Tag Archives: fukushima

Fukushima

One Year Later: Surprise! Mystery damage to another Nuke Reactor in Japan. No, it’s not Fukushima Daiichi!

10 July 2012, operators of the Onagawa nuclear plant in Miyagi Prefecture announced that their Reactor 3 fuel rod storage pool is damaged.

Tohoku Electric Power Company (not to be confused with Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs Fukushima Daiichi) reported they discovered chips, cracks, and more than 12 missing pieces to the metal containers holding fuel rods in the pool.

They are now checking reactors 1 & 2 at the Onagawa nuclear power factory.  Government officials are concerned that the damage was caused by the March 2011 earthquake.

Tohoku-EPCo claims the fuel rods are not damaged.

Fukushima

Government Incompetence One Year Later: 600 page report blames ongoing nuclear disaster on idiots in government! Faulty construction of disaster reactors blamed!

“The accident was not a natural disaster but was obviously a man made disaster.”-Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission

On 05 July 2012, the results of a months long Diet (Japanese parliament) investigation into the ongoing nuclear disaster at the General Electric designed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power factory, places blame squarely on Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo), and the government.

The report also stated that failings in management began years before the  March 2011 disaster.

The report criticizes government response to the nuclear disaster.  The former prime minister who was in charge last year, Kan Naoto, gave a typical Japanese political response, agreeing with parts of the report and refuting other parts.

The report said that construction of Fukushima Daiichi was not up to earthquake standards, as claimed by TEPCo. The report says the nuclear disaster might have actually started with the earthquake, not the tsunami.

Government and corporate leadership only made things worse: Self serving attitudes of leaders resulted in willful negligence, both in the construction of the nuke plant, and the disaster response.

There were plenty of opportunities for TEPCo to upgrade Fukushima Daiichi with stronger construction and better safeguards.

In the first hours of the disaster the government interfered at different levels, causing confusion within corporate chains of command.

The government also confused the general public, by giving reports that conflicted with media reports. In some cases government reports outright contrasted with events watched live on Japanese TV  (I remember watching live on the internet as the tsunami swept over three story buildings, then heard a government official saying the waves were only 3 meters tall!!!)!

The government issued confusing evacuation advise, in some cases people actually evacuated into areas being contaminated with radiation. The report suggests that government leaders were trying to avoid taking full responsibility for the disaster by making evacuations voluntary, and using terms like “just in case”.

Another issue was the announcement of radiation danger zones long after the nuclear disaster began. The report says the government had radiation data for a whole month before hand, and could have declared the danger zones much sooner.

The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) began in December 2011, interviewing 1,167 people, including former government and TEPCo officials.   The NAIIC is planning “…to make an English version of the final report to show it to the world.”-Kurokawa Kiyoshi, lead investigator

Japanese version of report here.

 

 

Fukushima

One Year Later: Fresh water fish more radioactive than salt water fish! More proof that you need lots of salt in your diet!

03 July 2012, the Ministry of Environment in Japan discovered that fresh water fish are more susceptible to radiation contamination than salt water fish.

From December 2011 to February 2012, they sampled fish from rivers, lakes and eight locations in the Pacific Ocean.  Fresh water fish were much more contaminated than salt water fish.

In a river north of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, goby fish were found with 2,600 becquerels per kilogram of cesium!  The highest readings of cesium in salt water flounder and bass were 260 becquerels per kilogram.

The researchers speculate that the salt in the ocean water absorbs much of the radiation, and then the fish excrete it (the concept is similar to the idea of taking iodide pills after a nuclear accident).

Radiation ends up being concentrated in the bodies of fresh water fish.

ONE YEAR LATER: LEFT BEHIND; FUKUSHIMA PETS STILL WITHOUT HOMES, NEW KITTENS FOUND NEAR NUCLEAR PLANT

Fukushima

One Year Later: Record level radiation at Reactor 1, Fukushima Daiichi! Proof of near full blown melt down!

27 June 2012, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo) reporting highest radiation levels yet inside Reactor 1 of the GE (General Electric) designed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power factory.

Using endoscopes and dosimeters on 26 June 2012,  TEPCo employees detected 10,300 millisieverts per hour inside the reactor!  That level will kill you in less than an hour!

That level of radiation was picked up 20 centimeters (7.8 inches) from a pool of water.   At 4 meters (13 feet) above the water 1,000 millisieverts per hour was detected (which is ten times more than Reactor 2 or 3).

TEPCo officials say the high radiation levels from Reactor 1 are because the reactor was closer to a full blown runaway melt down, than any of the other reactors.

 

Fukushima

One Year Later: You can now call Reactor 4 the Leaning Tower of Fukushima!

25 June 2012, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo) announcing today that they discovered, last month, that the outer walls of the building housing Reactor 4 are tilting!

TEPCo officials claim the building is still structurally safe! The third floor has the most extreme tilt, at 4.6 centimeters (1.8 inches).

Reactor 4, of all the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, has the largest number of spent fuel rods located in a giant pool at the top of the building, housing more than 1,500 fuel rods. TEPCo says there is no worry about the spent fuel pool  as it is supported by central pillars, and not the outer walls.  (how many times has TEPCo made such statements that became famous last words?)

Fukushima

One Year Later: Left behind; Fukushima pets still without homes, new kittens found near nuclear plant

Volunteer animal rescuers in Japan are reporting that pets are still being found in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster area.

Recently six kittens were found and taken to a animal hospital in Tokyo.  They were taken to Tokyo because local animal shelters are still full of abandoned pets from the March 2011 disasters. More than one year later volunteers say there are still hundreds of abandoned cats and dogs living near the nuclear power plant!

The animal hospital in Tokyo reported that the kittens were healthy, and homes were found for them.  Volunteer animal rescue groups say they will increase the use of the internet to send out international SOSs for the pets that were left behind.

ONE YEAR LATER: TUNA CAUGHT NEAR UNITED STATES CONTAMINATED WITH RADIATION! U.S. MEDIA TRYING TO DOWNPLAY

Fukushima

One Year Later: TEPCo accepts blame for poor handling of Fukushima Daiichi, but also points finger at incompetent government.

20 June 2012, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo) published a thick report concerning the handling of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

It admits three of four damaged reactors (there are six reactors at the facility) actually went into melt down, because of total loss in cooling.

“The report admits that the company’s management of the emergency cooling system, which had been criticized by a government panel, was inadequate.”  However, “The report also blames the government for directly and indirectly interfering with TEPCO’s emergency response efforts. It says government officials disregarded what was actually happening on the ground, causing unnecessary confusion.”-NHK (nippon housou kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation)

The reactors were supplied by the U.S. company General Electric. The disaster is ongoing!

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Forced re-start of Ohi Nuclear plant backfires; emergency at Reactor 3, missing cooling water! People not told until the day after!

About a week ago the Japanese federal government forced the re-start of the Ohi nuclear power plant.  Prime Minister Noda gave the order, saying “…Japanese society can not survive!” without it.

Now, 20 June 2012, the operators of the Ohi disaster reactors, Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCo) revealed a potentially major problem with Reactor 3, and they didn’t discover it until an alarm sounded when they tried to re-start it!

Reactor 3 has lost cooling water, and KEPCo officials don’t know why.  Just like TEPCo officials at Fukushima Daiichi, they believe the water got out through leaks but so far they can’t find any!

The alarm sounded when the water dropped by 5 centimeters (almost 2 inches).  Doesn’t sound like much but realize the cooling tanks are huge and it could amount to tons of water lost!

People living near the nuclear plant (in their wisdom the Japanese officials allowed nuclear plants to be built near homes, and vice verse) are outraged because they were not told about the problem until 13 hours later.  They were already angry because most of them opposed the re-start.

KEPCo said it did not warn the residents because there is no law in Japan requiring them to do so, in regards to the amount of water lost.

Ohi’s Reactor 4 is also scheduled for re-start.  The reactors at Ohi were supplied by the U.S. company Westinghouse.

 

Fukushima

One Year Later: Government admits it was not prepared to handle Fukushima Daiichi! Ignored radiation contamination predictions from United States!

19 June 2012, NHK (nippon housou kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) reporting that a Japanese government ‘white paper’ report on science and technology in 2011, states that the government was not prepared to respond to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Diiachi.

“…tsunami estimates were too lenient and facilities which had been in place for nuclear safety were ineffective.  It says the way the public was notified about the spread of radioactive substances was inadequate.”-NHK

Also, on 18 June 2012, the Foreign Ministry of Japan revealed that the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) presented a map of the most likely radiation contamination spread from the GE designed reactors.

The Japanese government refused to make the radiation spread map public, until now.

The U.S. DoE map was made using data from 17 March to 19 March 2011. It was supposedly given to the Japanese Science Ministry and the Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency, via the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

“The map shows radiation spreading northwest from the accident site. Parts of the map indicate levels of 125 microsieverts per hour. The figure suggests residents close to the plant were exposed to the annual [yearly] permissible level within 8 hours.“-NHK

Fukushima, Idaho

East Idaho Gamma Ray detector update: Conflicting readings on 16 June 2012, as high as 26 μR/h! More proof of Fukushima?

On 25 May 2012, I posted how the public display on the Big Lost River IEMP station, in eastern Idaho, was not working.  Now it is, and it’s showing 10 more micro Roentgens per hour than what is being posted on the www.idahoop.org website.

Big Lost River IEMP Gamma display, 16 June 2012

On 16 June 2012, the display was showing between 24 and 27 μR/h!  I watched for ten minutes and it never went lower than 24 μR/h.  I checked the website and discovered that it was reporting gamma levels of 15.2 μR/h.

Why the big difference?

For perspective, 9.8 μR/h is considered “less than typical”.  The ghost city of Pripyat, which was contaminated by Chernobyl in the 1980s, is still showing gamma levels as high as 66 μR/h!

The Big Lost River IEMP is located in an area of eastern Idaho that has been used for nuclear experiments ever since World War 2.  Are these high(?) gamma levels the result of decades of experiments (still ongoing right now), or is it because of the ongoing disaster at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan?