Tag Archives: GE

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?

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!