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We don't have a lot of experience in this area," said Eric J. Leeds, director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. "It looks like we'll see a lot of each other over the next few weeks — hopefully not months."

Dominion Virginia Power is eager to get the plant, which can generate enough electricity to power 450,000 homes, operating again. The Richmond-based company is the state's largest electric utility, serving 2.3 million customers.

The NRC began assessing the safety implications of increased plant earthquake hazards in 2005. According to the agency, the potential earthquake hazards for some nuclear power plants in the central and eastern U.S. may be slightly larger than previously estimated.

The earthquake appears to have produced a peak acceleration — its shaking force — of about 0.26 g approximately 24 miles from its epicenter, the NRC said. G is the unit of measurement for acceleration based on the force of gravity. North Anna's rock-based structures are designed to withstand 0.12 g. The power station is about 11 miles from the quake's epicenter. The plant experienced earthquake forces an average of 21 percent greater than it was designed for, according to Dominion Virginia Power. The strong motion passed quickly, lasting no more than 3.1 seconds and reducing its impact, the company told NRC officials Thursday.

North Anna can handle shaking forces higher than 0.12 g in the critical lower frequencies, Dominion Virginia Power said. Most of the plant's critical safety components can actually resist shaking of 0.3 g, the company said, and relatively less-sturdy structures can withstand 0.16 g. "Consequently, safe shutdown components are capable of surviving seismic accelerations in excess of the … design criteria," Eric Hendrixson, Dominion Virginia Power's director of nuclear engineering, told federal regulators.

Based on results to date, Dominion Virginia Power believes all tests and repairs will be completed on Unit 1 by Sept. 22, said Eugene Grecheck, the company's vice president for nuclear development. Unit 2 is going into a planned refueling outage, and the company hopes it could be restarted by Oct. 13. But, warned Jack Grobe, deputy director of NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, "We're probably going to have to have a series of meetings. I guarantee you're going to get a lot of questions." Among the questions will be the shaking force of the earthquake on the plant.

Dominion Virginia Power still does not know exactly what caused the reactors to trip off-line, officials said Thursday. "There were diverse and redundant trips coming in in milliseconds," said N. Larry Lane, Dominion Virginia Power's site vice president for the power station.

Knowing precisely what prompted the shutdown is critical for validating the safety of the plant's design.

Instead, in order to keep these dangerous reactors operational, many now with twenty year license extensions, the NRC task force is recommending that rather than the industry volunteering a dubious containment vent system, the NRC should order the nuclear industry to take another try at an experimental venting fix which fundamentally compromises their own defense in depth philosophy.

the same day that the NRC  publicly released its report in the USA, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced that the implications of Fukushima for nuclear power in Japan meant that “’We will aim to bring about a society that can exist without nuclear power,’ he said.” Perhaps, now too late for a society to live without the threat of increasing radioactivity levels.

But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff’s report does not call for moving more of the fuel.When the commission received an oral report from a six-member “task force” it appointed to study the safety implications of Fukushima, one commissioner, William C. Ostendorff, said he had received letters from members of Congress asking for wider use of the casks, however.But Charles L. Miller, who led the task force, replied that removing the fuel would not do much to reduce the basic problem, which is that fuel rods remain in the pool, and if cooling is knocked out, the water that provides protection against melting and the release of radioactive materials will boil away.

“Before you can take it out of the pool, it has to be at least five years old, and by that time, we call it, for lack of a better word, cold fuel,’’ Mr. Miller said.At the briefing on Tuesday, Mr. Fertel mentioned other recommendations from the task force, including better instruments for altering operators to how much water is in the pools and new ways of adding water in an emergency. Pulling more fuel out, he said, would provide certain advantages but is also certain to expose workers to radiation in the course of the transfer.

Fukushima used dry casks as well, and those appear to have survived without damage, Mr. Fertel said, although they have not been thoroughly inspected. “They’re fine, but so are the pools,’’ he said.

They were not unscathed, however; debris flew into the pools after the buildings surrounding them blew up in hydrogen explosions.

The task force also refrained from recommending changes in emergency planning zones, despite the embassy’s recommendation during the crisis for Americans to stay 50 miles away from Fukushima. In the United States, emergency evacuation planning is required within 10 miles of any reactor.

Mr. Fertel said the recommendation to evacuate to 50 miles “was based not on information, but on the lack thereof.’’

Opponents of nuclear power have argued that the commission should cease all extensions of reactors’ operating licenses until it has digested the lessons of the accident in Japan. But Mr. Fertel noted that since March 11, the commission has issued 20-year license extensions for the Vermont Yankee, Palo Verde, Prairie Island, Salem and Hope Creek reactors, and allowed higher power outputs for Limerick and Point Beach.

In the email he sent me, he combined local press reports with his own observations. The Japanese Red Cross can’t accept the food he is trying to donate for the refugees because there is no gasoline to get it into the stricken areas. Vehicles cannot get through to the affected areas, and Japan’s military, called the Self Defense Force, was forced to travel to the Tohoku region, in the country’s northeast, in a civilian ferry. People ordered to stay in their homes to shelter from radioactive emissions have neither food nor heat and venture out on foot into maximum danger to look for food.

Here’s a personal look at the situation in Japan today.“This is all the information we’re getting from the Japanese press: I’m giving it to you in bullet points.

1. There is no fuel for heating.

No FuelBecause the government did not ease the regulation on the stocks of fossil fuels, there is a severe lack of fuel in all of Tokyo and the Tohoku area.

2. Food and medicine are not arriving at the refugee centers.

5. Due to the lack of fuel, elderly people are dying of cold, stress, malnutrition, and lack of medicine. Twenty-four of them have died so far.

7. Medical doctors cannot go into the region because there is nowhere to get gasoline.

Slow Decision MakingThe U.S. government immediately sent an aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, after the earthquake. It arrived in the Tohoku area on March 13 at 4 a.m. Japanese time. Last night, on March 16, I learned that the Japanese Self Defense Force from Hokkaido had just left for the Tohoku area. The force was traveling to Tohoku on a civilian ferry and had planned to arrive today, March 17.Just today the government decided to send fuel to the region in need.

People Around the Nuclear FacilitiesWithin a 30-kilometer radius around the plants, the government has instructed the refugees to stay sealed indoors. However, the government is not sending in food and fuel to these households and these refugee centers. As food and/or fuel run out, the refugees are walking away from their houses and being exposed to radiation.

Public Sentiment Is Inhibiting PressureCurrently no press is in the mood to criticize the government. The general public believes that criticism should come later. The opposition parties are also quiet. There is no pressure on the bureaucrats and government to improve the situation.

According to the USGS website, under the undated heading, “Can we cause earthquakes? Is there any way to prevent earthquakes?” the agency notes, “Earthquakes induced by human activity have been documented in a few locations in the United States, Japan, and Canada. The cause was injection of fluids into deep wells for waste disposal and secondary recovery of oil, and the use of reservoirs for water supplies. Most of these earthquakes were minor. The largest and most widely known resulted from fluid injection at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado. In 1967, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 followed a series of smaller earthquakes. Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.” Note the phrase, “Once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.” So both the U.S Army and the U.S. Geological Survey over fifty years of research confirm on a federal level that that “fluid injection” introduces subterranean instability and is a contributory factor in inducing increased seismic activity.” How about “causing significant seismic events?”

Fast forward to the present. Overseas, last month Britain’s Cuadrilla Resources announced that it has discovered huge underground deposits of natural gas in Lancashire, up to 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in all. On 2 November a report commissioned by Cuadrilla Resources acknowledged that hydraulic fracturing was responsible for two tremors which hit Lancashire and possibly as many as fifty separate earth tremors overall. The British Geological Survey also linked smaller quakes in the Blackpool area to fracking. BGS Dr. Brian Baptie said, “It seems quite likely that they are related,” noting, “We had a couple of instruments close to the site and they show that both events occurred near the site and at a shallow depth.” But, back to Oklahoma. Austin Holland’s August 2011 report, “Examination of Possibly Induced Seismicity from Hydraulic Fracturing in the Eola Field, Garvin County, Oklahoma” Oklahoma Geological Survey OF1-2011, studied 43 earthquakes that occurred on 18 January, ranging in intensity from 1.0 to 2.8 Md (milliDarcies.) While the report’s conclusions are understandably cautious, it does state, “Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located.”

Sensitized to the issue, the oil and natural gas industry has been quick to dismiss the charges and deluge the public with a plethora of televisions advertisements about how natural gas from shale deposits is not only America’s future, but provides jobs and energy companies are responsible custodians of the environment. It seems likely that Washington will eventually be forced to address the issue, as the U.S. Army and the USGS have noted a causal link between the forced injection of liquids underground and increased seismic activity. While the Oklahoma quake caused a deal of property damage, had lives been lost, the policy would most certainly have come under increased scrutiny from the legal community. While polluting a local community’s water supply is a local tragedy barely heard inside the Beltway, an earthquake ranging from Oklahoma to Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas is an issue that might yet shake voters out of their torpor, and national elections are slightly less than a year away.

The USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group, to include the cruiser USS Chancellorsville, the destroyer USS Preble and the combat support ship USNS Bridge, the guided-missile destroyers USS Fitzgerald, USS John S. McCain, USS McCampbell, USS Mustin and USS Curtis Wilbur continue relief operations off the east coast of Iwate prefecture. Three U.S. Navy liaison officers are on JS Hyuga to coordinate U.S. operations with Japan Maritime Self Defense force leadership.Helicopters from HS-4 and HSL-43 with the Reagan strike group, and HSL-51 from Carrier Airwing Five (CVW-5) in Atsugi, on the 18th delivered 28 tons of food, water, clothes, medicine, toiletries, baby supplies, and much needed kerosene to displaced persons at fifteen relief sites ashore. For two of the relief sites serviced, it was the first humanitarian aid they have received since the tsunami a week ago. Eight of the sites serviced made requests for specific aid, including a need for a medical professional.CVW-5 on Friday completed the relocation of 14 helos normally assigned to USS George Washington from Atsugi to Misawa Air Base in northern Honshu.

USS Cowpens continued its northerly track to rendezvous with the Reagan Carrier Strike Group. Cowpens is expected to join the Strike Group overnight. USS Shiloh is en route from Yokosuka to deliver relief supplies to the Strike Group.USS Blue Ridge, the flagship for the U.S. 7th Fleet, remains in the vicinity of Okinawa to conduct transfers of supplies and additional personnel to augment the staff.All 7th Fleet ships, including George Washington and USS Lassen which are currently conducting maintenance in Yokosuka, are preparing to go. Personnel have been recalled and leaves canceled.

Two P-3 Orion aircraft from Patrol Squadron Four conducted two aerial survey missions over ports and airfields in northern Honshu on Saturday. CTF-72 has embarked two liaison officers from Japan Maritime Self Defense Force on each mission. Aerial imagery captured on these missions is shared with Japan. VP-4 has established a detachment in Misawa with two aircraft and four aircrews. Radioactive iodine found in Tokyo drinking water10:07 p.m. Saturday, Tokyo timeFrom the Associated Press:TOKYO — Japan officials say radioactive iodine detected in drinking water for Tokyo and other areas.

A valuable resource on your entitlements during evacuations

The link for this Office of Personnel Management (OPM) handbook is: http://www.opm.gov/oca/compmemo/2008/HandbookForEmergencies(PayAndLeave)

Voluntary departure" updates at Misawa

Video: Yokosuka commander talks flights

Who is authorized to fly out?·         Command Sponsored and non-Command Sponsored Dependents of Uniformed and Civilian DoD personnelo    NOTE: Non-Command Sponsored dependents are only entitled to a round trip flight to the first destination in the United States. These dependents are not entitled to draw per diem or Safe Haven Allowance.What about girlfriends or significant others?They are not authorized departure. Only <span>Dependents</span> of Uniformed and Civilian DoD personnel are covered by the current authorization.

What about dependents of our NAFA/CFAY/ZAMA contractors?·         They will be allowed to board the plane and fly to the States, HOWEVER, as things currently stand, they are NOT entitled to any allowances or even to government-funded air travel out of NAFA.·         Funding issues should be worked through the contractor’s parent company, and the contractor sponsor should beware that he/she may ultimately be required to reimburse the U.S. Government for the value of the flight.

What about non-DoD American Citizens who aren’t contractors or attached to our bases?

ADDRESSES: The Draft SWEIS and its reference material are available for review on the NNSA/NSO Web site at: http://nnsa.energy.gov/nepa.

A government panel investigating Tepco's finances estimated the cost of compensation to people affected by the nuclear disaster will exceed ¥4 trillion.

The bulk of radioactive contamination cuts a 5- to 10-km-wide swath of land running as far as 30 km northwest of the nuclear plant, surveys of radiation hot spots by the science ministry show. The government extended evacuations beyond the 20-km zone in April to cover this corridor, which includes parts of Iitate.

No formal evacuation zone was set up in Hiroshima after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city on Aug. 6, 1945, though as the city rebuilt relatively few people lived within 1 km of the hypocenter, according to the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Museum. Food shortages forced a partial evacuation of the city in summer 1946.

On April 26, 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl reactor hurled 180 metric tons of nuclear fuel into the atmosphere, creating the world's first exclusion zone of 30 km around a nuclear plant. A quarter of a century later, the zone is still classed as uninhabitable. About 300 residents have returned despite government restrictions.

Tepco's decision in the 1960s to name its atomic plant Fukushima No. 1 has today associated a prefecture of about 2 million people that's almost half the size of Belgium with radiation contamination. In contrast, Chernobyl is the name of a small town near the namesake plant in what today is Ukraine.

Some people believed A-bomb survivors could emit radiation and others feared radiation caused genetic mutations, said Evan Douple, associate chief of research at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima. An examination of more than 77,000 first-generation children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings found no evidence of mutations, he said.

While radiation readings are lower in Fukushima than Hiroshima, Abel Gonzales, the vice chairman of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, said similar prejudices may emerge. "Stigma. I have the feeling that in Fukushima this will be a very big problem," Gonzales said during a symposium held in the city of Fukushima on the six-month anniversary of the disaster. Some children who fled Fukushima are finding out what Gonzales means. Fukushima schoolchildren were being bullied at their new school in Chiba Prefecture for "carrying radiation," the Sankei Shimbun reported in April, citing complaints made to education authorities. An 11-year-old Fukushima boy was hospitalized in Niigata Prefecture after being bullied at his new school, Kyodo News reported April 23.

Radiation risks in the 20-km zone forced the evacuation of about 8 percent, or 160,000, of some 2 million people who live in Fukushima. Almost 56,000 were sent to areas outside Fukushima, prefecture spokesman Masato Abe said. More than 8,000 left on their own accord because of radiation fears, Abe said

side the evacuation areas, levels of radiation higher than the government's criteria for evacuation have been recorded at 89 of 210 monitoring posts. At 24 of the sites, the reading was higher than the level at which the International Atomic Energy Agency says increases the risk of cancer. Japan Atomic Energy Institute researcher Toshimitsu Homma used science ministry data to compare the geographic scale of the contamination in Fukushima with Chernobyl.

He estimates the no-go zone in Fukushima will cover 132 sq. km, surrounded by a permanent monitoring area of 264 sq. km, assuming Japan follows the criteria set by the Soviet Union in 1986. The two areas combined equal about half the size of the five boroughs that comprise New York City. In the case of Chernobyl, the two zones cover a land mass 25 times greater, according to Homma's figures.

"Contradiction in some official statements, and the appearance of nonscientifically based 'expert' voices, confused and added stress to the local populations in each case," said Evelyn Bromet, a distinguished professor in the department of psychiatry at State University of New York, Stony Brook. "Lies got told, contradictions got told. In the end it's easier to believe nobody," Bromet said in an interview, citing mental health studies she did on people in the areas.

What radiation hasn't ruined, the earthquake and tsunami devastated. Fukushima Prefecture welcomed 56 million domestic and overseas visitors in 2009, equal to 44 percent of Japan's population.

The coastal town of Minamisoma this year canceled its annual qualifying stage for the world surfing championship, part of a waterfront that lured 84,000 beachgoers in July and August last year, said Hiroshi Tadano, head of the town's economic division. This year, nobody visited the beaches in the two months. "Most of the beaches are destroyed," Tadano said. "And of course, radiation played its part."

The area's biggest festival, Soma Nomaoi, a re-enactment of samurai battles, attracted 200,000 visitors last year. This year 37,000 came. Of the 300 horses typically used in the event, 100 were drowned in the tsunami and another 100 were evacuated due to radiation, Tajino said. Minamisoma resident Miyaguchi, 54, lost his home and parents in the tsunami. He quit his job at Tepco, leaving him unemployed and housed in an evacuation center

During the six-hour meeting shareholders shouting at managers over their handling of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster and the company’s subsequent slide to near bankruptcy.

One attendee suggested the board “jump into the reactors and die,” before being forced by security guards to sit down. Another said the board would have been forced to perform ritual disembowelment had they lived in an era when such actions were deemed necessary to preserve honour.

The Fukushima disaster has erased close to 90 percent of the value of TEPCO stock, once considered a safe investment. In May, the company reported an annual loss of 10.4 billion euros

TEPCO’s biggest shareholders – including Japanese financial institutions – rejected the call to close all its nuclear plants which generate nearly a third of the company’s electricity.

“We lost today to the big investors, but our message was heard,” said Masafumi Asada, a 70-year-old from Fukushima, who introduced the anti-nuclear proposal on behalf of a group of 402 shareholders.

A member of the school’s PTA collected a bucketful of this dirt on June 11, and sent 3 kilograms of it to a laboratory specializing in radiation measurement. The result, which was delivered on June 29, showed the sample contained 7,700 becquerels/kg of cesium-134 and 9,320 becquerels/kg of cesium-137. The safety limit for disposal of radioactive debris, as announced by the Ministry of the Environment last month, is 8,000 becquerels/kg. If it is below that limit, you can bury the debris. If it exceeds, then the measures will be necessary to shield the radiation. The Ministry of Education and Science says the dirt from the pool would be treated in the same manner.

The vice principal of the elementary school said, “As an activity to promote love for the school, 5th and 6th graders participated in the cleaning.” The school didn’t think of the radiation contamination then. The city’s Board of Education instructed the principals of the city’s schools on May 25 to pay attention to the health of pupils when cleaning the swimming pools, but by that time 4 schools including this elementary school had already had pupils clean the pools

The city’s Board of Education has decided to have a company that specializes in disposal of industrial waste to dispose the pool dirt from the school. As to the dirt at 4 other schools, the radiation will be measured on July 5. If the numbers are higher than those for the schoolyards, the dirt will be disposed as industrial waste. Koichi Sakamaki, manager for education [at the Board of Education] said, “Cleaning the swimming pools is part of the school instruction. But we should have been a bit more careful.”

The member of the school’s PTA says, “That the children did the cleanup of radioactive dirt should be recorded as such , for the future health monitoring. The city’s Board of Education should provide appropriate countermeasures, and disclose information fully.” The Board of Education of Ibaraki Prefecture, on the other hand, says “While it’s true there is no standard for evaluating the pool dirt, but there is no need to be nervous as long as you wash your hands after cleaning the pool.”