nuke.news

" Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology admitted that they have made a "mistake" on the report about fall out in Fukushima. The data is about the amount of fallout and the rain, from 6/6/2011 ~ 8/4/2011. Having said that it was a simple error, it turned out that it was 10 times more than originally reported. For example… 6/11 Cs-134 6.6 MBq/km2 → 160 MBq/km2 Cs-137 8.0 MBq/km2 → 200 MBq/km2 7/19 Cs-134 31 MBq/km2 → 590 MBq/km2 Cs-137 39 MBq/km2 → 750 MBq/km2"

"A government panel on reviewing radiation dose standards plans to propose that the government adopt an interim annual radiation exposure limit between 1 to 20 millisieverts for ordinary people instead of the current 1 millisievert limit, panel sources said Wednesday. The recommendation by a group under the panel, headed by Otsura Niwa, a professor emeritus at Kyoto University, would be employed when the government reviews provisional radiation limits for food products and soil, many of which were hurriedly set after the start of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. However, the plan to raise the annual radiation exposure limit for ordinary people could be criticized for endangering health, potentially affecting the subsequent review process, observers said."

"MEXT has released more contamination level data that shows considerably high levels outside the 20km evacuation zone, mostly concentrated in a north west path. As data has been coming out recently the north west path has shown to have taken considerable fallout over the last six months. There were also soil samples taken, these showed levels outside the evacuation zone in 66 locations exceeded the evacuation threshold used in Chernobyl. Okuma is 30km from the plant and showed millions of becquerels on the soil sample tests. Namie and Iitate were showing high levels on the MEXT sampling information, both are outside the evacuation zone. Some of this area to the north and west had been evacuated, but there are still people in this northwest stretch that the government has not done anything to help."

"To control the "harmful rumor",Foreign Ministry is inviting SNS (SM) gurus to Japan. Learning from the revolution in the middle east asia,Foreign Ministry is trying to media control by using Facebook and Twitter. Though they force us to decontaminate the kindergarten on our own expense,they are going to invest 1500 million yen into media control. They are trying to make the gurus say Japan is safe,Japanese food is safe,Japanese products are not contaminated ignoring the fact that the low dose symptoms take time to appear."

"he government is aiming to lift by the end of September its advisory for residents living in areas outside the 20-kilometer zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that have been designated for evacuation in the event of an emergency, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said Tuesday. The move came after five municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture, all or parts of which are designated as emergency evacuation preparation zones in the 20- to 30-km ring from the power station, had submitted to the central government by Tuesday their "recovery plans," a precondition for lifting the advisory."

"Cesium that has fallen and been disturbed from the ground surface- 10 times more internal exposure compared to direct inhalation - JAEA Analysis Japan Atomic Energy Agency [JAEA] (Toukai Village, Ibaragi Prefecture) compiled analyses showing that the amount of internal exposure to radioactive cesium from particles that had landed on the ground once and then been disturbed and re-floated was 10 times larger than that of inhaling the airborne particles directly. [This study] will be presented on September 22nd at the Japan Atomic Power Conference that's presently being held in Kitakyushuu City. The JAEA Safety Research Center's research fellow Kimura Masanori (Radiological Protection) points out that "an emphasis needs to be placed to prevent re-floating from the ground surface". Using the survey data of TEPCO and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology collected in Minamisouma City, Fukushima Prefecture, the amounts of internal exposure to Iodine-131, Cesium-134 and Cesium-137 caused by airborne particles (March 20-May 19) and that of re-floated particles (April 3-June 4) were calculated."

"The nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima earlier this year shocked the world, but they shocked the Japanese people even more. For years they've been earnestly reassured by their governments and the energy companies that atomic power was safe, clean and cheap. Industry drove a well-oiled marketing machine, backed by buckets of government cash. A largely compliant, unquestioning media toed the line. For heavily industrialised, gadget and appliance obsessed, energy-hungry Japan, nuclear was the future. "

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. aims to sell 280 real estate properties to raise 200 billion yen for use paying compensation payments for damage caused by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis, sources close to the matter said Friday. The properties include its headquarters building in central Tokyo, company dormitories and recreation facilities, according to the sources. TEPCO intends to double its property sales target from 100 billion yen planned in May as it urgently needs to raise funds for full-fledged compensation payments from October, and for expanding fossil power generation to cover nuclear power generation capacity losses, they said."

"After it was revealed that Tepco had falsified inspection reports at three of its nuclear power plants for years (see WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 573.5436, "Japan: whistleblowing turns into tornado"), other utilities began to investigate if they too had failed to mention defects in reports. Soon, two utilities, Chubu Electric and Tokohu Electric, reported that they too had left out details of faults in their inspection records. Chubu Chubu is Japan's third largest power company, and halted all its reactors after admitting it had failed to report signs of cracking in water pipes of reactors 1 and 3 at its Hamaoka plant to the authorities. The largest of these, in Hamaoka-3, was 60 millimeters long and 3 millimeters deep, in a pipe around 40 millimeters thick. The failure of Chubu to notify the authorities of the crack indications in water pipes is all the more worrying because of recent incidents involving pipes at Hamaoka. Last year, a water pipe at Hamaoka-1 exploded, releasing radioactive steam into the containment building (see WISE News Communique 558.5339, "Japan: a 'grave situation' at Hamaoka BWR"). This year, sixteen workers were irradiated after a water pipe leak at Hamaoka-2 (see WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 569.5411, "Japan: More problems at Hamaoka")."

"This article from back in March describes some of the past safety problems at Japan's nuclear facilities. It briefly mentions issues the IAEA had as far back as the 1990′s with Japan's failing nuclear safety. The arrangements for accidents, emergency planning and safety training by Japanese power companies were condemned as inadequate by IAEA inspectors after they visited four reactors in the 1990s. Altogether they found 90 deficiencies in safety procedures. The IAEA's findings should have been a wake up call, the more concerning part is that they were completely unable to do anything about it. It did cause a major scandal in Japan as cover ups by the power companies hit the media. A considerable portion of the IAEA findings involved cracks in equipment, a serious danger. As of 2002 the IAEA did not know if anything had been done to solve the problems. They had not been invited back by Japan to visit the reactors for new inspections. This problem with the IAEA and their lack of ability to enforce anything has been criticized by many since the Fukushima disasters."

"The scars of Japan's March 11 disaster are both glaringly evident and deceptively hidden. Six months after a tsunami turned Japan's northeast into a tangled mess of metal, concrete, wood and dirt, legions of workers have made steady progress hauling away a good portion of the more than 20 million tonnes of debris covering ravaged coastal areas. The Environment Ministry says it expects to have it all removed by next March, and completely disposed of by 2014."

"An extensive area of more than 8,000 square kilometers has accumulated cesium 137 levels of 30,000 becquerels per square meter or more after the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, according to Asahi Shimbun estimates. The affected area is one-18th of about 145,000 square kilometers contaminated with cesium 137 levels of 37,000 becquerels per square meter or more following the 1986 Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union. The contaminated area includes about 6,000 square kilometers in Fukushima Prefecture, or nearly half of the prefecture. Fukushima Prefecture, the third largest in Japan, covers 13,782 square kilometers. The government has not disclosed the size of the area contaminated with cesium 137 released from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant. Cesium 137 has a long half-life of about 30 years. The Asahi Shimbun calculated the size of the contaminated area based on a distribution map of accumulated cesium 137 levels measured from aircraft, which was released by the science ministry on Sept. 8. "

"TEPCO has sent out their compensation applications to people who received provisional compensation. It consists of a 156 page manual and a 60 page application form. It requires copies of a variety of documents people may no longer have access to due to the disasters and each individual in a household must fill out a booklet. This application is only good through August so any ongoing compensation for September onward would require filling out another monster sized application. The truly evil part is if TEPCO declares the application incomplete for some reason the applicant will not be able to fix the issue. They will have to start from scratch and complete another 60 page application with documentation. This farcical process is clearly intended to avoid having to pay any compensation by making the process impossible to complete. People have the ability to request mediation from the government if TEPCO rejects their application creating another long complicated endeavor."

"France was yesterday quick to play down the significance of an explosion in a nuclear waste recycling plant in the south of the country which killed one man and injured four others. Ministers said the blast, close to the Marcoule nuclear power station, near Avignon, was an "industrial accident" and not an explosion in, or near, anuclear reactor. There had been no radioactive leak and no need to evacuate workers or local people. "

"Nothing stirs in the empty heart of Tomioka, a community of 16,000 now reduced to the eerie status of a ghost town after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. The shops of the main street are deserted, motorbikes and cars are abandoned, weeds push through gaps in the concrete. Vending machines selling drinks and snacks - always popular in Japan - stand unlit and silent. Tomioka lies just inside the 20km exclusion zone that was hurriedly enforced last March when a radioactive cloud escaped from the stricken power plant. In the rush to flee, doors were left wide open. Windows and roofs shattered by the earthquake and tsunami are still not repaired. A bicycle leans against a lamp-post."

"Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc. has embarked on full-fledged studies in preparation for extraction of spent fuel from the stricken reactors at Fukushima I nuclear power station (NPS). On September 1, it instituted an ad-hoc organization whose name translates "Fuel Extraction Preparations Group," and assigned ten employees to it. The Group is to examine methodology and technical issues in preparation for extraction of the approximately 2,700 spent fuel assemblies in the spent fuel pools in units 1 through 4. Its future schedule envisions the removal of rubble and performance of other work in parallel, and start of the fuel extraction job no later than three years after the achievement of cold shutdown of the reactors. The fuel pools in units 1-4 at Fukushima I are already undergoing cyclic cooling through heat exchange, and the temperature of their water is being maintained in the range of 30-40 deg C. In units 1, 3 and 4, however, the reactor building is damaged and the radioactive substances in them are not completely contained. The numbers of spent fuel assemblies in the pools are 292 in unit 1, 587 in unit 2, 514 in unit 3, and 1,331 in unit 4. In medium-term approaches following cold shutdown, a key question is how to go about extracting this large number of spent fuel assemblies."

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, has handed a Diet science committee another heavily redacted accident manual for the stricken plant. The House of Representatives Special Committee on Promotion of Science and Technology and Innovation had requested TEPCO submit two operating manuals -- one each for accidents and severe accidents -- through the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry (METI). On Sept. 7, the committee announced it had received only the first of the two manuals, the majority of which had been blacked out, prompting the body to demand TEPCO resubmit both manuals by Sept. 9. The committee revealed on Sept. 12 that the severe accident manual subsequently handed over by TEPCO was also almost entirely redacted."

"Japan could phase out nuclear power by the end of next year and generate 43 percent of its electricity by 2020 from renewable energy, according to a report compiled by Greenpeace International and the Tokyo-based Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies. To meet these goals, Greenpeace and ISEP called on Japan to reduce electricity demand by 1.7 percent a year on average between now and 2020. Other proposals are to use more liquid natural gas, which releases less emissions than coal or oil-fired plants."

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Monday started sending out some 60,000 application forms to people seeking damages due to the nuclear crisis at its Fukushima No. 1 power plant. The 60,000 forms are being sent to households that have already received provisional compensation. Those who are filing for the first time need to ask Tepco to send an application form. Applicants are required to attach necessary documents, such as receipts, to apply for compensation for transportation costs, lodging expenses, mental suffering and other problems. Under the full-scale compensation scheme, an evacuee who has been forced to flee in line with a government order will receive ¥5,000 for moving from one place to another inside Fukushima Prefecture. A person will also be given up to ¥8,000 per night for staying in a hotel."