tagged w/ TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company)
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CNN...
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Japan shuts down last nuclear reactor
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By Kyung Lah, CNN
updated 1:57 AM EDT, Mon May 7, 2012
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Click link or photo above to play video
Japan is nuclear energy free
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Japan closed down its last operating nuclear reactor on Saturday
Final shutdown follows a swing against nuclear energy after the Fukushima meltdowns last year
Thousands marched through Tokyo Saturday to celebrate the final closure
Government has warned that summer energy demand may prompt rolling blackouts
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Tokyo (CNN) -- As Japan began its workweek Monday morning, the trains ran exactly on time, the elevators in thousands of Tokyo high rises efficiently moved between floors, and the lights turned on across cities with nary a glitch.
What makes this Monday so remarkable is that for the first time in four decades, none of the energy on this working day is derived from a nuclear reactor.
Over the weekend, Japan's last remaining nuclear reactor shut down for regular maintenance. In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, reactors have not been allowed back on. Japan is now the first major economy to see the modern era without nuclear power.
Tomari Nuclear Power Plant's reactor 3 in Hokkaido shut down Saturday evening in a much-watched move by government, industry and environmentalists, who are waged in a public battle over the future of Japan's energy policy.
"I think it is not easy, but this challenge is worth fighting for," said Greenpeace Japan's Junichi Shimizu. "There is an increased chance of earthquakes in Japan, so that has a significant risk to the Japanese people and the Japanese economy. The only way forward is to rapidly shift the energy source from nuclear to other sources of energy."
That's not the call just from environmental activists, but from a public suspicious of nuclear energy and its regulatory bodies since a tsunami and earthquake triggered nuclear meltdowns at three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011.
Thousands marched through the streets of Tokyo on Saturday, celebrating the shutdown of the final reactor.
The protesters waved colorful, traditional "koinobori" carp-shaped banners for Children's Day that became a symbol of the anti-nuclear movement.
That movement grew from the grassroots level in the wake of the disaster, as the country watched tens of thousands of residents living within a 20-kilometer (12-mile) radius of the nuclear plant evacuated and the area remaining turn into a contaminated wasteland.
Prior to the Fukushima disaster, Japan relied on nuclear for approximately 30% of its energy. As reactors have come off-line, the country has increased its imports of fossil fuels.
Japan's government predicts it won't be able to keep up that pace, and the void will result in an energy crunch this summer, possibly leading to rolling blackouts.
The national government's ruling party, the Democratic Party of Japan, has been urging local communities to allow reactors to return to operation.
The DPJ's deputy policy chief, Yoshito Sengoku, bluntly said without nuclear energy the world's third largest economy would suffer. "We must think ahead to the impact on Japan's economy and people's lives, if all nuclear reactors are stopped. Japan could, in some sense, be committing mass suicide," said Sengoku.
Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of Japan's biggest business lobby, Keidanren, joined the plea in an April press conference. "We cannot possibly agree to do the kind of energy saving yet again this year, or every year from now on," he said, referring to the country's efforts to turn off air conditioners and shift operation of production lines to weekends. "The government must bring the nuclear power stations back into operation."
Economist Jesper Koll, managing director at JP Morgan, says Japan could avoid the economic fallout by defining a clear energy policy, something it has failed to do so far.
"The issue to the private sector of Japan is the government is taking its time in a very emotional, highly politicized debate. And the end result is very, very slow or no decision making at all. After all, if you don't have an energy policy, you don' really have an economic policy because everything revolves around the energy," he said.
Japan's prime minister has promised a clear energy policy sometime this year, perhaps this summer.
But Yukie Osaki, who used to live in Fukushima, says she won't accept any policy that includes nuclear energy. "Nobody believes the government anymore when it says nuclear plants are safe," she said.
"Japan is an earthquake country. It is already dangerous to have nuclear plants here. If we have another accident, we won't have anywhere to live in Japan anymore."
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.CNN...
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Japan shuts down last nuclear reactor
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By Kyung Lah, CNN... more
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The Japan Times...
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Friday, Nov. 4, 2011
Disposal of quake debris begins
Kyodo
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Work to dispose of debris from the quake-ravaged city of Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, began Thursday in Tokyo with about 30 tons arriving on a train at Tokyo Freight Terminal, the first load from Iwate to be accepted by a local government outside the Tohoku region.
PHOTO: Put to the test: Workers check the radiation levels of tsunami debris from Iwate Prefecture that arrived in Tokyo on Thursday morning. Officials said the results were well below the legal limit of 0.01 microsievert per hour. KYODO PHOTO
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The Tokyo Metropolitan Government plans to accept a total of 11,000 tons of debris from Miyako by next March, as part of plans to dispose of a combined 500,000 tons of debris from both Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, the areas hit hardest by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, by fiscal 2013.
At the terminal in Shinagawa Ward, debris containers were transshipped onto trucks to be carried to a crushing facility in Ota Ward, from where combustibles will be taken to an incinerator in Koto Ward.
Resulting ash and incombustibles are to be used as landfill in Tokyo Bay.
In light of radiation fears among residents, the metropolitan government plans to monitor and release data weekly on radiation levels in the air at the edge of the crushing premises and once a month on crushed waste, ash and exhaust gas, it said.
Its four crushing facilities, incinerator and landfill site are all located in an industrial zone facing Tokyo Bay.
Miyako is located 260 km north of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, while Tokyo is roughly 220 km southwest of the plant.
Tepco denies criticality
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday the detection of radioactive xenon at its stricken Fukushima No. 1 power plant, indicating recent nuclear fission, was not the result of a sustained nuclear chain reaction known as a criticality, as feared, but a case of "spontaneous" fission.
When it revealed Wednesday that it had detected at its crisis-hit No. 2 reactor xenon-133 and xenon-135, which are typically generated by nuclear fission and have relatively short half-lives, it touched on the possibility that melted fuel inside the reactor may have temporarily gone critical.
Tepco has been analyzing the phenomenon, which did not raise the reactor's temperature or pressure, with support from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.
The nuclear crisis at the plant, the world's worst in 25 years, erupted in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and resulted in the meltdown of nuclear fuel in the six-reactor power complex's reactors 1, 2 and 3.
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FROM DR HELEN CALDICOTT (on Facebook)...
Dr Helen Caldicott
The waste arrives for burning from contaminated areas, accompanied by a reassuring photo of a small pile of rubble that is pointedly NOT setting off the radiation monitors. But what of the rest of the 30 tons of contaminated waste to be crushed, burned, and dumped in the Tokyo Bay area. It seems unlikely they would show photos of all the waste that will set off alarms.
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.The Japan Times...
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Friday, Nov. 4, 2011
Disposal of quake debris begins... more
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NBC L.A. ...
2 hours ago
Japan To Nationalize Nuke Plants: Report
Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant devastated by the March 11 earthquake/tsunami, may be broken up, according to a newspaper Sunday. According to the plan, the company would sell its power distribution business under state control and be left generating power using thermal and hydraulic power plants. It was drawn up by Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku, who informed TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata about the proposal, said the report. Last month, the government helped draft legislation to assist TEPC in compensating those impacted by the nuclear plant.NBC L.A. ...
2 hours ago
Japan To Nationalize Nuke Plants: Report
Japan’s... more
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3 nuclear reactors melted down after quake, Japan confirms
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 6, 2011 11:30 a.m. EDT
Photo: An aerial view of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Japan's nuclear emergency agency goes further in describing the extent of damage
The Fukushima Daiichi plant was badly affected by an earthquake and tsunami in March
Tokyo Electric Power Co. has avoided calling the event a meltdown
Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.
The nuclear group's new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
The announcement will not change plans for how to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the agency said.
Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced a full meltdown, it said.
The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., admitted last month that nuclear fuel rods in reactors 2 and 3 probably melted during the first week of the nuclear crisis.
It had already said fuel rods at the heart of reactor No. 1 melted almost completely in the first 16 hours after the disaster struck. The remnants of that core are now sitting in the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel at the heart of the unit and that vessel is now believed to be leaking.
We 'came close' to losing northern Japan
TEPCO admits to more possible meltdowns
A "major part" of the fuel rods in reactor No. 2 may have melted and fallen to the bottom of the pressure vessel 101 hours after the earthquake and tsunami that crippled the plant, Tokyo Electric said May 24.
The same thing happened within the first 60 hours at reactor No. 3, the company said, in what it called its worst-case scenario analysis, saying the fuel would be sitting at the bottom of the pressure vessel in each reactor building.
But Tokyo Electric at the same time released a second possible scenario for reactors 2 and 3, one that estimated a full meltdown did not occur. In that scenario, the company estimated the fuel rods may have broken but may not have completely melted.
Temperature data showed the two reactors had cooled substantially in the more than two months since the incident, Tokyo Electric said in May.
The earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi, causing the three operating reactors to overheat. That compounded a natural disaster by spewing radioactive material into the atmosphere.
Tokyo Electric avoided using the term "meltdown," and says it was keeping the remnants of the core cool. But U.S. experts interviewed by CNN after the company's announcement in May said that while it may have been containing the situation, the damage had already been done.
"On the basis of what they showed, if there's not fuel left in the core, I don't know what it is other than a complete meltdown," said Gary Was, a University of Michigan nuclear engineering professor and CNN consultant. And given the damage reported at the other units, "It's hard to imagine the scenarios can differ that much for those reactors."
A massive hydrogen explosion -- a symptom of the reactor's overheating -- blew the roof off the No. 1 unit the day after the earthquake, and another hydrogen blast ripped apart the No. 3 reactor building two days later. A suspected hydrogen detonation within the No. 2 reactor is believed to have damaged that unit on March 15.
CNN's Yoko Wakatsuki and Kyung Lah contributed to this report.3 nuclear reactors melted down after quake, Japan confirms
By the CNN Wire Staff... more
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Rain raises fear of more contamination at Fukushima
By the CNN International Wire Staff
June 4, 2011 -- Updated 0140 GMT (0940 HKT)
An aerial view of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Officials are installing water decontamination equipment at the plant
It is to be set up by June 15, but could be delayed
Heavy rains between now and then could cause spill of radioactive water
(CNN) -- Radioactive water that has accumulated inside the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could spill to the outside if heavy rains come before new decontamination equipment can be installed, the semi-official Kyodo news agency reported.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to start activating the decontamination equipment on June 15, but there is a possibility it will be delayed, company officials said.
Substantial rainfall that has fallen on the complex has brought the total amount of contaminated water that may be leaking from reactors No. 1 and No. 3 to 105,100 tons, TEPCO said, according to Kyodo.Rain raises fear of more contamination at Fukushima
By the CNN International Wire... more
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WBEZ...
Nuclear energy in Japan in post-Fukushima era
by Worldview May. 25, 2011
Click on Link to Listen to This Story
(Getty Images/Athit Perawongmetha)
http://www.wbez.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/story_image_medium/segment/photo/2011-May/2011-05-25/112053597.jpg
Photo: A dog wanders the abandoned streets of Futaba, a town within the exclusion zone near the Fukushima power plant.
This week, the Tokyo Electric Power Company admitted that three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered meltdowns shortly after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March.
From the somber legacy of World War II to this latest crisis, nuclear energy in Japan has a complicated history. Now, as bad news continues to emerge out of the Fukushima catastrophe, Japan is forced to do some soul searching about nuclear power, which supplies thirty percent of the nation’s energy.
Norma Field is a professor of Japanese studies at the University of Chicago. Field recently had a conference on nuclear energy in Japan. She dropped by with a longtime critic of Japan’s nuclear energy policies, filmmaker Hitomi Kamanaka. Kamanaka was screening her latest documentary, Ashes to Honey: Toward a Sustainable Future, when the earthquake and tsunami struck in Tokyo.WBEZ...
Nuclear energy in Japan in post-Fukushima era
by Worldview May. 25,... more
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Holes feared in two Japan nuclear reactors
By Kyung Lah, CNN
May 25, 2011 5:16 a.m. EDT
Photo: An aerial view of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The holes may be as big as 7 to 10 centimeters
A hole in the reactor's containment vessel means there is a high probability of leakage
The nuclear plant has suffered cooling problems and radiation leaks since March
Tokyo, Japan (CNN) -- Two of the damaged reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan may be riddled with holes, according to the facility's owner.
The holes may be as big as 7 to 10 centimeters ( 2.8- 3.9 inches), Tokyo Electric Power Co. said in a 225-page document submitted to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
In the report, Tokyo Electric says the containment vessel of reactor No. 1 may have developed a hole as big as 3 centimeters in diameter 18 hours after the quake.
Fifty hours after the quake, the hole may have widened to 7 centimeters, the report said.
TEPCO admits to more possible meltdowns
In reactor No. 2, the containment vessel may have developed a hole as wide as 10 centimeters 21 hours after the quake.
The nuclear plant has suffered cooling problems and radiation leaks since a March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The hydrogen explosion four days after the crisis began may have led to the formation of a second hole in reactor No. 2, as wide as 10 centimeters in diameter.
"This report is not conclusive. No one has entered these areas and we cannot confirm this as fact," TEPCO said, adding that the report is making preliminary assumptions about what happened inside the reactors.
A hole in the reactor's containment vessel means there is a high probability of the leakage of radioactive material into the reactor building.
The amount of radioactive material in all three of the reactor buildings has hampered TEPCO's ability to build an effective cooling system. TEPCO says a cooling system is a critical step to leading to a cold shutdown, still estimated to be five to eight months away.
Nuclear experts and scientists have long suspected this sort of damage to the containers of the reactors at the crippled plant, as well as a full meltdown of the fuel rods in reactors 1, 2 and 3.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/25/japan.nuclear.report/t1larg.nuclear.plant.air.photo.service.jpgHoles feared in two Japan nuclear reactors
By Kyung Lah, CNN
May 25, 2011 5:16 a.m.... more
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Tokyo power company president resigns
Accused of mishandling the post-quake nuclear disaster, Masataka Shimizu steps down on the same day Tepco announces $15.3 billion in net losses.
By John M. Glionna and Kenji Hall Los Angeles Times
May 20, 2011, 1:13 a.m.
Reporting from Tokyo—
Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Masataka Shimizu resigned Friday in the face of increasing allegations that the utility has mishandled the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The resignation came on the same day that the troubled utility announced $15.3 billion in net losses for the fiscal year that ended in March, due to the nuclear disaster that spewed radioactive isotopes into the air, soil and sea and caused the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents in northeast Japan.
Tokyo Electric Power's annual losses were the largest in history for a Japanese company, excluding financial institutions, according to Japanese media. Tepco last year had reported a profit of $1.6 billion.
Reporters had been asking for months when Shimizu planned to step down. The graying, bespectacled corporate leader had hinted at the possibility this summer. In March, days after the disaster, Shimizu, 66, reported that he suffered dizziness and high blood pressure "through overwork" for several days. He later recovered, the company reported at the time.
Shimizu said he was stepping down to take personal responsibility for growing criticism of Tepco's handling of the nuclear crisis, which many have compared to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
The practice, known as kejime, is common in corporate Japan.
The company faces a bill for tens of billions of dollars it may be forced to pay to disaster victims. Officials have asked Japan's central government for help in the payments. It was also not clear Friday what the losses would mean to the possible payment plan faced by the utility.
In a statement, Tepco officials said that the erosion of its earnings "raises substantial questions about our ability to continue" operations. Tepco officials missed making dividend payments for first time since the utility was established in 1951.
The decommissioning of the four stricken reactors at the Fukushima plant and its search for an alternative source of power cost Tepco at least $12.5 million, the utility said.
Shimizu was scheduled to vacate his post in late June at the company's shareholders meeting, and will become an advisor to the utility. He will be replaced by Tepco Managing Director Toshio Nishizawa, 60.
Wearing a blue company jacket, Shimizu bowed deeply and apologized for causing distress and worry among Japanese consumers, in particular, residents living near the shuttered plant. "I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart for the accident at Fukushima Daiichi causing great distress and worry," he said.
On Friday, the company also announced that it had scrapped plans to build two new nuclear reactors at the damaged Fukushima plant. All six of the reactors presently at the site will be shuttered and the entire facility will eventually be entombed.
The resignation brings to an end months of repeated acts of contrition for Shimizu, who in the weeks after the March 11 disaster had visited evacuation centers near the damaged plant to listen to complaints and plead for forgiveness.
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http://www.latimes.com/media/alternatethumbnails/photo/2011-05/61743777-20012653.jpgTokyo power company president resigns
Accused of mishandling the post-quake nuclear... more
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NuclearFreePlanet.org...
NEW video
Destroyed Spent Fuel Pool SFP3 of Reactor Unit 3 at Fukushima Daiichi
8 May 2011
The utter destruction of the unit 3 spent fuel pool makes it seem highly unlikely that a hydrogen explosion was the cause. This MOX (mixed oxide fuel containing plutonium) is now broken up and who knows where...
It's a mess - after seeing the relatively intact SFP4, 3 is destroyed! So, where are the fuel rods?
Status of the Spent Fuel Pool of Unit 3 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station
(video on May 8th, 2011)
TEPCO 110510_1.mpgNuclearFreePlanet.org...
NEW video
Destroyed Spent Fuel Pool SFP3 of... more
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Reuters...
Tokyo Electric may face $25 billion in liabilities: report
By Taiga Uranaka
TOKYO | Wed May 4, 2011 5:06am EDT
(Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power may be asked to shoulder half of an estimated $49 billion in total compensation for damages stemming from its crippled nuclear power plant with other power firms to bear the rest, a Japanese newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Officials from the government, Tokyo Electric, and creditor banks have been scrambling to craft a scheme that would allow the utility to cope with the bill of compensating those displaced by the crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi plant, while continuing to operate as a private firm.
The draft government plan reported by the Asahi newspaper could mark a significant development in those efforts because it puts a ballpark figure on the total cost at 4 trillion yen ($49.2 billion) and suggests a cap on Tokyo Electric's burden.
Uncertainty over the likely cost of compensation as well as the prospect of unlimited liability for Tokyo Electric, commonly known as Tepco, has unnerved investors since the crisis, triggered a widening of corporate bond spreads.
The plan calls for Tepco to pay 2 trillion yen in compensation over 10 years. Of the 200 billion yen in annual payments, half would come from a roughly 16 percent increase in electricity prices, the newspaper reported.
"The 2 trillion yen figure would be positive in the sense that it helps erase some uncertainties hanging over Japan's utilities sector," said Ariel Hsiao, manager of HSBC Global Power & Resources Equity Fund in Taipei, which sold its entire holding of Tepco shares after the March 11 disaster.
The other half of the 400 billion yen annual bill would come from Kansai Electric Power and seven other nuclear plant operators, which will put money into the fund in proportion to their electricity output, the Asahi said.
To shore up Tepco's finances and prevent debilitating credit ratings cuts, the fund will buy 1.6 trillion yen worth of preferred shares in the utility, whose market value has shrunk by three-fourths since the crisis to about $8 billion.
A Tepco spokesman said the information in the Asahi report was not based on any disclosure from the company.
CAP ISSUE
Tepco has started making provisional compensation payments to residents and local governments after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami tore through the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing it to leak radiation and prompting an evacuation of surrounding areas.
The question of whether to put a ceiling on Tepco's burden has been one of the most contentious issues in discussions on the compensation scheme, delaying its official announcement from an initial target of the last week of April.
While Tepco and its creditor banks have pushed for an upper limit, arguing it was essential to prevent a drop in its credit rating to junk status, many politicians have sought to take a hard line on the utility, characterizing it as the primary bearer of responsibility for the nuclear disaster.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said on Monday that there would be no ceiling set on Tepco's liabilities and that it should not qualify for an exemption from compensation under Japanese law.
The mention of specific liabilities figures in the draft government plan may be aimed at allowing Tepco to make the cost calculations it needs to close its books for the past business year ended in March, the Asahi said.
Tepco is now expected to report a net loss of about 800 billion yen for the past year and will aim to return to profit in four years and resume issuing bonds from the financial year starting in April 2015, the newspaper said.
The draft estimates the cost of scrapping the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi plant at 1.5 trillion yen and the additional fuel costs to run thermal power generators at about 1 trillion a year, the paper said.
The plan also calls for annual cost cuts of 150 billion yen by the next financial year and a total of 300 billion yen to be generated by the sale of real estate, stocks and other assets, the Asahi said.
($1 = 81.225 Japanese Yen)
(Additional reporting by Hugh Lawson in TOKYO and Faith Hung in TAIPEI; Editing by Nathan Layne and Matt Driskill)Reuters...
Tokyo Electric may face $25 billion in liabilities: report
By Taiga... more
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Radiation fears at new Japan nuclear plant
2011-05-02 13:03
Tokyo - Local authorities said they suspected radiation leaks at a nuclear plant in central Japan, news reports said on Monday, after another plant in the north-east has been struggling with quake and tsunami damage for several weeks.
Officials in Fukui Prefecture reported radiation leaks from fuel rods at the Tsuruga plant, Jiji Press reported.
The March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan. Since then plant has leaked radioactive substances into the air and sea.
- SAPARadiation fears at new Japan nuclear plant
2011-05-02 13:03
Tokyo - Local... more
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PART ONE...
Nine months to end Japan's nuclear crisis, plant owner estimates
By Matt Smith, CNN
April 17, 2011 4:36 p.m. EDT
Photo: TEPCO boss Tsunehisa Katsumata, third from left, says it could take nine months for reactors to achieve "cold" shutdown.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Tokyo Electric plans a new structure to support the No. 4 unit's spent nuclear fuel pool
Robots probe darkened reactor No. 3
Radiation readings in one town are halfway to the government's evacuation threshold
Tokyo Electric says it will take 6 to 9 months to wind down the nuclear crisis
Tokyo (CNN) -- Engineers will need six to nine months to bring the damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to heel, the plant's owners said Sunday in their first public timetable for ending the crisis.
It will take three months to reduce the levels of radioactivity in the plant and restore normal cooling systems in the reactors and spent fuel pools, the Tokyo Electric Power Company announced. Another three to six months will be needed before the reactors are fully shut down and new shells are built around their damaged housings, the company said.
Meanwhile, Japan's government said it would try to decontaminate "the widest possible area" in that period before deciding whether the tens of thousands who have been forced to flee their homes will be allowed to return, said Goshi Hosono, an adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
"We have to go step by step in order to resolve the problems one by one," Hosono said.
The timetable was released five days after Kan called for Tokyo Electric to show Japanese a pathway to ending the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. A day earlier, the company would not comment on an industry group's estimate that restoring normal cooling would take two to three months -- a period comparable to the first stage of Sunday's plan.
Tokyo Electric spokesman Hiro Hasegawa acknowledged that public pressure helped speed the company's decision to release a plan and warned that the outline remained tentative -- "but we will do our best" to stick to it, he said.
Because of the still-unknown volume of highly irradiated water flooding the basements of units 1-3, where the cooling equipment is normally housed, the utility is working toward building a separate cooling system. That system would remove heat from the water being pumped through the reactors and decontaminate it before circulating it back through them.
Currently, engineers have improvised by pumping roughly 170 metric tons (45,000 gallons) of water a day into each reactor, an unknown portion of which is leaking out. The leaking water comes out full of such particles as radioactive iodine and cesium, the byproducts of the reactors.
At the plant on Sunday, workers used remote-controlled robots to record radiation, water and temperature data in the building that houses reactor No. 3. Photos released by the utility showed the devices, provided by the U.S. company iRobot, opening the inner door to the reactor and entering the darkened building.
CONTINUED...PART ONE...
Nine months to end Japan's nuclear crisis, plant owner estimates... more
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PART ONE..........
Nuclear threat level raised
Crisis rates in most severe category
Japan nuclear agency raises threat level
By Matt Smith, CNN
April 11, 2011 11:11 p.m. EDT
Click on picture to play Video
Anatomy of a ghost town
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: The agency raises the level from 5 to 7
7 is the highest possible level and is on par with Chernobyl
Japan's government has called for further evacuations
Cities covered by Monday's orders should evacuate in about a month, Edano says
Tokyo (CNN) -- Japanese authorities Tuesday "provisionally" declared the country's nuclear accident a level-7 event on the international scale for nuclear disasters -- the highest level -- putting it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency announced the new level Tuesday morning. It had previously been at 5.
Regulators have determined the amount of radioactive iodine released by the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was at least 15 times the volume needed to reach the top of the International Nuclear Event Scale, the agency said. That figure is still about 10 percent of the amount released at Chernobyl, they said.
The amount of radioactive Cesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years, is about one-seventh the amount released at Chernobyl, according to the agency.
Japan's nuclear concerns explained
Hidehiko Nishiyama, the safety agency's chief spokesman, explained the final level won't be set until the disaster is over and a more detailed investigation has been conducted.
Tetsunari Iida, a former nuclear engineer-turned-industry critic, told CNN the declaration has no immediate practical impact on the crisis. It is a sign, however, that Japanese regulators have rethought their earlier assessments of the disaster, said Iida, who now runs an alternative energy think-tank in Tokyo.
According to the scale, a level 5 equates to the likelihood of a release of radioactive material, several deaths from radiation and severe damage to a reactor core.
The 1979 incident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island was a 5. The partial meltdown of a reactor core there was deemed the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history.
The Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union rated a 7 on the scale, which equates to a "major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures."
Japan's government called for evacuations Monday from several towns beyond the danger zone already declared around Fukushima Daiichi, warning that residents could receive high doses of radiation over the coming months.
Japan to evacuate more towns
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the municipalities are likely to see long-term radiation levels that exceed international safety standards, and he warned that the month-old crisis at Fukushima Daiichi is not yet over.
"Things are relatively more stable, and things are stabilizing," he said. "However, we need to be ready for the possibility that things may turn for the worse."
And about an hour after he spoke, a fresh earthquake rattled the country, forcing workers to evacuate the plant and knocking out power to the three damaged reactors for about 40 minutes, the plant's owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, reported. The magnitude 6.6 tremor came a month to the day after the magnitude 9 quake and tsunami that knocked out the plant's cooling systems, and followed a magnitude 7.1 aftershock Thursday night.
Neither the 6.6 quake nor any of the smaller ones that rippled across the region in its wake inflicted any more damage to the plant, Tokyo Electric officials told reporters.
At least six killed in latest Japan quake
Tuesday morning, a fire broke out in a battery storage building in a water discharge area of reactors 1-4 at Fukushima Daiichi, Tokyo Electric said. The fire was out a few hours later and the company said it caused no radiation emissions and no effect on cooling systems.
Japan's government said it did not know how many people would be displaced by the new evacuation orders. Evacuation orders have so far covered about 85,000 people inside the 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) zone, while another 62,000 within 30 kilometers have been told to stay inside, Fukushima prefecture officials told CNN.
The decision announced Monday does not create a wider radius around the plant, said Masanori Shinano, an official with Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission.
Instead, "if there are areas in the northwestern parts where there is a risk of exceeding 20 millisieverts as a cumulative dose over a one-year period, the area will be designated an evacuation area even if it is beyond the 30-kilometer area," Shinano told reporters Monday night.
That dose is a tiny fraction of what would cause immediate radiation sickness, but it's more than seven times the amount a typical resident of a western industrialized country receives from background sources in a year. Long-term exposures to those levels of radiation could increase the risk of cancer -- and the presence of cesium isotopes that have half-lives of up to 30 years means that radioactivity could linger for some time.
CONTINUED.......PART ONE..........
Nuclear threat level raised
Crisis rates in most severe... more
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