24 December 2013 (12:11 UTC-07 Tango)/20 Safar 1435/03 Dey 1392/22 Jia-Zi (11th month) 4711
A study reported to the October 2013 PICES meeting in British Columbia, Canada, says by 2016 all of Fukushima Daiichi’s cesium 137 will arrive in the United States and Canada! The Arctic Ocean will also be contaminated.
What about the other isotopes? The presentation to PICES concluded that “The inventory of Fukushima radioactivity will almost entirely shift….to the eastern North Pacific over the next 5 years.” The presentation is available in PDF, it’s titled Radionuclide Transport from Fukushima to Eastern North Pacific
Tokyo Electric Power Company reporting that at least two nuclear waste water storage tank farm liners/barriers have mysteriously lost most of their contained contaminated rain water. TEPCo is calling it a “phenomenon”.
The liners/barriers, which are near the reactor Unit 4, are showing no visible signs of leaks. One of the liners/barriers saw a water level drop of 11 centimeters (4 inches) since last Friday. TECPo says the water in the tank farm liners/barriers contains 440 becquerels per liter of radioactive strontium! They suspect the water is seeping into the ground through cracks they can not see.
Since last week contaminated water leaks in four tank farm liners/barriers were discovered (or at least reported).
Days ago the Japanese Mainichi newspaper reported that at least 16-hundred people have died as direct and indirect result of the ongoing Fukushima Daiichi nuke disaster.
This includes deaths from radiation contamination and psychological stress due to becoming refugees within their own country, with no employment or permanent place to live. Add to that the fact that the neo-imperialist government of Japan keeps changing the rules of how radiation refugees will be compensated.
A contractor who built the GE designed disaster reactors (units 3 and 5) of Fukushima Daiichi is now majority owner of a failing nuclear power company in United Kingdom. Toshiba now owns 50% of NuGeneration.
According to press releases, Toshiba’s majority stake in NuGeneration will allow the construction of a new 3.6 gigawatt nuclear power generator in Sellafield, England, on the coast of the Irish Sea.
Hitachi built the GE designed Fukushima Daiichi reactor Unit 4 (which has proven to be causing the most trouble), and has also taken over a troubled British nuke power company. In November 2012, Hitachi became sole owner of Horizon Nuclear Power in England. According to the latest Japanese news reports, Hitachi-Horizon plans on building six new nuclear power generators in the United Kingdom.
GE built Fukushima Daiichi’s units 1, 2 and 6. GE designed all the reactors units including the ones built by Hitachi and Toshiba. Construction of the reactor unit buildings was done by Kajima.
According to The Japan Times, the exodus from Fukushima Prefecture continues. Already grade schools have had to shut down due to lack of students, now local privately funded universities are reporting 18.7% fewer students. Tax funded universities are not reporting declining enrollments, but that might be due to declining tuition and fees. However, the Fukushima tax funded universities also say they have not seen an increase in enrollment, either. This means that overall, college aged students are leaving the area.
The government of Fukushima Prefecture will allow experimental rice growing in radiation evac zones. The rice will be tested for radiation contamination.
At the beginning of 2012, researchers from California and New York proved that tuna fish are contaminated: “We report unequivocal evidence that Pacific bluefin tuna, Thunnus orientalis, transported Fukushima-derived radionuclides across the entire North Pacific Ocean. We measured γ-emitting radionuclides in California-caught tunas and found 134Cs (4.0 ± 1.4 Bq kg−1) and elevated 137Cs (6.3 ± 1.5 Bq kg−1) in 15 Pacific bluefin tuna sampled in August 2011.”–Pacific bluefin tuna transport Fukushima-derived radionuclides from Japan to California