could face pushback in a Republican leaning Supreme Court, but would provide the necessary signals for private sector initiatives that enable a transition to a nationwide clean energy economy, regardless of the politics directed by fossil fuel interests.

Follow the Money

Another obstacle to emissions reform: the world’s biggest banks. Several major financial intuitions made headlines last year when describing investments in climate change technology companies as a key component to 21st century investment strategy.

Recent reports however revealed a different story. Three out of every four board members at seven major US investment banks, presently have or most recently had ties to climate-conflicted companies or organizations – from oil and gas corporations to trade groups that lobby against reducing climate pollution. Many of these same banking interests have advocated the continued global subsidization of fossil fuels from extraction to tailpipe or smokestack. World Bank and IMF previously reported global taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuels exceeds $4.5 trillion USD annually.

The Administration’s Climate envoy, John Kerry, has called on global banking institutions to act on their words. Century old ties between money and fossil fuels run deep in both the private and political sectors representing formidable financial obstacles to reform and climate progress.

Hawaii – an island state in a rising sea of emissions

Ultimately, however, there’s one climate metric that matters most: How quickly the entire world can get to zero emissions and halt the warming of the planet.

To avoid many of the most catastrophic risks of climate change, such the collapse of polar ice sheets and sea-level rise, climate-driven super storms, and widespread crop failures  scientists have said that the world needs to zero out emissions from fossil fuels and deforestation by around mid-century.

Hawaii led the nation is establishing one of the first statewide policies for a 100% transition off fossil-fuels in the generation of electricity. It was an unprecedented step back in 2001, when Hawaii established its Renewable Portfolio Standard for the state’s electric grid.

Renewable energy policies, like those started in Hawaii, help drive the nation’s $64 billion market for wind, solar and other renewable energy sources. These policies can play an integral role in state efforts to diversify their energy mix, promote economic development and reduce emissions. Roughly half of the growth in U.S. renewable energy generation since the beginning of the 2000’s can be attributed to state renewable energy requirements.

The Hawaii State Energy Office, cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE), has pursued several strategic projects that are helping to advance Hawaii’s clean economy goals and support the state’s economic recovery, including job training for energy sector workers and an upgrade of web-based tools to assist in the permitting and appropriate siting of renewable energy projects.

The Biden Administration’s infrastructure plan, and the expected Federal funding, will come at a critical junction on the state’s path to 100% (locally produced and consumed) zero emissions clean energy production and consumption. It also comes at time in the global electrification of ground transportation – which in Hawaii accounts of more than 40% of the state’s CO2 emissions.

Federal infrastructure funding directed to Hawaii will also further the state’s clean energy and decarbonization programs at a critical time when state revenue growth is under pressure from the impact of COVID-19.

2021 Legislative Session – Update

Four significant bills designed to advance Hawaii electrification of transportation have so far survived the rigors of the 2021 legislative session, and now have a good chance of passage:

• Clean Ground Transportation – HB552 – Establishes clean ground transportation goals for state agencies on a staggered basis until achieving a 100 percent light-duty motor vehicle clean fleet by 12/31/2035 and all light-duty motor vehicles in the State by 12/31/2045.
• Public Fleet Electrification – HB424 – Requires all state and county entities when renting a vehicle on behalf of a state employee in the discharge of official government business to rent electric or hybrid vehicles.
• EV Charging Infrastructure Funding – HB1142 – Allocates 3 cents of the barrel tax to fund the installation of EV charging systems.
• Rental Car Fleet – SB768 – Requires lessors of rental motor vehicles to incorporate zero-emission vehicles into their rental motor vehicle fleets.

Public diligence and political pressure will continue to be part of the solution which ensures local, national, and global transitions off fossil fuels. It is a mission which impacts all life on Earth and will continue well beyond the life of any single administration, public or private initiative. It is a generational mission for all humans as stewards of this living planet we call home this Earth Day, 2021.  

Hawaii’s physician shortage is a serious and growing statewide problem.

A rising trend in all island counties

• Oahu, the doctor shortage has increased from 377 (in 2019) to 475 (in 2020).
• Hawaii Island there was an increase from 230 to 287 last year
• Maui saw their shortage increased from 153 to 185 doctors, while
• Kauai experienced a mild doctor shortage increase, from 60 to 61.

Dr. Michelle Mitchell, a Hilo family physician described the situation this way… “We are all overworked before we entered a pandemic. And now we’re extremely overworked.”

Hawaii ranks last

Including all 50 states and Washington D.C. — when it comes to physician pay, Hawaii is at bottom of the pay scale, and with the highest cost of living.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that about 27 percent of Hawaii’s population will be over age 60 by the year 2030, an increase of 33 percent from 2012

The proportion of Hawaii’s population that is over 60 is growing much more rapidly than the proportion that is under 60. This growing elder group also represented greatest percentage of medical pre-existing conditions which are under some kind of doctor and or medical specialist management.

The demand for doctors, specialists and medical support services is not the root cause or explains the reason for Hawaii’s doctor shortages. In fact, it’s the one sector of the state’s economy that shows the greatest promise for growth, i.e. medical services.

Lisa Rantz, president of the Hawaii Rural Health Association and executive director of the Hilo Medical Center Foundation, said that because private practice doctors are not exempt from the state’s general excise tax, a doctor in Hawaii can expect to make comparable income to a doctor in rural Ohio, balanced against struggling to make a living in one of the highest cost states in America.

In fact, if the COVID-19 Pandemic has demonstrated anything, it is how fragile and inefficient America’s medical system today is, even as automation seeks to stream line and lower costs, it still takes doctors, specialists, and a medical infrastructure to deliver 21st century medicine.

Hawaii, a world class retirement destination

Hawaii could be leader in medicine, and create the foundation for an economic renaissance that is no longer dependent on the economic swings of the tourist trade.

With an increasing national and international population of retirees, Hawaii could take a cue from Florida in developing a diversified economy, in part catering to a retiring class of Americans with wealth spend in the state they call home.

A Brookings study last year found that from 1989 to 2016, the median net worth of families with a head of household age 65 or older increased by 68 percent.

If Hawaii’s state legislature seeks to address the inequalities among its resident population, Robin Hood tax schemes will only feed the exodus of its population now paying the majority of state taxes and funding programs dear to many of the state’s political class and its union supporters.

On the other hand, state policies which encourage the growth of medical services and the development of associated support services will be quality high paying jobs, each contributing to Hawaii’s economy, and they will provide the foundational draw for retirees seeking Aloha and quality medical care as they age and spend their retirement dollars, and a welcome change for a grateful and growing kupuna population.

A Pandemic, Doctor Shortages, An Aging Population, and a Tax-Happy State Legislature – the perfect Storm

Hilo radiologist Scott Grosskreutz, who helped form a Hawaii Physician Shortage Crisis Task Force to work with the state Legislature on the issue, said Hawaii County has an estimated 53% fewer physicians than similar-sized communities on the mainland.

Furthermore, more than one-third of the doctors the county does have are 65 years old or older, meaning many will retire soon, leaving the county in even worse straits.

This year’s legislature has multiple tax bills designed raise and/or create kinds of taxes in a mad dash to raise revenue. On such bill, SB 56, designed raise state income taxes on the so-called rich, would among other things, impact resident medical practices and would raise taxes on doctor salaries. It’s like pouring gasoline on a fire you’re trying to put out.  SB 56 is but one more example of ways to disincentivize doctors from setting up shop in Hawaii, and for existing medical practices to close down.

“It seems like there’s not a good understanding (in the Legislature) of how physicians are trained,” Grosskreutz said. “They forgo 10 years of employment opportunities during med school and residencies and fellowships … so they enter the job market in their 30s, saddled with $250,000 in student debt, and then they have to pay to move to Hawaii and set up.”

Sustainability and Resiliency

A path to Sustainability and Resiliency (often thought of as separate problems to be solved) are both in fact linked. Each require both the state and country governments to undertake coordinated policy changes, beginning with the substantial reduction in a statewide dependency on a fragile supply chain made up of locally replaceable imported fossil fuels and imported foods.

Hawaii’s 2021 legislative session is presently taking baby steps towards agriculture and energy reforms.  While the private sector, including Matson, are gearing up for access to expanded port facilities capacity in Honolulu, in order to better supply the state’s tenuous mainland lifeline.

With food as major statewide import, moving towards greater self-sufficiency will require something different than just enabling the state’s current dependencies.

The State’s Legislature this year appears to recognize this need in development of several bills encompassing the promotion and development of a diversified local agriculture system. None so far appear to address the need  for  a farm-to-consumer infrastructure as an essential first step forward towards this end.

Necessary supporting elements for resilient supply-chain are not limited to a reliable and flexible inter-island ocean-air transport system, further supported by a cold and longer term storage infrastructure to ensure an adequate domestic food supply from local as well as imported sources. Today’s neighboring island food retailers food inventory is dependent, container-to-container.

On the road to Sustainability and Resiliency, there will be necessary infrastructure and economic changes which will more than likely be disruptive to the status quo, but a plus for local jobs and a self-sufficient statewide economy prepared for the challenges of the 21st century.

1. Eliminating Statewide imported fossil fuels dependencies:
   • ENERGY – Engage in a statewide shift to economic electrification through local clean power sources: solar, wind, power battery – pump storage, and ocean energy
   • TRANSPORTATION – Implement a 20 year phase out of gasoline and diesel vehicle dependencies, replaced through zero emissions land transportation electric vehicle alternatives, integrated mass transit systems, bike lanes, and smarter urban design
2. Strengthening and integrating water supply and power systems, through the development of pumped-power storage solutions, is just one obvious solution which serves both Big Island power and water utilities.  West Hawaii Island examples:
   • WATER – Electricity and water supply are interdependent – no power, no water.  Hawaii’s water utilities (locally DWS) spend over 65% of the utility’s operating budget on electricity, a cost they freely pass-on to both agricultural and residential, and business water customers. DWS presently has no emergency power back-up to keep its pumps running and the water flowing during power interruptions and full blow blackouts.
   • POWER – Hawaiian Electric (Hawaii Island) faces increasing supply and demand power management issues, or industry nomenclature; load-balancing. Hawaii’s goal of 100% Renewable (electricity) by 2045 is dependent on the state and utilities cooperating in the development of energy storage options – problem and opportunity in which both water and power utilities can work together to mutual and public cost benefits.
3. Addressing infrastructure vulnerabilities to rising sea-levels and increased island storm impacts are also another link in the chain to sustainable and resilient outcomes. Future infrastructure development and housing, e.g., must incorporate planning and permissions which fully consider climate-compatible development.
   • Public and private housing developments incorporating self-powering micro grids, linked to the Island’s power grid is step one.
4. Advancing the state’s digital economy, first by working with private sector vendors in the creation of a high speed, broadband, telecommunications infrastructure serving all island communities
5. Developing self-powered solid waste and water treatment management systems which do not pollute and create opportunities for re-use, as well efficient and managed disposal.
   • Reduce Waste, beginning with consumer education
     • Develop reuse options which avoid the landfill, beginning with an effective reverse supply system incorporating both public and private collection-drop off centers, repurposing of goods for sale and donation
     • Develop municipal waste water systems which return gray water to R-1 Recycle, e.g. Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant.  Everything pumped into the ground in Hawaii will find its way into the state’s pristine marine environment.
     • When You Can’t Avoid Waste: compost and recycle in a public waste management system designed to serve public requirements, not the other way around.
6. Education Opportunities – Supporting a statewide K-12 and college degree education system designed to serve local economic and environmental job opportunities .
7. Social Equity – Historically, some parts of our community have been left behind economically. Efforts to improve resiliency and sustainability need to ensure that ALICE (asset-limited, income-constrained, employed) and other disadvantaged communities benefit equally in the state’s economic an social transition to sustainable and self-sufficient future.
8. Developing parks and recreation opportunities which support more robust community interactions and environmental education and appreciation of Hawaii’s ania, values directly link to livability in Hawaii — translated, a greater appreciation for the interdependencies of living in and with the natural world.