nuclear-news

Typhoon making things worse at Fukushima nuclear plant

Typhoon Man-yi complicates Fukushima nuclear cleanup (+video), Christian Science Monitor 16 Sept 13 Typhoon Man-yi brought heavy rain and wind to Japan Monday, raising concerns over the fragile cleanup at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Workers already struggle to contain contaminated wastewater, and rain from Typhoon Man-yi adds to the complications at Fukushima.

By David J. Unger, Staff writer / September 16, 2013 The last thing cleanup workers at Fukushima need is a typhoon, but a typhoon is what they’re getting. Heavy rain and winds clocking in at 100 miles per hour slammed into Japan Monday. Typhoon Man-yi caused at least two fatalities and stirred fears at the crippledFukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. On a typical day, workers have struggled to contain the 400 tons of contaminated water they pump out of the plant. Added rain from Typhoon Man-yi makes matters more complicated.

“The typhoon has little chance of destabilizing the reactors, but it will certainly add more water to a site already crowded with hastily assembled steel storage tanks and relatively poor oversight,” Daniel Aldrich, a political scientist at Purdue University who has been following the Fukushima disaster, wrote in an e-mail.

As rain fell, workers pumped accumulating water from around those storage tanks into the Pacific Ocean in an effort to prevent flooding and radioactive contamination. That rainwater was untainted, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), the plant’s operator. But Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said such a discharge could be subject to nuclear safety rules and was checking radiation levels.

The company also added new walls around the storage tanks to prevent future leaks in the run-up to the typhoon. Workers weighed down cranes and other materials to minimize wind damage. …… http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0916/Typhoon-Man-yi-complicates-Fukushima-nuclear-cleanup-video

September 17, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

International Olympic Committee blind to the radioactive dangers facing Tokyo

Tokyo Olympics Bid was Fixed by the International Olympic Committee’s Nuclear Lobby  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s blatant lies about Fukushima radiation leaks being under control By Yoichi Shimatsu  Global Research, September 16, 2013

“……….Ladies and Gentlemen, Put on Your Blinders  As if wearing blinders, IOC delegates at Buenos Aires ignored media questions about the thousands of tons of radiation-contaminated water leaking from the Fukushima nuclear plant. Arguably worse is the ash from Tokyo’s incinerators that burned Fukushima combustible waste for two years. The highly radioactive cinders were dumped into landfills in Tokyo Bay, which will be the site of the Olympic Village and most of the sports venues.

The Arakawa River, which flows into Tokyo Bay, is also contaminated in its upper reaches by clouds drifting in from the Pacific. The forests around Tokyo’s watershed in Oku-Tama, which provides drinking water to the capital, are dangerously drenched by radioactive rainfall, and the national food supply is so irradiated that regulators have had to raise the food safety level.

The risk of more clouds of radioactive fallout sweeping toward Tokyo is not hypothetical but an inevitable consequence of uncontrollable meltdowns of hundreds of tons of nuclear fuel at Fukushima. The danger is amplified by recurrent earthquakes along Japan’s major fault lines and consequent volcanic eruptions, which pose a constant threat to the nearby nuclear plants at Hamaoka on the seaside below Mount Fuji, Tokai in neighboring Ibaraki, and the twin plants in Fukushima. Another explosion at any of these nuclear sites would force the evacuation of 50 million residents, or one-third of the population.

A major quake or volcanic eruption, long-overdue in the nearby Nankai Trough and Mount Fuji, and even under Tokyo itself, would close the capital’s airports, forcing thousands of Olympic athletes and spectators along with millions of residents to flee in the opposite direction, directly into Fukushima Prefecture. Tokyo is a killing field waiting to happen………..http://www.globalresearch.ca/tokyo-olympics-bid-was-fixed-by-the-international-olympic-committees-nuclear-lobby/5350045

Yoichi Shimatsu, a Hong Kong-based science writer, is former editor of the Japan Times Weekly in Tokyo. http://www.globalresearch.ca/tokyo-olympics-bid-was-fixed-by-the-international-olympic-committees-nuclear-lobby/5350045

September 17, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, safety | Leave a comment