Tag Archives: employment

Fukushima, Technology

Corporate Incompetence: Fukushima Daiichi water decontamination system crashes!

Ever since Tokyo Electric Power Company  installed a water decontamination and recirculation system, they’ve had problems after problems.  Now the entire system has crashed.

The system includes filters and pumps designed in the United States and France.  The idea is to decontaminate the massive amount of radioactive water flooding into the basements of the reactor buildings, then re-use that water to cool the unstable reactors.

The most common problem, in the many weeks since it’s installation, has been the fact that the decontamination part is not working well, the radiation levels are not being reduced to a level TEPCo would like (this is another proof that radiation levels coming out of the reactors are much higher than TEPCo would like to admit).

The next most common problem is that pumps keep failing.  This time all the pumps have failed, including the back up pumps.

Beginning Thursday, 04 August 2011, pumps began failing.  By Saturday, 06 August, all the pumps were down.  As usual TEPCo does not know why, and is investigation to find out why!!!

TEPCo is planning on hooking up a Japanese designed filters and pumps to the system, as if that’s the solution.

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Rice becomes the new Gold in Japan, add another notch to the tightening famine belt

Now that it’s become clear that most of Japan’s upcoming rice harvests are most likely to be contaminated with cesium, Japanese are holding onto last years rice like it was gold.

Japanese retailers are reporting that bags of last year’s rice are flying off the shelves, because consumers don’t think there will be any rice available from this year’s harvests.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry says it’s working to ensure the safety of this year’s rice harvests.  But so far the government has a real bad track record of proving their incompetence regarding nuclear contamination.

Lack of rice in Japan, yet another notch in the tightening belt of the global food crisis.

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Fannie Mae wants another $5 Billion bailout from taxpayers

The mortgage lender Fannie Mae reported a huge 2nd quarter loss of $5.2 billion. Now they want another $5.1 billion from taxpayers.

Let me remind you that Fannie Mae asked for $8.5 billion back in May!  So far the mortgage lender has gotten about $99 billion in bailout money from the U.S. government (taxpayers).

Fannie Mae officials say the answer to the continued housing finance crisis is jobs: “We’ve got to clear the mortgage market of the excess inventory and employment needs to recover, I believe, before we’re going to see a stabilization of home prices.“-Susan McFarland, Fannie Mae Chief Financial Officer

Fukushima

Government Corruption: Japanese officials “fixed” public hearings on nuclear energy with fake supporters from the utility companies

The recent announcement that three top government officials will lose their jobs, comes after weeks of blame games between the Japanese nuclear agencies and the nuclear power utility companies.  The issue is that many weeks ago it was revealed that public hearings to determine if the Japanese people wanted nuclear power, were fixed to make it look like there was strong support of nuclear power.

Initially the utility companies were blamed, because it was their employees, and subcontractors that flooded the public hearings with support for nuclear energy. Now it turns out that the utility companies were ordered to do so by the very government agencies that were supposed to be regulating them.

05 August 2011, the Minister of the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry, Banri Kaieda, announced an investigation into the actions of the three top officials who were effectively fired the day before.

Specifically, a third party will investigate the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.  That agency was the one who set up the public hearings, and, according to several electric power companies, ordered the utilities to flood the hearings with supporters of nuclear power.  The Japanese media is calling this a case of “influence peddling” on the part of the government.

Fukushima

Corporate & Government Incompetence: Local governments demand TEPCo end the nuclear disaster now!

Not only is Tokyo Electric Popwer Company being targeted, but other nuclear plants in other parts of Japan are getting hit by demands to get outa town.

A meeting in Tokyo, of local community leaders from around Japan, demanded a quick end to the ongoing crisis at Fukushima Daiichi.  They also demanded a complete redo of Japan’s nuclear power policies.

Those local officials with nuclear power plants in their area are extremely worried, because it’s become obvious that no one can trust the plant operators, or national government agencies that are supposed to be regulating the plant operators.

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Top Japanese nuclear officials fired!

In a hastily arranged press conference, on 04 August 2011, it was announced that the top three officials, in charge of nuclear power operations were fired.

More than four months after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, and with no end in sight, the Japanese government decided it was time for new blood.

Who’s being fired? Vice Minister of the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry, Matsunaga Kazuo.  Director General of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Terasaka Nobuaki.  Director General of the Natural Resources and Energy Agency, Hosono Tetsuhiro.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, and the Natural Resources and Energy Agency are controlled by the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry.

The announcement was made by the Minister of the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry, Kaieda Banri.  Along with the dismissals, there will be a major reshuffling of all personnel within the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry.

 

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Japanese leaders admit their current nuclear agencies suck!

The Japanese government announced they will create a new nuclear agency, to better respond to future nuclear disasters.  This after it’s painfully obvious that the current plethora of government agencies, tasked with dealing with the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, have failed.

The latest plan to revamp nuclear regulators involves creating an agency who’s sole job is to act as first responders to any future nuclear accident.  It will be created out of the current Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, and placed under control of the Environment Ministry.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency would continue purely as a regulatory agency.

The new first responder agency would also be responsible for monitoring of radiation levels, and control of radioactive substances.

The current Nuclear Safety Commission would be placed under the Environment Ministry as well, and act as an adviser to the first responders.

Of course the Japanese government still has to vote on the plan, but seeing what’s happening in Japan right now, any politician who’d want things to stay the same is nuts.

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: More proof radiation spreading across Japan, rice feed for cows 440 miles away contaminated!

Yet another prefectural government announced they will begin radiation checks of their cows, after they discovered their cattle feed is contaminated with cesium.

That prefecture is Shimane, and it’s 708 kilometers (440 miles) south west of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant!

Shimane officials say they will begin blanket tests of their cattle starting next week.

Tests of cattle feed, at the end of July, came back showing high levels of contamination.  As a result prices for cows from Shimane crashed.  Officials are hoping their cows are not contaminated, because cattle farming is an important business for them.

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Japan government cannot logistically conduct radiation monitoring, must rely on local governments and NGOs

Another example of the lack of preparedness of the Japanese government; promised increases in radiation monitoring have not materialized, because the government can’t handle it logistically.

02 August 2011, the Japanese government announced that in order to increase radiation monitoring they will now rely on non governmental groups, many of which have already been conducting their own radiation monitoring.

Many of Japan’s citizens have complained about the lack of response from the national government.  Official government reports concerning radiation levels have been contradicted, and even proven wrong, by local governments, as well as the NGOs.

Many of the national government reports relied on data from Tokyo Electric Power Company, and it’s obvious TEPCo is totally unreliable.

Agencies of the Japanese government are now going to work with the NGOs, and local governments, to set up a large network of 250 radiation monitoring sites, which will include schools and libraries.  They will check air, ground, water, plants and food for radiation contamination.  The government hopes to have a web site set up by mid August, so that everyone in Japan can see the results.

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Ban on fertilizers used for farming, ban on livestock feed, radioactive, finally establish standards

The Japanese government established radiation contamination guidelines for determining whether fertilizers, and livestock feed, contaminated with radiation are safe to use, or not.

The new safe limit for contaminated fertilizer is 400 becquerels of cesium per kilogram.  Farmers are asked to use humus and compost that contains less than that.

The new standard for fertilizer comes after it’s become clear that many crops around Honshu are contaminated, internally, with radiation.  Many of those crops are fed to cows, which in turn become internally contaminated.

Also, the government established, for the first time, safe limits on cattle and fish feed.  300 becquerels of cesium per kilogram in cattle feed is the max, and 100 becquerels for fish feed.

Government officials say they will start explaining, by next week, how farmers can check for such levels.