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

Antinuclear rally to encircle Diet with candlelight
Citizens opposed to nuclear power will encircle the Diet building in Tokyo with candlelight on Sunday, after two nuclear reactors at the Oi power plant on the Sea of Japan coast resumed operation for the first time since all of the nation's reactors were shut down following the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi complex.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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Fukushima probes leave questions
Two blame tsunami for meltdowns but one still points to quake factor
[link to www.japantimes.co.jp]

[snip]

The IC is an emergency cooling system.

Shortly after the quake hit the plant, engineers used the IC to cool the reactor core and turned it on and off for three times.

"It seems Tepco does not admit that the workers turned off the IC to check the leakage because it will bring up the unfavorable matter of the possibility of quake damage," said the Diet panel, adding that it is also conceivable that the pipeline for the IC might have been damaged by the quake.

The Diet panel asked Tepco if it could send investigators inside the reactor 1 building to view the quake damage as much as possible.
But Tepco declined because the utility did not want its employees to be exposed with more radiation more than was necessary.

Fukushima festival fully resumes after two years
Armored horse riders fought to capture sacred flags hurled into the air at a summer festival in the disaster-hit Soma region of Fukushima Prefecture on Sunday.

The annual festival was first held more than 1,000 years ago to train warriors and is designated as an important intangible ethnic heritage of Japan.

The 2 main events were canceled last year due to the disaster and the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Anti-nuclear protesters surround Diet building
TOKYO — Thousands of demonstrators, some wearing gas masks, marched on the Diet building on Sunday. In the evening, they formed a candlelit human chain to protest the use of nuclear power after the Fukushima crisis.

Starting at about 3:30 p.m., they marched through Tokyo chanting “we don’t need nuclear power” and “stop operating nuclear plants,” in the latest demonstration since a recent decision to resume using nuclear power in Japan following a total shutdown.

AFP journalists estimated there were at least 10,000 demonstrators
[link to www.japantoday.com]
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Anti-nuclear meeting held again in Fukushima
A major Japanese anti-nuclear group has called for support for people affected by the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and decommissioning of all nuclear plants in Japan.

Gensuikin, or the Japan Congress Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, began holding annual meetings in Fukushima City, in addition to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after last year's accident. Fukushima Prefecture is home to the damaged nuclear plant.

The organizer says about 1,000 people from around the country took part in this year's event.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Gov't may have overlooked quake risk at Shika nuclear plant site
Geological data from the 1980s that recently led the nuclear safety agency to order a reinvestigation of a possible active fault beneath a nuclear power plant in central Japan came from two surveys conducted before the government approved the plant's construction, power company and government officials said Sunday.

Hokuriku Electric Power Co. dug a few trenches in the surveys conducted by July 1988 to check the fault at the planned site of the No. 1 reactor at its Shika nuclear power plant in Ishikawa Prefecture, but the results were not reflected in the government's safety review process through August 1988, suggesting the possibility of the fault triggering an earthquake may have been overlooked.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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Large anti-nuclear rally held in Tokyo
A large rally has been held in Tokyo to protest the restart of a nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture.

The demonstrators gathered in Hibiya Park in central Tokyo on Sunday. They were protesting the recent resumption of the No.3 and No.4 reactors at the Ohi nuclear plant on the Sea of Japan coast.

They included elderly people and women with children.

They beat drums and held up placards and banners demanding the closure of the Ohi plant and scrapping the policy of nuclear power generation.

They later marched to the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Company and the ministry in charge of nuclear energy policies.

The organizer said 200,000 people took part. Police said the figure was 14,000.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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DOE seeks input on Mox fuel

The Department of Energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority on Friday started a public input process on the proposed recycling of nuclear weapons into nuclear power plant fuel, and already there are objections.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, a part of the DOE, posted notice on the Federal Register that DOE will hold a 60-day public comment period on its Draft Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. The document analyzes the potential environmental impacts of different methods of disposing of plutonium from nuclear weapons.
[link to www.knoxnews.com]
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Limerick reactor remains shut down for repair
Repair workers at the nuclear-powered Limerick Generating Station, about 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia, kept a reactor shut down Saturday to replace a main steam valve, a plant spokeswoman said.
[link to www.philly.com]
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Putin to Lay Down Russia’s Fourth Borei Class Sub
President Vladimir Putin will visit the Arkhangelsk Region in north Russia on Monday to attend the ceremony of laying down Russia’s fourth Borei class (Project 955A) ballistic missile submarine, the Kremlin press office reported on Sunday.

The Borei class is set to become the mainstay of the Russian Navy's strategic nuclear deterrent fleet, replacing the ageing Project 941 (NATO Typhoon class) and Project 667 class (Delta-3 and Delta-4) boats.
[link to www.en.rian.ru]
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Reactors could add thousands of jobs, supporters say
Production of small modular nuclear reactors in Callaway County could potentially tap into $25 billion in sales worldwide and provide thousands of high-paying jobs that can't come from any other industry, according to a new study from supporters of expanded nuclear power.

Missourians for a Balanced Energy Future hired Jim Moody, a lobbyist respected for his in-depth reviews of economic issues, to review literature studying the economic impact of expanded nuclear power production in the state.
[link to www.columbiatribune.com]
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Wow! Coming soon to a Home Depot near you!

Stocking up on ammo?
How about all these depleted uranium bullets for all you gun-tards! Good for storing under the mattress!

New nuclear AA batteries with 10 times the life of conventional batteries! (Could have given them 10,000 times the life but had to make them disposable so they end up in the land-fills)

Lot's of ideas here. Ain't technology the greatest!?

Last Edited by ehecatl on 07/29/2012 03:22 PM

Anti-nuclear candidate loses Yamaguchi governor election

TOKYO — A candidate who ran on a rare anti-nuclear platform lost Sunday’s election for Yamaguchi governor, even as thousands of people formed “a human chain” around Japan’s Diet building complex to demand the government abandon nuclear power.

In the closely watched election, anti-nuclear candidate Tetsunari Iida trailed former bureaucrat Shigetaro Yamamoto with 185,654 votes to 252,461 votes, the prefecture said Monday. Two other independent candidates also ran. Voter turnout was 45%.

The election highlights the gap between deep anti-nuclear sentiments, evident in Sunday’s and other recent protests in Tokyo, and the reaction in distant rural areas, where the plants are located, that tends to be more accepting of their presence.
[link to www.japantoday.com]
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IAEA team starts inspection of Onagawa nuclear plant
The International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday started an inspection of the Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi Prefecture, which was relatively undamaged by the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit the area in March last year.

A 20-member delegation led by Sujit Samaddar, head of the IAEA's International Seismic Safety Center, will check the damage to facilities and equipment at Tohoku Electric Power Co. plant, whose three reactors automatically shut down when the disaster struck.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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Monju alarm on sodium leakage malfunctions
Japan Atomic Energy Agency said an alarm was activated early Monday morning indicating a sodium coolant leakage at its Monju prototype fast breeder reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture.

No actual leakage or any effect on the surrounding environment was detected, according to the agency.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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TEPCO stages drill against major Tokyo quake
Tokyo Electric Power Company has held a large-scale drill on the assumption that a major earthquake occurred under central Tokyo.

About 300 people, including TEPCO's new management, took part in the drill on Monday.

The exercise was based on a scenario that a magnitude 7.3 quake had struck beneath Koto Ward near Tokyo Bay. That equals 6 plus on the Japanese seismic scale from 0 to 7. Under the scenario, power transmission lines and substations in the Tokyo metropolitan area were damaged.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Heat Sends U.S. Nuclear Power Production to 9-Year Low
Nuclear-power production in the U.S. is at the lowest seasonal levels in nine years as drought and heat force reactors from Ohio to Vermont to slow output.

Generation for the 104 plants in the U.S. fell 0.4 percent from yesterday to 94,171 megawatts, or 93 percent of capacity, the lowest level for this time of year since 2003, according to reports from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and data compiled by Bloomberg. The total is down 2.6 percent from the five-year average for today of 96,725 megawatts.
[link to www.nucpros.com]
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GE Chief: Nuclear 'hard to justify'

Nuclear power is so expensive compared with other forms of energy that it has become "really hard" to justify, according to the chief executive of General Electric, one of the world's largest suppliers of atomic equipment.

"It's really a gas and wind world today," said Jeff Immelt, referring to two sources of electricity he said most countries are shifting towards as natural gas becomes "permanently cheap".

"When I talk to the guys who run the oil companies they say look, they're finding more gas all the time. It's just hard to justify nuclear, really hard. Gas is so cheap and at some point, really, economics rule," Mr Immelt told the Financial Times in an interview in London at the weekend. "So I think some combination of gas, and either wind or solar ... that's where we see most countries around the world going."
[link to europe.cnn.com]
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Palisades and nuclear safety
We can never become complacent about nuclear power. The Michigan Department of Community Health has given us a jolting reminder.

The health department this month urged residents living near the plant to have potassium iodide pills on hand. "With the recent maintenance of the plant to ensure its safety, now is a good opportunity for residents and businesses to read the safety information in the booklet as well," the release said.

The state offers the iodine for free to residents within an immediate 10-mile zone where risk is highest in a potential radiation release. The purpose of the pills is to flood the thyroid gland with safe iodine, reducing its ability to absorb radioactive substance.
[link to www.southbendtribune.com]
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Automatic shutdown at S. Korea nuclear reactor
SEOUL, South Korea – A South Korean nuclear reactor went into automatic shutdown on Monday apparently after a malfunction, plant operators said, while ruling out a possible radiation leak.

The 1,000-megawatt reactor at Yeonggwang some 260 kilometres (156 miles) south of Seoul halted operations after warning signals around 3:00 pm (0600 GMT), the state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power said.

An investigation was under way to determine the cause of the shutdown, it said, adding there was no danger of a radiation leak.
[link to newsinfo.inquirer.net]
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Ex-Fukushima plant chief Yoshida suffered bleeding to brain: TEPCO
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday that former Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant chief Masao Yoshida, who is recuperating from esophageal cancer, suffered bleeding to the brain and underwent emergency surgery last week.

"His condition is serious, but there's no threat to his life and he's conscious," Executive Vice President Zengo Aizawa said at a press conference, while refraining from commenting further on Yoshida, who played a key role in handling the nuclear crisis at the plant last year.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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40 year old japanese found on island hvar/croatia

[link to translate.googleusercontent.com]

could it be from japan over the sea ?

I read the article. It seems odd to have so many deaths so close together. The heat is a factor, per the article?

NRC issues bulletin on potential design vulnerability in electric power systems at nuclear plants
[link to www.neimagazine.com]

[snip]

“The degraded offsite power source potentially could have damaged the plant’s emergency core cooling system,” NRC said in a statement.

Licensees have been asked to provide information on their electric system designs within 90 days. The Bulletin applies to the 104 currently operating commercial power reactors in the United States and the four combined licenses for new reactors issued earlier this year.

TEPCO restrictions on coverage of nuclear crisis videos challenged
[link to ajw.asahi.com] people of G-d4

at what point and for why, are they allowed to restrict the audience?

are we so lame as to allow them, TEPCO after all the lies and deciept to get away with this????

all this points to is their ability to hide the truth.... how gullible are we.. their should be an internation outcry!

Browns Ferry cooling tower damaged
[link to www.myfoxal.com]

Miiiiieeeeeeeeppppppp?

Tree blamed for Oyster Creek shut down
[link to www.app.com]

Dock Removal Begins This Week

--snip--

The dock that travelled over 7,000 miles from the Port of Misawa to Agate Beach is finally headed for demolition. Vancouver, Washington's Ballard Diving and Salvage submitted the winning bid, at $84,000. So Chris Havel with Oregon Parks and Recreation says it's one of the biggest debris removals in recent Oregon history.
[link to news.opb.org]

So much for that $50,000 for beach clean up. One large item and that budget is blown all to hell.

Last Edited by Southern OR on 07/30/2012 09:43 PM