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Since the end of June when the contaminated water treatment system started the operation, total 50,000 tonnes of groundwater have seeped into the reactor buildings and turbine buildings at Fukushima I Nuke Plant. Now, the total amount of contaminated water (highly contaminated water plus not-so-highly contaminated, treated water) at the plant has grown from 127,000 tonnes at the end of June to 175,000 tonnes as of October 18, according to Asahi Shinbun.Does TEPCO have any plan to stop the flow of groundwater into the reactor buildings and turbine buildings, which just adds to the amount of highly contaminated water to be treated and stored? TEPCO is fast running out of storage space, even with cutting down more trees to make room for the storage tanks.Other than spraying the low-contamination, treated water on the premise, the answer is no. No plan, as TEPCO is running out of money that it is willing to spend on Fukushima I Nuke Plant.From Asahi Shinbun (10/19/2011):

It has been discovered that the contaminated water has increased by 40% in 4 months inside the reactor buildings and turbine buildings at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, with the inflow of ground water of about 50,000 tonnes. The flow still continues. TEPCO may run out of storage space for the treated, still-contaminated, water. There is also a possibility of the highly contaminated water overflowing from the buildings if a problem at the water treatment facility and a heavy rain coincide.

According to the calculation done by Asahi Shinbun based on the data published by TEPCO, about 450 tonnes of ground water per day have been flowing into the buildings of Reactors 1 through 4 since the end of June when the contaminated water treatment facility started the operation. It is considered that there are damages in the walls of the buildings.

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."

Several new problems have been found at a Nebraska power plant that suffered flood damage earlier this year

tougher oversight for the Omaha Public Power District plant in Fort Calhoun will likely further delay its restart from early next year until sometime in the spring

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said none of the new issues represents a public safety threat, but the growing number of problems, combined with the prolonged shutdown, requires more scrutiny.

OHTAWARA, JAPAN, Oct 17 — 800,000 pounds of radioactive ash have piled up at a garbage incineration plant over 100 km from the Fukushima meltdowns, according to a report on Reuters by Kiyoshi Takenaka. The Ohtawara plant is projected to run out of protected storage space in two weeks, after which radioactive ash will have to be left outdoors with no proper shelter. A city official explained why the ash has not been taken to a local dump: “Residents say they are worried about their children’s health and grandchildren’s health. Faced with such pleas, we just cannot make a move.”

“Researchers say that problems arising from the radiation, scattered over mountains, rivers and residential areas, are set to persist for years,” reports Reuters. “The problem is here to stay.” Kobe University professor Tomoya Yamauchi said, “I doubt the problem will go away in a year or two. It takes 30 years for caesium 137 to decay by half. Each time it rains, caesium deposited in mountains will be washed down to where people live.” In northern Japan, government data shows the amount of stored-up radioactive ash and dehydrated sludge is up 63 percent in the last 11 weeks.

In Chernobyl, 0.09 uSv/h → Children started having symptoms. (near radiation level as westen Tokyo) 0.16 uSv/h → Adults got leukemia within 5 years. (near radiation level as Adachiku) 0.232 uSv/h → Mandatory evacuation area in Cheronobyl. (near radiation level as Asakusa or Tokyo Disneyland) I received a lot of queries. I would like to add some more explanation to this. This is a lecture of Ms. Noro Mika, who runs the NPO “Bridge to Chernobyl”

She has been visiting Chernobyl for 25 years and help children to accept in Hokkaido for one month etc.. Currently, the radiation levels in some parts of Kanto area are 3 mSv/year. Annotator’s comment: According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the numerical values announced by the local government prove only the emission of gamma rays. The iodine and the cesium decay while emitting beta rays. If we have to deal strictly with gamma rays emissions, the degree of contamination can be understood, but we can’t measure the level of individual external exposure. Besides, the numerical values detected at the monitoring posts are measured at 10m above the ground level or even more.

In Chernobyl, an area 30 km from the nuclear plant, where the radiation level was 0.232 μSv/hour, was declared “no-entry zone”. In Chernobyl, in area where radiation levels were daily even 0.16 μSv/hour have been admitted as being dangerous, and in fact, adults got leukemia and died. Annotator: In case, in Kamakura, were I live, the level is 0.16 μSv/hour. Concerning the gamma dose rate in a certain spots one meter above the ground level, the radiation levels declared officially for Kamakura city are generally between 0.11〜0.14 μSv/hour. Radioactivity, in case of of iron, concrete, etc causes the oxidation and corrosion, but in humans accelerates the aging process and cause them sickness.

Organizers of the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World [in Yokohama] claimed 6,000 participants from some 30 countries [...] The conference shows all the signs of turning into a coherent, focused movement. [...] The conference’s call for “full transparency, accountability and responsibility by the Japanese Government and Tokyo Electric Power Company” is just as important. Without complete disclosure, progress toward grasping the causes of the problem and finding solutions cannot gain traction. The conference’s calls for ongoing data collection about the safety of food and materials will also be close to the hearts of all consumers. Already, consumers have been demanding basic information about foodstuffs and potentially contaminated materials. Last week’s discovery that radioactive gravel in concrete used to build a new condominium in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, is one more reminder that problems will continue for a very long time. Nuclear issues have come to home to roost. [...] it is clear that a practical consensus towards a different energy future is well underway. Now that is a weekend well spent!

Seven decades after scientists came here during World War II to create plutonium for the first atomic bomb, a new generation is struggling with an even more daunting task: cleaning up the radioactive mess.The U.S. government is building a treatment plant to stabilize and contain 56 million gallons of waste left from a half-century of nuclear weapons production. The radioactive sludge is so dangerous that a few hours of exposure could be fatal. A major leak could contaminate water supplies serving millions across the Northwest. The cleanup is the most complex and costly environmental restoration ever attempted.And the project is not going well.

A USA TODAY investigation has found that the troubled, 10-year effort to build the treatment plant faces enormous problems just as it reaches what was supposed to be its final stage.In exclusive interviews, several senior engineers cited design problems that could bring the plant's operations to a halt before much of the waste is treated. Their reports have spurred new technical reviews and raised official concerns about the risk of a hydrogen explosion or uncontrolled nuclear reaction inside the plant. Either could damage critical equipment, shut the facility down or, worst case, allow radiation to escape.The plant's $12.3 billion price tag, already triple original estimates, is well short of what it will cost to address the problems and finish the project. And the plant's start-up date, originally slated for last year and pushed back to its current target of 2019, is likely to slip further.

"We're continuing with a failed design," said Donald Alexander, a senior U.S. government scientist on the project."There's a lot of pressure … from Congress, from the state, from the community to make progress," he added. As a result, "the design processes are cut short, the safety analyses are cut short, and the oversight is cut short. … We have to stop now and figure out how to do this right, before we move any further."

the nuclear program became the main subject of the first European tourney of Foreign Minister Ali Akber Salehi.

As part of the tourney, Salehi visited the capital of Slovenia Ljubljana and also Vienna, where he talked to his Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger and general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano. At the press conference in Ljubljana and Vienna, the head of the Iranian delegation made it clear that Iran is committed to the Nuclear Weapon Nonproliferation Treaty but will never yield its legal rights for implementation of the peaceful nuclear program

It is not a secret that most economic problems and deprivations of the population of the country are caused by sanctions against our state over the development of nuclear industry. The paradox is that we have already got used to the sanctions, which had been place against us for already 21 years.

you would think the Japanese government would be doing everything in its power to contain the disaster. You would be wrong—dead wrong.

nstead of collecting, isolating, and guarding the millions of tons of radioactive rubble that resulted from the chain reaction of the 9.0 earthquake, the subsequent 45- to 50-foot wall of water that swamped the plant and disabled the cooling systems for the reactors, and the ensuing meltdowns, Japanese Environment Minister Goshi Hosono says that the entire country must share Fukushima’s plight by accepting debris from the disaster.

an estimated 20 million tons of wreckage on the land, much of which—now ten months after the start of the disaster—is festering in stinking piles throughout the stricken region. (Up to 20 million more tons of rubble from the disaster—estimated to cover an area approximately the size of California—is also circulating in the Pacific.)

The original Japanese video was compiled by "sievert311":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ppon_vEJLCQ&feature=channel_video_title "sievert311" also has a Dr. Shunichi "100 millisievert is safe" Yamashita's video in three languages (English, Spanish, French). Check it out.

Tokyo Brown Tabby's latest captioning is over the collection of video clips of three Japanese nuclear researchers, claiming safety for plutonium on the national TV. The first two appeared on TV after the March 11 accident to assure the public that there was nothing to worry about on plutonium, because it was so safe.

Three Plutonium Brothers are: (1)Tadashi Narabayashi Professor in Engineering at Hokkaido University (in TV Asahi "Sunday Scramble" on Apr. 3, 2011)

TEPCO seeks new ways to reduce contaminated water, NHK, July 27, 2011:

[...] Tokyo Electric Power Company sent a remote-controlled robot into the No.3 reactor building on Tuesday to take photos of the piping and measure radiation levels. [...] TEPCO says the temperature of the No.3 reactor is relatively stable, but it needs more water than the others because of leaks and other problems. [...] TEPCO hopes to eventually send workers into the buildings to find a way to pour water directly onto the fuel rods.

Nuclear reactors are operated by fallible human beings, and at least two meltdowns have been caused by poor human decisions: the 1961 meltdown of an experimental military reactor in Idaho, which killed three operators when one of them withdrew a control rod six times as far as he was supposed to (carrying out a high-tech murder-suicide over a love triangle, according to some accounts), and the Chernobyl accident, which was caused by an ill-conceived experiment conducted outside approved protocols.

So, if nuclear safety is a matter of human behavior as well as sound technical infrastructure, we should look to the social sciences in addition to engineering to improve reactor safety. After all, the machines don't run themselves. The social sciences have five lessons for us here: The blind spot. In what we might call the frog-in-boiling-water syndrome, human cognition is such that, in the absence of a disaster, individuals often filter out accumulating indications of safety problems that look like obvious red flags in retrospect -- just as frogs do not jump out of a pot of water on a stove as long as the temperature goes up slowly. Diane Vaughan's award-winning book on the Challenger disaster demonstrates a clear pattern in earlier space shuttle launches of O-ring performance degrading in proportion to declining launch temperatures -- the problem that would ultimately kill Challenger's ill-fated crew. Some shuttle engineers had become concerned about this, but the organizational complex responsible for the space shuttle could not bring this problem into full cognitive focus as long as the missions were successful. Operational success created a blinding glow that made this safety issue hard to see.

The whistle-blower's dilemma. The space shuttle program provides another example of human fallibility, explored in William Langewische's account of the Columbia space shuttle accident: Large, technical organizations tend to be unfriendly to employees who harp on safety issues. The NASA engineers who warned senior management -- correctly, as it turned out -- that the Columbia shuttle was endangered by the foam it lost on takeoff were treated as pests. (The same is true of Roger Boisjoly, the Morton Thiokol engineer who was ostracized and punished for having warned correctly that the Challenger shuttle was likely to explode if launched at low temperature.) Large technical organizations prioritize meeting deadlines and fulfilling production targets, and their internal reward structures tend to reflect these priorities. This is especially true if the organizations operate in a market environment where revenue streams are at stake. In such organizations, bonuses tend not to go to those who cause the organization to miss targets and deadlines or spend extra money to prevent accidents that may seem hypothetical. It is not the safety engineers, after all, who become CEOs. Those with safety concerns report that they often censor themselves unless they are deeply convinced of the urgency of their cause. Indeed, there is -- sadly -- substantial literature on the various forms of mistreatment of engineers who do come forward with such concerns.

Reconsidering my support for nuclear energy I have found that it is only based in a desire to use it as a tool in the rather important fight against global warming and global meltdown. That in turn makes it possible to say “I hate nuclear energy. I just hate global warming more. So I support using it exactly until that problem is solved.” I said as much in my post yesterday with the nice title “Shut down those filthy nuclear reactors”.

So, what is there to hate about nuclear energy? Imagine you are a supporter of nuclear energy that is pushed by a silly reason like anger over being insulted by some random stranger on the Internet to actively look for anything that might be a problem with your former position. That is exactly what I have done. As a result, I have found basically two problems with it. One, which is the more important point, is the fact that the pro-nuclear position has lost in Germany, the only country where I actually have a vote. There is no German party I could vote for that supports building new nuclear reactors.

The victory of German anti-nuclear forces was quite decisive. That means as far as Germany is concerned, nuclear is just not a realistic option any more. Pro-nuclear advocacy is a waste of time, and a fringe minority position. Japan, the other country I might have some influence, is not quite as hopeless. Still advocating for a large increase in nuclear energy there does not seem a promising strategy.

My Requests and The Reasons Why I Pointed My Finger at TEPCO and the GovernmentI would like to request that TEPCO and the government improve in a tangible way how they contract work to subcontractors and how they monitor the employment situation.As has been much reported, some workers have been forced to work here by the outlaw element [i.e. "yakuza" or the Japanese mafia]. Such workers are disguised as being employed by legitimate contractors but have to accept an unfair or severe employment conditions. Sometimes even the legitimate contractors who post recruitment information at employment Offices don't know who their workers' true contractors are. The excessive multi-layered subcontracting leads to various problems such as lower wages, no insurance, and no contract document, as has been reported.In addition, I would like to share a few stories from my own experience

At the inn where I stayed, there were days when I could not sleep during the daytime before my nighttime shift, because my roommates' work shifts are different. Before work, the workers had to fill in the form to declare their health condition. On one of such sleep-starved days, I honestly declared that I had slept for 4 hours. But while I was looking away, one of my seniors rewrote it to 6 hours. I assume it was because workers who were not capable of managing their own health would put a bad face on the company.There is another problem. Even if we only worked for the prescribed hours, we had to spend huge amount of extra time taking care of the newcomers and registering them. Therefore, we sometimes ended up working or driving a car with only 1 or 2 hours of sleep.The subcontractors are competing with each other for more work and trying to show how much they could do even if they have to strain their workers a little. The contractors would benefit from the low-cost, high-efficiency work. However, by the very nature of the whole setup, minor troubles or problems will not be reported to the higher hierarchy. They are causing negative effects everywhere, and I am worried that they might eventually lead to a serious accident.

Without much going on recently that hasn’t been covered by other blog posts, I’d like to explore a topic not specifically tied to nuclear power or to activities currently going on in Washington, D.C. It involves an idea I have about a possible alternative means of having the electricity market account for the public health and environmental costs of various energy sources, and encouraging the development and use of cleaner sources (including nuclear) without requiring legislation. Given the failure of Congress to take action on global warming, as well as environmental issues in general, non-legislative approaches to accomplishing environmental goals may be necessary. The Problem

One may say that the best response would be to significantly tighten pollution regulations, perhaps to the point where no sources have significant external costs. There are problems with this approach, however, above and beyond the fact that the energy industry has (and will?) successfully blocked the legislation that would be required. Significant tightening of regulations raises issues such as how expensive compliance will be, and whether or not viable alternative (cleaner) sources would be available. The beauty of simply placing a cost (or tax) on pollution that reflects its costs to public health and the environment is that those issues need not be addressed. The market just decides between sources based on the true, overall cost of each, resulting in the minimum overall (economic + environmental) cost-generation portfolio

The above reasoning is what led to policies like cap-and-trade or a CO2 emissions tax being proposed as a solution for the global warming problem. This has not flown politically, however. Policies that attempt to have external costs included in the market cost of energy have been labeled a “tax increase.” This is particularly true given that the associated pollution taxes (or emissions credit costs) would have largely gone to the government.

They found strontium at two more different places in Yokohama. Now they have measured strontium at three places in Total. All of them are located just around the corner from my apartment. It’s possibility that strontium is already everywhere around in Tokyo. I went to Tokyo last weekend. I visited Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan to have a pre-interview. The interviewees have worked for National Geographic or Jiji , They have done great reports about Sarin terrorism and the Tokai village nuclear accident. They met me because they were interested in my idea of “radiation refugees”.

They kindly offered me to help set up a new visa of “radiation refugee” in EU. For the further interview, they are planning to meet me this Sunday again. I need to clean my room before. In the interview, they asked me what I think must be done. I answered all honestly. I answered: I think all the Japanese must evacuate to Australia at the closest. Then South Korean, Philippine people, Malay, Singaporian, Indonesian, West Coast, they all must evacuate and leave Japan empty except for pro-nuc mental cases.

UN, American army, etc will all have to build the front line of the radiation shield on the Japan island, to minimize the potential international risk. No wonder Japanese race will lose their land. We will have to live like old Jewish. (Nika here – Iori refers to the millennia long Jewish Diaspora) We can no longer eat sushi. All the Pacific Ocean will keep being contaminated until human-beings invent a technology to pick up melted nuclear fuel rods from miles deep in the ground. Sure, the reporter called me unrealistic. It even seems so to me. However, I can not find any reason to deny it. On the other hand, the Japanese government is so eager to conceal the fact. US government seems to be helping it too. Why?

the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), an independent organization tasked by the executive branch to oversee public health and safety issues at the DOE's nuclear facilities. In a report addressed to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, DNFSB investigators wrote that "both DOE and contractor project management behaviors reinforce a subculture . . . that deters the timely reporting, acknowledgement, and ultimate resolution of technical safety concerns."

After reviewing 30,000 documents and interviewing 45 staffers, the DNFSB reported that those who went against the grain and raised concerns about safety issues associated with construction design "were discouraged, if not opposed or rejected without review." In fact, according to the DNFSB, one of these scientists, Dr. Walter Tamosaitis, was actually removed from his position as a result of speaking up about design problems.

It's not just the DNFSB that is concerned with the safety culture and management at Hanford. Seattle Weekly has obtained official documents revealing that the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Congressional arm in charge of investigating matters relating to contractors and other public fund recipients, visited the Hanford site last month. In an outline sent to DOE personnel in advance of their visit, the GAO wrote that it will look into how contractors are addressing concerns over what they call "relatively lax attitudes toward safety procedures," "inadequacies in identifying and addressing safety problems," and a "weak safety culture, including employees' reluctance to report problems." Their findings likely will be made public in early 2012.