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He's right: It's CRAZY to be worried about an ongoing catastrophe/potential Extinction Level Event. Crazy, I tells ya.. Reuters, via ENEWS:
The new head of the company at the centre of Japan’s nuclear disaster said on Thursday he was baffled by fierce criticism of the firm where he has worked nearly 40 years and hoped to rebuild public trust but offered no clear idea how to do so.
[...]
At one of the meetings, a moderate earthquake struck and he was quickly peppered with questions about the safety of a badly damaged building at Fukushima full of spent fuel rods.
That was “quite a shock for us,” [President of Tepco Naomi Hirose] said, because the company assumed its reinforcement work has been sufficient.
Fukushima’s spent fuel pool No. 4 has been a source of international concern because they are exposed to the atmosphere after one of the explosions that hit the station tore the reactor building roof off and caused its walls to tilt.
[...]
His attitude is very comforting, in a clueless rich guy who makes a disaster scenario oh so much worse kinda way, don't you think? I can't wait for his public reaction when the inevitable happens: GUUUUHHHHH?? Wuuuuuhhh? Howdathappen?
Ooh. The odds of Godzilla attacking Los Angeles as opposed to Tokyo have increased! ENEWS. Excerpts:
[...]
In the following years, the tracer cloud continuously expands laterally, with maximum concentrations in its central part heading east. While the northern portion is gradually invading the Bering Sea, the main tracer patch reaches the coastal waters of North America after 5–6 years, with maximum relative concentrations ( > 1 × 10−4) covering a broad swath of the eastern North Pacific between Vancouver Island and Baja California. Simultaneously some fraction of the southern rim of the tracer cloud becomes entrained in the North Equatorial Current (NEC), resulting in a westward extending wedge around 20°N that skirts the northern shores of the Hawaiian Archipelago. After 10 years the concentrations become nearly homogeneous over the whole Pacific, with higher values in the east, extending along the North American coast with a maximum (~1 × 10−4) off Baja California. The southern portion of the tracer cloud is carried westward by the NEC across the subtropical Pacific, leading to increasing concentrations in the Kuroshio regime again.
[...]
Region I = Western Pacific
With caution given to the various idealizations (unknown actual oceanic state during release, unknown release area, no biological effects included, see section 3.4), the following conclusions may be drawn. (i) Dilution due to swift horizontal and vertical dispersion in the vicinity of the energetic Kuroshio regime leads to a rapid decrease of radioactivity levels during the first 2 years, with a decline of near-surface peak concentrations to values around 10 Bq m−3 (based on a total input of 10 PBq). The strong lateral dispersion, related to the vigorous eddy fields in the mid-latitude western Pacific, appears significantly under-estimated in the non-eddying (0.5°) model version. (ii) The subsequent pace of dilution is strongly reduced, owing to the eastward advection of the main tracer cloud towards the much less energetic areas of the central and eastern North Pacific. (iii) The magnitude of additional peak radioactivity should drop to values comparable to the pre-Fukushima levels after 6–9 years (i.e. total peak concentrations would then have declined below twice pre-Fukushima levels). (iv) By then the tracer cloud will span almost the entire North Pacific, with peak concentrations off the North American coast an order-of-magnitude higher than in the western Pacific.
You can find the simulation model video here.
As one ENEWS commenter stated, this study is based on a one time event, as opposed to ongoing radioactive release, which is what is happening. The saturation levels are worthless, but see how it spreads? That's the takeaway, here..
New photos show what remains of No. 4 reactor building’s eastern wall The top photo shows how much progress TEPCO's cleanup has made. Cleaner? Yes. Sturdy? For now..
The fact Spent Fuel Pool/Reactor 4 remains standing is the only thing standing between us and global catastrophe. Earthquakes happen almost daily. There's enough material here to contaminate.. Everything, eventually. And there's a good chance a quake will come along sooner rather than later, thereby causing civilization to effectively end.
I, for one, are doing things I will miss when they become unavailable. Went to a movie tonight. I haven't been in a theater in two years. Small crowd, no one talked.. It was really nice!
I will be, in the very near future, doing more items on my Fukushima Bucket List. Small, accessible activities I love. Up next, Thai or Indian, and frozen custard. Jogging outdoors. A day of photography. Asking ______ out. This really is the time, friends. There might not be any more. Don't say no one ever told you..
All quotes from Banri Kaieda, Japan's Industry Minister during and after the Fukushima event. Presented here these two stories from ENews regarding his recent testimony. Japan’s Ex-Industry Minister: Neutron radiation is degenerating reactors — Admits he was playing a role when saying nuclear plants were safe, and Former Top Official at Hearing: Told that all 6 Fukushima reactors would ‘explode’ if workers left plant — Entire eastern Japan might be lost. Chilling.
[...]
In June, [Banri Kaieda, the industry minister during the early stages of the Fukushima nuclear accident,] declared that nuclear power plants were safe and said he would approve the restarts of nuclear power plants, with the exception of the Hamaoka nuclear plant in Shizuoka Prefecture.
But [yesterday May 17, 2012] he told the Diet investigation panel that he did not believe all plants were problem-free, partly because reactors degenerate due to neutron radiation.
Still, he defended his decision to allow operations to resume at nuclear plants, saying he had a “role to play as industry minister.”
[...]
Kaieda said on May 17 that [Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa] Shimizu told him on the phone that TEPCO would evacuate from the Fukushima No. 1 plant to the Fukushima No. 2 plant. [...]
Kaieda asked industry ministry officials what would happen if all TEPCO employees deserted the plant. Kaieda said he was told: “It would be disastrous because not only the No. 1 to No. 4 reactors but also the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors would explode.”
Kaieda then discussed the issue with other Cabinet ministers who were at the prime minister’s office. He said they reached the conclusion: “A (total) withdrawal would lead to a disaster, in which the entire eastern Japan might be lost. We have to ask workers at the plant to hang in there although we feel sorry for them.”
[...]
There. He admitted he lied, and said TEPCO feels sorry for the workers. Don't you feel better now?
Nice.. Uncharted territory. Unchecked Nuclear Power, will you ever stop being so much fun? ENews. Excerpts:
*UPDATED* ORIGINAL PRESENTATION HERE: Professor Shocked: "The core completely liquefied -- There's nothing left -- There's no hook -- There's no remaining collapsed core" (VIDEO)
Really short post.. Read comments for further hilariousness.. Here's my favorite!
..think it means it's no longer in the corium 'blob' state but capable of traveling into the earth's mantle in a stream-like state; which is much worse than any previous worst case scenario. There will be no remediation possible; resulting in radiological contamination of underground water-ways (interacting ocean and fresh-water aquifers) within this entire region, for hundreds-of-thousands of years.
Given the amount of energy needed to maintain a liquefied condition without significant surface cooling is unusual. Classical thermodynamics has left the building…
I guess things will be super exciting by the time MSM starts reporting this again..
Ministry of the Environment: "Tsunami Debris May Have Already Reached North America, Back in February..." EX-SKF. Excerpts:
Oops. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution just recently released a paper saying the debris may reach North America in 1 to 2 years (see Huffington Post, 4/3/2012). Well, actually..
From Jiji Tsushin (4/6/2012):
Ministry of the Environment's Forecast of disaster debris in the ocean: it may have already reached North America
The Ministry of the Environment announced its forecast of the movement of the disaster debris in the [Pacific] ocean after the March 11, 2011 tsunami. According to the forecast, part of the debris floating on the surface of the ocean that is more easily affected by winds may have traveled across the Pacific Ocean and reached the west coast of Canada in February this year.
The Ministry's forecast of 1.33 million tonnes of debris from houses that got swept away, which consists the majority of the debris, shows about 3% of this type of debris, or about 41,300 tonnes, may reach within 10 kilometers off the west coast of North America by February 2013.
I can't find a press release on the subject at the Ministry's website. If the Ministry is to be believed, the first debris took only 11 months, instead of 1 to 2 years (I remember they were counting on two years).
Yeah, so what? The reactors are all right; Right? That's what counts! Well, actually..
Ambassador Murata writes to UN Secretary General: “It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on No. 4 reactor” — Appeals for independent assessment team One word? Dire. Two words: We're fucked. Three words? That's all, folks! Enenews. Excerpts:
It seems to us that the Nuclear Security Summit was focused on the North Korea nuclear issue and on the issue of common security from a terrorist attack. Our appeal on the need for the independent assessment at Reactor 4 was regarded as less urgent. We predicted this outcome in light of the nature of the Summit. I suppose most participants fully understood the potential disaster which will affect their countries. Nevertheless, they decided not to raise the delicate issue, perhaps in order to not ruffle their diplomatic relationship with Japan.
I was moved by Ambassador Murata’s courage in pressing this issue in Japan. I know how difficult it is for a former career diplomat to do this, especially in my country. Current and former government officials might be similarly restricted in the scope of their actions, as Ambassador Murata is, but it is their responsibility to take a stand for the benefit of our descendants for centuries to come—to pass on a world safer than our ancestors passed us.
If Japanese government leaders do not recognize the risk their nation faces, how could the rest of us be persuaded of the looming disaster? And if the rest of us do not acknowledge the catastrophe we collectively face, who will be the one to act?
..
(From Murata's letter..)
I was asked to make a statement at the public hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 23. I raised the crucial problem. of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima containing1535 fuel rods. It could be fatally damaged by continuing aftershocks. Moreover, 50 meters away from it exists a common cooling pool for 6 reactors containing 6375 fuel rods!
It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on NO.4 reactor. This is confirmed by most reliable experts like Dr. Arnie Gundersen or Dr. Fumiaki Koide.
Please allow me to inform you of an initiative being taken by a former UN official who is endeavoring to have the Nuclear Security Summit take up the crucial problem. of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima. He is pursuing the establishment of an independent assessment team. I think his efforts are very significant, because it is indispensable to draw the attention of world leaders to this vital issue.
I am cooperating with him, writing to some of my Korean acquaintances that this issue deserves the personal attention of President Lee Myung-bak. I have written today to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. I asked him to consider taking the initiative of mobilizing human wisdom on the widest scope to cope with the Fukushima reactor No.4 problem, fully taking into account the above-mentioned “independent assessment team”.
Mitsuhei Murata
Former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland and Senegal
Executive Director, the Japan Society for Global System and Ethics
What about the ocean? The ocean's not contaminated; Right? Well, actually..
Study: Radioactive water to reach Hawaii in 2 years Will 2 years be code for 11 months? The Asahi Shimbun. Excerpts:
Water contaminated by radioactivity that entered the sea from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant will reach the Hawaiian Islands in March 2014, according to a computer simulation by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.
The agency said the radioactivity in the water will be diluted to low levels by the time it has traveled 5,300 kilometers from the Fukushima plant. (They are referring to just cesium, I guess, as no other radioactive substance is mentioned..)
..
The researchers said 18,000 trillion becquerels of radioactive iodine and cesium have leaked from the plant into the sea.
The contaminated water will be carried by ocean currents, and the maximum radioactivity level in cesium-137 will be about 0.04 becquerel per liter when it nears the Hawaiian Islands, they said.
Sweet. So what kind of levels do you expect for the plutonium, uranium, tritium, and the rest of this nuclear cavalcade of whimsy? Cesium 137 has a half life of 30 years. MOX has a half life of 24, 000 years.
No matter, though.. Especially if Reactor 4 goes..
Here we are, at what might be the Last Vestiges of Normal Life, and we all continue on, like everything is normal.
May we continue on, like normal, most still in denial, for at least a little while longer, please.
Leftist parties win control of French Senate From Raw Story. Excerpts:
France's left-wing opposition struck a blow against embattled centre-right leader President Nicolas Sarkozy's hopes for re-election Sunday, winning a historic victory in a senatorial vote.
The Socialist Party and its Communist and Green allies won enough seats to give the left control of the upper house for the first time in French history, a stepping stone towards a presidential win in seven months' time.
Flammable gas detected in Fukushima pipe: TEPCO Mysinchew. Excerpts:
Flammable gas has been detected inside a pipe linked to a nuclear reactor at Japan's crippled Fukushima atomic power plant, its operator said Saturday.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) was unable to identify the gas but nonetheless said it was unlikely there would be an explosion in the reactor.
The company has been injecting nitrogen into the reactor so that the level of oxygen inside becomes low enough to prevent blasts.
But a TEPCO spokesman said workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant measured a 100-percent flammable gas in a pipe connected to the power station's reactor number one.
"It is not clear exactly where and how this gas was created," the spokesman told AFP. "We are considering ways to deal with it.
"It is likely that we will continue the survey the gas to identify it and use nitrogen to bring its level low enough" to avoid explosions, he said.
It's a gas, gas, gas, gas, gas: Scientists think solar system may have had a FIFTH gas planet The Daily Mail Online. Excerpts:
Scientists believe our solar system may have once had a fifth gas planet that was ejected from the solar system and 'orphaned'.
..
A new study by David Nesvorny, from the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, U.S., used different computer simulations to explore what the solar system looked like four billion years ago.
He discovered that back then planets had not yet settled into their existing orbits as they migrated and moved around.
However, after a series of tests he worked out that the solar system we recognise today could never have emerged without the existence of a fifth planet.
He came to this conclusion by using several different starting positions and ran computer simulations using the four gas planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - but discovered they were to large and one would destroy another eventually.
Even using configurations where the gas planets survived, the solar system's rocky planets like Mars and Venus did not.
However, once Mr Nesvorny had introduced a fifth planet into the equation he found the odds of the current solar system emerging increased dramatically.
This theory is backed up by the recent discovery of many rogue planets.
This is exciting.. Japan: piles of tsunami debris turning into giant bonfires The Telegraph. Excerpts:
Piles of decomposing organic waste, metals and rubble from the devastated towns of north-east Japan have been bursting into fire, posing a new hazard to emergency teams tasked with clearing away the debris and people who are still picking through the remains of their homes.
Geomagnetic storm warning issued for September 26th The Extinction Protocol. Excerpts:
.. “Sunspot 1302 poses a continued threat for X-class solar flares.” We’re also seeing some coronal hole perforation of the Sun, so ionized particles will now also have a more efficient medium of propagation should a large solar flare erupt from the sunspot. The next few days could get interesting. According to NOAA, the chances of another X-Class flare erupting over the next 48 hours are 40%.
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.
..
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.
..
"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.
..
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.
..
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.
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