The Japanese government is considering drastic ways to increase government revenue to pay for rebuilding, due to the March 11 disasters.
They are considering raising utility fees, increasing existing taxes, and creating new taxes. In a recent NHK poll only 37% of people had no problem with paying higher taxes.
Tokyo Electric Power Company says high radiation levels, and high humidity, is slowing up robots being used to inspected the reactor buildings at Fukushima Daiichi.
In Reactor 2 building the humidity was so high it fogged the robot’s camera lens.
In Reactor 3, there is too much debris from the hydrogen gas explosion. They will use another robot that can clear the debris, some of which weighs 100kg (220 pounds).
Officials have decided it’s too dangerous to dig through the caved in roof of the Lucky Friday mine, near Mullan, Idaho.
They will now try digging two new shafts to get to Larry Marek. He and his brother were working in the mine on Friday, when the roof caved in.
Digging the new shafts could take seven days. Temperatures inside the mine, at the depth Marek was working, can hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 Celsius).
Fire fighters in one part of Texas are reporting a strange phenomenon in their battle to control wildfires: ‘Ice capping’.
70 miles west of Fort Worth, embers from the fires have gone so high into the atmosphere that they’ve frozen and fallen back to the ground. It’s an indicator of how hot the fires are, for embers to go that high.
The fires continue, out of control, homes burning. One family, in the city of Austin, returned from a weekend trip to find their home, and their pet gone. What makes it worse is they say their home was the only one on their street that burned: “All the other houses got saved except ours … we’re just kind of speechless right now.”-Kris Griffin
Rescuers are bringing in more equipment to dig out Larry Marek. A section of roof caved in on him and his brother last Friday, his brother got out.
The latest info is that a large diamond drill will be used to drill a hole through the debris, to try and determine if Marek is alive. It could take two days to drill through the 185 feet (56.3 meters) of dirt.
Rescue efforts are slow because the size of the collapse was underestimated. Rescuers are also waiting for parts, so they can use a bigger drone digger.
The company that owns the Lucky Friday mine, Hecla, has a good safety record going back to 2000. But there have been accidents at other Idaho mines. Last June a miner was killed when a slab of rock fell on him, while he was working at the Galena Mine.
25 years after the deadly nuclear accident at the Chernobyl plant, the Ukraine is still struggling to deal with the disaster.
This week is Black Week, the official anniversary of the nuclear accident, which happened on 26 April 1986. 31 people were killed, as a direct result of the disaster, and many more have suffered cancers, and children being born with defects.
The amazing thing is that clean up efforts continue, and the Ukraine is struggling to pay for it. Officials are trying to raise U.S.$ 1 billion for future clean up projects.
Tokyo Electric Power Company will now put air conditioners in the worker’s rest stations, after at least one worker succumbed to heat stroke.
Temperatures inside their protective suits are hot after only 30 minutes of wearing them. Unlike some military NBC masks, that can allow you to drink water, the nuke suits used at Fukushima Daiichi do not allow the workers to drink water.
There is only one building on the compound that still has working air conditioning. TEPCo will bring in more air conditioning units.
Tokyo Electric Power Company officials say they will test the ocean for plutonium. They have already found soil samples to be contaminated with the toxic isotope.
TEPCo official Matsumoto Junichi says because plutonium was found in the ground around Fukushima Daiichi, then it’s possible it is getting into the ocean. They will check the ocean floor, because plutonium is heavier than other isotopes, and probably sank.
Rescuers at the Lucky Friday mine near Mullan, Idaho, have started assembling the robot digger. They had to bring the drone front end loader into the mine in pieces, now they’re putting it together.
On Friday a 75 feet section of mine collapsed on two brothers working in the mine. One got out, the other did not. Rescuers hope to get the digger working later today.
NHK reporting that the robot sent by the Idaho National Laboratory has measured radiation levels inside reactors 1 and 3.
The robots were sent to Japan to help deal with the damaged Fukshima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The max radiation level inside the Reactor 3 building is 57 millisieverts per hour, while max level in Reactor 1 building is at 49 millisieverts per hour. The readings were taken on the first floor of the buildings.
Normal safe limits, for nuclear employees, are 100 millisieverts, but the Japanese government raised it to an emergency limit of 250 millisieverts. Even at the emergency limit, a worker would exceed it within four and a half hours of exposure.
They will check Reactor 2 building next. NHK video