Nuclear Meltdown Watch

[Simulist]

“Absolutely Every One” – 15 Out of 15 – Bluefin Tuna Tested In California Waters Contaminated with Fukushima Radiation
Posted on May 29, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog
California Fish Contaminated with Fukushima Radiation

We noted more than a year ago:

The ocean currents head from Japan to the West Coast of the U.S.

***

Of course, fish don’t necessarily stay still, either. For example, the Telegraph notes that scientists tagged a bluefin tuna and found that it crossed between Japan and the West Coast three times in 600 days:


That might be extreme, but the point is that fish exposed to radiation somewhere out in the ocean might end up in U.S. waters.

And see this.

CNN reports today:

Low levels of radioactive cesium from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident turned up in fish caught off California in 2011, researchers reported Monday.

The bluefin spawn off Japan, and many migrate across the Pacific Ocean. Tissue samples taken from 15 bluefin caught in August, five months after the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi, all contained reactor byproducts cesium-134 and cesium-137 at levels that produced radiation about 3% higher than natural background sources

The Wall Street Journal quotes the studies’ authors:

“The tuna packaged it up and brought it across the world’s largest ocean,” said marine ecologist Daniel Madigan at Stanford University, who led the study team. “We were definitely surprised to see it at all and even more surprised to see it in every one we measured.”

***

“We found that absolutely every one of them had comparable concentrations of cesium-134 and cesium-137,” said marine biologist Nicholas Fisher at Stony Brook University in New York state, who was part of the study group.

The bad news is that it is only going to get worse.

As Reuters points out:

Unlike some other compounds, radioactive cesium does not quickly sink to the sea bottom but remains dispersed in the water column, from the surface to the ocean floor.

Fish can swim right through it, ingesting it through their gills, by taking in seawater or by eating organisms that have already taken it in ….

As CNN notes:

Neither [of the scientists who tested the fish] thought they were likely to find cesium at all, they said. And since the fish tested were born about a year before the disaster, “This year’s fish are going to be really interesting,” Madigan said.

“There were fish born around the time of the accident, and those are the ones showing up in California right now,” he said. “Those have been, for the most part, swimming around in those contaminated waters their whole lives.”

In other words, the 15 fish tested were only exposed to radiation for a short time. But bluefin arriving in California now will have been exposed to the Fukushima radiation for much longer.

As KGTV San Diego explains:

The real test of how radioactivity affects tuna populations comes this summer when researchers planned to repeat the study with a larger number of samples. Bluefin tuna that journeyed last year were exposed to radiation for about a month. The upcoming travelers have been swimming in radioactive waters for a longer period. How this will affect concentrations of contamination remains to be seen.

One of the studies’ authors told the BBC:

The fish that will be arriving around now, and in the coming months, to California waters may be carrying considerably more radioactivity and if so they may possibly be a public health hazard.

Japanese and U.S. officials – of course – are pretending that the amount of radiation found in the bluefin is safe. But the overwhelming scientific consensus is that there is no safe level of radiation … and radiation consumed and taken into the body is much more dangerous than background radiation.

You know your tuna is contaminated when your Chicken of the Sea actually has feathers and a beak.

[dqueue]

John Watson, "Senior Writer" for The Age, writes to assure us, "Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick. The nuclear debate shouldn't end with Fukushima fear." He parades two studies indicating the radiation from Fukushima is not bad. One is from the WHO, the other from the UN. (Grab your trunks. C'mon in! The water is fine.)

He oozes:

Heard much about Fukushima lately? You know, the disaster that spread deadly contamination across Japan and spelt the end for the nuclear industry.

You should have, because recent authoritative reports have reached a remarkable conclusion about a supposedly "deadly" disaster. No one died, nor is likely to die, according to the most comprehensive assessments since the Fukushima nuclear plant was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

The accident competed for media space with the deaths of nearly 20,000 people in the magnitude 9.0 quake – 1000 times worse than the Christchurch quake – and tsunami, which wholly or partly destroyed more than a million buildings.

The nuclear workers were the living dead, we were told; hundreds of thousands would die if the plant exploded; even if that didn't happen, affected areas would be uninhabitable and residents' health would suffer for generations.

Advertisement
Instead, two independent international reports conclude that radiative material released from Fukushima's four damaged reactors, three of which melted down, has had negligible health impacts.

In February, the World Health Organisation reported there would be no noticeable increases in cancer rates for the overall population. A third of emergency workers were at some increased risk.

While infants in two localised hot spots were likely to have a 6 per cent relative increase in female breast cancer and 7 per cent relative increase in male leukaemia, WHO cautioned this was a small change. The lifetime risk of thyroid cancer, which is treatable, is only 0.75 per cent, so even in the worst-affected location it rose to only 1.25 per cent.

Now the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has drawn on 80 scientists from 18 countries to produce a draft report that concludes: "Radiation exposure following the nuclear accident at Fukushima-Daiichi did not cause any immediate health effects. It is unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future among the general public and the vast majority of workers."

The committee has had two years to build a fuller picture of radiation dosages (measured as mSv) and impacts. It finds most Japanese in the first and second years were exposed to lower doses from the accident than from natural background radiation's 2-3 mSv a year.

Also, "No radiation-related deaths or acute effects have been observed among nearly 25,000 workers involved at the accident site. Given the small number of highly exposed workers, it is unlikely that excess cases of thyroid cancer due to radiation exposure would be detectable."

Those workers, who were allowed a maximum short-term dose of 250 mSv, have been closely monitored. Of 167 exposed to more than the industry's recommended five-year limit of 100 mSv (a CT scan exposes patients to up to 10 mSv), 23 recorded 150-200 mSv, three 200-250 mSv and six up to 678 mSv, still short of the 1000 mSv single dosage that causes radiation sickness, or the accumulated exposure estimated to cause a fatal cancer years later in 5 per cent of people.

So, not even one case of radiation sickness to report.

A swift evacuation of 200,000 residents within a 20-kilometre radius of the plant helped protect them – WHO estimated most residents of Fukushima prefecture received doses of 1-10 mSv in the first year. By August 2011, however, the dose rate at the plant boundary was only 1.7 mSv a year.

The rapid decay of most of the radioactive material (iodine-131, which reduced to a 16th of its original activity in a month) also means the evacuated area has not been permanently blighted. Many residents have returned, although some areas have restricted entry until radiation drops below the 20 mSv-a-year threshold, expected in 2016-17.

Nor has the environment been devastated. The report says: "The exposures on both marine and terrestrial non-human biota were too low for observable acute effects."

The quake and tsunami damage is the real catastrophe.

About 1000 deaths have been attributed to evacuations. About 90 per cent were people older than 66, who suffered from the trauma of evacuation and living in shelters. Sadly, those of them who left areas where radiation was no greater than in naturally high background areas would have been better off staying.

Let's be clear, Fukushima was hit by a worst-case scenario: the world's fifth-most-powerful earthquake since 1900, a tsunami twice as high as the plant was built to withstand, and follow-up quakes of magnitudes 7.1 and 6.3. A Japanese commission of inquiry described it as a "man-made disaster" because of regulatory failure and lack of a safety culture.

This "perfect storm" hit a nuclear plant built to a 50-year-old design and no one died. Japan moved a few metres east during a three-minute quake and the local coastline subsided half a metre, but the 11 reactors operating in four nuclear power plants in the region all shut down automatically. None suffered significant damage. (The tsunami disabled Fukushima's cooling system.)

Yet such is the imbalance of dread to risk on matters nuclear that this accident was enough to turn public opinion and governments against nuclear power. Never mind that coal mining kills almost 6000 people a year, or that populations of coal-mining areas have death rates about 10 per cent higher than non-mining areas, or that coal emissions drive global warming.

And surely the fact that the more modern Onagawa nuclear plant was twice as close to the quake epicentre and shut down as designed, without incident, counts for something.

Japan struggled without 30 per cent of its generating capacity for almost two years before electing pro-nuclear Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in December. About 50 reactors are expected to restart within a year. Worldwide, more than 60 plants are being built and 300 are in the licensing process, the strongest growth since the 1970s.

Fukushima was serious, but it was not the end of the debate about nuclear power, nor should it be. And it's hardly an informed debate when the good news about smaller health impacts than anyone dared expect is so widely neglected.

John Watson is a senior writer.

[seemslikeadream]

take a GOOGLE WALK Mr. Watson.....and then go to hell


it's easy and you don't even have to leave your basement or change your underware

[seemslikeadream]

America's Secret Fukushima Poisoning the Bread Basket of the World
Wednesday, 05 June 2013 10:06
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Truthout | News Analysis

We need your help to sustain grassroots, groundbreaking journalism. Make a tax-deductible contribution to Truthout now by clicking here.

United Nuclear's uranium mine and mill within the Navajo Nation in Church Rock, New Mexico. (Photo: EPA)
Early in the morning of July 16, 1979, a 20-foot section of the earthen dam blocking the waste pool for the Church Rock Uranium Mill in New Mexico caved in and released 95 million gallons of highly acidic fluid containing 1,100 tons of radioactive material. The fluid and waste flowed into the nearby Puerco River, traveling 80 miles downstream, leaving toxic puddles and backing up local sewers along the way.
Although this release of radiation, thought to be the largest in US history, occurred less than four months after the Three Mile Island partial nuclear meltdown, the Church Rock spill received little media attention. In contrast, the Three Mile Island accident made the headlines. And when the residents of Church Rock asked their governor to declare their community a disaster area so they could get recovery assistance, he refused.
What was the difference between the Church Rock spill and the Three Mile Island partial meltdown? Church Rock is situated in the Navajo Nation, one of the areas in the US sacrificed to supply uranium for the Cold War and for nuclear power plants. That area and many others in the Navajo Nation are contaminated to this day. Another sacrifice area is the Great Sioux Nation, a region in the western part of the country comprising parts of 5 states, where thousands of open uranium mine pits continue to release radiation and heavy metals into the air, land and water.
This poisoning of the people in the Navajo and Great Sioux Nations has been going on for decades and has had serious effects on their health. Even today, it is unknown what the full effects are and what the impact is on the rest of the nation and world because the contaminated air and water are not limited by borders.
Most Americans are unaware of the story of uranium mining on tribal lands because it is a difficult story to accept. It is a story that includes the long history of human rights abuses by the United States against native indians and recognition of the full costs of nuclear energy - two stories the government and big energy have suppressed.
Many people think of nuclear power as a clean source of energy. It has been promoted as part of the transition from fossil fuels. But the reality is that nuclear power comes at a heavy price to the health of people and the planet. Like other forms of extractive energy such as coal, oil and gas, uranium needs to stay in the ground. Radiation and heavy metal poisonings are a hidden environmental catastrophe that is ongoing and must be addressed. But rather than studying the health effects and cleaning up the environment, private corporations are pushing once again to lift the ban on uranium mining.
Is Uranium Mining Poisoning the Bread Basket of America?
Thousands of open uranium mines first excavated in the 1950s continue to release radiation today. There have been inadequate assessments of the extent of contamination, but limited measurements done to date show ongoing leaks many times larger than the leakage from Fukushima. How did we get here?
After WWII, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was created so that the United States could obtain uranium for weapons production domestically. The AEC guaranteed that it would purchase all uranium that was mined. A uranium boom ensued.
It is estimated that 60 to 80 percent of uranium in the United States is located on tribal land, particularly in the lands of the Navajo and Great Sioux Nations. Private corporations jumped in to mine these areas and, in parts of South Dakota, individuals started mining for uranium on their private lands unaware of the dangers.
Private corporations have set up thousands of underground and open pit uranium mines on tribal lands and hired local native Indians at low wages. Other than jobs, the uranium mines brought little benefit to these nations because the lands were given to non-Indian companies such as Kerr-McGee, Atlantic Richfield, Exxon and Mobil. Native Indians had little control over what took place.
Two Acts in the 19th century took the rights of self-determination away from the native population. The Indian Appropriations Act of 1851 allocated money to move Native Indians onto reservations, ostensibly to protect them from white settlers but more likely to give settlers access to natural resources. The reservations are also known as prisoner of war camps. In fact, the reservation in Pine Ridge, SD is registered as POW Camp 344.
A second Indian Appropriations Act in 1871 changed the legal status of Native Indians to wards of the Federal government, stripping them of recognition as sovereign nations and the right to make treaties. In order to make contracts for uranium mining on tribal lands, the Bureau of Indian Affairs created Tribal Councils to conduct negotiations. But the resulting contracts were not made in the best interests of the tribes.
The Native Indians who worked in these mines were not protected from exposure to radiation, nor were they adequately warned about the dangers. Though it was clear that radiation exposure was linked to cancer in the early 1950s, around the same time that the US Public Health Service also started studying the health of uranium miners, it was not until 1959 that lung cancer was mentioned as a risk in pamphlets given to the workers. In an unpublished doctoral dissertation, A.B. Hungate writes that the reasons for this are: "The government had two interests. First, it needed a steady supply of domestic uranium, and it felt that warning the workers of the hazards would result in the loss of the workforce. Secondly, it wanted an epidemiological testing program to study the long-term health effects of radiation."
Don Yellowman, president of the Forgotten Navajo People, described the extent of exposure to radiation and toxic metals. Native Indian miners would drink radioactive water that contained heavy metals dripping off of the walls deep in the mines. Some of the miners had to travel long distances to the mines, so their families would come with them. Children would play in the area around the mine, and family members would prepare and eat meals there. Other reports state that workers, primarily nonwhites, were ordered into the mines shortly after explosions were set off to gather up rocks and bring them out for processing. Also, miners would go home at night covered in toxic radioactive dust, exposing their families to health risks.
Uranium mining started in South Dakota on land included in the original treaties with the Great Sioux Nation in the 1960 and '70s. The Sioux were not included in negotiations for the mining and are still refusing to settle with the US government over land in the Black Hills that was mined. During the boom, the land was mined without regard for contamination as "large mining companies [were literally] pushing off the tops of bluffs and buttes."
A few decades after uranium mining began in the Navajo Nation, increased numbers of cancer cases, lung cancer in particular, began to show up in the miners. A 2008 literature review in New Mexico found that the "Risk of lung cancer among male Navajo uranium miners was 28 times higher than in Navajo men who never mined, and two-thirds of all new lung cancer cases in Navajo men between 1969 and 1993 was attributable to a single exposure - underground uranium mining. Through 1990, death rates among Navajo uranium miners were 3.3 times greater than the US average for lung cancer and 2.5 times greater for pneumoconioses and silicosis."
Though the health effects of radiation exposure were known, it took decades before steps were taken to protect workers. The mines were operated under lax laws established in the 1872 Mining Act. Health and safety regulations for the mines, such as requirements for ventilation, were not passed in Congress until the late 1960s. But even once they were law, the regulations were not enforced.
Beginning in the 1970s, miners and their families began to pursue legal solutions through the courts and Congress so they could be compensated for the effects of their radiation exposure. Many court cases failed, and Native Indians were excluded from hearings in Congress on miner safety. Finally, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) passed Congress in 1990.
RECA is desperately inadequate and restrictive. Until 2000, RECA only covered miners, not mill workers, and it does not cover families and others who lived near the mines. It also requires a very strict application process that is impossible for some to complete. A summary of RECA by academics Brugge and Goble states: "We believe that it is not possible to simultaneously apologize, set highly stringent criteria and place the burden of proof on the victims, as did the 1990 RECA."
Uranium Mine Pits Continue to Leak Radiation Today
Radiation and heavy metals from uranium mines continue to pollute the land, air and water today and very little action is being taken to stop it.
In the upper great plain states of Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas, there are 2,885 abandoned uranium mines that are all open pits within territory that is supposed to be for the absolute use of the Great Sioux Nation under the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty with the United States. These open mines continue to emit radiation and pollutants that are poisoning the local communities.
According to a report by Earthworks, "Mining not only exposes uranium to the atmosphere, where it becomes reactive, but releases other radioactive elements such as thorium and radium and toxic heavy metals including arsenic, selenium, mercury and cadmium. Exposure to these radioactive elements can cause lung cancer, skin cancer, bone cancer, leukemia, kidney damage and birth defects."
There are currently 1200 abandoned uranium mines in the Navajo Nation and 500 of them require reclamation. The greatest amount of radioactive contamination on Navajo land comes from solid waste called "tailings," which sits in large open piles, some as tall as 70 feet high, and was incorporated into materials used to build homes. Dust from these piles of waste blows throughout the land causing widespread contamination.
A 2008 study found that "mills and tailings disposal sites caused extensive groundwater contamination by radium, uranium, various trace metals and dissolved solids. One estimate is that 1.2 million acre-feet of groundwater (or enough to fill Elephant Butte Reservoir more than twice) have been contaminated in the Ambrosia Lake-Milan area from historic mine and mill discharges, and less than two-tenths of 1 percent has been treated to reduce contaminant levels." It is estimated that 30 percent of people living in the Navajo Nation lack access to uncontaminated water.
Charmaine White Face of Defenders of the Black Hills describes the situation in the Great Sioux Nation as "America's Chernobyl." She says, "A private abandoned, open-pit uranium mine about 200 meters from an elementary school in Ludlow, SD, emits 1170 microRems per hour, more than 4 times as much as is being emitted from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. " In addition, "Studies by the USFS show that one mine alone has 1,400 millirems per hour (mR/hr) of exposed radiation, a level of radiation that is 120,000 times higher than normal background of 100 millirems per year (mR/yr)!" Cancer rates in Pine Ridge, SD, are the highest in the nation.
This contamination escapes into the air which blows to the East and South and seeps into the water, reaching the Cheyenne and Missouri Rivers. It poisons grain grown in these areas that is fed to cattle that provide milk and beef for the rest of the nation. As White Face explains, "In an area of the USA that has been called 'the Bread Basket of the World,' more than 40 years of mining have released radioactive polluted dust and water runoff from the hundreds of abandoned open pit uranium mines, processing sites, underground nuclear power stations and waste dumps. Our grain supplies and our livestock production in this area have used the water and have been exposed to the remainders of this mining. We may be seeing global affects, not just localized affects, to the years of uranium mining."
Uranium also contaminates coal that is mined in Wyoming for power plants in the East. Defenders of the Black Hills report that "Radioactive dust and particles are released into the air at the coal fired power plants and often set off the warning systems at nuclear power plants."
People in the Navajo and Great Sioux Nations have been fighting for decades for the US government to perform studies on the extent of contamination and to clean up both current contamination and prevent future contamination. As wards of the federal government, the United States is responsible for the health and safety of native Indians.
The Forgotten Navajo People have put forth a resolution that states "that all people have the inalienable right to clean air, clean water and the preservation of sacred lands and that immediate action must be taken to fund the ongoing need for remediation of radioactive contamination in our air, water, and homelands to ensure our survival and that the named parties will support the People's Uranium Radiation Activity Data Collection Network." The resolution also asks that the United States uphold the ban on further uranium mines. The resolution also seeks equipment that would allow residents to measure radiation on their reservations as people in Japan are able to do, a simple request that has not been acted on.
Defenders of the Black Hills have written legislation, the Uranium Exploration and Mining Accountability Act, calling for study and remediation, but according to White Face, no members of Congress are yet willing to sponsor the bill. She explains that state and federal legislators want to hide the fact that this ongoing contamination exists because it will hurt the states economically. Just 40 miles south of Mount Rushmore, there are 169 abandoned open mines. And there are mines in the areas of national parks such as Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. These mines likely contaminate water and air in those areas visited by thousands of tourists.
The Chain of Environmental Damage from Nuclear Energy Begins with Excavation
During the energy crisis of the 1970s, President Nixon called for the US to become more energy independent and to pursue renewable sources of energy through Project Independence 1980. This included increasing the use of nuclear power and resulted in the building of nuclear power plants throughout the nation. Some of those power plants, 23 currently in operation, were built using the same flawed plan as Reactor One (designed by General Electric) which failed at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. And many of them are reaching their 40-year lifespans and are applying for renewed permits to continue operation.
In addition, because of the reduced availability of fossil fuels and the climate crisis, nuclear power is back on the table as part of President Obama's "All of the Above" energy strategy. Obama has been well-funded throughout his career by Exelon Energy, owner of the largest number of nuclear reactors in the United States and third largest in the world. Earthworks reports that "According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, there are currently 26 proposals to start, expand or restart in situ projects in the states regulated by the commission (Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, New Mexico). Of these, nine will be new operations."
In situ uranium mining is being promoted as a safer method of extracting uranium. In this type of mining process, deep holes are drilled into the Earth's surface and fluids are injected into them to dissolve the uranium so that it can be collected. This method of mining is certainly less destructive to the surface of the Earth than open pit mining, but the report also states that "Any in situ operation risks spreading uranium and its hazardous byproducts outside the mine, potentially contaminating nearby aquifers and drinking water sources. This has been a major problem with almost all in situ projects in the US."
Current uranium mines have a history of noncompliance with regulations. There continue to be spills. Mining corporations do not clean up areas that they are required to clean up. They do not pay fines. And they influence local governments to loosen requirements once they receive a mining permit.
In addition to contamination of land, air and water, uranium mining, particularly in situ mining, requires large amounts of water. In the current environment, with extended droughts and reduced aquifers, in situ mining places a greater strain on the water crisis.
Nuclear power is another form of extractive energy that is not only extremely unsafe, but is also more expensive than safer forms of energy. Beyond the human and environmental costs, the cost of building new nuclear reactors has quadrupled since 2000 to an average of $13 to 15 billion each. Physicians for Social Responsibility report that "new reactors are estimated to cost homeowners and businesses between 12 cents and 20 cents per kilowatt hour on electric bills - more than cleaner, safer alternatives."
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War passed a resolution in 2010 calling for a ban on all uranium mining worldwide, which states that, "As well as the direct health effects from contamination of the water, the immense water consumption in mining regions is environmentally and economically damaging - and in turn detrimental for human health. The extraction of water leads to a reduction of the groundwater table and thereby to desertification; plants and animals die, the traditional subsistence of the inhabitants is eliminated, the existence of whole cultures are threatened."
Expose the Truth and Create a Carbon Free Nuclear Free Energy Economy
Uranium mining in the United States and worldwide is a hidden environmental catastrophe that must be exposed. It is not acceptable to ignore the ongoing poisoning of communities, particularly of indigenous communities. Three-fourths of all uranium mining worldwide is on indigenous land.
Yellowman speaks of the practice of uranium mining as a form of structural violence. Structural violence occurs when a social structure or institution harms people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. There is no doubt that widespread contamination of the air, land and water from 70 years of uranium mining has violated the basic rights of indigenous peoples to clean air and water and to live healthy lives.
It is not known at present to what extent the ongoing contamination is affecting the health of our nation. Despite the obvious need, there have not been, to date, any comprehensive studies of radiation and heavy metal contamination in the United States. Uranium that is ingested by cattle and other livestock through water and feed concentrates in muscle. We do not know how safe our air, water and food are. And it is likely that the government and the nuclear industry do not want us to know.
It is becoming clearer that nuclear power is another dirty extractive source of energy that has high costs to human and environmental health. We must see through the energy industry propaganda and realize that there are clean and safer alternatives that are less costly.
It is time to move quickly to a carbon and nuclear-free energy economy. First steps would be to end massive energy waste through investment in energy efficiency and conservation. Other steps are to end the secret Fukushima by cleaning up the mines, providing testing equipment to Native Indians and conducting studies on the extent of contamination and effects of radiation and other toxins on the soil, air and water.
Then, it is time to move quickly to a carbon and nuclear free energy economy, which includes changing the American way of life by putting in place land use planning, 21st century mass transit and dispersed energy, so every home and business can become an energy producer. The call of native Indians to restore the Earth, for the right to clean water and air, should be a rally cry taken on by all of us.
You can find "The Toxic Effects of Uranium Mining on Tribal Lands with Don Yellowman and Charmaine White Face" on Clearing the FOG.

[seemslikeadream]

Fukushima nuclear plant: Toxic isotope found in groundwater

Radioactive water was found to be leaking from a storage tank at the plant last month

High levels of a toxic radioactive isotope have been found in groundwater at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator says.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said tests showed Strontium-90 was present at 30 times the legal rate.

The radioactive isotope tritium has also been detected at elevated levels.

The plant, crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, has recently seen a series of water leaks and power failures.

The tsunami knocked out cooling systems to the reactors, which melted down.

Water is now being pumped in to the reactors to cool them but this has left Tepco with the problem of how to safely store the contaminated water.

There have been several reports of leaks from storage tanks or pipes.

Detecting increasing levels of the highly radioactive substance Strontium-90 indicates that Tepco is still struggling to contain the Fukushima reactors.

Water continues to be a massive problem as the company is running out of storage space for the large amounts of the liquid they use every day as to cool the plant.

On top of that around 400 tonnes of groundwater flow into the reactor buildings every day. They have even dug up 12 relief wells near the site in an effort to halt the ingress.

As to the high levels of Strontium-90 detected, it has a half life of 29 years. This means that in humans it can continue to irradiate them for many years. It can be ingested from food or water and tends to concentrate in the bones and is believed to cause cancer there.

In animal studies, exposure to Strontium-90 also caused harmful reproductive effects. These effects happened when animals were exposed to doses more than a million times higher than typical exposure levels for humans.

Read more from Matt
Sea samples
Strontium-90 is formed as a by-product of nuclear fission. Tests showed that levels of strontium in groundwater at the Fukushima plant had increased 100-fold since the end of last year, Toshihiko Fukuda, a Tepco official, told media.

Mr Fukuda said Tepco believed the elevated levels originated from a leak of contaminated water in April 2011 from one of the reactors.

"As it's near where the leak from reactor number two happened and taking into account the situation at the time, we believe that water left over from that time is the highest possibility," he said.

Tritium, used in glow-in-the-dark watches, was found at eight times the allowable level.

Mr Fukuda said that samples from the sea showed no rise in either substance and the company believed the groundwater was being contained by concrete foundations.

"When we look at the impact that is having on the ocean, the levels seem to be within past trends and so we don't believe it's having an effect."

But the discovery is another setback for Tepco's plan to pump groundwater from the plant into the sea, correspondents say.

Nuclear chemist Michiaki Furukawa told Reuters news agency that Tepco should not release contaminated water into the ocean.

"They have to keep it somewhere so that it can't escape outside the plant," he said. "Tepco needs to carry out more regular testing in specific areas and disclose everything they find."

The Fukushima power plant has faced a series of problems this year. Early this month, radioactive water was found leaking from a storage tank.

The plant also suffered three power failures in five weeks earlier this year. A leak of radioactive water from one of the plant's underground storage pools was also detected in April.

[cptmarginal]

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/06/26/g ... lashlight/

Going to Seoul this summer? You might want to bring a flashlight…

South Korea’s nuclear power industry, ranking fifth in the world in terms of generating capacity at 20,739 megawatts, continues to be rocked by scandal and misconduct. Currently nine of the country’s 23 plants are offline, meaning the supply capacity situation is the worst the country has ever experienced. Though Japan’s power supply is also in a precarious state with only 2 of its 50 nuclear plants operating, the situation in South Korea is said to be much more severe, and many fear power outages such as those experienced in September 2011 will recur.

Most of South Korea, including Seoul, experienced unplanned power outages on September 15, 2011 when a sudden shortage of electricity, caused by increased demand resulting from unseasonably high temperatures and reduced generating capacity due to maintenance, resulted in rolling blackouts being implemented across the country. Lasting for about five hours, power was cut off to various regions for 30-minute intervals, trapping people in elevators and hampering activities at banks and hospitals nationwide.

Koreans refer to the blackouts as the 9/15 incident, and concerns are spreading that this summer will bring a reoccurrence. Like Japan prior to the Fukushima accident of March 2011, South Korea derives well over 20 percent of its total electricity production from nuclear power plants. With 14 of its 23 plants running, the country would appear to be in much better shape than Japan, where only two are online. However, according to an official from the Federation of Electric Power Companies in Japan, “The reasons the plants are shut down are totally different; the situation in South Korea is much more serious.”

“It wouldn’t be at all strange if blackouts occurred again. The situation is worse than it was two years ago,” warned a different official related to Japan’s power industry. Additionally, at a press conference at the end of May, an official from South Korea’s Industry, Trade and Resources Department said, “We cannot say with 100 percent certainty that blackouts will not occur.”

According to the Japan Electric Power Information Center, in November 2011 it was discovered that counterfeit parts were used in the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors at the Yeonggwang Nuclear Power Plant in South Jeolla Province. Subsequently, the country’s Nuclear Safety Commission instructed they be shut down indefinitely. Additionally, during regular inspections, cracks were found in the control rod tunnels and other parts of the No. 3 reactor, leading to its shut down as well.

The Japanese language version of China’s Xinhua Economic News reported that among parts procured by South Korea for nuclear plant construction over the past ten years, more than 10,900 of them are suspected to have come with forged quality assurance certificates.

On June 20, prosecutors raided the headquarters and offices of Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company (KHNP), which operates all South Korea’s nuclear sites, on suspicion the company used substandard parts that came with forged performance certification. Additionally, on the 18th, South Korean media also reported that two KHNP employees, including a director, were detained on suspicion they colluded to falsify test certificates.

Using falsely labelled substandard parts brings into question the safety of all of South Korea’s reactors. It is said that one reactor contains more than three million parts; “As inferior parts are being used, it will be difficult to improve the situation in a short period of time. I believe it will be a long time before the shut down reactors are brought on line again,” said a person knowledgeable about the situation.

The current situation could easily lead to a power crunch. Along with its remarkable economic growth, South Korea is also experiencing ever-increasing power consumption. From 2001 to 2011 consumption increased 1.7 times from 43.13 million kilowatts to 73.14 million. At the same time, the country’s power supply reserve dropped below 10 percent in 2007, falling to 6.2 percent in 2010 and 5.5 percent in 2011. Last year is was said to have fallen into the three percent range. Caught between idled plants and economic growth, the power supply situation in South Korea is much more precarious than that of Japan.

With new nuclear power regulations taking effect from July, Japan has taken the first step toward restarting reactors that have been shut down since the earthquake of March 2011. In contrast, it will take a lot of time for South Korea, where over 10,000 substandard parts are in use, to carry out thorough inspections to ensure its reactors are 100 percent safe. Restarting by summer, when power consumption peaks due to air-conditioning and other demands, is impossible.

According to the Japan Tourism Marketing Company, approximately 202,500 Japanese tourists visited South Korea in April, a year-on-year decrease of 32 percent. One major travel agency offered this explanation for the drop: “A large part of the decline is due to the fact that last year was a very favorable year; however, with North Korea threatening to fire missiles, people are also starting to perceive South Korea as being a dangerous place.”

Additionally, with the threat of summer blackouts, the agency representative added, “The tourism situation won’t improve until after summer; nobody wants to go if there is the possibility of unannounced blackouts like two years ago.”

[Jerky]

Not to be a dick, but... if the toll really is zero dead, zero sick... isn't that a GOOD thing?

Just askin.

YOPJ

[smoking since 1879]

http://moribin.blog114.fc2.com/

[seemslikeadream]

Japan gets first MOX nuclear shipment since Fukushima

June 28, 2013 AFP

TAKAHAMA - A vessel under armed guard and loaded with reprocessed nuclear fuel from France arrived at a Japanese port on Thursday, the first such shipment since the Fukushima disaster as utilities lobby to restart their atomic reactors.
The cargo of mixed oxide (MOX), a blend of plutonium and uranium, was offloaded at the Takahama nuclear plant on the western coast of central Japan, after the ship arrived there early in the morning, an AFP journalist said.
The fuel left the French port of Cherbourg in mid April bound for Japan, French nuclear group Areva has said. The vessel was specially fitted to be able to transport nuclear material and was escorted by an armed sister ship.
Its route was not fully disclosed, but the ship was greeted by protesters and national media.

which captured images of the vessel from land and helicopters overhead.
Huge black barrels, apparently containing the radioactive material, were offloaded by crane as rigid inflatable boats crewed by security personnel buzzed in the background.
While an army of uniformed police and coastguard officers surrounded the cargo ship, dozens of anti-nuclear campaigners voiced their opposition.
“We do not accept MOX fuel,” a protester shouted, wearing a full radiation protection suit.
Kansai Electric Power, which runs the power plant, was expected to request the government’s permission to restart the Takahama reactors after new nuclear regulations come into force next month.
Residents of areas hosting Japan’s atomic reactors are deeply divided over nuclear plants. They are often the backbone of regional economies but the memory of Fukushima remains raw two years after the world’s worst nuclear accident in a generation.
Japan has few energy resources of its own and relied on nuclear power for nearly one-third of its domestic electricity needs until the meltdowns at the tsunami-crippled plant.
All but two of the country’s 50 nuclear reactors are offline, shuttered for routine safety checks in the aftermath of the disaster and never restarted because of public resistance and new standards.
Uranium reactors produce a mixture of depleted uranium and plutonium as a by-product of fission. These can be re-processed into MOX fuel, which can then be used in other reactors to generate more power.
Japan has built its own nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, in northern Aomori prefecture, but its opening has been delayed by a series of minor accidents and technical problems.
This has left Tokyo dependent on other countries — namely Britain and France — to deal with the plutonium it has produced.
Plutonium can be diverted for the manufacture of nuclear weapons, and there are fears that it could fall into the wrong hands and pose a danger from rogue regimes or extremist organisations.
According to a government report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Japan has about 44.3 tonnes of plutonium, of which 35.0 tonnes are held and being processed in France and Britain, and the remaining 9.3 tonnes is stored in Japan.
The MOX fuel was originally due to be shipped back to Japan in the first half of 2011, but the disaster at Fukushima delayed its return and it has been stored in France.
Since coming to power in December last year, pro-business Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly spoken of his desire to restart Japan’s idle reactors, citing the need to ensure a stable electricity supply for the country’s power-hungry industries.

[seemslikeadream]

Not Kawaii: Messages From Japanese Anti-Nuclear Activist Group Todos Somos Japon
Sunday, 30 June 2013 00:00
By A.M. Gittlitz, Truthout | Report


No nukes bloc on Mayday 2013. (Photo: Timothy Krause)
Truthout doesn’t take corporate funding - that’s why we’re able to confront the forces of greed and regression. Support us in this mission: make a tax-deductible donation today by clicking here.
An antinuclear activist group uses imaginative means to keep the continuing consequences - including thyroid cancer and other radiation poisoning - of the Fukushima Dai Ichi nuclear meltdown in US public consciousness.
In March, 2011, an estimated 20,000 died as a result of the triple disasters in Japan - an Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Dai Ichi reactor.
The story was this: Two monkeys from the area worst affected not only survived, but floated to California on some hurricane debris.
The radioactive rascals then made it into custody of antinuclear activists, who would take them on a tour of the country. One of their appearances would be in Union Square in December, 2011. The incredible story spread through the New York City activist scene, and over a dozen people showed up for the appearance.
Like a carnivalesque bait-and-switch, they found a Japanese woman, dressed in a monkey suit, handing out flyers about the lasting effects of the Fukushima meltdown.
People still lived and worked in some of the areas worst hit on 3/11, the literature said; cancer rates in children are spiking, and the Japanese government is covering all this up in an effort to get the economy back on track.
The action, the work of TSJ, Todos Somos Japon (We Are All Japan), a loose-knit group of mostly Japanese activists, parodied the comments of Tokyo's right-wing mayor Shintaro Ishihara, who argued that being antinuclear was such a devolved opinion, it may as well come from a monkey.
The woman in the costume was Yuko Tonohira, a 32-year-old activist from Hokkaido who now resides in Brooklyn and works as an illustrator. Along with veteran leftist journalist Sabu Kohso and several other friends, the group holds constant events and actions to spread word about the dire aftermath of Fukushima - a saga Americans may assume has ended.
Far from the case, Yuko argues, "Dialogues on 3/11 are disappearing outside of Japan, as if mimicking the invisibility of radioactive particles."

People making cranes at no nukes action 6/11/2012. (Photo: Martyna Starosta)
Waiting for the Health Crisis
Now also living in New York, TSJ activist Sabu Kohso visits Japan for about a month and half each year. Although he stays away from radioactive "hot spots," he still worries for his health. "When you go to cheap restaurants you eat vegetables and fish and meat that could come from the irradiated area. In Japanese law, cheap products can avoid indicating their place of origin." Daily concerns like this, Kohso continues, are taking an exhausting mental toll on his friends and loved ones in Japan, many of them still unsure how bad the fallout will be.
Trying to calm these concerns, Shunichi Yamashita from the Atomic Bomb Research Institute of Nagasaki, one of the most vocal proponents of nuclear energy in Japan, has toured the country and the world presenting the optimistic view that the meltdown was not so bad and that the region is safe.
At a speech at the 2012 NCRP (National Council of Radiation Protection) meeting in New York, he stressed that the dangers of the disaster are in the range of low-dose exposure to radiation, comparing early data to that of Chernobyl, a nuclear facility in the Ukraine that had a massive meltdown in 1986. The radiation released at Fukushima Dai Ichi is thought to be a fifth of Chernobyl's, a disaster with a range larger than Japan itself.
"The people who suffer have anxiety and anger, have to calm down," Yamashita said in his speech. "We need to monitor for long-term health condition. This is the message to local residents. And then simultaneously we must scientifically and epidemiologically [investigate whether] low-dose, long-term radiation [has any] effect on the human health."

Cranes from no nukes action 6/11/2012. (Photo: Martyna Starosta)
One of the main initial concerns is thyroid cancer, often caused by exposure to radiation at a young age, but it can also eventually appear in adults. A recent report from Fukushima Medical University found 12 minors with thyroid cancer, up from three in a study last year and much higher than the pre-3/11 national average.
Yamashita counters that the rise in cancer detections is the result of more sophisticated screening techniques, not radiation. Likewise, the university claims this is not a significantly abnormal number, and the cases are not related to the meltdown, because thyroid cancer in children related to Chernobyl did not appear until 4 or 5 years later.
But combined with thyroidal cysts, appearing in up to 40 percent of minors, media outlets are unsure of the reasons for the researchers' optimism, and activists are concerned that the medical danger is being purposefully understated and cases could continue to rise.
Perhaps worse, Japan may be trying to "share the pain of Fukushima," in the words of Environment Minister Hosono. In Tonohira's extensive essay "Fukushima is Burning," she mentions his push for incineration of radiated debris from Fukushima in large cities, such as Osaka. The activists worry this "pain," in the form of the ash of radiated debris, could find its way into the region's water supply and produce.
If a valid concern, checking the food labels may no longer be a way to avoid exposure. Yamashita, at least, might see this as a positive development, stressing in his presentation that Fukushima area farms are suffering due to widespread consumer aversion to their produce.
"The bad news," he says, "is we have a sensational news. We are being attacked by them." The worst lasting effects of Fukushima are mental, he argues, as if there were nothing to fear but fear itself.

Mayday 2012. (Photo: Kei Jinno)
Irradiated Labor
Many participants in TSJ were never involved in antinuclear activism before 2011. Kohso and Tonohira were more focused on the antiglobalization movement, and since have incorporated the disaster as part of their broader anticapitalist theories.
"When we talk about nuclear issues, it's not just about what environmentalism," says Kohso, who has translated books by John Holloway and David Graeber into Japanese and authored several books himself. "Somehow the antinuke movement and the organizing of workers are not working very well together."
On May 1, 2013, Todos Somos Japon wore imitation nuclear resistant suits and face masks to join the yearly massive May Day march. Assembled in Union Square along with labor unions, environmentalists, queer activists and dozens of other groups, they stoically held a banner reading, "Abolish Irradiated Labor Everywhere."
Tourists and other passersby posed for photos with the group, flashing peace signs mocking the typical Japanese trend. While some might see this as humiliating, the attention was what the group hoped to achieve - a visual reminder of what life continues to be like in Fukushima Prefecture.
One group seriously affected by the disaster are cleanup workers, who despite working in health-threatening conditions have yet been unable to unionize. Along with those performing reproductive labor in areas near nuclear facilities (household and parental work), those at risk of ending up in a Fukushima-like zone after another meltdown are overwhelmingly poor or working class.
This is because, Kohso says, "where nuclear power plants are built, people are in a weaker economic position compared to other places, so they accept the facility." The consequences, of course, would perhaps be known centuries later.
More Evacuations, Not Restarts
On Saturday, June 5, TSJ held a screening of the documentary Women of Fukushima at the Cage Gallery in Chinatown. The crowd was almost entirely Japanese, and, perhaps as a result, the event's tone was far more somber than the groups' public actions.
"We humans have dug something terrible out of the ground . . ." the film begins, as if preparing the audience for a post-apocalypse sci-fi epic.
The footage wasn't too far off, with a crew driving through a town strewn with debris, wrecked buildings, families in hazmat suits digging through their homes for valuables, and finally, a huge and ominous wild ostrich on an abandoned road.
The entire area is overgrown with gigantic weeds, which have grown unnaturally large due to the effects of radioactivity, according to Chikako Nishiyama, who spoke after the film, with the help of Yuko as translator.
Nishiyama ran for mayor of a nearby town, Koriyama, on a platform of evacuation. She lost, as expected, but her message helped to counter the optimistic stance of Yamashita, prefecture authorities and the power companies.
As of February, 2013, 60,000 people have evacuated the region. But many of those who remained are either too poor, or stay out of what they believe to be a patriotic duty. The "voluntary evacuation" urged by Nishayama and TSJ, goes hand-in-hand with their efforts to argue against the restarting of nuclear facilities nationwide.
After the disaster in 2011 Japan had a "Nuclear-Free Summer," during which the country's 54 nuclear reactors went offline for inspection. This followed a long series of large-scale antinuclear protests across Japan. A year later, the protests boomed again when the first two plants were set to restart. Massive protests across the country, and an attempted direct action blockade of the Ooi Plant in Fukui, made restarts a controversial issue to this day. But in the end, activists could not stop the power.
De-Isolating Japan
New York-based painter Al Baio noticed a stark change between her two visits to Japan, the first in 2010, and the second earlier this year. "You can feel it in the air. The first time I went, people would talk to me on the street or yell 'kawaii' at me." (Kawaii is the Japanese word for cute, which she was often labeled for her Japanese schoolgirl-inspired outfits.) "Now people are much more closed-off. They seem scared, and just want to go home and be with their families."
For this reason, TSJ argues for the importance of foreigners to continue to visit Japan, as activists or even tourists. "[The Japanese] feel like people have forgotten about them. After the tsunami, I saw so many people on Twitter saying, ''Pray for Japan,' but do they still care?" Baio wonders.
One of TSJ's initial projects was Jfissures.org, which translates articles and communiqués from activists between languages. Another site encourages travelers and activists to visit Japan by telling them how to avoid radiation.
But another reason TSJ wants to keep Americans focused on Japan, Kohso says, is the importance of the United States in Japanese domestic policy. "The Japanese and US governments collaborate for economic well-being over the safety of the people. People cannot be living [in Fukushima], but if people aren't living there, there's no economy."
While, in response to Fukushima, Germany has pledged to go nuclear-free by 2022, TSJ sees nuclear power as a sort of "last resort" for the military primacy of the United States and its allies. Trying to explain the intricacies of the issue, Kohso gets flustered. There's too much to consider - the United States' bases in Japan, the tensions with China and North Korea, the upcoming elections in Iran, last year's IMF meeting in Tokyo. "It's a very complicated issue," he concedes.
Perhaps for this reason, the group's dozens of articles and pamphlets are overshadowed by their most popular item - a one-inch sticker. It's a Japanese version of the image ubiquitous in Germany, reading "AtomKraft? Nein Danke!" ("Nuclear Power? No Thanks!"). Instead of the anthropomorphized atom, the sticker features a snarling yellow kitten. It simply reads "Nuclear Power? Grrrr."

[seemslikeadream]

WEEKEND EDITION JULY 5-7, 2013

0
The Radioactive Threat
What Fukushima Might Have Taught Terrorists
by ACE HOFFMAN
The storage systems for highly radioactive used reactor cores at San Onofre is not “hardened” against anything significant. There are no active air defenses around it of any sort. Many people bandy the term “hardened” around — using it five times in one report, for instance. But there is no legal or industry standard definition of “hardened” nuclear waste storage and if there were, San Onofre surely would not qualify.

What some people are calling “hardened” is merely the necessary gamma shielding made of lead and steel a couple of inches thick, surrounded by a cement overpack that is three to five feet thick. They are NOT referring to spent fuel storage systems that can endure real-world conditions such as impacts from the turbine shafts of jumbo jet airplanes during accidental crashes or terrorist strikes, followed by the pooling and burning of 35,000 pounds of jet fuel. San Onofre’s dry cask storage farm is directly under several major airline traffic routes, so either an accident or a hijacking could cause an impact.

Nor are they referring to casks that can survive impacts from molten-metal penetrator bombs or carefully-placed shaped charges.

Truly “hardened” dry cask storage would include, at the very least, grade-level or underground enclosures for each cask, with 20-foot-thick reinforced concrete roofs. The steel alone would cost billions — and be money well-spent. There would be earthen berms between EACH cask, and jet-fuel run-off channels. And don’t do this in an earthquake or tsunami-prone zone. And not near where people or animals are, or will ever be, although there is always a force which might strike at any moment and which can overcome anything humans might build: Locations under asteroid impact zones — and who knows where that might be — or on top of sudden volcanoes, or actually straddling an earthquake fault line, and probably a few others no one’s thought of…

Unlikely? Yes.

Impossible? Far from it.

What we have now is just shielding from gamma rays. To be truly “hardened” against realistic potential events, you need much, much more. And you need to find a way to pay for it.

Forcing nuclear waste producers — the electric utilities — to create properly “hardened” storage — on site or elsewhere –is too expensive to be part of an ongoing, profit-motivated nuclear fuel cycle. Most of them would have to constantly be purchasing more land. San Onofre hasn’t got the space, that’s for sure.

But where does one put a “properly” hardened dry cask system? The only way to know the true size and cost would be to shut down ALL the reactors and stop making more “spent fuel.” Then, at least the problem would be of a finite (though huge) size. At that point it might be possible to think logically about what to do with ALL the nuclear waste in the country and on the planet — once and for all. It won’t be cheap and it won’t be easy.

As a nation, we have done nothing about the growing problem of nuclear waste for 65+ years. Other nations do a variety of things — wrong things. America’s managed not to make THAT mistake — and instead, has done as little as possible. Some nations are following our lead and are storing nuclear waste dangerously on site where it is made, regardless of the growing risk to the local population and to the planet.

As so many have said before me, part of finding a solution requires realizing that no solution will be perfect. But it’s time to solve the nuclear waste problem for real: Quickly and globally. I know of only one sure-fire step that must be taken: Shut down ALL nuclear reactors: Their risks and costs don’t justify their existence. (“Oh!” — cry the pro-nukers — “What about medical isotopes?!?” For medical requirements, two dedicated systems — one on either side of the globe — would suffice, and they would not produce nearly as much nuclear waste as a power reactor which only produces medical isotopes as a side business. Also, many medical procedures which use radioactive isotopes are being replaced with more benign methods, such as ultrasound and MRIs.)

Waiting to solving the nuclear waste problem at some future date is potentially disastrous. The time for the best, strongest, most robust solution is now, when the waste is by far the most toxic it will ever be. We’ll still need proper containments for today’s spent fuel waste for hundreds of thousands of years, but even just a few centuries from now the overall radioactivity will be several orders of magnitude less than it is today. Many long-lived isotopes would still remain, but the short-lived fission products — the dominant radioactive isotopes for the first few hundred years — would exist at a fraction of 1% of their current levels. If those “short-lived” isotopes get out, a lot of permanent damage could be done to the gene pools of every organism on earth including humans. So early protection is vital: Robust, “hardened” storage in depopulated areas. And an absolute stop to the continued operation of these uneconomic, accident-prone death-machines known as nuclear power plants.

In a free market, nuclear power would have died for financial reasons by now. But that’s not happening fast enough, since various regulatory agencies keep the plants profitable for their owners. But every day the world continues to use nuclear power, the size of the problem the industry leaves behind increases by about 10 tons nationally and 50 tons globally. That’s a significant amount, because spent fuel is so difficult, expensive and risky to manage. The spent fuel dilemma is a massive, hidden global problem. It’s time to define “hardened storage” properly, in terms that fit the geological as well as the geopolitical realities of today.

When it was announced on June 7th, 2013 that the San Onofre Nuclear “Waste” Generating Station (known as “SONGS” because the waste (W) was ignored) would remain closed permanently (after being shut down since January 31st, 2012), it instantly went from having been a “nuclear power plant” to being one of the largest nuclear waste dumps in America, in terms of the quantity of lethal poisons within its space. It continues to be one of the most vulnerable targets for terrorists in all the world.

An article in Japan Times says that Fukushima “may provide a blueprint for terrorists” for attacks on operating reactors — since “all you need to do… is to cut off the power.”

It’s not quite that simple: At Fukushima a contributing factor was that the entire area was in turmoil from the earthquake and tsunami. But if Japan should be worried about terrorism at nuclear facilities, doesn’t it make sense that we should be, too? Of course it does.

But in fact, anyone who knew anything about nuclear reactors — which surely included the terrorists — has known all along that cutting off the power to a nuclear facility could cause a meltdown. That’s why for decades, activists have been trying to demand more robust backup power systems for nuclear facilities! Such enhancements were always deemed “too expensive” but in light of Fukushima, it clearly would have been worth it to spend the money.

What Fukushima might have taught the terrorists is that it’s the radiation that causes the financial and health problems. Destroying an operating reactor is one way to cause a radiation release, but attacking spent fuel pools or dry casks can work equally well for the purpose of causing widespread contamination and ensuing havoc, panic, and destruction.

And lest we forget, neither Fukushima nor even Chernobyl were anywhere near a “worst case scenario” for those types of reactors. The majority of the plutonium and uranium remained — and remains — in seething blobs known as “corium.” One formation of corium at Chernobyl even has a name: The Elephant’s Foot. It’s crumbling. At Fukushima three reactors have turned to “corium.” The corium blobs ooze massive quantities of radioactive particles constantly, and will continue to do so for decades. And at both Fukushima and Chernobyl, things can still get far worse, and there’s nothing anyone can do if that starts happening.

Meanwhile, their precarious spent fuel pools remain loaded with fuel, 60 feet above ground level in earthquake-damaged, tsunami-damaged, and explosion-damaged buildings. All the spent fuel anywhere near the melted-down reactors should be removed from the sites immediately.

But at any site, and at San Onofre in particular, terrorists or Mother Nature can damage a spent fuel pool or a dry cask farm, even if damaging an operating nuclear reactor is theoretically easier.

A dry cask storage farm might have a couple of rent-a-cop security guards overseeing it, who are expected to “call for backup” if anything goes wrong — assuming the phone systems are working. They are not expected to be able to fend off any significant attack by themselves.

An operating reactor has nearly a thousand people working on site, and all of them are (supposedly) trained to be watching for “anything suspicious.” There can be double that number of people or more, if it’s a multi-reactor facility.

So which is easier to attack? Spent fuel nuclear sites can release massive quantities of radioactive poisons, although an operating reactor will also release a lot of very short-lived components with half-lives in the 8-day range or even less. These short-lived radioactive elements will certainly cause additional panic and suffering among the local populace, but it’s the 30-year half-life components such as strontium and cesium, and the 25,000-year half-life plutonium, which will cause long-term or permanent population displacements and loss of manufacturing, agricultural, and natural resources. These extremely dangerous isotopes are all stored in copious quantities in dry casks. (As a rule-of-thumb, radioactive materials are considered dangerous for 10 to 20 half-lives.)

While moving the waste several times is risky and should be avoided, waiting to move the waste to truly hardened, monitored storage, away from population centers, is even more pure folly: It is a gamble which could result in the catastrophic and sudden loss of tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.

For nothing.

[Luther Blissett]

Former chief of Fukushima nuclear plant has died

Masao Yoshida, the man who led the life-risking battle at Japan's crippled nuclear power plant when it was spiraling into meltdowns, died Tuesday of cancer of the esophagus. He was 58.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Yoshimi Hitosugi said Yoshida died at a Tokyo hospital. TEPCO officials said his illness was not related to radiation exposure.

Yoshida led efforts to stabilize the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami knocked out its power and cooling systems, causing triple meltdowns and massive radiation leaks.

Recalling the first few days when the three reactors suffered meltdowns in succession, Yoshida later said: "There were several instances when I thought we were all going to die here. I feared the plant was getting out of control and we would be finished."

Yoshida was an outspoken, tall man with a loud voice who wasn't afraid of talking back to higher-ups and was known to his workers as a caring figure. Even then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who was extremely frustrated by TEPCO's initial lack of information and slow handling, said after meeting him that Yoshida could be trusted.

On March 12, after Unit 1 reactor building exploded following a meltdown, Yoshida kept pumping in sea water into the reactor to cool it, ignoring an order from the TEPCO headquarters to stop doing so as Kan feared a possibility of sea water triggering a fission chain reaction. Yoshida was initially reprimanded for disobeying the order from above, but later praised for his judgment that eventually helped keep the reactor from turning worse.

"I bow deeply in respect to his leadership and decisiveness," Kan said in his Twitter entry Tuesday.

Kunio Yanagida, former member of a government-commissioned accident probe panel who interviewed Yoshida for 10 hours, said his death is a major loss for future investigations into the disaster at the plant, which hasn't been fully examined due to high levels of radiation.

Yoshida studied nuclear engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and joined TEPCO in 1979. He worked in the company's nuclear department before landing a top job at the Fukushima Dai-ichi a year before the crisis.

Yoshida stepped down as plant chief in December 2011, citing the cancer, after workers had begun to bring the plant under control.

Yoshida had brought workers together and kept their spirits up to survive the crisis, and had expressed hopes of returning to work for Fukushima's recovery even after falling ill, TEPCO President Naomi Hirose said.

"He literally put his life at risk in dealing with the accident," Hirose said in a statement. "We keep his wishes to our heart and do utmost for the reconstruction of Fukushima, which he tried to save at all cost."

http://www.stltoday.com/news/former-chi ... 8d6bb.html

[seemslikeadream]

Fukushima Groundwater Shows Record Radiation Levels
Reuters | Posted: 07/09/2013 7:06 am EDT | Updated: 07/10/2013 8:25 am EDT



By Kentaro Hamada and Antoni Slodkowski

TOKYO, July 9 (Reuters) - Japan may restart several reactors shut down by the Fukushima nuclear crisis in about a year, a senior regulator said in an interview on Tuesday, a day after new safety rules went into effect designed to avoid a repeat of the disaster.

At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant north of Tokyo, the site of the world's worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl in 1986, the situation took a turn for the worse as radiation levels in groundwater soared, suggesting highly toxic materials from the plant are now close to the Pacific Ocean.

But Japan is forging ahead with attempts to restart idled reactors in the face of a sceptical public, after Fukushima highlighted weak oversight of the industry.

That is meant to change with the new rules.

Getting units restarted is a key government goal to reduce the import bill for fossil fuel to run conventional stations. Only two of Japan's 50 reactors are connected to the grid and operators applied to restart 10 on Monday.

"Some units are projected (to restart) one year from now, though I don't know how many," Kenzo Oshima, a commissioner of Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority, told Reuters. "It is hard to imagine that all the applications would be rejected, though we don't know what the outcome will be at the moment."

He did not identify the reactors that are likely to restart.

SITUATION WORSENS

Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the Fukushima station, hit by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, said that an observation well between the damaged reactor No. 2 and the sea showed levels of radioactive caesium-134 were 90 times higher on Monday than they had been the previous Friday.

Tokyo Electric, also known as Tepco, said it detected caesium-134 at 9,000 becquerels per litre, 150 times above Japan's safety standard. A becquerel is a measure of the release of radioactive energy.

The reading for caesium-137, with a half life of 30 years, was some 85 times higher than it had been three days earlier.

The latest findings, 25 metres from the sea, come a month after Tepco detected radioactive caesium in groundwater flowing into its wrecked plant far from the sea on elevated ground. The level of caesium found in June was much lower than the amount announced on Tuesday.

The spike, combined with recent discoveries of high levels of radioactive elements like tritium and strontium, suggest that contaminated water is spreading toward the sea side of the plant from the reactors sitting on higher ground.

"We don't know what is the reason behind the spike," Tepco spokeswoman Mayumi Yoshida told Reuters. "We're still looking to determine the causes behind it."

The operator has been flushing water over the three reactors to keep them cool for more than two years, but contaminated water has been building up at the rate of an an Olympic-size swimming pool per week.

In April, Tepco warned it may run out of space to store the water and asked for approval to channel what it has described groundwater with low levels of radiation around the plant and to the sea through a "bypass". Local fishermen oppose the proposal.

Tepco also announced that the plant's manager at the height of the crisis, when three reactors underwent meltdowns, died on Tuesday of oesophageal cancer - unrelated to his duties.

Masao Yoshida was widely credited with preventing the situation from spiralling out of control when he ignored an order from Tepco executives to stop pouring seawater over the reactors to keep them from overheating further.

He was one of a skeleton group of staff, known as the Fukushima 50, who remained at the plant at the height of the crisis, but he rarely spoke publicly about his experiences. (Additional reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Aaron Sheldrick and Ron Popeski)

[hanshan]

...

http://tinyurl.com/n3hnn3k

Japan Expert: New radioactive leaks from Fukushima Reactor No. 2 may be underway;
Concern about ‘vertical streams’ — Tepco: Impossible to completely prevent it from spreading (VIDEO)


Published: July 10th, 2013 at 12:10 pm ET


NHK WORLD, July 10, 2013: [...] [Groundwater expert Atsunao Marui of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology] says TEPCO must take a multi-layered approach to stop what may be new leaks of contaminated groundwater from the building that houses the No.2 nuclear reactor. He suggests that the utility install steel plates around the reactor in addition to reinforcing embankments on the coastal side of the plant, and fill the gaps with clay or other water-resistant materials. Marui also says TEPCO must grasp the overall flow of the groundwater, including vertical streams. He says the firm should dig more observation wells on the plant compound and monitor groundwater springing forth under the sea. [...]

AP: [...] Watchdog chairman Shunichi Tanaka said he thinks that the seawater contamination has been happening since the accident [...] TEPCO says that it has taken steps to prevent seawater contamination in areas near the plant, but that it is impossible to completely prevent the contamination from spreading into wider areas. [...] Atsunao Marui, underground water expert at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, said there is a possibility of new leaks from reactor buildings. [...]

NHK WORLD: Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority [...] said contaminated water is very likely leaking into the sea. [...] They also say radioactive substances were recently found in high densities in waters of the plant’s port. They say they strongly suspect that highly contaminated water is leaking into soil and then into the sea. [...]

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[Nordic]

This might be the most depressing subject of my entire lifetime.

Heavy sigh ......