Germany's ZDF Television is here. Said 35,000 becquerels/kg [of radioactive cesium, most likely] has been found in the soil of a rice paddy planted with rice, and asked if the government does any thorough check. Hosono [minister in charge of the nuclear accident] consulted with his staff for a very long time, and said they will confirm the number. He said the government will check the rice as they grow in the rice paddies.The transfer factor from the soil to rice is considered to be about 0.1. 35,000 becquerels/kg in soil may result in 3,500 becquerels/kg of harvested rice, 7 times the provisional safety limit which is already far too loose for the staple like rice.
I've found the video clip for this part. It's the rice paddy in Fukushima City. Fukushima City was OUTSIDE the evacuation zone of any kind, so the soil was apparently never tested by the prefectural government. The reporter asks the question in English, with a Japanese interpreter.
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Oklahoma City First Rain Since Drought Started - 1.62 Microsieverts an hour [06Aug11] - 0 views
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this video shows a radiation deter testing Oklahoma's first rain, high radiation
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#Radioactive Rice to Come? Rice Growing in Rice Paddy with 35,000 Becquerels/kg of Rad... - 0 views
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Germany's ZDF Television is here. Said 35,000 becquerels/kg [of radioactive cesium, most likely] has been found in the soil of a rice paddy planted with rice, and asked if the government does any thorough check. Hosono [minister in charge of the nuclear accident] consulted with his staff for a very long time, and said they will confirm the number. He said the government will check the rice as they grow in the rice paddies.The transfer factor from the soil to rice is considered to be about 0.1. 35,000 becquerels/kg in soil may result in 3,500 becquerels/kg of harvested rice, 7 times the provisional safety limit which is already far too loose for the staple like rice. I've found the video clip for this part. It's the rice paddy in Fukushima City. Fukushima City was OUTSIDE the evacuation zone of any kind, so the soil was apparently never tested by the prefectural government. The reporter asks the question in English, with a Japanese interpreter.
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From the tweet of Ryuichi Kino, who has attended and reported on almost all TEPCO/government press conferences regarding the Fukushima accident since March, reporting on the TEPCO/government joint press conference on August 8:
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Japan Foreign Minister; "Stop claiming food is safe" [08Aug11] - 0 views
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Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto has committed an about-face on policy by telling his ministry to refrain from vouching for the safety of Japanese food. The ministry stance changed after radiation-tainted beef was found to have been sold to consumers nationwide, sources said. The contaminated meat is coming from cattle that were fed rice straw contaminated with cesium isotopes ejected by the disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
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To handle surging concerns abroad about the food supply, the Foreign Ministry told embassies and other diplomatic offices overseas to brief local authorities, importers and media organizations on measures the government is taking to prevent contaminated food from making it into public distribution channels. The ministry has also asked its diplomatic offices to repeat its stance of disclosing safety information in a timely manner.
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On July 8, Matsumoto said that he wanted to dispel food safety concerns by explaining what the government is doing to prevent tainted food from making it into the food supply. But several countries have since asked about the beef scare after several cattle suspected of being fed tainted straw were found to have been slaughtered and their beef shipped to market months ago to stores and restaurants.
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How I spent my Sunday in Fukushima » Safecast [08Aug11] - 0 views
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This morning Pieter, Xeni and I (pictured above) set out with Miles, along with father/son superteam Joe and Bryan Moross. The plan was to drop off a few Geiger counters with volunteers and try to cover some some new ground, perhaps near the exclusion zone. But it ended up being so much more.
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The day began in Shinjuku around close to 7:30am when we picked up a rental car, this was a large group with a lot of gear so we had a need for two vehicles and the usual Safecast car on it’s own wasn’t quite enough. We wasted no time and started driving north. Depending on where you are in the city, background radiation levels in Tokyo hover right around 50 CPM which is only slightly higher than what we believe they were prior to 3/11 though we weren’t measuring things then so can’t be positive. For our purposes we are assuming the average around the country was 35 CPM which is worth noting before I start mentioning numbers going forward. It wasn’t too long in our trip before we hit our first hotspot in Nasu.
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Our first stop was Nihonmatsu which is not too far from Koriyama to meet up with some volunteers in the area and hand out a few new sensors for them to take measurements with. We met at restaurant and of course started measuring things the moment we set foot in the parking lot. Levels were noticeably higher than we’d seen just a few hours prior in Tokyo.
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Another bit worth noting here in case you haven’t been following along with the work Safecast has been doing so far, surface contamination is much higher than air contamination. There are two main reasons for this – “Fallout” literally means this radioactive crap fell out of the sky and found it’s new home on the ground, and much of contents of said crap are beta emitters. Beta radiation is lower energy than gamma so you need to get close to it to measure it – which in this case is the ground. If you only measure the air you miss the betas all together. Anyway. Surface is higher than air, and around 3000 CPM on the ground in the parking lot here is 10X the air levels. As occasionally happens when we are measuring out in public, people approach us to find out what we’re doing.
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People are curious, and often they are concerned. Hiroko Ouchi was both. On top of that she was upset. She said that she hasn’t been able to get any information about the levels around them, the levels they are living in from the government or TEPCO. She said at first she wasn’t concerned because residents were told everything was fine and not to worry, but over time people started taking readings on their own and hearing about readings taken by others that suggested things weren’t all fine and this really stressed her out. This area is far enough away from the plant that no one is being officially evacuated, which means anyone who wants to leave has to do it on their own and pay for it themselves. This has caused a lot of trauma in the community as some people leave and some people stay. Ouchi-san said it is very upsetting for people to be in this position and have their questions go unanswered.
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Once back in the car we decided to head east and see how close we could get to the exclusion zone. We watched the readings rise and fall, though generally increase on the whole the further we went. We have a device outside of the car, and several inside taking readings. At many points we would see a 25% increase depending on which side of the car we pointed a device towards. Very quick changes in very small areas here. At one point things seemed to be increasing very rapidly and at much higher jumps than we’d seen previously. We were so distracted by the drastic readings that we almost ran right into a roadblock staffed by several police officers who were standing around in the street. We turned past them and drove down the road a short ways and then stopped to look at our devices which were completely blowing up.
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On my last transatlantic flight I measured over 800 CPM on the flight. Seeing over 1000 CPM in the car was a bit shocking, opening the door and putting the device on the ground in the middle of the street and seeing it climb, in a matter of seconds, to almost 16,000 CPM was, well, I still don’t even know how to describe it. I was completely taken aback by this. We were maybe one city block from where the officers were standing – outside and unprotected and decided we needed to go back and talk to them.
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We measure radiation all the time, and were noticeably shaken after seeing the readings we just had, and these guys were being told there was nothing to worry about. Suddenly some sort of commanding officer arrived and told us we had to leave and everyone stopped talking to us. Like turning off a switch.
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The officers were very polite and happy to talk to us. We asked them if they were concerned that they were standing outside all day with no protective gear and they told us their bosses have assured them it is perfectly safe and so they have to trust them. We told them about the readings we’d taken just steps from where they were and offered to show them personally that the levels were incredibly high – they declined saying they needed to trust the authorities. Which was weird, because to most people – they are the authorities
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We got back in the car and drove about 1km away the other direction away from the roadblock.
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There was a small restaurant that was closed up and seemed like a good place to stop, take some measurements and talk about what had just happened
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This restaurant had signs taped in the window saying basically “Sorry we are closed for an undetermined period of time. Will try to reopen in the spring.”
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It was here that we took our highest and most concerning readings of the day. The parking lot of the restaurant was active, but less than we’d just seen. But when we walked across the street – maybe 10 feet away, we measured over 20,000 CPM and 9 µSv/hr. We pulled out our SAM 940 to try and identify the isotopes and found things we weren’t expecting at all. So we grabbed some samples to send to a lab for professional analysis and got out of there quick.
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As we were starting to wrap up a car drove by and came to a quick stop. Two gentlemen got out, one of them was a reporter for Asahi TV and the other was Tadao Mumakata, a resident of Koroyama who is working on a way to produce geiger counters locally. They knew about Safecast and were excited to run into us. We talked for a while and then decided to go get some food before heading back to Tokyo. We stopped at a smallish family restaurant and talked about our plans and goals, geiger counts and what we’d learned – hoping to pass some of this on and hopefully help someone skip over some of the early mistakes we’d made ourselves. They were happy for the info and we exchanged contacts for further discussion.
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around 2:30 am we made it back and started dropping people off at their respective houses/hotels. But no spare moment could be wasted. At the final stop we uploaded the log files from the bGeigie – the geiger counter we had mounted outside of the car all day logging radiation and mapping it against GPS points. This produces a map of the whole drive, and dumps the data into our full database, filling in a few more pieces of the big picture.
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And it really is a big picture. These places have never had the kinds of detailed measurements we’re taking, and the measurements that have happened haven’t been shared openly with the residents – who without question are the ones who need to have that info the most. I’ve known this since we started the project but seeing it first hand today and hearing people thank us for trying and for caring was heavy. This project is important and I’m so honored to be a part of it, and so glad to have others involved who have done the impossible to get us this far already.
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Please contact Japan cat network (www.japancatnet.com)( my friends David/Susan) and /or JEARS (Japan earthquake animal rescue) on FB as they are doing great work in that evacuated area and perhaps would be interested in a collaborative effort to get data and ensure animal safety.
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These reports are coming from a volunteer group that's independently mapping radiation levels in Japan.
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Japanese Researcher Says Reactor 3's Fuel Melted Twice, Dropped to Containment Vessel [... - 0 views
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From Asahi Shinbun (3:02AM JST 8/8/2011; not the literal translation): Fumiya Tanabe, former head of the research at Japan Atomic Energy Agency, will present the result of his research on Reactor 3 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant in the upcoming Atomic Energy Society of Japan's conference next month.
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Tanabe thinks the fuel melted and dropped to the bottom of the Reactor Pressure Vessel of Reactor 3 by March 14's explosion; then the melted fuel stayed there, cooled by more than 300-tonnes/day water. However, the amount of water injected dropped to only 24 tonnes per day from March 21 to 23, and 69 tonnes per day on March 24, probably due to increased pressure within the RPV. It caused the melted fuel to heat up again, and the fuel melted through the RPV and dropped onto the Containment Vessel (pedestal; see the diagram from Asahi).
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According to Tanabe, the amount of water from March 21 to 24 was only about 11 to 32% of what was needed to remove the decay heat, and within one day the melted fuel would attain the melting temperature again.
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Tanabe thinks this massive "re-melting" caused the release of a large amount of radioactive materials into the environment which caused a spike in air radiation in wide areas of Tohoku and Kanto including Tokyo, and most of the re-melted fuel dropped from the RPV to the Containment Vessel.The article doesn't say what Tanabe thinks has happened to the melted fuel that dropped onto the Containment Vessel since.
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But the article does say this:
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TEPCO hopes to have a "cold shutdown" where the temperature at the bottom of the RPV is low [below 100 degrees Celsius] as the target for winding down the nuclear accident. But if the fuel core is mostly melted and has dropped down to the Containment Vessel, it may affect the "roadmap".
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Three Plutonium Brothers of Japan: "They Are So Safe You Can Drink It" (Updated with Tr... - 0 views
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The original Japanese video was compiled by "sievert311":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ppon_vEJLCQ&feature=channel_video_title "sievert311" also has a Dr. Shunichi "100 millisievert is safe" Yamashita's video in three languages (English, Spanish, French). Check it out.
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Tokyo Brown Tabby's latest captioning is over the collection of video clips of three Japanese nuclear researchers, claiming safety for plutonium on the national TV. The first two appeared on TV after the March 11 accident to assure the public that there was nothing to worry about on plutonium, because it was so safe.
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Three Plutonium Brothers are: (1)Tadashi Narabayashi Professor in Engineering at Hokkaido University (in TV Asahi "Sunday Scramble" on Apr. 3, 2011)
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Transcript of the video.
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(3)Hirotada Ohashi Professor in System Innovation University of Tokyo (at a panel discussion in Saga Pref. on Dec. 25, 2005, regarding using MOX fuel at Genkai Nuke Plant)
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(2)Keiichi Nakagawa Associate Professor in Radiology The University of Tokyo Hospital (in Nippon TV "news every" on Mar. 29, 2011)
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Well, half of adult males will die if they ingest 200 grams of salt. With only 200 gram. However, oral lethal dose of plutonium-239 is 32g. So, if you compare the toxicity, plutonium, when ingested, is not very different from salt. If you inhale it into your lungs, the lethal dose will be about 10 milligram. This is about the same as potassium cyanide. That sounds scary but the point is plutonium is no different from potassium cyanide. Some toxins like botulism bacillus that causes food poisoning is much more dangerous. Dioxin is even more dangerous. So, unless you turn plutonium into powder and swallow it into your lungs.... MC: "No one would do that."
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Besides, plutonium can be stopped by a single sheet of paper. Plutonium is made into nuclear fuels in facilities with good protective measures, so you don't need to worry.
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For example, plutonium will not be absorbed from the skin. Sometimes you ingest it through food, but in that case, most of it will go out in urine or stools. The problem occurs when you inhale it. Inhaling plutonium is said to increase the risk of lung cancer. MC: "How will that affect our daily lives?" Nothing. MC: "Nothing?"
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Nothing. To begin with, this material is very heavy. So, unlike iodine, it won't disperse in the air. Workers at the plant MAY be affected. So, I'd caution them to be careful. But I don't think the public should worry. For example, 50 years ago when I was born, the amount of plutonium was 1000 times higher than now. MC: "Oh, why?" Because of nuclear testing. So, even if the amount has now increased somewhat, in fact it's still much less than before. However, if it is released into the ocean through exhaust water, that's a problem. Once outside, plutonium hardly decreases.
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MC: "It takes 24,000 years before it dicreases to half, doen't it?" That's right. So, in that sense, plutonium is problematic. But then again, there will be no effect on the public. I think you can rest easy. MC: "Let me summarize. Plutonium won't be absorbed from the skin. If it's ingested through food, it will go out of the body in urine. If it's inhaled, it may increase the risk of lung cancer. But since it's very heavy, we don't need to worry."
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I'd like to point out two things. What happens in a [nuclear] accident depends entirely on your assumptions. If you assume everything would break and all the materials inside the reactor would be completely released into the environment, then we would get all kinds of result. But it's like discussing "what if a giant meteorite hit?" You are talking about the probability of an unlikely event. You may think it's a big problem if an accident occurs at the reactor, but the nuclear experts do not think Containment Vessels will break. But the anti-nuclear people will say, "How do you know that?" Hydrogen explosions will not occur and I agree, but their argument is "how do you know that?"
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So, right now in the safety review, we're assuming every technically possible situation. For example, such and such parts would break, plutonium would be released like this, then it would be stopped here...something like that. We set the hurdle high and still assume even the higher-level radiation would be released and make calculations. This may be very difficult for you to understand this process, but we do. To figure out how far contamination might spread, we analyze based on our assumption of what could occur. However, the public interpret it as something that will occur. Or the anti-nuclear people take it in a wrong way and think we make such an assumption because it will happen. We can't have an argument with such people.
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Another thing is the toxicity of plutonium. The toxicity of plutonium is very much exaggerated. Experts dealing with health damage by plutonium call this situation "social toxicity." In reality, there's nothing frightening about plutonium. If, in an extreme case, terrorists may take plutonium and throw it into a reservoir, which supplies the tap water. Then, will tens of thousands of people die? No, they won't. Not a single one will likely die. Plutonium is insoluble in water and will be expelled quickly from the body even if it's ingested with water.
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So, what Dr. Koide is saying is if we take plutonium particles one by one, cut open your lungs and bury the plutonium particles deep in the lungs, then that many people will die. A pure fantasy that would never happen. He's basically saying we can't drive a car, we can't ride a train, because we don't know what will happen. MC: "Thank you very much."
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See, we've been duped. Plutonium is not dangerous! We'd better ask these three to drink it up to prove it's not dangerous. Then we will feel safe, won't we? Please doctors, would you do it for us?
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Rice futures trading suspended after price soars on nuclear fears [09Aug11] - 0 views
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TOKYO — Japan started trading rice futures Monday but suspended the market after the price of the staple grain soared on fears that radioactive contamination from the Fukushima disaster will restrict supply. The nuclear plant, hit by the powerful March 11 quake and tsunami, has spewed radiation into the environment for nearly five months, tainting farm produce, including beef after cattle were fed radioactive rice straw.
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Consumer fears have grown that rice will be contaminated too and many families have stocked up on rice grown last year, while the government has ordered testing across the fallout zone. Japan on Monday started a two-year trial for futures trading in rice for the first time in more than seven decades at commodities exchanges in Tokyo and Osaka—but the trade was quickly suspended when the price spiked.
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The Tokyo Grain Exchange and the Kansai Commodities Exchange began trading rice futures at 0000 GMT, with buy orders far exceeding sell orders, triggering a circuit breaker at the Tokyo market to prevent sharp price moves. No deals were made in Tokyo, while the Kansai market in the western city of Osaka saw the January 2012 contract trade shoot to 19,210 yen per 60 kilograms, much higher than the reference price of 13,700 yen.
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“In the wake of the nuclear accident, many people are expecting that the amount of rice to hit the market will fall this year,” Nobuyuki Chino, who heads the Tokyo market’s rice futures trading committee, told reporters. It might take “several days” for trading to become more stable, said Yoshiaki Watanabe, the president of the Tokyo exchange.
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Iranian lawmakers see more delay in starting up nuclear plant [09Aug11] - 0 views
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Iran's first nuclear power station has suffered string of delays * Latest deadline, this month, to be missed, lawmakers say * Delay will be embarrassment for both Iran and Russia TEHRAN, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Iran's first nuclear power station will not start working this month as planned, several parliamentarians were quoted as saying on Monday, blaming Russian builders for the latest delay in a project Tehran hopes will showcase its peaceful atomic aims. Members of a parliamentary committee set up to examine the status of the Bushehr plant on Iran's Gulf coast said costs had spiralled but did not say why the latest delay had happened. "The commissioning of the plant within the time frame promised by the officials will not be possible and it is still far from getting linked to the national electricity grid," lawmaker Asgar Jalalian told Aftab Yazd daily.
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The latest delay comes a year after fuel rods were transported into the reactor building amid great media fanfare. Iran hoped to show the world it had joined the nuclear club despite sanctions imposed by countries that fear it is seeking nuclear weapons. It says its nuclear programme is peaceful. The fuel was not loaded into the reactor until October and then it had to be removed due to fears that metal particles from nearly 30-year old equipment used in the construction of the reactor core had contaminated the fuel. Further delays could be an embarrassment not only to Iranian politicians who have made Bushehr the showpiece of Tehran's nuclear ambitions, but also for Russia which would like to export more of its nuclear know-how to emerging economies. Continued...
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Leaked Video Of Explosion At Tricastin Nuclear Power Station [06Aug11] - 0 views
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August 6, 2011 The Tricastin Nuclear Power Plant is a collection of sites run by Areva and EDF located in 4 different communes Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux and Pierrelatte in Drôme, Bollène and Lapalud inVaucluse, and four departments (Drome (26), Vaucluse (84), Gard (30) and Ardeche (07)) on right bank of the Channel of Donzère-Mondragon (diversion canal of the Rhone River) between Valence (70 km upstream) and Avignon (65 km downstream). On July 3rd, in the southern French nuclear plant Tricastin it came to French media reports of an explosion. Join The Intel Hub Mailing List For Exclusive Reports The nuclear power plant Tricastin with four pressurized water reactors of 915 megawatts each is in operation since 1981. Explosion And Smoke At French Nuclear Power Station Tricastin - July 3rd, 2011 http://theintelhub.com/2011/07/03/explosion-and-smoke-at-french-nuclear-power… Article In French From July 2nd, 2011 http://www.ledauphine.com/drome/2011/07/02/explosion-et-colonne-de-fumee-a-la… http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2011/07/02/97001-20110702FILWWW00432-un-inc…
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Radioactive Fish: All 21 samples caught 50+ km from Fukushima plant exceeded maximum ce... - 0 views
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Excessive radioactive cesium found in Fukushima fish: Greenpeace, Kyodo via Mainichi Daily News, August 9, 2011:
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Fish caught at a port about 55 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant contained radioactive cesium at levels exceeding an allowable limit, the environmental group Greenpeace said Tuesday. The samples taken at Onahama port in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, in late July, included a species of rockfish that measured 1,053 becquerels per kilogram. [...] The other samples, which were all rock trout, measured between 625 and 749 becquerels per kilogram, again exceeding the provisional limit. [...] A total of 21 samples taken in the study were analyzed [...]
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Nuclear rice fears halt Japan trade [09Aug11] - 0 views
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Fears that large amounts of rice in Japan may be contaminated with radioactivity saw the price of the staple grain soar 40pc on the first day of trading for the country's new futures market.
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Japan yesterday launched its first rice futures contract in 72 years, but trading had to be suspended on the Tokyo Grain Exchange as the price per contract shot up immediately. The price of 60 kilograms of rice had a reference price of $13,700 (£8,399) for delivery in 2012 but it reached more than $19,210 on the Osaka exchange, which carried on trading. There is concern that crops may be damaged by radioactivity in the wake of the nuclear accident at Fukushima earlier this year. Japan has begun rice trading to try to open up the market and increase transparency in the trade of its staple foodstuff. Analysts are predicting that stockpiles of rice will be at their lowest level in four years in 2012. The mood in Japan is nervous after it emerged that cattle has been fed rice straw contaminated by caesium. Some prefectures are currently banned from exporting beef.
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Tokyo citizen turned out to be internally exposed [10Aug11] - 0 views
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A man from Tokyo went to Hokkaido for sightseeing. He had a whole body counter check to see if he’s taken radioactive particles into his body. The result was “positive”. Cesium137 ; 868bq Cesium134 ; 6373bq The doctor asked him if he went to Fukushima,he replied no. He normally spent days in Tokyo. Now it’s pretty rational to think most of the other people are equally dosed. The doctor added, There are too little sample of low dose symptoms,so even if you have cancer in the future, maybe it’s hard to prove it has something to do with Fukushima. This is how “our” government is going to abandon us. We are the people ,of the government,by the government,for the government.
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Japan Ignored Own Fukushima Radiation Forecasts - YouTube [09Aug11] - 0 views
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An Associated Press investigation has found that Japanese government officials ignored radiation forecasts from their own monitoring system, failing to keep residents near a crippled nuclear plant from a predicted plume
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Egypt authorities find another case of radiation in Japanese shipment [10Aug11] - 0 views
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Egypt’s General Authority for Export and Import Control recently discovered radioactive cargo in two containers shipped from Japan to Ain Sokhna port, the Red Sea Ports Authority said.This is the third radioactive shipment Egypt has discovered over the past month.The radioactive material was found aboard ships carrying electric and mechanical instruments. A letter from Egypt’s atomic energy authorities confirmed the cargo had above-regulation radiation levels.
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An official at the seaport said the Ministry of Environment and DP Worlds, which runs the Ain Sokhna port, transferred the ships to a sandy area in order to prevent the radiation from spreading to other shipments and vessels.
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The authority said it would review communications between Japan and the companies that imported the shipments. It had said in late July it would immediately withdraw the shipping licenses of any companies responsible for importing radioactive cargo.In June, three other shipments were detected with radiation above permitted levels.
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Several countries have imposed a ban on imports from Japan, fearing the effects of a series of failures at its Fukushima nuclear reactor following the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that hit the country in March.
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#Fukushima Children Know Radiation Contamination in Fukushima [10Aug11] - 0 views
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From the tweets by @s_kiyoe, who set up a summer camp (in Shizuoka Prefecture, I think, judging by the town's name but I could be wrong) for children in Fukushima Prefecture. The original tweets are in Japanese:https://twitter.com/#!/s_kiyoe/status/100535288274763776Our fun-filled summer camp was finally over. We all cried at parting, because they didn't want to go back, and we didn't want them to go back to Fukushima under the current situation. Many Fukushima children were collecting empty plastic bottles. They said they wanted to fill the bottles with clean, safe water that they drank at the camp and bring them to their parents.
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https://twitter.com/#!/s_kiyoe/status/100540605972754432The bus arrived at the temple [where the camp was held] to take the children back to Fukushima. We asked them, "Where would you like to go to buy souvenirs?" They answered "Please take us where we can buy locally-grown vegetables, not supermarkets." Safe vegetables for their families.https://twitter.com/#!/s_kiyoe/status/100592597160046592 The last day of the camp. A child from Tokyo said to a child from Fukushima, "Now it's my turn to visit you in Fukushima!" The child from Fukushima suddenly looked serious and said "You'd better not come to Fukushima right now." How could this be allowed? These children went back to the very place they just told others not to go.
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#Radiation in Japan: Practically Any Radioactive Debris Will Be Burned and Buried [11Au... - 0 views
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when the Ministry of the Environment decides on the base plan after it runs the plan with the so-called experts that the ministry relies on (i.e. rubber-stamp).when the Ministry of the Environment decides on the base plan after it runs the plan with the so-called experts that the ministry relies on (i.e. rubber-stamp). Great leap forward in recovery and reconstruction. From Yomiuri Shinbun
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From Yomiuri Shinbun
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On August 10, the Ministry of the Environment made public the base plan for the ashes from burning the debris and sludge that contain radioactive materials from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. The plan would technically allow all the ashes to be buried.
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The whole plan is moot, because, on the side, the ministry has already told municipalities that they can "mix and match" - burn radioactive debris and sludge with non-radioactive debris and sludge to lower the radiation below whatever the limit the ministry sets, which has been 8,000 becquerels/kg and now 100,000 becquerels/kg if the plan gets an approval from the expert committee. The ministry set the limit for Fukushima Prefecture, then notified other prefectures to "refer to the Ministry's instruction to Fukushima Prefecture and notify the municipalities accordingly".
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The plan was given on the same day to the ministry's committee of experts to evaluate the safety of disaster debris disposal, and the ministry hopes to finalize the plan before the end of August.
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In June, the ministry announced that the ashes that test up to 8,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium can be buried in the final disposal facilities. It called for the temporary storage of the ashes that exceed 8,000 becquerels/kg but didn't specify the final disposal procedure. In the base plan announced on August 10, to bury the ashes whose radioactive cesium exceeds 8,000 becquerels/kg, some measures need to be taken to prevent radioactive cesium from making contact with ground water, or to process the runoff appropriately. For the ashes that measure 8,000 to 100,000 becquerels/kg, the plan calls for: 1) processing facilities with roofs; 2) durable containers; 3) mixing the ashes with cement to solidify.
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The Ministry of the Environment, which is likely to be selected as the new regulatory authority over the nuclear industry in Japan, is not very known for timely disclosure of information online. This base plan, if it is announced on their site, is buried so well that I can't find it. The latest information on the earthquake/tsunami disaster debris is dated July 28, which specified the "temporary" storage of the ashes that exceed 8,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium.
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It looks like the ministry is simply making this "temporary" storage into permanent.
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Japan government prepares plan to flee Tokyo [11Aug11] - 0 views
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Japan is considering the possibility of creating a back-up capital city in case a major natural disaster, like the March 11 earthquake, strikes Tokyo.A new panel from Japan's Ministry of Land and Infrastructure will consider the possibility of moving some of Tokyo's capital functions to another big city, like Osaka.Japan is located on the junction of four tectonic plates and experiences one-fifth of the world's strongest earthquakes and geologists have warned Tokyo is particularly vulnerable to powerful earthquakes.It is feared if a massive earthquake like the March magnitude 9.0 quake struck Tokyo, it could destroy the country's political and economic base.
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(Literally) Covering Up Reactor 1 Has Started at #Fukushima [09Aug11] - 0 views
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The work to cover up the reactor building of Reactor 1 at Fukushima I Nuke Plant has started. Take a peek at TEPCO's live cam. A huge crane next to Reactor 1.
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The work seems to be over for the day. They stop working at 2PM at the plant due to heat.
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The insider rumor says TEPCO/the government really don't want those pesky satellites to look down on their broken reactors. They don't want to see them on Google Earth..
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TEPCO says it has lost contact with 143 nuclear plant workers [11Aug11] - 0 views
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Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said Thursday that it has not been able to locate 143 individuals working to restore the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant since May. The utility said it has no idea if the 143 have been exposed to radiation and to what level.
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According to a report from TEPCO given to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, TEPCO hired many of the workers through subcontractors from all over Japan for limited periods and kept no records of their addresses. On any given day, TEPCO said it has had up to 1,000 workers on rotating schedules at the stricken power plant. Asahi Geino reported in May that subcontractors were hiring day laborers to work at the plant. The daily remuneration was three times that of regular day jobs if within the grounds of the reactor complex, and 1.5 times higher if within the wider area now restricted due to high radioactivity.
