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Japan's Tsunami: The First 24 Hours Worse than the conspiracy theorists imagined, goddamnit..
Japan trudges into power-save mode as summer looms
This is the First Televised Report of What's Happening at the Fukushima Plant that We've Seen in a While: Workers Apologizing! Video from Al-Jazeera via Before It's News.
Japanese Cancer Expert on the Fukushima Situatio Japan Focus via Rense. Excerpts:
Japan's leading business journal Toyo Keizai has published an article by Hokkaido Cancer Center director Nishio Masamichi, a radiation treatment specialist. The piece, entitled “The Problem of Radiation Exposure Countermeasures for the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Concerns for the Present Situation”, was published on June 27 and is consistent with the critical coverage of the Fukushima crisis that has appeared in independent weekly magazines, notably Shukan Kinyobi, which have taken a strong anti-nuclear stance since the March 11 earthquake-tsunami-meltdown, and have repeatedly focused on the dangers of radiation exposure while calling for far-reaching measures to protect those at risk.
Nishio begins by asserting that the Fukushima crisis has caused Japan’s “myth of nuclear safety” to crumble. He has “grave concern” for the public health effects of the ongoing radiation leak.
Nishio originally called for “calm” in the days after the accident. Now, he argues, that as the gravity of the situation at the plant has become more clear, the specter of long-term radiation exposure must be reckoned with.
The Reckoning has already begun, and will continue to manifest, becoming clearer and more horrible, over the coming weeks and months. The Bombardment continues..
Fukushima - The End of the West as We Know It Jeff Rense and Tim Rifat via Alien Earth.
Magnitude 5.4 quake hits central Japan, 7 injured
Radiation in Our Food Fucking Fox News via Rense. Ugh..
Even as thousands of Japanese workers struggle to contain the ongoing nuclear disaster, low levels of radiation from those power plants have been detected in foods in the United States. Milk, fruits and vegetables show trace amounts of radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima Daichi power plants, and the media appears to be paying scant attention, if any attention at all. (Really? Poor little Number One Fox News is incapable of getting this story out.. It's as if Fox was only able to Critique other media, and had no power of Dissemination of their own. Poor, poor Rupert..) It is as if the problem only involves Japan, not the vast Pacific Ocean, into which highly radioactive water has poured by the dozens of tons, and not into air currents and rainwater that carry radiation to U.S. soil and to the rest of the world. And while both Switzerland and Germany have come out against any further nuclear development, the U.S. the nuclear power industry continues as usual, with aging and crumbling power plants receiving extended operating licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as though it can’t happen here. But it is happening here, on your dinner plate.
Troubling radiation measurement results for residents near Fukushima From IO9. Excerpts:
Recent measurements on dosimeters and urine tests have indicated that it may be time for certain residents to make some difficult decisions about leaving the area.
Fifteen residents near Fukushima have had urine tests that have revealed traces of radioactive Iodine-131. This isotope of Iodine has a half-life of 8 days, so it does not pose a long-term threat as long as it is not ingested. Inside the body, the isotope accumulates in the thyroid. After Chernobyl, many nearby victims developed thyroid cancer as a result of drinking contaminated milk. Just after the emergency at Fukushima, the Japanese government distributed iodine tablets. The tablets were of a non-radioactive isotope of iodine that was meant to saturate the thyroid and prevent any more uptake of radioactive elements. It seems that, at least in a few cases, the radioactive isotopes were not entirely blocked.
Pacific concern over radiation spread Australia Network News. This and previous via Godlike Productions.
The Pacific Disaster Centre says the revelation that the contamination from Japan's earthquake crippled nuclear power plant will be more widespread than previously thought is a big concern.
It says nuclear monitoring should be set up across the region to assess the risk.
Japan's Atomic Energy Agency says radioactive caesium leaking from the Fukushima nuclear plant will spread 4,000 kilometres through the Pacific Ocean in the next year and reach Hawaii in three years.
And finally, some good news: Just kidding! Another reactor at another plant is still in serious trouble.. Japan's 'most dangerous reactor' severely damaged, could become worse than Fukushima Natural News via Before It's News. Excerpts:
The Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor, located directly over an earthquake fault line near Tsuruga, Japan, lies on the opposite coast of Japan's crippled Fukushima plant. Last August, a 3.3-ton fuel relay device broke and fell off into the reactor's inner core, which severed access to its plutonium and uranium fuel rods. Experts have repeatedly tried to remove the device and fix the damage, but all efforts thus far have failed.
The Monju plant had also been shut down for 14 years following a massive fire in 1995, a nuclear accident that was considered to be the worst one Japan had ever seen, that is until the devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Fukushima back in March. Monju has basically been plagued with problems since it was first built, and because it is "fast-breeder" design, it has the potential to become far worse than Fukushima in the event of another major disaster.
According to Hideyuki Ban, co-director of the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (CNIC), a Japanese nuclear public interest group, the Monju reactor uses highly deadly plutonium fuel, and even if officials do even up effectively removing the lodged fuel device and fixing the damage, restarting the plant could be catastrophic.
"Let's say they make this fix, which is very complicated," said Ban to the NYT. "The rest of the reactor remains highly dangerous. And an accident at Monju would have catastrophic consequences beyond what we are seeing at Fukushima." The plant is also located right on a major fault line, which makes the situation even more precarious.
Special report: Japan's "throwaway" nuclear workers Reuters. Excerpts:
A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis. Then, as now, a small army of transient workers was put to work to try to stem the damage at the oldest nuclear reactor run by Japan's largest utility.
At the time, workers were racing to finish an unprecedented repair to address a dangerous defect: cracks in the drum-like steel assembly known as the "shroud" surrounding the radioactive core of the reactor.
But in 1997, the effort to save the 21-year-old reactor from being scrapped at a large loss to its operator, Tokyo Electric, also included a quiet effort to skirt Japan's safety rules: foreign workers were brought in for the most dangerous jobs, a manager of the project said.
"It's not well known, but I know what happened," Kazunori Fujii, who managed part of the shroud replacement in 1997, told Reuters. "What we did would not have been allowed under Japanese safety standards."
Aww shit: Radioactive water leaks from Japan's damaged plant Reuters: Excerpts:
About 15 metric tons of water with a low level of radiation (How much radiation? "A. Low. Level.")leaked from a storage tank at the plant on the Pacific coast, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said it was investigating the cause of the leak which was later repaired. (Feel better now?)
Vast amounts of water contaminated with varying levels of radiation have accumulated in storage tanks at the plant after being used to cool reactors damaged when their original cooling systems were knocked out by the March 11 disaster.
Dealing with that radioactive water has been a major problem for Tepco..
#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: New and Improved Reactor Cooling System Using Treated Water Shuts Down After 1.5 Hour of Operation From Ex-SKF, via Rense.
Yes, yes it is a big system, which should have been carefully prepared and tested for at least one or two years and they did it in 2 months.
A leak was found on a joint of PVC pipes that transport the treated water.In earlier Yomiuri article, 4 kilometer long PVC pipes feed the treated water to the reactors, and TEPCO people were worried about the leak all along.
I guess they were too preoccupied with Kurion's zeolite vessels (which require frequent change and system downtime) and didn't have time to test the 4 kilometer long network of PVC pipes.
#Radiation in Japan: Government Wants to Offer Japan's Seafood to Developing Nations Ex-SKF.
As part of the ODA (Official Development Assistance) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a host of aid programs for developing nations around the world, the Japanese national government is going to buy up processed seafood [canned fish, for example?] from the earthquake-affected areas and offered them to developing nations.
And:
Please keep in mind that this is what the national government (and probably the prefectural governments in Tohoku) wants, and not the fishermen themselves. I'm sure some fishermen will be all for it, but others won't be, as I've read about them who simply stopped fishing when they become aware that the fish were contaminated with radioactive materials.
Boric acid being added to No.3 reactor fuel pool Video/Article courtesy of NHKa via Rense. Excerpts:
Tokyo Electric Power Company has begun adding boric acid to the spent fuel storage pool of the No.3 reactor at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to prevent fuel racks from being corroded by alkaline water.
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Last month, TEPCO found that the water in the pool had turned strongly alkaline, with its PH level reaching 11.2. The leaching of calcium hydrate from the debris is believed to be the cause.
I'm guessing that if more people were involved in the Fukushima cleanup operation, this project would have started last month sometime. It really is amazing(in the worst sort of way) that so few people, no matter their level of dedication, are charged with such a large, life-in-the-balance task, don't you think? Our collective personal, environmental, and planetary health and safety rests in the hands of less than 2000 people, working day and night, with no guarantee of success. To reiterate, there are no guarantees of success, and global catastrophe waits behind the Other Door..
TEPCO - Disaster in Slow Motion From Rense. Excerpts:
Earlier this week, TEPCO tried to fill the reactor 2 containment with water. That didn't work. So, they OPENED the containment and released BILLIONS of lethal doses of radiation. Now they are wondering whether there is any water left in the bottom of the containment. Let's help them. Since the bottom of the reactor is hot enough to melt concrete, and IS melting concrete, and no steam is coming out of the reactor, here's why:
The core of Reactor 2 is still in at least intermittent fission and has melted through the bottom of the containment. . So there is no water in the bottom of the reactor.
Now they are going to pump liquid nitrogen into the core of reactor 2.
Click the link. This would be funny if it weren't horrifying..
Coming to a Store Near You: Radioactive Fish?
Fukushima Prefecture Starts Long-Term Health Monitoring From Before It's News. Excerpts:
Ten residents from a town considered a radiation hot-spot were given internal body exams to see how much radiation they had absorbed, according to the Japan Times.
The prefecture plans to give the internal exams to a sampling of around 100 people from hot-spots as part of a preliminary study, which will be used to prepare for a wider study of Fukushima residents that could last up to 30 years, according to Asahi newspaper. Roughly 2 million people live in the prefecture.
The data gathered from the health checks is expected to help doctors better understand the long-term effects of radiation exposure on the human body, according to the Times.
Dilution of radioactive materials at sea is no solution to nuke-plant crisis Mainichi Daily News via Godlike Productions. Excerpts:
There is a feeling in the government that it is shoving the handling of the unprecedented nuclear crisis into the hands of TEPCO, a private company. The government therefore has a weak spot that forces it to listen when TEPCO comes crying about measures to prop up its share prices.
Why can the two sides only form a response marked by indecisiveness and reliance on each other as Japan faces this unprecedented crisis? I think it is because the problem is too big, and they can't grasp how far it is spreading and how serious it is..
Suicides upping casualties from Tohoku catastrophe Japan Times, via Rense. Excerpts:
The link between depression and suicide is well documented, particularly in Japan, where depression has been shown to be a major suicide trigger.
Concerns about the possibility of survivors turning to such extreme measures is based partly on Japan's overall suicide rate, which according to the World Health Organization is the highest among developed nations. Suicides in May for the whole nation were 20 percent higher than a year before, according to National Police Agency figures, and experts believe the total for 2011 could surpass 30,000 for the 14th straight year.
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"Survivors, especially those in shelters and temporary accommodations, are at risk of becoming exhausted and depressed, and over time this could lead to clinical depression brought about by the perceived hopelessness of their situation," said Cho, author of the book "Hito wa Naze Jisatsusuru no ka" ("Why Do People Commit Suicide?"). "This would further increase the risk of suicide."
This is especially true of residents in Fukushima Prefecture who have been severely affected by the radiation scare, he added. "Many farmers have lost everything and while the radiation issue remains unresolved they can't predict what the future holds."
Radioactive Dust From Japan Hit North America Days After Disaster ... But Governments "Lied" About Meltdowns and Radiation
Thrust Faulting Of North America And Pacific Plates Rock Japan With 6.7 Earthquake From Before It's News. Excerpts:
A magnitude 6.7earthquake rocked Japan today, the 75th aftershock of at least magnitude 6.0 from the devastating magnitude 9.0 quake on March 11, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The earthquake data is preliminary and subject to revision.
Japan has been rocked by hundreds of aftershocks since the deadly Tohoku earthquake, the biggest in Japan's recorded history. The aftershocks have been so plentiful that the world's premier earthquake-measurement service has since modified its alert system to filter out the smaller aftershocks. The largest aftershock was a magnitude 7.9 quake that struck less than an hour after the main shock. A magnitude 7.7 also struck that day. A magnitude 7.1 aftershock struck on April 7.
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Since the main quake off Japan's northeastern coast, hundreds aftershocks have shaken the island of Honshu, Japan's largest and home to 100 million people. Today's aftershock was caused by thrust faulting near the Japan Trench, the boundary between the Pacific and North America tectonic plates (the huge, moving slabs of the Earth's crust). Thrust faulting happens when one tectonic plate dives under another. In this case, the Pacific plate is diving under the North America plate.
Before the magnitude 9.0 earthquake, only nine magnitude 7.0 or greater earthquakes had ruptured in this subduction zone since 1973.
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant building land on the roof of Unit 2 is a small unmanned helicopter Asahi, via Google Translate via Godlike Productions. Awkward excerpts:
US-made helicopter was flying unmanned for collecting samples for analysis of radioactive material in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (reconnaissance) has become impossible to steer, and land on the roof of the Unit 2 reactor building, and announced. Smoke is not recognized, the impact on the building is unknown. Consider using a collection of such cranes.
Unmanned helicopter is 50 cm in diameter, weighs 8 kg. Off from the power plant south of the observatory at 6:00 am May 24 at 2:34. Hover by remote control and was planning to collect air and dust near the Unit 2. It has become impossible to pilot crash-landed at about 7:00 am.
Sampling and unmanned helicopters were used to shoot in the building exploded.
Still no good news..
Tokyo area parents' radiation worries grow with discovery of local 'hotspots' The Mainichi Daily News via Rense. Excerpts:
More than three months after the Great East Japan Earthquake and the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, Tokyo region residents are becoming increasingly worried over radiation exposure as a number of radioactive "hotspots" have been discovered in and around the capital.
Local governments are calling for calm, as annual doses of radiation at the hotspots -- sites where radiation levels are significantly higher than their surroundings -- would not exceed 20 millisieverts as they do in parts of Fukushima Prefecture. Residents are nevertheless calling on their local governments to take some kind of action.
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However, even as radiation hotspot worries mount, there continues to be only one site in all of Chiba Prefecture where radiation levels are being formally monitored, drawing criticism. Local radiation tests performed at primary schools and other public spaces at the end of May revealed a 0.54 microsievert per hour radioactive hotspot at a Kashiwa park. The prefectural monitoring post some 50 kilometers south southeast of the park, meanwhile, has recorded radiation doses of only 0.08 microsieverts per hour -- a discrepancy which has stoked the fears of parents.
Meanwhile, a radiation monitoring committee formed by six cities in the northwest of Chiba Prefecture -- including Kashiwa -- also discovered a 0.65 microsievert per hour radioactive hotspot in a park in the city of Nagareyama.
Stonewalling, denial, and falsehoods. Standard Operating Procedure, right?
And now, we are done.
Japan pumps water into reactor to contain radioactivity Monsters and Critics, via Rense. Excerpts:
The radiation levels at reactor 4 have been preventing workers from entering the structure to conduct repairs.
TEPCO also began late Sunday to release air containing radioactive substances from the building of reactor 2 by opening its doors.
An estimated 1.6 billion becquerels of radioactive materials were released, compared with 500 million becquerels when the double doors of the building of reactor 1 were opened in May, the Jiji Press agency reported, citing TEPCO.
The operator denied that the releases would have an impact on the environment.
Contaminated Water Processing at #Fukushima: The Water Was Simply Too "Hot" From Ex-SKF, via Rense. Excerpts:
If Kurion's vessel absorbed enough radioactive materials in 5 hours and it should have taken 30 days, as I wrote in my previous post, the water was 144 times as radioactive as the system had anticipated.
If the water actually turns out to be 144 times as radioactive, the Fukushima accident would need a new INES category and should not be placed in the same category (Level 7) as the Chernobyl accident which released only 5.6 million terabecquerels of radioactive materials. Maybe it should be simply called "Level Fukushima".
Fukushima - The Greatest Nuclear, Environmental Disaster In History Global Research via Rense. Excerpts:
By way of comparison, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that occurred in 1986 in the Ukraine, Russia- heretofore the worst nuclear disaster on record- burned for 10 days and cumulatively killed an estimated 1 million people worldwide. The Fukushima, Japan nuclear disaster has 5 nuclear reactors burning, 2 in partial meltdown and 3 in full meltdown- and they've ALL been uncontrollably burning since March 11th. Its been over 3 months and this nuclear disaster remains completely out of control. In fact, some industry estimates cite the possibility that these meltdowns will be contained (optimistically) in 1-3 years, at the very earliest.
The amount and intensity of the radioactive fallout from this particular nuclear disaster will assuredly kill hundreds of millions of people worldwide over time. Japan itself is, of course, the epicenter of this radioactive contamination that has spread out from these reactors.
However, the Korean peninsula, China and nations immediately surrounding the Japanese archipelago will also bear the brunt of a significant amount of radioactive fallout from this disaster. Immediately downwind of this radioactive release, though, is the United States of America and the entire northern hemisphere, comprising the majority of the world's industrialized nations on Earth. Significant amounts of plutonium, strontium, cesium, uranium and a whole plethora of other highly radioactive particles have already fallen on the continental land mass of the USA and have already entered the food chains and water tables of the nation.
In a nutshell, Fukushima represents a literal catastrophe for the human species, plain and simple, there's no other way to put it..
It certainly feels as if we will all find out just how gigantic and tragic the folly of "Safe Nuclear Power" really is, really soon..
#Radiation in Japan: Nosebleed, Diarrhea, Lack of Energy in Children in Koriyama City, Fukushima Ex-SKF via Godlike Productions.
Once a malicious "baseless rumor" on the net, now it is written up in a regional newspaper with readership in Tokyo and Kanto area.
Tokyo Shinbun (paper edition only, 6/16/2011) reports that many children in Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture, 50 kilometers from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, are suffering inexplicable nosebleed, diarrhea, and lack of energy since the nuke plant accident.
Fukushima: It's much worse than you think Al Jazeera, via Godlike Productions.
"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.
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"Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed," he said, "You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively."
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Independent scientists have been monitoring the locations of radioactive "hot spots" around Japan, and their findings are disconcerting.
"We have 20 nuclear cores exposed, the fuel pools have several cores each, that is 20 times the potential to be released than Chernobyl," said Gundersen. "The data I'm seeing shows that we are finding hot spots further away than we had from Chernobyl, and the amount of radiation in many of them was the amount that caused areas to be declared no-man's-land for Chernobyl. We are seeing square kilometres being found 60 to 70 kilometres away from the reactor. You can't clean all this up. We still have radioactive wild boar in Germany, 30 years after Chernobyl."
Radiation detected in Massachusetts rainwater as Fukushima crisis worsens From The Jackz and Alexander Higgins. Excerpts:
The Fukushima crisis continues to worsen by the day, with nuclear experts around the world finally realizing and admitting we’ve all been lied to. “I think maybe the situation is much more serious than we were led to believe,” said Najmedin Meshkati of the University of Southern California, in a Reuters report (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011…). That same article revealed that recent radiation readings at Fukushima show “contamination 100,000 times normal in water at reactor No. 2 and 1,850 times normal in the nearby sea.”
Massachusetts rainwater has also been found to be contaminated with low levels of radiation from Fukushima, indicating just how widespread the radioactive fallout has become. It’s not just the West Coast of North America that’s vulnerable, in other words: even the East Coast could receive dangerous levels of fallout if Fukushima suffers a larger release of radioactive material into the air.
Japan: Tepco to build sarcophagus over Fukushima reactor The Telegraph via Rense. Excerpts:
The operator of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant has announced plans to construct a shroud over one of the reactor buildings, a stop-gap measure until a more permanent solution can be found, such as entombing the facility in concrete.
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Tokyo Electric Power Co. will start the construction of a rigid steel frame over the No. 1 reactor on June 27, Yoshikazu Nagai, a spokesman for the company, said.
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The frame, which is being put together off-site, will support polyester fibre panels that have been coated with a resin designed to prevent further radiation leaking into the atmosphere.
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Eventually, Tepco plans to erect a concrete structure around the reactors, although it admits that will take several years to achieve.
Fukushima In Apocalyptic Spiral Downward From Before It's News. Excerpts:
Fukushima may be in an apocalyptic downward spiral.
Forget the corporate-induced media coma that says otherwise ... or nothing at all.
Lethal radiation is spewing unabated. Emission levels could seriously escalate. There is no end in
sight. The potential is many times worse than Chernobyl.
Containing this disaster may be beyond the abilities of Tokyo Electric or the Japanese government.
There is no reason to incur further unnecessary risk. With all needed resources, it's time for the world's best scientists and engineers to take charge.
Even then the outcome is unclear.
For a brief but terrifying overview, consult Dr. Chris Busby as interviewed by RT/TV
David McNeill: Who's telling the truth on the Fukushima meltdown? CNN via Rense. Excerpts:
A string of autopsies -- political, regulatory and technological -- loom over the corpse of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The media, however, has already begun its self-examination and it’s not a pretty picture.
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One of the more striking aspects of the local media coverage of Fukushima was the missing word -- “meltdown.” It seemed reasonable to speculate, from March 11-15, that this is precisely what happened.
One reason was the repeated news of cesium dispersed in the atmosphere on March 12.
Haruki Madarame, the Chair of the Nuclear Safety Commission now says he concluded very early on that meltdown had happened, and informed the government. Former Washington TBS Bureau Chief Toyohiro Akiyama, who has a farm in Fukushima, made a similar assessment and fled in his car to Gunma.
“There was a blackout in the media of the word,” he says in an interview this month with the Foreign Correspondents’ Club magazine, “No.1 Shimbun.” In April the head of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, Takashi Sawada, also said that fuel rods in reactors 1 and 3 had melted. Yet, it took over two months for newspapers and TV here to begin using the word. Why?
Japan’s press club system means the big newspapers and TV companies channel and amplify information directly from the government, TEPCO and The Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency. That meant they were admirably disciplined, descriptive, somber and focused on the facts.
They were also discouraged from speculating on what might be going on inside the stricken plant, although many reporters must have privately concluded the worst.
Some will argue that Japanese reporters had a heavy responsibility to avoid creating panic in the world’s most populated metropolis. Twenty-eight million people rushing for the highways, airports and train stations might have caused more deaths than radiation.
But does this responsibility mean simply not exaggerating, or does it also include concealing or delaying information or even outright deception?
As the Nuclear Safety Agency warned on March 12 that metal containers of uranium fuel inside Reactor 1 had probably started melting, University of Tokyo Professor Naoto Sekimura repeatedly popped up on TV to wave away our concerns.
“Only a small part of the fuel may have melted and leaked outside,” he said. Residents near the power station should “stay calm,” because “most of the fuel remains inside the reactor, which has stopped operating and is being cooled.”
How could Professor Sekimura have possibly known what he was saying, and shouldn’t that broadcaster have balanced his (clearly wrong) assessment with an opposite view. Or was that risking panic?
Readers will have to ask themselves how they feel about being kept in the dark “for their own good.”
Dr Iven Mareels - "Engineers Likely Understood Containment Breached Immediately" - "Why is Spent Fuel Still In Reactor 4 SFP?" From Before It's News
Over thirty-five years ago, three engineers working at General Electric resigned from their positions after reviewing the designs for the Mark 1 Reactor, and realizing it was so flawed that disaster was sure to follow. Five of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant are GE Mark 1s.
In an interview with ABC News, Dale Bridenbaugh, one of the GE engineers who resigned talked about the Mark 1 design. “The problems we identified in 1975 were that, in doing the design of the containment, they did not take into account the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant. The impact loads the containment would receive by this very rapid release of energy could tear the containment apart and create an uncontrolled release.”
Footage of Fukushima No.3 reactor released Video from NHK, via Rense.
Tokyo Electric Power Company has released video footage taken last week of Number 3 reactor at its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
The video shows workers wearing protective suits enter the building through a cargo entrance. The roof of the facility was missing with the sky in view because of a hydrogen explosion on March 14th.
Hot Particles From Japan to Seattle Virtually Undetectable when Inhaled or Swallowed Fairewinds via Rense. Video at link.
Original estimates of xenon and krypton releases remain the same, but a TEPCO recalculation shows dramatic increases in the release of hot particles. This confirms the results of air filter monitoring by independent scientists. Fairewinds' Arnie Gundersen explains how hot particles may react in mammals while escaping traditional detection. Reports of a metallic taste in the mouth, such as those now being reported in Japan and on the west coast, are a telltale sign of radiation exposure.
This is not limited to Japan or the West Coast. It started here in Missouri on March 22. It was still cold, or cooler, and almost no one else was outdoors, outside. I was jogging three to five times a week, and March 22nd was the first day I remember tasting the metallic.. edge to the air. This taste lingered in the air until mid April, and has happened infrequently since. Between the running and the yard work, I have tasted metallic for quite a few days. I got a little freaked out when I became aware of the taste, but then I figured I was over-reacting.
This is a little disconcerting.
TEPCO reprimanded over 2 workers' high radiation
Japan’s nuclear safety officials reprimanded the operator of Japan’s tsunami-damaged power plant Friday and demanded an investigation of how two workers were exposed to radiation more than twice a government-set limit.
The government also ordered the utility to reduce workers’ risks of heat-related illnesses as concerns grow about the health risks faced by the people toiling to get the Fukushima Daiichi plant under control.
'Fukushima media cover-up - PR success, public health disaster' Video from Russia Today via You Tube.
TEPCO releases photo showing damage to No. 4 reactor building Mainichi Daily News via Rense.
Earlier the company had released footage showing work to remotely measure the temperature of the pool for spent fuel at the No. 4 reactor, but the latest photo marks the first time since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami for the company to release a picture showing the inside of the reactor building.
The No. 4 reactor was hit by a hydrogen explosion on March 15, as well as fires on two occasions. The generator in the structure was used for a reactor recirculation pump and is thought to be the source of the fires.
Link includes "It's just a little COMPLETELY DESTROYED! It's still good! It's still good!" Picture.
Japanese back nuke free future - poll
ALMOST three-quarters of Japanese respondents to a newspaper poll favour a gradual phase-out of nuclear energy in the wake of the Fukushima atomic accident.
The Asahi Shimbun daily said in its weekend opinion poll that only 14 per cent were against such a gradual reduction.
The poll also showed 64 per cent of respondents believed "natural energy" such as wind and solar power would replace nuclear power in the future, while 24 percent said they did not think so.
Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 3 Gamma Camera Photos Ex-SKF via Rense.
Japan’s Radiation Sleuths Toil With Borrowed Geiger Counters Bloomberg. Excerpts:
.More than three months after the biggest earthquake in Japan’s history and a 15-meter (40-foot) tsunami wrecked the Fukushima atomic power station, a picture emerges of ad-hoc responses to the crisis. In the days after the worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl, Tokyo Electric Power Co. was using fire hoses and makeshift pumps to try and cool the crippled reactors.
Tokyo Grows Green Curtains to Save Power CNBC. Excerpts:
The odd looking goya has long been a popular ingredient in Japanese cuisine, but Tokyoites are now growing the courgette-shaped bitter melon for reasons of energy conservation, not food.
Skylark, a restaurant chain, is cultivating the goya to create “green curtains” outside the windows of several hundred of its Tokyo eateries. The plants, it says, should form a natural shade to cool the interiors, reducing its reliance on air conditioners.
The government has called on companies and households in eastern Japan to reduce electricity consumption by 15 per cent this summer, as Tokyo Electric Power struggles to contain the nuclear crisis at its Fukushima power plant. Kansai Electric is also urging customers in western Japan to cut their electricity consumption by the same amount amid concerns that its nuclear plants might face delays in receiving approval to restart. (They will..)
Facts About Japan's Tsunami that You May Not Know Associated Content.
Just two of several bullet points..
* If the power from the earthquake could have been made into usable energy, it would be able to power a city the size of Los Angeles for an entire year.
* It is believed that the tsunami wave that hit the shore of Japan was 77.4 feet high in one place.
Worse than meltdown, government report says devastating 'melt-through' has occurred at Fukushima; Official suggests Japan could become 'uninhabitable' Natural News via Before It's News. Excerpts:
And senior political official Ichiro Ozawa suggested in an interview with The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that the Fukushima situation could make the entire country of Japan "unlivable."
Unlivable.
Wait: What? #Fukushima II's Contaminated Water: Cobalt-60, Cesium-134, Cesium-137 Ex-SKF via Rense. Excerpts:
More on the earlier post on 3,000 tons of contaminated water at Fukushima II Nuke Plant.
From Yomiuri Shinbun
TEPCO disclosed on June 8 that it has entered into negotiations with the government agencies and local municipalities to treat the contaminated water in the basements of the buildings at Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant and release it into the ocean.
The water is from the tsunami [on March 11], and it contains radioactive cobalt-60 which probably came from the rusty pipes, and cesium-137 and cesium-134 which are considered to have flown from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant 10 kilometers north. The level of contamination is 10 to 30 times the limit allowed for the discharge into the ocean.
Hmmm. So, in a normal operation, radioactive cesium will fly from a nearby nuke plant and somehow land on the basement of the enclosed reactor building. Right.
It's Official: "Nuclear Fuel Has Melted Through Base of Fukushima Plant" ... “The Findings of the Report, Which has Been Given to the International Atomic Energy Agency ... Described a 'Melt-Through' as Being 'Far Worse than a Core Meltdown' and 'The Worst Possibility In a Nuclear Accident' Comprehensive roundup from Washington's Blog.
#Radiation in Tokyo: It's Already a Secondary Radiation Contamination in Koto-Ku From Ex-SKF via Rense.
So the Tokyo Metropolitan government finally admitted to the high air radiation level in "Nanbu Sludge Plant" in Ota-ku in Tokyo, after, it turns out, a Tokyo Metropolitan Assemblyman from Ota-ku went inside the plant and measured the radiation.
"Tobu" or Eastern, Sludge Plant in Koto-ku in Tokyo has an even higher level of radioactive cesium, and the plant may have been spewing radioactive cesium from the incinerator where the radioactive sewage sludge is burned, and has been contaminating the air and the soil in the areas around the plant and downwind (upstream) areas along the Arakawa River.
So it's a secondary radiation contamination.
The eastern part of Tokyo has been registering higher air radiation levels than the western part of Tokyo. Unchecked cesium dispersion from the sludge plant ever since the start of the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident may be good part of the reason.
Ordinarily, this would freak me out, but since Fukushima's pretty much done us in, who cares, right? After Japan, where's next nuke weak link? Short answer: Vietnam.
Frustration rises three months after Japan disaster Agence France-Presse via Vancouver Sun. Excerpts:
Three months after Japan's March 11 quake and tsunami disaster, frustration is growing as the nuclear crisis shows no sign of abating and nearly 100,000 evacuees remain holed up in crowded shelters.
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Yet as Japan struggles with its worst postwar crisis, a plunge back into recession and a growing debt mountain, its political leadership is in turmoil, with its fifth premier in five years expected to resign soon.
Bills to finance reconstruction are being held hostage by the conservative opposition(The very definition of "playing politics during disaster."), which demands that centre-left Prime Minister Naoto Kan quit first, accusing him of bungling Japan's post-disaster management.
The death toll from the quake — the world's fourth largest tectonic event since 1900 and Japan's biggest since records started 130 years ago — reached 15,401 on Friday, with 8,146 people reported missing, presumed dead.
More than 90,000 people still live in over 2,400 shelters — most of them jobless and miserable as they spend their days eating donated meals, watching TV and sleeping on tatami mats behind cardboard partitions.
"We are so disappointed with the politicians playing their power games without thinking about us," said Tomie Shiga, a 59-year-old housewife turned radiation refugee who spent months in a Fukushima prefecture shelter.
Toyota sees net profit fall 31% France 24. Excerpts:
Japanese auto giant Toyota on Friday said it expected to book a net profit of 280 billion yen this fiscal year, 31 percent lower than last year after the March 11 quake and tsunami hit production.
The automaker had delayed its estimate for the current year to assess the full scale of impact of the quake on production and sales.
Japan mulls closure of N-reactors by April Oman Tribune.
TOKYO All 54 of Japan’s nuclear reactors may be shut by next April, adding more than $30 billion a year to the country’s energy costs, if communities object to plant operating plans due to safety concerns, trade ministry officials said on Wednesday.
Since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which triggered a radiation crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant north of Tokyo, concern among local authorities has kept nuclear generators from restarting at least four reactors that had been expected to come online after routine maintenance and inspection. ..
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