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"A prominent Liberal Democrat has called for Chris Huhne to resign immediately as energy and climate change secretary after emails were released detailing his officials' efforts to co-ordinate a PR response to the Fukushima disaster with the nuclear industry. Civil servants in the energy and business departments were apparently trying to minimise the impact of the disaster on public support for nuclear power. Andy Myles, the party's former chief executive in Scotland, said: "This deliberate and (sadly) very effective attempt to 'calm' the reporting of the true story of Fukushima is a terrible betrayal of liberal values. In my view it is not acceptable that a Liberal Democrat cabinet minister presides over a department deeply involved in a blatant conspiracy designed to manipulate the truth in order to protect corporate interests". The leader of the Lib Dems in the European parliament, Fiona Hall, said nuclear plans should be put on hold."

"Tokyo, June 19 (ANI): Four out of five Japanese want the nation's 54 nuclear reactors to be decommissioned either immediately or gradually following the crisis that evolved after the earth-quake-cum-tsunami hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on March 11, a poll has revealed. The Kyodo news agency quoted the Tokyo Shimbun daily poll as saying that only 14 percent respondents said that the reactors should continue operations, while 82 percent said that they should be decommissioned. A total of 54 percent of respondents said that the reactors should be decommissioned "while taking into account the power supply-and-demand situation," followed by 19 percent who want decommissioning to "start with ones undergoing periodic checks". Besides, nine percent demanded immediate scrapping of the nuclear plants, showing an absolute lack of confidence in the nation's atomic energy policy. (ANI)"

"ROCKVILLE, Md. - When commercial nuclear power was getting its start in the 1960s and 1970s, industry and regulators stated unequivocally that reactors were designed only to operate for 40 years. Now they tell another story - insisting that the units were built with no inherent life span, and can run for up to a century, an Associated Press investigation shows. By rewriting history, plant owners are making it easier to extend the lives of dozens of reactors in a relicensing process that resembles nothing more than an elaborate rubber stamp. As part of a yearlong investigation of aging issues at the nation's nuclear power plants, the AP found that the relicensing process often lacks fully independent safety reviews. Records show that paperwork of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sometimes matches word-for-word the language used in a plant operator's application."

"BUCHANAN - As America's nuclear power plants have aged, the once-rural areas around them have become far more crowded and much more difficult to evacuate. Yet government and industry have paid little heed, even as plants are running at higher power and posing more danger in the event of an accident, an Associated Press investigation has found. Populations around the facilities have swelled as much as 41/2 times since 1980, a computer-assisted population analysis shows. But some estimates of evacuation times have not been updated in decades, even as the population has increased more than ever imagined. Emergency plans would direct residents to flee on antiquated, two-lane roads that clog hopelessly at rush hour."

"LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. - Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews. The result? Rising fears that these accommodations by the NRC are significantly undermining safety - and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize the future of nuclear power in the United States."

"The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation. Tritium, which is a radioactive form of hydrogen, has leaked from at least 48 of 65 sites, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission records reviewed as part of the AP's yearlong examination of safety issues at aging nuclear power plants. Leaks from at least 37 of those facilities contained concentrations exceeding the federal drinking water standard. While most leaks have been found within plant boundaries, some have migrated off-site. But none is known to have reached public water supplies."

"The question of how much and where radioactive materials were dispersed by the hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant have been of the utmost importance to residents of both Fukushima Prefecture and beyond, and one we began to pursue soon after the nuclear disaster started to unfold. The government initially designated the area within a 20-kilometer radius of the power plant an evacuation zone, while those living between 20 kilometers and 30 kilometers from the plant were instructed to remain indoors. However, high levels of radiation were being detected even beyond those areas. A long-term advisory to stay indoors had not been a part of the government's disaster preparedness guidelines, and would pose too great a burden on residents. It seemed to us that a designation of evacuation zones based on actual radiation measurements was necessary."

"The unprecedented disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, in which fuel meltdowns were found to have taken place simultaneously at three reactors, poses a massive challenge to the media. Looking back, did we promptly deliver accurate information that could save the lives of the public? Reflecting upon our experiences gathering information from the disaster areas, as well as from the Prime Minister's Office, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), and other groups and individuals, what can we say about our coverage of the ongoing crisis?"

"Health ministry regulations stipulate that nuclear power station workers can be exposed to a maximum of 100 millisieverts over five years, and 50 millisieverts in a single year. However, in the case of an emergency such as a nuclear accident, they can be exposed to up to 100 millisieverts during work to bring the plant under control. In the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the ministry raised the upper limit to 250 millisieverts. The ministry concluded that workers who are exposed to 100 to 250 millisieverts during efforts to tame the Fukushima nuclear crisis must be withdrawn from further work for five years on the grounds that the conventional regulations apply to the Fukushima crisis."

"At last, victims of Japan's nuclear crisis can claim compensation. And they are angry. They are furious at the red tape they have to wade through just to receive basic help and in despair they still cannot get on with their lives seven months after the huge quake and tsunami triggered the world's worst nuclear disaster in 25 years. Shouts fill a room at a temporary housing complex where seven officials, kneeling in their dark suits, face 70 or so tenants who were forced to abandon their homes near the Fukushima nuclear plant after some of its reactors went into meltdown after the March 11 quake struck."

"To whom does scientific debate belong? That was a central question raised by many of the 200-plus people who attended a citizens' forum in Tokyo on Oct. 12, as they criticized the ways in which the Japanese government and radiation specialists working for it are assessing and monitoring the health effects of the ongoing nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The daylong conference, organized by the Japanese citizens' groups SAY-Peace Project and Citizens' Radioactivity Measuring Station (CRMS), featured experts who dispute much of the evidence on which the government has based its health and welfare decisions affecting residents of Fukushima Prefecture and beyond."

""The estimated source terms for iodine-131 are very constant, namely 1.3 x 10^17 becquerels per day for the first two days (US station) and 1.2 x 10^17 becquerels per day for the third day (Japan)," the institute said in a German-language statement posted on Wednesday on its website. "For cesium-137 measurements, (the US station) measured 5 x 10^15 becquerels, close, while Japan had much more cesium in its air. On this day, we estimate a source term of about 4 x 10^16." A "becquerel" is the unit that measures how many radioactive nuclei decay per second, and the "source term" refers to the quantity and type of radioactive material released into an environment. "The nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl had a source term of iodine-131 at 1.76 x 10^18 becquerels of cesium-137 at 8.5 x 10^16 bequerels," the statement added. "The estimated for Fukushima source terms are thus at 20 percent of Chernobyl for iodine, and 20-60 percent of Chernobyl for cesium.""

"Active faults under Tohoku Electric Power Co.'s Higashidori nuclear power complex in Aomori Prefecture are grounds for a reassessment of the seismic safety of the plant, according to a recent study. The new report released Monday by researchers including Mitsuhisa Watanabe, professor at Toyo University, may affect a decision whether to restart the plant's reactor, which is currently shut down, as well as the earthquake-proof safety screening for other nuclear plants. However, Tohoku Electric, which runs the single-reactor plant, and Tokyo Electric Power Co., which is building a new reactor in the same Higashidori complex, said the faults were shaped by the swelling of water-bearing strata and deny there are active faults that cause earthquakes under the plant site."

"The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March released far more radiation than the Japanese government has claimed. So concludes a study1 that combines radioactivity data from across the globe to estimate the scale and fate of emissions from the shattered plant. The study also suggests that, contrary to government claims, pools used to store spent nuclear fuel played a significant part in the release of the long-lived environmental contaminant caesium-137, which could have been prevented by prompt action. The analysis has been posted online for open peer review by the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. "

"The agitation against Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) is a prelude to an-all India uprising for a total moratorium on nuclear energy, said a former Atomic Energy Commission scientist. "We will soon launch an all-India agitation demanding a total ban on nuclear power plants," Dr MP Parameswaran, who holds India's first PhD in nuclear engineering told DNA. Many top scientists in the country have expressed their desire to join this nation-wide agitation."

"Study: Fukushima storage pool was vulnerable to aftershocks Previous ArticleResponse overwhelming for Fukushima decontamination workshops Next ArticleIAEA: Cleanup of low contaminated areas will be ineffectual October 15, 2011 By TATSUYUKI KOBORI / Staff Writer Aftershocks of the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake could have significantly worsened the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in the weeks after the disaster, according to a government simulation. The storage pool in the No. 4 reactor, which had its building's roof blown off after a hydrogen explosion on March 15, was vulnerable to an aftershock and might have started leaking radioactivity within three hours of a hypothetical aftershock, the study found. Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the plant, initially said the pool was sturdy enough to withstand aftershocks, but Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization analysis completed at the end of June but only released on Oct. 14 says radioactive substances could have been discharged 2.3 hours after a temblor knocked out the pool's cooling system. "

" Bulgaria's 30-year-old plan to build a nuclear power plant in an earthquake-prone area on the Danube may become the European Union's first atomic project doomed by Japan's disaster, leaving a $2 billion hole in the ground. The EU's poorest member faces a "mission impossible" to finish the Russian-designed plant because the Fukushima accident will require it to borrow an extra $2.1 billion for improved safety measures and insurance, according to a report by the research group Balkans and Black Sea Studies Center of Sofia."