Fuel removal unlikely by March 2018
566 fuel assemblies, 514 spent fuel assemblies and 52 unused ones, Tepco has always said so. But since the fuel pool was cleaned up, Tepco only released partial photos of the fuel pool, never any photo of the whole fuel pool. So as of now it is just impossible to verify Tepco’s claim by counting the assemblies. Since the fuel pool also exploded some fuel assemblies must be missing. How many are gone how many remain is still a non answered question, especially as Tepco is not well known for being straightforward.
Will Tepco dare to start decommissioning the reactor 3 fuel pool before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics? I doubt so. In my opinion, Tepco will keep postponing it for after the Olympics, to avoid difficulties and critics
Fuel removal unlikely by March 2018
A government official has suggested that fuel removal from a reactor at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will not start by March 2018, as planned.
566 nuclear fuel units remain in the No. 3 reactor’s fuel pool. To reach their target period, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company must begin placing a cover over the damaged reactor building by this April.
It’s now expected the cover installation will not start until January next year or later. It was determined that stronger measures are needed to protect workers from radiation exposure.
An official with the industry ministry overseeing reactor decommissioning inspected the plant on Monday. He said starting fuel removal within the next fiscal year is difficult.
Tokyo Electric says the cover installation has been slow, but the company will continue decommissioning work with safety as their highest priority.
Magnitude 6.9 Earthquake Strikes Off Japanese Coast, Tsunami Warning
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.3 hit northern Japan on Tuesday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, generating a tsunami that hit the nation’s northern Pacific coast.
The U.S. Geological Survey initially put Tuesday’s quake at a magnitude of 7.3 but down graded it to 6.9.
The earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, was centered off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 km (6 miles) and struck at 5:59 a.m. (2059 GMT) the agency said.
USGS said that it was a shallow quake, at about 10 kilometers, which tended to cause more shaking damage and had greater potential to cause a tsunami.
“The good news here is that the direction the fault was moving is a slight lateral slip. When the faults move laterally they do not create the vertical movement associated with large tsunamis,” the U.S. agency said.
A 60 cm (2 foot) tsunami had been observed at Iwaki city’s Onahama Port and a 90 cm (3 foot) tsunami at Soma Port soon after, public broadcaster NHK said. The region is the same that was devastated by a tsunami following a massive earthquake in 2011. A tsunami warning of up to 3 meters (10 feet) has been issued.
Japan’s chief government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said that a government taskforce had been established to deal with the quake and tsunami, and called on people in affected areas to evacuate, according to media outlet NHK.
NHK also reported that water could be seen moving bath and forth in Onahama Port and that tide levels were rising in some areas on Japan’s eastern coast. Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from Fukushima harbors as tsunami warning signals wailed.
Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, said on its website that no damage from the quake has been confirmed at any of its power plants, although there have been blackouts in some areas. Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant caused Japan’s worst nuclear disaster when it was knocked out by the 2011 tsunami.
Tohoku Electric Power said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported there were no irregularities at the Tokai Daini nuclear plant in Ibaraki Prefecture.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
The March 11, 2011, quake was magnitude 9, the strongest quake in Japan on record. The massive tsunami it triggered caused world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.
An Iwaki city fire dept official said there was smoke or fire at Kureha’s research center in a petrochemical complex in Iwaki city at 6:17 a.m., but it was extinguished at 6:40 a.m. Other details were not clear, he said, adding that no other major damage in the city has been reported at the moment.
One hotel in Ofunato, badly hit by the 2011 quake, told guests to stay in the facility, which is on high ground.
All nuclear plants on the coast threatened by the tsunami are shut down in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest of the country. Even when in shutdown nuclear plants need cooling systems operating to keep spent fuel cool.
At Fukushima Daiichi, the plant workers are reporting they felt shaken even in the seismic isolation building. Most of the workers have not come to the plant for today yet. The situation is still under investigation. No further information yet.
At Fukushima Daini, Tepco said that its water-cooling system for spent fuel at reactor 3 had stopped working at 6:10AM but that there was enough water in the pool to keep the fuel cool, posing no immediate danger. Tepco rebooted the coolant system of SFP 3 of Fukushima DAINI at 7:47AM (JST).
http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/20161122061144495-220559.html
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/21/magnitude-73-earthquake-hits-japan-usgs-says.html
https://twitter.com/nhk_seikatsu/status/800825947507212288
https://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/sec/16025c/genan10.html
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20161122/k10010779181000.html
Off Fukushima coast – tsunami warning has been issued, following earthquake
Tsunami warning issued after earthquake off Fukushima, Japan, SMH, 22 Nov 16 A tsunami warning, with waves of up to three metres, has been issued for Fukushima following a magnitude 7.3 earthquake on Tuesday morning.
NHK, Japan’s national public broadcaster, is showing a livestream of the coast around Fukushima, where a three-metre tsunami is expected to hit.
NHK said a tsunami had already been observed about 20 kilometres off Fukushima’s coastline, at 6.06am local time.
At 6.49am, a 60 centimetre tsunami was observed at the Port of Onahama, at Fukushima. NHK said back wash has been reported, as the sea level decreases for the approach of a tsunami.
MA said the tsunami height is estimated to be one to three metres in the Fukushima area. Tsunami waves are expected to hit repeatedly, the warning said.
The epicentre of the earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, was off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 kilometres, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.
Residents are being told to evacuate from coastal regions and riverside areas to a safe place, such as higher ground or an evacuation building immediately.
NHK is repeatedly telling people in coastal areas of the Fukushima prefecture to evacuate to higher ground immediately….. .http://www.smh.com.au/world/tsunami-warning-issued-after-earthquake-off-fukushima-japan-20161121-gsuh5y.html
Temporary Radioactive Soil Storage Sites Hinder Fukushima Farmers
Farmers harvest rice in one of Hisayoshi Shiraiwa’s paddies in Katsurao, Fukushima Prefecture, on Oct. 19, 2016. Another rice paddy in the foreground serves as a temporary storage site for piles of black plastic bags containing radioactive soil.
FUKUSHIMA — Wide swaths of temporary storage sites for radioactive soil and other waste generated from decontamination work in areas around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant are hampering locals from resuming farming, it has been learned.
The makeshift storage sites occupy roughly 1,000 hectares in total, or an area the size of 213 Tokyo Domes, across zones currently or formerly designated for evacuation in 11 municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture, according to the Ministry of the Environment. The high occupancy is the result of delayed work to develop interim storage facilities for contaminated soil.
Because slightly over 90 percent of those temporary storage sites lie on farmland, local governments are deprived of the very foundation for restoring farming — a key local industry — in those areas while farmers are concerned about possible damage caused by harmful rumors.
According to the Environment Ministry, there are about 280 temporary storage sites in areas designated as evacuation zones. Those storage sites — which are leased to the ministry by local farmers — accommodate over 7 million black plastic bags containing radioactive soil, grass and branches. Those flexible container bags — each capable of containing 1 cubic meter of soil and other waste — are commonly known as “flecon baggu” in Japanese.
Under the ministry plan, interim storage facilities will be built in areas totaling some 1,600 hectares in the so-called “difficult-to-return” zones in the prefectural towns of Futaba and Okuma around the Fukushima No. 1 plant. Under the scheme, radioactive soil temporarily stored at different locations in Fukushima Prefecture will be transported there for longer storage periods spanning up to 30 years before it is put to final disposal outside the prefecture.
While the ministry had initially sought to begin construction of interim storage facilities in July 2014, delays in negotiations with local residents and efforts to acquire land lots made it impossible to meet the schedule. The ministry aims to finish acquiring up to 70 percent of land necessary for the construction of interim storage facilities by the end of fiscal 2020, but the land it had managed to acquire by the end of October this year stood at a mere 170 hectares, or only 10 percent of the planned area.
The Environment Ministry estimates that up to 22 million cubic meters of contaminated soil and other waste will be generated across Fukushima Prefecture, but the interim storage facilities are expected to be able to accommodate no more than 12.5 million cubic meters of such waste by the end of fiscal 2020.
The Fukushima Prefecture village of Katsurao, where evacuation orders were lifted in most areas in June, has been pushing restoration of farming as a key policy measure. However, the total size of rice paddies in the village has dropped from some 130 hectares operated by roughly 270 households in 2010 — prior to the Fukushima meltdowns — to around 6 hectares operated by 11 households this year. Nearly 30 percent of the village’s rice paddies totaling some 220 hectares now serve as temporary storage sites for radioactive soil and other waste.
Hisayoshi Shiraiwa, a 70-year-old farmer in Katsurao, harvested rice in his paddy in October, which is adjacent to another paddy that serves as a temporary storage site for piles of black plastic bags containing radioactive soil. As the price of rice from the area hasn’t recovered to pre-disaster levels, local farmers are worried about prolonged reputational damage.
“As long as temporary storage sites remain here, farmers will lose their motivation and face a shortage of successors,” Shiraiwa said.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161120/p2a/00m/0na/004000c
Ice wall at Fukushima plant examined
Government officials have examined an underground ice wall built around Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to confirm whether the soil has frozen.
Work is ongoing to build a 1.5 kilometer barrier of frozen soil encircling reactor buildings. The goal is to prevent underground water from seeping into the plant premises, resulting in more tainted water.
Coolants are being circulated from pipes buried around the reactor site.
Work to build an ice wall began in March, and is almost completed.
State minister for industry, Yosuke Takagi and others on Monday looked at an exposed section of the ice wall.
They said the ice wall had hardened enough to withstand being hit with a hammer.
Officials say prior to construction of the ice wall, workers collected some 350 tons of underground water on a daily basis. The amount has shrunk to about 200 tons.
Japan’s nuclear regulator is also planning to assess the effectiveness of the ice wall installment.
Pro-Nuclear Candidate Wins in Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Plant Host City
Pro-nuclear candidate wins mayoral race in plant host city
KASHIWAZAKI, NIIGATA PREF. – A candidate who pledged to conditionally approve the restart of the world’s biggest nuclear power plant has been elected mayor of Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture.
Masahiro Sakurai, a 54-year-old former member of the city’s assembly, on Sunday defeated Eiko Takeuchi, 47, a former municipal employee who opposes the restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex on the Sea of Japan coast.
During the campaign, Sakurai said he would not reject a restart of the power plant if Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. takes into account the opinions of nearby residents and ensures the facility’s safety.
He was supported by the Liberal Democratic Party and local businesses.
Takeuchi promised not to accept the plant restart, saying it will expose the public to danger. She had official support from the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party.
Speaking with reporters Monday morning, Sakurai repeated his pledge to gradually reduce dependence on nuclear power but that he sees value in the plant operating for a certain period of time.
He also referred to decommissioning some of the reactors, saying the process should create jobs in the city.
It remains uncertain whether Tepco will be able to resume operation of the plant due to opposition from Niigata Gov. Ryuichi Yoneyama, who was elected in October.
An agreement, though nonbinding, between the utility, Kashiwazaki and Niigata Prefecture is essential to restart the nuclear power station.
The power station straddles Kashiwazaki and the village of Kariwa.
Kariwa Mayor Hiroo Shinada, who supports restarting the plant, was handed a fifth term Nov. 15 when no one ran against him.
Whether to restart nuclear facilities has dominated several local elections across Japan, especially since the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011.
Reactors 6 and 7 at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant are boiling water units, the same type that suffered core meltdowns at Fukushima No. 1, raising safety fears.
If all of its seven units are in operation, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is the world’s largest nuclear power complex, boasting a combined output capacity of around 8.2 million kilowatts.
Mayoral candidate in Japan campaigning to bring world’s biggest nuke plant back online set to be elected: exit polls
A pro-nuclear power advocate who campaigned on a platform of rebooting the world’s largest nuclear power plant is placed to win the mayoral election in the Japanese City of Kashiwazaki, in Niigata Prefecture, exit polls reported by local media showed Sunday.
According to Kyodo News, Masahiro Sakurai, 54, who formerly worked for the city council in Kashiwazaki, will become mayor, having beaten his opponent Eiko Takeuchi, 47, a former employee of the city, who stood in opposition of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear complex being restarted.
Despite the likely win for Sakurai however and his plans to bring the mega-plant on the Sea of Japan back on-line, the plant’s utility may not get the green light to restart its idled reactors, as a month earlier Ryuichi Yoneyama, an anti-nuclear candidate, won the gubernatorial election in Niigata Prefecture.
Yoneyama winning the race was a major blow to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. as well as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling administration, who favors bringing the nation’s nuclear power plants, idled in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, back online, as he has unequivocally stated that he will not accept the plant being restarted.
“Let me clearly say that I cannot accept the restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant under the current circumstances where I cannot protect people’s lives and live as I have promised,” Yoneyama was quoted as saying to his supporters recently, with reference to major concerns in the area over the plant’s checkered safety record.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power station that Sakurai wants to reboot is located in the towns of Kashiwazaki and Kariwa in Niigata Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan, and was central to Yoneyama’s winning campaign, with incumbent Gov. Hirohiko Izumida, who was not seeking reelection, also voicing skepticism over the safety of the plant’s restart.
For the power station, with a potential output of 8.2 million kilowatts making it the largest in the world to be restarted, an accord has to be struck between the city, the prefecture and the utility, with Yoneyama likely to be the bottle-neck.
Safety concerns have been rife in the region as the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s Nos. 6 and 7 units use the same boiling water technique as the reactors at TEPCO’s Daiichi plant in Fukushima that suffered multiple meltdowns in 2011, leading to the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant itself has been no stranger to accidents and controversy and in 2007 an earthquake caused reactors at the plant to catch fire and leak radioactive materials. As with Fukushima Daiichi, the plant is also owned and operated by the embattled Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which is currently under state control.
Following TEPCO’s numerous coverups, continued misinformation and other monumental gaffes related to the ongoing Fukushima disaster, public opinion towards the utility, and, by default, the government here, has remained indignant and distrusting.
http://www.traderplanet.com/news/view/130585/
Pro-reactor restart candidate wins mayoral race
Voters in a Japanese city that hosts an offline nuclear power plant have chosen their new mayor. Independent Masahiro Sakurai conditionally supports plans to restart the plant.
He defeated the only other candidate, who opposes the restart, in the election in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, on Sunday.
Sakurai endorses the plan to restart the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant with some conditions, including ensuring its safety. He also insists that the number of nuclear plants needs to be reduced in the future.
During his campaign, Sakurai said the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, as well as the central government should play a proactive role in preventing nuclear disasters. He promised to work for necessary legal revisions.
Sakurai also urged the city to overcome the division regarding the restart.
He garnered support from local business leaders and many municipal assembly members.
Last month, a candidate with a cautious stance toward the restart won the election to become the prefecture’s governor.
Skiing in Fukushima
Fukushima mounts winter tourism offensive to draw foreign tourists to its snowy charms
A project will kick off in Fukushima Prefecture this winter to lure more foreign tourists to its snowy hills and mountains to help revitalize depopulated regions.
For starters, the prefecture will invite tourists from Taiwan, Thailand and Australia to Okuaizu, Urabandai and southern areas of the prefecture, and subsidize nearly all of their transportation and accommodation costs. About 200 people are expected to participate.
The purpose of the project is to promote Fukushima’s name overseas, raise occupancy at its hotels and inns, and bolster jobs in its tourism industry.
The project will run until fiscal 2018. The Fukushima Prefectural Government plans to earmark about ¥17 million from the central government’s local revitalization subsidies to finance the first year.
The prefecture is coordinating with travel agencies so that areas including the towns of Minamiaizu, Kaneyama and Bandai, as well as the villages of Kitashiobara and Tenei, can welcome visitors from Australia, where skiing is very popular, and Taiwan and Thailand, where Fukushima has tourism offices.
The four towns and villages will get three tours each, including an overnight journey, with the prefecture shouldering most of the transport and accommodation fees.
Each tour is designed so participants can ski, snowboard and have snowball fights in Fukushima’s powder snow, as well as enjoy local snow festivals. There are also plans to reserve a ski resort for a whole weekday just for foreign visitors.
In addition, tourists will be invited to soak in hot springs to interact with local residents after experiencing snow-removal activities. This will be followed by chances to sample the local cuisine and taste sake popular at home and abroad.
Other trips are being planned to famous tourist spots along the Tadami Line, which has gained an overseas following on the internet, and to fishing spots where pond smelt can be caught in Hibara and Hatori lakes.
Once the visitors return home, the project encourages them to spread information on the ski resorts, tourist spots, food and sake they experienced via SNS.
Already, the Fukushima Prefectural Government is looking to create more tours that appeal to a wider range of countries, including China and South Korea.
It intends to set up a study group comprising officials from cities, towns, villages and local tourism associations to analyze the participants’ reactions. Based on the results, the prefecture will set up multiple tourism routes to draw attention ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
“Amid tepid demand from Japanese skiers, if the prefecture successfully emphasizes the high quality of its snow, it is possible to lure more tourists from abroad,” said a source connected with a ski resort in the Aizu region.
“We’d like to design a model tour to make the mountainous areas popular in winter,” an official in the prefecture’s regional development section said.
Even though tourism has rebounded since the Fukushima disaster unfolded in 2011, it has not fully recovered.
Last year, foreign tourists who stayed at lodging facilities with more than 20 employees in Fukushima came to 48,090, more than double the 2011 tally, according to the Japan Tourism Agency.
But that’s still far short of the 87,170 who did so in 2010, and the prefecture is hunting for more ways to raise tourism in cooperation with its neighbors in the Tohoku and Kanto regions.
Fuel Removal from Fukushima Reactor 3 Likely to Be Put Off Again
Tokyo, Nov. 18 (Jiji Press)–Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. <9501> is expected to face a further delay in the start of work to remove fuel from the storage pool at the No. 3 reactor of its disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station, it was learned Friday.
It now appears difficult to begin the work in January 2018, as currently targeted by the company, the sources said. The expected postponement is due to a delay in preparations necessary for the removal work.
All six reactors at the power station in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, are set to be decommissioned, after the plant was knocked out by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Three of the six reactors suffered core meltdowns in the accident.
The fuel removal from the No. 3 reactor pool was initially planned to begin during April-September 2015.
The No. 3 reactor building was heavily damaged by a hydrogen explosion soon after the March 11 disaster. As part of the preparations, TEPCO plans to install a cover and relevant equipment at the reactor.
http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2016111800715
13 Fukushima High School Students Visited Fukushima Daiichi
Propaganda to downplay the chaos & the effects of the disaster goes on at full throttle. Is it happening because Japanese are so recklessly brave and immune to radiation? Are school teachers and TEPCO officials sane enough? How could a university professor take them around at the damaged NPP without be concerned about the effect of radiation on young people?
Fukushima students see crippled nuclear plant firsthand
OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture–It was no ordinary outing for the 13 students from Fukushima High School.
The teenagers toured the site of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant by bus on Nov. 18 to get a firsthand look at work to decommission the reactors following the triple meltdown in 2011.
It was the first tour by youngsters since the disaster as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. had deemed the radiation risk was too high.
Through bus windows, the students observed the damaged reactor buildings, rows of storage tanks holding contaminated water and other facilities on the sprawling nuclear complex.
“The tour made me realize that we should arm ourselves with accurate information if we want to change people’s perceptions of Fukushima as a scary place,” said Keika Kobiyama, a first-year student in the group. “For starters, I want to tell my fellow high school students ‘We went to the plant to see for ourselves what was going on there.’”
TEPCO had previously refused to allow tours by those under the age of 18.
But the company gave the green light to this request as an exception on grounds that radiation levels had dropped significantly.
The students were each given a dosimeter as they boarded the bus for the two-hour tour. The trip was held after their parents agreed to the visit.
The students themselves had been releasing updates on the disaster for Japanese and foreign audiences by monitoring radiation levels in the prefecture and studying the decommissioning process.
World Baseball Chief Plays Down Fukushima Olympic Fears
The president of the World Baseball Softball Confederation Ricardo Fraccari at press conference in Tokyo on Friday.
World baseball chief plays down Fukushima Olympic fears
The president of world baseball’s governing body on Friday played down fears that the sport’s top stars will refuse to play in Fukushima if the nuclear disaster-hit prefecture hosts games at the 2020 Olympics.
Olympic chiefs are currently considering a proposal to play part of the Tokyo 2020 baseball and softball competition in Fukushima Prefecture, which in 2011 suffered the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years when the Great East Japan Earthquake triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The prefecture successfully hosted games at the Under-15 Baseball World Cup in the city of Iwaki this summer, and World Baseball Softball Confederation President Riccardo Fraccari believes senior teams will not be deterred from playing there in 2020 should its bid to host games be accepted.
“This can be an issue, but from the data I received, the situation at this moment is not dangerous in Fukushima,” said Fraccari, who held talks with Tokyo 2020 organizers in Tokyo on Friday and will visit the prefecture on Saturday to inspect potential venues.
“Even at the last Under-15 World Cup, only one country refused to come. But the rest were there. In three years — just now the situation is good, so I think from this point there won’t be any problem for countries to come to Fukushima.”
Fraccari must give his consent to the prefecture’s bid before it can be put before the International Olympic Committee, which will make a final decision when it holds its executive board meeting from Dec. 6 to 8.
Three venues in the prefecture are under consideration — Iwaki Green Stadium in Iwaki, Azuma Baseball Stadium of the city of Fukushima and Koriyama Kaiseizan Baseball Stadium in Koriyama.
“From the perspective of the WBSC, I know the importance of baseball and softball in Japan, and I know how we can facilitate the recovery from the disaster,” said Italian Fraccari. “If the field in Fukushima has all the requirements, we can take it into consideration and analyze internally the possibility.
“But I repeat, we have to check many things because we have to see how it’s possible to include it in the schedule, the distance, the fields. There are many issues and we won’t take any decision yet.”
Baseball and softball were voted onto the 2020 program as a joint bid after an absence of 12 years at an IOC session in Rio de Janeiro in August ahead of the Summer Games. The format of the competitions has yet to be decided.
Nippon Professional Baseball has agreed to suspend play for the duration of the July 24 to Aug. 9 Tokyo Olympics, but Major League Baseball has yet to say whether it will cooperate.
“There is, even from the major leagues, a desire to be more international,” said Fraccari. “Now we are discussing, but before we discuss we need to have the details of the tournament, the details of the schedule. I think that we can find a solution to have the best games possible.”
Fraccari also played down suggestions that pressure to agree to Fukushima’s proposal, which was floated by IOC President Thomas Bach during a visit to Tokyo last month, will affect his decision.
“I used to be an umpire, so I know what it means to be under pressure,” he said.
Olympics: No decision yet as world baseball-softball chief inspects Fukushima
World Baseball Softball Confederation President Riccardo Fraccari stopped short of issuing a verdict after inspecting Fukushima Prefecture as a potential host site of the 2020 Olympic baseball and softball competitions Saturday.
Fraccari scouted Azuma Stadium in Fukushima City and Koriyama’s Kaiseizan Stadium but insisted the purpose of his visit this time was to gather intelligence and not to reach a decision of any kind. The third city being considered is Iwaki, whose Green Stadium Fraccari has already visited.
“At the moment, I’m just collecting information of the stadiums,” said Fraccari, who met Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori ahead of his stadium tours.
“The problem for Fukushima is not just the stadium. We have to check about the transportation, the facility for the teams and the schedule.”
The 2020 organizing committee is looking to open the baseball and softball tournaments in the prefecture, with Japan set to play in the first game of both competitions.
Fraccari did not mention a deadline on when the competition format and the overall schedule would be made, but did say all the stakeholders would have to work fast, with the organizing committee aiming to finalize details at the Dec. 6-8 executive board meeting of the International Olympic Committee.
“Yesterday, it was a good meeting with Tokyo 2020,” he said. “We work very close with them, we cooperate a lot because both of us have the best interests in the Games in 2020.”
“We have to work very fast because we don’t have too much time. We don’t yet have a fixed deadline, for sure but we have to work very, very soon towards the entire Games (plan).”
Uchibori reiterated Fukushima’s willingness to stage the two sports.
“We want to express our strong desire to organize the events in Fukushima Prefecture,” Uchibori said to Fraccari in his native Italian.
“It will help unite the people of Fukushima, and help unite the prefecture and the world. They’re fantastic sports.”
Uchibori reassured Fraccari that the radiation levels in Fukushima, which was devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and the nuclear power plant crisis that followed, are no different to that of major cities around the world.
“In almost all areas in the prefecture, the figures are the same as any of the world’s major cities,” Uchibori said.
School failed to act on extortion of Fukushima evacuee bullied at school
YOKOHAMA — Education authorities failed to react to financial and emotional damage incurred by a boy who was bullied at his school here after evacuating from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, it has been learned.
The boy, who is now 13, was bullied at an elementary school in Yokohama after he transferred there from Fukushima Prefecture. Although the school and the Yokohama Municipal Board of Education were aware that the boy was forced to pay about 1.5 million yen to his classmates, they failed to respond proactively to the case. His parents had conveyed the amount to the school and education board after being informed of it by Kanagawa Prefectural Police.
According to attorneys for the student and other sources, the parents consulted with prefectural police in July 2014 about their son’s classmates demanding money from him. After checking the footage of security cameras at a video arcade, prefectural police found that at least one of the bullies had squandered hundreds of thousands of yen of boy’s money each time.
The money that the victim was forced to pay was spent on travel, dining and entertainment. The student was initially demanded to pay around 50,000 yen at a time, but the sum eventually snowballed.
The bully extorted the victim, saying, “You’ve got compensation money (for the nuclear disaster), don’t you?” The victim could not confide the incidents to his parents and secretly paid the bullies using his family’s money budgeted for living expenses.
The victim stopped attending school for a second time in June 2014, and his parents reported the prefectural police’s investigation results to his school and the city education board. However, the school didn’t deem the case a “serious situation” under the law to promote measure to prevent bullying, and shelved it.
At a Nov. 15 press conference, the city education board admitted that there was money trouble between the students. Superintendent of schools Yuko Okada said, “We should have recognized the case as serious as more than one month had passed since the student stopped attending school and the money and goods issues surfaced.”
A third-party panel to the city education board criticized the school and the education board, saying, “There are no traces of their having given sufficient instructions to the parties who ‘paid’ and ‘were paid for,’ though (the education authorities) were aware of the exchange of monies in the tens of thousands of yen.”
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161118/p2a/00m/0na/018000c
Cancer patient compensated for Fukushima work to sue TEPCO
Damage from an explosion remains at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant’s No. 4 reactor building in March 2013.
A 42-year-old man diagnosed with leukemia after working at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant plans to sue Tokyo Electric Power Co., saying the utility failed to take adequate precautions against radiation exposure.
He will also sue Kyushu Electric Power Co., operator of the Genkai nuclear plant in Saga Prefecture where he had also worked, in the lawsuit expected to be filed at the Tokyo District Court on Nov. 22.
The man, who is from Kita-Kyushu in Fukuoka Prefecture, will demand about 59 million yen ($541,000) in total compensation from the two utilities.
“TEPCO and Kyushu Electric, as the managers of the facilities, are responsible for the health of workers there, but they failed to take adequate measures to protect them from radiation exposure,” said one of the lawyers representing him.
“The man was forced to undergo unnecessary radiation exposure because of the utilities’ slipshod on-site radiation management, and as a result had to face danger to his life and fear of death,” the lawyer said.
The lawyers group said the man has a strong case, citing a ruling by labor authorities in October 2015 that recognized a correlation between his leukemia and his work in response to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
It was the first time cancer was ruled work-related among people who developed the disease after working at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The planned lawsuit will be the first legal action against TEPCO brought by an individual whose work-related compensation claim has already been granted.
Between October 2011 and December 2013, the man worked at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to set up a cover on the damaged No. 4 reactor building and perform other tasks.
The man also did regular maintenance jobs at the Genkai plant.
His accumulative radiation exposure at the two plants came to about 20 millisieverts.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201611180052.html
Fukushima ‘ghost town’ uses dummies to fill sad post-3/11 void
Completed dummies sit while women make another in Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture, on Nov. 14.
NARAHA, Fukushima Prefecture–Ghosts of the past are all around in this Fukushima town whose communities were decimated in the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear disaster.
Less than one-tenth of Naraha’s residents have come home since its evacuation order was lifted, but some who did return have devised a creative solution to the population problem.
Locals have formed a group to make dummies to place them around the town in lieu of the many human inhabitants who have been absent since the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant disaster of March 2011.
The results are poignant.
All residents of Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture, were ordered to evacuate the area following the triple meltdown, and were given the green light to return in September 2015.
However, only 718 residents–less than 10 percent of the town’s total population–had returned to their homes as of Nov. 4 this year.
Missing their friends and neighbors, some of the returned residents started the dummy project in June this year.
Currently, five women are making mannequins, including members of local voluntary group, Nanikashitai (“I want to do something”), which numbers about 30 members.
The women gather once a month at a former elementary school building to assemble cotton-stuffed heads, wooden frames, and arms and legs made from rolled newspapers. Then, they choose outfits and dress them.
The “ages” of the figures range from two to 85, according to the women.
So far, the women have completed 28 dummies, of which more than 10 occupy seven locations, including a financial institution and a day-care facility. When they showed them at an event in the town, they had visitors name them, and they even registered them as town residents.
“We hope that the dummies will bring a smile to the faces of those who see them,” said Kaneko Takahara, 68, one of the women.
Pushing the Limit: Fukushima Fingerprint Isotope Found in Salmon from 2015
Complete results from 2015 biotic monitoring. New results are larger icons with bold/italic labels.
For the first time, the Fukushima fingerprint isotope, cesium-134 (134Cs; half-life ~ 2 years), has been detected at an extremely low level in a Canadian salmon by the InFORM project. The single sockeye salmon that tested positive was sampled from Okanagan Lake in the summer of 2015, according to scientists from the Radiation Protection Bureau at Health Canada, in cooperation with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and local First Nations. The sample was one of a few (7 out of 156 total) individual fish that had trace levels of the longer lived cesium-137 (137Cs) (30 yr half-life) that we reported on last winter. To determine if this trace 137Cs was from Fukushima or remnant from atmospheric weapons testing, InFORM reexamined these individual fish samples to see if extremely low levels of 134Cs may be present. The results of this extended analysis show that trace (0.07 Bq kg-1) levels of 134Cs were detected in one sample from Okanagan/Columbia River population. No 134Cs was detectable in the other samples. The observed levels remain well below the action level (1000 Bq kg-1) set by Health Canada guidelines.
As we reported in the winter 2016 update, 7 individual fish (out of the 156 measured) from 2015 tested positive for low levels (<1 Bq kg-1) of cesium-137 (137Cs). With its ~30 year half-life, 137Cs is still present in the environment from 20th century atmospheric weapons testing and Chernobyl in addition to the Fukushima accident. In contrast, no individual fish from the 2014 monitoring effort were found to contain detectable levels of 137Cs. This difference led the team at the Radiation Protection Bureau to conduct a more detailed investigation of some of those few positive samples to determine if 134Cs, the Fukushima fingerprint isotope, was present. Results from 5 of those 7 are now available and discussed below. The remaining two samples are still in processing.
To read more: https://fukushimainform.ca/2016/11/15/pushing-the-limit-fukushima-fingerprint-isotope-found-in-salmon-from-2015/
Mayoral race kicks off in nuke plant host city of Kashiwazaki
Masahiro Sakurai (left), a former Kashiwazaki city assemblyman, and Eiko Takeuchi, a former Kashiwazaki municipal government worker, kick off campaigning Sunday for a mayoral race set for Nov. 20.
Campaigning for the mayoral race in the city of Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, kicked off Sunday, with two candidates locking horns over whether to approve the restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant.
Masahiro Sakurai, 54, a former Kashiwazaki city assemblyman, and Eiko Takeuchi, 47, a former Kashiwazaki municipal government worker, registered their candidacies in the Nov. 20 election to choose a successor to incumbent Mayor Hiroshi Aida, who decided not to see a fourth term.
Sakurai said he would approve the restart of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s nuclear plant if assured of Kashiwazaki citizens’ safety.
Takeuchi, backed by the opposition Democratic Party and Japanese Communist Party, however, has said she would demand that the plant, which straddles Kashiwazaki and the village of Kariwa, be left offline.
Gov. Ryuichi Yoneyama, who is reluctant to allow the plant to resume operations, won the gubernatorial election last month.
1 This Month
22 June – Virtual Event –Climate Change: New Data, New Debate
Monday, June 22, 2026 2:30 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. CT
YouTube. Register here
Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
Thursday, June 25, 2026
7pm Central Time (8pm ET, 6pm MT, 5pm PT) UTC – 5
From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
26 June – Radiation Trainwreck at the NRC / Join the Protect Better Campaign – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4ZlZ5_qLSHGiLSCg8FF6Bg#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- June 2026 (193)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 