*** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and links

Sen. Wyden wants nuclear cleanup commitment from next Energy secretary
[link to thehill.com]

[snip]

As Energy Committee Chairman, Wyden will oversee the confirmation hearing for outgoing Energy Secretary Steven Chu's replacement. He said he would ask nominees to commit to treating and disposing of waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation.

“This should represent an unacceptable threat to the Pacific Northwest for everybody,” Wyden said after touring the site, according to The Associated Press. “There are problems that have to be solved, and right now the Department of Energy cannot say what changes are needed, when they will be completed and what they will cost.”

DOE manages the nation’s waste from nuclear weapons and energy research. Of its $6 billion annual cleanup budget, it spends $2 billion on maintaining Hanford, which straddles Oregon’s border along the Columbia River.

Wyden said he would hold a hearing on the Hanford situation, though he did not offer a specific date.

Mitsubishi pays Edison for San Onofre generators
[link to www.ocregister.com]

[snip]

The manufacturer of flawed equipment that has kept the San Onofre nuclear plant offline for more than a year paid $45.4 million to the plant operator, Southern California Edison, as part of a warranty for the equipment.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which built four steam generators installed at San Onofre between 2009 and 2011, paid the sum after receiving an invoice from Edison, according to a statement released to the press.

Hanford's nuclear waste can't wait another 70 years
[link to www.thenewstribune.com]

[snip]

Set a deadline far in the future. Add 25 years. Maybe 50.

That’s the sluggishness with which the federal government – thanks in part to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – has been dealing with the nation’s most radioactive nuclear waste. A truly scary amount of that waste is quietly seething in our own backyard, at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

A new leak at Hanford demonstrates the folly of strangling the safest disposal option in sight – deep burial in dry Nevada – while letting high-level nuclear waste pile up near rivers around the country in stopgap storage containers.

Hanford hosts 56 million gallons of hot reactor byproducts in 177 steel-walled underground tanks, some dating to the heyday of Betty Grable. Collectively, they’ve leaked an estimated 1 million gallons of waste into the desert soil, creating radioactive plumes that are gradually headed for the Columbia River.

Worker at Perry Nuclear Power Plant dies after ‘medical incident’
[link to enformable.com]

[snip]

Due to the severity of the medical condition the worker was in, he was transported in anti-contamination clothing and not surveyed by a Health Physics tech prior to transportation to the local TriPoint Medical Center where he was declared deceased.

[link to www.nrc.gov]

Who will Pay for Nuclear Power Plant Cleanup?
[link to oilprice.com]

[snip]

The predicted cost of decommissioning Sellafield nuclear facility in Cumbria, Britain’s largest nuclear complex, is now estimated at an eye-watering $104.3 billion over the next three decades, a figure that inexorably year by year continues to rise and represents over $1,546 for every man, woman and child in the British Isles.

Sellafield is a nuclear reprocessing site, close to the village of Seascale on the British coast of the Irish Sea in Cumbria, England, a subsidiary of the original nuclear reactor site at Windscale, which, along with neighboring Calder Hall, is undergoing decommissioning and dismantling of its four nuclear power generating reactors.

Now, the aging facility, one of the first established under the Eisenhower’s administration’s civilian “atoms for peace” program, is due for decommissioning.

So, where to store the nuclear waste?

Thinking after Fukushima
Epistemic shift in social sciences
[link to hal.archives-ouvertes.fr]

[snip]


The most urgent task concerns nuclear energy and industry. According to this new
framework, we should not even debate whether nuclear energy is safe, clean or not. It is not
the real problem anymore. As society, individuals are always in need of trust and trust is an
unreachable goal. Our societies will never know the truth about nuclear safety. The issue is
not to trust nuclear industries or not, but to learn how to collectively manage uncertainty. One
thing is known for sure: society will never be able to control a sovereign technology and
sovereign industries, which require an aggregation of power and resources beyond political
oversight. Such a power structure cannot be controlled by a democratic society. Therefore
nuclear technology and industry defy and deny democracy. This is the reason why nuclear
plants should be closed and the nuclear industry stalled as long as advanced industrial
societies have not imagined and implemented the political reforms able to produce
knowledge, organize debate and implement reliable democratic control with respect to this
technology. For the moment, a democratic society should not develop sovereign industries it
cannot control. Concerning nuclear energy, before real democratic innovations are
implemented, alternative energies will probably develop and mature. Societies will then be
able to compare which energy sources are best adapted to a democratic society. In the present
situation, nuclear energy is a technology of the past, a legacy of the 20th century.

Another U.S. nuclear worker found dead — Third death at nuke plant this month
[link to enenews.com]

Hmm. Outside containment..


Tepco finds 920 millisieverts per hour in Fukushima Unit 1 torus room — Gundersen: “There are fuel fragments outside the containment”

[link to enenews.com]

Just a couple of years late..
Too bad for the children of Japan.



Japan MP: This is an emergency situation, lives must be protected — Health injury to people outside Fukushima raised (VIDEO)
[link to enenews.com]

[Express] Clinic “Hay fever patients have nosebleed since last month, it has never happened before”
[link to fukushima-diary.com]

[snip]

Since 2/1/2013, Osaka city has been incinerating 100 tones of disaster debris on the daily basis.

Robots capable of coping with nuclear disasters

Japanese researchers have unveiled new robot technologies that will facilitate work in stricken nuclear power plants.

Six groups from electronics makers and universities showcased their products at an event at the Chiba Institute of Technology near Tokyo on Wednesday.

Among the items was a robot with an arm that can extend 8 meters.

The robot is capable of opening valves in high places while being directed by a probe robot.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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TEPCO to try new water decontamination device

Regulators have told the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant it can finally begin testing a new device to decontaminate radioactive wastewater accumulating at the facility.

A panel at the Nuclear Regulation Authority on Thursday gave Tokyo Electric Power Company permission to begin the trial operation, after hearing the company's plans to increase the safety of the device.

TEPCO was forced to suspend the test after a storage vessel for the device was found to be unsafe.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Fukui leaders call for restarting nuclear plants

Mayors in Fukui Prefecture have called on the government to restart nuclear power plants once they have been confirmed safe. The prefecture is home to Japan's largest concentration of nuclear plants.

The mayors of Takahama Town and Tsuruga City made the request to industry minister Toshimitsu Motegi in Tokyo on Thursday.

The request calls on the central government to explain its decisions to restart the plants to the public after obtaining support from local communities.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Another BS message from the propaganda department...

N. Korea claims int'l recognition as nuke weapons state with 3rd test

North Korea said Thursday its third nuclear test earlier this month forced the international community to recognize it as a "strategic rocket and nuclear weapons state."

"The underground nuclear test...represented a great political and military victory as it made the international community confidently recognize the status of (North Korea) as a strategic rocket and nuclear weapons state," the country's military leadership said in a message carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

It added that the Feb. 12 test, which was carried out in the wake of the country's rocket launch in December that successfully put a satellite into orbit, "brought about a fundamental change in the world political structure and the balance of forces."
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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TEPCO releases video footage of Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 3 spent fuel pool



[link to www.youtube.com]
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TEPCO workers survey Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 torus room

920 millisieverts per hour...



[link to www.youtube.com]
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But on the Exit of the Security Valve?

NASA's basement nuclear reactor

If Joseph Zawodny, a senior scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center, is correct, the future of energy may lie in a nuclear reactor small enough and safe enough to be installed where the home water heater once sat. Using weak nuclear forces that turn nickel and hydrogen into a new source of atomic energy, the process offers a light, portable means of producing tremendous amounts of energy for the amount of fuel used. It could conceivably power homes, revolutionize transportation and even clean the environment.
[link to www.gizmag.com]
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Exclusive news for SOR!...:-)

Hot tech: Oregon State tests next generation of nuclear reactor

CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) — A new test facility under construction at Oregon State University could pave the way for next-generation nuclear technology that would do double duty, not only generating electricity but also producing hydrogen for fuel cells.

Work is under way on a small-scale simulator of a very high-temperature nuclear reactor, known in the industry as a VHTR. The $4.8 million research project, funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is expected to come on line in April.
[link to www.kval.com]
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TVA signs deal to build small new nuclear reactor in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has agreed to pursue plans for a new type of small modular nuclear reactor on property the utility owns in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

TVA announced today it signed a contract two weeks ago with Babcock & Wilcox Co. to prepare and support an application to build a small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear plant at TVA's Clinch River Site in Oak Ridge.
[link to www.timesfreepress.com]
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Thanks but NO thanks... I will never visit that place...

Japanese group wants Fukushima preserved for tourism, warning to future generations

A group made up of seven young intellectuals is seeking support as they put forward a proposal to preserve the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant as a tourist site, serving as a caution for future generations. The group, which includes sociologist Hiroshi Kainuma and architect Ryuji Fujimura, are made up of members all younger than 50 and are trying to push this radical proposal.
[link to japandailypress.com]
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There's a diagram here:

[link to enformable.com]
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+1 ^^ ...wild horses
rp : )

Intellectuals..?

They should realize that the effects of the *accident* on people will be a warning to future generations..

Fukushima-Daiichi will forever be a monument to the corruption and stupidity of tepco, et al.

When we look for the link;
[link to www.tepco.co.jp]

It look like that they checked the exit of the Security Valve?

Great comments on Fukushima. Has anyone considered to stop and thank the God of Israel that this event was not worse that it otherwise could have been. NOOOOO !!!! Because the leaders of Japan and China ( modern day Ahabs and Baals )do not repent to the Lord, the people under their authority will continue to suffer. However, the Nuclear Spring ( vs the Arab Spring ) in Asia has shown that Holy Spirit is alive and well in this region of the world and eventually some type of change will occur. It is simpler to Love the Lord and let Him take care of you.

Religion has a place at the table... but this is not the right table.

Thank you for your comment.

I'm not sure...

From your link:

"Investigation of the inside of Unit 1 Torus Room was performed by inserting a thermometer, a dosimeter and a camera from a hole of a diameter of 200mm drilled on the floor in the northwest side of the first floor of the Reactor Building."
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