nuke.news

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) on June 17 announced an updated roadmap for bringing the troubled Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plant under control and stressed that it is making progress, but many obstacles remain and some important problems still have no resolution in sight. New problems have emerged at the plant such as how to improve the working environment of workers and how to dispose of radioactive waste after removing it from contaminated water. Only one month remains until the final day of Step 1 of the roadmap: achievement of stable, maintained cooling of the reactors. "Regarding a cold shutdown, even if the reactor core temperature is cooled to below 100 degrees Celsius, we cannot say we have achieved our goal until we secure a state where the reactors are emitting only limited amounts of radiation," said Goshi Hosono, special advisor to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, at a news conference on June 17. He vowed to do his utmost to help bring the nuclear reactors to a state of cold shutdown in the period from mid-July to the beginning of next year, as envisioned in Step 2 of the roadmap."

"Moody's cuts nuclear operator Tepco rating to junk status TOKYO, June 20 (Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service cut its credit rating on Tokyo Electric Power Co to junk status on Monday and kept the operator of Japan's crippled nuclear power plant on review for possible further downgrade, citing uncertainty over the fate of its bailout plan. Moody's said it had lowered Tokyo Electric Power's (Tepco) senior secured rating to Ba2 from Baa2 and long-term rating to B1 from Baa3, citing rising costs and compensation fees related to the disaster at Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the world's worst nuclear disaster in 25 years. "

"Japan's TEPCO said Wednesday it had booked an extra $1.1 billion loss to compensate victims of the Fukushima crisis, and would set aside another $473 million to bring the crippled plant under control. In May Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported a $15 billion annual net loss for the year ended March, the biggest ever for a non-financial Japanese firm, on costs related to the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986. But on Wednesday it said it would book an additional loss of 88 billion yen ($1.1 billion) to cover compensation related to "psychological distress" suffered by tens of thousands of evacuees from areas near the plant, following calculations by an official government commission."

"A federation of seafood processing firms in Ibaraki Prefecture has demanded about ¥1.85 billion in damages from Tokyo Electric Power Co., claiming their businesses have been hurt amid the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant. After receiving a written claim Tuesday at the federation's office in Mito, Ibaraki, over sales losses amid fears of seafood contaminated by radiation, Kaoru Takagi, a senior Tepco official, said the utility will decide how to deal with it based on government guidelines for nuclear damages. The damages for three months from March include about ¥1.14 billion and cover such losses as costs for disposal of processed seafood products rejected by markets and retailers. The remainder is for radiation measurement and leave compensation."

"Rebuilding of infrastructure, housing and other facilities ravaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami will cost around ¥16.9 trillion, not including damage from the nuclear crisis, the Cabinet Office said Friday. The sum is about 1.8 times the ¥9.6 trillion cost of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake that pummeled the Kobe area. The cost will be much larger when the effects of radiation leaks from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant are included, analysts said, fueling concerns over the outlook for the national economy and fiscal health. The estimate is based on information from ministries and the affected prefectures of Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Chiba, Niigata and Nagano, and is more accurate than the ¥16 trillion to ¥25 trillion the office estimated in late March."

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. led Japanese utilities in rallying around a nuclear future, defying growing public opposition to atomic energy after the worst radiation accident in 25 years. Shareholders of Tepco, as Japan's biggest utility is known, voted to continue with nuclear power yesterday at the company's first annual meeting since the crisis at its Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant wiped about $36 billion off its market value. Kansai Electric Power Co. today reinforced the status quo, with shareholders rejecting a motion to halt reactors. The votes in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that caused meltdowns at Fukushima show Japan's reliance on atomic energy even as opposition grows. Shareholders of Tohoku Electric Power Co. and other regional energy providers also voted down proposals against nuclear power. "

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) said Tuesday that it will pay estimated additional compensation of up to Y48 billion, or Y100,000-Y300,000 per nuclear accident evacuee. The compensation was the second round of compensation payments to nuclear accident evacuees. The company, also known as Tepco, said it will disclose the impact of the extra compensation on its earnings as soon as details become clear. In terms of compensation payments, Tepco has already provided about 50,000 households within a 30-kilometer radius of the stricken plant with payments of up to Y1 million each, which would cost the company a total of around Y50 billion. The utility reported in May a net loss of Y1.247 trillion for the 12 months ended March. The loss was the biggest annual loss in Japanese corporate history outside the financial sector. "

"In relation to the nuclear crisis, the government counted ¥275.4 billion in provisional costs, including ¥120 billion for the government's part of compensation for the problems at Fukushima No. 1, whose operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., will have to shoulder a bigger part of overall damage. Second extra budget's key outlays Kyodo * ¥800 billion in reserve for future emergency spending. * ¥545.5 billion in grants to local governments affected by the disaster. * ¥300 billion in additional spending on financial support to those who had their homes badly damaged or destroyed. * ¥120 billion for the government's part of compensation over the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. * ¥78.2 billion to finance health checks over the next 30 years on people in Fukushima Prefecture in the wake of the nuclear crisis. The government plans to create a ¥96.2 billion fund to cover expenditures on health issues concerning people in Fukushima Prefecture. Of that amount, ¥78.2 billion would finance health checks over the next 30 years for people in the prefecture, the ministry said. The government would also enhance the monitoring of radiation levels throughout the country, spending ¥23.5 billion."

"Some farm products such as strawberries, tomatoes and lettuce were not exported at all in May, according to foreign trade statistics, apparently due to concerns over the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Japanese farm products are popular in Europe, the United States and Asia. The recent statistics shows that those products are suffering serious losses due to fears about nuclear contamination. According to statistics released by the Finance Ministry, the volume of strawberries exported was 30,267 kilograms in February and 19,262 kilograms in March. The numbers declined sharply to 419 kilograms in April--a 94 percent drop from the same month last year--and to zero in May. Strawberries are produced mainly in Tochigi, Fukuoka and Kumamoto prefectures and sent mostly to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. "

"Major Japanese commercial banks are in final talks to set a 400 billion yen syndicated credit line possibly in August for Tohoku Electric Power Co., which has had difficulties raising funds through debt issues amid the Fukushima nuclear crisis, sources close to the matter said Friday. The government-controlled Development Bank of Japan is also considering a low-interest crisis response loan worth some 150 billion yen to the utility serving northeastern Japan, which was devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, they said. The major commercial banks and the DBJ will thus provide a total of 550 billion yen to Tohoku Electric, following some 2 trillion yen in loans they extended by April to Tokyo Electric Power Co. plagued with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis set off by the quake-tsunami disaster."

"Radiation is expected to continue spewing for months from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that suffered a meltdown following an earthquake and tsunami in March, but despite grim reports from Japan, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has quietly stopped running extra tests for radioactive material in America's milk, rain and drinking water. The EPA initially ramped up nationwide testing in the weeks following the disaster in Japan, and radioactive materials like cesium and iodine-131 were detected on US soil. Citing declining levels of radiation, the EPA has abandoned the extra tests, even as reports from Japan indicate that the Fukushima plant continues to emit radiation and the disaster is one of the worst in world history."

"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."

"High levels of radioactive cesium have been detected in incinerated ashes at waste disposal facilities in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, in apparent effects from the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the local municipal office said Monday. At one waste disposal center in Kashiwa, up to 70,800 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram were detected from ashes collected on June 24 and more than 60,000 becquerels were observed from ashes collected on July 1 and 2, the city office said. Up to 48,900 becquerels of radioactive cesium were also detected at a facility for burying the ashes from waste disposal centers in the city, while a maximum of 9,780 becquerels were observed at another waste disposal center, the office said. The figures far exceed the 8,000-becquerel per kilogram cap set by the state for waste disposal facilities to temporarily store such ashes. "

"Fukushima - When unit 2 began to shake, Hiroyuki Kohno's first hunch was that something was wrong with the turbines. He paused for a moment, then went back to logging the day's radioactivity readings. News photo Aftermath: Demonstrators walk by the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co. during an antinuclear power protest June 30. Below: Tepco employees in charge of public relations hold a news conference in Tokyo on March 16. AP News photo He expected it to pass. Until the shakes became jolts. As sirens wailed, he ran to an open space, away from the walls, and raced down a long corridor with two colleagues. Parts of the ceiling fell around them. Outside, he found more pandemonium. "People were shouting about a tsunami," he said. "At that point, I really thought I might die.""

"The accident at Fukushima -1 in March this year was caused by defects in construction, both the former and the current senior engineers of the Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) - the company operating the Japanese nuclear power plant - told "The Wall Street Journal". Specialists say that emergency diesel-generators and switchgears were wrongly placed at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant. Only 50 per cent of the devices transmitting electricity from the generators to the reactors' coolers were well fixed, the TEPCO experts say. All the rest were destroyed by the earthquake and by the tsunami that followed it, which finally led to the wide-scale radiation leak."

"Radioactive cesium far exceeding the legal limit has been detected in hay that was fed to cattle at a farm in Fukushima Prefecture. The prefecture has been investigating why the cattle were contaminated with the radioactive substance. On Sunday, officials took samples of feed and well water at the farm located in Minamisoma City within the planned evacuation zone. They say 75,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium has been detected in the feed. This far exceeds the government's safety limit of 300 becquerels per kilogram. The farmer says the cattle had been kept inside but were fed with hay left outdoors after the March nuclear accident. Eleven cattle from the farm were sent to Tokyo to be slaughtered. The beef from the animals contained levels of cesium that were more than triple the legal limit. The prefecture has asked farmers in the city to suspend beef cattle shipments. Fukushima Prefecture will continue to investigate the feed and water and check if there were any problems with the way the cattle were raised."

"The Atomic Energy Society of Japan, an academic society made up of experts on nuclear power engineering, nuclear reactor physics and radiology, on Monday issued a statement criticizing the government, Tokyo Electric Power Co. and other related institutions for delays and insufficiency in their disclosure of information concerning the accidents at Tepco's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which began March 11. People will give an approving nod to each of the points raised by the society because these points accurately show what they have been feeling about the behavior of the government and Tepco in connection with the Fukushima nuclear crisis. The society says that the delay in the data disclosure is extremely regrettable and that the information has been insufficient. Since the Atomic Energy Society of Japan is regarded as close to Japan's nuclear power establishment, the criticism bears importance all the more."

"They scoop up soil from their gardens and dump it in holes dug out in parks and nearby forests, scrub their roofs with soap and refuse to let their children play outside. More than three months after a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear meltdown at a nearby power plant, Fukushima residents are scrambling to cope with contamination on their own in the absence of a long-term plan from the government. "Everything and everyone here is paralysed and we feel left on our own, unsure whether it's actually safe for us to stay in the city," said Akiko Itoh, 42, with her four-year old son in her lap."

"Nearly two months after the start of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, only 10 percent of workers there had been tested for internal radiation exposure caused by inhalation or ingestion of radioactive substances, due to a shortage of testing equipment available for them. Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the crippled nuclear compound, is finding it impossible to use testing apparatus set up inside the facility because of high radiation levels recorded near the equipment. A number of personnel working to overcome the nuclear crisis at the facility are increasingly alarmed by their lack of internal exposure testing. Some have said they may have to continue to work at the facility without knowing whether their radiation exposure levels have exceeded the upper limit set by the government. On Tuesday, the government revealed a timetable for ending the nuclear crisis. The road map called for increased surveillance of the workers' radiation levels, including a measure requiring TEPCO to periodically report such data to the government."

"Nearly three months have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake triggered a nuclear crisis that shows little sign of ending any time soon. This is the second installment in a series that looks into what has given rise to the unprecedented crisis, dealing a fatal blow to the myth of safety at nuclear power plants in this country. "An explosion was heard at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant." At 3:36 p.m. March 12, this information was conveyed from the Fukushima prefectural police via the National Police Agency to the government's crisis management center, located in the basement of the Prime Minister's Office. But officials of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and Tokyo Electric Power Co. who were at the Prime Minister's Office at the time refused to accept the information, some of them repeatedly saying, "That's not possible.""