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HuffPo: Large amounts of radioactive materials could be deposited across 1,000s of miles if water lost at Fukushima fuel pool — Media just beginning to grasp that danger to world is far from over -Nuclear Expert
Published: April 22nd, 2012 at 4:54 pm ET
By ENENews
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Title: Robert Alvarez: The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Is Far From Over
Source: Huffington Post
Author: Robert Alvarez*
Date: Apr 22, 2012
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More than a year after the Fukushima nuclear power disaster began, the news media is just beginning to grasp that the dangers to Japan and the rest of the world are far from over. After repeated warnings by former senior Japanese officials, nuclear experts, and now a U.S. Senator, it’s sinking in that the irradiated nuclear fuel stored in spent fuel pools amidst the reactor ruins pose far greater dangers than the molten cores. This is why:
• Nearly all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl
• Several pools are 100 feet above the ground and are completely open to the atmosphere because the reactor buildings were demolished by explosions. The pools could possibly topple or collapse from structural damage coupled with another powerful earthquake.
• The loss of water exposing the spent fuel will result in overheating and can cause melting and ignite its zirconium metal cladding resulting in a fire that could deposit large amounts of radioactive materials over hundreds, if not thousands of miles. [...]
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*Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment from 1993 to 1999. He is an award winning author whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Nation, Technology Review, and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. He has also been featured on”60 Minutes”, Nova and All Things Considered.
Published: April 22nd, 2012 at 4:54 pm ET
By ENENews
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THE REPORT FOLLOWS...
.ENE NEWS...
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HuffPo: Large amounts of radioactive materials could be deposited... more
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Mounting troubles at Japan’s hobbled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant now pose a real threat to human survival. If the area in which Unit 4 is struck by another 7.0 magnitude earthquake, there’s a 70 percent chance that “the entire fuel pool structure will collapse” and massive doses of lethal nuclear radiation will be released into the atmosphere. The disaster would release approximately “134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at Chernobyl as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP).” Experts believe that the amounts are sufficient to “destroy the world environment and our civilization”, which makes containment “an issue of human survival.” (“The Greatest Single Threat to Humanity: Fuel Pool Number 4“, Washington’s blog)
The structural integrity of Unit 4′s cooling pool was greatly compromised by the earthquake and following tsunami which struck the facility over a year ago. At present, the pools are not adequately protected or reinforced, which means that a sizable tremor could “cause a disaster worse than the three reactor meltdowns.” If such a disaster were to occur, “people should get out of Japan, and residents of the West Coast of America and Canada should shut all of their windows and stay inside,” says nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen.
While the danger to life and the environment pose the greatest single national security threat the United States has faced since WW2, the Obama administration has provided little aid to the emergency effort. Japan is largely “going it alone” trying to cobble together a plan to safely store the spent fuel and minimize the risks to public safety.
On March 8, 2012, Dr. Hiroaki Koide, Research Associate at the Research Reactor Institute of Kyoto University, gave his bleak assessment of the situation on the Japanese a news program called, “Morning Bird”. Koide explained how 1,500 rods are presently located in a “fuel pool” that has been severely damaged. The rods have to be cooled constantly or a “huge amount of radiation contained in the spent fuel will be released outside”. If an earthquake hits and undermines the pool, the coolant will exit the pool, the rods will melt and radioactive plumes will rise into the atmosphere. Koide explained that the rods could not be safely removed from the existing pool because “if you hoist them up in the air, huge amount of radiation will come out from the spent fuel and people nearby will die.”
One of the journalists on “Morning Bird” asked Koide what would happen if the Unit was struck by another earthquake?
Koide answered, “That will be the end.”
“The end,” the journalist asked, visibly shaken?
“The end,” Koide repeated emphatically.
(“Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 4: An earthquake before spent fuel rods are moved to safe storage would be “the end”, Lambert Strether, Naked Capitalism)
Now, check this out:
“Japan’s former Ambassador to Switzerland, Mr. Mitsuhei Murata… strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4—with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground—collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but it will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4. In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. … Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries.”
(“Fukushima Daiichi Site: Cesium-137 is 85 times greater than at Chernobyl Accident”, akiomatsumura.com)
Murata’s concerns have been brought to the attention of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to high-ranking officials in the Obama administration and EU, and to leaders around the world. The reaction has basically been the same everywhere, which is, “It’s Japan’s problem. Let them deal with it.”
There is no way to overstate the media’s complicity in concealing critical information about the tragedy that is presently unfolding at Fukushima. If there is another earthquake, the media will certainly be every bit as responsible as the government officials who saw the danger, but chose to do nothing.
Now you may be asking yourself, why is RTV covering this and not Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, or any other bullshit corporate owned propaganda machine?
A SHORT HISTORY OF US GOVERNMENT RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE
PUBLIC LAW 95-79 [P.L. 95-79]
TITLE 50, CHAPTER 32, SECTION 1520
“CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE PROGRAM”
“The use of human subjects will be allowed for the testing of chemical and biological agents by the U.S. Department of Defense, accounting to Congressional committees with respect to the experiments and studies.”
“The Secretary of Defense [may] conduct tests and experiments involving the use of chemical and biological [warfare] agents on civilian populations [within the United States].”
-SOURCE-
Public Law 95-79, Title VIII, Sec. 808, July 30, 1977, 91 Stat. 334. In U.S. Statutes-at-Large, Vol. 91, page 334, you will find Public Law 95-79. Public Law 97-375, title II, Sec. 203(a)(1), Dec. 21, 1982, 96 Stat. 1882. In U.S. Statutes-at-Large, Vol. 96, page 1882, you will find Public Law 97-375.
DOES OUR GOVERNMENT RESPECT HUMAN LIFE?
The following list comes from declassified documents, news reports, videos, the National Archives, and from the final report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments.
Continue reading!
http://rezn8d.net/2012/04/20/fukushima-is-about-to-blow-and-nobody-gives-a-damn-about-you/
Video references in commentsMounting troubles at Japan’s hobbled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant now... more
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This is a public service announcement. Your government has lied to you. The safety regulators have lied to you. The media has lied to you. You and your children are currently breathing Strontium, Cesium, Xenon, and radioactive Iodine, which is still spewing from the “active” Fukushima-Daiichi reactor complex. The irrefutable evidence I present needs to be front page news everywhere. Inform everyone.
http://rezn8d.net/2012/04/12/fukushima-radiation-incoming-taste-the-rainbow/This is a public service announcement. Your government has lied to you. The safety... more
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....And children have to count the microsieverts of radiation before they can go out to play and can't play near water or on grass if they play at all. They are resigned to a life where they will more than likely suffer with cancer in the next twenty to thirty years but will not be able to hold anyone to account for it. This is the world we are making for them. Polluted, toxic, radioactive. But you won't get much of a response about this. It has been taken out of the consciousness of people by other distractions that are seen as much more important. Which in and of itself is a glaring example of why Fukushima was allowed to be built on a fault in the first place. I wonder how much of the radiation has been blown and has seeped into our rain, our food and our soil. We won't be told that either. It's an "election" year. But the "new age" is coming...I hope.....And children have to count the microsieverts of radiation before they can go out... more
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February 27, 2012
Japan Weighed Evacuating Tokyo in Nuclear Crisis
By MARTIN FACKLER
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TOKYO — In the darkest moments of last year’s nuclear accident, Japanese leaders did not know the actual extent of damage at the plant and secretly considered the possibility of evacuating Tokyo, even as they tried to play down the risks in public, an independent investigation into the accident disclosed on Monday.
The investigation by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, a new private policy organization, offers one of the most vivid accounts yet of how Japan teetered on the edge of an even larger nuclear crisis than the one that engulfed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. A team of 30 university professors, lawyers and journalists spent more than six months on the inquiry into Japan’s response to the triple meltdown at the plant, which followed a powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that shut down the plant’s cooling systems.
The team interviewed more than 300 people, including top nuclear regulators and government officials, as well as the prime minister during the crisis, Naoto Kan. They were granted extraordinary access, in part because of a strong public demand for greater accountability and because the organization’s founder, Yoichi Funabashi, a former editor in chief of the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, is one of Japan’s most respected public intellectuals.
An advance copy of the report describes how Japan’s response was hindered at times by a debilitating breakdown in trust between the major actors: Mr. Kan; the Tokyo headquarters of the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco; and the manager at the stricken plant. The conflicts produced confused flows of sometimes contradictory information in the early days of the crisis, the report said.
It describes frantic phone calls by the manager, Masao Yoshida, to top officials in the Kan government arguing that he could get the plant under control if he could keep his staff in place, while at the same time ignoring orders from Tepco’s headquarters not to use sea water to cool the overheating reactors. By contrast, Mr. Funabashi said in an interview, Tepco’s president, Masataka Shimizu, was making competing calls to the prime minister’s office saying that the company should evacuate all of its staff, a step that could have been catastrophic.
The 400-page report, due to be released later this week, also describes a darkening mood at the prime minister’s residence as a series of hydrogen explosions rocked the plant on March 14 and 15. It says Mr. Kan and other officials began discussing a worst-case outcome if workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant were evacuated. This would have allowed the plant to spiral out of control, releasing even larger amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere that would in turn force the evacuation of other nearby nuclear plants, causing further meltdowns.
The report quotes the chief cabinet secretary at the time, Yukio Edano, as having warned that such a “demonic chain reaction” of plant meltdowns could result in the evacuation of Tokyo, 150 miles to the south.
“We would lose Fukushima Daini, then we would lose Tokai,” Mr. Edano is quoted as saying, naming two other nuclear plants. “If that happened, it was only logical to conclude that we would also lose Tokyo itself.”
The report also describes the panic within the Kan administration at the prospect of large radiation releases from the more than 10,000 spent fuel rods that were stored in relatively unprotected pools near the damaged reactors. The report says it was not until five days after the earthquake that a Japanese military helicopter was finally able to confirm that the pool deemed at highest risk, near the No. 4 reactor, was still safely filled with water.
“We barely avoided the worst-case scenario, though the public didn’t know it at the time,” Mr. Funabashi, the foundation founder, said.
Mr. Funabashi blamed the Kan administration’s fear of setting off a panic for its decision to understate the true dangers of the accident. He said the Japanese government hid its most alarming assessments not just from its own public but also from allies like the United States. Mr. Funabashi said the investigation revealed “how precarious the U.S.-Japan relationship was” in the early days of the crisis, until the two nations began daily informational meetings at the prime minister’s residence on March 22.
The report seems to confirm the suspicions of nuclear experts in the United States — inside and outside the government — that the Japanese government was not being forthcoming about the full dangers posed by the stricken Fukushima plant. But it also shows that the United States government occasionally overreacted and inflated the risks, such as when American officials mistakenly warned that the spent fuel rods in the pool near unit No. 4 were exposed to the air and vulnerable to melting down and releasing huge amounts of radiation.
Still, Mr. Funabashi said, it was the Japanese government’s failure to warn its people of the dangers and the widespread distrust it bred in the government that spurred him to undertake an independent investigation. Such outside investigations have been rare in Japan, where the public has tended to accept official versions of events.
He said his group’s findings conflicted with those of the government’s own investigation into the accident, which were released in an interim report in December. A big difference involved one of the most crucial moments of the nuclear crisis, when the prime minister, Mr. Kan, marched into Tepco’s headquarters early on the morning of March 15 upon hearing that the company wanted to withdraw its employees from the wrecked nuclear plant.
The government’s investigation sided with Tepco by saying that Mr. Kan, a former social activist who often clashed with Japan’s establishment, had simply misunderstood the company, which wanted to withdraw only a portion of its staff. Mr. Funabashi said his foundation’s investigators had interviewed most of the people involved — except executives at Tepco, which refused to cooperate — and found that the company had in fact said it wanted a total pullout.
He credited Mr. Kan with making the right decision in forcing Tepco not to abandon the plant.
“Prime Minister Kan had his minuses and he had his lapses,” Mr. Funabashi said, “but his decision to storm into Tepco and demand that it not give up saved Japan.”
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Issei Kato/Reuters, via Bloomberg
Journalists, in protective gear, were taken on a tour last week of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, at the center of the crisis last yea
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February 27, 2012
Japan Weighed Evacuating Tokyo... more
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Report: Japan, utility at fault for response to nuclear disaster
December 26, 2011 | 11:33 pm
Report: Japan, utility at fault for response to nuclear disaster
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REPORTING FROM SEOUL -- Japan’s response to the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was flawed by poor communication and delays in releasing data on dangerous radiation leaks at the facility, which was struck by an earthquake-triggered tsunami on March 11, a government-appointed investigative panel has found.
The report attaches blame to both Japan’s central government as well as the utility that operates the plant -- the Tokyo Electric Power Co. -- depicting a scene of harried officials incapable of making decisions to stem radiation leaks as the situation at the coastal plant worsened in the days and weeks following the disaster.
The 507-page interim report, the product of interviews with hundreds of utility workers and government officials, said poor planning also worsened the disaster response, noting that authorities had grossly underestimated tsunami risks that followed the 9.0-magnitude earthquake.
The 40-foot-high tsunami that struck the plant was twice as tall as the highest wave predicted by officials. The erroneous assumption that the plant’s cooling system continued to function after the tsunami struck worsened the disaster, the report claimed.
The report, whose final version is due to be completed next year, also found that plant workers had no clear instructions on how to respond to such a disaster, causing miscommunications, especially when the disaster destroyed backup generators. Ultimately, the series of failures led to the worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl.
Workers failed to immediately seek alternative sources of water to cool the overheating reactors because they assumed the system was working, even though numerous warning signs told them otherwise.
"This accident has taught us an important lesson on how we must be ready for a disaster," concluded the panel, headed by University of Tokyo professor emeritus Yotaro Hatamura.
The government also received its share of criticism after dangerous radioactivity leaked into the atmosphere, causing the evacuation of 80,000 nearby residents, most of whom have still not returned to their homes.
Fearing a national panic, Tokyo government ministries failed to relay critical information to the public, instead using language that attempted to lessen the severity of the evolving crisis, which included meltdowns at three of the plant’s reactors.
Following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his advisors had stationed themselves on the fifth floor of the prime minister's office, where they made key decisions in consultation with top ministers and Tepco officials. But the officials did not share information with other crucial ministries or even with the crisis-management headquarters set up in the basement of the office several floors below, the report said.
The panel also faulted government officials for delaying warnings on the spread of radiation in the region around the plant, unnecessarily exposing communities to exposure when they could have been immediately evacuated.
The panel recommended that the government and the utilities that run nuclear plants employ experts knowledgeable in assessing tsunami risks.
"The nuclear disaster is far from over," the report concluded.
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Photo: The Unit 4 reactor building of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station as seen November 12.
Credit: David Guttenfelder / AP Photo
.Los Angeles Times...
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Report: Japan, utility at fault for response to nuclear... more
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TOKYO — In a direct act of rebellion against Tokyo Electric Power Company, which owns the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the local government in Tokyo is moving swiftly to build a huge natural gas facility that would generate as much electricity as a nuclear reactor.
The plant would ensure a stable supply of electricity for the capital in the aftermath of the nuclear meltdowns in March at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. But more important, the city government says, it could spur desperately needed change in Japan. By weakening Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, reformers hope to finally break the linchpin of the collusion between business and government that once drove Japan’s rapid postwar rise, but that now keeps it mired in stagnation.
“Now’s our chance,” said Naoki Inose, Tokyo’s vice governor, invoking an ancient proverb about attacking a wild dog only after it has fallen into a river: “On March 11, Tepco became the dog that fell into the river. Only then can you fight against such a formidable foe.”
So formidable a foe, in fact, that just eight months after Japanese leaders vowed the nuclear disaster — like the end of World War II — would lead to a kind of rebirth, the chances for fundamental change are rapidly slipping away.
Already, the reformers have lost a crucial ally: Naoto Kan, who as prime minister had called for an end to nuclear power and major changes to the power industry. He was eased out of office with the help of Japan’s most powerful corporate lobby, a faithful Tepco supporter that, like many members of Japan’s establishment, has benefited from the company’s largess.
And Mr. Kan’s successor, Yoshihiko Noda, whose party came to power promising to build a new Japan, instead joined the old guard to rally around nuclear power, and Tepco.
It is difficult to overstate the influence of Tepco, which rivals the American defense industry in its domestic reach.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And the rest of the world holds it's breath.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/11/18/world/jp-tepco/jp-tepco-popup.jpgTOKYO — In a direct act of rebellion against Tokyo Electric Power Company, which... more
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Reporters touring the Japanese nuclear facility damaged by a March earthquake and tsunami see the damage and the extensive work performed over the past eight months.
Entering the disaster center was a time-consuming process because of the radioactivity precautions. In the first room, we took off the booties. The room is lined with pink plastic sheets. In the next room, teams of workers cut off our protective suits with scissors, removed our gloves and our masks.Reporters touring the Japanese nuclear facility damaged by a March earthquake and... more
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NHK World
Highly radioactive debris is still hampering the operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant from bringing its reactors under control, almost 3 months after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.
On Monday, a piece of debris about 5 centimeters in diameter with radiation levels of 950 millisieverts per hour was removed from the west side of the Number 3 reactor building. It had been found on Saturday.
In May, debris with a radiation dose of 1,000 millisieverts per hour was discovered in the area, while rubble contaminated with 900 millisieverts per hour was found in April.
Tokyo Electric Power Company has so far removed about 280 containers of radioactive debris, but radiation levels still remain high near the reactor building that was badly damaged by a hydrogen explosion.
TEPCO is also struggling to handle highly radioactive water. More than 100,000 tons of contaminated water is believed to have accumulated in the basements of the reactor and turbine buildings.
TEPCO plans to begin a decontamination process on June 15th. Preparations are under way. The utility tested a device on Monday that will filter radioactive sediment from the water.
Monday, June 06, 2011 19:56 +0900 (JST)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/06_28.htmlNHK World
Highly radioactive debris is still hampering the operator of the damaged... more
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Tokyo Electric chief to visit reactor disaster HQ
By Matt Smith, CNN
April 11, 2011 2:29 a.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Tokyo Electric's president is planning to visit the disaster command center
A plant worker falls ill and is diagnosed with exhaustion
Engineers hope a drone will give them a better picture of the reactors
More than 2,000 people protest against nuclear power in Tokyo
Tokyo (CNN) -- The president of the Tokyo Electric Power Company planned to visit the command center for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster Monday as Japan marked one month since the deadly earthquake that spawned the crisis.
Tokyo Electric President Masataka Shimizu will visit the off-site headquarters but does not plan to visit the crippled power plant itself, the company said.
Shimizu had been hospitalized due to "fatigue and stress" in late March, with company chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata taking over operations in his absence.
Three of the six reactors at the plant were damaged when the tsunami that followed the magnitude 9 earthquake March 11 knocked out cooling systems. Hydrogen explosions have blown apart the building surrounding units 1 and 3, the No. 2 reactor is believed to be leaking highly radioactive water and the spent fuel pools of units 1, 3 and 4 have been an ongoing concern for authorities.
Radioactive particles have been spread across much of the surrounding area, and Japan has dumped thousands of tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean to make room for more dangerously contaminated water now flooding the basements of the units' turbine plants.
Sunday, engineers used a flying drone to peer into the damaged reactors in hopes of getting a better look at the units and hopefully the pools of spent fuel inside, company spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said. Images captured by the drone are expected to be released Monday, he said.
And the controversial dumping of less-contaminated water from a waste treatment facility has been completed, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency announced Monday. A total of 9,070 metric tons of water was discharged into the Pacific Ocean in the past week, the agency reported -- less than the 10,000 tons originally expected.
Tokyo Electric plans to use the facility to contain some of the water that has flooded the turbine plants behind units 1 through 3, a critical first step toward restoring normal cooling. The company is now using remote-controlled heavy machinery to clear away debris outside the plant and has begun the process of laying new pipes to start pumping radioactive water into the waste reservoir.
One worker fell ill during the work on Sunday, the company said. The subcontractor, a man in his 30s, was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with exhaustion, Tokyo Electric said. He had been working four-hour shifts since March 23, Tokyo Electric said, and it was unclear whether he had received a day off.
The worker was exposed to 4.82 millisieverts of radation, but no radioactive substances were found on his body. His cumulative exposure is 16 millisieverts, well below the 250-millisievert limit for workers in the plant. He was with a group of 30 subcontractors working in the area, and was wearing protective gear, the company said.
Meanwhile, two of the world's largest concrete pumps were en route to Japan as part of the effort to help resolve the crisis. Although the pumps were built to pump concrete, they can be modified to pump water at high pressure, with a 230-feet reach and "pinpoint accuracy," said Bill Dwyer, vice president of sales and marketing for manufacturer Putzmeister America.
"It allows workers to work from a greater distance," Dwyer said. One pump is set to arrive in Japan on Monday and the second on Tuesday, he said.
Workers have been pouring hundreds of tons of fresh water a day into the three damaged reactors and the spent fuel pools of units 1-4 to keep them cool until normal circulation systems can be restored. The No. 2 reactor is believed to be leaking highly radioactive water, some of which had been spilling into the Pacific until Wednesday. Runoff from shore is also believed to be carrying some radioactivity to the sea.
The radioactive particles now in the water are dispersing into the ocean. But concentrations of radioactive iodine-131 remained 25 times higher than the Japanese legal standard in water sampled 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of the plant on Saturday.
That's down from 93 times the limit on Wednesday, according to sampling data released Sunday. Levels of longer-lived cesium-137, which takes 30 years to lose half its radioactivity, remained nearly six times the legal limit but well below levels reported earlier this week.
The week-long discharge was billed as an emergency measure, but it infuriated Japan's fishing industry and drew protests from neighboring South Korea. And the crisis spurred more than 2,000 people to march against nuclear energy in Tokyo on Sunday.
"I was just a couch potato critic, but here we are today with friends for the first time, and I'm sure it's the first time for a lot of people today," said Karima Asuma Stickan, one of the protesters.
Protesters marched from the park, ringed with cherry blossoms, to Tokyo Electric's headquarters and on to the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry, which regulates Japanese nuclear power plants. Makiko Mikami told CNN that no one believes they're getting enough answers from either the utility or the government.
"The problem is, I think I'm not sure they know the whole picture themselves," Mikami said. "If they know, they should share that information with us. And if they don't, they should admit that they're scared as well."
Ailing Chang and Gen Shimada contributed to this report for CNN.Tokyo Electric chief to visit reactor disaster HQ
By Matt Smith, CNN
April 11, 2011... more
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Japanese workers at the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant on Tuesday plugged a crack leaking highly toxic water into the sea from a concrete pit, though authorities were concerned about a possible hydrogen blast due to the build up of gas at a stricken reactor.Japanese workers at the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant on Tuesday plugged a crack... more
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Town near nuclear plant rejects Japanese utility's 'token' offer
From Whitney Hurst, CNN
April 5, 2011 12:31 p.m. EDT
TEPCO's offer: $12 per person
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: "Everything we've built is gone," the mayor of Namie says
Tokyo Electric offers 20 million yen to residents of 10 communities near the plant
The utility company says more money to those affected will likely come in the future
One estimate is that Tokyo Electric will pay $12 billion to $121 billion in compensation
Tokyo (CNN) -- Acknowledging the toll the unrelenting nuclear crisis has had on people's lives and livelihoods, the owner of Japan's stricken nuclear plant has offered money to some of those in the radiation's reach -- an offer that one city decided to refuse.
An official with Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, said Tuesday that the utility made a "token" offer to residents in 10 communities near the plant.
Starting March 31, money began going out to those in nine of them. But the town of Namie rejected Tokyo Electric's offer, with a local official calling it too meager an attempt to make up for a drastically reduced quality of life and income.
"Our people are suffering, and unfortunately, everything we've built is gone," Mayor Tamotsu Baba told CNN.
"Where is our direct apology?" Baba asked. "Because the cash certainly doesn't amount to much."
Tokyo Electric says the amount is an initial token payment, not compensation for losses sustained as a result of the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi. They promise that will come later -- after they have assessed the damage from the accident, which has spread radioactive contamination across much of the surrounding area.
The company called the initial offer "payment for their troubles," and would not detail how much money is being offered to each community. But Kousei Negishi, who is the manager of general affairs for Namie, said that it was 20 million yen -- about $12 for each of Namie's roughly 20,000 residents.
That amount of cash, said Negishi, is "not enough." And it is logistically difficult to force local governments to distribute the money, which he said should be Tokyo Electric's responsibility.
Several officials from Fukushima, the prefecture that includes the crippled plant, took their complaints about the company and the evacuation zone to Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Tokyo office Tuesday afternoon.
"We don't know if TEPCO understands what we're going through," said Katsuya Endo, the mayor of Tomioka, one of the towns that has been evacuated since the accident.
The company said Tuesday that would be worked out between the power company and the Japanese government, which has pledged to support Japan's largest utility in the crisis.
One week ago, a report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimated Tokyo Electric will face compensation claims of 1 trillion Japanese yen (about $12.13 billion) if the recovery effort takes two months, the financial company's Tokyo spokesman Takayuki Inoue told CNN. That figure would rise to 2.4 trillion to 3 trillion yen if the process takes six months, and up to 10 trillion yen if the recovery takes two years, according to the report.
Most likely, tens of thousands of people will have a legitimate claim to this cash. They'll include those who haven't been able to work, who have been forced out of their homes or who otherwise have had their lives turned upside down in the problem-plagued, complicated struggle to contain the emission of radiation into the air, ground and water from the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The government ordered about 78,000 people who lived within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the plant to evacuate, due to high air and ground radiation readings in those locales.
Another 62,000 lived within 20 to 30 kilometers (12 to 19 miles) -- the so-called exclusion zone, where people have been told to stay indoors -- an official from Kan's office said. Namie is located just outside this 30-kilometer radius.
Thousands of others have been affected by the crisis. They include fishermen, who have been told not to go within 20 kilometers of the plant and are facing consumers skeptical about the safety of local seafood, especially after authorities announced plans to dump 11,500 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Farmers, too, have been hit hard by restrictions on the sale and distribution of certain crops because of radiation readings exceeding government limits.
Tokyo Electric itself has suffered as well. The company has admitted it's been inundated by 40,000 public complaints daily coming into its offices, its stock has plummeted and its faced several protests, including one Sunday in downtown Tokyo that drew about 250 people.
Last week, Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata acknowledged the financial difficulties and reports that Japan's government is considering nationalizing the company.
"(But) we want to make every effort to stay a private company," he said.CNN...
Town near nuclear plant rejects Japanese utility's 'token'... more
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In normal times, Masataka Shimizu lives in The Tower, a luxury high-rise in the same upscale Tokyo district as the U.S. Embassy. But he hasn’t been there for more than two weeks, according to a doorman.
The Japanese public hasn’t seen much of him recently either. Shimizu, the president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, the company that owns a haywire nuclear power plant 150 miles from the capital, is the most invisible — and most reviled — chief executive in Japan.
Amid rumors that Shimizu had fled the country, checked into a hospital or committed suicide, company officials said Monday that their boss had suffered an unspecified “small illness” because of overwork after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake sent a tsunami crashing onto his company’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
After a short break to recuperate, they said, Shimizu, 66, is back at work directing an emergency command center on the second floor of Tepco’s central Tokyo headquarters.
Still, company officials are vague about whether they have actually seen their boss: “I’ll have to check on that,” said spokesman Ryo Shimitsu. Another staffer, Hiro Hasegawa, said he’d seen the president regularly but couldn’t provide details.
Vanishing in times of crisis is something of a tradition among Japan’s industrial and political elite. During Toyota’s recall debacle last year, the carmaker’s chief also went AWOL. “It is very, very sad, but this is normal in Japan,” said Yasushi Hirai, the chief editor of Shyukan Kinyobi, a weekly news magazine.
But the huge scale of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi and mounting anger at Tepco’s obfuscations have put unprecedented strain on the Japanese establishment’s preference for invisible crisis management. And the Internet has helped erode Japan’s deferential norms and given voice to those who want more than a contrite bow.
Shimizu’s vanishing act “is not so much extremely strange as inexcusable,” said Takeo Nishioka, the chairman of the upper house of Japan’s Diet, or parliament. Speaking to reporters, Nishioka described as “mysterious” Shimizu’s refusal to join the head of the nuclear safety agency at a briefing on the crisis for parliament. “I cannot understand this,” Nishioka fumed.
Shimizu last appeared in public at a late-night news conference March 13, two days after the worst earthquake on record in Japan. The tsunami triggered by the quake, said Shimizu, dressed in a blue company uniform instead of his normal business suit, “exceeded our expectations.”
Since then, the Daiichi plant has gone berserk, releasing radiation into the air, contaminating the sea and spreading alarm across Japan and beyond. Shimizu’s public response: an arid message on the company’s Web site expressing “deep apologies for the concerns and inconveniences caused due to the incident.”
Tepco’s contrition brought an angry blast from the governor of Fukushima prefecture, a region that has borne the brunt of the crisis. Residents of Fukushima, governor Yuhei Sato told Japanese television, are “not in a position to accept apologies because their anger and anxiety are extreme.”
The governor’s refusal to go along with the customary rituals of corporate penitence reflects the depth of Japan’s current trauma — and the agonies confronting a Tepco leadership steeped in the discreet habits of Japan Inc.
On Sunday, hundreds of protesters marched past Tepco’s headquarters, chanting “No more Hiroshimas” and hurling insults at a pillar of Japan’s corporate establishment. One protester, dressed like the Grim Reaper with skull mask and black cloak, stood in front of a line of police and waved a board mocking Tepco’s assurances: “Nuclear energy is still safe. DEATH.”
Even company insiders now question Shimizu’s decision to play by old rules during the worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe. “Personally, I’d recommend that he speak in public as soon as possible,” said Toko Kanoh, a former Tepco vice president who, after 12 years in the upper house of parliament, is back at the electricity company as an adviser.
cont.In normal times, Masataka Shimizu lives in The Tower, a luxury high-rise in the same... more
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Higher Radiation Levels Found at Japanese Reactor
Carlos Barria/Reuters
Family members of the earthquake and tsunami victims at a mass funeral of their relatives on Saturday in Kesennuma, Japan.
By DAVID JOLLY and HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: March 27, 2011
TOKYO — Japanese officials continued to battle a spreading contamination problem at the Fukushima nuclear complex on Sunday, saying that water pooling inside one of its reactors and the seawater just outside the plant were showing sharply increased levels of radiation.
Status of the Nuclear Reactors
A daily tracker of the damage at the two imperiled nuclear plants.
Carlos Barria/Reuters
Tsunami victims in Kesennuma, Japan, dug through debris. The United Nations nuclear chief said Saturday that the country was far from the end of the nuclear crisis.
The developments came after the world’s chief nuclear inspector said that Japan was “still far from the end of the accident” that struck the plant, which continues to spew radiation into the atmosphere and the sea. Yukiya Amano, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, acknowledged that the authorities were still unsure about whether the reactor cores and spent fuel were covered with the water needed to cool them and end the crisis.
Mr. Amano, taking care to say that he was not criticizing Japan’s response under extraordinary circumstances, said, “More efforts should be done to put an end to the accident.”
More than two weeks after a devastating earthquake and tsunami, he cautioned that the nuclear emergency could still go on for weeks, if not months, given the enormous damage to the plant.
His concerns were underscored on Sunday when officials in Japan announced higher levels of radiation in pools of water at the facility’s stricken reactors.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that water seeping out of the crippled No. 2 reactor building into the adjacent turbine building contained levels of radioactive iodine 134 that were about 10 million times the level normally found in water used inside nuclear power plants.
The higher levels may suggest a leak from the reactor’s fuel rods — from either the suppression chamber under the rods or various piping — or even a breach in the pressure vessel that houses the rods, the Japanese nuclear regulator said.
Tetsuo Iguchi, a professor in the department of quantum engineering at Nagoya University, said that at that level of radiation, workers would be able to remain on site for only about 15 minutes before health considerations required them to leave, further complicating work.
“First, Tokyo Electric has to figure out where the leak is coming from,” he said, “then they’ve got to isolate the water somehow. It’s a difficult task.”
Tests also found increased levels of radioactive cesium, a substance with a longer half-life, the Japanese safety agency said.
“Because these substances originate from nuclear fission, there is a high possibility they originate from the reactor,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, the agency’s deputy director-general, at a news conference. He said that it was likely that radiation was leaking from the pipes or the suppression chamber, and not directly from the pressure vessel, because water levels and pressure in the vessel were relatively stable.
Mr. Nishiyama also said that radioactive iodine in seawater just outside the plant had risen to 1,850 times the usual level on Sunday, up from 1,250 on Saturday.
“Radiation levels are increasing and measures need to be taken,” he said, but added that he did not think there was need to worry about high levels of radiation immediately escaping the plant.
Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, said he did not think the pressure vessel, which cases the fuel rods, was broken at the No. 2 reactor. He said pressure levels inside the reactor remained higher than atmospheric pressure, suggesting that there was no breach.
“I don’t think the container is breached, but there is a possibility the water is coming from somewhere inside the reactor,” he said. “We want to find out as quickly as possible where the highly radioactive water is leaking from, and take measures to deal with it,” Mr. Edano said on a live interview on the public broadcaster, NHK, early Sunday.
Naoto Sekimura, a professor of engineering at the University of Tokyo, told NHK on Sunday that information suggested that the No. 2 unit at Fukushima was leaking significantly more radiation that the No. 1 unit or the No. 3 unit.
“The No. 2 unit’s suppression pool, which connects to the containment building, is damaged, so its ability to contain radiation has been compromised,” Mr. Sekimura said. “They’ve got to find the source of the leak.”
Separately, the I.A.E.A., citing data from the Japanese authorities, reported that two of three workers who were exposed to radioactive water on Saturday suffered “significant skin contamination over their legs.”
“The Japanese authorities have stated that during medical examinations carried out at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in the Chiba Prefecture, the level of local exposure to the workers’ legs was estimated to be between 2 and 6 sieverts,” the I.A.E.A. said on its Web site.
“While the patients did not require medical treatment, doctors decided to keep them in hospital and monitor their progress over coming days.”
The elevated levels of radiation at and around the Fukushima plant will require careful monitoring of seafood in Japan, said Kimberlee J. Kearfott, a professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at the University of Michigan.
“It is extremely important that seafood be carefully monitored,” she said in an e-mail. “This is because many of the radionuclides are concentrated in the environment,” she added. “For example, iodines are concentrated in kelp (a Japanese food, seaweed) and shrimp.
“Iodines, cesium and strontium are concentrated in other types of seafood,” she continued. “Fish can act like tea or coffee presses. When you push down the plungers, the grounds all end up on one side. In this case, that is the fish.”
She said an example of this phenomenon occurred after the Chernobyl disaster, when specific radionuclides were concentrated far away in Norwegian lichens. Reindeer ate the lichens, concentrating it again, a danger to the native peoples whose diet includes a large amount of reindeer meat.
William J. Broad reported from New York, and David Jolly from Tokyo. Reporting was contributed by David E. Sanger from Palo Alto, Calif., Hiroko Tabuchi and Chika Ohshima from Tokyo, and Kevin Drew from Hong Kong.
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Higher Radiation Levels Found at Japanese Reactor
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