Tag Archives: GE

Fukushima

One Year Later: Fire & new radiation leak at Fukushima Daiichi!

14 August 2012, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo) said a new radioactive water leak has been found, coming from Reactor 4.

This morning a worker found a 350 square meter (1,148 square feet) room on the first floor of the reactor building flooded, about one centimeter (0.39 inch) deep.

The water is contaminated with 77,000 becquerels per milliliter of cesium.

TEPCo officials think the water might be coming from a pipe that is transferring contaminated water from Reactor 3 to a storage tank.  The pipe runs next to Reactor 4 building.

Also this morning, workers discovered a fire in a water pump.  The pump is used in a building that is used for filtering contaminated water.  They used fire extinguishers to put out the fire.

Fukushima

One Year Later: Scientists cooking the books on radiation contamination. Now say radiation exposure was not at dangerous levels!

Reported on 13 July 2012, a group of Japanese and Russian scientists, working through the Hirosaki University’s Institute of Radiation Emergency Medicine and the Institute of Radiation Hygiene in St. Petersburg, greatly lowered the official radiation exposure records for victims of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Now they say no adult was exposed to dangerous levels, claiming the highest dose was 33 millisieverts.  Previously they said people had been exposed to as much as 87 millisieverts!

The international standard is 50 millisieverts, before you have to start taking iodide pills.

The scientists based their new claims on data for radioactive iodine concentration in thyroids taken between 12-16 April last year, then tried to extrapolate using recent radiation plume tracking and various dosimeter data.  So they’re making their claims based on one week of human thyroid gland data, then cooking their scientific books with more recent numbers from other measurements that do not look specifically at the health of a person!

Oh, the scientists did warn that children were still exposed to levels of contamination above the international 50 millisieverts range.  So why not the adults?

Fukushima

One Year Later: Japanese tsunami hit town so contaminated with radiation, officials can’t dump radioactive debris, instead they want to burn it!!!

31 July 2012, the Japanese government is considering plans to incinerate highly radioactive debris from the tsunami hit towns of Hirono and Namie.

The destroyed houses and buildings have been contaminated by fallout from the ongoing nuclear disaster at the GE designed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power factory.

The contamination is so high that local officials have been hamstrung because the debris can not be handled through usual removal methods.  A plan to build two new incinerators within the area was scrapped because of concerns about the radiation.

But wait, there’s more! In their wisdom officials have now rationalized that it’s OK to incinerate the radioactive debris as long as it’s outside of the contaminated area!

They are asking six municipalities to consider build incinerators for burning radioactive ruble from Hirono and Namie towns!

Fukushima

One Year Later: Prosecutors to launch criminal investigations into Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster!

25 July 2012, after a final government initiated, independent investigation report was filed, NHK (nippon housou kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) is reporting that Japanese prosecutors will now accept and investigate criminal complaints regarding the ongoing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

The final report basically said that it is not clear that the nuclear disaster was caused by the natural disasters on 11 March 2011, in fact, in an earlier report the investigators said it was a “man made” disaster.

The final report also blamed the ongoing disaster on gross negligence, both by corporations and the government!  This is why Japanese prosecutors are now accepting criminal complaint cases.  Of course corporate officials, and government officials, deny such gross negligence.

 

Fukushima

Corporate Evil: Subcontractor admitted to falsifying radiation exposure of employees!

21 July 2012, Japanese health officials were alerted to a case of cover up by a subcontractor to Tokyo Electric Power Company.  TEPCo operates the GE designed nuclear disaster reactors at Fukushima Daiichi.

The president of a subcontractor called Buildup, says one of his executives has just admitted that back in December 2011 he ordered their employees to cover their dosimeters with lead.

By covering their dosimeters the radiation exposure readings were much lower than what the workers were really being exposed to.  As a result Japanese health officials were given lower falsified exposure level data, which allowed the executive to keep his men working in highly contaminated areas.

The executive said he issued the order to falsify dosimeter readings when a radiation alarm went off in the area they were working in.  His main concern was not the safety of his men, but the completion of their work.  He claims he now regrets that decision.

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

What Economic Recovery? GE outsources innovation, spends millions building new China Innovation Center!

“These facilities…will play an instrumental role in building out much needed local innovation capabilities in the critical industries that are key to the region’s long term growth.”-Mark Hutchinson, president and CEO of GE Greater China

On 18 July 2012, unAmerican Corporate America giant, General Electric (GE), announced they’ve opened the China Innovation Center.

This as the Obama administration has been calling for more spending on innovation, but I thought he meant in the United States!  Here’s what he said: “We now live in a world where technology has made it possible for companies to take their business anywhere. If we want them to start here and stay here and hire here, we have to be able to out build and out educate and out innovate every other country on Earth.”-Barack Obama, September 2011

How can you “out innovate every other country on Earth”, when your own corporations are outsourcing the innovation?

The GE China Innovation Center in Xi’an cost $60 million USD to build.  I wounder if GE somehow got any U.S. taxpayer money, or some kind’o U.S. tax break, for their China project?

Fukushima

One Year Later: Radioactive village fenced off! Rice fields left to contamination!

Midnight 16 July 2012, a ceremony was held as Iitate Village, in Fukushima Prefecture, was officially fenced off.

Iitate is now divided into three zones, based on radiation levels.

In the most radioactive area only people with homes in the area are allowed in, but only for a few hours and never overnight!

This is the beginning of government efforts to manage decontamination efforts, more than one year after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident began.

However, 85% of Iitate is woodland and rice fields, and the government has not announced any plans to decontaminate those areas.

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