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Japan quake loaded stress on fault closer to Tokyo From myway.com/Found it on Rense..
The recent monster quake that hit northeastern Japan altered the earth's surface, geologists say, loading stress onto a different segment of the fault line much closer to Tokyo.
Experts are quick to point out that this doesn't mean a powerful earthquake is necessarily about to strike the Japanese capital. Even if it did, the structure of the tectonic plates and fault lines around the city makes it unlikely that Tokyo would be hit by a quake anywhere near the intensity of the 9.0-magnitude one that struck March 11, said Roger Musson of the British Geological Survey
But, given the vast population - Tokyo and its surroundings are home to 39 million people - any strong temblor could be devastating.
"Even if you've got, let's say, a 7.5, that would be serious," the seismologist said.
Contractors Rush in as Kan Pledges to Rebuild After Japan Quake From Bloomberg, on Rense..
Japanese contractors have rushed workers, generators and equipment to areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that damaged or destroyed more than 110,000 buildings and may have killed 20,000 people.
“We’ve had many, many requests” for floodlights, power equipment and construction gear since the temblor, said Takashi Yamada, a spokesman for Osaka-based Nishio Rent All Co. “We’re just sorry we don’t have enough stock for everyone.”
The government has asked companies such as Daiwa House Industry Co. to supply more than 30,000 temporary houses within two months to help shelter the 350,000 people now in evacuation centers. Prime Minister Naoto Kan has also pledged to “rebuild from scratch” following the magnitude-9 quake and tsunami that damaged about 1,500 roads, 48 bridges and 15 railways, according to the National Police Agency.
Smoke spews from 2 reactors at stricken Japanese nuclear plant From CNN/found on Rense. Excerpts:
What appeared to be smoke was rising Tuesday from two adjacent reactors in the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a nuclear safety official said.
Smoke spewed Monday from the same reactors, setbacks that came despite fervent efforts to prevent the further release of radioactive materials at the stricken facility.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official with Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said smoke was rising from the plant's No. 2 and No. 3 reactors. It was not immediately clear why.
Japan Tsunami Delaying Chevy Volt Production
Japan’s “gusher”: A world crisis? From the PPJ Gazette/found on Before It's News. Excerpts:
We are watching what will be a slow death for many Japanese as radiation continues to escape from the nuclear reactors. The question on everyone’s mind is, “Why aren’t they sealing the reactors like they did in Chernobyl?” Who in their right mind tries to shower an increasingly unstable nuclear reactor with sea water in an attempt to cool the core when millions of lives are at stake not only in Japan, but also around the world as leaked radiation is carried into the jet stream? And what if efforts to cool the reactors aren’t successful? This is a question almost too unbearable to contemplate.
Walkom: Forget meltdowns. The real nuclear problem is waste From The Star.com.
For Canada, the danger of nuclear power lies not in a Japanese-style meltdown. When industry boosters say such an event is unlikely here, they are right.
But what the boosters don’t talk about is radioactive waste. That’s the main hazard, the part of the nuclear question that has never been properly addressed. No one knows what to do with nuclear fuel rods that remain highly radioactive for thousands of years.
The industry talks of burying them. But this is not a real solution. Sealed containers leak. Ground shifts. Over decades, unforeseen events occur.
Fukushima Status Update Monday PM Edition Loong, but detailed piece. Good, but be warned..
Japan fears food contamination as battle to cool nuclear plant continues From The Guardian UK. Excerpts:
The operation to cool the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has suffered a minor setback after smoke and vapour was seen rising from two reactors, as anxiety grew over the safety of food produced in the area.
Days after authorities reported abnormal levels of radiation in milk, some vegetables and tap water, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco] said high levels of radioactivity had been found in seawater near the facility, raising fears that seafood has also been contaminated.
The power company said seawater samples contained levels of radioactive iodine 126.7 times the allowed limit, and caesium 24.8 times over. The firm said the quantities posed no immediate threat to health.
As with most radiation contamination, quantities usually don't pose An Immediate Threat To Health. Mostly, Later..
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The source of the contamination has yet to be established, but officials believe it probably came from the tonnes of seawater that have been sprayed over overheating reactors and fuel rod pools in recent days.
Japan's catastrophe and the disaster that awaits From 60 Minutes. Excerpts:
Scott Pelley and a "60 Minutes" team have been in Japan for over a week, travelling from Tokyo to the port city Sendai to the once-beautiful resort of Matsushima and into the zone surrounding the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant. There, emergency crews are currently struggling to restore cooling and stabilize pressure inside the reactors.
What we have found in Japan is a catastrophe that reveals both the power of nature and the fragility of human technology.
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The Fukushima Daiichi crisis is not "one" nuclear emergency - it is four potentially catastrophic events standing side-by-side. In all, there are six reactor stations. Numbers one through four are in peril. Last week, crews risked their lives to get water onto melting uranium fuel. Through explosions and blasts of radioactive steam, a few hundred Japanese joined battle with the most powerful force known to man.
Top experts disagree on fundamental questions such as whether melting fuel rods would cause an explosion or just a fire. Answers are critical to planning for a bigger emergency.
"It's just so uncertain. This is unprecedented, you know, uncharted territory that the consequences could be greater than we expect," Nesheiwat said.
And:
The moment that altered the course of Japanese history was when the tsunami inundated about 400 miles of the northern coast.
You can't picture the enormity of it, so "60 Minutes" stopped in one small town called Matsushima. It was said to be among the most beautiful places in Japan, a famous vacation spot. The name has the same ring to a Japanese as Big Sur or Cape Cod does to an American. Matsushima means "Pine Tree Island" - the trees are about all that's left.
Japan Radiation Maximum by Prefecture
Officials Expect 'Ups and Downs' in Reactor Fight From The Wall Street Journal/Asia, and I found it on Rense. Excerpts:
Until Tokyo Electric Power Co. fully restores power at the reactors and turns on cooling systems knocked out after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, it faces continued radiation leakage from spent fuel rods stored at the two reactors. Those fuel rods are stored in pools of water that have been depleted, although Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, says the water hasn't completely disappeared, contrary to some reports. (So little volume of water could fit that description, right?)
Repeated spraying of water by military and fire-department personnel appears to have raised the water level, but without a permanent solution the rods still could overheat and possibly break apart, spewing more radiation into the air.
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The operation to connect power to the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors and turn on the standard cooling systems is expected to last at least several days. Until then, some experts believe the rods are at risk of full meltdown, which could damage the containment vessel and cause a radiation release that would dwarf those so far.
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A separate storage pool for spent fuel rods also is drawing the attention of some Tepco and safety officials. The area, which takes fuel rods from all six reactors, is located near the No. 4 reactor. The pool is nearly full with 6,375 units of fuel, according to Tepco.
Death toll from Japan’s disasters over 8,000; more than 13,000 missing. From The Washington Post/Found on Rense. Excerpts:
The combined toll of those dead and missing after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami surpassed 21,000 Sunday, and new food-contamination reports surfaced as workers continued to try to tame the radiation-spewing Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
And:
With each day there are new recriminations and doubts about the Japanese government’s and Tepco’s response to the March 11 disaster. News reports have raised questions about whether Tepco hesitated to dump seawater on the overheating nuclear reactors because the use of seawater will corrode and ruin these valuable corporate assets. And the government acknowledged that it had been slow in distributing potassium iodide pills to people vulnerable to the invisible atomic clouds emerging from the nuclear plant.
Japan's Refugees Crowd Shelters And Wait From npr.org. Excerpt:
As many as 400,000 people in Japan are now displaced due to the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent crisis at the nuclear power plant. Doualy Xaykaothao reports for NPR from Fukushima prefecture, in one of the largest shelters in Koriyama City.
Rich Japan's descent into misery stuns From The News Herald. Excerpts:
SHIZUGAWA, Japan (AP) — Bodies are strewn among the knotted skeletons of entire towns. Military helicopters clatter overhead. Survivors who lost everything huddle under blankets in schools-turned-shelters as foreign governments dispatch aid and urge their citizens to flee.
After years spent reporting from desperate and war-torn corners of the world, the scenes I've witnessed here are unsettlingly familiar.
It's the setting that's not.
Here, in one of the richest and most advanced nations on earth, I've found one of most challenging assignments of my career.
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That first night, it took 14 hours on backroads to cover 180 miles (300 kilometers). When we finally reached the ruined port of Sendai the next morning, we found survivors wearing surgical masks picking through the wrecked junkyard of their annihilated city.
In a tech-savvy society better known for hosting robot marathons, the crisis has produced surreal images, some more apt to appear in a novel about life after a nuclear holocaust: Cut off with no electricity and no phone reception, the hungry and isolated braving long lines outside near-empty grocery stores just to get food; the desperate homeless warming frigid hands in heavy snow above fires fueled by the wooden planks of their own pulverized homes.
In Kesennuma, I saw the hull of a behemoth ship parked inland on a sea of burnt debris beside a wrecked 7-Eleven.
In Shizugawa, a lone Japanese soldier relentlessly swept a small strip of pavement that somehow survived, a futile and slightly bizarre effort considering the entire city surrounding it was reduced to a mashed heap of garbage. (It the only thing he can control in an uncontrollable nightmare..)
And:
We have survived mostly on snack food — peanuts and potato chips and canned coffee scavenged from mostly empty street-side vending machines. When we found one small food store open, it's dwindling stocks already plundered, we bought everything left that we could fit in our car — raw sausages, dried squid, bread.
Japanese restraint is steeped in a culture of tested resilience From The Los Angeles Times. Excerpts:
First a massive earthquake and a devastating tsunami. Now a battle with an out-of-control nuclear reactor facility. How much can one people take?
Though there's obviously a limit to what anyone can bear, cultural features of a society can clearly influence psychological resilience, experts say. As the tragedy drags into a second week, they warn that prolonged stress will lead to heightened trauma for many Japanese people and that levels of sadness and depression will grow.
But right now, as they witness workers risking their lives to bring a crippled nuclear power plant under control or the calm and orderly refugee centers, those who know the culture well says Japan appears to be living up to its reputation for strength and stoicism — a quality they refer to as gaman.
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The stoicism is deeply rooted in the country's history, says Roland Kelts, a lecturer at the University of Tokyo and author of the 2006 book "Japanamerica." Japan, he notes, has been plagued throughout history by volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and invasions. Disaster and calamities feature commonly in its stories and folk tales. "There is a great deal of pride in the idea that Japan is a long-suffering nation," Kelts says.
And:
"People sometimes make some fun about the rigid societal structures of Japan and how there is so much emphasis on appearance and 'face,' and that you don't show your inner feelings. That is the stereotypical picture," Schaede says. But in times like this, she adds, "that is where they get their strength. This is a helpful feature right now."
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Though the Japanese have coped remarkably in the early days of the disaster, what happens to their spirit as the weeks and months unfold remains to be seen, Kelts said.
"There is restraint and grace, but there is a certain degree of shellshock," he says. "I think people are still stunned that their world changed in a single afternoon."
Operator of Fukushima nuke plant admitted to faking repair records From The Herald Sun/found it on Godlike Productions. Excerpts:
DAYS before Japan plunged into an atomic crisis after a giant earthquake and tsunami knocked out power at the ageing Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator had admitted faking repair records.
The revelation raises fresh questions about both Tokyo, the scandal-tainted past of the Electric Power Co (TEPCO), and the Japanese government's perceived soft regulation of a key industry.
The operator of the Fukushima No 1 plant submitted a report to the country's nuclear watchdog 10 days before the quake hit on March 11, admitting it had failed to inspect 33 pieces of equipment in its six reactors there.
A power board distributing electricity to a reactor's temperature control valves was not examined for 11 years, and inspectors faked records, pretending to make thorough inspections when in fact they were only cursory, TEPCO said.
Look at the results of Limited Government Response. Little or no Regulations? Anything goes! And then..
Americans: You sure you want this shit?
Live blog: Japan earthquake From Al Jazeera, from the beginning.
Officials: Pressure rises again in Japan reactor From Forbes. Excerpts:
Japan's nuclear safety agency says pressure is again rising in one of reactors at the country's tsunami-damaged nuclear complex - a setback that means operators will have to vent more radioactive gas into the environment.
Safety agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama said Sunday that efforts to put water in the Unit 3 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex might not have been working.
World food supply threatened by Japan nuclear radiation From Natural News. Excerpts:
Fallout from the current meltdown occurring at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was hit by the 9.0+ mega earthquake and tsunami last Friday, could contaminate the world's food supply with toxic radiation, say experts. If the plant's radioactive particles get caught in the jet stream and travel the world over, they will end up contaminating crops and grazing fields.
"The explosions could expose the population to longer-term radiation, which can raise the risk of cancer. These are thyroid cancer, bone cancer and leukemia. Children and fetuses are especially vulnerable," said Lam Ching-wan, a chemical pathologist at the University of Hong Kong. "For some individuals even a small amount of radiation can raise the risk of cancer. The higher the radiation, the higher the risk of cancer."
Japan cites radiation in milk, spinach near plant From MSNBC. Excerpts:
Japan announced the first signs that contamination from its tsunami-crippled nuclear complex have seeped into the food chain, saying that radiation levels in spinach and milk from farms near the facility exceeded government safety limits.
Japanese officials insisted that the small amounts of radiation — with traces also found in tap water in Tokyo — posed no immediate health threat, and said the situation at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, while still unpredictable, appeared to be coming under control after near-constant dousing of water to prevent spent fuel rods from burning up.\
Radiation from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant reaches California; experts: no health risk From The New York Daily News. Excerpts:
Trace amounts of radiation from Japan's nuclear crisis have reportedly reached California - but they're nowhere near hazardous levels.
"(They're) about a billion times beneath levels that would be health threatening," a diplomat with access to radiation tracking by the U.N.'s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization told the Associated Press.
Experts agree that any fallout wafting 5,500 miles across the Pacific to California will be too diluted to pose a health risk.
You see? Everything's fine. Keep shopping.
Taiwan finds radiation on imported Japanese beans From Mercury News.
Radiation was detected on fava beans imported from Japan to Taiwan, Taiwanese officials said Sunday in what appears to be the first case of contamination in Japanese imports.
Taiwan's Cabinet-level Atomic Energy Council Radiation Monitoring Center said in a statement that a small amount of iodine and cesium had been found on a batch of Japanese fava beans imported to the island on Friday. The center said 11 becquerels of iodine and 1 becquerel of cesium were detected.
The amount of radiation was well below Taiwan's legal limit and not harmful to human health, an official from the center told The Associated Press.
Japan tolls tops 20,000 amid nuclear plant crisis From Al Arabiya. Excerpts:
Crews fighting to cool reactors at Japan's stricken nuclear plant struggled Sunday to switch partial power back on after a natural disaster that has left more than 20,000 people dead or missing.
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In Miyagi prefecture on the devastated northeast coast, the confirmed death toll was 4,882.
But Miyagi police chief Naoto Takeuchi told a task force meeting that his prefecture alone "will need to secure facilities to keep the bodies of more than 15,000 people", Jiji Press reported.
According to the charity Save the Children, around 100,000 children were displaced by the disaster, and signs of trauma are evident among survivors as the nuclear emergency and countless aftershocks heighten their terror.
Scientists lack complete answers on radiation risk. From The Guardian UK. Excerpts:
The Associated Press= Thyroid cancer for sure. Leukemia, probably. Too much radiation can raise the risk of developing cancer years down the road, scientists agree, and the young are most vulnerable. But just how much or how long an exposure is risky is not clear.
Those are among the unknowns scientists are contemplating as the crisis unfolds at Japan's stricken nuclear power plant.
In Japan, the Science Ministry said radiation levels about 19 miles northwest of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant rose at one point Friday to 0.15 millisieverts per hour, about the amount absorbed in a chest X-ray. But levels have been fluctuating, and radiation at most sites that distance from the facility have been far below that.
Threat from Japanese nuclear emergency widens From World Socialist Web Site. Excerpts:
Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the NRC, told a Washington news conference on Friday that he expected the struggle to bring down the temperatures at the Fukushima to be a long one. “This is something that will take some time to work through, possibly weeks, as you eventually remove the majority of the heat from the reactors and then the spent fuel pools,” he said. When asked whether the Japanese authorities could avoid a “worst case scenario” he refused to offer an opinion. “I really don't want to speculate on where this could go,” he said.
Gunther Oettinger, the European Union energy head, said, “We are somewhere between a disaster and a major disaster. There could be further catastrophic events, which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island.”
It was wrong, Oettinger said to “exclude the worst.” He continued “There is talk of an apocalypse, and I think the word is particularly well chosen.”
John Large, who has carried out risk analyses in both military and civil nuclear situations, said that the response to the Fukushima crisis had been “shambolic”. The nuclear industry, he said, did not plan for the one in a million accident. “They are taking a chance, a risk with the helicopters and water,” he added.
“What this means is, accidents like we are seeing now where there are two breaches--one involving the reactors, and one involving fuel ponds outside the reactors--they don’t have any plans for it. They don't have a procedure in a book to turn to—that’s why there is some turmoil. Taking a water cannon and spraying it in may not work. This shows the fundamental omission in nuclear safety culture. What this shows is the basic confidence of nuclear engineers and operators is flawed.”
The concern is that with the situation still unstable at Fukushima, one or more of the steel containment vessels could rupture or the spent-fuel rods may begin to melt down, producing an even more serious nuclear emergency. Some experts have suggested that the fuel rods stored in pool 4 may have already gone critical on Wednesday. That would mean that a nuclear reaction–nuclear fission–is taking place, without any of the usual means to control it.
Still, no encouraging developments.
Japan races to restart reactors’ cooling system
The Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs the station 140 miles north of here, said it hoped to connect the electric cord to the cooling equipment inside the facility later today in an attempt to stabilize the reactors that were damaged by the powerful earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan eight days ago. They were planning to start with Reactor No. 2, which was seen spewing steam, perhaps containing radioactive particles, on Friday. Engineers apparently think that reactor is better suited to test whether the pumps needed to circulate cooling water will function than other reactors that are more severely damaged.
Officials cautioned that restoring electricity to the reactor would prove fruitless if the pumps were not working. In that case, a new cooling system would be needed, leading to more delays in an emergency that has bedeviled the power company and the government, and caused anxiety and frustration overseas.
Japanese government missteps in response to disasters
One week after an earthquake and tsunami spawned a nuclear crisis, the Japanese government conceded Friday it was slow to respond to the disaster and welcomed ever-growing help from the U.S. in hopes of preventing a complete meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant.
The entire world was on alert, watching for any evidence of dangerous spikes in radioactivity spreading from the six-reactor facility, or that damage to the Japanese economy might send ripple effects around the globe.
As day broke today, steam rose from Unit 3, an unwelcome development if not a new one that signaled continuing problems. Emergency crews faced two continuing challenges at the plant: cooling the nuclear fuel in reactors where energy is generated and cooling the adjacent pools where thousands of used nuclear fuel rods are stored in water.
Turkey sends 33-member rescue team to Japan
The Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate said in a statement on Thursday that Turkey was sending the rescue squad at the request of Japanese authorities. The team, which also includes experts from the Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK) and the Ministry of Health, were expected to depart for Japan on Friday evening. Three vehicles, two trailers, 40 dosimeters and five sets of radiation measuring equipment are also being sent to Japan.
UR researchers search for new ways to treat radiation exposure
While experts struggle to understand the risks posed by the crippled nuclear reactors in Japan, Jacqueline P. Williams heads up research at University of Rochester on radiation exposure treatments.
Williams, who has a doctorate in radiation biology from the University of London, oversees a $36 million federally funded project at UR that is part of an initiative called the Centers for Medical Countermeasures Against Radiation. Seven American research universities are part of this network funded by the National Institutes of Health.
For almost six years, UR researchers have been involved with this project and are working with a handful of drug companies to better understand the effects of radiation on tissue and to develop drugs to treat exposure.
"If the situation deteriorates further and there really is a full meltdown and breach of all the containers, there will indeed be some long-term risks to people subjected to the fallout. That's where our research would be applicable," she said.
At least somebody's been studying this..
After the week that shook Japan, the nation starts to count the cost
Not surprisingly, the debate has already begun: can this battered nation ever rise again? Japan had, after all, been sliding for two decades before the Pacific tectonic plates shifted with such explosive force last Friday – its economy overtaken by China, its population ageing and its people saddled with the developed world's largest public debt. But this is also a nation that has a remarkable, perhaps unique, history of rebirth after destruction on a biblical scale. In 1923, a 7.9-quake and tsunami famously levelled much of Yokohama and Tokyo, killing at least 100,000 people; the anniversary of the tragedy, 1 September, is now an annual disaster prevention day. Quakes have regularly brought the city to its knees and even the national icon, Mt Fuji, looms threateningly 100km away, always ready to spew ash down on the world's largest metropolis.
Radiation Plume Hits Alaska
For the past week, Unalaska—the most populous island on the Aleutian Chain—has seen jaw-dropping sunrises. The snow-covered ridges have glowed pink and sherbet orange rather than their typical gray, and the unusually pleasant weather has been the most talked-about subject in this fishing town. But the radioactive cloud that could put an end to these sunny days? A close number two.
"What a beautiful morning," wrote resident Laresa Syverson on Facebook this Monday, just as anxiety over the nuclear crisis in Japan was settling in. "The mountains seem to be radiating." That post popped up in my newsfeed between links to a bogus map showing where the fallout from the failing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was expected. Alaska’s Aleutian Islands were squarely in the red zone.
global markets began to wobble uncontrollably. Billions upon billions of dollars were being hauled out of one market and dumped into others, only to be replaced within hours as conflicting reports and false reassurances served to unnerve already jittery traders.
When the world turned upside down
Stockmarkets took a hammering on Monday and Tuesday. They rebounded on Wednesday, but it was a half-hearted affair and they failed to recover much lost ground. By Thursday, the simmering uncertainty over the extent of Japan's potential nuclear meltdown had traders fearing the worst, and with good reason.
Yesterday, in an emergency telephone hook-up, leaders of the world's seven biggest economies frantically began efforts to cobble together a strategy that would restore some order to gyrating currency markets as the spectre of yet another financial crisis loomed.
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Had the world's third-biggest economy been in robust financial health and the global financial system ticking over nicely, the disastrous events of the past week - even without the threat of nuclear catastrophe - would have put a serious dent in global growth, at least for the rest of this year.
Status of quake-stricken reactors at Fukushima nuclear power plants Full list at link:
The following is the known status as of Friday night of each of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the four reactors at the Fukushima Daini plant, both in Fukushima Prefecture, which were crippled by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the ensuing tsunami on March 11.
Reactor No. 1 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core, vapor vented, building housing reactor damaged March 12 by hydrogen explosion, roof blown off, seawater being pumped in.
Reactor No. 3 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core feared, vapor vented, seawater being pumped in, building housing reactor badly damaged Monday by hydrogen explosion, high-level radiation measured nearby on Tuesday, plume of smoke observed Wednesday and presumed to have come from spent-fuel storage pool, seawater dumped over pool by helicopter on Thursday, water sprayed at it from ground on Thursday and Friday.
Reactor No. 4 - Under maintenance when quake struck, no fuel rods in reactor core, temperature in spent-fuel storage pool reached 84 C on Monday, fire Tuesday possibly caused by hydrogen explosion at pool holding spent fuel rods, fire observed Wednesday at building housing reactor, pool water level feared receding, renewed nuclear chain reaction feared, only frame remains of reactor building roof.
Live Radiation Monitoring from West LA on USTREAM (Video stream)
Japan Raises Nuclear Severity Level (Video)
Full Core Meltdown in Japan? From Rense.com
Possibly it's ongoing and concealed. All along, Japanese and Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) officials downplayed or lied about the severity of the crisis. Virtually nothing they say can be believed.
Nor from the Obama administration, budgeting loan guarantees for new reactor construction instead of decommissioning all 104 nuclear plants because operating them risks full core meltdowns. Partial or full ones gravely harm earth, air, water and food. Three hazardous Fukushima radioactive isotopes are especially problematic. University of Rochester Professor Jacqueline Williams, a radiation expert, says ingesting radioactive iodine-131 causes thyroid and other cancers. So does hazardous beta and gamma radiation from Cesium-137. Released Strontium 90 also causes leukemia and other cancers. Large amounts of all three are spewing daily.
Under a worst case scenario, millions of Japanese, Pacific rim and northern hemisphere people will be harmed, many gravely. Millions of deaths may result. The dangers of nuclear power can't be overstated. Potentially, all planetary life is threatened. What better reason to end all commercial and military use now.
Japan lays power cable in race to stop radiation From Sympatico.
Exhausted engineers attached a power cable to the outside of Japan's tsunami-crippled nuclear station on Saturday in a race to prevent deadly radiation from an accident now rated at least as bad as America's Three Mile Island in 1979.
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"If they can get those electric pumps on and they can start pushing that water successfully up the core, quite slowly so you don't cause any brittle failure, they should be able to get it under control in the next couple of days," said Laurence Williams, of Britain's University of Central Lancashire.
If not, there is an option of last resort under consideration to bury the sprawling 40-year-old plant in sand and concrete to prevent a catastrophic radiation release.
That method was used to seal huge leakages from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Nuke engineer: Fuel rod fire at Fukushima reactor “would be like Chernobyl on steroids”
We’d be lucky if we only had to worry about the spent fuel rods from a single holding pool. We’re not that lucky. The Fukushima Daiichi plant has seven pools for spent fuel rods. Six of these are (or were) located at the top of six reactor buildings. One “common pool” is at ground level in a separate building. Each “reactor top” pool holds 3450 fuel rod assemblies. The common pool holds 6291 fuel rod assemblies. [The common pool has windows on one wall which were almost certainly destroyed by the tsunami.] Each assembly holds sixty-three fuel rods. This means the Fukushima Daiichi plant may contain over 600,000 spent fuel rods.
So when people say the situation isn't serious, they're either ignorant, in denial, unable to comprehend the enormity of the unfolding situation, or flat out lying to you.
The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people From The Daily Mail..
The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens.
After Tokyo Electric Power Company Managing Director Akio Komiri cried as he left a conference to brief journalists on the situation at Fukushima, a senior Japanese minister also admitted that the country was overwhelmed by the scale of the tsunami and nuclear crisis.
He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: 'The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans.
'In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster.'
As "frank" as this "disclosure" is, it's got to be sooo much worse..
Nuclear crisis: Inside Fukushima's exclusion zone. From BBC.
The video is horrible: You are looking at soon to be dead people. No one's coming for them, and they know it. For these people, it will be at once a quiet, reflective, gray, inevitable, angry, numbed, and yet, at times, a beautiful and poignant passing. But what's left of the streets will remain quiet, as they are now, as they will be when the last one goes.. Each individual, microcosm, and town shuts down at roughly the same time. Recent and terrible events have shocked them into quiet. Ultimately, the radiation will still them.
These people are the tragedy of "not with a bang; but a whimper.."
Physicist: "What They Are Doing Is Basically Using Squirt Guns Against a Raging Forest Fire" ... Japanese Should Use the Chernobyl Approach Instead From awesome sauce Washington's Blog..
It's not effective, because the workers cannot get close enough to put water here. That's why I would personally advocate the Chernobyl option. Do what Gorbachev did, call out the Japanese air force, get the army to bring a fleet of helicopters armed with sand, boric acid and concrete, entomb it, bury it in concrete.
Japan nuclear plant: exposed to the elements - nuclear fuel in meltdown
Open to the elements after its walls were blown away, this is the dried-up storage pool where overheating fuel rods are threatening a nuclear meltdown at Japan's stricken Fukushima power plant.
Close-up pictures of the devastated No 4 reactor building show the gaping hole through which radiation is escaping into the atmosphere as the rods break down.
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A week after the Fukushima Daiichi plant was crippled by the earthquake and tsunami, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the situation remained "very serious". Graham Andrew, the scientific and technical adviser at the UN safety body, said there had been "no significant worsening" of the situation, but the No 4 unit remained "a major safety concern".
And:
Photographs taken from an aircraft by an employee of the company which owns the power station showed for the first time the full extent of the damage to the reactor units, three of which suffered explosions following a failure of its cooling system.
In unit No 4, a whole wall is missing from the area where spent fuel rods are stored while they cool to a safe temperature.
Inside the building, a green-painted crane, which is normally used to move the fuel rods, caught the daylight flooding into the hall.
Beneath the crane, just out of shot, is the pool holding the fuel rods, which should contain water 45ft deep but which has now boiled dry.
Nuclear Emergency - Fukushima nuclear reactor - JAPAN LIES !!!! 15-03-2011 WE WANT THE This guy shows the media blackout happening in Japan. He did a good job holding his anger, but it's there, and he's correct: The Japanese deserve the truth, whatever that truth is. He asks that you spread his video, so help me spread it, please..
The Ongoing Events at the Fukushima Dai'ichi Nuclear Plant No. 1 Two days old now, so outdated, but a great background for understanding how the situation has grown and mutated.
VIDEO: TEPCO Releases New Aerial Footage of Crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactors From Bradblog.
New aerial footage released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) today details even more of the extensive damage to numerous reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following explosions at reactor Units 1 through 4 which occurred in the days following last weekend's record earthquake and tsunami.
Radioactivity found in airline passengers landing in U.S. From The Examiner.
The New York Post reports that passengers who deplaned flights that had originated in Tokyo triggered radiation detectors in two major U.S. airports.
The flights, which arrived yesterday in Dallas and Chicago, both had passengers who showed low levels of radiation. This was detected when the individuals passed through customs.
Swedish Government: Radiation To Cover Entire Northern Hemisphere From Prison Planet. Found it on Before it's News..
Suggesting that levels of radiation leaks from the stricken Fukushima plant are being grossly under reported by Japanese authorities, a Swedish government agency told Reuters today that not only will the radiation reach North America, but it will subsequently cover the entire northern hemisphere.
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“Stressing that the levels were not dangerous for people, he predicted the particles would continue across the Atlantic and eventually also reach Europe.”
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Experts are correct in assuming that the initial waves of radiation will be low, but expect levels to rise in subsequent days as the effects of the three blasts to impact the Fukushima facility, which occurred on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, manifest themselves in the form of increased radiation injected into the atmosphere.
Radiation Spread Seen; Frantic Repairs Go On From The New York Times.
The first readings from American data-collection flights over the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan show that the worst contamination has not spread beyond the 19-mile range of highest concern established by Japanese authorities.
But another day of frantic efforts to cool nuclear fuel in the troubled reactors and in the plant’s spent-fuel pools resulted in little or no progress, according to United States government officials.
Japanese officials said that they would continue those efforts — including spraying one of the reactors with water cannons on Friday afternoon — but that they were also racing to restore electric power to the site to get equipment going again, leaving open the question of why that effort did not begin days ago, at the first signs that the critical backup cooling systems for the reactors had failed.
The Corporate Spin begins.. General Electric Defends Nuclear Reactor Design Amid Japan Crisis
*Surprisingly*, from Fox 5, originally from the Wall Street Journal. Excerpts:
General Electric defended the design of a now-stricken reactor it supplied to Japan 40 years ago, saying its containment system was safe and reliable, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Fukushima No. 1 plant's reactor No. 1, which experienced a dramatic explosion Saturday, is equipped with a GE boiling water reactor with a so-called Mark 1 containment system. There have been concerns about that particular design for years, with critics saying it is not as robust as later models.
And:
GE dismissed that criticism, in what appeared to be its first comments about equipment it supplied Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO).
"The BWR Mark 1 reactor is the industry's workhorse with a proven track record of safety and reliability for more than 40 years," Michael Tetuan, spokesman for GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, said Monday. "There has never been a breach of a Mark 1 containment system."
Until Now. And there are how many now? Also not the wording "design for years." Also note the 1971 was 40 years ago. Continue on..
Reactors At Heart Of Japanese Nuclear Crisis Raised Concerns As Early As 1972, Memos Show
In the early 1970s, just as a number of reactors were about to be licensed, Stephen Hanauer, a senior member of the Atomic Energy Commission staff, suggested banning "pressure suppression" methods to contain radiation in the event of a meltdown -- methods built into General Electric's Mark I and Mark II containment designs as well as Westinghouse's ice condenser design. The advice was considered and disregarded.
"Steve's idea to ban pressure suppression containment schemes is an attractive one in some ways," Joseph Hendrie, then a deputy director with the AEC, wrote in a Sept. 25, 1972, memo. Hendrie acknowledged that alternative, "dry" containments -- featuring the towers or domes commonly associated with nuclear plants -- had the "notable advantage of brute simplicity in dealing with a primary blowdown, and are thereby free of the perils of bypass leakage."
But regulators ultimately decided that the technology developed by General Electric and Westinghouse was "firmly embedded in the conventional wisdom." Banning it, Hendrie wrote, "would generally create more turmoil than I can stand." His memo was obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists through a Freedom of Information Act request.
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Today, three of six GE reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan are in danger of meltdown after a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. And 31 aging GE reactors of the same design -- 23 of them with Mark I containment systems and eight of them with Mark II--continue to operate in the U.S., raising concerns among both politicians and scientists. The Mark I containment is rectangular, the Mark II cylindrical. This NRC document explains the two in more detail.
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NRC Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko told reporters Monday that all U.S. nuclear plants "are designed to withstand significant natural phenomena like earthquakes, tornadoes and tsunamis. We believe we have a very solid and strong regulatory structure in place right now."
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But industry watchdogs see the fateful decision regulators made almost 40 years ago -- to choose political and economic pragmatism over tougher safety standards -- as endemic in the culture of the NRC as it deals with the prevention of low-probability, high-consequence accidents.
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They were designed to withstand a pipe break, not a meltdown," he said. It wouldn't take a major earthquake or a tsunami to knock out primary and backup power and push the systems to the breaking point; a hurricane or tornado could suffice.
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A 1975 report for GE by a team of scientists and engineers found that the company's boiling water reactors were more vulnerable to seismic events than pressurized water reactors -- such as Three Mile Island -- designed by Westinghouse and other firms.
"The PWR [pressurized water reactor] design is inherently more seismic resistant because of lower reactor vessel placement and the need to design for larger LOCA loadings," the report said. LOCA is an acronym that stands for loss of coolant accident -- the type of accident triggered by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. GE's research team said it would push to make the company's newer reactors more able to withstand earthquake-related stresses.
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In 1986, former NRC official Harold Denton told a group of utility executives that, according to commission studies, GE Mark I reactors had "something like a 90 percent probability of that containment failing" under accident conditions.
Read the whole article.
Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant
Japan ordered emergency workers to withdraw from its stricken nuclear plant Wednesday amid a surge in radiation, temporarily suspending efforts to cool the overheating reactors.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the workers, who have been dousing the reactors with seawater in a frantic effort to stabilize their temperatures, had no choice but to pull back from the most dangerous areas.
"The workers cannot carry out even minimal work at the plant now," Edano said, as smoke billowed above the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex. "Because of the radiation risk we are on standby."
This is happening, and it's rapidly spinning out of control..
Health risks of radiation depend on dose, duration Frequently Asked Questions.
People are stocking up for the long term..
Magnitude 6.0 - NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
69 km (42 miles) SSE of Mito, Honshu, Japan
95 km (59 miles) E of TOKYO, Japan
112 km (69 miles) ENE of Yokohama, Honshu, Japan
117 km (72 miles) SE of Utsunomiya, Honshu, Japan
NHK World TV streaming here.
What will spark the next Fukushima?
The gung-ho nuclear industry is in deep shock. Just as it and its cheerleader, the International Atomic Energy Agency, were preparing to mark next month's 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident with a series of self-congratulatory statements about the dawning of a safe age of clean atomic power, a series of catastrophic but entirely avoidable accidents take place in not one but three reactors in one of the richest countries of the world. Fukushima is not a rotting old power plant in a failed state manned by half-trained kids, but supposedly one of the safest stations in one of the most safety-conscious countries with the best engineers and technologists in the world.
Chernobyl blew up not because the reactor malfunctioned but because an ill-judged experiment to see how long safety equipment would function during shutdown went too far. So, too, in Japan, it was not the nuclear bits of the station that went wrong but the conventional technology. The pumps did not work because the power supply went down and the back-up support was not there because no one had thought what happened was possible.
Even though Japan had been warned many times that possibly the most dangerous place in the world to site a nuclear power station was on its coast, no one had taken into account the double-whammy effect of a tsunami and an earthquake on conventional technology. It's easy to be wise after the event, but the inquest will surely show that the accident was not caused by an unpredictable natural disaster, but by a series of highly predictable bad calls by human regulators.
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