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D'coda Dcoda

BP gets Gulf oil drilling permit amid 28,000 unmonitored abandoned wells [25Oct11] - 0 views

foodfreedom.wordpress.com/...monitored-abandoned-wells-gulf

fossil fuel

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 26 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Since BP’s catastrophic Macondo Blowout in the Gulf of Mexico last year, the Obama Administration has granted nearly 300 new drilling permits [1] and shirked plans to plug 3,600 of more than 28,000 abandoned wells, which pose significant threats to the severely damaged sea. Among those granted new permits for drilling in the Gulf, on Friday Obama granted BP permission to explore for oil in the Gulf, allowing it to bid on new leases that will be sold at auction in December. Reports Dow Jones: “The upcoming lease sale, scheduled for Dec. 14 in New Orleans, involves leases in the western Gulf of Mexico. The leases cover about 21 million acres, in water depths of up to 11,000 feet. It will be the first lease auction since the Deepwater Horizon spill.” [2]
  • Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey objected to BP’s participation in the upcoming lease sale, pointing out that: “Comprehensive safety legislation hasn’t passed Congress, and BP hasn’t paid the fines they owe for their spill, yet BP is being given back the keys to drill in the Gulf.” Environmental watchdog, Oceana, added its objection to the new permits, saying that none of the new rules implemented since April 2010 would have prevented the BP disaster. “Our analysis shows that while the new rules may increase safety to some degree, they likely would not have prevented the last major oil spill, and similarly do not adequately protect against future ones.” [3]
  • Detailing the failure of the Dept. of Interior’s safety management systems, Oceana summarizes: Regulation exemptions (“departures”) are often granted, including one that arguably led to the BP blowout; Economic incentives make violating rules lucrative because penalties are ridiculously small; Blowout preventers continue to have critical deficiencies; and Oversight and inspection levels are paltry relative to the scale of drilling operation. Nor have any drilling permits been denied [4] since the BP catastrophe on April 20, 2010, which still spews oil today [5].
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  • 28,079 Abandoned Wells in Gulf of Mexico In an explosive report at Sky Truth, John Amos reveals from government data that “there are currently 24,486 known permanently abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico, and 3,593 ‘temporarily’ abandoned wells, as of October 2011.” [6] TA wells are those temporarily sealed so that future drilling can be re-started. Both TA wells and “permanently abandoned” (PA) wells endure no inspections.
  • Not only cement, but seals, valves and gaskets can deteriorate over time. A 2000 report by C-FER Technologies to the Dept. of Interior identified several  different points where well leaks can occur, as this image (p. 26) reveals.  To date, no regulations prescribe a maximum time wells may remain inactive before being permanently abandoned. [13] “The most common failure mechanisms (corrosion, deterioration, and malfunction) cause mainly small leaks [up to 49 barrels, or 2,058 gallons]. Corrosion is historically known to cause 85% to 90% of small leaks.” Depending on various factors, C-FER concludes that “Shut-In” wells reach an environmental risk threshhold in six months, TA wells in about 10-12 years, and PA wells in 25 years.  Some of these abandoned wells are 63 years old.
  • Leaking abandoned wells pose a significant environmental and economic threat. A three-month EcoHearth investigation revealed that a minimum of 2.5 million abandoned wells in the US and 20-30 million worldwide receive no follow up inspections to ensure they are not leaking. Worse: “There is no known technology for securely sealing these tens of millions of abandoned wells. Many—likely hundreds of thousands—are already hemorrhaging oil, brine and greenhouse gases into the environment. Habitats are being fundamentally altered. Aquifers are being destroyed. Some of these abandoned wells are explosive, capable of building-leveling, toxin-spreading detonations. And thanks to primitive capping technologies, virtually all are leaking now—or will be.” [11] Sealed with cement, adds EcoHearth, “Each abandoned well is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. The triggers include accidents, earthquakes, natural erosion, re-pressurization (either spontaneous or precipitated by fracking) and, simply, time.”
  • Over a year ago, the Dept. of Interior promised to plug the “temporarily abandoned” (TA) wells, and dismantle another 650 production platforms no longer in use. [7] At an estimated decommissioning cost of $1-3 billion [8], none of this work has been started, though Feds have approved 912 permanent abandonment plans and 214 temporary abandonment plans submitted since its September 2010 rule. [9] Over 600 of those abandoned wells belong to BP, reported the Associated Press last year, adding that some of the permanently abandoned wells date back to the 1940s [10].  Amos advises that some of the “temporarily abandoned” wells date back to the 1950s. “Experts say abandoned wells can repressurize, much like a dormant volcano can awaken. And years of exposure to sea water and underground pressure can cause cementing and piping to corrode and weaken,” reports AP.
  • As far back as 1994, the Government Accountability Office warned that there was no effective strategy in place to inspect abandoned wells, nor were bonds sufficient to cover the cost of abandonment. Lease abandonment costs estimated at “$4.4 billion in current dollars … were covered by only $68 million in bonds.” [12] The GAO concluded that “leaks can occur… causing serious damage to the environment and marine life,” adding that “MMS has not encouraged the development of nonexplosive structure removal technologies that would eliminate or minimize environmental damage.”
  • The AP noted that none of the 1994 GAO recommendations have been implemented. Abandoned wells remain uninspected and pose a threat which the government continues to ignore. Agency Reorganization The Minerals Management Service (MMS) was renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) last May after MMS drew heavy fire for malfeasance, including allowing exemptions to safety rules it granted to BP. An Office of Inspector General investigation revealed that MMS employees accepted gifts from the oil and gas industry, including sex, drugs and trips, and falsified inspection reports. [14] Not only was nothing was done with the 1994 GAO recommendations to protect the environment from abandoned wells, its 2003 reorganization recommendations [15] were likewise ignored.  In a June 2011 report on agency reorganization in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill, the GAO reports that “as of December 2010,” the DOI “had not implemented many recommendations we made to address numerous weaknesses and challenges.” [16] Reorganization proceeded.  Effective October 1, 2011, the Dept. of the Interior split BOEMRE into three new federal agencies: the Office of Natural Resources Revenue to collect mineral leasing fees, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) “to carry out the offshore energy management and safety and environmental oversight missions.” The DOI admits:
  • “The Deepwater Horizon blowout and resulting oil spill shed light on weaknesses in the federal offshore energy regulatory system, including the overly broad mandate and inherently conflicted missions of MMS which was charged with resource management, safety and environmental protection, and revenue collection.” [17] BOEM essentially manages the development of offshore drilling, while BSEE oversees environmental protection, with some eco-protection overlap between the two agencies. [18] Early this month, BSEE Director Michael R. Bromwich spoke at the Global Offshore Safety Summit Conference in Stavanger, Norway, sponsored by the International Regulators Forum. He announced a new position, Chief Environmental Officer of the BOEM:
  • This person will be empowered, at the national level, to make decisions and final recommendations when leasing and environmental program heads cannot reach agreement. This individual will also be a major participant in setting the scientific agenda for the United States’ oceans.” [19] Bromwich failed to mention anything about the abandoned wells under his purview. Out of sight, out of mind. Cost of the Macondo Blowout
  • On Monday, the GAO published its final report of a three-part series on the Gulf oil disaster. [20]  Focused on federal financial exposure to oil spill claims, the accountants nevertheless point out that, as of May 2011, BP paid $700 million toward those spill claims out of its $20 billion Trust established to cover that deadly accident. BP and Oxford Economics estimate the total cost for eco-cleanup and compensatory economic damages will run to the “tens of billions of dollars.” [21] On the taxpayer side, the GAO estimates the federal government’s costs will exceed the billion dollar incident cap set by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (as amended). As of May 2011, agency costs reached past $626 million. The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund’s income is generated from an oil barrel tax that is set to expire in 2017, notes GAO.
  • With Monday’s District Court decision in Louisiana, BP also faces punitive damages on “thousands of thousands of thousands of claims.” U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier denied BP’s appeal that might have killed several hundred thousand claims, among them that clean up workers have still not been fully paid by BP. [22] Meanwhile, destroying the planet for profit continues unabated. It’s time to Occupy the Gulf of Mexico: No more oil drilling in our food source.
D'coda Dcoda

Radioactive Materials in Rivers, Wells Detected in Fukushima Much Higher Than Pre-Nuke ... - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...materials-in-rivers-wells.html

contamination

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 21 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • The Ministry of Education and Science (and the media reporting the news) is spinning it as "good news" that radioactive materials detected in river water and well water in Fukushima Prefecture are "far less than the provisional safety limit".If you compare the measured level to the provisional safety limit for water which is high as 200 becquerels/liter for radioactive cesium for adults, well yes, it is far less.If you compare the level to the one before the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, it is a different story altogether. The highest strontium-90 level in the Ministry's survey is 5.14 times the highest level measured in 2009, and the highest cesium-137 level is 6,500 times the highest level measured in 2009.The Ministry's announcement (10/20/2011) is here (in Japanese, PDF).
  • From Asahi Shinbun (10/20/2011):
  • The Ministry of Education and Science announced the result of the survey of water contamination in rivers and wells in Fukushima Prefecture, except in the 20-kilometer radius from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. Nuclides such as cesium and strontium were tested, but according to the Ministry there was no detection of radioactive materials exceeding the standard for drinking water.
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  • The Ministry did the survey twice in June and August. It selected the survey locations from the areas that showed relatively high level of cesium deposition in soil in the Ministry's aerial survey after the accident. 50 river locations and 51 wells were selected. Radioactive cesium and iodine-131 were measured in all 101 locations. Strontium and plutonium were measured in 10 river locations where the air radiation was high. Similarly, at 6 wells, only strontium was measured.
  • The highest cesium-137 (half life 30 years) for the river water was detected in Mano District in Minami Soma City (37 kilometers north by northwest from the nuke plant), at 2.0 becquerels/kg. The average amount of cesium-137 in river water was 0.58 becquerels/kg. The highest cesium-137 for the well water was detected in Nukazawa in Motomiya City (54 kilometers west of the plant), at 1.1 becquerels/kg. The average for well water was 0.49 becquerels/kg.
  • According to the Ministry of Education and Science, "Radioactive materials in both river water and well water are far below the provisional safety limit of 200 becquerels/kg". However, according to the Ministry's national survey in 2009, the highest level in river water was found in Akita Prefecture at 0.00037 becquerels/kg (ND in Fukushima). So, 2.0 becquerels/kg of cesium-137 detected this time in Fukushima is 5,400 times as much as the highest level in 2009 in river water. As to 1.1 becquerels/kg of cesium-137 from the well water, it is 6,500 times as much as the highest level detected in tap water in 2009.
  • The largest amount of strontium-90 (half life 30 years) was detected in a river in Onahama in Iwaki City, at 0.018 becquerels/kg, 5.14 times the level detected in the 2009 survey. Strontium-90 in well water was the same level as before the accident. Plutonium and iodine-131 were below the detection limit.
  • According to the Ministry's calculation on the internal radiation if one drinks the river water that had the maximum amount of radioactive materials for one year, cesium-137 would result in 0.025 millisievert, and strontium-90 in 0.00049 millisievert.Hmmm. They tested an alpha emitter (plutonium) and a beta emitter (strontium) in water in locations with high air radiation? What does high air radiation have to do with alpha and beta emitters? And what about other nuclides, like cobalt-60?The Ministry of Education tested water at these locations twice: first in late June to early July, then in early August. Looking at the result, there are two locations where the amount of radioactive cesium significantly INCREASED during the one month, indicating perhaps the inflow of radioactive materials from the surrounding mountains.The Ministry's document has very poor resolution, but here's the page that shows charts of cesium-137 detections (page 19 in the document):
D'coda Dcoda

U.S. Government Confirms Link Between Earthquakes and Hydraulic Fracturing at Oil Price - 0 views

oilprice.com/...-and-Hydraulic-Fracturing.html

fracking earthquake

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • On 5 November an earthquake measuring 5.6 rattled Oklahoma and was felt as far away as Illinois. Until two years ago Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year, but in 2010, 1,047 quakes shook the state. Why? In Lincoln County, where most of this past weekend's seismic incidents were centered, there are 181 injection wells, according to Matt Skinner, an official from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency which oversees oil and gas production in the state. Cause and effect? The practice of injecting water into deep rock formations causes earthquakes, both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Geological Survey have concluded.
  • The U.S. natural gas industry pumps a mixture of water and assorted chemicals deep underground to shatter sediment layers containing natural gas, a process called hydraulic fracturing, known more informally as “fracking.” While environmental groups have primarily focused on fracking’s capacity to pollute underground water, a more ominous byproduct emerges from U.S. government studies – that forcing fluids under high pressure deep underground produces increased regional seismic activity. As the U.S. natural gas industry mounts an unprecedented and expensive advertising campaign to convince the public that such practices are environmentally benign, U.S. government agencies have determined otherwise. According to the U.S. Army’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal website, the RMA drilled a deep well for disposing of the site’s liquid waste after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “concluded that this procedure is effective and protective of the environment.”  According to the RMA, “The Rocky Mountain Arsenal deep injection well was constructed in 1961, and was drilled to a depth of 12,045 feet” and 165 million gallons of Basin F liquid waste, consisting of “very salty water that includes some metals, chlorides, wastewater and toxic organics” was injected into the well during 1962-1966.
  • Why was the process halted? “The Army discontinued use of the well in February 1966 because of the possibility that the fluid injection was “triggering earthquakes in the area,” according to the RMA. In 1990, the “Earthquake Hazard Associated with Deep Well Injection--A Report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency” study of RMA events by Craig Nicholson, and R.I. Wesson stated simply, “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.” Twenty-five years later, “possibility” and ‘established” changed in the Environmental Protection Agency’s July 2001 87 page study, “Technical Program Overview: Underground Injection Control Regulations EPA 816-r-02-025,” which reported, “In 1967, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) determined that a deep, hazardous waste disposal well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal was causing significant seismic events in the vicinity of Denver, Colorado.” There is a significant divergence between “possibility,” “established” and “was causing,” and the most recent report was a decade ago. Much hydraulic fracturing to liberate shale oil gas in the Marcellus shale has occurred since.
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  • 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.
D'coda Dcoda

Mainichi: Radiation detected in drinking water from underground source - Over 15 miles ... - 0 views

enenews.com/miles-from-fukushima-meltdowns

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 27 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Water underground is contaminated, Fukushima Diary, Dec. 26, 2011: Ministry of the Environment measured cesium from well water at 4 locations in Minamisoma [25 km north of Fukushima plant]. It was about 1.3~14.7 Bq/kg, it was for drinking. The samples were taken in October and November. [...]
  • Babelfish Translation result for http://mainichi.jp/select/weathernews/news/20111227k0000m040028000c.html Headline: Fukushima 1st nuclear plant: From well water 4 places of cesium detection south Soma Source: Mainichi.jp Date: Dec. 26, 2011
  • t announced that the environmental ministry on the 26th, inspected the density of the well underwater radioactive cesium of drinking which in emergency evacuation preparation area (in 9 ends of the month cancellation) inside Fukushima prefecture
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  • detected the small quantity at 4 places of south Soma city. Being maximum, water 1 liter (kilometer) to hit and but with 14.7 Becquerel, below provisional regulation value (1 kilo- hit, 200 Becquerel) of the public welfare Ministry of Labor, the new reference level (same 10 Becquerel) which aims April toward of next year enforcement was exceeded at 3 places. To investigate at 1317 places of the same city and Hirono Cho and Naraha Cho 10, in November, as for the other self-governing community and the like of the same area in the midst of continuation. At 1 places of the same Ku Kitahara as 2 places of south Soma Ichihara Cho Ku Kita Nagano, per 1 liters 11.4~14.7 Becquerel, 1.3 Becquerel were detected with the same Ku 萱 beach. As for detection lower limit value with 5 Becquerel, as for the other well it was non- detection. According to the environmental ministry you say that there is a possibility the earth near the cesium is attached blending. The well with private possession, has informed about the result, almost there is no possibility many people drinking.
D'coda Dcoda

BP's Deception in the Gulf : Part 1- The farcical 3 leaks on the broken riser story [10... - 0 views

bklim.newsvine.com/...eaks-on-the-broken-riser-story

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 11 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Of all the lies that came out of the Gulf disaster, the most preposterous has been the 3 leaks on the riser story. Figure 165-0a to 165-0c were the first few schematic illustrations of BP’s blowout incident. They were so embarrassingly stupid and logic defying, most experts believed the schematics were deliberately drawn by cartoonists to confuse the average Joe Public. The patchwork of realities resembled a makeshift car hastily assembled from parts of different size vehicles. Obviously a mini car body does not match the oversize truck tires. It is obvious the 5½ inch drill pipe at leak(3) cannot be the same 21inch diameter riser (actually a well casing) at leak(2). Yet the world's technical experts willfully overlooked this fundamental discrepancy and allowed the criminals to get away with murders. And America, the world's greatest nation shouting human rights abuses all over the world, allowed this hideous crime of mass destruction in its own backyard to go unpunished? In China, the corporate criminals responsible for this environmental carnage would have been executed instead of having their lives back. Can the 11 dead crewmen, their young families and thousands of Gulf victims who suffered numerous medical problems from the toxic contaminated Gulf waters and corexit sprayed on them, ever have their lives back?
  • Surely the world's most technologically advanced country could not have been so easily fooled by this “3 wells & 3 leaks on a single riser” fairy tale (concocted Beyond Phantasm). Besides the many controversial circumstances surrounding the sinking of the burning rig (DWH) and the sudden breaking of the super-strong riser in calm water, how could a third open-ended leak (3) be even possible beyond the completely severed riser at the second leak (2)? See fig165-0c. Leak(2) has to be the blown crater of well no.#3 as illustrated in many of our previous articles and irrefutably shown in Figure 165-5 with the right coordinates in the few undoctored videos.
  • “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” S Homes.
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  • ince June 2010, we have illustrated many physics of impossibilities concocted by BP. Two years later, it seems the world has not awaken from its ignorantly blissful slumber. This disaster is more than just a disastrous mega oil spill. If the world's foremost scientists and investigators cannot figure out the many fundamental flaws in the simple “3 leaks-3 wells” fairy tale, how can there be any hope of ever solving problems beyond kindergarten level? Forget the carbon tax, the ban on hazardous gas emission and just about any anti-pollution measures designed to improve the global environment. All these schemes have sinister undertones with profiting on mass miseries of others.
  • In the Gulf disaster, you have the biggest environmental polluter in human history. The punishment for a crime of mass destruction that could have been averted, was just a slap on the wrist? If this is not the clearest proof of corruption at the highest level and biggest HSE (health, safety & environment) farce, then what is?
  • It was not the failure of safety regulations but the enforcement of regulations. The government admitted this much by sacking MMS's director and changing it to BOEMRE. It was not the failure of technology but the devious use of technology to cloak unfair business practices or safety farce at the very least. But would shrewd corporate criminals risk billions of investment dollars just to skimp on some daily operation expenses and safety devices? Just like the fairy tale of the 3 leaks, this was just the red herring. The oil industry will start on its decline just as the coal industry did, after its replacement by alternative cheaper and cleaner energy sources (The Future of Free Energy).
  • Giant global oil corporations may not have the next 10 years to recover their mega billion dollar investments. With the writings on the wall and their failures to control (prevent) the advent of free energy, the oil oligarchs had to devise emergency exit schemes before oil independence becomes public knowledge. High crude oil prices cannot be manipulated too high or long enough to recoup their billions of investment dollars globally. They risk becoming economic dinosaurs.
  • D'coda Dcoda on 11 Feb 12
     
    Lengthy article with lots of visuals, only partially annotated so read the entire article at the site
D'coda Dcoda

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Early Days of Confusion and Mistakes at the Plant Being Reveal... - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...-nuke-plant-early-days-of.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 17 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • The Kan Administration set up a fact-finding commission in late May to figure out what went wrong at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant that led to the catastrophic accident, even if the accident is still ongoing as of August.The Kan Administration set up a fact-finding commission in late May to figure out what went wrong at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant that led to the catastrophic accident, even if the accident is still ongoing as of August. There were many critics who said "First thing first", which was to stop the emission of radioactive materials from the broken reactors and do whatever possible to reduce the amount of the contaminated water, and .. (list is endless). But the government, who is always eager to paint a positive picture that everything is according to schedule and going well, wanted the commission to "investigate" the accident to learn from the mistakes.
  • TEPCO was preoccupied with the condition of the reactor and the Containment Vessel, and didn't think of the risk of hydrogen explosion. "There was no one who could have predicted the explosion.
  • The Kan Administration set up a fact-finding commission in late May to figure out what went wrong at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant that led to the catastrophic accident, even if the accident is still ongoing as of August.The Kan Administration set up a fact-finding commission in late May to figure out what went wrong at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant that led to the catastrophic accident, even if the accident is still ongoing as of August. There were many critics who said "First thing first", which was to stop the emission of radioactive materials from the broken reactors and do whatever possible to reduce the amount of the contaminated water, and .. (list is endless). But the government, who is always eager to paint a positive picture that everything is according to schedule and going well, wanted the commission to "investigate" the accident to learn from the mistakes.
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  • The Kan Administration set up a fact-finding commission in late May to figure out what went wrong at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant that led to the catastrophic accident, even if the accident is still ongoing as of August.The Kan Administration set up a fact-finding commission in late May to figure out what went wrong at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant that led to the catastrophic accident, even if the accident is still ongoing as of August. There were many critics who said "First thing first", which was to stop the emission of radioactive materials from the broken reactors and do whatever possible to reduce the amount of the contaminated water, and .. (list is endless). But the government, who is always eager to paint a positive picture that everything is according to schedule and going well, wanted the commission to "investigate" the accident to learn from the mistakes.There were many critics who said "First thing first", which was to stop the emission of radioactive materials from the broken reactors and do whatever possible to reduce the amount of the contaminated water, and .. (list is endless). But the government, who is always eager to paint a positive picture that everything is according to schedule and going well, wanted the commission to "investigate" the accident to learn from the mistakes.
  • TEPCO was preoccupied with the condition of the reactor and the Containment Vessel, and didn't think of the risk of hydrogen explosion. "There was no one who could have predicted the explosion.
  • The Kan Administration set up a fact-finding commission in late May to figure out what went wrong at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant that led to the catastrophic accident, even if the accident is still ongoing as of August.
  • There were many critics who said "First thing first", which was to stop the emission of radioactive materials from the broken reactors and do whatever possible to reduce the amount of the contaminated water, and .. (list is endless). But the government, who is always eager to paint a positive picture that everything is according to schedule and going well, wanted the commission to "investigate" the accident to learn from the mistakes.
  • What better way to give the impression that the accident is over, than to form a commission to investigate the accident?
  • Still, the commission led by a Tokyo University professor (emeritus) and including 3 attorneys (one of them a UN committee member fighting for equal rights for women) and one novelist, has been interviewing (or "interrogating" is the word used in the Japanese press) TEPCO managers at Fukushima I Nuke Plant, and part of their findings have apparently been leaked to Mainichi Shinbun. The commission meetings are not open to the public.
  • From Mainichi Shinbun (2:31AM JST 8/17/2011), what TEPCO managers at the plant is saying:
  • About the explosion of Reactor 1 building at 3:36PM on March 12:
  • There was no manual for the vent operation. They figured out the procedure by studying the blueprint
  • TEPCO was preoccupied with the condition of the reactor and the Containment Vessel, and didn't think of the risk of hydrogen explosion. "There was no one who could have predicted the explosion.
  • EPCO was preoccupied with the condition of the reactor and the Containment Vessel, and didn't think of the risk of hydrogen explosion. "There was no one who could have predicted the explosion.
  • TEPCO was preoccupied with the condition of the reactor and the Containment Vessel, and didn't think of the risk of hydrogen explosion. "There was no one who could have predicted the explosion.""
  • D'coda Dcoda on 17 Aug 11
     
    Highlighter wasn't working properly, good idea to check the source doc for remainder that wouldn't copy
D'coda Dcoda

Fukushima radiation alarms doctors [18Aug11] - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...201181665921711896.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 19 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Scientists and doctors are calling for a new national policy in Japan that mandates the testing of food, soil, water, and the air for radioactivity still being emitted from Fukushima's heavily damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant."How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?" asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives. "The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet," said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant. There is widespread concern in Japan about a general lack of government monitoring for radiation, which has caused people to begin their own independent monitoring, which are also finding disturbingly high levels of radiation. Kodama's centre, using 27 facilities to measure radiation across the country, has been closely monitoring the situation at Fukushima - and their findings are alarming.According to Dr Kodama, the total amount of radiation released over a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is the equivalent to more than 29 "Hiroshima-type atomic bombs" and the amount of uranium released "is equivalent to 20" Hiroshima bombs.
  • Kodama, along with other scientists, is concerned about the ongoing crisis resulting from the Fukushima situation, as well as what he believes to be inadequate government reaction, and believes the government needs to begin a large-scale response in order to begin decontaminating affected areas.Distrust of the Japanese government's response to the nuclear disaster is now common among people living in the effected prefectures, and people are concerned about their health.Recent readings taken at the plant are alarming.When on August 2nd readings of 10,000 millisieverts (10 sieverts) of radioactivity per hour were detected at the plant, Japan's science ministry said that level of dose is fatal to humans, and is enough radiation to kill a person within one to two weeks after the exposure. 10,000 millisieverts (mSv) is the equivalent of approximately 100,000 chest x-rays.
  • t is an amount 250 per cent higher than levels recorded at the plant in March after it was heavily damaged by the earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), that took the reading, used equipment to measure radiation from a distance, and was unable to ascertain the exact level because the device's maximum reading is only 10,000 mSv. TEPCO also detected 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) per hour in debris outside the plant, as well as finding 4,000 mSv per hour inside one of the reactor buildings.
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  • he Fukushima disaster has been rated as a "level seven" on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). This level, the highest, is the same as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, and is defined by the scale as: "[A] major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures."The Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters are the only nuclear accidents to have been rated level seven on the scale, which is intended to be logarithmic, similar to the scale used to describe the comparative magnitude of earthquakes. Each increasing level represents an accident approximately ten times more severe than the previous level.
  • Doctors in Japan are already treating patients suffering health effects they attribute to radiation from the ongoing nuclear disaster."We have begun to see increased nosebleeds, stubborn cases of diarrhoea, and flu-like symptoms in children," Dr Yuko Yanagisawa, a physician at Funabashi Futawa Hospital in Chiba Prefecture, told Al Jazeera.
  • r Helen Caldicott, the founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985, is equally concerned about the health effects from Japan's nuclear disaster."Radioactive elements get into the testicles and ovaries, and these cause genetic disease like diabetes, cystic fibrosis, and mental retardation," she told Al Jazeera. "There are 2,600 of these diseases that get into our genes and are passed from generation to generation, forever."
  • Al Jazeera's Aela Callan, reporting from Japan's Ibaraki prefecture, said of the recently detected high radiation readings: "It is now looking more likely that this area has been this radioactive since the earthquake and tsunami, but no one realised until now."Workers at Fukushima are only allowed to be exposed to 250 mSv of ionising radiation per year.
  • radioactive cesium exceeding the government limit was detected in processed tea made in Tochigi City, about 160km from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, according to the Tochigi Prefectural Government, who said radioactive cesium was detected in tea processed from leaves harvested in the city in early July. The level is more than 3 times the provisional government limit.
  • anagisawa's hospital is located approximately 200km from Fukushima, so the health problems she is seeing that she attributes to radiation exposure causes her to be concerned by what she believes to be a grossly inadequate response from the government.From her perspective, the only thing the government has done is to, on April 25, raise the acceptable radiation exposure limit for children from 1 mSv/year to 20 mSv/year.
  • This has caused controversy, from the medical point of view," Yanagisawa told Al Jazeera. "This is certainly an issue that involves both personal internal exposures as well as low-dose exposures."Junichi Sato, Greenpeace Japan Executive Director, said: "It is utterly outrageous to raise the exposure levels for children to twenty times the maximum limit for adults."
  • The Japanese government cannot simply increase safety limits for the sake of political convenience or to give the impression of normality."Authoritative current estimates of the health effects of low-dose ionizing radiation are published in the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation VII (BEIR VII) report from the US National Academy of Sciences.
  • he report reflects the substantial weight of scientific evidence proving there is no exposure to ionizing radiation that is risk-free. The BEIR VII estimates that each 1 mSv of radiation is associated with an increased risk of all forms of cancer other than leukemia of about 1-in-10,000; an increased risk of leukemia of about 1-in-100,000; and a 1-in-17,500 increased risk of cancer death.
  • She attributes the symptoms to radiation exposure, and added: "We are encountering new situations we cannot explain with the body of knowledge we have relied upon up until now.""The situation at the Daiichi Nuclear facility in Fukushima has not yet been fully stabilised, and we can't yet see an end in sight," Yanagisawa said. "Because the nuclear material has not yet been encapsulated, radiation continues to stream into the environment."
  • So far, the only cases of acute radiation exposure have involved TEPCO workers at the stricken plant. Lower doses of radiation, particularly for children, are what many in the medical community are most concerned about, according to Dr Yanagisawa.
  • Humans are not yet capable of accurately measuring the low dose exposure or internal exposure," she explained, "Arguing 'it is safe because it is not yet scientifically proven [to be unsafe]' would be wrong. That fact is that we are not yet collecting enough information to prove the situations scientifically. If that is the case, we can never say it is safe just by increasing the annual 1mSv level twenty fold."
  • Her concern is that the new exposure standards by the Japanese government do not take into account differences between adults and children, since children's sensitivity to radiation exposure is several times higher than that of adults.
  • Al Jazeera contacted Prime Minister Naoto Kan's office for comment on the situation. Speaking on behalf of the Deputy Cabinet Secretary for Public Relations for the Prime Minister's office, Noriyuki Shikata said that the Japanese government "refers to the ICRP [International Commission on Radiological Protection] recommendation in 2007, which says the reference levels of radiological protection in emergency exposure situations is 20-100 mSv per year. The Government of Japan has set planned evacuation zones and specific spots recommended for evacuation where the radiation levels reach 20 mSv/year, in order to avoid excessive radiation exposure."
  • he prime minister's office explained that approximately 23bn yen ($300mn) is planned for decontamination efforts, and the government plans to have a decontamination policy "by around the end of August", with a secondary budget of about 97bn yen ($1.26bn) for health management and monitoring operations in the affected areas. When questioned about the issue of "acute radiation exposure", Shikata pointed to the Japanese government having received a report from TEPCO about six of their workers having been exposed to more than 250 mSv, but did not mention any reports of civilian exposures.
  • Prime Minister Kan's office told Al Jazeera that, for their ongoing response to the Fukushima crisis, "the government of Japan has conducted all the possible countermeasures such as introduction of automatic dose management by ID codes for all workers and 24 hour allocation of doctors. The government of Japan will continue to tackle the issue of further improving the health management including medium and long term measures". Shikata did not comment about Kodama's findings.
  • Nishio Masamichi, director of Japan's Hakkaido Cancer Centre and a radiation treatment specialist, published an article on July 27 titled: "The Problem of Radiation Exposure Countermeasures for the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Concerns for the Present Situation". In the report, Masamichi said that such a dramatic increase in permitted radiation exposure was akin to "taking the lives of the people lightly". He believes that 20mSv is too high, especially for children who are far more susceptible to radiation.
  • Kodama is an expert in internal exposure to radiation, and is concerned that the government has not implemented a strong response geared towards measuring radioactivity in food. "Although three months have passed since the accident already, why have even such simple things have not been done yet?" he said. "I get very angry and fly into a rage."
  • Radiation has a high risk to embryos in pregnant women, juveniles, and highly proliferative cells of people of growing ages. Even for adults, highly proliferative cells, such as hairs, blood, and intestinal epithelium cells, are sensitive to radiation."
  • Early on in the disaster, Dr Makoto Kondo of the department of radiology of Keio University's School of Medicine warned of "a large difference in radiation effects on adults compared to children".Kondo explained the chances of children developing cancer from radiation exposure was many times higher than adults.
  • Children's bodies are underdeveloped and easily affected by radiation, which could cause cancer or slow body development. It can also affect their brain development," he said.Yanagisawa assumes that the Japanese government's evacuation standards, as well as their raising the permissible exposure limit to 20mSv "can cause hazards to children's health," and therefore "children are at a greater risk".
  • Kodama, who is also a doctor of internal medicine, has been working on decontamination of radioactive materials at radiation facilities in hospitals of the University of Tokyo for the past several decades. "We had rain in Tokyo on March 21 and radiation increased to .2 micosieverts/hour and, since then, the level has been continuously high," said Kodama, who added that his reporting of radiation findings to the government has not been met an adequate reaction. "At that time, the chief cabinet secretary, Mr Edano, told the Japanese people that there would be no immediate harm to their health."
  • n early July, officials with the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission announced that approximately 45 per cent of children in the Fukushima region had experienced thyroid exposure to radiation, according to a survey carried out in late March. The commission has not carried out any surveys since then.
  • Now the Japanese government is underestimating the effects of low dosage and/or internal exposures and not raising the evacuation level even to the same level adopted in Chernobyl," Yanagisawa said. "People's lives are at stake, especially the lives of children, and it is obvious that the government is not placing top priority on the people's lives in their measures."Caldicott feels the lack of a stronger response to safeguard the health of people in areas where radiation is found is "reprehensible".
  • Millions of people need to be evacuated from those high radiation zones, especially the children."
  • Dr Yanagisawa is concerned about what she calls "late onset disorders" from radiation exposure resulting from the Fukushima disaster, as well as increasing cases of infertility and miscarriages."Incidence of cancer will undoubtedly increase," she said. "In the case of children, thyroid cancer and leukemia can start to appear after several years. In the case of adults, the incidence of various types of cancer will increase over the course of several decades."Yanagisawa said it is "without doubt" that cancer rates among the Fukushima nuclear workers will increase, as will cases of lethargy, atherosclerosis, and other chronic diseases among the general population in the effected areas.
  • Radioactive food and water
  • An August 1 press release from Japan's MHLW said no radioactive materials have been detected in the tap water of Fukushima prefecture, according to a survey conducted by the Japanese government's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters. The government defines no detection as "no results exceeding the 'Index values for infants (radioactive iodine)'," and says "in case the level of radioactive iodine in tap water exceeds 100 Bq/kg, to refrain from giving infants formula milk dissolved by tap water, having them intake tap water … "
  • Yet, on June 27, results were published from a study that found 15 residents of Fukushima prefecture had tested positive for radiation in their urine. Dr Nanao Kamada, professor emeritus of radiation biology at Hiroshima University, has been to Fukushima prefecture twice in order to take internal radiation exposure readings and facilitated the study.
  • The risk of internal radiation is more dangerous than external radiation," Dr Kamada told Al Jazeera. "And internal radiation exposure does exist for Fukushima residents."According to the MHLW, distribution of several food products in Fukushima Prefecture remain restricted. This includes raw milk, vegetables including spinach, kakina, and all other leafy vegetables, including cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and beef.
  • he distribution of tealeaves remains restricted in several prefectures, including all of Ibaraki, and parts of Tochigi, Gunma, Chiba, Kanagawa Prefectures.Iwate prefecture suspended all beef exports because of caesium contamination on August 1, making it the fourth prefecture to do so.
  • yunichi Tokuyama, an expert with the Iwate Prefecture Agricultural and Fisheries Department, told Al Jazeera he did not know how to deal with the crisis. He was surprised because he did not expect radioactive hot spots in his prefecture, 300km from the Fukushima nuclear plant."The biggest cause of this contamination is the rice straw being fed to the cows, which was highly radioactive," Tokuyama told Al Jazeera.
  • Kamada feels the Japanese government is acting too slowly in response to the Fukushima disaster, and that the government needs to check radiation exposure levels "in each town and village" in Fukushima prefecture."They have to make a general map of radiation doses," he said. "Then they have to be concerned about human health levels, and radiation exposures to humans. They have to make the exposure dose map of Fukushima prefecture. Fukushima is not enough. Probably there are hot spots outside of Fukushima. So they also need to check ground exposure levels."
  • Radiation that continues to be released has global consequences.More than 11,000 tonnes of radioactive water has been released into the ocean from the stricken plant.
  • Those radioactive elements bio-concentrate in the algae, then the crustaceans eat that, which are eaten by small then big fish," Caldicott said. "That's why big fish have high concentrations of radioactivity and humans are at the top of the food chain, so we get the most radiation, ultimately."
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ACPD - Abstract - Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the Fukus... - 0 views

www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/...acpd-11-28319-2011.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 26 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • A. Stohl1, P. Seibert2, G. Wotawa3, D. Arnold2,4, J. F. Burkhart1, S. Eckhardt1, C. Tapia5, A. Vargas4, and T. J. Yasunari61NILU – Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, Norway2Institute of Meteorology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria3Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, Vienna, Austria4Institute of Energy Technologies (INTE), Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona, Spain5Department of Physics and Nucelar Engineering (FEN),Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona, Spain6Universities Space Research Association, Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology and Research, Columbia, MD 21044, USAAbstract. On 11 March 2011, an earthquake occurred about 130 km off the Pacific coast of Japan's main island Honshu, followed by a large tsunami. The resulting loss of electric power at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant (FD-NPP) developed into a disaster causing massive release of radioactivity into the atmosphere. In this study, we determine the emissions of two isotopes, the noble gas xenon-133 (133Xe) and the aerosol-bound caesium-137 (137Cs), which have very different release characteristics as well as behavior in the atmosphere. To determine radionuclide emissions as a function of height and time until 20 April, we made a first guess of release rates based on fuel inventories and documented accident events at the site.
  • This first guess was subsequently improved by inverse modeling, which combined the first guess with the results of an atmospheric transport model, FLEXPART, and measurement data from several dozen stations in Japan, North America and other regions. We used both atmospheric activity concentration measurements as well as, for 137Cs, measurements of bulk deposition. Regarding 133Xe, we find a total release of 16.7 (uncertainty range 13.4–20.0) EBq, which is the largest radioactive noble gas release in history not associated with nuclear bomb testing. There is strong evidence that the first strong 133Xe release started very early, possibly immediately after the earthquake and the emergency shutdown on 11 March at 06:00 UTC. The entire noble gas inventory of reactor units 1–3 was set free into the atmosphere between 11 and 15 March 2011. For 137Cs, the inversion results give a total emission of 35.8 (23.3–50.1) PBq, or about 42% of the estimated Chernobyl emission. Our results indicate that 137Cs emissions peaked on 14–15 March but were generally high from 12 until 19 March, when they suddenly dropped by orders of magnitude exactly when spraying of water on the spent-fuel pool of unit 4 started. This indicates that emissions were not only coming from the damaged reactor cores, but also from the spent-fuel pool of unit 4 and confirms that the spraying was an effective countermeasure. We also explore the main dispersion and deposition patterns of the radioactive cloud, both regionally for Japan as well as for the entire Northern Hemisphere. While at first sight it seemed fortunate that westerly winds prevailed most of the time during the accident, a different picture emerges from our detailed analysis
  • Exactly during and following the period of the strongest 137Cs emissions on 14 and 15 March as well as after another period with strong emissions on 19 March, the radioactive plume was advected over Eastern Honshu Island, where precipitation deposited a large fraction of 137Cs on land surfaces. The plume was also dispersed quickly over the entire Northern Hemisphere, first reaching North America on 15 March and Europe on 22 March. In general, simulated and observed concentrations of 133Xe and 137Cs both at Japanese as well as at remote sites were in good quantitative agreement with each other. Altogether, we estimate that 6.4 TBq of 137Cs, or 19% of the total fallout until 20 April, were deposited over Japanese land areas, while most of the rest fell over the North Pacific Ocean. Only 0.7 TBq, or 2% of the total fallout were deposited on land areas other than Japan.Discussion Paper (PDF, 6457 KB)   Supplement (13 KB)   Interactive Discussion (Open, 0 Comments)   Manuscript under review for ACP   
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EPA Finds Compound Used in Fracking in Wyoming Aquifer [10Nov11]f - 0 views

www.propublica.org/...ng-compound-in-wyoming-aquifer

fracking natural gas fresh water contamination

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 11 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • As the country awaits results from a nationwide safety study on the natural gas drilling process of fracking, a separate government investigation into contamination in a place where residents have long complained [1] that drilling fouled their water has turned up alarming levels of underground pollution. A pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing, according to new water test results [2] released yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency.
  • The findings are consistent with water samples the EPA has collected from at least 42 homes in the area since 2008, when ProPublica began reporting [3] on foul water and health concerns in Pavillion and the agency started investigating reports of contamination there. Last year -- after warning residents not to drink [4] or cook with the water and to ventilate their homes when they showered -- the EPA drilled the monitoring wells to get a more precise picture of the extent of the contamination.
  • The Pavillion area has been drilled extensively for natural gas over the last two decades and is home to hundreds of gas wells. Residents have alleged for nearly a decade [1] that the drilling -- and hydraulic fracturing in particular -- has caused their water to turn black and smell like gasoline. Some residents say they suffer neurological impairment [5], loss of smell, and nerve pain they associate with exposure to pollutants. The gas industry -- led by the Canadian company EnCana, which owns the wells in Pavillion -- has denied that its activities are responsible for the contamination. EnCana has, however, supplied drinking water to residents.
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  • The information released yesterday by the EPA was limited to raw sampling data: The agency did not interpret the findings or make any attempt to identify the source of the pollution. From the start of its investigation, the EPA has been careful to consider all possible causes of the contamination and to distance its inquiry from the controversy around hydraulic fracturing. Still, the chemical compounds the EPA detected are consistent with those produced from drilling processes, including one -- a solvent called 2-Butoxyethanol (2-BE) -- widely used in the process of hydraulic fracturing. The agency said it had not found contaminants such as nitrates and fertilizers that would have signaled that agricultural activities were to blame.
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The human element | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [01Sep11] - 0 views

www.thebulletin.org/...the-human-element

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 09 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • 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.
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  • The wild card. Finally, human nature being what it is, there are always the wild cards: people who kill romantic rivals via nuclear meltdown, freelance experimenters, terrorists, operators who should never have made it through personnel screening, operators who are drunk on the job, operators whose performance has declined through laziness, depression, boredom, or any host of reasons.
  • Overwhelmed by speed and complexity. As Charles Perrow argues in his influential book Normal Accidents, which was inspired by the Three Mile Island accident, human operators function well in environments of routinized normality; but, when highly complex technical systems function in unpredicted ways -- especially if the jagged interactions between subsystems unfold very rapidly -- then the human capacity for cognitive processing is quickly overwhelmed. In other words, if a reactor is veering toward an accident caused by the failure of a single system in a way that operators have been trained to handle, then they are likely to retain control. But, if the accident-in-the-making involves unforeseen combinations of failures unfolding quickly and requires improvised responses rather than routinized ones, the outcome is far less hopeful.
  • The politics of oversight. Regulatory apparatuses tend to degrade over time -- especially in political systems such as America's, which tend to facilitate the corporate capture of government functions. Thanks to the leverage afforded by campaign donations and the revolving door between public and private employment, industries have become extremely skillful at inserting their former employees, future employees, and other allies into the very regulatory agencies that oversee them. A brilliant piece of investigative journalism on the Securities and Exchange Commission in the latest issue of Rolling Stone shows how this can reduce a regulatory agency to an empty husk. Whether it's the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the Food and Drug Administration, the story is the same: Government agencies that started off as aggressive watchdogs have become absorbed over time by those over whom they have titular oversight. Americans recently saw the dire consequences of this trend in the banking meltdown of 2008.
  • The bottom line: Nuclear safety is threatened by human as well as technical malfunctions, and the risk of disaster can only be attenuated through attention to the principles of social engineering as well as nuclear engineering. While human behavior can always overflow the bounds of our plans for its containment, there are measures that can at least lower the risk of a nuclear disaster caused by human factors: First, the nuclear industry needs to do more to both protect and reward whistle-blowers; and, second, the industry needs regulators with a genuine desire to exercise oversight -- rather than people hoping to increase their income by later going to work for the very companies that they were regulating. Unfortunately, this goes against the ethos of the contemporary United States, where the trend-lines are going in the wrong direction.
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Fracking - energy revolution or skillfully marketed mirage? [27Jun11] - 0 views

atomicinsights.com/...killfully-marketed-mirage.html

fracking nuclear energy natural gas

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 08 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • The New York Times published an article on Sunday, June 26, 2011 titled Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush. The article quotes a number of emails from natural gas industry insiders, financial analysts that cover the gas industry and skeptical geologists to produce a number of questions about the long term viability of an increasing dependence on cheap natural gas from hydraulic fracturing. The message is that the gas industry has been engaging in hyperbole regarding its capacity to expand production at current prices to meet market demands.
  • the people quoted in the NY Times article do not agree that the technique magically produces low cost gas in unprecedented abundance.
  • “Our engineers here project these wells out to 20-30 years of production and in my mind that has yet to be proven as viable,” wrote a geologist at Chesapeake in a March 17 e-mail to a federal energy analyst. “In fact I’m quite skeptical of it myself when you see the % decline in the first year of production.”
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  • “In these shale gas plays no well is really economic right now,” the geologist said in a previous e-mail to the same official on March 16. “They are all losing a little money or only making a little bit of money.”
  • Around the same time the geologist sent the e-mail, Mr. McClendon, Chesapeake’s chief executive, told investors, “It’s time to get bullish on natural gas.”
  • Aubrey McClendon, whose name is not terribly familiar to people outside of the energy industry, has an enormous financial interest in encouraging customers to become addicted to natural gas so that they will keep buying even if the price shoots up – like it did in the period from 2000-2008. During that time McClendon and his company rode a wave that resulted in growing a company from tiny to huge based on debt-financed investments in leases and drilling rigs designed to produce gas in the midcontinent region of the US. A high portion of the company’s wells were stimulated with hydraulic fracturing.
  • When the price of natural gas collapsed in 2008, mostly as a result of the contraction in demand caused by the financial crisis and resulting economic recession/depression, McClendon nearly lost control of his company. He had to sell “substantially all” of shares at a dramatically lowered price in order to pay off creditors and meet margin calls.
  • No U.S. chief executive officer has bought more of his own company’s stock in recent years than McClendon, even as the shares reached all-time highs. His appetite for Chesapeake stock made him “a darling of Wall Street,” Tulsa money manager Jake Dollarhide said. But his purchases were made on margin, meaning he used borrowed money. As the value of the stock fell, McClendon was forced to raise cash to meet margin calls. Recent losses — Chesapeake shares have plummeted 60 percent in the past three weeks — left him unable to fulfill those requirements.Read more: http://newsok.com/market-slide-wipes-out-ceos-chesapeake-holdings/article/3310107#ixzz1QSst9NnL
  • McClendon responded vigorously to the NY Times’s suggestion that the gas revolution was more mirage than miracle in a lengthy letter to Chesapeake Energy employees that was published on the company’s public Facebook page. (Note: The timing of this letter with regard to the NY Times article is telling. The article appeared in the Sunday edition of the Times on June 26, 2011. The letter to employees included a time stamp indicating that it was released at 8:37 pm on the same day while the Facebook page indicates that it was posted to the world by 11:27 pm. In other words – there is no rest for the weary in the Internet era.)
  • McClendon’s letter blamed the NY Times article on environmental activists that proclaim a desire to supply all of the US energy needs from wind and solar energy. It also issued a call to action for Chesapeake Energy employees:
  • We hope that every Chesapeake employee can be part of our public education outreach. At more than 11,000 strong, we are an army of “factivists” – people who have knowledge of the facts and the personal knowledge and ability to spread them. You can do this by talking to your families, friends and others in your spheres of influence (schools, churches, civic organizations, etc) about the kind of company you work for and the integrity of what we do every day for our shareholders, our communities, our states, our nation, our economy and our environment. You don’t have to be an expert to stand up and tell folks that Chesapeake is committed to doing what’s right – and that commitment is expressed every day by you and your colleagues across the company.
  • You can also get involved by joining Chesapeake Fed PAC, our political action committee. Our opponents are extremely well funded and organized. We need to make sure our voice is heard in Washington, DC and with elected officials who are making decisions that affect our industry, our company and our ability to operate in the many states in which shale gas and oil have been discovered.
  • After describing how Chesapeake has 125 active drilling rigs and how it has developed a “swat team” with more than 100 employees that works with environmental groups to produce legislation designed to slow the development of new coal fired power plants and to hasten the closure of existing coal plants, Tom Price said the following:
  • “It’s been said before, but the demand side of the equation is extremely important right now. I mean this really is a zero sum game. I think that there are a number of very progressive utilities out there that recognize the challenges that they are facing with regard to climate change, but the Transport Rule, Clean Air Act and various others.”
  • I remain convinced that there is a market battle going on between natural gas and nuclear energy.
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Problems Plague Cleanup at Hanford Nuclear Waste Site [19Jan12] - 0 views

m.usatoday.com/...52622796

nuclear waste

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 19 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • 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."
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  • The "design-build" approach "is good if you're building a McDonald's," said Gene Aloise, the GAO's director of nuclear non-proliferation and security. "It's not good if you're building a one-of-a-kind, high-risk nuclear waste facility."The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent federal panel that oversees public health and safety at nuclear weapons sites, is urging Energy Secretary Steven Chu to require more extensive testing of designs for some of the plant's most critical components."Design and construction of the project continue despite there being unresolved technical issues, and there is a lot of risk associated with that," said Peter Winokur, the board's chairman. The waste at Hanford, stored in 177 deteriorating underground tanks, "is a real risk to the public and the environment. It is essential that this plant work and work well."
  • Documents obtained by USA TODAY show at least three federal investigations are underway to examine the project, which is funded and supervised by the Department of Energy, owner of Hanford Site. Bechtel National is the prime contractor.In November, the Energy Department's independent oversight office notified Bechtel that it is investigating "potential nuclear safety non-compliances" in the design and installation of plant systems and components. And the department's inspector general is in the final stages of a separate probe focused on whether Bechtel installed critical equipment that didn't meet quality-control standards.Meanwhile, Congress' Government Accountability Office has launched a sweeping review of everything from cost and schedule overruns to the risks associated with the Energy Department's decision to proceed with construction before completing and verifying the design of key components.
  • Everything about the waste treatment plant at Hanford is unprecedented — and urgent.The volume of waste, its complex mix of highly radioactive and toxic material, the size of the processing facilities — all present technical challenges with no proven solution. The plant is as big as the task: a sprawling, 65-acre compound of four giant buildings, each longer than a football field and as tall as 12 stories high.The plant will separate the waste's high- and low-level radioactive materials, then blend them with compounds that are superheated to create a molten glass composite — a process called "vitrification." The mix is poured into giant steel cylinders, where it cools to a solid form that is safe and stable for long-term storage — tens of thousands of glass tubes in steel coffins.
  • Once the plant starts running, it could take 30 years or more to finish its cleanup work.The 177 underground tanks at Hanford hold detritus from 45 years of plutonium production at the site, which had up to nine nuclear reactors before it closed in 1989. Some of the tanks, with capacities ranging from 55,000 gallons to more than 1 million gallons, date to the mid-1940s, when Hanford's earliest reactor made plutonium for the first atomic bomb ever detonated: the "Trinity" test at Alamagordo, N.M. It also produced the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in World War II.
  • More than 60 of the tanks are thought to have leaked, losing a million gallons of waste into soil and groundwater. So far, the contamination remains within the boundaries of the barren, 586-square-mile site, but it poses an ongoing threat to the nearby Columbia River, a water source for communities stretching southwest to Portland, Ore. And, while the liquid most likely to escape from the older tanks has been moved to newer, double-walled tanks, the risk of more leaks compounds that threat.
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Japan-based Author: Fukushima damage so great "Japan gov't would go well beyond bankrup... - 0 views

enenews.com/to-10-years-of-national-budget

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Writer urges Taiwan to abandon nuclear power, Taipei Times, Nov. 9, 2011: Saying that the compensation for damage caused by the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan was way beyond what Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) or the Japanese government could afford, a Japan-based Taiwanese writer yesterday urged Taiwan to abandon all nuclear power. Writer Liu Li-erh (劉黎兒), who has lived in Tokyo for 30 years, made the appeal at a press conference held at the legislature [...]
  • Liu said the president of TEPCO had remarked that nuclear power was actually a very expensive power source when compensation fees are calculated, and that a professor from the University of Tokyo has even estimated that it would cost up to ￥800 trillion, amounting to approximately 10 years of the national budget, if the soil and road surface of radiation-affected areas are to be cleaned up. The damage is so much that the Japanese government would go well beyond bankruptcy, Liu said.
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Fracking Radiation Targeted By DOE, GE [03Aug11] - 0 views

blogs.forbes.com/...g-radiation-targeted-by-doe-ge

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 04 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • The Department of Energy and General Electric will spend $2 million over the next two years to remove naturally occurring radioactive materials from the fracking fluids produced by America’s booming shale-gas industry. The New York State Department of Health has identified Radium-226 as a radionuclide of particular concern in the Marcellus Shale formation deep beneath the Appalachian Mountains. In hydraulic fracturing operations, drillers force water and a mixture of chemicals into wells to shatter the shale and free natural gas. The brine that returns to the surface has been found to contain up to 16,000 picoCuries per liter of radium-226 (pdf). The discharge limit in effluent for Radium 226 is 60 pCi/L, and the EPA’s drinking water standard is 5 pCi/L.
  • Uranium and Radon-222 have also been found in water returning to the surface from deep shale wells. In Pennsylvania, produced water has been discharged into streams and rivers from the state’s 71,000 wells after conventional wastewater treatment but without radiation testing, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The New York Times, which drew attention to the radioactive contamination earlier this year after studying internal EPA documents: The documents reveal that the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle. via The New York Times
  • GE’s Global Research lab in Niskayuna, NY has proposed removing radioactive elements from produced waters and brine using a membrane distillation system similar to conventional reverse osmosis, but designed specifically to capture these radioactive materials. GE will spend $400,000 on the project and DOE will supply $1.6 million. The Energy Department announced the project Monday. The process will produce concentrated radioactive waste, which will be disposed of through conventional means, which usually means storage in sealed containers for deep geological disposal. The government is seeking to address environmental concerns without stemming a boom in cheap gas unleashed by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in shale formations.
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New radiation hotspots prompt Japan to extend monitoring [27Aug11] - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...apan-to-extend-monitoring.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 27 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • The discovery of radiation hotspots well beyond the exclusion zone around the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant has forced the Japanese government to increase its monitoring from six to 22 prefectures in the east of the country.
  • Elevated levels of radiation have been found 125 miles from the power plant, which was destroyed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. That is well beyond the 18-mile exclusion zone that has been imposed.Officials in the city of Tokamachi, in northwest Niigata Prefecture, detected 27,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogramme (2.2lbs) of waste in a school compost heap. By law, any waste containing just 8,000 becquerels per kg must be treated as radioactive waste.
  • Experts and residents say the government should have begun monitoring further afield immediately after the plant began leaking radioactivity."Since the first week of the disaster, authorities have slowly been announcing that they would start checking fish, seaweed, vegetables for radiation," said Tom Gill, a British professor of anthropology at Meiji Gakuin University who is studying communities in the disaster zone.
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  • And the response in each case has - quite reasonably - to ask why it wasn't done previously," he said. "And this is no different."
  • As well as being slow to broaden the monitoring, Mr Gill says the figures being provided by the authorities are "extremely inconsistent."The education ministry, charged with compiling data, says on its web site that the maximum level of radiation in Fukushima Prefecture at present is 2.3 microsieverts per hour, while elsewhere on the same site it is showing a reading of 16.2 microsieverts in the hamlet of Nagadoro, on the edge of the exclusion zone.
  • Not only is that figure extremely high, but it's not going down," said Gill. "The village authorities' official line is that the residents will be able to go back in two years, and that might be so in some areas, but it is almost certainly out of the question for other areas."
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Is any job worth this risk? I speak to Fukushima clear-up workers [19Aug11] - 0 views

blogs.channel4.com/...17790

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 23 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Why on earth would anyone choose to work at what’s left of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station? The job description probably goes something like this: - must spend day in full body suit, gloves, thick rubber boots and full-facial mask
  • - must endure extremely high temperatures in aforementioned suits - must work on badly damaged site containing the remains of 4 crippled nuclear reactors
  • Employees are under strict instructions not to speak to journalists – and supervisors from their various employers keep an active eye on them when they return to Iwaki in the evening. We were thrown out of one hotel when we had the audacity to approach a group of men employed to clear rubble from the site. Yet there were others who wanted to talk – albeit anonymously. Their working conditions I asked? Terrible, they said: “a burning-hell”, “terrifying” and “very troubling” – phrases I recorded in my notebook. But I wasn’t getting any closer to answering my question – why work there?
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  • This blindingly obvious question was firmly in my mind when we travelled to Iwaki City – a mid-sized, non-descript sort of place that now finds itself uncomfortably close to the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. Many of its residents have now evacuated, fearing the radioactive leaks that continue to spew from the plant. Many of the 3,000 workers now employed in clean-up operations at the plant have taken their place, cramming the local hotels and renting otherwise deserted family homes.
  • These employment “opportunities” are an unfortunate by-product of Japan’s great earthquake and tsunami. The folks at the “Tokyo Electric Power Company” (TEPCO), built a 5.7m seawall to protect the complex from natural disasters – but the tsunami wave was 13.1 m high.
  • - must brave dangerously high levels of radiation (you may feel like you a suffocating in full-facial mask but no, you cannot take it off).
  • Money is certainly the big motivator. Japan has been mired in recession for decades and the country’s 54 nuclear power plants have long provided work to low or non-skilled, itinerant workers. Fukushima is no different – although it is much more dangerous.
  • A Channel 4 News researcher rang a number on a “jobs-available” poster that we found plastered on a wall in Iwaki. “What sort of experience do you have,” said the man on the phone to our researcher. “Well I’ve done some car maintenance,” said our researcher. “Good enough,” said the man, presumably one of the 600 “subcontractors” engaged by TEPCO. Our researcher asked about the daily rate. “Six-thousand yen (£50),” he said. That quickly went up to 8,500 yen (£67) as our researcher hummed and hawed a bit. But there was something special on offer said the subcontractor. “You can earn 40,000 yen (£315) an hour if you want, but what you have to do is dangerous.” We didn’t find out what that job entailed but it probably involved some sort of increased risk of radiation exposure.
  • One man told us he had come out of “a sense of duty” and there were others who were simply told by their employers that they had to work at Fukushima. “Could you refuse?” I asked one technician. “Well, that would put you in a very uncomfortable position,” he said before adding, “Japanese workers are very obedient.”
  • If they don’t challenge their superiors in the workplace, what do these men (and we didn’t meet any women working at the plant) tell their loved ones at home? Well, it turns out some of them don’t actually tell their wives and children what they’re up to. “Wives just get panicked,” said one. “It is better just to say that I’m working on the clean-up (of the coast) in Myagi,” he added.  Another employee described how his mother took the news. “She was totally shocked – but she didn’t stop me. (My family) are very worried about me – about the heat and my health and radiation exposure.”
  • It’s a long-term form of job security I suppose – the containment and maintenance of highly toxic materials that will take thousands of years to decompose. But is any job worth these sorts of risks? Workers told us they couldn’t afford to be choosey about where they take jobs – but I got the distinct impression the majority wished it was somewhere else.
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Officials trained on radioactivity for Uranium Mining - Tanzania [28Sep11] - 0 views

www.thecitizen.co.tz/...cials-trained-on-radioactivity

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 28 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Arusha. Adequate safety measures must be taken before the start of uranium mining in the country, experts observed here yesterday.They said Tanzania was still short of qualified personnel to handle radioactive materials as well as the requisite infrastructure for storage and transportation of uranium and its by products."Measures have to be taken because accidents involving nuclear material are quite lethal," said the director of Nuclear Technology with the Tanzania Atomic Energy Commission (Taec) Mr Firmin Banzi.Speaking to reporters at  the  start of a training course on radiation detection for the police and security officers from public institutions, the official said mishandling of radiation material was equally deadly. He said strict measures on safety would be put in place before any company is licensed to mine uranium found in some parts of the country.He added that an aggressive public sensitisation has been undertaken for communities living around the Mkuju River valley in Ruvuma Region and Bahi District in Dodoma where large deposits of uranium have been found.Mr Banzi explained that if not handled properly the radioactive uranium would expose people to life-threatening hazards and would as well have long-term effects on the environment and water through contamination.
  • He emphasized that once uranium mining starts, the security organs in the country must be extra vigilant against people who might steal the radiation material for bad motives such as terrorism."We are living in the world of conflicts. Radioactive material could be used as weapons of mass destruction, revenge and/or sabotages to fulfil political gains or individuals," he pointed out.According to him, the consequences of uncontrolled use of radioactive materials, especially during spillage or discharge, are many including water, food, air and environmental contamination.The week-long course at a hotel in Arusha is being attended by security officers drawn from the Intelligence Department, the police, Criminal Investigation Department, major airports, ports as well as some border posts.The official stressed that since nuclear material has to be handled with care, the relevant experts must keep abreast with the technology trends underlined by the nuclear security programme of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the global watchdog on the radiation matter
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Radioactive water found beneath Georgia nuclear Plant Hatch [03Oct11] - 0 views

www.ajc.com/...ter-found-beneath-1192383.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 03 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Radioactive water has been found underneath a nuclear power plant in southeast Georgia, but officials said Friday that the leak does not pose an immediate threat to public health and is unlikely to contaminate any drinking water
  • The Atlanta-based Southern Co. learned of the leak beneath Plant Hatch in Baxley on Wednesday when it identified radioactive tritium in two test wells about 25 feet below the ground, said Dennis Madison, a utility vice president who oversees the plant. Workers guided by ground-penetrating radar were planning to dig Friday to identify the source of the leak. Exposure to tritium increases the risk of developing cancer. But it emits low-level radiation and leaves the body fast, making it one of the least-dangerous radioactive elements. Madison and state environmental officials say it is unlikely plant workers or residents will be exposed to the radiation because it is confined to an area within the facility and was not headed toward any drinking water supplies.
  • "This water is totally contained right under the industrial footprint of our plant," Madison said. He said the utility hoped to identify the source of the leak no later than Sunday afternoon and intended to have it repaired early next week. While the size of the leak was unknown, it was enough to raise the water table in the wells about five feet. Both reactors at the site were functioning normally and showed no other signs of water loss. "We really don't know what the rate is," Madison said. "We know it's more than a drip." Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen that gets created as a byproduct inside nuclear reactors. It is commonly found in water. The maximum concentrations of tritium reported inside the wells was more than 200 times the limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water, according to a report that Southern Co. officials filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So far, testing by the utility shows no signs that tritium from this leak has gotten into aquifers that supply drinking water or into the nearby Altamaha River, which provides cooling water for the nuclear plant.
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How to Source Radioactive Material-Free Food in Japan: Food Co-Op [08Sep11] - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...how-to-source-radioactive.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 07 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Not all co-ops (grocery stores operated as cooperatives) are equal, but some are decidedly more customer-friendly (as opposed to producer-friendly) and take care in sourcing the food that are not contaminated with radioactive materials AND disclosing the detailed information of their testing.
  • One of the readers of this blog, William Marcus, has sent me his observations on sourcing the safe food in Japan. William currently lives in Osaka with his family with the toddler son. He says co-ops in Japan are not centralized (which I didn't know), and that more east and north you go co-ops tend not to disclose the details of the testing they do (if they do the testing) on the foodstuff they sell.
  • The particular COOP that he recommends is "Shizenha" co-op headquartered in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture and has operations in Tokushima Prefecture in Shikoku region. The co-op, he says, has just started to accept membership from Kanto and Tohoku regions.
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  • I live in Osaka and sourcing clean food for our toddler son has become the biggest concern of ours, after monitoring the fallout plumes and contamination in our vicinity (which thankfully, seems to be quite limited compared to California, my home state). We have always been interested in buying healthy food and have belonged to COOP for many years.
  • COOP is not centralized -- there is no national standard for COOPs; they are regionally managed, but their membership can be quite spread out; so we recently joined a COOP (Shizenha; based in Shikoku/West Japan) that is quite more transparent in testing and showing the results of these radiation tests. Our original COOP ("S-COOP") is also doing more testing and has invested another 5 million yen in more testing equipment and outsourcing their testing to a subcontractor as well, but they won't disclose the results of the testing -- only if it is above or below the current (inflated), permitted government safety limit. Shizenha has a different 'feel' to it, and discloses the results of their testing weekly both on their website and in the order forms that we receive weekly.
  • Basically, the story is this: the further north and east you go, the less likely the COOPs are to disclose testing results as this might well embarrass their long-standing farming/food sources, while to the south and west, this is less likely to happen as their food sources are generally less suspect.
  • Also, it is evident in Osaka that food origin is getting harder to ascertain in the regular retail supermarkets,
  • There is a war on food truth that is building steam, and it is in the south and west of Japan that is pushing the envelop on that front, or so it seems to us here in Kansai, at least.
  • I was in Kyushu for a week last week, visiting in-laws and it was noted by my Japanese partner and in-laws how many people are migrating permanently from Tohoku and Kanto regions -- the cars were obvious and multiple: middle-class and upper-class vans and sedans; the well-heeled are evacuating -- lucky them. . . sad for those not able to do the same, which speaks to the class-based availability of safety recourse in Japan these days (and COOP membership to a degree also represents this with its mark-up).
  • The other notable thing in Kyushu was how prominently nearly all restaurants advertised their local sourcing of ingredients. This doesn't happen at all in Osaka/Kyoto, which is owing to a few different explanations: not to offend, not to heighten fear, or because the ingredients are suspect, etc.
  • Likely we will also gravitate to Kyushu in the coming year, as at present only COOP is able to provide assurances with our food concerns, whereas in Kyushu, that is much, much less of a concern, and the food is cheaper. . .Thanks again for your fantastic blog -- it is unique and serving an invaluable service in this incredible nightmare that is ongoing. I hope this sheds some light on the food safety countermeasures that n.p.o.'s are enacting to guarantee the food supply.
  • the reports of contaminated food are then commented on by the readers as proof that sourcing food is dangerous and tricky, when actually, if one knows the resources, it is not the case. COOP generally charges 10-20% more than your typical retail supermarkets, but the more radical of the COOPs (like Shizenha) go further by indicating exactly who is tested and what is found. If those who are really concerned about finding safe food for their families are aware of this, they can also benefit from membership to the more transparent COOPs (others probably do exist which I'm not aware of). As of this week, Shizenha will allow shipping to the northern parts of Japan (for a bigger, refundable membership deposit of 20,000 yen vs. the regular 10,000), in an effort to obviously shame the other COOPs who are more hesitant to state reality as it really is, into being more forthcoming with the testing results.
  • While "Shizenha" co-op is not party to the Fukushima Prefecture's PR effort to push Fukushima produce, other co-ops are eagerly selling. One of my Japanese blog readers says her co-op in Kansai has been pushing Fukushima produce (vegetables and fruits) ever since this spring by holding special campaign events at the store. But as William says, each co-op is different, and it is worthwhile to investigate. It is also good to know that people in Kanto and Tohoku may now be able to purchase from a Kansai-based co-op.There is also a grassroots campaign to establish volunteer radiation measuring stations throughout Japan, modeled after the one in Fukushima City (Citizen's Radioactivity Measuring Station), where anyone can bring in a food item and have it tested.
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