Tag Archives: fukushima

Fukushima

One Year Later: Unexplained extreme radiation levels above Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 2!

14 June 2012, NHK (nippon housou kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) reporting that Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo) has discovered that on the 5th floor of the building housing Reactor 2 there is extreme levels of radiation.

The discovery was made by a robot used in the ongoing search to find where leaks are coming from.  More than one year after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster began, TEPCo officials still can not find the origin of the many radiation leaks they believe must exist in the GE designed reactors.

The 5th floor of the building housing Reactor 2 shows no sign of major physical damage, yet is flooded with 880 millisieverts (880,000 microsieverts) per hour of radiation!  It is 4.5 meters (14.7 feet) above the reactor.

To put it in perspective; many countries consider a yearly exposure of 2.7 millisieverts to be normal.   That’s spread out over the entire year, not all at once!  It also depends on the type of radiation, gamma radiation from a reactor that went critical is definitely bad.

TEPCo admits that Reactor 2 has spewed the greatest amount of radiation of all the damaged reactors, so far.

Finding leaks is of primary concern, because they must stop any radiation leaks in order to bring down lethal radiation levels, so that humans can remove the melted fuel rods and begin decommissioning the reactors.

Until TEPCo can find the leaks, and since no one in charge in Japan wants to dump sand, lead and concrete on the reactors, there is no chance of stopping the nuclear disaster reactors.

Fukushima

One Year Later: More proof of government evil; Japanese leaders knew how bad Fukushima Daiichi was from day one!

11 June 2012, NHK (nippon housou kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) reporting that a new government report reveals that the federal leaders knew how bad the radiation levels were at the very beginning of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.

The government refused to release the report, but NHK claims they got hold of a copy from the Science Ministry!

The Science Ministry sent staff to Namie Town, in Fukushima Prefecture, on 15 March 2011.  They discovered that radiation levels were already at 330 microsieverts per hour (7,920 microsieverts per day, or 7.92 millisieverts per day)!  Namie Town is only 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) from the nuke plant.

Japanese news media had demanded the government give radiation data immediately following the 11 March disasters.  The government took until 25 April to do so, however, they used data from a useless SPEEDI system.

The SPEEDI system was only designed to give predictions, not actual real time data!

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Japan to force re-start of nuclear power plants, for the sake of the economic “survival of society.” New studies suggest that power use in Japan can not be reduced much further, even if utility rates are raised!

“To protect the [economic] livelihoods of the Japanese people, it is my judgment that Reactors 3 and 4 at Ohi nuclear power station should be restarted.”-Yoshihiko Noda, Prime Minister of Japan

Despite that fact that local governments in Japan have the final say on the start up of a nuclear power plant, and they’ve said no, the federal government has decided to do it anyway!

Noda gave this dire warning: “Cheap and stable electricity is vital. If all the reactors that previously provided 30% of Japan’s electricity supply are halted, or kept idle, Japanese society can not survive!”

This comes as some studies on utility usage, and increased prices for power, show that most Japanese families/individuals can not reduce power usage any further, no matter how expensive the electric rates get.   Electricity rates in Japan are already among the most expensive rates in the world!

Fukushima

One Year Later: GE designed Fukushima Daiichi Reactors still leaking cooling water! No decommissioning until it stops!

8 June 2012, Tokyo Electric (TEPCo) said that employees inspected the basements of Reactors 2 & 3, for the first time since the March 2011 nuclear disaster began!

Now, more than a year later, TEPCo officials say it is clear that the reactor vessels are damaged and still leaking! Really, after all this time?

The basement of Reactor 2 has 5.33 meters (17.3 feet) of contaminated water, and Reactor 3 has 5.43 meters (17.7 feet)!

Rather than dump sand, lead, boric acid and concrete on the thing (as the Soviets did with Chernobyl), the Japanese government, and TEPCo, have decided to shut down the GE designed disaster reactors, as if they were functioning normally!

The problem is that it requires the cooling down of the reactors, and the removal of melted fuel rods.  And that can only be accomplished by stopping any leaks and removing all contaminated water.  Here’s the thing, more than one year later, TEPCo still does not know where the water is leaking from!!!

Fukushima

One Year Later: Incompetence continues at Fukushima Daiichi, cooling pumps fail, again!

6 June 2012, Tokyo Electric revealed that a cooling pump for the spent fuel pool, above Reactor 4, failed on Monday, 4 June.  Japanese media says the pump was burnt.

A back up pump was used the next day, but it failed as well.  TEPCo finally got it working today, however, temps in the spent fuel pool have hit 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit)!

TEPCo says it will take 12 to 24 hours to cool down the spent fuel pool.

Fukushima

One Year Later: Thermometers failing at Fukushima Daiichi, again!

Late on 1 June 2012, Tokyo Electric Power Company officials announced that more than half the thermometers on Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 2 have failed, or are failing!

TEPCo says 23 of the 41 thermometers are not working.  The thermometers are critical to maintaining safe temps inside the disable GE designed reactor.

Back in February 2012, failing temp gauges on Reactor 2 caused temps to rise above official cold shut down standards.  TEPCo later claimed it was simply a faulty gauge.

By March 2012, TEPCo actually stopped taking readings off several gauges on Reactor 1 as well as Reactor 2.

TEPCo says they will try to install new gauges…in July!!!

 

 

Fukushima

Cesium contamination of soil in Japan, from study published in October 2011

The following quotes are from a cesium-137 soil contamination study reviewed in July, and published in October 2011, just months after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster began.

“The soils around Fukushima NPP [nuclear power plant] and neighboring prefectures have been extensively contaminated with depositions of more than 100,000 and 10,000 MBq km-2…”

“…around 90% of the total deposition of 137Cs occurs with precipitation.”

“…most of the eastern parts of Japan were effected by a total 137Cs deposition of more than 1,000 MBq km-2.”

“Airborne and ground-based survey measurements jointly carried out by MEXT and the US Department of Energy (DOE) (21) show high 137Cs deposition amounts were observed northwestward and up to a distance of 80 km from Fukushima NPP. It was estimated from the first measurement that by April 29, more than 600,000 MBq km-2 had been deposited in the area, which is greater than our estimate of less than 500,000 MBq km-2…”

“Overall, however, the highest potential deposition occurred over the Pacific Ocean…”

The study used soil samples taken by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), U.S. DOE and independent sources. Again, this was during the first few months of the ongoing the nuclear disaster.

The study is titled Cesium-137 deposition and contamination of Japanese soils due to the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Business/Economics, International

Government Coverup: Japan’s nuclear policy commission suspended, too many pro-nuke lovers and secret meetings!

29 May 2012, The Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) suspended a commission which was reviewing the Japanese government’s official nuclear policy.

A number of members of the commission discovered that the policy review was being unfairly influenced by other members who were actually employed by the nuclear power industry.

On top of that, it was discovered that since May 2011 those members who are pro-nuke, or actually employed by the nuke industry, were holding secret closed door meetings with government leaders!

Demands were made that a independent third party investigate the closed door meetings. Instead the JAEC simply suspended the policy review commission, with a promise that they would create a new review commission that did not have pro-nuke industry panelists.

Fukushima

One Year Later: Tuna caught near United States contaminated with Radiation! U.S. media trying to downplay, it happened last year!

On 29 May 2012, the U.S. media reporting a group of California University researchers say that tuna caught off the California coast showed traces of cesium-134 & 137.  However, their discovery actually happened last year!

Stanford researchers tested blue fin tuna, caught near San Diego in August 2011, and found low levels of cesium.  The scientists, and the U.S. news media, are downplaying this pointing out the levels are too low to cause harm.

However, a similar study in 2008 showed that blue fin tuna had no radiation contamination at all.  Now realize that the latest study was done in August 2011, and the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi is far from over, radiation is still pouring into the Pacific Ocean!

Also, Tokyo Electric Power Company, just last week, reported that radiation emitted by the disaster reactors, between March and September 2011, was higher than what the Japanese government was reporting!

Back in November 2011, Greenpeace activists tested tuna and cod for radiation and found they were contaminated, the mainstream media ignored their findings!

ONE YEAR LATER: RADIOACTIVE RATS IN JAPAN

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Food Crisis: Japan now dependent upon other countries for fish, as much as a 74% increase!

25 May 2012, Japan’s Fishery Ministry reports a huge decrease in fish catches.  Blame the 11 March 2011 disasters.

The reports says the fishing industry in the northeast of Japan was hit hard by the disasters, and has not been able to recover enough to supply Japan with enough fish.  Supplies of local fish to Japanese markets is at about 78% of what it was before the disasters.

About 70% of the fishing boats damaged or destroyed have been repaired or replaced.

And don’t forget the fish that are radioactive.

As a result Japan has increased imports of Pacific saury (aka mackerel pike) by as much as 74%.  Oyster imports are up 20%.