Open Intelligence / Energy

MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan — U.S. officials said this week that they are hearing that some people already want to return to Japan after taking a free flight out of the country.The simple answer: Don’t do it.“Right now, the government will not pay to bring them back,” said Marine Lt. Col. Katherine Estes, the staff judge advocate for the joint task force overseeing Operation Pacific Passage. “Families who have taken advantage of the authorized departure are now in a ‘safe haven status’ and should remain at their safe haven location until ordered to a designated location or authorized to return.”

U.S. family members who left Japan under the military’s “voluntary departure” program stand to pocket a considerable amount of money, depending on whether they flew home to stay with family in North Dakota or chose to lie on the beaches of Waikiki.Some 7,000 family members from five U.S. military bases have departed mainland Japan so far amid fears of radiation leaking from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, left crippled by the March 11 earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

But the departures are generating a measure of controversy, with some military community members blasting their neighbors for taking “paid vacations.” Others defend the decision, saying fears of a nuclear crisis, repeated earthquake aftershocks and concerns for their children’s safety made heading back to the United States the only real option.

Each family member who leaves Japan under the voluntary departure program is entitled to lodging, meals, a daily stipend for incidentals and a $25 daily family travel allowance.The amount they’re allowed to spend depends on the location the family picked as its so-called “safe haven,” and whether family members are staying with relatives or in a hotel. Children 12 or older are eligible for 100 percent of the local per diem rate, while children under 12 are eligible for 50 percent.

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — The U.S. military paid $11.7 million on chartered flights for thousands of U.S. family members to escape Japan’s nuclear crisis in the days following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to figures released Tuesday by U.S. Pacific Command.That $11.7 million figure covers only military-chartered flights from U.S. bases near Tokyo and in northern Japan. It does not include travel expenses nor per diem paid to the nearly 10,000 dependents who took the military up on its voluntary departure offer and fled to towns and cities across the United States, PACOM said following an information request by Stars and Stripes. Expenses for those who left Japan on commercial airlines also were not included in the figures released Tuesday.Reimbursements for lodging, meals and other expenses are likely to significantly increase the total cost of the evacuation program. But those additional travel costs are being tallied by the individual services in the region, and therefore, could not be provided by PACOM.

In the first few days of Japan’s nuclear crisis this spring, the U.S. military wasn’t fully prepared to deal with possible radiation exposure to its troops and equipment, the top U.S. general in Japan said Wednesday.

U.S. Forces Japan commander Lt. Gen. Burton M. Field talked about the radiation risk to U.S. troops during a briefing on Operation Tomodachi for members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan on Wednesday.

“As the (Fukushima Dai-ichi) reactors exploded and they sent some of that radiation out, we had the issue with it being detected off shore by the Navy,” he said. “We had to start dealing with the kind of environment that the U.S. military had not really worked in, so we didn’t have the strictest guidelines on what kind of risk we would take in terms of radiation exposure for our (service) members.”

133 acres burned on lab property — Las Conchas: The majority of the burned acreage, though, was due to backburn, Los Alamos Monitor, July 23, 2011:

Officials at Los Alamos National Laboratory were insistent throughout that the Los Conchas Fire only came onto LANL and Department of Energy property twice. [...] On Friday, the Las Conchas Burned Area Emergency Response team released the acreage burned by jurisdiction. The chart said that 133 acres burned on DOE and LANL property.

Japan Scientists Say Sea Radiation Tests May Miss Seafood Threat, Bloomberg, July 26, 2011:

“Depending on the species, fish have been known to accumulate as much as 100 times the amount of pollutants in the environment,” Jota Kanda, a professor at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology specializing in marine environment, said by phone yesterday. [...] The minimum detection limit is defined as 4 becquerels per liter for Iodine-131, 6 bq/l for Cesium-134 and 9 bq/l for Cesium-137, the report said. “Which means that at 5 becquerels per liter the ministry will proclaim the water safe, but concentration in fish may exceed the 500 becquerel limit” per kilogram set by the government, Kanda said. [...]

July 26, 201

State testing ash runoff in river water, KOB Eyewitness News 4, July 26, 2011

People more concerned over black Rio Grande water The State Environment Department said water is being tested as ash continues to flow down the Rio Grande from the Las Conchas fire. But so far, state officials don’t believe any test results have come back. [...] Officials said it takes about a week to get results back. It is unknown when samples were taken. [...]

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

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

Nuclear plant workers suffer internal radiation exposure after visiting Fukushima, Mainichi, May 22, 2011:

The government has discovered thousands of cases of workers at nuclear power plants outside Fukushima Prefecture suffering from internal exposure to radiation after they visited the prefecture, the head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said. [...] The revelation has prompted local municipalities in Fukushima to consider checking residents’ internal exposure to radiation. Nobuaki Terasaka, head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told the House of Representatives Budget Committee on May 16 that there were a total of 4,956 cases of workers suffering from internal exposure to radiation at nuclear power plants in the country excluding the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, and 4,766 of them involved workers originally from Fukushima who had visited the prefecture after the nuclear crisis. [...] But as of May 16, only about 1,400 workers have gone through checkups — roughly 20 percent of the total number of workers. And only 40 of the workers have had their test results confirmed. [...]

Interview with Karl Grossman, July 27, 2011:

[...] “A lot of nuclear scientists … actually have the nerve to claim that radiation is good for you, and they have this theory called ‘radiation hormesis’ and they claim that radioactivity exercises the immune system and it’s a healthy thing for people. Essentially what they are doing is promoting their technology with this incredible lie,” Karl Grossman, a professor at State University of New York College told Press TV’s U.S. Desk in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. [...]

See the interview here.

Hirose Takashi: The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident and the State of the Media, Asahi NewStar, March 17, 2011:

[Interviewer] Yo: Every day the local government is measuring the radioactivity.  All the television stations are saying that while radiation is rising, it is still not high enough to be a danger to health. They compare it to a stomach x-ray, or if it goes up, to a CT scan.  What is the truth of the matter? Hirose: For example, yesterday.  Around Fukushima Daiichi Station they measured 400 millisieverts – that’s per hour.  With this measurement (Chief Cabinet Secretary) Edano admitted for the first time that there was a danger to health, but he didn’t explain what this means.  All of the information media are at fault here I think.  They are saying stupid things like, why, we are exposed to radiation all the time in our daily life, we get radiation from outer space.  But that’s one millisievert per year.  A year has 365 days, a day has 24 hours; multiply 365 by 24, you get 8760.  Multiply the 400 millisieverts by that, you get 3,500,000 the normal dose.  You call that safe?  And what media have reported this? 

None.  They compare it to a CT scan, which is over in an instant; that has nothing to do with it.  The reason radioactivity can be measured is that radioactive material is escaping.  What is dangerous is when that material enters your body and irradiates it from inside.  These industry-mouthpiece scholars come on TV and what to they say?  They say as you move away the radiation is reduced in inverse ratio to the square of the distance.  I want to say the reverse.  Internal irradiation happens when radioactive material is ingested into the body.  What happens?  Say there is a nuclear particle one meter away from you. You breathe it in, it sticks inside your body; the distance between you and it is now at the micron level. One meter is 1000 millimeters, one micron is one thousandth of a millimeter.  That’s a thousand times a thousand squared.  That’s the real meaning of “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.”  Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion.  Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.

TINY traces of radioactive iodine from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan have been detected in Glasgow. The authorities have stressed there is no danger to public health.Very small traces of radioactive iodine were detected by an air sampler at a Health Protection Agency monitoring site in Glasgow picked up.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) later confirmed that this radiation was from the Japanese incident, but it said that the levels found were consistent with reports from other European countries such as Iceland and Switzerland.SEPA has released a statement in which it says the concentration of iodine is "extremely low" and "not of concern for the public or the environment".

Those who think Japan's Fukushima disaster is today's headlines and tomorrow's history need to take a good look at the Chernobyl disaster, which to this day is a continuing threat to the people of Ukraine. It will be hundreds of years before the area around the destroyed reactor is inhabitable again and there are disputes over whether or not Chernobyl's nuclear fuel still poses a threat of causing another explosion. There is also a teetering reactor core cover and the deteriorating sarcophagus itself that may collapse and send plumes of radioactive dust in all directions.

The New York Times article "Lessons from Chernobyl for Japan," reflects on the Chernobyl disaster and how its legacy still looms over us today as a very real threat. Those who believe in a quick fix for the Fukushima disaster would be wise to remember Chernobyl's legacy

More importantly, with tens of millions of lives at stake, nation actors that have the ability to assist in mitigating this disaster now, but choose instead to squander their manpower and resources elsewhere (like in Libya), must remember that their actions today will be remembered and judged for centuries to come.

While President Obama still favors nuclear energy after the Fukushima disaster, the New England state of Vermont wants to scrap it altogether. The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is slated for shutdown in March 2012.

Nestel has already been arrested 11 times in protests against the reactor. She is a member of the "Shut it down!" group, which consists of 12 women from the ages of 40 to 92. They all have the same mission: to shut down Vermont Yankee, and in doing so make Vermont a nuclear power-free state. "We have a lot to do," says Nestel. "We are always going to have protests at the reactor and we will always let ourselves be arrested. We don't leave until we're arrested. But they always drop the charges because we're so well-liked in the community."

Since the reactor, identical in construction to the one in Fukushima, went on line in 1972, it has made headlines time and again. In 2007 a cooling tower collapsed due to shabby wooden girders. When in 2010 it was discovered that radioactive tritium had seeped into the groundwater from a pipe leak, the Vermont Senate voted by a large majority to close Vermont Yankee by 2012. Differing opinions among politicians and population

The head of the United Nations nuclear agency today stressed that all States must comply with their obligations under the international nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaty, naming Iran, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Syria as countries that are not in full compliance. “My approach to nuclear verification since taking up office in December 2009 has been very straightforward – all safeguards agreements between Member States and the Agency, and other relevant obligations such as UN Security Council resolutions, should be implemented fully,” said Yukiya Amano, the Director General the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation to enable the agency to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities,” Mr. Amano said in his keynote address to the three-day 23rd UN Conference on Disarmament Issues in Matsumoto, Japan. He urged Iran to move towards the full implementation of all relevant obligations to build international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear programme.

With Poland evaluating two GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) reactor models for the country’s first nuclear power plant projects, GEH today announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Warsaw-based engineering firm Energoprojekt Warszawa, S.A. (EW) to discuss the feasibility of partnering on future reactor projects.

The MOU with Energoprojekt Warszawa is the latest in a series of preliminary agreements that GEH has signed with Polish suppliers as the government prepares to develop Poland’s first two nuclear generating stations to diversify the country’s energy supplies. Under the new MOU, both companies will explore how EW could provide specific engineering services to GEH for the potential development of new nuclear power plants in Poland.

“This initial action shows the future possibility of creating jobs and cooperation related not only to Polish suppliers of fixtures, construction and installation works, but to Polish planning and engineering during the plant’s construction process.”

The Ministry of Education and Science announced that it will conduct the aerial survey of 23 prefectures (out of total 47) to determine the level of soil contamination. For some reason, Hokkaido is excluded, but every prefecture from Aomori to Shiga, which is located about in the middle of the Honshu Island will be surveyed. It's all of Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu-Hokuriku.(In the map, Hokuriku is bundled with Chubu; Hokuriku includes prefectures facing the Japan Sea. For more details within the regions, go to the web-japan.org page.)If I were the official at the Ministry, I would test Hokkaido, too. I have seen too many radioactive plumes sweeping the island of Hokkaido in the simulation animations by several European meteorological institutions. (For the latest from the German Weather Bureau, go here. But even they will stop publishing the dispersion map on July 29... )

Fukushima Prefecture announced on July 25 that radioactive cesium exceeding the provisional limit was detected from the wheat harvested at a farm in Hirono-machi [23 kilometers south of Fukushima I Nuke Plant] in Fukushima Prefecture. The prefectural government says the wheat hasn't been sold in the market. It is the first time that radioactive cesium exceeding the limit has been detected in wheat.

According to the prefectural government, 630 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found in a sample taken on July 19. The prefectural government has asked the farm to withhold shipment on a voluntary basis. Fukushima Prefecture ranks No. 25th in wheat production in Japan, with 651 tonnes produced last year.

Also, 720 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium has been detected in the rapeseeds harvested by a farm in Tamura City [41 kilometers west of Fukushima I Nuke Plant] in Fukushima. The rapeseeds haven't been shipped, and the prefectural government has asked the farm to withhold shipment on a voluntary basis.

One of 5 worst nuclear plants in world for exposure to radiation * Tepco prioritised cost-savings over radiation standard * Tepco says old plants like Fukushima have high radiation * Foreign workers used to avoid exposing staff to high radiation * Improvements made at Fukushima before disaster hit

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant ranked as one of the most dangerous in the world for radiation exposure years before it was destroyed by the meltdowns and explosions that followed the March 11 earthquake.     For five years to 2008, the Fukushima plant was rated the most hazardous nuclear facility in Japan for worker exposure to radiation and one of the five worst nuclear plants in the world on that basis. The next rankings, compiled as a three-year average, are due this year.     Reuters uncovered these rankings, privately tracked by Fukushima's operator Tokyo Electric Power, in a review of documents and presentations made at nuclear safety conferences over the past seven years.     In the United States -- Japan's early model in nuclear power -- Fukushima's lagging safety record would have prompted more intensive inspections by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

It would have also invited scrutiny from the U.S. Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, an independent nuclear safety organization established by the U.S. power industry after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, experts say.     But that kind of stepped-up review never happened in Tokyo, where the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency remains an adjunct of the trade ministry charged with promoting nuclear power.     As Japan debates its future energy policy after the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, a Reuters review of the long-troubled record at Fukushima shows how hard it has been to keep the country's oldest reactors running in the best of times. It also shows how Japan's nuclear establishment sold nuclear power to the public as a relatively cheap energy source in part by putting cost-containment ahead of radiation safety over the past several decades.     "After the Fukushima accident, we need to reconsider the cost of nuclear power," Tatsujiro Suzuki, vice chairman of Japan's Atomic Energy Commission, told Reuters. "It's not enough to meet safety standards. The industry needs to search for the best performance."