Tokyo Electric Power Company president, Shimizu Masataka, has resigned, and will step down in June.
TEPCo has lost $15 billion. $12 billion of that is directly due to dealing with the ongoing nuclear disaster at their Fukushima Daiichi plant.
In order to pay compensation to people affected by the radiation disaster, TEPCo will sell off $7 billion in property, and cut $6 billion in operating expenses by laying employees off, and ending research & development.
20 May 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company says they will resume nitrogen injection in Fukushima Daiichi’s reactors 2 and 3. There is a fear that hydrogen gas is building to explosive levels.
The explosions of the reactor buildings, back in March, is blamed on hydrogen gas build up. TEPCo also said they were installing lead shields in Reactor 3, because of extremely high radiation levels.
“It remains the case that a way must be found for us to leave nuclear power behind as soon as possible.”-Norbert Rottgen, Environment Minister
Because of the ongoing nuke disaster reactor at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, Germany ordered ‘worst case scenario’ testing of all its nuclear plants. They all FAILED!
The report was published by Der Spiegel. It was discovered that all of Germany’s nuke plants lack the “required safety features” to withstand a level three disaster. Not only that, but four of the plants failed simulations involving small aircraft crashing into them.
The highest safety standard rating for nuclear plants in Germany, is a level three rating. The report says most of the plants can’t even meet level two safety standards.
For the first time since the nuclear disaster started in Japan, the city of Osaka has detected cesium contamination.
Osaka is about 560 km (348 miles) from the Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant.
City officials say that between 01 April and 02 May, low levels of cesium 134 & 137 were detected in rain water, and dust.
Tokyo Electric Power Company says they have reason to believe the cooling systems for Fukushima Daiichi were manually turned off.
They claim that the automatic systems kicked on after the 9.0 quake, but were then manually shut off right before the tsunami hit. It was three hours later before the system was turned back on. TEPCo did not provide evidence, and it sounded like speculation to me.
Basically they’re trying to say a shutdown of cooling systems for slightly longer than three hours caused a total meltdown of fuel rods in Reactor 1. They’re forgetting that there was no power to run the system anyway (according to their own statements weeks ago). Also, TEPCo has recently admitted that dozens of trucks with generators, brought in after the tsunami, failed to provide power to run the plant. It sounds like TEPCo is trying to blame its lower level throwaway employees for the meltdown.
In the past week the Hamaoka nuke plant, east of Tokyo, was shut down, at the request of the government.
The reason was that the plant sat on two fault lines, and scientists expect a 8+ quake. The plant was not built to withstand such a earthquake.
Now Chubu Electric Power Company says they’ve discovered that at least 400 tons of salt water has gotten into the reactors. Salt water can damage the reactors and coolant pumps. They think the salt water is coming from a damaged water line connected to a turbine room.
Tokyo Electric Power Company now admits that meltdown occurred, at least with Reactor 1, on 11 March. They base their claims on their most recent data.
That means high levels of toxic radiation have indeed been spewing from the plant for at least two months now. There is concern that fuel rods in reactors 2 and 3 have also melted down. TEPCo admits it could be the cause of the massive leaks of highly contaminated water coming from the the buildings.
The latest check of cesium levels in the ocean, show that Reactor 3 is pouring even more cesium into the ocean, than it was a few days ago.
TEPCo says that after the 9.0 quake, and then the tsunami, it took too long for back up power to start pumping coolant through the system; the meltdown had already occurred by 06:50 on 12 March. The melted fuel rods were starting to crack the vessel when the coolant hit, which seems to have stopped, or slowed the melting process. But the reactor vessels are now damaged enough to cause the water being pumped in to simply leak out, almost as fast as they can pump in the water. Of course the water became highly contaminated.
Just days after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster began, in March, mysterious radioactive substances have been detected, and are still being detected, at sewage plants and incinerators around Japan.
The first case involves an incinerator in east Tokyo. Ashes were found to be highly radioactive. Unfortunately most of the ashes have already been recycled as building materials. The radioactive isotope has not been identified.
Almost at the same time, sludge from sewage treatment plants in Tokyo also tested positive for radiation contamination. Again, the isotope has not been identified.
Just this past week, in Maebashi, cesium contamination was found in incinerator ashes, sludge and molten slag, that were being processed at a water treatment plant.
Fukushima Daiichi’s Reactor 3 is still pouring massive amounts of contamination into the Pacific Ocean.
Since Friday, cesium-134 and 137 have being detected at levels thousands of times above government safe limits.
So far Tokyo Electric Power Company says they can only monitor the radiation levels coming from Reactor 3. It seems their hands are full with the meltdown of Reactor 1.
In a clear case of obsession, Tokyo Electric Power Company announced they will resume water injection in Fukushima Daiichi’s Reactor 1.
TEPCo officials say the water level is far too low, and they have confirmed that holes and cracks have formed in the reactor vessel, as a result of the meltdown.
A couple of days ago the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told TEPCo that it’s a waste of time to keep pumping in massive amounts of water, now that the reactor has melted down. TEPCo continues to insist that if they pump in enough water, and connect a new cooling system, they can control the situation.
TEPCo will monitor their water injection plan for the next two days.