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Countries with atomic power plants would be encouraged to host international safety review missions, under a draft U.N. action plan that may disappoint those who had hoped for strong measures to prevent a repeat of Japan's nuclear crisis.

Seeking the middle ground between states advocating more binding global rules and others wanting to keep safety as a strictly national responsibility, the U.N. nuclear agency appears to have gradually watered down its own proposals.The document from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the third draft presented to IAEA member states over the last few weeks, outlines a series of steps to help improve nuclear safety after the Fukushima accident almost six months ago.

The latest version puts increased emphasis on the voluntary nature of the proposals, highlighting resistance among many countries against any move toward mandatory outside inspections of their nuclear energy installations.The changes were made following feedback from member state diplomats of the Vienna-based U.N. body. The 35-nation board of the IAEA is expected to debate the final proposal at a September 12-16 meeting in the Austrian capital.

Following up to our previous post “JP Gov officially admitted that Japanese food is harmful” Mr. Otsuka Norikazu turned out to have acute lymphatic leukemia. Since 311, he has been “supporting north Japan by eating their food”. The connection between his patriotism and acute lymphatic leukemia is not clear, but German TV introduces like this. German TV piece He declared that he will be back on TV by next March or April, but he has his neck connected to the tube, and they are injecting anticancer drug. Now he is 63 years old. Statistically, even though he goes though the hard time to fight against cancer, the chance of surviving is 30~40% in 5 years. All we could do is to wish him the best luck.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s rules are a patchwork that needs to be reorganized and integrated into a new structure to improve safety, the agency’s staff told the five members of the commission on Tuesday at a meeting.The session was called to consider reforms after a tsunami caused the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan. But how speedily the commission will take up the recommendations is not clear.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2011, the nuclear industry agreed to bring in assorted extra equipment, including batteries and generators, to cope with circumstances beyond what the plants were designed for. Such preparations are among the reasons that the commission has suggested that American reactors are better protected than Fukushima was. But back then, because their focus was on a potential terrorist attack, much of that equipment was located in spots that were not protected against floods, staff officials said.

“The insight that we drew from that is that if you make these decisions in a more holistic way, and you are more cognizant of what kinds of protections you are trying to foster, perhaps you can do them in a more useful way,’’ Gary Holahan, a member of the staff task force that reported to the commission, said on Tuesday. Another likely area of restructuring is to review the distinction that the commission makes between “design basis” and “beyond design basis” accidents. In the 1960s and 1970s, when the commission and a predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, issued construction permits for the 104 commercial reactors now running, they established requirements for hardware and training based on the safety factors arising from the characteristics of each site, including its vulnerability to flood or earthquake. Those are known as design-basis accidents.A variety of additional requirements involving potential problems that would be more severe but less likely (beyond design-basis accidents) have been added over the years.

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Falcyone.seesaa.net%2Farticle%2F218011433.html&act=url  Perhaps a better Japanese translation is available for paragraphs like this: The first crack to expand premises Fukushima If released into the atmosphere as steam began to black biennial magma underground, dozens of days, until it could cause radioactive contamination of large magnitude I think strong. The other people on campus would not have started already. Again can not even approach. It can only be death from exposure. 

http://youtu.be/9RrwDxS9S8E 

Most of them are still unwilling to admit that it’s happening, yet it has. The jig is up, the noose is out….

Dominion Virginia Power thinks it will be ready to restart its North Anna 1 nuclear reactor in two weeks and the North Anna 2 by mid-October, if federal regulators approve. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff members indicated Thursday that making sure the reactors, which were shut down by the Aug. 23 earthquake nearby, are safe to begin operating again might take longer. The staff said at the meeting with utility officials that it had plenty of questions as the agency looks into the Louisa County power station's design to resist seismic damage.

Preliminary information from the U.S. Geological Survey indicates that the earthquake produced a shaking force in the region twice as strong as the North Anna plant was designed to handle, the NRC said. Dominion Virginia Power acknowledges that the force from the earthquake exceeded the plant's theoretical design strength. The 5.8-magnitude earthquake caused only minor damage that did not affect nuclear safety, the company said. The quake also caused 25 of the 115-ton steel casks storing highly radioactive used fuel rods to shift as much as 4½ inches out of position on their concrete storage pad.

No U.S. nuclear power plant has been tripped off-line by an earthquake before, the NRC said.

MINAMISOMA, Japan - The lugubrious notes of Silent Night wafted from an outdoor sound system on the near-empty main street to the station of this coastal city on the northern edge of the 20-kilometer "exclusion zone" around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

At a factory that salvages old and wrecked cars just outside the barriers on the road down the coast to the plant, a digital display in the office flashed the numbers -0.10 and 0.22 - highs and lows of micro-sieverts. "That’s well within the safety limit," a young woman in the factory's overseas marketing department assured me. "We are safe here." For all such assurances, though, nobody really believes bad stuff <a href='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a53e495a&cb=INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE' target='_blank'> <img src='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=36&cb=INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE&n=a53e495a' border='0' alt=''></a>  is no longer floating through the clear cold air or lapping up on the innocent looking shores beyond the concrete breakwater over which 40-foot waves surged that day, wiping out an entire district down the slope from the factory.

Radioactive substances come from the ground, from the river bottom."

The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday that it should decide within 90 days on how to address recommendations to be issued this week by a task force that examined the lessons of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan. Almost simultaneously, House Republicans and the industry’s trade association warned him not to rush.

The chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, speaking at the National Press Club, cast the March 11 earthquake and tsunami at Fukushima Daiichi, which produced three meltdowns, as a serious challenge for the American nuclear industry. “The history of nuclear power has also been punctuated by several significant events that challenged old truths and upended our understanding of nuclear safety,’’ he said.

The task force’s recommendations are to be issued on Tuesday. Mr. Jaczko did not say that the five-member commission should complete its work in 90 days, only that it should give strong direction on each recommendation by then. The work should be finished within five years, he said.

Vermont Yankee could close by March 2012 * Entergy fighting for reactor survival NEW YORK, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Vermont health regulators said on Tuesday they found a fish containing radioactive material in the Connecticut River near Entergy's (ETR.N) Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant which could be another setback for Entergy to keep it running. The state said it needs to do more testing to determine the source of the Strontium-90, which can cause bone cancer and leukemia.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin wants the 620 megawatts reactor shut in March 2012 when its original operating license was to expire. "Today's troubling news from the Vermont Department of Health is another example of Entergy Louisiana putting their shareholders' profits above the welfare of Vermonters," Shumlin said in a statement. "I am asking my Health Department to keep a close eye on test results moving forward to determine the extent of any contamination that has reached the environment."

New Orleans-based Entergy, the second biggest nuclear power operator in the United States, however wants to keep the reactor running for another 20 years under a new license. Entergy filed a complaint in federal court to block the state from shutting the reactor next year. Officials at Entergy were not immediately available for comment. "One finding of (Strontium-90) just above the lower limit of detection in one fish sample is notable because it is the first time Strontium-90 has been detected in the edible portion of any of our fish samples," the Vermont Department of Health said on its website. The Health Department said it did not know how the Strontium-90, which is both naturally occurring in the environment and a byproduct of nuclear power production and nuclear weapons testing, got into the fish.

A power loss shut down an off-site emergency response centre near the Fukushima No 1 nuclear power plant for half a day after the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, delaying the initial response to the nuclear disaster at the power plant, according to sources. According to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the centre lost its external power supply immediately after the earthquake, and an emergency diesel generator stopped operating soon after. Due to the power loss, agency officials stationed at the centre were unable to use important equipment such as monitors that show conditions inside the plant. The agency, which believes the earthquake caused the generator to break down, had not taken any anti-seismic reinforcement measures to protect the generator, the agency said.

The government panel tasked with investigating the nuclear crisis has begun studying the case, according to the sources. The off-site centre is located in Okumamachi, Fukushima Prefecture, about five kilometres from the nuclear power plant.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis highlighted not only Japan's dependency on nuclear energy, but also how strongly the public felt about it. Sept. 19 saw the nation's largest-ever antinuclear-energy demonstration in Tokyo's Meiji Park, and other protestors — including musicians, celebrities and artists — have been voicing their opinion through marches, activities and announcements.

Artist collective Chim↑Pom have already received a fair amount of press about their activities. They added, guerrilla-style, an image of a burning Fukushima power plant to Taro Okamoto's "Myth of Tomorrow" mural at Shibuya Station in central Tokyo, and then made a sand sculpture of a child wearing a gas mask in a Fukushima Prefecture playground that had been deemed unsafe for children. Now they're making a more intimate statement with "K-I-S-S-I-N-G" at the Container in the Nakameguro district of Tokyo. The exhibition — which manages to squeeze a video installation, a large photograph and a set of drawings into a freight-container space — is, say Chim↑Pom, "an allegory that uses lightbulbs to express the anxiety or loneliness people are still suffering since the earthquake (of March 11)." The door welcomes visitors with a red kiss mark from the lips of Ellie, the only female member of the collective, who has also written "XOXO Chim↑Pom" there in red lipstick. Immediately, there's a sense of intimacy, emphasized further by the tiny exhibition space.

"Shaken by anxiety and loneliness, people came to rediscover their close relationships," says Chim↑Pom on discussing the effect of the Great East Japan Earthquake. "There's been an increase in marriage and there may be fewer divorces from now on. Lovers are happy: They are reminded of the fantastic time they can share caring for each other. 'K-I-S-S-I-N-G' conveys those feelings that we can't put into words." The video, which is projected behind a display of broken lightbulbs, shows a pair of lightbulbs circling each other, "courting" and "cuddling." Chim↑Pom say the incandescent bulbs are an obvious reference to electricity issues — because such bulbs are now being replaced by more electricity-efficient LED versions, they serve as a stronger visual link to the nuclear energy that Japan has relied on for decades. The bulbs break and burst into flames when they kiss onscreen.

Move is first step in long process before its restart* No reactors taken offline have been restarted since Fukushima crisis (Adds comment in paragraph 18-19)

Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co became the first utility to submit the result of a first-stage stress test on one of its nuclear reactors, the initial step in rebuilding public faith in atomic energy.No reactors taken offline for routine maintenance have been restarted since a massive earthquake and tsunami in March triggered reactor meltdowns and the world's worst radioactive material leakage in 25 years at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi station in the northeast.Japan's government, urged by industry, would like to get some reactors running again to support the ailing economy and minimise the risk of a power crunch this winter. It is reviewing its energy policy, including the role of nuclear power and guidelines on its safety.

Several other nuclear operators are also preparing to report on stress tests, with Shikoku Electric Power Co , another highly nuclear reliant utility in the west, seen among the next candidates to do so.Kansai Electric, the country's second-biggest utility, this morning submitted to the trade ministry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) the results of stress tests on the No.3 reactor at its Ohi plant in Fukui prefecture.The Osaka-based utility, which serves the flagship factories of big electronics firms including Panasonic Corp and Sharp Corp , has said meeting winter power demand would be tough without the restart of the 1,180 megawatt unit.

As the full cost of the Fukushima nuclear accident continues to climb—Japanese officials now peg it at $64 billion or more—nuclear power’s future is literally headed south. Developed countries are slowing or shuttering their nuclear-power programs, while states to their south, in the world’s hotspots (think the Middle East and Far East), are pushing to build reactors of their own. Normally, this would lead to even more of a focus on nuclear safety and nonproliferation. Yet, given how nuclear-reactor sales have imploded in the world’s advanced economies, both these points have been trumped by nuclear supplier states’ desires to corner what reactor markets remain.

This spring, Germany permanently shut down eight of its reactors and pledged to shutter the rest by 2022. Shortly thereafter, the Italians voted overwhelmingly to keep their country nonnuclear. Switzerland and Spain followed suit, banning the construction of any new reactors. Then Japan’s prime minister killed his country’s plans to expand its reactor fleet, pledging to reduce Japan’s reliance on nuclear power dramatically. Taiwan’s president did the same. Now Mexico is sidelining construction of 10 reactors in favor of developing natural-gas-fired plants, and Belgium is toying with phasing its nuclear plants out, perhaps as early as 2015.

China—nuclear power’s largest prospective market—suspended approvals of new reactor construction while conducting a lengthy nuclear-safety review. Chinese nuclear-capacity projections for the year 2020 subsequently tumbled by as much as 30 percent. A key bottleneck is the lack of trained nuclear technicians: to support China’s stated nuclear-capacity objectives, Beijing needs to graduate 6,000 nuclear experts a year. Instead, its schools are barely generating 600.

South Africa, the host of U.N. global climate talks, is faced with a conundrum -- it wants to wean itself off of coal-powered plants seen as primate culprits of greenhouse gas emissions and find a cleaner energy source.It is turning to nuclear power, despite the catastrophic environmental degradation the world witnessed after Japan's Fukushima plant disaster this year.

The global climate talks that opened earlier this week in Durban are seeing a widening division on nuclear power, with many advanced economies moving away from it after Fukushima and emerging states heavily reliant on fossil fuels embracing it as a cleaner way to power their development. "If you want to be part of the climate change race and mitigation you basically have renewables and nuclear. Renewables are intermittent and you need a firm and reliable baseload technology. Renewables are not in a position to provide this yet," said H. Holger Rogner, section head of the International Atomic Energy Agency's planning and economic studies section. South Africa, among the world's top 20 emitters per capita of carbon dioxide, and many other emerging countries, see nuclear power as a way to ensure energy security for the coming years and as a bridge to a time when they are rich enough to afford adding more renewables to their power mix.

The Fukushima disaster changed the economics of the nuclear industry by drying up markets in developed countries such as Japan and increasing competition among the few global conglomerates who can build nuclear power plants.

Ballot Initiative to Close Nuclear Plants Gets Go-Ahead for Signature Collection, San Clemente Times by Stacie N. Galang, Nov 22, 2011: California’s Secretary of State approved a ballot initiative November 18 that seeks the closure of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and the Diablo Canyon plant. The initiative was filed by Ben Davis Jr. [who] drafted this and an earlier petition that led to the closure of the Rancho Seco power plant in June 1989.

As drafted, the latest initiative parallels existing state law prohibiting the creation of new nuclear plants until the federal government finds a solution to dispose of radioactive nuclear waste and reprocess spent fuel rods. If enacted, the initiative would essentially shut down the state’s two remaining nuclear plants by stopping them from creating additional waste until a federal solution arrives. [...] Davis has until April 16, 2012 to collect the 504,760 needed signatures to allow the initiative to go the voters in the fall presidential election. He expected to start the signature drive after the Thanksgiving weekend.

All N-fuel may have fallen to outer vessel / TEPCO: Up to 68 tons likely melted in No. 1 reactor, eroding concrete of containment unit, The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 2, 2011: [...] The nuclear fuel at the No. 1 reactor melted as its temperature reached nearly 3,000 C at one time, TEPCO estimated. In the No. 1 reactor, TEPCO believes, almost all of the about 68 tons of fuel melted. [...]

TEPCO currently maintains a steady supply of water to the three reactors, enabling the No. 1 reactor to always have about 40 centimeters of cool water at the bottom of the containment vessel, enough to cover the melted fuel, according to the utility. [...]