Tag Archives: nuclear

Fukushima

Five Years Later: TEPCo shenanigans continue, now politicians are getting pissed!

23 March 2016 (07:49 UTC-07 Tango 01) 04 Farvardin 1395/13 Jumada t-Tania 1437/15 Xin Mao 4714

“For five years you continued to say there was no standard for determining when a meltdown occurs! How can we trust you?! How can we let your company restart the nuclear plant?!”-Tateishi Masaaki, Niigata Prefectural Councilman, to TEPCo administrator during public hearing (and yes, he was actually yelling at the TEPCo official)

On Tuesday, Tokyo Electric Power Company was finally attacked by government leaders!  TEPCo was blasted for lying about its own policy regarding the determination of when a nuclear reactor was melting down, and their request to restart reactors 6 and 7 of the  Kashiwazaki-kariwa nuke plant was denied!

For years TEPCo claimed there was no standard for officially identifying a nuclear meltdown (even though an idiot should know that when the rods start physically melting, that’s a meltdown), yet last month TEPCo administrators publicly released a manual that had specific meltdown SOP (standard operating procedures).   TEPCo had used the excuse of ‘no meltdown standards’ as a reason why they failed to call the GE designed Fukushima Daiichi a meltdown, even weeks after several reactor buildings blew up!  Yesterday, Managing Executive Officer Anegawa Takafumi publicly admitted to the Niigata Prefectural Council (during hearings to restart the Kashiwazaki-kariwa nuke plant) that TEPCo managers didn’t know about their own ‘meltdown’ manual at the time of the Fukushima meltdowns: “We should have known about…and reported the existence of the manuals sooner…”

Regarding the GE designed Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuke plant in Niigata Prefecture (the world’s largest, by the way); Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) stated that TEPCo has failed to provide required natural disaster survival data, and therefore the NRA halted ‘screenings for restart’ of the reactors.  The nuke plant has supposedly survived several earthquakes over the past ten years.  However, at the beginning of the month TEPCo reported “unexplained” fuel rod movement in reactor 5.

During 2011, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa experienced “unexplained” smoke pouring out of a control panel.   Back in 2007 a transformer exploded and caught fire due to an earthquake, which also released cobalt-60 and chromium-51 into the air.

Five Years Later: McDonald’s so desperate for employees they turn to Anime! 

Five Years Later: ‘Fukushima’ farmers caught hiding 3,100+ tonnes of contaminated produce!

Fukushima

Five Years Later: ‘Fukushima’ farmers caught hiding 3,100+ tonnes of contaminated produce!

13 March 2016 (14:51 UTC-07 Tango 01) 23 Esfand 1394/03 Jumada t-Tania 1437/05 Xin Mao (2nd month) 4714

An investigation by NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) revealed that farmers, and colluding local politicians, across Japan have been lying about the contamination levels in their crops, and hiding the evidence!

The Japanese national government requires farmers and ranchers to  self-test their products for radiation contamination due to the ongoing meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi.  Anything with  more than 8-thousand becquerels of radioactive materials per kilogram must be reported and stored as nuclear waste.  This self-regulation of industries is standard practice and a major reason why Japan is a Failed State.

NHK investigators found several farmers in seven prefectures were literally hiding at least 3,114 tonnes of contaminated rice straw and farm soil in giant warehouses.  Farmers are refusing to report the contamination due to fears it would reduce sales of their harvests.  Apparently the local city governments are involved as well as NHK found at least 30 municipalities were storing the undeclared farm nuke waste, and that’s even within the prefecture of Tokyo which is about 240km (150 miles) south of Fukushima!

NHK says local government administrators admitted they were acting in collusion with the farmers to prevent the spread of “false rumors”, while other local officials pointed out that Japan has yet to create a designated site for nuclear waste storage!

Fukushima

Five Years Later: Court orders shutdown of Japanese nuke reactors!

09 March 2016 (12:49 UTC-07 Tango 01) 19 Esfand 1394/29 Jumada al-Ula 1437/01 Xin Mao (2nd month) 4714

In an unexpected development a Japanese court has agreed with petitioners and ordered the shutdown of Kansai Electric Power Company’s Takahama nuclear power plant, in Fukui Prefecture!

Petitioners argued that the nuclear reactors are unsafe and on the verge of a “major accident”.  The Otsu District Court agreed.  Reactors 3 and 4 were restarted in the past few months, however, reactor 4 shut itself down just three days after startup.  Operators still don’t know why.

The pro-nuke governor of Fukui Prefecture, Nishikawa Issei, called the court order “inconsistent”.

And the national government has admitted failure in trying to find  storage sites for all the nuke waste building up in Fukushima Prefecture.  Their original plan was to pay property owners to store the waste, however, of the 2-thousand 3-hundred property owners approached (in Futaba and Okuma towns) so far only 69 have agreed to the deal.

Fukushima

Five Years Later: TEPCo screws up another nuclear reactor, admits it can’t stop the deadly water! Government screws over thousands of survivors!

08 March 2016 (15:15 UTC-07 Tango 01) 18 Esfand 1394/28 Jumada al-Ula 1437/30 Xin Mao 4714

Five years after the ongoing nuclear melt downs at Fukushima Daiichi, another nuclear power plant is in trouble!  Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reported the sudden unexplained movement of a highly explosive nuclear fuel rod!

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, in Nigata Prefecture, is operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company, the same outfit operating Fukushima Daiichi.

Reator 5 of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa has 185 explosive fuel rods and during the operation of some valves one of the rods moved out of place.  If rods touch each other, that’s all she wrote man!  TEPCo administrators swear the operation of valves on the reactor should not cause any rods to move.  They say one minute later the rod repositioned itself.  An investigation is underway.

This isn’t the first time Kashiwazaki-Kariwa has been in trouble.  Back in 2007 a transformer exploded and caught fire due to an earthquake, which also released cobalt-60 and chromium-51 into the air.

More proof why you can’t trust TEPCo:  Five years after promising the world that it could handle the nuclear disaster, TEPCo administrators are now going to the government of Fukushima Prefecture for help!  Specifically they’ve admitted to the local government that they can’t handle the ongoing contamination of water, to the tune of 5-hundred tonnes per day!  TEPCo’s Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning Officer Masuda Naohiro made the revelation during a recent interview with NHK.

And several anniversary reports by NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) reveal that thousands of homeless disaster survivors are being screwed over not only by the national government, but by local governments as well.

Several prefectures are forcing survivors out of taxpayer funded temporary housing into non-subsidized permanent housing.  Many surviving families are concerned as they have yet to find permanent jobs and can’t afford to pay rent.  One news reports revealed that disaster survivors are intentionally being shunned by employers! Some prefectures are playing a shell game, shuffling survivors from one housing project to the next, claiming it’s part of a plan to provide them with permanent housing.

Recently the Reconstruction Agency revealed that thousands of people have died, and hundreds of thousands are still in temporary homes.  One of the reasons for so many deaths of survivors is the game that’s being played with their housing, and health administrators warn the ongoing games by government will lead to more deaths by stress.

Business/Economics

Potential Presidential candidate kills 1,000 jobs! 2016 kills big sales for Kroger! : U.S. Job Losses & Closings 03 – 04 March 2016

Incomplete list of job loss announcements and shutdowns.

California: Saddleback Memorial Medical Center shutting down in May.  Administrators say ObamaCare has driven away so many patients that it’s now “unsustainable”.  Japan based video game maker SEGA (SEGA was created in the U.S. territory of Hawaii in 1940, where it made slot machines) revealed they eliminated an undisclosed number of jobs from their San Francisco SEGA Networks ops.

Colorado: Russia based steel oil pipe maker EVRAZ expanding their job destruction to Pueblo, 70 jobs lost to low oil and steel prices.  This is on top of the 230 jobs in Oregon.

Connecticut: In Stamford, after 50 years Pat’s Hubba Hubba restaurant shutting down by the end of the month.

Illinois: In Lake Zurich the Sears Appliance & Hardware shutting down by the end of April.  John A. Logan College eliminating 55 jobs claiming to be short $7-million USD.  Protesting students pointed out that certain departments are not suffering job losses and that school executives refused to say why.   Computer Systems Institute shutting down campuses across the state, eliminating 172 jobs between now and September!  In Chicago, Computershare issued a layoff WARN, 56 jobs lost by the end of April.  Food giant Tyson issued a shutdown WARN, 170 frozen food jobs eliminated between April and August!  In Elk Grove Village, food service company Sodexo issued a shutdown WARN, 54 jobs lost by the end of April.  Also in Elk Grove Village, Arrow Plastics shutting down after being sold-off, 165 jobs lost by mid-April! In Westmont, IlliCare Health shutting down due to loss of contract, 68 jobs lost by the end of this month.  In Bensenville, Tek-Cast issued a shutdown WARN, 119 jobs lost by mid-April! Deer Run Mine issued a layoff WARN, 84 jobs lost between March this year and January 2017 (blamed on a “natural disaster”).  Joliet Generating Station eliminating 94 jobs between April and October.  Bankrupt Sports Authority shutting down their Romeoville store in April, 66 jobs lost (for a list of all the Sports Authority stores being shutdown as part of the bankruptcy, click here).  TDC Filter shutting down their Bolingbrook factory, 91 jobs gone by the the end of this month. In Rochelle, Ryder truck rentals issued a shutdown WARN, 2-hundred jobs lost by the end of April!  The Kewanee child prison being consolidated with other prison ops, 203 jobs lost by July!

Maryland: In Amherst, beef eatery White Hut shutting down by the end of the month.  The family owners say sales have only been “modest” and not enough to justify renewing the lease.  They hope their flagship Great Depression era restaurant in West Springfield doesn’t meet the same fate.

Massachusetts: Framingham based, Mitt Romney (yep, the very same Mormon guy who’s threatening to run against Donald Trump) co-founded Staples announced it is shutting down an additional 50 stores.  Mitt Romney’s Staples has shutdown 242 North American stores in the past two years, and eliminated 1-thousand jobs between November 2015 and January 2016!

Minnesota: Dow shutting down their warehousing ops at their GMO seed factory in Olivia, 25 jobs lost.  However, GMO “Research and Development (R&D) activities will continue at the site.” 

New York: Solar equipment supplier Direct Energy shutting down their Henrietta operations, 53 jobs lost in May.  Too Big to Jail Goldman Sachs eliminating 43 jobs in May, they accuse the employees of being “under-performers”!   Berkley Publishing Group revealed they eliminated an undisclosed number of jobs last week, blaming crashing paperback book sales.  News reports say the book publisher has been eliminating jobs since Summer 2015.

Ohio: Grocery store giant Kroger warning investors that same store sales crashed in the last three months of their fiscal 2015 (for the entire year their sales were still up)!  Kroger owns stores that sell more than just food, but administrators warn that across the board sales will be down for 2016, which breaks Kroger’s record of more than 12 straight years of sales increases!  Kroger administrators blame competition, and deflation which will kill profit margins.

Oregon: The Kroger owned  Fred Meyer distribution center in Clackamas is threatening 2-hundred jobs, as Kroger decided to find a new contractor to provide the labor!

Texas: God powerless to stop ‘his’ 30 years old Central Christian Academy from shutting down. Church leaders blame The Rapture, I mean declining church membership for forcing them to sell the school property (told you before, this proves money is the true god).

Utah: British empire United Kingdom based Rio Tinto eliminating about 2-hundred jobs at their Kennecott mine, blaming low prices for metals!

Vermont: Entergy eliminating 97 jobs at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant due to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission eliminating the ten mile emergency evacuation zone.

Virginia: After 89 years (surviving The Great Depression and numerous recessions) clothier Young Men’s Shop shutting down.  The owner said that despite most of his clothing being made in the U.S. more and more people buy off internet.

Washington: Seattle based retailer Nordstrom’s revealed they eliminated ten IT jobs, last week.  This is despite the fact that Nordstrom’s internet sales have gone up.

Wisconsin: OEM Fabricators laying off 34 people in Baldwin as the company shuts down in April.

WARN=Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification

02 March 2016: “We have to remove ourselves from what once was.”

Former employees who receive severance are not counted as unemployed!

Employees of religious non-profits might not qualify for unemployment assistance: “If the non-profit organization is a church, you may or may not be entitled to unemployment. It all depends upon state regulations for church employers. In many cases, churches are allowed to set their own rules regarding unemployment benefits, meaning the church can choose whether to offer benefits to former employees.”

The U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) no longer issues mass layoff reports: “On March 1, 2013, President Obama ordered into effect the across-the- board spending cuts (commonly referred to as sequestration) required by the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, as amended. Under the order, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) must cut its current budget by more than $30 million, 5 percent of the current 2013 appropriation, by September 30, 2013. In order to help achieve these savings and protect core programs, the BLS will eliminate two programs, including Mass Layoff Statistics, and all ‘measuring green jobs’ products. This news release is the final publication of monthly mass layoff survey data.” 

Fukushima

Five Years Later: 3,400 dead! 349,000 domestic refugees! No more fat kids?

05 March 2016 (11:45 UTC-07 Tango 01) 15 Esfand 1394/25 Jumada al-Ula 1437/27 Xin Mao 4714

Five years after the March 2011 quake-tsunami-nuclear disaster the Japanese Reconstruction Agency revealed that more than 3-thousand 4-hundred “survivors” have died.  Not surprising, 56% of those deaths took place in the nuclear disaster reactor prefecture of Fukushima!

Other data proving the failure of Japan’s response to the 2011 disasters; by mid-February this year more than 174-thousand people are still in temporary housing.  I should point out that back in 2011 government officials were expecting the ‘temporary’ housing to be used for no more than six months!  Many administrators were not prepared for the radiation levels that, in some areas, are still preventing people from returning to their homes.  Another 156,234 survivors are living in homes/apartments that are being rented by local governments.  18,237 survivors are living with relatives.  All together about 349-thousand people are living as refugees in their own country!

43,139 survivors of the initial 2011 disaster from Fukushima are still living outside the prefecture, however, the ongoing nuclear disaster is blamed for an exodus of 115-thousand residents since then!

For more proof that living as a refugee, even in your own country, is worse than staying put NHK  (Nippon Housou Kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) surveyed more than 5-hundred survivors: 42% said their standard of living has not improved. 37%  said their situation is worse. 11% said they are struggling.

In a sign of some improvement, children in Fukushima are no longer fat?  After fours years of gaining weight school aged children in the nuclear disaster are suddenly losing it.  That’s according to the Ministry of Education.  It’s assumed that reason why school kids got fat was because they were not allowed to play outside due to the radiation contamination.  In the past year the ban on playing out side was lifted, and education administrators think that’s why the kids have suddenly lost weight.  It must be pointed out that being fat in Japan does not mean you’re actually fat, it’s based on the government standard for being overweight.  The government has somehow determined how much a person should weigh, and if you’re 20% or more over that limit you’re a fatty!

But don’t credit declining radiation contamination for the lifting of the outside play ban, the real reason is that the number of parents keeping their kids out of Fukushima schools has jumped; 1-thousand 785 children were kept out of school in 2015, that’s 2-hundred more than before the March 2011 disaster!

Confirmed: Population death spiral for Japan!

Japan admits Fukushima workers dying of cancer!

Fukushima

Mysterious reactor shutdown in Japan! Corporate cronyism blamed for Fukushima disaster!

29 February 2016 /21:29 UTC-07 Tango 01 (11 Esfand 1394/21 Jumada al-Ula 1437/23 Geng Yin 4714)

Only three days after re-start a nuclear reactor in Japan suddenly shutdown, automatically.

Kansai Electric Power Company restarted reactor 4 at their Takahama facility on Friday, then on Monday it shut itself down.  Administrators say an alarm went off when technicians were connecting the reactor to the consumer power grid, the computers sensed ‘abnormal currents’  and automatically shutdown the reactor.  Administrators don’t know what caused the problem.  (just a week prior the same nuke plant leaked contaminated water)

France based OECD Nuclear Energy Agency concluded its investigations into the ongoing nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi.

One finding is that Japan’s ‘tradition’ of involving corporations in the government regulation of industries is a major factor for the failure of proper response to the disaster that began on 11 March 2011.  In other words, the government nuclear regulation is a farce because it allows the nuclear industry corporations to essentially self-regulate.

It’s not just Japan, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency criticized several countries of doing the same thing: “The principle of regulatory independence, in particular the effective separation between the functions of the regulatory body and those of any other body or organisation concerned with the promotion or use of nuclear energy, is fundamental and requires vigilance to ensure it is maintained.  Some member countries have reviewed, and other member countries are in the process of reviewing, their regulatory frameworks and are making changes as appropriate to update their legislation so as to reflect lessons learnt from the Fukushima Daiichi accident.”–FIVE YEARS AFTER THE FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI ACCIDENT: Nuclear Safety Improvements and Lessons Learnt

International

Confirmed: Population death spiral for Japan!

26 February 2016 (03:34 UTC-07 Tango 01) 07 Esfand 1394/17 Jumada al-Ula 1437/19 Geng Yin 4714

The results of the 2015 census prove what social administrators in Japan have been warning about for several years; massive population decline.

Over the past five years Japan’s population has suffered a net decline of 947-thousand people!  That even includes the increase in foreigners who’ve moved to Japan!

The eastern Asian nation is now in an official population death spiral as deaths far outpace births and the influx of foreign residents combined!

Not surprising the prefectures suffering the highest population decline are Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, the ones hardest hit by the 2011 quake-tsunami and nuclear disasters.

Nursing shortage continues for Japan, only 30 applicants pass new certification test!

“Developed Country” status for Japan to end, could officially regress to “Less-Developed” 

One Year Later: Big Exodus continues; most number of people flee Japan since 1950! 

Airline pilot? Need a job? Japan needs you! 

Japan’s nuclear family Myth busted: Family households now at Record low. 

130,000 Japanese flee 11 March 2011, disaster areas!

Think your taxes are bad here in the U.S.? Try 45% income tax and 10% sales tax, welcome to Japan!

Fukushima

5 years later Fukushima Hell continues!

26 February 2016 (03:11 UTC-07 Tango 01) 07 Esfand 1394/17 Jumada al-Ula 1437/19 Geng Yin 4714

Three former executives of TEPCo are finally going to face trial over the 2011 nuclear melt downs and resulting explosions at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011.  They are charged with professional negligence resulting in deaths and injuries. Prosecutors accuse the former executives of knowingly ignoring procedures for handling nuclear emergencies.  The deaths include numerous patients evacuated from the nearby Futaba Kosei hospital.

Despite the criminal charges, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo) continues to amaze at its level of seeming ignorance concerning the never ending melt downs at Fukushima Daiichi.

Five years later the basements of the reactor buildings are still flooding with contaminated water, and TEPCo adminstrators announced yet another plan to stop the flooding.  In the meantime TEPCo has been pumping the radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean (of course they claim they filter it down to ‘safe’ levels).  By the way, the new plan to stop the flooding the basements is expected take four years to complete!

On top of that TEPCo will begin incinerating accumulated mixed nuclear waste.  Japan has no official nuclear waster storage and the Fukushima Daiichi property is piling up with nuclear waste.  Interestingly news reports say that reducing the mixed waste (clothing, tools, etc) to ash will actually increase the concentration of radiation by volume.  TEPCo wants to burn 14 tonnes per day.

The incinerators were in use before the 2011 disasters, it took TEPCo five years to get them up and running again (maybe, they still have to test fire them), the reason is the same reason TEPCo has given for almost all their problems dealing with the melt downs; unexplained contaminated water leaks.

Now, if you work at Fukushima Daiichi would you trust what your supervisor tells you?  Workers are now being told they don’t have to wear protective clothing while working on certain areas of the nuclear plant’s grounds.

TEPCo administrators say it’s because they’ve completed removing contaminated topsoil from a large area of the complex.  They claim radiation levels in those areas are low enough that protective clothing is not required, but workers can still wear them if they want to (good idea).

The ongoing nuke disaster is blamed for an exodus of 115-thousand residents, the largest population drop of all the prefectures.

U.S.

Provocator Deux Fois: Peace Prize President launches second ICBM in past week!

26 February 2016 (02:28 UTC-07 Tango 01) 07 Esfand 1394/17 Jumada al-Ula 1437/19 Geng Yin 4714

He won the now proven to be illegitimate Nobel Peace Prize partly due to his official plan to reduce nuclear weapons, now in an obvious act of war mongering provocation Barack Obama has ordered the launch of a second ICBM this week, from Vandenberg AFB in California!

Obama’s own minions admitted so: “That’s exactly why we do this. We and the Russians and the Chinese routinely do test shots to prove that the operational missiles that we have are reliable. And that is a signal … that we are prepared to use nuclear weapons in defense of our country if necessary.”-Robert Work, Deputy  Secretary of Defense

On 22 February 2016, North of Lompoc, California, the U.S. Air Force launched a Minuteman 3 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM).  However, it was reported as a test of new equipment.  Today’s launch proves it’s actually warmongering by Provocator Deux Fois Obama.

Proven, again: Islamic State uses parts supplied by U.S. & Japan to make their bombs!