Open Intelligence / Energy

was played in the rain on July 28

in the annual high school baseball summer tournament. I saw the news when that happened, but was too appalled to post. I am still appalled, but here it is:

This is the measurement of radiation before the ballgame in Fukushima Prefecture on July 13.Batter box: 0.3 microsievert/hourCenter field: 2.2 microsieverts/hour3rd base dugout: 0.7 microsievert/hour3rd base stand: 0.8 microsievert/hourBack net stand: 0.2 microsievert/hour

At least two dozen countries around the globe get energy from nuclear power, yet not one has been able to pull off a permanent disposal site. Finding communities willing to live with such dangerous stuff has been a big sticking point. But in Sweden, two communities have stepped up, and are willing to take the country's waste. Like many countries, Sweden has had its share of political meltdowns over nuclear power. Protests stirred an uproar in the early 1980s when the Swedish nuclear industry simply decided where to begin testing for a possible geologic disposal site.

But today, instead of deflecting protesters, the nuclear industry shuttles visitors by the busloads for guided tours of facilities. More than 1,100 feet below the surface, exotic machinery and copper tubes wide enough to fit two men fill an underground cavern carved from crystalline bedrock. In this working lab in eastern Sweden, a private nuclear waste company tests methods for permanently storing used fuel. It plans to encase the fuel rods in copper capsules, then bury them 1,500 feet down in bedrock where it is supposed to sit for the next 100,000 years.

how did nuclear waste in Sweden go from a toxic topic to a field trip? People in the area said the industry needed to start over with things like public participation, a transparent, predictable process and trust. The industry took these lessons to heart. "We know that we have to meet people and communicate what we want to do, why we want to do it and how we will find a place for it," says Inger Nordholm, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company, or SKB.

Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on California's central coast has more than 1,300 tons of nuclear waste sitting on its back porch, waiting for pickup. The problem is, there's no one to pick it up

The 103 other reactors in the country are in the same bind — it has now been more than 50 years since the first nuclear plant was switched on in the United States, and the federal government still hasn't found a permanent home for the nation's nuclear waste

The two nuclear reactors at the plant generate steam that drives giant turbines, which in turn generate electricity that powers about 3 million households. Once the uranium rods that fuel the reactors are used up, they're removed and cooled down underwater, in temporary storage pools.

1,500 tons of radioactive sludge cannot be buried

Nearly 50,000 tons of sludge at water treatment facilities has been found to contain radioactive cesium as the result of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Over 1,500 tons is so contaminated that it cannot be buried for disposal.Water treatment facilities in eastern and northeastern Japan have been discovering sludge containing cesium.The health ministry says there is 49,250 tons of such sludge in 14 prefectures in eastern and northeastern Japan.A total of 1,557 tons in 5 prefectures, including Fukushima and Miyagi, was found to contain 8,000 or more becquerels per kilogram. This sludge is too radioactive to be buried for disposal.

The most contaminated sludge, with 89,697 becquerels per kilogram, was discovered at a water treatment facility in Koriyama City, Fukushima.The ministry says 76 percent of the roughly 50,000 tons of radioactive sludge is being stored at water treatment plants and they have no ways to dispose of most of it.It says more than 54,000 tons of additional sludge has not been checked for radioactive materials.The ministry plans to study how to dispose of the radioactive sludge

Of 10 nuclear power plant workers who have developed cancer and received workers' compensation in the past, nine had been exposed to less than 100 millisieverts of radiation, it has been learned.

The revelation comes amid reports that a number of workers battling the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant were found to have been exposed to more than the emergency limit of 250 millisieverts, which was raised from the previous limit of 100 millisieverts in March.

According to Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry statistics, of the 10 nuclear power plant workers, six had leukemia, two multiple myeloma and another two lymphatic malignancy. Only one had been exposed to 129.8 millisieverts but the remaining nine were less than 100 millisieverts, including one who had been exposed to about 5 millisieverts.

Since March 11, 2011 it has been reported that YouTube videos containing footage or comments unfavorable to Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) or the Japanese government have been removed within several hours of their posting. Examples of offending YouTube videos include excerpts of TV shows with controversial comments like footage showing smoke emitted from the nuclear reactors, and an ex-TEPCO employee speaking on his Fukushima experiences. Likewise, Twitter accounts with too much content regarding nuclear power and radiation issues have been disrupted.

On June 17, 2011 the Japanese Parliament passed “The Computer Network Monitoring Law” . Prof. Ibusuki of Seijo Univ. Law Dept. comments that “The Computer Network Monitoring Law will enable the police to monitor anyone’s internet activity without restriction.” Although this appears, on the surface, to be beneficial when targeting cyber-attacks, some Japanese commentators are suggesting that the law is un-Constitutional.

“Nuclear Power Safety Regulation Publicity Project” stipulates that, “The Contractor is required to monitor blogs on nuclear power and radiation issues as well as Twitter accounts (monitoring tweets is essential) around the clock, and conduct research and analysis on incorrect and inappropriate information that would lead to false rumors, and to report such internet accounts to the Agency. The “Contractor” is required to keep the Agency well informed on the internet accounts and keywords used in the blogs and Twitter accounts that are posting incorrect and inappropriate information. The Contractor is required to maintain sufficient number of personnel for around-the-clock monitoring. The Contractor is required to submit reports on internet accounts via CDR.” The document, however, does not state that blogs or Twitter accounts, which run afoul of METI’s guidelines, are to be banned or frozen.” The question is, will METI draw the line at “clarifying” erroneous information, or will it act to clamp down and suppress sources of information that it finds inconvenient?

radiation is leaking, the analyst says. He also mentions the high-speed train accident, and says there are 259 people dead so far.It was reported by Mamoru Sato on his blog on July 30. I have no idea who he really is, but the bio on his blog says he was a fighter pilot in the Self Defense Air Force of Japan, and was then a high-ranking officer and the commander of the several major air force bases in Japan until he retired from the service in 1997. Checking the biography in Wiki, it looks like he is indeed what he says he is.Mr. Sato's July 30 blogpost:

According to the information I just obtained, a nuclear submarine of the Chinese Navy had an accident in the port of Dalian on July 29, and there is a leak of radiation. The area is strictly closed off by the Chinese military, and the situation is said to be very dangerous.

I doubt that the Chinese government will announce the accident. The neighboring countries should take defensive measures, and the Japanese fishing boats in the area should be careful.

e Plant is that people in Japan have started to pay much more attention to nature around them. So they may be noticing things that was on-going even before the accident. Or they may not.These are the pictures taken on the sidewalk on Hakusan Dori in Bunkyo-ku in Tokyo, and uploaded on July 30. The air radiation in Bunkyo-ku has been higher than the official Tokyo number (measured in Shinjuku-ku, western central Tokyo), along with several other eastern "ku" (special wards of Tokyo).The person who took the pictures says, "About 30% of azaleas on the side walk are completely dead. Ginkgo leaves are browning."

Ooops. Amateur hour at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare who thought testing one sample from the meat of one cow would be enough.According to Mainichi Shinbun, the Japanese authorities are finding out that the different parts of the same cow have different concentration of radioactive cesium. Not only that, the same part of the meat from the same cow can yield two different test results. That means even the meat that was tested and deemed "safe" (tested below 500 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium) may not have been safe after all.

Before they actually started to measure, the prevailing opinion from the radiation experts was that radioactive cesium would get evenly distributed in the muscles throughout the body. Amateur hour at the radiation experts, too. (Now they are changing tunes.)So, no one knew, and no one knows what they're doing. I seem to fondly recall some of the words of Japan's consumer advocates - "the experts say it's safe...", or "why should we waste taxpayers' money testing all cows?", or "if only media did the good job of providing accurate information..." Amateur hours there, too.My message to consumers: caveat emptor.

A team of US diplomats are expected to visit the Saudi capital of Riyadh to "discuss the possibility of moving forward on a nuclear cooperation agreement," a congressional aide said on the condition of anonymity, AFP reported. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a lawmaker from the Republican Party has criticized the move, saying that "its ties to terrorists and terror financing alone should rule it out as a candidate for the US nuclear cooperation." "I am astonished that the administration is even considering a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia," she added.

Washington and Riyadh signed a tentative agreement on developing civilian nuclear technologies in 2008. The Obama administration, like its predecessor, has sought to promote nuclear cooperation with allies. Washington also signed a nuclear cooperation deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2009. The deal meant that the UAE would renounce their plans to enrich and reprocess uranium in exchange of having the right to purchase the material from international suppliers. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia has also been pursuing nuclear cooperation agreements with South Korea, Japan, France and Russia. In February, 2011, France singed a nuclear cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia, offering the kingdom nuclear know-how.

The operator of a crippled Japanese atomic power plant said Monday it had measured the highest radiation level since the start of the nuclear crisis, a news report said, dpa reported. Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said more than 10 sieverts per hour of radiation was recorded on the surface of a pipe located outdoors between reactor 1 and reactor 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Jiji Press reported. The plant has spewed radioactive material into the environment since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The crisis prompted the Japanese government to raise the maximum annual limit for plant workers to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts.

Some Western online reports have charged that Japan had passed a law with the intent of "cleansing" the Internet of negative reports and commentary about the accident at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi atomic plant. Chikako Ogami, a spokeswoman at the energy agency of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), told AFP: "Our government will never censor information at all. These are erroneous news reports."

Ogami said the agency had set aside funds in the nation's disaster reconstruction budget for a project to monitor "inaccurate" online information that may lead to harmful rumours against residents of Fukushima. "But we will never ask Internet providers or web masters to delete such information or pin down the senders," Ogami said. "We will simply explain our thoughts on our own website and our own Twitter account."

The controversy was triggered when METI's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy earlier this month opened a call for bids for its so-called Nuclear Power Safety Regulation Publicity Project.

Ever since the March 11 start of the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, unthinking, order-following school teachers and administrators throughout Japan from kindergarten/nursery school on (with a few exceptions) have made small children:

pick tea leaves which turned out to be highly radioactive (in one case in Ibaraki, they made them eat the tempura made out of the leaves);participate in outdoor PE classes with the threat that they wouldn't get good grades if they (or their parents) refuse;

clean the school yard, pulling weeds and sweeping;clean out the swimming pools with sludges which turned out to be highly radioactive;plant rice seedlings in rice paddies with bare feet (this was done throughout Japan, high radiation or not);

The survey meter went overscale, so no one knows how high the actual radiation really is. TEPCO hasn't updated the "survey map (contamination map)" of the plant for about a month, and I've been wondering why. (They have a new one out now, but it doesn't mention the exhaust duct at all.)

If you are exposed to 10 sieverts radiation in a short time, you will be dead.Photo is from Kyodo News Japanese, with the original photo by the Ministry of Defense. The exhaust duct is where the black arrow is pointing

Not clear from the Jiji article below, but the Kyodo article does say the meter went overscale and the accurate measurement is not available.

Highly radioactive water has been found in the basement of a building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant near the storage facility for contaminated water. Tokyo Electric Power Company said on Monday that it discovered about 700 tons of contaminated water on Saturday in the basement of an on-site building. The utility said the water contained 19,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium 134 per cubic centimeter, and 22,000 becquerels of cesium 137 --- both very high levels.

Highly radioactive water has been found in the basement of a building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant near the storage facility for contaminated water. Tokyo Electric Power Company said on Monday that it discovered about 700 tons of contaminated water on Saturday in the basement of an on-site building.

Highly radioactive water has been found in the basement of a building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant near the storage facility for contaminated water. Tokyo Electric Power Company said on Monday that it discovered about 700 tons of contaminated water on Saturday in the basement of an on-site building. The utility said the water contained 19,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium 134 per cubic centimeter, and 22,000 becquerels of cesium 137 --- both very high levels.

Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues have discovered a new relation among electric and magnetic fields and differences in temperature, which may lead to more efficient thermoelectric devices that convert heat into electricity or electricity into heat.

An n-type semiconductor on top of a p-type semiconductor creates a vertical electric field (E, green arrow), while diffusion creates a depletion layer near the junction (orange), where the electric field is strongest. Heating one end of the device creates a heat gradient at right angles to the electric field (del T, red arrow). Electrons and holes moving in these fields are forced into loops of current, and a magnetic field is generated “sideways” (B, blue arrow), at right angles to both electric and thermal fields.

"In the search for new sources of energy, thermopower -- the ability to convert temperature differences directly into electricity without wasteful intervening steps -- is tremendously promising," says Junqiao Wu of Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division (MSD), who led the research team. Wu is also a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. "But the new effect we've discovered has been overlooked by the thermopower community, and can greatly affect the efficiency of thermopower and other devices."

[...] “The levels reported of 10 sieverts per hour are very high levels and it’s going to be very difficult to manage workers going into those areas and doing operations,” [Peter Burns, former chief executive officer of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency] said. “To put the 10 sieverts into context, that 10 sieverts is actually a lethal dose of radiation. So you can’t afford to be exposed for more than a few minutes at those levels. “It means you’re directly exposed to fuel rods in the reactors or the spent fuel ponds very closely and while it’s possible to get to those levels it means there is very little shielding going on there.” [...]

Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama of Tokyo University Tells the Politicians: “What Are You Doing?”, EX-SKF, July 28, 2011:

So, using our knowledge base at the Radioisotope Center, we calculated. Based on the thermal output, it is 29.6 times the amount released by the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In uranium equivalent, it is 20 Hiroshima bombs. What is more frightening is that whereas the radiation from a nuclear bomb will decrease to one-thousandth in one year, the radiation from a nuclear power plant will only decrease to one-tenth.

n other words, we should recognize from the start that just like Chernobyl, Fukushima I Nuke Plant has released radioactive materials equivalent in the amount to tens of nuclear bombs, and the resulting contamination is far worse than the contamination by a nuclear bomb. [...] As I said before, there was only one geiger counter in Minami Soma City when we went there in May. In fact, there were 20 personal survey meters provided by the US military. But no one at the city’s Board of Education could understand the English manual until we went there and told them how to use them. That’s how it is there.

SUMMARY: The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), announces the availability of the Draft Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for the Continued Operation of the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada National Security Site and Off-Site Locations in the State of Nevada (Draft SWEIS, DOE/EIS-0426D) for public review, as well as the locations, dates and times for public hearings. The Draft SWEIS for the continued management and operation of the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) (formerly known as the Nevada Test Site) and other NNSA-managed sites in Nevada, including the Remote Sensing Laboratory (RSL) on Nellis Air Force Base, the North Las Vegas Facility (NLVF), and the Tonopah Test Range (TTR) on the U.S. Air Force Nevada Test and Training Range, analyzes the potential environmental impacts for three alternatives: No Action Alternative, Expanded Operations Alternative and Reduced Operations Alternative. Each alternative comprises current and reasonably foreseeable activities at the NNSS and the three offsite locations.

The Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ) National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing regulations allow an agency to identify its preferred alternative or alternatives, if one or more exists, in a draft EIS (40 CFR 1502.14[e]). NNSA has not currently identified a preferred alternative; however, a preferred alternative will be identified in the Final SWEIS. The U.S. Air Force, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and Nye County, Nevada, are cooperating agencies in the preparation of this Draft SWEIS. In addition, the Consolidated Group of Tribes and Organizations, which include representatives from 17 Tribes and organizations, participated in its preparation.

DATES: NNSA invites comments on the Draft SWEIS during the public comment period which ends October 27, 2011. NNSA will consider comments received after this date to the extent practicable as it prepares the Final SWEIS. NNSA will hold five public hearings on the Draft SWEIS. Locations, dates and times are provided in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION portion of this notice under ``Public Hearings and Invitation To Comment'

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY DOE Response to Recommendation 2011-1 of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Safety Culture at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice.

SUMMARY: On June 09, 2011, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board affirmed their Recommendation 2011-1, concerning Safety Culture at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, to the Department of Energy. In accordance with section 315(b) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 2286d(b), The following represents the Secretary of Energy's response to the recommendation.

As the Board notes in the introduction to this Recommendation, DOE committed itself to establishing and maintaining a strong nuclear safety culture almost 20 years ago through Secretary of Energy Notice SEN-35-91, Nuclear Safety Policy. This commitment was reiterated and confirmed in February 2011, in DOE Policy 420.1, Department of Energy Nuclear Safety Policy. We agree with the Board's position that establishment of a strict safety culture must be a fundamental principle throughout the DOE complex, and we are in unqualified agreement with the Board that the WTP mission is essential to protect the health and safety of the public, our workers, and the environment from radioactive wastes in aging storage tanks at Hanford.