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

How worker exposure is controlled
Japanese health authorities set the permissible cumulative level for radiation exposure for workers at nuclear power plants at 50 millisieverts per year to protect their safety.

If their exposure exceeds the limit, they are not allowed to work inside radiation control areas.

Employers violating the rule can be punished with prison terms of up to 6 months or fines of up to 500,000 yen or about 6,370 dollars.

Worker exposure is measured by dosimeters they wear while at work, and their employer is responsible for managing them.

At the Fukushima plant, workers receive dosimeters before starting work and return them after work.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, and one of its contractors, Tokyo Energy & Systems, monitored the exposure of workers from Buildup, a subcontractor with an executive suspected of ordering adjustment of dose records. Workers were informed of their doses every day, and cumulative figures were reported to Buildup once a month.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Edano says Japan needs to break dependence on nuclear power
Industry minister Yukio Edano reiterated on Saturday his view that Japan needs to break its dependence on atomic power.

"I think we have to eventually terminate all nuclear power stations," Edano said in a speech in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture. "Personally, I hope to suspend all of the nuclear stations as soon as tomorrow."

But Edano also suggested that is inevitable for Japan to rely on nuclear power for the time being.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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Lawmakers in Japan outline denuclearization bill
Former Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan and other governing party lawmakers have announced an outline of a bill that would end Japan's reliance on nuclear energy by 2025.

The draft outline says nuclear power generation could lead to infinite damages in the event of an accident. It adds that lack of final disposal measures will end up leaving future generations piles of radioactive waste.

It calls for establishing alternative power sources and reducing the number of operating nuclear power plants to zero.

The draft also calls for promotion of solar, wind, and other sources of renewable energy to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Industry team set up to deal with nuclear accident
Japan's electric power companies are planning to jointly organize emergency response teams to deal with accidents at their nuclear power plants.

The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan says the first team will be formed by next March.

The team will consist of 100 workers chosen from nuclear power plants across the country. They will have 3 robots capable of removing debris and transporting equipment at sites contaminated with high levels of radiation.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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<snip>
Firm told workers at Fukushima plant to lie about radiation dose
A subcontractor at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant told workers to lie about possible high radiation exposure in an apparent effort to keep its contract,…
<end snip>

main stream media?!?!!?!??!... NOT A PEEP ?!?!?!?!??

we're insane........ sigh*

[link to www.japantoday.com]

The Fiasco at Fuku is the biggest story in the modern era and the lack of coverage of same by MSM is next.

The fact that it is being minimized and virtually ignored by MSM leads one to question motive.

The truth as a motive for journalistic excellence has disappeared from mainstream news. It is now agenda-driven and influenced mainly by advertising revenues and political gamesmanship to the detriment of all.

This is the world we have created. Info-tainment rules the roost..

Nuclear fears galvanise usually sedate Japan
TOKYO — Japan’s usually sedate society is angry and getting organized against nuclear power, with the kind of snowballing protest movement not seen for decades.

Weekly demonstrations outside the prime minister’s residence attract tens of thousands of people and a rally in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park last Monday drew a crowd organizers claimed at 170,000, demanding an end to atomic power in post-Fukushima Japan.

And as numbers swell there are indications the country’s usually inflexible politicians are getting worried and just might start paying attention.

“Before the disaster, I had never thought of taking part in rallies,” said 22-year-old Yusuke Hasunuma, referring to the tsunami-sparked meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011.
[link to www.japantoday.com]
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Duke Board Lost Confidence in New CEO on Nuclear Delays
Duke Energy Corp. (DUK)’s board lost confidence in Bill Johnson as its next chief executive officer after he missed deadlines and failed to provide adequate information about a troubled nuclear reactor, the lead director said.

Johnson, the CEO of Progress Energy Inc. before its acquisition by Duke, made the board wait nine weeks after it requested a meeting with the Crystal River nuclear plant’s insurer, Ann Maynard Gray testified to the North Carolina Utilities Commission today. That was a “tipping point,” she said at the hearing in Raleigh.

“For me that was a very, very important part of this and I think some other directors felt that as well,” Gray said. She never spoke to Johnson about her concerns on the delay, which followed “many failed deadlines” for the reactor
[link to www.bloomberg.com]
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Effort begins to move nuclear waste from retired La Crosse reactor
GENOA — A 64-wheel beast of a truck creeped along at just under 1 mph hauling a cask of radioactive waste from a long-dormant power plant to a concrete pad between Highway 35 and the Mississippi River. It was the first of a series of trips it will make this summer in one of the final chapters of the Coulee Region's atomic era.

A quarter century after Dairyland Power Cooperative shut down its La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor, the spent fuel remains. Starting last week and continuing through the summer, workers are transferring the radioactive waste into dry cask storage in a move designed to save the company millions in annual costs.

It's a massive undertaking, more than five years in the planning, and the numbers are staggering.
[link to host.madison.com]
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22nd nuclear reactor enters commercial operation in S. Korea
A new nuclear reactor has gone into commercial operation in South Korea, raising the number of nuclear reactors in the country to 22, the government said Friday.

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said the New Gori 2 reactor in northern Busan, 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul, began commercial operation on Friday after completion of safety inspections.
[link to www.nucpros.com]
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[link to www.youtube.com]

Fallout over nuke plants' shrinking evacuation zones
[link to lancasteronline.com]

[snip]

Said Eric Epstein of Three Mile Island Alert: "I thought the NRC's pronouncements were insane."

Especially in light of the fallout from Japan's nuclear reactor crisis last year, he added, "it's clear we need more frequent training."

Nor are the chances of an emergency diminished by the fact that about half the country's roster of aging nuclear plants, including TMI, have gotten license extensions to operate 20 years beyond their original 40-year expected lifespan, Epstein said.

(Nuclear regulators and industry officials are weighing the feasibility of a second 20-year extension.)

San Onofre and Gundersen and Vermont Yankee
[link to yesvy.blogspot.ie]

[snip]

When I was in the nuclear power industry, I was a specialist in preventing corrosion in steam generators in pressurized water reactors. Recently, replacement steam generators at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) showed unusual wear, and Arnie Gundersen wrote that this was because the replacement generators weren't just like the old steam generators. They even used a new alloy!

This assertion steamed me a bit (pardon the pun) because the whole point of the research we did at the steam generator project office at EPRI was to improve steam generators. Replacement steam generators aren't supposed to be just like the old steam generators, they are supposed to be better.

~

Couple things..

- The problem wasn't corrosion so what qualifies this person to make a judgement call on a design/mechanical issue..?

- Vibration was the problem.. not mentioned

- Author makes a point to say Gundersen is pro-nuke because he voted to extend Vermont Yankee conditionally.. then ends the blog with innuendo and an inference that Gundersen may be anti-nuke and merely exhibiting a veneer of pro-nuke status..

~

This article explains what happened to the new steam generators..

[link to www.world-nuclear-news.org] Vendor_singled_out_by_SONGS_findings_200712a.html
Last week SCE identified vibration and tube-to-tube fretting as the major cause of the unusual wear. It found the cause of this to be higher-than-predicted thermal hydraulic conditions and wear found at the retainer bars. These retainer bars are unique to steam generators made by Mitsubishi.

The new steam generators are unique; built by MHI as a like-for-like replacement of the original Combustion Engineering model 3340 recirculating steam generators, but with improvements in design and the use of new materials.

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- 'like for like' is bullcrap. Improvements and new alloy is not 'like for like' replacement. It is an 'upgrade' which did not work due to incorrect modeling and simulation.
Garbage in...garbage out.. plain and simple.
They screwed up and are covering their asses because it's Mitsubishi... the major supplier

This article shows a picture of a replica lead shield..

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Ministry to search for dosimeter shields at Fukushima plant
[link to ajw.asahi.com]

[snip]

According to an explanation given to Takashi Wada, the Build-Up president, on July 21 by the senior official, the official went to a hilly area near the No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 plant last November to plan for the work expected of the company workers. At that time, the alarms on the dosimeters that indicated high levels of radiation were being triggered, surprising the senior official. The official decided to cover the dosimeters with lead plates when the workers were actually doing their work.

[Reactor3] Fukushima worker “got exposed to 2.55mSv, 38 cameras, concrete falling off”
[link to fukushima-diary.com]

[snip]

been covering reactor3. A trouble happened, had to go up the reactor building. APD immediately alarmed 3 times. tried to get back quickly but it alarmed again on ladder. Today’s integral dose was 1.69mSv/h. People who remained there to work had it to be 2.55mSv/h, they were called for the seismic isolation building.

Those workers who were involved in taking out the fuel assemblies from SFP4 [Link] had 0.6mSv in total, and it was 2.55mSv for the covering construction of reactor3, which none of the news covers. I feel like I’m doing something great..

Pictures of the Week (July 14 – July 20)
[link to www.nipponnews.net]

NBC have an article about it...
[link to worldnews.nbcnews.com]
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Building costs rise at U.S. nuclear sites - Power companies face billions in cost overruns, construction delays

ATLANTA — America’s first new nuclear plants in more than a decade are costing billions more to build and sometimes taking longer to deliver than planned, problems that could chill the industry’s hopes for a jump-start to the nation’s new nuclear age.

Licensing delay charges, soaring construction expenses and installation glitches as mundane as misshapen metal bars have driven up the costs of three plants in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, from hundreds of millions to as much as $2 billion, according to an Associated Press analysis of public records and regulatory filings.

Baton Rouge-based contractor The Shaw Group Inc. and reactor maker Westinghouse, which is partially owned by Shaw, are the construction and design firms for the projects in Georgia and South Carolina and have sought settlements from utilities over delays.

PLANT VOGTLE: In eastern Georgia and initially estimated to cost $14 billion, it has run into more than $800 million in extra charges.

PLANT SUMMER: In South Carolina and expected to cost around $10.5 billion, it has seen costs jump by $670 million.

WATTS BAR: The long-mothballed power plant in eastern Tennessee, initially budgeted at $2.5 billion, will cost up to $2 billion more.
[link to theadvocate.com]
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First I've heard of this.. It seems the rabbit hole goes a little deeper..

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This just in from Senator Dianne Feinstein's office
[link to www.the-signal.com]

[snip]

Washington—Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) issued the following statement after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) released a report confirming the steam generator tube leak and degradation at California’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was caused by faulty computer models that produced a flawed design.

Today’s report confirms similar findings presented at a recent public hearing and describes 10 other issues that are part of NRC’s ongoing inspections. These additional issues primarily relate to Edison’s approach to designing the steam generators and how they were transported to California from the fabrication facility in Japan.

Seafood caught off Fukushima coast sold outside prefecture
[link to ajw.asahi.com]

[snip]

The seafood was caught off the coast of Soma, Fukushima Prefecture.

After last year's Fukushima nuclear accident, fishing cooperatives in Fukushima Prefecture had refrained from going out to sea. However, the Soma-Futaba fishing cooperative began a trial fishing operation in June for three types of seafood.

The octopus and sea snails caught until now had gone on sale in Fukushima Prefecture after tests found no radioactive materials had contaminated the seafood.

[Mainichi] 20 meter crack found halfway up Mt. Fuji after quake
[link to fukushima-diary.com]

The week ahead: House Energy Committee set to tackle Yucca Mountain, Solyndra federal loan program
[link to thehill.com]

Pretty much confirms every damn thing we said...

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Gov't panel: Nuke plant operator still stumbling
[link to www.google.com]

[snip]

Some employees were aware that water gauges attached to containment vessels were likely broken and their measurements unreliable. But none of them raised questions, and the company kept releasing what turned out to be wrong data for months. New gauges installed in one reactor show that there is hardly any water inside, suggesting that the two other crippled reactors may have similar conditions.

The panel said the government and TEPCO failed to prevent the crisis not because such a large tsunami was unanticipated but because they were reluctant to invest time, effort and money in protecting against a natural disaster considered unlikely. TEPCO had even weighed in on a report about earthquake risk and asked the government to play down the likelihood of a tsunami, the report said.

Political leaders were upset after a NISA official let it slip on March 12 that the reactors were possibly melting down, the report said. After that, all NISA announcements had to be run by the prime minister's office. NISA denied meltdowns for months afterwards.

2nd UPDATE: Japan Govt Panel Says Tepco Still Falling Short on Nuclear Safety
[link to online.wsj.com]

Nuke-powered spacecraft for Mars mission
[link to www.deccanherald.com]

Government panel issues Fukushima accident report
A government panel investigating the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant says the operator of the plant lacked a sense of crisis and imagination for possible tsunami. It says Tokyo Electric Power Company should realize that Japan is prone to natural disasters and change its attitude toward disaster-preparedness.

The panel of government-appointed experts submitted its final report on Monday.

The report criticized the way the utility handled the accident at the Daiichi plant.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Government panel rebukes nuclear regulatory bodies
A government panel of experts has criticized Japan's 2 nuclear regulatory bodies for failing to establish appropriate safety measures against nuclear accidents.

The panel's final report released on Monday said the Nuclear Safety Commission did not adequately review ways to deal with loss of all power supply at nuclear power plants in 1992.

It says the commission not only allowed power companies to join in the discussions, but also ordered them to make up a convincing reason for not assuming prolonged power losses.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Panel urges more inquery into Fukushima accident
The final report on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident by a panel of experts asks the government to continue investigating the causes of the accident. It also urges further study on the total amount of damage caused by the accident.

Panel members were hampered during their year-long investigation with high levels of radiation at the plant. This issue prevented them from entering the 4 reactors.

The report says that they were unable to learn why the No. 2 reactor had discharged the largest amount of radioactive substances. They were also unable to determine why a hydrogen explosion had occurred at the No. 1 reactor.

The panel strongly urges the government and Tokyo Electric Power Company to continue with an on-site investigation after radioactive levels decrease.

The report also discusses the large number of deaths caused by the stress of evacuation. A lack of medical assistance and care facilities was also a factor.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Referendum to be requested on reactor restart
More than 178,000 people have signed a petition calling for a referendum on restarting nuclear reactors in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan.

Chubu Electric Power Company has not been able to restart any of the 3 reactors at its Hamaoka plant because the plant could be damaged by a large tsunami.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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TEPCO ignored nuclear accident risks, gov't report says
TOKYO — A government-appointed inquiry into the Fukushima nuclear crisis raised doubts on Monday about whether other nuclear plants were prepared for massive disasters despite new safety rules, and delivered a damning assessment of the regulators and the station’s operator.

The report, the second this month about the disaster, could be seized upon by Japan’s increasingly vociferous anti-nuclear movement after the restart of two reactors, and as the government readies a new energy policy due out next month.

“The fundamental problem lies in the fact that utilities, including TEPCO, and the government have failed to see the danger as reality as they were bound by a myth of nuclear safety and the notion that severe accidents do not happen at nuclear plants in our country, said the 450-page report.

The panel suggested post-Fukushima safety steps taken at other nuclear plants may not be enough to cope with a big, complex catastrophe caused by both human error and natural causes in a “disaster-prone nation” like Japan, which suffers from earthquakes, tsunami and volcanoes.
[link to www.japantoday.com]
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