skip to main |
skip to sidebar
No mercy: Amazing new video shows cars and planes washed away by Japan tsunami Scroll down to the bottom for video.
One Big Obstacle To Japan's Recovery? Trash From NPR. Excerpts:
Last month's earthquake and tsunami have left Japan with a massive trash problem. In many parts of the country's affected coastline, there's literally nothing left but mud and debris.
On the outskirts of the seaside city of Kesennuma, what was once a baseball field and park has been turned into at least two football fields' worth of garbage, piled 15 feet high. Bulldozers are going through it all. There are aluminum siding, school desks, bits of carpet. The stench can be detected from blocks away — it smells a little bit like rotting fish.
This is but a tiny fraction of Japan's tsunami-related debris. The disasters made junkyards of entire cities and created the equivalent of 16 years' worth of waste.
There is, of course, a need to rebuild critical infrastructure in the nation. But Kazuyuki Akaishi — an expert at the Japan Research Institute consultancy — says trash is the next big obstacle to recovery.
It isn't just the volume, which he estimates will total 100 million tons. The debris is heavy with seawater. It also contains an unknown amount of asbestos and radioactive waste — materials that could be dangerous, complicated and, therefore, more costly to clean up.
Japanese drop their politeness over nuclear crisis From The Boston Herald. Excerpts:
TOKYO — Kenji Kadota long followed the dual credo drilled into him during childhood: Hide your anger and trust the powers that be.
Yet in the wake of March’s triple whammy of earthquake, tsunami and radiation release, the 55-year-old construction chief has thrown all such cultural lessons out the window.
Kadota faults the firm that runs the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant for its mishandling of the nuclear crisis that has followed the March 11 natural disasters. He believes dithering public officials have compounded the public’s anxiety by withholding information about the true dangers facing people who live near the plant.
So for the first time in his life, Kadota is speaking up. He’s joined a growing chorus of college students, ruddy-faced fishermen, small-town mayors and even a combative prefecture governor voicing dissatisfaction in a manner highly uncommon in a nation known for taking politeness to the extreme.
Japan prime minister's nuclear adviser resigns Yahoo News. Excerpts:
A senior nuclear adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan submitted his resignation on Friday, saying the government had ignored his advice and failed to follow the law.
Toshiso Kosako, a Tokyo University professor who was named last month as an advisor to Kan, said the government had only taken ad hoc measures to contain the crisis at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.
In a tearful press conference, he said the government and its commissions had taken "flexible approaches" to existing laws and regulations, and ignored his advice after he was named an advisor on March 16.
"I cannot help but to think (the prime minister's office and other agencies) are only taking stopgap measures... and delaying the end" of the nuclear crisis, he told reporters.
Kan says state shares blame for N-crisis The Daily Yomiuri Online. Excerpts:
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Friday the state shares the blame for the nuclear crisis triggered by accidents at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
"Needless to say, TEPCO is primarily responsible, but the state can't escape blame because it promoted the use of nuclear power," Kan said during a House of Representatives Budget Committee session.
The prime minister also said the government was responsible for compensating local people and farming and fishing businesses for the massive amount of damage caused by the nuclear crisis, which was triggered by last month's earthquake and tsunami.
"The state will deal with it [nuclear crisis] with determination to the very end," he said.
"The Very End" will be a Very Large number, so pardon my disbelief.
TEPCO Data Shows Ongoing Criticalities Inside Leaking Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 GLC Research. Excerpts:
Data released on April 28, 2011 by TEPCO is now unequivocal in showing ongoing criticalities at Unit 2, with a peak on April 13. TEPCO graphs of radioactivity-versus-time in water under each of the six reactors show an ongoing nuclear chain reaction creating high levels of "fresh" I-131 in Unit 2, the same reactor pressure vessel (RPV) with a leak path to reactor floor, aux building, and outdoor trenches, that is uncontrollably leaking high levels of I-131, Cs-134, Cs-137 into the Pacific Ocean.
Have a great day!
Buffett targeted over nuke plant
An environmental group is taking Warren Buffett to task over a proposed nuclear power plant in Iowa.
The group, Friends of the Earth, says Buffett told CNBC last month that the future of nuclear reactor construction is “dead” because of the crisis in Japan. Yet MidAmerican Energy, a holding of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, is proposing to build a new Iowa nuclear plant, it says.
..
“Mr. Buffett, Iowa ratepayers should not be paying up front for a project you don’t think will ever be completed,” the group’s ad said.
IS THERE A 'BEST CASE' SCENARIO FOR JAPAN? From March 16th and overly optimistic, but he raises a good point:
From fault-riddled California, to hurricane-prone Turkey Point in Florida, the world and its leaders will take new hard looks at nuclear power plants. There is no such thing as "fail safe" and there is no such thing as a foolproof system of protecting Earth from radiation leaks in disasters in a future we cannot know.
But what if all six impacted Japanese plants survive the crisis with a staged closing, going offline, securing or encasing "hot" cores, avoiding the escape of acceptably low levels of isotopes - and all this actually does not cause widespread death and future cancer risk?
The worst earthquake in memory; the worst tidal wave to hit a developed nation, and the failure of one, two, three or more redundant safety systems at nuclear plants!
The odds are millions to one of this confluence of events. But it happened. And if, just if, the engineers and managers, corporate sponsors and atomic energy regulators give an "all clear"and doomsday is avoided, I pose this question, which my fellow environmentalists will cringe at: "Is it possible that we can learn from the Japanese events, make further improvements, and grudgingly admit that nuclear power might indeed be a safer alternative to polluting and depleting hydrocarbons?"
The entire experience could prove that France with 75 per cent dependency on nuclear power actually is a better template for economic sanity than the United States still dependant on the violence and vagaries of Venezuela or Saudi Riyadh for our future.
Good point. Completely wrong, as history will most certainly attest, but in the interest of open minded-ness..
Anything Can Happen at Any Time: Zen Lessons from Japan Huffington Post. Excerpts:
What's happened in Japan affects all of us. Perhaps, like me, you've noticed a sober backdrop of stunned sadness that's been pervading our collective psyche. If we are to become more conscious human beings then each moment can be taken as an opportunity to wake up. What can we learn so that this tragedy helps us deepen our understanding and become more awake?
A central tenet of existence is the truth of impermanence. Ultimately there is no stability in a constantly changing world. Everything on this physical plane is subject to this law of unreliability -- our bodies, our mind-states, our relationships, even the very earth we stand on. As one of my teachers puts it: "Anything can happen at any time." Zen philosopher Alan Watts called it "the wisdom of insecurity." An earthquake is a direct experience that there's no solid ground to stand on. The images coming out of Japan not only touch our hearts, they underscore the fragility of life. How can we relate to the unpredictability of life so that rather than living in a continual state of anxiety this truth helps us grow and informs our lives?
Buddhist teachings encourage people to reflect every day on the fact that, because of the truth of impermanence, everything near and dear to us will sooner or later be separated from us. The aim of this practice is not to depress or dwell on the morbid, but to inoculate us from the pain and confusion when the inevitable comes. Knowing that anything can happen at any time can remind us to wake up and be present for life as it's happening now. Instead of sleepwalking through it, taking it for granted as we fantasize about the future or live in the past, life's fragility awakens us to the precious gift we've been given. When we realize that the only moment there is is the one we are in, we're more motivated to be here for it and honor it with our presence. It becomes a sacred gift worthy of our attention.
Ace, "De Niro" unlikely heroes of Japan nuclear crisis Weird fucking bullshit. Excerpts:
TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - "Ace" is Japan's latest hero. Fans dissect his daily comments on message boards, where some post gushing tributes to his voice and his expressive face, and spend hours watching video clips of his performances.
Far from an actor or rock star, Ace is one of the officials at Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the operator of Japan's crippled nuclear plant, who face the media each day for updates after the disastrous March 11 earthquake and tsunami that set off the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.
"I spend several hours each day thinking about Ace or watching his clips," one online follower said on a message board dedicated to Ace.
Though the public from the start praised the hard work and courage of the on-site workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant who toiled to bring the situation under control, officials at the Tokyo home office came in for criticism.
But after weeks of seeing Ace and colleagues such as "De Niro" -- nicknamed for his resemblance to actor Robert De Niro -- at twice-daily news conferences streamed live over the Internet, tackling hardball questions from sometimes testy reporters, respect for them has grown.
..
Fans debate the best "Ace moments" on the message board devoted to him, which has attracted nearly 300 posts.
You gotta be shittin' me, here.. 300 posts on a fan forum in... TOYKO? Tokyo has a population of 28 million people. I would assume most people understand, then, that 300 posts is evidence of a completely fringe phenomenon. Inactive forums or blogs can attract as much attention. I find the article believable, as fringe movements and behaviors are inherently unexpected, so I don't doubt the forum's veracity. But, even taking into account X number of "lurkers"(non responsive, yet active readers), forum participants are, statistically, insignificant.
Fukushima Fallout/Commentary: The Alameda Sun. Excerpts:
I opened the Alameda Sun on Friday, April 7, and read with horror its front page article, "Nuclear Scientist Counts Radiation Levels Locally," The article states that UC Berkeley professor Kai Vetter installed three radiation detectors, and began collecting rainwater on the roof of Etcheverry Hall on the Cal campus on March 17, in time for the radioactive plume's arrival on March 19. The article further states that Vetter says fallout in our area from the Fukushima disaster is nothing to worry about, and that "the extremely low levels of both iodine and cesium he measured should reassure people that there is little danger in the presence of these elements.
The levels were low to begin with and are even lower now." The article goes on to say that "Vetter told KTVU that even at the highest levels measured, a person would have to breathe that air for 2,000 years to be exposed to the same amount of radiation that one would experience from a cross-country flight. "You should not be worried about your dog going out and drinking some rainwater — he will not light up," he stated about the rain that recently fell.
Interestingly, an article appeared in Business Insider on April 4, just three days before this article showed up in the Sun, with the heading, "San Francisco Rainwater: Radiation 181 Times Above U.S. Drinking Water Standard." Apparently, the sample was taken "on the roof of Etcheverry Hall on the campus of UC Berkeley on March 23, 2011"
..
There's more: "Rising Risks: Fukushima radiation is blanketing most of the United States and Canada according to the data and visuals published regularly by the Norwegian Institute of Air Research. The risks of that radiation falling with rain, have been downplayed by U.S. government officials and others, who say its impacts are so fleeting and minor so as to be negligible. Nonetheless, radiation falling with rain can cover grass that is eaten by cows and other animals. It can also fall on food crops or contaminate reservoirs that are used for irrigation or drinking water. [Norwegian Institute of Air Research or NILU]"
I don't know about Alameda Sun readers, but I think it is criminally irresponsible for Vetter, a nuclear scientist, to lie to us about the safety and amount of radiation he is measuring, and that the public is being exposed to. Radiation is cumulative, is much more dangerous when it is ingested than when it is outside of you, and Vetter's own tests have shown the levels to be 181 times the MCLs on March 23.
And no, the levels will not be going down, as the Fukushima plant is now a permanent hot spot on this planet that will continue to spew every form of isotope imaginable, including the deadliest of all, plutonium.
From Raw Story: Disgusting. Excerpts:
A wave of tainted-food scares has renewed fears in China over continued product-safety problems despite a government promise to clean up the food industry following a deadly 2008 milk scandal.
Tainted pork, toxic milk, dyed buns and other dodgy foods have surfaced in recent weeks, sickening consumers and highlighting the government's apparent inability to oversee China's huge and under-regulated food industry.
..
Recent scandals have included pork found on the market so loaded with bacteria that it glowed in the dark, according to a state press report.
Authorities have discovered bean sprouts laced with cancer-causing nitrates, steamed buns with banned chemical preservatives, and rice laced with heavy metals, to name just a few.
And:
"The causes of food safety problems in China are many," Bao Chengsheng, a professor at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law told AFP.
"One aspect is that China's legal system is incomplete. A lot of regulations are unclear... causing legal loopholes."
He added that underfunded regulators struggle to keep tabs on China's countless small food producers and retailers, setting the stage for lax oversight and corruption.
For example, "pig brokers" often bribe food safety inspectors to turn a blind eye to tainted meat, the state-controlled Global Times said.
Such practices have fueled a market for the carcasses of pigs that have died from disease and whose meat should be destroyed but instead finds its way into the food chain, the paper said.
Tainted meat from the carcasses of between 20 to 30 million diseased pigs enters Chinese markets each year, it said, citing experts.
This is, again, standard practice in countries with little or no regulatory oversight. NON Regulation is the End Point AND Continued Goal of DE-Regulation. Anyone who supports and aggressively touts government food de-regulation is almost assuredly a greed-fueled, vested-interest asshole, shill, crazy, or all three.
Japan output logs record fall on quake, but seen rising Reuters. Excerpts:
TOKYO, April 28 (Reuters) - Japan's factory output fell at a record pace in March but manufacturers expect production to rise in coming months, a sign factories could bounce back earlier than expected as they repair supply chains following the earthquake and tsunami.
Still, capacity utilisation could remain low as companies try to save energy during an expected power supply crunch in the summer months, providing little comfort to firms abroad that rely on Japanese products.
"Heavily hit automakers are still only functioning at 50 percent of their capacity and curtailed production looks set to continue for a few more months, so it remains to be seen whether forecasts for April and May will actually be realised," said Mari Iwashita, chief market economist at SMBC Nikko Securities.
Japan economy reels from disaster impact From The Bangkok Post. Excerpts:
Japan's factory output posted a record tumble in March after a devastating earthquake and tsunami crippled supply chains and forced the nation's biggest companies to shutter plants, data showed Thursday.
In other data illustrating the emerging impact of the March 11 disasters on the world's third-biggest economy, household spending also fell by a record amount as cautious consumers held off on purchases of non-essential goods.
Many see Japan sliding into temporary recession after the disasters left around 26,000 dead or missing and devastated infrastructure and manufacturing facilities, plunging the nation into its worst crisis since World War II.
..
A 15.3 percent dive in Japan's industrial production in March on-month was the sharpest since records began in 1953, the government said Thursday.
The fall was worse than the previous record drop of 8.6 percent in February 2009..
..
Japan's biggest recorded quake and the tsunami it unleashed shattered supply chains and crippled electricity-generating facilities, including a nuclear power plant at the centre of an ongoing atomic emergency.
Many key component manufacturers are based in the worst-hit regions and suffered damage to their facilities..
..
While the government said it expected production to increase in April and May, analysts warned that Japan's output would continue to be compromised. "Delays in parts deliveries remain quite severe. The pace of production recovery is expected to be very slow until summer," said Murakami.
..
In separate data, Japanese household spending plunged by 8.5 percent in March from a year earlier in the biggest drop since records began in 1964.
..
Spending by wage-earning households tumbled by 11.0 percent following a 0.7 percent drop in February, also a record fall, the ministry said. (If I'm understanding correctly, February held the previous negative growth record of 0.7 percent. Then March happened..)
Fukushima radiation levels 15,000% higher than first reported Op-Ed News. Excerpts:
Japan has admitted that radiation levels from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant reactors are much higher than originally reported. It seems that someone "accidentally' put the decimal point in the wrong place (0.69 instead of 6.90).
..
We have been led to believe, by the authorities and mainstream media, that radiation levels in Japan were still within safety limits, although it was found necessary to increase the legal limits of radiation exposure to achieve this result.
Just a week ago we were informed that radiation levels detected by robots (in the damaged reactors) were between 49 and 57 millisieverts per hour. The limit of exposure for emergency workers in Japan is 250 millisieverts a year, which means they would exceed safety limits within just a few hours.
..
It is difficult to place too much trust in the authorities when they increase the legal limits of radiation exposure to suit themselves, or have much faith in the EPA when they withdraw many of their radiation monitors (in places like California, Oregon and Washington ), because the readings "seemed too high". Could it be because the radiation levels WERE too high?
Radioactive Strontium Found in Hilo, Hawaii Milk Forbes(!). Excerpts:
A radioactive isotope of strontium has been detected in American milk for the first time since Japan’s nuclear disaster—in a sample from Hilo, Hawaii—the Environmental Protection Agency revealed yesterday.
“We have completed our first strontium milk sample analysis and found trace amounts of strontium-89 in a milk sample from Hilo, Hawaii. The level was approximately 27,000 times below the Derived Intervention Level set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” EPA said in a statement emailed to me yesterday afternoon. EPA posted the test result at epa.gov in a pdf.
EPA found 1.4 picoCuries per liter of strontium-89 in a milk sample collected in Hilo on April 4.
Although the EPA tests milk, the FDA regulates it, and the FDA’s Derived Intervention Level—the standard observed for food—is 4,400 pCi/L for strontium-90. I’m working to confirm whether FDA has a separate DIL for Sr-89.
The EPA’s Maximum Contamination Level for Sr-89 in drinking water is 20 pCi/L. (For more on the difference between EPA and FDA standards, see “Why Does FDA Tolerate More Radiation Than EPA?“)
Your answer to that question? From the article..
..FDA’s Derived Intervention Limits are not radioactive exposure limits. In the FDA’s own words:
FDA has set Derived Intervention Levels for foods prepared for consumption. These levels do not define a safe or unsafe level of exposure, but instead a level at which protective measures would be recommended to ensure that no one receives a significant dose.
via FDA Public Health Focus > Radiation Safety.
In other words, the FDA’s DIL is set at the point at which a single liter of milk is so radioactive, you should take protective action. (Do you get that? What if you drink more than one liter?)
The number itself is conservatively estimated, with children and the elderly and our most vulnerable citizens in mind—but in practice, the DIL is more a commercial level than an exposure-safety level: DILs are recognized internationally as the level above which foods are unfit for sale or trade.
The EPA’s MCL Goal, by contrast, is “the level of a contaminant in drinking water below which there is no known or expected risk to health.”
And:
EPA’s mandate is to protect public health while avoiding a “significant economic impact” to industry. If EPA finds high levels of radionuclides in a municipal drinking water system, the water can be cleaned relatively cheaply. Depending on the specific contaminant, the water can be treated with reverse osmosis, activated carbon, ion exchange, or better: all three.
If FDA finds high levels of radionuclides in milk, that milk can’t go to market. That cow can’t be implemented with a treatment system. And that dairy farmer faces a significant economic impact.
So the FDA observes a much more tolerant standard, and the impact is transferred to those theoretical two people in 10,ooo.
Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update Log From the IAEA.
Reactor Flooding Effort Proceeds at Japan Reactor Global Security Newswire, via Rense. Excerpts:
The operator of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was set on Wednesday to more than double insertion of water into the facility's No. 1 reactor as a step toward determining whether to fully flood the ailing system, the Mainichi Daily News reported.
Tokyo Electric Power has already started pumping additional water into the reactor's outer containment vessel, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The company was expected on Monday to investigate whether water was escaping through a suspected rupture in the containment vessel, according to an earlier report. The firm said it would use cement to patch ruptures in the No. 2 reactor containment vessel and potential additional compromised containers to prevent liquid from escaping.
The plant operator intends to completely flood the containment vessels of multiple plant reactors in a process referred to as "water entombment." The firm ultimately aims to achieve the cold shutdown of all reactors at the facility, minimizing the likelihood of significant radioactive contaminant releases..
Egypt gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan explodes BBC. Found it on Godlike Productions.
"An unknown armed gang attacked the gas pipeline," an unnamed security source told Reuters, adding that the flow of gas to Israel and Jordan had been hit.
No letup in Syrian crackdown on protesters Arab News. Excerpts:
Residents of the southern Syrian city of Daraa braved sniper fire Tuesday to pull the bullet-riddled bodies of the dead from the streets and hide them from security forces, a day after a brutal government crackdown on the popular revolt against President Bashar Assad, witnesses said.
As heavy gunfire reverberated through Daraa, a Syrian human rights group said authorities detained dozens of people across the country, mainly in several Damascus suburbs, including the town of Douma and in the northern coastal city of Jableh.
A relentless crackdown since mid-March has killed more than 400 people across Syria, with 120 dead over the weekend, rights groups said. That has only emboldened protesters who started their revolt with calls for modest reforms but are now increasingly demanding Assad’s downfall.
Trying To Make Sense Of The Arab Spring The Moderate Voice. Excerpts:
* The big story is the feeling of empowerment that has swept the region. Arabs of all backgrounds now demand to be heard. This is primarily because of Al-Jazeera and social media.
* The dramatic three-week uprising in Egypt that culminated with the fall of Hosni Mubarak is, taking the most optimistic point of view, only the end of the beginning. The same applies to other countries where there have been successes.
* The need for a vigorous American public diplomacy has never been greater, but many of the very Republicans who excoriate the White House and State Department for its diplomatic efforts want to dramatically slash funding for such efforts.
* The sense of stalemate is palpable in much of the region, which makes it even more important that there be a clear U.S. policy and that it be hewed to for the long-haul. That, of course, has to include Israel, Palestine and Iran.
Yemen Parties to Meet in Saudi Arabia to Sign Accord for Saleh Departure
Yemeni opposition and ruling party officials will sign an accord for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down within 30 days and guarantee him immunity, said Mohammed Basendwah, head of the Preparatory Committee for National Dialogue.
The agreement, brokered by ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, will be signed early next week in Saudi Arabia, Basendwah said in a telephone interview from Sana’a. His committee, created in 2008 to help navigate an earlier political crisis, includes opposition, business and regional leaders. The accord came as anti-government protesters clashed with police today in two Yemeni cities.
..
GCC officials are seeking to avert an escalation of the violence in Yemen or a deadly military divide like the one in Libya. Rising social unrest also threatens to strengthen al- Qaeda as it seeks to use Yemen, the poorest Arab nation, as a base from which to destabilize neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil.
This isn't good.. Bahrain expels Iranian diplomat as ties worsen
Bahrain ordered an Iranian diplomat to leave the island kingdom as ties between the two nations worsen and tensions rise between the Shiite powerhouse and Sunni Arab states in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
The state-owned Bahrain News Agency reported late Monday that Hujatullah Rahmani, the second secretary at the Iranian Embassy in Manama, was declared persona non grata and ordered out within 72 hours.
Bahrain’s king declared martial law last month and invited about 1,500 Saudi-led troops from Gulf neighbors to help contain a Shiite uprising that Sunni leaders around the Middle East believe could open the way for greater influence by Iran.
..
Opposition leaders in Bahrain have repeatedly denied Iran’s role in a wave of demonstrations and sit-ins by Bahrain’s Shiite majority demanding greater political freedoms and equal rights.
Son of Stuxnet meet the World, World, this is Son of Stuxnet.. From Reuters, via Fark.
Iran has been targeted by a second computer virus in a "cyber war" waged by its enemies, its commander of civil defense said on Monday.
Gholamreza Jalali told the semi-official Mehr news agency that the new virus, called "Stars," was being investigated by experts.
"Fortunately, our young experts have been able to discover this virus and the Stars virus is now in the laboratory for more investigations," Jalali was quoted as saying. He did not specify the target of Stars or its intended impact.
"The particular characteristics of the Stars virus have been discovered," Jalali said. "The virus is congruous and harmonious with the (computer) system and in the initial phase it does minor damage and might be mistaken for some executive files of government organisations."
An observation here.. If Iran continues to stay tight-lipped about what they know regarding Stars, it means either it's having a severe impact on their operating systems, and they're going to let the perpetrators expose themselves by tracking where the leaks originate. The Cyber War is well underway..
Health risks numerous near nuclear plant Found it on Rense. Excerpts:
Some experts believe the Fukushima crisis is more serious than that resulting from an explosion at Ukraine's Chernobyl power plant 25 years ago, the Mainichi Daily News reported Monday.
"It's graver than Chernobyl in that no one can predict how the situation will develop," said Atsushi Kasai, a former senior researcher with the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute.
Global Considerations/Implications
Japanese crisis prompts China's nuke law draft People's Daily Online. Excerpts:
The drafting of a nuclear energy law is high on the State Council's legislation agenda for this year as people raise questions about the safety of reactors following the nuclear crisis in Japan.
Work on the legislation is being seen as more "urgent" than it has been at any time since such a law was first proposed by the former premier Li Peng in 1984 as China started to plan its first civilian nuclear reactor, said an industry insider.
..
Similar attempts were dropped twice, in 1984 and 2008, mainly due to differences of opinion between administrative bodies and lawmakers.
"However, the central government noticed the urgency and necessity this time after four experts submitted a plea requiring the drafting of the law in the wake of the Japanese incident," Zheng said, referring to the leak of nuclear material from the Fukushima nuclear power plant following the earthquake off Japan on March 11.
Earthquake risk clouds Paducah's nuclear future And it goddamn well should! If we're not smart enough to NOT put a(nother!) nuclear plant in a historically catastrophic seismic zone, we really don't deserve to continue on, now do we?
Japan’s nuclear crisis far from over World Socialist Web Site. Excerpts:
The problems associated with units 1, 2 and 3 are more complex. Last week, robots sent into the reactor buildings recorded radiation levels of up to 57 millisieverts an hour in unit 1 and 49 millisieverts an hour in unit 3. Hidehiko Nishiyama, spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), told the press that these levels were too high to allow workers to enter. Japan has set an annual exposure limit at 250 millisieverts, raised from 100 at the beginning of the crisis.
Attempts by a robot to enter the building of unit 2, where radiations levels are believed to be higher, were hampered by steam which fogged its camera. The steam is being produced by water fed by emergency lines into the reactor’s hot core.
..
TEPCO’s optimistic estimate of six to nine months to stabilise the reactors is driven as much by political and commercial considerations, as technical ones. The energy giant as well as the nuclear regulator, NISA, and the Kan government all confront suspicion and hostility over their handling of the nuclear crisis. TEPCO is notorious for its long record of neglect and cover-up on safety issues.
At the press conference last week, former Fukushima Governor Eisako Sato, a supporter of nuclear power turned critic, explained that 21 problems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had been reported to his office between 2002 and 2006. The whistle blowers came directly to the Fukushima prefecture rather than to NISA because of the nuclear agency’s close relations with TEPCO.
Sato was forced to step down in 2006 over bribery allegations, which he claimed were politically motivated. “Those who say nuclear power is dangerous, like myself, are treated as state enemies,” he told Tokyo’s Foreign Journalists Club. “This is a truly terrifying logic, is it not? Whoever it may be, be it a Diet member or governor, no one has been able to fight such logic so far.”
Japan: TEPCO floods containment vessels of 3 reactors at Fukushima No. 1 This probably won't end well, either. Excerpt:
In Japan, Tokyo Electric Power Co. workers have begun "the unprecedented and potentially risky measure" of flooding the containment vessels of three troubled Fukushima nuclear reactors with water. The Asahi Shimbun reports that this is the first known attempt ever in the world to saturate an entire containment vessel with water in order to cool the pressure vessels inside, and in turn, cool the reactor cores within.
With 12,000 Still Missing, Japan Keeps Searching From The Irrawaddy. Excerpts:
SHICHIGAHAMAMACHI, Japan — A line of somber soldiers walked methodically through a drained swamp Monday, with each step sinking their slender poles into the muck beneath.
If one hit a body, he would know.
"Bodies feel very distinctive," said Michihiro Ose, a spokesman for the Japanese army's 22nd infantry regiment.
The men were among 25,000 troops given the morbid duty of searching the rubble, the seas and the swamps of northeastern Japan for the bodies of the nearly 12,000 people still missing in last month's earthquake and tsunami.
Japan’s Terrifying Day Saw Unprecedented Blown Roof Expose Tepco Fuel Rods Bloomberg. Excerpts:
Makoto Nagai was sitting in his third-floor office at 2:46 p.m. on March 11 when the earthquake alarm buzzed. An orange LCD screen flashed 100 and 4, telling him the number of seconds before a category 4 quake would hit the city of Sendai on Japan’s northeast coast.
The intensity warning quickly jumped to 6, said Nagai, 55, head of the emergency response team in Sendai, located 129 kilometers (80 miles) west of the epicenter of what became the strongest quake in Japan’s recorded history.
..
Interviews with Tokyo Electric Power Co. engineers, technicians and contract workers who were at the company’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant on March 11 or handled the disaster response show how the facility stood up to the quake, only to fail when the tsunami that followed found a way through its engineering defenses.
..
The Fukushima Dai-Ichi station had 6,415 people on site that day. More than 5,500, like Matsumoto and Imamura, were subcontractors who reported to their clusters of offices in the plant for a head count.
As Tokyo Electric compiled the numbers, officials found that 6,413 staffers were safe and accounted for. Two Tokyo Electric employees were missing.
At this point, the crisis appeared contained. While roads inside the site had buckled and windows were shattered, the six reactor buildings, reinforced concrete and steel boxes as high as 56 meters, had withstood the earthquake.
..
..the quake knocked out a transformer station about 10 kilometers away, severing the utility’s connection to the electricity grid and the power needed to keep reactor cooling systems operating. It would be another hour before events conspired to make the name Fukushima synonymous with the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
And:
As Yoshida’s Tepco engineers fanned out to control rooms to check for earthquake damage and monitor procedures as the reactors shut down, 25 kilometers up the coast in Minami Soma, Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai was realizing the earthquake was only part of the unfolding disaster.
Sakurai had raced to the fifth-floor rooftop of the government office, one of the highest in the city of 70,000 people. He looked toward the sea and saw what looked like a wall of sand pummeling and splintering through rows of houses and bellowing clouds of smoke and dust.
“In those first moments we couldn’t comprehend what we were seeing,” Sakurai, 55, said. The tsunami he was witnessing surged 2.4 kilometers inland, swallowing everyone in its path. Almost 1,500 town residents were killed or are listed as missing, out of a national toll exceeding 26,000.
That's the set-up. The whole cascading failures are detailed at the link.
1:06 a.m. Central, April 25: $48.84 Kitco chart via Urban Survival.
China Proposes To Cut Two Thirds Of Its $3 Trillion In USD Holdings The ripple effect of even reporting this will cause all commodities to surge, gold included, but especially silver. Excerpts:
All those who were hoping global stock markets would surge tomorrow based on a ridiculous rumor that China would revalue the CNY by 10% will have to wait. Instead, China has decided to serve the world another surprise. Following last week's announcement by PBoC Governor Zhou (Where's Waldo) Xiaochuan that the country's excessive stockpile of USD reserves has to be urgently diversified, today we get a sense of just how big the upcoming Chinese defection from the "buy US debt" Nash equilibrium will be. Not surprisingly, China appears to be getting ready to cut its USD reserves by roughly the amount of dollars that was recently printed by the Fed, or $2 trilion or so. And to think that this comes just as news that the Japanese pension fund will soon be dumping who knows what. So, once again, how about that "end of QE" again?
..
While China is certainly tired of recycling US Dollars, it still has no viable alternative, especially as long as its own currency is relegated to the C-grade of not even SDR-backing currencies. But that will all change very soon. Once the push for broad Chinese currency acceptance is in play, the CNY and the USD will be unpegged, promptly followed by China dumping the bulk of its USD exposure, and also sending the world a message that US debt is no longer a viable investment opportunity.
And from there, for the Dollar, it's nowhere but down. And metals will be where?
2011 had been more turbulent in January/February, silver making significant gains, then giving most of them up. April has been consistently upward, prices gaining momentum, no end in sight. Economically, this could be an historic week. Is this "The Week It All Goes Down?" Pay attention now.. Things could start moving a lot faster..
WIKILEAKS: 7 SHOCKING GITMO REVELATIONS From Raw Story. Excerpt:
A massive leak of more than 700 military documents, attributed to infamous transparency group WikiLeaks, was released Sunday night. Much of the new information deals with detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, records that begin immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks and range to 2009, including documents relating to 172 prisoners still held at the controversial detention facility.
Scariest two:
Officials aren't sure what they're doing. In 704 leaked documents assessing detainees, the word "possibly" appears 387 times, “unknown” 188 times and “deceptive” 85 times. Two conflicting committees from the Department of Defense worked at the facility and clashed frequently over how to classify prisoners' threat levels and the quality of information they shared.
Officials noted that information from some unstable prisoners may be faulty or untrue, but used it anyway. Yasim Mohammed Basardah, a detainee who gave information about 60 other prisoners, was noted as being unreliable, and his file stressed that information he shared should be independently verified. However, he was also given a "high" intelligence value, and his threat level was lowered from high to medium in exchange for his cooperation. He was resettled in Europe in 2010. According to the documents, eight prisoners have revealed information about 235 others.
Inherent Systemic Confusion coupled with Equally Weighted Information/Disinformation. How could it NOT succeed?
Wiki-Related: Is the web waging war on super-injunctions?
Spring 2011 extreme weather going nuts: Tornadoes off the charts, wildfires rage, floods loom
The bi-polar weather is a manifestation of an amped up jet stream, fueled by this spring’s moderate La Nina. Weather Nation meteorologist Paul Douglas told Discovery Magazine that jet stream winds are as strong as he can remember during April.
The jet, relentlessly surging south through the Midwest, has set up a volatile transition zone east of the Great Plains extending across the mid- South and Tennessee Valleys, occasionally reaching the Southeast. In this transition zone, where cold, dry air has persistently done battle with warm, moist air, seldom a day goes by without explosive, rotating thunderstorm development.
As discussed Tuesday, the U.S. is on pace for its most active tornado season on record, ahead of 2008. And next week, AccuWeather’s Henry Margusity predicts “an insane outbreak of severe weather”.
“Given the pattern next week, I can see 100-200 tornadoes over a four-day period starting Monday,” Margusity wrote.
No deaths in St. Louis tornado called a miracle
The St. Louis area’s most powerful tornado in 44 years rips into an airport and through a densely populated suburban area, destroying up to 100 homes, shattering hundreds of panes of glass at the main terminal and blowing a shuttle bus on top of a roof. Yet no one is killed, or even seriously hurt, and the airport reopens less than 24 hours later. How? (Their short answer? Jesus.)
..
The tornado peaked at an EF-4 level, second-highest on the Enhanced Fujita scale, packing winds of up to 200 mph, National Weather Service meteorologist Wes Browning said. It was the most powerful twister in metropolitan St. Louis since 1967 — and eerily, it followed a path similar to that of the earlier tornado.
..
Entire subdivisions were destroyed. Cars were tossed about like toys, roofs tossed hundreds of yards and 100-year-old trees sucked out by the roots. Gov. Jay Nixon said 750 St. Louis-area homes were damaged, with up to 100 of them uninhabitable. The damage clearly will cost millions of dollars to repair, but a more precise estimate was unavailable Sunday.
April rain more than double the norm (HENDERSON, Ky.)
With nearly a week left in April, we've already received more than double the normal amount of rainfall for the month -- and more is in the forecast.
As of 7 a.m. Sunday, a Center Street rain gauge had recorded 10.02 inches of rain this month. That included 5.78 inches in just the previous five days, and 4.06 inches in 48 hours.
On average, the entire month of April brings 4.52 inches of rain here, based on 30 years of weather observations reported by official observer Cardinal Farms just south of Henderson.
A very bad week ahead From The Weather Channel.
At the moment and for the moment, the rain has stopped. It will resume shortly, and the worst, according to forecasts, is yet to come tomorrow. The system's severity is notable, but the real soul crushing aspect (so far) is monotony, the dull repetition of an unwanted guest who continues to return, who refuses to leave, long after its necessity or usefulness has..
Don't go away mad, Rain: Just.. Go Away.
Thousands protest nuclear plants at Tokyo rally Via Rense.
About 4,500 people have rallied in Tokyo to call for the suspension of nuclear power plants.
The demonstrators gathered at Shiba Koen in central Tokyo and adopted a resolution calling for all nuclear plants in the country to be suspended and a nuclear-free society realized.
..
The citizens' group that organized the demonstration says only about 100 people took part last year, but about 4,500 joined this year's protest, the largest in the event's history.
Something strange in the Japan Tsunami (Video) Via Rense.
Cat, monkey, super soldier.. Something seems to be hauling ass against the torrent..
Study finds wide variation in radiation levels within no-entry zone Via Rense.
A study of radiation levels within a 20-kilometer radius of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant revealed contamination levels in many locations would not currently pose a major threat to human health.
..
Of 128 locations within the 20-km zone, researchers projected that annual radiation exposure would exceed 100 millisieverts in only 17 places.
..
The worst-contaminated location had a radiation level that might expose individuals to more than 500 millisieverts in a year. But nearly half of the sample locations had radiation levels below the 20 millisieverts standard used by the central government as a guideline for issuing evacuation orders.
..
Wind direction and local topography has had a major influence on the dispersal of radioactive materials.
..
But Yoshiya Shimada, a project leader on medical radiation research at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences, said: "There is almost no risk of cancer if the radiation exposure level is about 20 millisieverts. For the elderly, the stress from living as an evacuee will have a much greater impact on their health than the risks from radiation exposure. Rather than look just at radiation levels, a more flexible response should be adopted in the future taking into account social, economic and psychological factors."
Two points: Again, ANY exposure to radioactivity is bad and cumulative. And second, wind currents can change. If I were a gambler, I'd bet, due to increasing pressure, the Japanese government will eventually allow evacuees to return to their homes based on data that is subject to fluctuation. Since I am not faced with this situation, I will not pass judgement on either the government for bowing to what will be increasing pressure to return, or for evacuees wanting to return home. There is no good way forward, and how those involved proceed will be up to them. I don't envy their choices..
Radiation Expert: "Sr-90 and Uranium and Particulates Will Be Building Up in the USA and Europe ... For Now I Think It Prudent To Stop Drinking Milk" From Washington's Blog. If you haven't already, bookmark that site. Every visit is worthwhile..
No obvious change detected in radiation levels in China
No obvious change had been found in the levels of radioactive material in the environment and food samples on the Chinese mainland, said China's National Nuclear Emergency Coordination Committee Sunday in a daily notice.
A sample survey indicated no abnormality in drinking water, and monitoring results showed that radiation levels in the ocean and air also remained normal, it said.
Hollow re-assurance, or small comfort?
Japan's TEPCO to use gas to offset nuke power loss
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the world's largest private electricity company, said Friday it plans to install gas turbines at two thermal power plants to partially offset power shortages caused by the loss of generating capacity at disaster-stricken power plants.
TEPCO, the main power supplier to the Tokyo region, said the new turbines would boost its capacity to between 50 million and 52 million kilowatts, still well below the nearly 60 million kilowatts of power consumed during peak hot weather days last summer.
The company, which is struggling to stabilize conditions in tsunami-flooded reactors at one of its nuclear plants, earlier said it would only be able to provide 46 million kilowatts of capacity.
..
In March, TEPCO imposed limited power rationing to help meet initial shortfalls but suspended the power cuts after finding it was able to meet relatively slack demand due to mild weather and emergency conservation measures such as reduced train schedules.
Dealing with Japan's disaster: The information equation
Like America's 9/11, Japan's 3/11 saw the wireless voice network fail under congestion, while emails and text messages passed through easily. Mobiles sometimes worked when blackouts kept everyone in the dark. Communications and information were as much a lifeline as electricity and water. On 9/11 CNN reduced its homepage to basic HTML text so that it would fit into a single Internet Protocol packet, making it easier for the server and the network to deliver. Likewise, after 3/11 Google distributed its information about blackouts to caches across the network so it would be retrievable even if the actual servers went dark.
Posts
