The city of Koriyama is 50km (31 miles) away from Fukushima Daiichi, well out of the evac zones, yet the soil at their schools are so contaminated they have get rid it.
Starting this weekend, they will remove the top 2 centimeters (.78 inches) of soil from 28 schools. Even after the soil removal, school officials say they will not allow the children to play in the yards for more than one hour per day.
A female employee, working at the Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant, is contaminated with three times the safe limits for women. She was working at the damaged plant, directing emergency crews.
Tokyo Electric Power Company thinks she was contaminated when taking off the protective suit. They say most of her contamination is internal, so they think she inhaled the radiation. TEPCo is now testing all female employees at the nuke plant. Safe exposure limits for women are set lower than men.
Japan’s big three automakers, Toyota, Nissan and Honda, have been downgraded to negative by Standard & Poor’s.
S & P also downgraded the biggest parts suppliers for the Japanese car companies. S & P blames the disruption to manufacturing caused by the March 11 disasters.
Toyota officials claim they have a better idea of the parts supply problem, but they refuse to go into any detail.
Supplies of microchips, rubber materials and paint additives are the main problems (affected by the loss of electrical power by the shutdown of nuclear plants, most of Japan’s electricity comes from nuclear power). However, Toyota officials refuse to discuss how many parts they might have, or if there are going to be anymore production delays.
One Toyota official said they normally have two and a half months of inventory on hand, but did not elaborate.
Venezuela has officially quite the economic union “Andean Community”. It’s made up of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Venezuela said it quite the trade group because of free-trade agreements signed with the United States and Andean pact members Peru and Colombia.
Venezuela now hopes to join MERCOSUR, a trade group made up of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Reports are being issued saying emitted radiation levels, from Fukushima Daiichi, are going down. At the same time reports are being made about increasing radiation levels in water.
Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission estimates the amount of radioactive emissions are down at around 1 terabecquerels per hour as of Sunday. They compare that to 154 terabecquerels per day on 05 April. But they are talking about emissions into the air.
Tokyo Electric Power Company is reporting skyrocketing radiation levels in water coming from Fukushima Daiichi’s damaged reactors. A survey done on 21 April, found an increase of radioactive substances in the flooded basement of Reactor 4’s turbine building.
TEPCo says the levels of cesium-134 and 137 increased about 250 times, compared to last month. Radioactive iodine has also increased.
A possible reason for the decrease in air borne radiation, and an increase in water born radiation, could be due to the amount of water being pumped into the reactors. However, the over all result is not a decrease in radioactive emissions, it’s just shifted from the air to the water.
Reactor 1, at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, will be filled with water, in an attempt to create a temporary water tomb.
Tokyo Electric Power Company has decided it is the best way to bring the reactor under control. Robots will be used to check for possible leaks inside the building. TEPCo wants to fill the reactor core, and then its surrounding containment vessel with water. It could take until the end of July to accomplish. Currently they are injecting water at a rate of 6 tons per hour, but will increase it to 14 tons per hour.
Toyota has already lost its number 1 ranking, no thanks to the March 11 disasters in Japan. Now its heading down to number 3.
General Motors is now the number 1 world producer of cars, not just because of what happened in Japan, but because GM’s sales are taking off in China. Who’s about to become number 2? Volkswagen.
VW is expected to produce 7 million cars by the end of 2011, right behind GM.
Japan is now rethinking its “just in time” supply system. The March 11 disasters reveled the inherent flaw in the system, especially without any back up systems in place. A “just in time” system is a house of cards, just pull one or two, and the whole house comes down.
More than 8.1 million tons of goods was transported through Iran the past Iranian year (which ended on March 20). That’s a 42% increase.
86% of the goods were shipped over roads and rail networks. Bandar Abbas and Sarakhs border crossings, in south (Gulf coast) and northeast (Turkmenistan) of Iran, were the busiest.
Several European scientists are saying there is evidence that a nuclear reaction explosion did indeed take place at Fukushima Daiichi. They are even saying that Chernobyl was better controlled than what is happening at Fukushima Daiichi.
Professor Tom Burke, founder of E3G, says Fukushima Daiichi is still ongoing, after five weeks, while Chernobyl was “over with” after about two weeks.
Another scientist, Professor Christopher Busby, thinks there was a fission reaction in Reactor 3 spent fuel pool, causing a nuclear explosion. That’s because Reactor 3 has MOX fuel rods, using uranium. Some evidence of nuke explosion, scientists point to, is the ever increasing radiation levels, and the types of isotopes being found around Fukushima, like plutonium and strontium.
French nuclear officials are concerned about Reactor 4 fuel pool. That pool had active fuel rods in it. They were put there after Reactor 4 was shut down for routine maintenance, just before the 11 March disasters. Tokyo Electric Power Company has admitted, in recent days, that they are having major problems with Reactor 4 fuel pool, as well as Reactor 1 overheating and active fuel rods exposed.
Professor Busby believes there is still fission taking place. He said it would explain why they haven’t started pouring concrete on the reactors, because: “You can’t seal a fissioning reactor…”.