Thread to discuss CURRENT events at Fukushima Nr. 2

This is your Opinion but not my,
Tepco wrote:
"-At 3:18 pm on January 14, we started operation of the radioactive
material removal instrument for the spent fuel pool in Unit 3"

Imo. this do not sounds like the SFP Nr. 3 is gone,
i remember also to saw Heat Pics from Nr. 3

Have a look:
[link to blog.greenpeace.de]

The Roadmap says that Tepco will remove the Fuel from now on,
they expect a few years to do so!

When we talk about Fukushima in the so called "Alternative Media"
we use every source, from Fukushima Diary, to Happy 20700, Busby and Caldicott, etc, ect,
all of them follow a Agenda or are Trolls,
why we should not use Tepco, NRS and other Pro Nuclear Pages as a Sources too!

We need to find the fine line in between,
she is very, very small and sometimes we
fail to see her but she exist!


Tepco offered also yesterday the following:
anuary 20, 2012
Tokyo Electric Power Company

Sankei Shimbun dated January 19, 2012 published an article "TEPCO left out the disconnection of emergency power supply for Fukushima nuclear data transmission equipment four months before the earthquake". Other newspapers published similar articles.

Facts are as below:

Disconnected and left out the power supply from the emergency power supply (uninterruptible power supply)

We proposed to enhance power supply to the media converter (MC)*1 by newly connecting the emergency power supply (uninterruptible power supply). We did not disconnect an existing connection from the emergency power supply.
Also, the AC power supply had a backup power. The building where the media converter (MC) was located was supposed to receive power from Okuma line 1 or TEPCO nuclear line.

Why there was no connection with the emergency power supply (uninterruptible power supply)

In installing the media converter (MC), the location for L3 switch*2 instructed by the Nuclear Safety Inspector was incorrect. Because of this, the length of the power cable was too short to connect. As such, we explained the situation to the Nuclear Safety Inspector, connected to the existing AC power supply and began operation of the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS).

Broadcasts regarding the impact on the radioactivity dispersing forecast

According to our analysis, the time when the reactor core of Unit 1, Fukushima Daiichi NPS was exposed (the water level went down to the top of active fuel) was around 5:46 pm, March 11. Before 4:43 pm, we believe that there was no release of radioactive substances when we could not transmit data due to malfunction of the national disaster prevention network.

Broadcast in relation to instruction / request for connection to the emergency power supply from the government and Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization

There was no instruction / request from the government or Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization.

(Reference: outline of the connection work with UPS)
We implemented to connect TEPCO's network with the national disaster prevention network in order to transmit power station plant data to the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS). We planned to newly install the media converter (MC), connect with the L3 switch, a national property and at the same time, connect with the national emergency power supply (uninterruptible power supply).

*1 media converter (MC): an equipment to connect and convert signals between different devices such as optical fibers and cables.

*2 L3 switch (layer 3 switch): this controls routing by IP address and relays packets to the output port that corresponds to the IP address.

[link to www.tepco.co.jp]

Fukushima Daini:
[link to www.tepco.co.jp]

Last Edited by The real and almighty Atom-Boy on 01/21/2012 04:30 AM

im pretty sure that number two is the only one they can get into, or at the very least was the lesser radiation "outputter"

number three had three servieants at the door, I dont see anyone going in there. Thats some enormous rad dose there.

I go with arnies assumption on number three. Yes I realise hes probably biased but only in a private way. He does not work for nor against the nuclear industry, but rather more likely simply in favour of better safety standards. In fact that is the impression I get, Im usually a good judge of character.

After all he has been spot on all the way since march 11.
And has constantly explained eloquently exactly whats going on from his point of view, and mostly why TEPCO is wrong to think this or that, all backed up with concise information.

A Heck of a lot more than TEPCO has released in openess.

If Arnie says the number three spent fuel pool isnt there anymore, and that its gone because of a prompt criticality caused in part by a hydrogen explosion, sending shit miles up in the sky at the speed of sound, and that the bigger explosion, was the spent fuel pool exploding, and that there is clear evidence to show the complete destruction and very apparent "dissapearance" of the sfp, well,


Thats good enough from me.


I find it very hard to comprehend, that the third largest economy in the world, with a modern and highly structured society, a nation of very smart, modern people, could possibly have as the largest modern power company, a bunch of seemingly inept, hopeless, shady, unforthcoming people running it.

I still hold the view, until TEPCO really does open up and explain HONESTLY, without worrying about my anxiety, exaclty what the fucks going on, that I will read whatever giblish they spit out and then I will as normal, compare that info with whatever else is out there.

And as usual the only real useful info, is coming solely from EVERYBODY ELSE AND NOT TEPCO!!!

Im not shouting ^ Im just trying to get my point across that the info thus receaved from TEPCO, has ALLWAYS been belatedly reported. First they tell us "might" "maybe" and "we think" and then they change it later and say "oh no! what we meant was" and then they change it.

Lets face it we are getting more uptodate info at times from secretly tweeting workers?

What kind of an operation is this? We ALL have the right to have the truth, not whatever TEPCO "decides" to release.

The only responce to TEPCOS release of information, is to question, what they are up to.

Why are they being EVASIVE with the truth?? it is a very good question.

Any policeman will tell you, when someone answers questions evasively, they do so to hide information, there is something they dont want you know.

At EVERY point along the way, TEPCO has behaved like suspect number one.

We dont not have a complete picture of the entire situatuion on the ground, why?

The only "inspection" by foreign reporters was a very tightly controlled fiasco that really gave us nothing but pictures of the ground and other such useless stuff.

Every bit of information is scrutinised and censored.
In that TEPCO just doesnt seem to be able to complete a sentence, they just give a snippet followed by garbage and contradictions.

We HAVE to look for more clear information from "other" sources, merely because to sit back and accept the "company line" would be foolish unless you of course didnt really care for the outcome.

Please dont forget, TEPCO has been caught outright lying, all the way through. Even if there is some culural thing the Japanese can do with language that allows one to not answer a question through not telling the WHOLE truth, to the rest of the world its still called lying.

And I dont believe lyers!!

I do hope number 3 sfp is still there, and intact, and that their "radioactive material removal instrument"???????
is working just fine.

I also hope someone can fucking well explain to me just what the hell is a "radioactive material removal instrument"

and how are they "operating" it??????????

Well thats my rant see you tommorow!............

Protesting nuclear power
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Yokohama the weekend of Jan. 14-15
to show their support for a nuclear power-free world.

Organizers of the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World claimed
6,000 participants from some 30 countries on the first day and 5,500 on the second.
Newspaper reports put the number closer to 2,000.

Whatever the actual numbers,
including a no-doubt large Internet audience for the live broadcast,
the conference showed that organized opposition to nuclear power
has gained momentum in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear plant crisis.

The conference shows all the signs of turning into a coherent,
focused movement.

For a movement to have impact, though, it needs more than people in parks — it also needs viable ideas.

This conference had both.
Rather than calling the weekend a "protest" or "rally," they called it a "conference."

And rather than demanding an immediate ban, they called for transitions toward a nuclear-free world.
That softer, more sensible approach is more likely to succeed.

Less than 50% [link to www.japantimes.co.jp]

It's coming, slow but in a typical Japanese Way,
not blind and Violent, instead creative and POWERFULL

@Anonymous Coward
User ID: 9273372

i was looking last night for the Arnie Statement that SFP Nr. 3 is gone,
can you point it out for me because A. Gundersen is
the only one from the alternative Media i still believe!

Last Edited by The real and almighty Atom-Boy on 01/22/2012 04:59 AM

No records of nuclear disaster taskforce meetings
It has been revealed that the government's nuclear disaster taskforce did not keep any records of its meetings after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.

Experts say this is a significant loss, as the minutes could help to prevent mistakes from being repeated.

The taskforce, headed by the prime minister and including all the Cabinet members, was launched on the day of the accident on March 11th last year.

It made important decisions, including the designation of evacuation areas, basic policies on decontamination and restrictions on the shipment of agricultural produce.

[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]

Fukushima to host int'l nuclear conference

Japan's Foreign Minister says the government will invite ministers from across the world to an international conference later this year to discuss the safety of nuclear plants in Fukushima Prefecture. The event will be jointly hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Koichiro Gemba made the announcement on Sunday in a lecture in Sukagawa City, Fukushima Prefecture. The prefecture houses the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]

Last Edited by The real and almighty Atom-Boy on 01/22/2012 03:13 PM

On a different computer again, for now I will identify myself as GEZZA. (accronym)

I am absolutely sure I saw a video by arnie where he viewed the high definition photos especially of number 3 reactor (side view and above)

The photos clearly show massive damage DIRECTLY above the sfp, where the roofing rafters were in comeplete dissaray, or rather basicly a bloody great hole ABOVE the sfp. In comparison the roofing rafters above the rest of the building, although distroyed, were still "there".

I may well be "slightly wrong" in saying the sfp is not "there" anymore. Though I distinctly recall arnie talking about fuel rods (peices of) being found up to a mile away. Arnie went to great lenghs to explain how the initial hydrogen explosion "compacted" the sfp rods togeather causing a "prompt criticality" while TEPCOS theory stated hydogen gas "found" its way to the number 3 building by travelling DOWN and along pipes into the building. Which is a typical bullshit analysis from TEPCO.

I have also seen high res photos or "stills" taken from video which camera was located on the end of the mobile water injecting crane. The photos looked through the huge hole above the sfp, and I remember people being surprised by the fact that amongst the debris, only ONE fuel assembly rack holder ( a sought of squareish handle looking thing) was visible. Arnie said that this was "concerning" as there should have been thousands of these "handles"

Further more, it has been released today that the radiation from number 3 is increasing substancially. The thing to remember here is that there was no fuel in the number 3 reactor, as it was very maintained and refueled, everything was in the sfp!

So, the explosion that occured, was a direct result of the sfp being emptied of water, overheating and the zirconium cladding reacting with oxygen. You should probably be aware by now that when the zirconium reacts it releases or basicly produces hydrogen. This is why they were pumping in nitrogen to stop the air (oxygen) mixing with the hydrogen, causing (guess what) a hydrogen explosion.

Arnie has also explained the difference between a hydrogen explosion as compared to a prompt criticality. With hydrogen having a "slow burning" or below the speed of sound explosion. While we all know when we saw the footage, that "whatever" blew up, did so big time. I am quite at ease believing in the "nuclear detonation" theory as this really is the only thing that makes sense.

Its a case of balistics. In order for a projectile to travel a mile distance, it MUST leave its point of departure, at a given rate of knots, in order to "fight" against gravity, to reach its destination. The ONLY way a peice of fuel rod is going to "depart" from the sfp and "fly" through the air, a mile distant, is through a DETONATION rather than a hydrogen explosion.

It is plain to see, through watching number 1, 4, 3, explode, (I hope I got those numbers right) that the number 3 explosion was a very different affair than the others.

After all it was a completly massive explosion filmed from over twenty kilometeres away, rising directly straight up, with huge chunks of debris. When compared with the others which were clearly, although large, very "muffled" affairs.
The number 3 explosion was basicly identical to the atomic tests carried out in nevada, and filmed by the military from (guess what) twenty kilometeres away!

All this tells me that even if the sfp inventory is "still there" its not in any way recoverable nor containable.

It is a disaster.

Not long ago an "explosion" occured at a facility in france. Three people died. Workers were "cooking" or burning nuclear waste materials in a industrial "oven" What basicly happened was that one lot of waste put into the oven contained "X" amount of radiation, and when they put in some more waste containing "X" amount, in the oven enough radioactive activity was reached to create a "flash" situation, so there was a miniture "prompt criticality"

One of the workers was "carbonised"

This means what it infers, our human bodies aere supposedly made up of 95% water 5% carbon. So guess what this means?

Yep, you guessed it!! all that was left of this man was (oh I hate to say this) a shadow of his former self!!!

They did not perform a autopsy as there was nothing left! they buried his "remains" in a lead lined coffin.

Now can you imagine we are talking here about overalls, gloves, goggles, and other such "low level" waste. This is what they were dispposing of.

Now times that by perhaps a billion or more!!! A spent fuel pool, full to the hilt, of thousands of highly radioctive fuel rods, including plutonium, all pressed togeather instantly?? Can you see the correlation here?

This is what im tring to get at here. I hope you understand, im not in any way an expert, everything I have picked about all things nuclear, I have done since march 11/11 And in no way do I believe a word from TEPCO, other than the fact that whatever they say you can times by a hundred.

Oh Ive read before but it didnt sink in till I read it again today. The cedar trees in japan, have tested positive, to 250,000 calculations per sec, per kilogramme, in the male trees. Im still trying to imagine whats going to happen when they all flower and dissperse their pollen at such a rate. They were talking about 2800 square kilometeres of forest!!!

Its all about internal radiation, breathing it in, and the effects on women and children.

The Japanese government and TEPCO are well aware of whats happening both now, and what is to come. Atomboy, please understand, the future of your country is at stake.
If I lived there I would be joining these so called "conferances"

Allreday there are MAJOR deformaties in plants and animals, for thousands if not millions of people, the damage has ALLREADY begun. It takes time, and the more you breathe in the more you accumalte, the higher and higher the "chances" of cancer, deformed babies etc.

Your Japan will not be recognisable in five years time. This is the reality.

I have posted to "yours" and others threads since the "beggining" and will continue to. I watched "live" as the great tsnuami sweapt over towns and cities, as shocked as I were, nothing compared me for the next lot of news. Fukushima. I recognisde straight away, that I was watching the beginning of the beginning of the end of Japan, and I have morbidly watched ever since. I am not stupid. I can see with my eyes, I have not been able shake my dissbelief at the seemingly ineptitude of both TEPCO and your government. But then I think, "what else can they do??"

I understand intimately the reality, I know what is to come. Radiation is death to ALL living cells. It does not discriminate btween animals and humans, the old or the young. It is a violent and callous murderer of life.

I know this is doom and gloom, and I understand the need to not "dwell" I also know what cancer does to a family.

All the best.

@ Geeza,

yes i remember that the imo. honorable A. Gundersen
spoke a lot about Reactor Nr. 3 but afir he never said that it (SFP) is "gone".

Until now i do not found this Interview!

The Explosion (?) looked so strange and imo. different
than a Nuclear Explosion,
in the Mili-Seconds before the Blast happens it looked alike a "Space Weapon",
i use " " because i have no words for this in English,
it not looked like a Explosion

It was also to low for a nuclear Weapon!
(600m)

The Hydrogen for the Explosions "!"
(lately they said there was 2 of them)
could came from the underground Connection
between all the Reactors!
(a very bad construction Error)

Is there are real Source that the any of the SFP burned?
Because the official Report announced only Cable Fires,
around the area of the SFP,
they never had the slightest chance,
at that time to extinguish a SFP-Fire!

Nr. 3 "release" at the moment Radiation because they are cleaning up,
afaik/ the Roadmap said the Nr.3 or Nr. 2
is the next Reactor that will get a Tent!

And yes, i agree with you and everyone else that we see a horrible Disaster
with a unknown ending
but as i said in the beginning of our Conversation i start to see a little bit of Hope,
when i remember the first Weeks after all this started
(have a look for all the Threads) this Hope is reasonable!

Yes,
i am also looking a little bit scared for the Spring
and i bought yesterday 2 new Air-Filter Machines
(Hepa-Filter)
that should prevent the Pollen to reach my Living Room,
for the Parents of our PTA Group i advised already Face Masks
and a strong Observation of the Conditions,
but we also should not forget that Tokyioties are living in a very artificial World
and even the Kids spend much less Time in "the Outside" than Europeans or Americanos.

The deformities of Fruits is nothing new here in Nippon,
just last Week they announced "a 85g. Strawberry"
(bigger than an Apple)
she get sold for 750 USD because she was something special and not common or average,
imho it is toooooo early to see such deformities in
Fruits and Vegetables because of Radiation from F'Shime, but in a Blog like Fukushima-Diary such a Picture works very well because it suggest Doom, "Endzeit"!

And yes, we all know that the Situation is
"honto ni warui desu" (really horrible/ bad)
but imho it was already horrible before 03/11!

Of course we will see a strong Increase of Cancer,
we will see Pain, Death and a lot of Suffering
but we,
you and i,
as well as all the other People here
know that when such a Disaster happened
all this would happen
but not many of us said: "Stop, don't do this anymore"
this made us all to/o Cowards,
for example i stopped to fight the Nuclear Complex
at the 04/26, 25 Years ago when Chernobyl happened!

PS: please excuse my bad and horrible English

Last Edited by The real and almighty Atom-Boy on 01/24/2012 09:51 AM

@atom... good to see we can still agree to disagree...

the explosion video i can share with you.

the fuel pool was on top of the sfp and beyond, and the video was taken from 20 km away.

if you work around the amount of spent rods as listed by TEPCO, and the lack of which were shown in the after photos.. they are gone.....

now... whether or not they evapourated (act of god), or were disperesed is still denied by TEPCO.

Gundersan (as you rightly admit to being duely a concerted advocate and professional voice on the matter, from a non-governmental, nor paid place with in this puzzle) states that the fuel pool is missing....

regardless of the crisis of three melt throughs... where have these spent fuel pools gone?

i think that is the most serious question

regards... CP

Last Edited by CitizenPerth™ on 01/24/2012 10:03 AM

Japanese filmmakers tackle the 3/11 tragedy
“If one was to be poisoned by radiation, if he or she did so out of their own will and conviction I believe it to be perfectly fine. But you can’t force that onto the children. The children, you must distance them from the poisoned areas.”

So says Koide Hiroaki, Associate Professor at Kyoto University’s Nuclear Test Facility and a prominent anti-nuclear campaigner, in the documentary Friends After 3.11, which will have its international premiere at next month’s Berlin International Film Festival.

Also being unveiled at the festival are two other Japanese films dealing with the March 11, 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power station and ensuing tsunami.

Funahashi Atsushi’s Nuclear Nation: The Fukushima Refugees Story, will have its world premiere in Berlin. Produced by Documentary Japan, it’s described as a portrait of a mayor without a town who tries desperately to keep together a community scattered across various emergency shelters in the Tokyo suburbs. In the process, he questions old certainties.

less than 50% [link to www.sbs.com.au]

All Hail to the Japanese Censorship

now yer talkin' ;)

Japan needs all the help it can get with clean-up

The failure of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant last year struck a body blow to Japan’s image as a bastion of world-beating technological prowess. Not only did the atomic power station prove disastrously vulnerable to last year’s tsunami, Japan also frequently found itself forced to rely on foreign equipment to contain the crisis.

To pour water into the top of a shattered reactor building, workers turned to a 62m truck-mounted concrete pump made by Chinese construction machinery manufacturer Sany Group. The first robots to venture into the highly radioactive reactor halls were made by iRobot Corp of the US.
Less than 50% [link to www.ft.com]

Good article to fight the Gossip that the Japanese
doing everything alone in F'Shima!

Another Japanese nuclear reactor suspended
A power plant operator said Wednesday that it had shut down a nuclear reactor in Niigata prefecture, central Japan, for regular checkups, which would leave only four of the nation’s 54 reactors in service.
----------
Before the disaster, around 30 per cent of Japan’s electricity was nuclear generated.

Less than 50% [link to www.timeslive.co.za]

Tepco down to one operating nuclear reactor
The No. 5 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture was to be taken offline early Wednesday for scheduled maintenance and inspections, leaving only one out of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s 17 still in service.

All of Tepco's reactors will go offline by the end of March when the No. 6 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant will be switched off for repairs and safety checks.

Among Japan's 54 commercial reactors, only three not operated by Tepco are currently in operation. These are the No. 3 reactor at the Tomari plant in Hokkaido Prefecture, the No. 3 reactor at the Takahama plant in Fukui Prefecture and the No. 2 reactor at the Shimane plant.
[link to www.japantimes.co.jp]

Only 3 left, which other Nation can do this?


Japan Reviews Disaster Plan Amid New Quake Concerns
Underscoring the risks facing Japan, a new research institute investigation has determined there is a 70% chance of a magnitude-7 earthquake striking the Tokyo metropolitan area within the next four years, and 98% over 30 years. The March 2011 earthquake was a magnitude-9.

The latest prediction surprised residents, and grabbed headlines in the local media. The government's forecast, using a different methodology, has been that there is a 70% chance of a magnitude-7 quake hitting Tokyo over the next 30 years.
[link to online.wsj.com]

METI wants tents gone
KYODO

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Tuesday urged antinuclear activists who have pitched tents within its precincts to take them down and leave the site, citing fire safety.

METI chief Yukio Edano said at a news conference that a small fire was caused last month by a gasoline-powered generator used by the activists. The ministry is located in the Kasumigaseki district, where many government offices are concentrated.

Last Edited by The real and almighty Atom-Boy on 01/25/2012 09:24 AM

All much less than 50%, please read the whole Articles!


Possible Tokyo Evacuation Was Kept Secret in Nuclear Crisis
The Japanese government’s worst-case scenario at the height of the nuclear crisis last year warned that tens of millions of people, including residents of Tokyo, might be forced to leave their homes, according to a report. Fearing widespread panic, officials kept the report secret.
---
“We cannot rule out further developments that may lead to an unpredictable situation at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where there has been an accident, and this report outlines a summary of that unpredictable situation,” said the document, which was written by Shunsuke Kondo, the leader of the atomic energy commission.

[link to www.nytimes.com]


Japan's 'Nuclear Alley' Conflicted Over Reactors
International inspectors are visiting a rugged Japanese bay so thick with reactors it is dubbed "Nuclear Alley," where residents remain deeply conflicted as Japan moves to restart plants idled after the Fukushima disaster.

The local economy depends heavily on the industry, and the national government hopes that "stress tests" at idled plants — the first of which is being reviewed this week by the International Atomic Energy Agency — will show they are safe enough to switch back on.

But last year's tsunami crisis in northeastern Japan with meltdowns at three of the Fukushima reactors has fanned opposition to the plants here in western Fukui prefecture, a mountainous region surrounding Wakasa Bay that also relies on fishing and tourism and where the governor has come out strongly against nuclear power.
[link to abcnews.go.com]

Japan's Ex-Premier Turns Anti-Nuclear Activist
Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan returns to the world stage this week, part of a campaign to reinvent himself as a global antinuclear activist nearly a year after he oversaw his government's widely criticized handling of the Fukushima Daiichi accident.

"I would like to tell the world that we should aim for a society that can function without nuclear energy," he said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, previewing his speech scheduled for Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
[link to online.wsj.com]

All less than 50%, please read the original Story
for a full Report!



How sea water could corrode nuclear fuel
Japan used seawater to cool nuclear fuel at the stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant after the tsunami in March 2011 -- and that was probably the best action to take at the time, says Professor Alexandra Navrotsky of the University of California, Davis.

But Navrotsky and others have since discovered a new way in which seawater can corrode nuclear fuel, forming uranium compounds that could potentially travel long distances, either in solution or as very small particles. The research team published its work Jan. 23 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
[link to www.news.ucdavis.edu]

Japan aims to end decontamination work in some evacuation areas by 2014
The ministry plans to start cleaning houses, offices, farm lands and others located in areas with an annual radiation dose of up to 50 millisieverts from around July, according to a road map unveiled the same day. Ministry officials said the government intends to bring the radiation level down to 20 millisieverts or lower.

But the government did not show a detailed cleanup schedule for areas over 50 millisieverts, saying it will consider what to do with such heavily polluted lands after seeing the outcome of decontamination demonstration projects.
[link to mdn.mainichi.jp]

Japan loses track of radioactive cows/ how convenient
Japanese authorities have lost track of nearly 3,000 dead cows suspected of containing high levels of radioactive caesium.

The cows ate rice straw contaminated in the Fukushima nuclear disaster
[link to www.abc.net.au]

using salt water was the last resort.
there was no other way to cool the reactors as the set systems were knock out.
the last of the least of the worst 'so to speak'
i'll give atom-boy a good catch on this one.....
they had nothing better to do, in a dire situation....

All Articles less than 50%, please read the rest,
otherwise you may mis something!

Japan’s nuclear nightmare
Iat’s generally assumed that highly developed Japan would handle a catastrophic accident far more competently and humanely than callous, hierarchical, and sharply class-polarised societies with a poorly developed infrastructure and safety culture like India or Pakistan. Japan was also expected to do much better than backward Ukraine, which suffered the world’s previous nuclear core meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986 – especially as regards large-scale emergency evacuation given Japan’s long experience with earthquakes and tsunamis.

Alas, reality betrays this expectation. Japan has rebuilt the roads, bridges and houses destroyed by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. But it has abjectly failed to provide adequate relief to those affected by the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power station. Needless to say, India or Pakistan would have done infinitely worse.

A majority of the victims of the three Fukushima reactor meltdowns continue to be exposed to high levels of harmful radiation from atmospheric fallout and contaminated food and water. The radiation “exclusion zone” only covers a 20-km radius. But radiation levels are high well beyond the zone, at distances such as 60 or even 200 km
[link to www.thenews.com.pk]

Japanese Experts Question Safety of—and Need for—Nuclear Power
Japan is preparing for the possibility of a summer without nuclear power as utilities and safety experts squabble over the safety of the country's remaining reactors. And a key government minister is calling the power industry's bluff—that blackouts will occur if plants idled for inspection are not brought online—by saying the nation could avoid disruption by relying on conservation and thermal power.

By law, nuclear power plants must be periodically shut down for maintenance and inspection; utilities need national and local permission to restart operations. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, last summer the governing Democratic Party of Japan required "stress tests," analyses of a facility's ability to withstand natural disasters, to be part of the periodic inspection routine. That analysis was carried out for two reactors at a plant in Ohi on the Japan Sea coast and submitted for review to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), which concluded they had passed. Operator Kansai Electric Power is seeking approval to restart the two reactors.
[link to news.sciencemag.org]

Antinuclear activists refuse to move tents from gov't landAntinuclear activists rejected a call by the industry ministry to remove their tents from its precincts by 5 p.m. Friday, and continued a four-month-old occupation of ministry grounds to press their demand for the closure of all nuclear power plants in Japan.

The activists said they will not move the tents until the government promises not to allow idled nuclear reactors to resume operating. The ministry said it will not try to evict the activists by force but continue to ask them to remove the tents voluntarily.

On Friday, hundreds of people attended a gathering of antinuclear activists in front of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, chanting "stop nuclear power plants" and "give us back Fukushima."

Setsuko Kuroda, 61, who attended the gathering from Fukushima Prefecture, said, "Please do not take down our activity's important symbol. What should be taken down are not these tents but the nuclear plants."
[link to mdn.mainichi.jp]

All less than 50% read the rest too!


Japan Post-Fukushima Reactor Checks ‘Insufficient,' Advisers Say
Japan's safety review of nuclear reactors after the Fukushima disaster is based on faulty criteria and many people involved have conflicts of interest, two government advisers on the checks said.

“The whole process being undertaken is exactly the same as that used previous to the Fukushima Dai-Ichi accident, even though the accident showed all these guidelines and categories to be insufficient,” Hiromitsu Ino, Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo, said at a briefing in Tokyo today.
[link to news.businessweek.com]

IAEA to set up Fukushima office to share info on nuclear crisis
The International Atomic Energy Agency plans to open a branch office in Japan's Fukushima Prefecture to promote international information sharing about the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said Saturday.

The plan is being considered at the request of the Japanese government, Amano told Kyodo News in the Swiss resort of Davos, where the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is being held, noting that the IAEA intends to open the office by the end of this year.

"We have told the Japanese government that the IAEA stands ready to cooperate," Amano said.

State won't fund free medical care in Fukushima
The government will not pay for free medical care to be provided for people aged 18 and younger in Fukushima Prefecture, reconstruction minister Tatsuo Hirano said Saturday.

Free medical care in the nuclear crisis-hit prefecture would raise issues about the role of the national medical care system, and providing fresh funding would thus be "difficult," Hirano said in a meeting with Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato.

The meeting came after Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told Sato in November he would consider making medical care free for the prefecture's youth, one of the requests the governor made in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

Sato said the decision is "extremely regrettable" and that he will consider using the prefecture's money, including compensation from Tokyo Electric Power Co., to fund free medical care.

There has been some opposition within the Noda administration to providing exceptional funding for medical needs unrelated to the nuclear crisis.
[link to www.japantimes.co.jp]

Panel to issue final investigation report on nuclear crisis in July
A government-appointed panel investigating the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant will compile its final report by the end of July and hopes to end its probe at that point, panel head Yotaro Hatamura, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, said Wednesday.

The panel also announced that it will hold a two-day meeting in Tokyo from Feb. 24 with at least four overseas experts to review the panel's interim report, released in late December.

During their stay in Japan, Richard Meserve, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Andre-Claude Lacoste, the chairman of the French nuclear safety authority, and other foreign experts are also expected to visit the actual site of the world's worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
[link to mdn.mainichi.jp]

Hosono urges towns to aid disposal effort
"I expect local governments (outside the tsunami zone) will become willing to accept the rubble if they become more aware of the serious situation there," Hosono said.

A number of municipalities across Japan have reported that residents are mainly concerned that they might be contaminated by radioactive fallout from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant if their areas are used to store and dispose of tainted debris.

Before he spoke with the Miyagi governor, Hosono visited some temporary waste storage sites in Ishinomaki, where tsunami rubble is piled as high as 25 meters.

He also confirmed that the radiation level of the debris at the site was 0.05 microsievert per hour, or about the same as that in surrounding areas.

[link to www.japantimes.co.jp]

Chinese Tourists Return to Japan
After being scared off by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, Chinese tourists are visiting Japan in record numbers again, generating much-needed business and optimism for the nation's struggling retail and tourism sectors.

During the Lunar New Year holiday that sent millions of people traveling across Asia and beyond, tourists from mainland China thronged popular destinations in Japan, from ski slopes in the northern island of Hokkaido, to electronics stores in Tokyo, to ancient temples in Kyoto. That's quite a change from last spring, when tourism in Japan ground to a virtual halt amid radiation fears following the March 11 nuclear accident.

In December, the number of Chinese visitors rose 32% from a year earlier to a record 80,000, following a similar increase in November. Anecdotal evidence suggests another surge in January.
----
Across the street at Laox, another electronics store, the best-selling items included a ¥54,800 ($714) rice cooker featuring an inner pot coated with diamond and silver powder for better heat conductivity. Tomohiko Okano, the store manager, says Chinese customers on average spent ¥70,000 per person. "They are very brand conscious. They want items made in Japan," he says. How about Westerners? "They buy T-shirts. Their average is far less than 10,000 yen."

[link to online.wsj.com]

Last Edited by The real and almighty Atom-Boy on 01/29/2012 10:53 AM

All less than 50%, please read the rest!
Domo Arigato

'Worst scenario' on Fukushima crisis shared only by a few lawmakers
"The scenario was not a possibility in fact. If it had been made public at that time, it was likely that no one would have remained in Tokyo," Hosono told Kyodo News in a recent interview. "It would have caused trouble regarding the government's handling of the nuclear crisis."

The government predicted in the worst scenario, produced on March 25 by Japan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Shunsuke Kondo, that the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant would explode and the No. 4 unit's spent fuel pool would dry up, bringing about a more extensive release of radioactive material.

The scenario was examined by only a few key lawmakers in the government and was not shared even with the Nuclear Safety Commission "as we wanted to prevent gossip from spreading," Hosono said. "We could not even announce the fact that we compiled such a simulation."
[link to mdn.mainichi.jp]

Gov't starts study of radiation effects on wildlife near Fukushima plant
The specimens will be checked for radioactive cesium levels, and also for anomalies in their appearance or DNA. The study will pay particular attention to the reproductive faculties of amphibians and mammals and checks for abnormalities in their offspring, as well as in the seeds of local flora.

After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, abnormalities in the local swallow population were reported, such as low white blood cell counts, shrinking brain capacities and a drop in bird numbers. Even 26 years later, radiation is said to be affecting the area. Without humans, local wildlife has been able to breed without restriction, but the effects of radiation on the ecosystem as a whole are still unknown.
[link to mdn.mainichi.jp]

Evacuees of Fukushima village report split families, growing frustration
Frustration, deteriorating health, and a growing feeling of unfair treatment are being reported by residents who have evacuated from this village, a local government survey has found.

A survey by the Iitate village government obtained responses from some 1,743 people who have evacuated from the village, which lies within the emergency evacuation preparation zone around the damaged Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. It shows that many residents are experiencing growing frustration and instability due to the nuclear crisis at the plant and an inability to return to the lives they were living before the disaster.
[link to mdn.mainichi.jp]

Mayor protests TEPCO's refusal to boost nuclear compensation payment
The mayor of Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, has criticized Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) over its refusal to boost compensation to a man affected by the nuclear disaster.

In a news conference on Jan. 29, Mayor Katsutaka Idogawa stated: "As a town housing a nuclear power plant, we fully cooperated with TEPCO up until now. Its attitude is unfortunate."
[link to mdn.mainichi.jp]

Last Edited by The real and almighty Atom-Boy on 01/30/2012 05:35 AM

Radiation Experts Begin Assessment Of Fukushima Nuclear AccidentSixty international experts assessing the radiation exposures and health effects resulting from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan last March kicked off a week-long meeting today in Vienna.

“We are putting together a jigsaw puzzle, evaluating the exposures of the general public, of workers, and radiation effects, and looking for the missing pieces,” said Wolfgang Weiss, Chair of the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).

The power plant was damaged following a massive earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011 that knocked out water cooling systems at the plant, contaminating air, water, plants and animals with radioactive plumes dozens of kilometres from the site.
[link to www.newsroomamerica.com]

IAEA mission inspected implementation of stress test
An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expert mission currently visiting Japan inspected the Ohi nuclear power station of Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. on January 26. The utility has recently submitted to the Japanese government the result of its primary assessment on Ohi units 3 and 4 as part of a required stress test (safety margin assessment).

The result stated that the reactors had sufficient safety margins against beyond-design-basis earthquakes and tsunamis.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of Japan has put together a draft review on January 18 affirming that the result of the primary assessment was adequate. The IAEA mission is visiting Japan to confirm the status of the implementation of the stress test on site.

The team will be in the country until January 31, by which it plans to compile an outline report on the observation.
[link to www.shimbun.denki.or.jp]

Shadow meals' employed to keep families safe from radiation
The practice of kagezen -- literally "shadow meal" -- entails setting out meals at home for a family member who is absent, in hopes that they will be safe while traveling. Meals were commonly prepared by family members waiting at home for the safe return of husbands and sons on distant battlefields, or fathers who were away as migrant workers. There may be some families today who practice kagezen for family members who are hospitalized or for children away on long school trips.

There's been a recent revival of kagezen, which families had been carrying out less and less in modern times. "Shadow" meals at homes and schools are being set aside, not for someone who is absent from the dinner table, but for radiation testing. Apparently, setting aside actual meals for nutritional analysis is a method that had been used prior to the nuclear crisis.
[link to mdn.mainichi.jp]

All less than 50%, visit the News and read the whole Storie
to stay updated!

Japan’s Nuclear Plant Safety Tests Ignore Lessons of Fukushima
Japan’s so-called stress tests to review nuclear plant safety don’t include lessons from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi disaster, effectively ignoring the reason for running the checks, two government advisers said.

The stress tests were initiated after the earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima plant last March causing radiation leaks in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

Yet, the checks ignore the potential for two natural disasters to occur at the same time, which is what happened at Fukushima, said Masashi Goto, a former atomic plant designer who is a member of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency’s stress test advisory committee. The tests also don’t take into account the ages of plants, he said.
[link to www.businessweek.com]

It’s still on shaky ground
The authorities failed to use data produced by Japan’s special radiation warning and fallout prediction system called Speedi. The evacuation in near-panic of over 110,000 residents from a 20-km ‘exclusion zone’ resulted in people leaving polluted areas only to find themselves in areas with even higher radioactive contamination. This is documented in a recent report of a government-appointed commission that says that the evacuation order was so vague that it “sounded almost the same as telling residents to ‘just run’”. There has since been no systematic measurement of radiation doses or food contamination at different distances from the site. Officials in Tokyo, more than 220 km away, have detected the same levels of cancer-causing cesium-137 in breast milk as exist in the ‘exclusion zone’.

The 507-page interim report depicts bumbling nuclear industry executives and confused government officials scrambling to deal with the crisis. They grossly underestimated tsunami risks and Tepco workers’ ability to handle emergencies like the station blackout after the tsunami destroyed backup generators, leading to the overheating of reactor cores and their eventual meltdown. They followed no manual.

Regulatory agencies failed to impose tough safety standards on Tepco, which was too slow to gather information on radiation leaks and relay it to the authorities. The report documents Tepco’s misjudgment of the reactors’ operational situation, its poor handling of alternative water injection, its response to the hydrogen explosions and its failure to prevent the expansion of damage. A better response might have reduced the core damage and radiation leaks.
[link to www.hindustantimes.com]

Japan’s Triple Threat of Tragedy
In addition to the human costs of the disaster, there are many economic effects. Japan’s Nikkei newspaper stated that the Japanese government declared the cost of nuclear energy in Japan is set to increase dramatically, but will remain cheaper than alternative energy sources. The government panel also estimated that cleaning up the disaster and compensating its victims could cost as much as 20 trillion yen ($257 billion).

Food supplies have also been affected by the incident. Excessive radiation found in some vegetables, tea, milk, seafood, and water has made the Japanese anxious about their food. The government has tried to calm fears by stating detected levels are not dangerous, but many Japanese remain apprehensive.

Tyrone Acres and his wife Emiko live in Japan in Okayama City, Okayama. When asked whether or not the radiation influenced any of their buying or eating habits, Tyrone said, “Not ours. But throughout most, if not all of the country, people are avoiding just about everything food related that has come anywhere near the irradiated area.”
[link to weissmanreport.com]

Just found this personal breaking site about reactor 4.
It says there were nuclear, not hydrogen, explosions at reactor 4 in March 2011 and some operating workers, who tried to move fuel rods from reactor to pool, were blown to death.
And this explosion was as worse as the one at reactor 3, yet hidden by TEPCO.
The reason why TEPCO is currently warning, which TEPCO never has done just after the meltdown, about reactor 4 is to hide this fact. The worst crisis has already been over.

nice catch atom-boy... it was always speculated.... gj....

btw, do you have the link?

Last Edited by CitizenPerth™ on 02/02/2012 02:35 AM

When you visit the brilliant [link to enformable.com]
you will be able to see fresh and new Pictures
of Reactor Nr. 3+ 4!

In the case the SFP Nr.4 burn/ed, exploded or what so ever
(the same for the Core) you would be not able
to visit this Area!

In the new Pics you will see Workers
standing directly above the Pool,
they cover this Pool because soon
they need to remove the rest of the Debris of Nr. 4!

Also we would find much more
and much different Radionuclide's,
please give a shite on that Gossip from F-D
and related Blogs!

Last Edited by The real and almighty Atom-Boy on 02/02/2012 02:46 AM

Gomen Nasai

Last Edited by The real and almighty Atom-Boy on 02/02/2012 02:46 AM

I forgot to paste the link.
It's written in Japanese with a lot of large pictures.
[link to yoshi-tex.com]

Wow, i will dedicate some Time with my old Lady
to check this Page, 3-5 Pictures i see for the first Time!

Arigato Gozaimasu!

All less 50%, please read everything to eliminate misunderstandings and misinterpretation!


(dependent) Chernobyl experts hopeful on Fukushima
Ukrainian nuclear experts say Japanese evacuated from around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant should be able to return to their homes - unlike the Chernobyl site, which remains inside a wide no-go zone a quarter-century after the accident there.

The public may eventually be able to visit the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, where three reactor cores melted after a tsunami last March 11 knocked out the cooling systems, Oleg Nasvit, a nuclear physicist and radiation expert at Kiev's National Institute for Strategic Studies, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
----
It may be a long process, but the operator and the government should tackle the problem quickly, based on science, not emotion, the Ukrainian experts said.

"We should not pass the problem on to the next generation," Bobro said.
[link to www.blueridgenow.com]

The low-level nuclear threat
Fear of the effects of an atomic strike haunted the politicians and scientists of the cold war. For years, researchers around the world worked on massive and systematic programmes to understand how ionizing radiation might affect survivors of a blast.

Almost half a billion animals in the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe and Japan — mostly rats and mice, but also thousands of dogs and some rabbits and monkeys — were deliberately irradiated.

These experiments were well designed and worked to identify the pathological consequences of doses of various types of radiation, delivered at different rates and by different routes, including inhalation or ingestion. Results were documented in detail and tissue samples were kept.
[link to www.nature.com]

Nuclear Can Take Toughest Blows, Regulators say
For its part, the NRC is saying that while the new model will reveal that “ground motion” is more likely, it does not then equate to greater “overall risks.” The utilities running such operations must combine the information from the most recent seismic model with its own design and safety features to determine site-specific risks -- one that regulators will use in the licensing process.

The relevance here could not be more obvious. Last August, an earthquake registering 5.8 on the Richter scale struck the east coast. It caused two reactors located in Virginia to shut down for three months. No radiation escaped.

The overall context is the Japanese catastrophe in March 2011. In December, the country’s prime minister said that the nuclear operators there reached a “milestone” and had stabilized the damaged reactors from which radiation had leaked. Meantime, officials there said that never before had a nation had to deal with three ruined units and that the clean up would take 40 years.
[link to www.energybiz.com]

Last Edited by The real and almighty Atom-Boy on 02/03/2012 04:46 AM

[link to kingo999.blog.fc2.com]


Without Comment!

Last Edited by The real and almighty Atom-Boy on 02/04/2012 10:41 AM