The governor of Fukushima Prefecture, Yuhei Sato, ordered all nuclear reactors in the prefecture, to be shut and scrapped. There are ten nuclear reactors in Fukushima Prefecture.
The residents of Fukushima know that it will have a huge negative impact on their local economy, but they say it’s better than trying to live with an ongoing nuclear disaster!
The Fukushima government is working on a reconstruction plan that will try to create new jobs for those working at the nuclear plants.
Tokyo Electric Power Company has been forced to admit that serous melt downs took place in reactors 1, 2 and 3, of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Independent researchers confirmed that melt downs did occur, and were severe enough to melt through the reactor cores into the bottom of the containment vessels. Some melted fuel rods penetrated as much as 57 centimeters (22 inches) into the containment vessels. The bottom of the containment vessel is made of thick concrete, with a steel plate on top.
TEPCo now says 100% of the fuel rods in Reactor 1 melted, all the way through the core into the containment vessel! 57% of Reactor 2’s fuel rods melted, and 63% of Reactor 3’s fuel rods melted.
Many months ago, I posted how nuclear experts, who were being ignored by the main stream media, explained that the amount and type of radiation coming from Fukushima Daiichi could only mean melt down was occurring. Somehow the main stream news media found other nuclear ‘experts’ (including many who work for the U.S. government, and the U.S. nuclear power industry) who countered those claims.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant reactors were designed by General Electric.
The manager of Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was forced to resign, because of major health problems.
Yoshida Masao has been directly dealing with the situation at the nuclear plant since the 11 March 2011 disasters. Yoshida said a major health problem was discovered during a medical check up. TEPCo officials refused to give any information, or to confirm if was the result of long term exposure to high levels of radiation.
Yoshida said there were three times he, and the workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, thought they were going to die: The explosions of reactors 1 and 3, and the coolant pump failures on Reactor 2.
During the week that followed the March 11 earthquakes and tsunamis that hit Japan, reactors 1, 3 and 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant exploded. Yet Reactor 2 spewed the most radiation.
Contract workers at the plant say they heard an explosion inside Reactor 2, but TEPCo officials swear no explosion took place. Independent researchers claim that Reactor 2 has emitted more radiation than the reactors that exploded!
Scientists (not working for TEPCo) say the most probable reason is that the containment vessel around the core was breached. TEPCo also denies that.
TEPCo officials simply state that “somehow” radioactive gas escaped Reactor 2.
Three farms in the city of Date, Japan, harvested rice that was found to be contaminated with cesium, up to 1,050 becquerels per kilogram.
Earlier in November as many as six farms in Oonami district were found with contaminated rice. Those farms did not sell their rice, but the farms in Date did.
Now officials are trying to track down who bought the cesium contaminated rice.
Date, and Oonami are in Fukushima Prefecture, where the Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant continues to emit high levels of radiation. Originally officials were testing rice just from the 154 farms in Oonami, but will now test more than 2,300 farms in the prefecture.
Once again, rice harvests in Fukushima Prefecture are coming up contaminated with cesium. But this time the levels are even higher than before.
Five farms in Oonami district have rice that’s contaminated with as much as 1,270 becquerels per kilogram of cesium! At the beginning of November rice containing 630 becquerels was found in the same district. The national government safe limit is 500.
The national government already banned rice from Oonami from being shipped to markets.
In several postings (back in March) I warned that Japanese farmers (specifically those in the Fukushima Prefecture) should not plant their crops because of the radiation contamination. They did anyway, and many said it was because no ‘government official’ told them not to. This is a clear case of too much reliance on ‘authority’!
The prefectural government of Fukushima is in the process of testing all 154 rice farms in the Oonami district. This is going to create a huge rice (and other agricultural products) shortage in Japan, which will only add to the coming global food crisis.
Japan’s science ministry conducted helicopter surveys of radiation, covering 22 prefectures in eastern and central Japan. They found that long lasting cesium is contaminating a large area.
The highest level of cesium contamination is around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, with some areas hitting more than one million becquerels per square meter!
The scientists also found that the mountain ranges nearby have been blocking a lot of cesium from spreading further south. As a result, geographic regions about 60 kilometers (37 miles) to the north, and about 200 kilometers (124 miles) southwest, are contaminated with more than 30,000 becquerels per square meter.
They say the cesium contamination will last decades. And remember, the Fukushima Daiichi disaster reactors are still emitting lots of radiation!
Greenpeace Japan has been monitoring radiation levels in sea food for the past several months. They say Pacific cod and tuna are proving to be very susceptible to cesium contamination.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is not only spewing radiation into the air, but pouring it into the Pacific Ocean.
Greenpeace Japan tested seafood in just five supermarkets in Japan, from October through the beginning of November. Out of 75 samples, 27 were positive for radioactive cesium 134 and 137.
They found that Pacific cod was the most contaminated, along with Bigeye and Skipjack tuna. The fish had been caught off the coasts of Hokkaido, Iwate and Miyagi. These are areas directly affected by the radiation pouring into the Pacific Ocean.
The researchers discovered that canned fish could potentially be more contaminated, because in Japan regulations for canned fish are less strict than fresh fish. Greenpeace Japan says they did find a small level of radiation in a can of mackerel.
Fruit farmers in Fukushima Prefecture (home of the radiation spewing Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant) say radiation is coating their trees and fruit. They’ve come up with a plan to stop the absorption of radiation; use power washers to strip top layers of bark.
The Japanese Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives believes that by stripping the bark off the fruit trees, they can halve the amount of radiation contamination. Major problem: Fukushima Daiichi is still spewing radiation!
By stripping the bark, in an ongoing radioactive contamination environment, they will actually increase the chances of contamination!
A citizens group tested soil from three location in Tokyo and Yokohama, and found radioactive strontium, as much as 51 becquerels per kilogram.
The samples were taken at the end of October. This is not the first time strontium 90 has been found. At the beginning of October it was confirmed that samples taken on a building’s roof top, in Yokohama, was contaminated with 195 becquerels of strontium 90.
Strontium 90 has a half life of 28.8 years. It can cause bone cancer.
The citizens group believes the strontium 90 came from the disaster reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, which is about 170 miles from Yokohama. However, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is claiming that it could not have come from Fukushima Daiichi.
The government officials say it would be more likely that strontium 89 would be coming from the failed nuke plant. This doesn’t make sense, because strontium 89 is used medically, to treat bone cancer, and in rare cases to treat pain. In my quick research I could not find anything that said strontium 89 is a by product of nuclear reactors. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency web site only said that it could be found around nuclear plants.
I can only conclude that the Japanese government officials don’t know what they’re talking about. When you look up strontium 90 you’ll find that it is specifically a creation of nuclear fission, and found in nuclear fallout, so the citizens group is right!