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Here was the handwritten log kept by a senior engineer at the nuclear power plant:

Wiesel was very upset. He seemed very nervous. Very agitated. . . . In fact, the plant was riddled with problems that, no way on earth, could stand an earth- quake. The team of engineers sent in to inspect found that most of these components could "completely and utterly fail" during an earthquake. "Utterly fail during an earthquake." And here in Japan was the quake and here is the utter failure. The warning was in what the investigations team called The Notebook, which I'm not supposed to have.  Good thing I've kept a copy anyway, because the file cabinets went down with my office building .... WORLD TRADE CENTER TOWER 1, FIFTY-SECOND FLOOR

[This is an excerpt in FreePress.org from Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Fraudsters, to be released this Monday.  Click here to get the videos and the book.] Two senior nuclear plant engineers were spilling out their souls and files on our huge conference table, blowing away my government investigations team with the inside stuff about the construction of the Shoreham, New York, power station. The meeting was secret. Very secret. Their courage could destroy their careers: No engineering firm wants to hire a snitch, even one who has saved thousands of lives. They could lose their jobs; they could lose everything. They did. That’s what happens. Have a nice day.

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 standards or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.Officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regularly have decided 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 are undermining safety -- and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize nuclear power's future.

Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed -- up to 20 times the original limit. When cracking caused radioactive leaks in steam generator tubing, an easier test was devised so plants could meet standards.Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes and thousands of other problems linked to aging were uncovered in AP's yearlong investigation. And many of them could escalate dangers during an accident.

Despite the problems, not a single official body in government or industry has studied the overall frequency and potential impact on safety of such breakdowns in recent years, even as the NRC has extended dozens of reactor licenses.Industry and government officials defend their actions and insist no chances are being taken. But the AP investigation found that with billions of dollars and 19 percent of America's electricity supply at stake, a cozy relationship prevails between industry and the NRC.Records show a recurring pattern: Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance. Studies are conducted by industry and government, and all agree existing standards are "unnecessarily conservative."

Japan Failed to Hand Out Radiation Pills, Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2011:

Government officials failed to distribute to thousands of people pills that could have minimized radiation risks from the March nuclear accident, government documents show. [...] Though Japan’s nuclear-safety experts recommended dispensing pills immediately, Tokyo didn’t order pills be given out until five days after the March 11 accident, the documents show. By then, most of the nearly 100,000 residents evacuated [...] [The pill] has little effect when administered days after the release of radiation. [...] NISA issued an instruction March 16 for residents of towns within 20 kilometers of the plant to take KI pills, nearly four days after the government issued an evacuation order for those same towns. [...]

“Most of our residents had no idea we were supposed to take medication like that [...] By the time the pills were delivered to our office on the 16th, everyone in the village was gone.” -Juichi Ide, general-affairs chief of Kawauchi Village, located about 20 miles from the plant “I had simply assumed local residents had been given potassium iodide [... I was] flabbergasted [when learning recently that wasn't the case].” -Gen Suzuki, a physician specializing in radiation research and adviser to Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission

Four generators that power emergency systems at U.S. nuclear plants have failed when needed since April, an unusual cluster that has attracted the attention of federal inspectors and could prompt the industry to re-examine its maintenance plans. None of these failures has threatened the public. But the diesel generators serve the crucial function of supplying electricity to cooling systems that prevent a nuclear plant’s hot, radioactive fuel from overheating, melting and potentially releasing radiation into the environment. That worst-case scenario happened this year when the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan lost all backup power for its cooling systems after an earthquake and tsunami. Three diesel generators failed after tornadoes ripped across Alabama and knocked out electric lines serving the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry nuclear plant in April. Two failed because of mechanical problems and one was unavailable because of planned maintenance.

Another generator failed at the North Anna plant in Virginia following an August earthquake. Generators have not worked when needed in at least a dozen other instances since 1997 because of mechanical failures or because they were offline for maintenance, according to an Associated Press review of reports compiled by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “To me it’s not an alarming thing,” said Michael Golay, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies risk at nuclear plants. “But if this trend were to continue, you’d certainly want to look into it.”

ATLANTA - Four generators that power emergency systems at nuclear plants have failed when needed since April, an unusual cluster that has attracted the attention of federal inspectors and could prompt the industry to re-examine its maintenance plans. None of these failures has threatened the public. But the diesel generators serve the crucial function of supplying electricity to cooling systems that prevent a nuclear plant's hot, radioactive fuel from overheating, melting and potentially releasing radiation into the environment. That worst-case scenario happened this year when the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan lost all backup power for its cooling systems after an earthquake and tsunami.

hree diesel generators failed after tornadoes ripped across Alabama and knocked out electric lines serving the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry nuclear plant in April. Two failed because of mechanical problems and one was unavailable because of planned maintenance. Alabama nuclear plant cited for safety lapses Another generator failed at the North Anna plant in Virginia following an August earthquake. Generators have not worked when needed in at least a dozen other instances since 1997 because of mechanical failures or because they were offline for maintenance, according to an Associated Press review of reports compiled by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

TOKYO (Kyodo) — The education ministry on Friday unveiled supplementary school texts on radiation compiled in the wake of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, but critics blasted them for failing to adequately describe the disaster or associated health risks. The three texts are for elementary schools and junior and senior high schools respectively and describe the basic nature of radiation and day-to-day radiation exposure. But critics say they fail to refer closely to the disaster at the Fukushima complex and the health risks caused. End Extract

Federal officials say two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, Va., were automatically taken off line by safety systems around the time of the earthquake. The Dominion-operated power plant is being run off three emergency diesel generators, which are supplying power for critical safety equipment. The NRC and Dominion are sending people to inspect the plan

A fourth diesel generator failed, but it wasn't considered an emergency because the other generators are working, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Dominion said it declared an alert at the North Anna facility and the reactors have been shut down safely and no major damage has been reported.

The earthquake was felt at the company's other Virginia nuclear power station, Surry Power Station in southeast Virginia, but not as strongly there. Both units at that power station continue to operate safely, Dominion said. The quake also caused Dominion's newest non-nuclear power station, Bear Garden in Buckingham County, to shut down automatically.

An experiment to test the power of sunflowers to absorb toxic radiation has failed to prove effective near the site of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan.  The Asahi Shimbun reports that the sunflowers removed only .05 percent of the radioactive cesium in the ground, while the  removal of just over an inch (3 centimeters) of topsoil along with grass removed up to 97 percent of the radioactive cesium. It was hoped that sunflowers would concentrate radioactive waste and could then be removed more easily than the wholesale “scraping” of soil and compost that it seems will  be required. In the meantime scientists are studying ways to decontaminate the forests near the nuclear accident site. According to the Japan Times, the prefecture (county) where the plant is located is 70% forested, and efforts to date have focused on decontaminating urban areas. Removing the contaminated soil and other material from the forest requires such extreme removal methods that the forest’s ecosystem will be seriously damaged.

Whether the radiation is removed by scraping soil or removing plant matter, the radioactive waste still needs to be safely stored. The government has not yet selected a permanent storage site for the tons of soil and debris that needs to be sequestered. Anti-Nuclear Protests Hit Tokyo

The Japanese public’s trust in nuclear power is clearly ebbing, as tens of thousands of citizens took to the streets of Tokyo today (Monday) to protest nuclear power. Police estimated the crowd at 20,000 (while organizers claimed more) as protesters carried signs saying “Sayonara Nuclear Power” to urge the government to eliminate nuclear power from the nation’s energy grid.  Nuclear accounted for 30 percent of Japan’s energy use prior to the Fukushima incident. There have been energy shortages as 30 of the country’s 54 reactors have been taken off line to enable inspections. Large businesses have been asked to take measures to conserve energy, such as adjusting thermostats, varying schedules around peak demand and cutting back on overtime. It has been six months since three of the Fukushima nuclear plant’s six reactors experienced meltdowns following a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. Surrounding air, soil and water was contaminated and 100,000 residents were forced to evacuate.

At North Anna nuclear plant, reassurances but no final data on quake impact, Washington Post by Brian Vastag, September 2, 2011:

[...] Yet nearly two weeks after the quake, Dominion officials were unable to say whether the quake shook the facility more than it was designed to handle. “I don’t have those numbers,” Daniel Stoddard, Dominion’s senior vice president for nuclear operations, said repeatedly. It will be another week before final analysis of the “shake plates,” which recorded ground motion at the site, is finished, he said, although a Dominion spokesman had promised that analysis by Friday. In the control room, a 1970s-era seismic detector failed to record data for a critical eight seconds when primary power went down, slowing the company’s analysis. The company has added a battery backup to the unit to prevent a recurrence. [...]

In KING 5 TV's report Tuesday on high levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater, the United States government is accused of continuing to fail to tell the public about Fukushima dangerous radiation blanketing parts of the United States, a coverup that led grassroots projects and independent reporters to gather and present data for public well-being. University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum began asking on Tuesday for people in the Los Angles area to come forward with any dangerous radiation readings that may have been detected after local peaches were highly radioactive

UPDATE: July 13, 2011, 11:11pm: The peaches reported on July 12 were bought at "a local market," not Santa Monica Market, according to Environews on Wednesday. An investigation about the source of the peaches is underway.   Right to health denied when United States government hides high levels of Fukushima radiation  In KING 5 TV's report Tuesday on high levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater , the United States   government is accused of continuing to fail to tell the public about Fukushima dangerous radiation blanketing parts of the United States , a coverup that led grassroots projects and independent reporters to gather and present data for public well-being. University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum   began asking on Tuesday for people in the Los Angles area   to come forward with any dangerous radiation readings that may have been detected after local peaches were highly radioactive . "Our government said no health levels, no health levels were exceeded, when in fact, the rain water in the Northwest is reaching levels 130 times the drinking water standards," said Gerry Pollet from a non-government organization watchdog, Heart of America Northwest.

UPDATE: July 13, 2011, 11:11pm: The peaches reported on July 12 were bought at "a local market," not Santa Monica Market, according to Environews on Wednesday. An investigation about the source of the peaches is underway.   Right to health denied when United States government hides high levels of Fukushima radiation   In KING 5 TV's report Tuesday on high levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater , the United States   government is accused of continuing to fail to tell the public about Fukushima dangerous radiation blanketing parts of the United States , a coverup that led grassroots projects and independent reporters to gather and present data for public well-being. University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum   began asking on Tuesday for people in the Los Angles area   to come forward with any dangerous radiation readings that may have been detected after local peaches were highly radioactive . "Our government said no health levels, no health levels were exceeded, when in fact, the rain water in the Northwest is reaching levels 130 times the drinking water standards," said Gerry Pollet from a non-government organization watchdog, Heart of America Northwest. A call from the University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum for public radiation readings in Los Angeles came after a finding on Friday, July 8th, 2011 was reported that two peaches from the popular Santa Monica local market were confirmed to have sustained radiation levels of 81 CPMs, or greater

From inspectors’ abandoning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as it succumbed to disaster to a delay in disclosing radiation leaks, Japan’s response to the nuclear accident caused by the March tsunami fell tragically short, a government-appointed investigative panel said on Monday.

Officials of Japan’s nuclear regulator present at the plant during the quake quickly left the site, and when ordered to return by the government, they proved of little help to workers racing to restore power and find water to cool temperatures at the plant, the report said.

The panel attacked the use of the term “soteigai,” or “unforeseen,” that plant and government officials used both to describe the unprecedented scale of the disaster and to explain why they were unable to stop it. Running a nuclear power plant inherently required officials to foresee the unforeseen, said the panel’s chairman, Yotaro Hatamura, a professor emeritus in engineering at the University of Tokyo. “There was a lot of talk of soteigai, but that only bred perceptions among the public that officials were shirking their responsibilities,” Mr. Hatamura said.

Japanese government delayed giving information to the public, according to interim report into the disaster

Japan's response to the nuclear crisis that followed the tsunami in March was confused and riddled with problems , a report has revealed.The disturbing picture of harried workers and government officials scrambling to respond to the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was depicted in the report, detailing a government investigation.The 507-page interim report, compiled by interviewing more than 400 people, including utility workers and government officials, found that authorities had grossly underestimated tsunami risks, assuming the highest wave would be six metres (20ft). The tsunami hit at more than double that level.The report criticised the use of the term soteigai, meaning unforeseeable, which it said implied authorities were shirking responsibility for what had happened. It said by labelling the events as beyond what could have been expected, officials had invited public distrust.

Can Japan do better than Chernobyl?, Australian Broadcasting Corporation by Dr Margaret Beavis, Jan. 6, 2012:

[...] There have been many failures in the handling of this situation. But perhaps the greatest relate to the government’s duty of care to protect Japanese citizens. The government failed to act on information about radioactive plumes. In doing so it exposed many communities to harmful radiation, and many evacuated into even higher radioactive areas. In addition, the government has declared the “safe” allowable limits for radiation exposure can be changed from the internationally accepted levels of 1 mSv to 20 mSv a year. Women and children are particularly sensitive to radiation exposure. Subjecting children to 20mSv a year for five years will result in about 1 in 30 developing cancer. After Chernobyl anyone likely to be exposed to more than 5 mSv a year was evacuated, and those in areas of 1-5 mSv were offered relocation and bans were placed on eating locally produced food.

Finally, there is an ongoing culture of poor monitoring, poor information release and cover up. It continues to significantly under report radiation levels, claiming total radiation releases at approximately half the level of observed releases detected by world wide Nuclear Test Ban Treaty monitoring sites. Current radioactivity levels are measured at 1 metre off the ground, not at ground level where children play and where radioactivity levels are significantly higher. [...] From a public health perspective the Japanese government continues to fail to protect its people, particularly its children. To quote Tilman Ruff, Associate Professor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health, “At this point, the single most important public health measure to minimi[s]e the health harm over the long term is much wider evacuation.” [...]