Solar energy shiningin Japan, amidst its nuclear nightmare
Japan Adds 2+ Gigawatts Of Solar PV by Energy Matters, 22 Aug 13, Japan’s love affair with solar blossoms while a massive radioactive contamination threat still looms large.
Renewable energy facilities that commenced operations during Japan’s 2012 fiscal year (1 April 2012 to March 31 2013) totaled 2.08 gigawatts capacity, equivalent to two nuclear reactors, said the nation’s Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry.
Of the 2.08 gigawatts, 1.98 gigawatts was contributed by residential, commercial and utility scale solar PV.
The Ministry describes Japan’s shift towards a renewable future as “smooth”, with an additional 1.28 gigawatts of renewables added to the nation’s energy infrastructure in April and May this year.
All told, the amount of renewable capacity approved between July 2012 and March this year was 21.09 gigawatts, meaning far more is yet to be built.
While solar is enjoying smooth sailing, the country’s nuclear industry is experiencing anything but; with crisis after crisis occurring at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power station…… http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3905
Japan getting desperate about Fukusima leaks, at last asking for overseas help
Radioactive Leaks in Japan Prompt Call for Overseas Help, Bloomberg, By Yuji Okada, Jacob Adelman & Peter Langan – Aug 21, 2013 The crippled nuclear plant at Fukushima is losing its two-year battle to contain radioactive water leaks and its owner emphasized for the first time it needs overseas expertise to help contain the disaster.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) is grappling with the worst spill of contaminated water since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant. The call for help from Zengo Aizawa, a vice president at the utility, follows a leak of 300 metric tons of irradiated water. Japan’s nuclear regulator labeled the incident “serious” and questioned Tepco’s ability to deal with the crisis. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made similar comments earlier this month.
“We will revamp contaminated-water management to tackle the issue at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant and seek expertise from within and outside of the country,” Aizawa said at a press conference last night in Tokyo. “There is much experience in decommissioning reactors outside of Japan. We need that knowledge and support.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said they are prepared to help.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-21/tepco-shares-plunge-on-report-of-serious-radiated-water-leak.html
Nuclear deterrence – a dangerous myth
Nuclear deterrence is overrated, THE HINDU RAMESH THAKUR , 23 Aug 13 The real risks and costs of having these weapons, both monetary and human, far outweigh their security benefits The Indian Navy has figured in three recent, global news items. The launch of the indigenously developed aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, expected to be operational by 2018, makes India only the fifth country after the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and France to have such capability. …. The strategic rationale is to acquire and consolidate the three legs of land, air and sea-based nuclear weapons to underpin the policy of nuclear deterrence. Unfortunately, however, the whole concept of nuclear deterrence is deeply flawed.
Desensitised
Nuclear weapons are uniquely destructive and hence uniquely threatening to our common security. There is a compelling need to challenge and overcome the reigning complacency on the nuclear risks and dangers, to sensitise policy communities to the urgency and gravity of nuclear threats and the availability of non-nuclear alternatives as anchors of national and international security.
A nuclear catastrophe could destroy us any time. Because we have learnt to live with nuclear weapons for 68 years, we have become desensitised to the gravity and immediacy of the threat. The tyranny of complacency could yet exact a fearful price if we sleepwalk our way into a nuclear Armageddon. It really is long past time to lift the shroud of the mushroom cloud from the international body politic. Continue reading
Normally rare in children, thyroid cancer in 18 Fukushima children
Thyroid cancer found in 18 Fukushima children http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20130821_06.html 20 Aug 13, Medical examinations in Fukushima Prefecture following the nuclear crisis of 2011 have detected 18 children with thyroid cancer.
The finding was reported on Tuesday by a prefectural panel examining the impact of radiation on the health of local residents.
The prefecture is giving medical checkups to all 360,000 children aged 18 or younger at the time of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March 2011.
That’s because radioactive substances released in the accident can accumulate in children’s thyroid glands, possibly increasing their risk of developing cancer. Some 210,000 children had been tested by the end of July.
Besides the 18 minors diagnosed with cancer, 25 others are suspected to have the illness.
The incidence rate of thyroid cancer in children is said to be one in hundreds of thousands. In Japan, 46 people under 20 were diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2006.The panel says it cannot determine if the accident has affected the incidence of cancer among children in Fukushima. But it has decided to set up an expert team to look into the situation.
Panel chief Hokuto Hoshi says they will carefully examine the accumulated data and individual cases so they can give explanations to residents in a responsible manner.
Dangers in removing Fukushima’s spent nuclear fuel rods
Japanese gamble Armageddon in Last Ditch Fukushima Effort, Whiteout Press, August 20, 2013. Fukushima, Japan Japan gambles the world “……….For the past two years, there have been varying and sporadic reports, some official and some unofficial, describing how the Fukushima nuclear meltdown is anything but under control. In fact, millions of gallons of radioactive wastewater continue to spill out into the Pacific to this day. And while the reactors and their safety mechanisms continue to break down, the world comes closer and closer to global Armageddon.
To stop the complete and total meltdown of Japan’s nuclear reactors, authorities have proposed a dangerous plan. The biggest problem is Fukushima’s Reactor Number 4. The reactor’s cooling pool for spent nuclear rods is located on the top floor of the TEPCO building. And that building was heavily damaged by the 2011 quake. Due to its instability, authorities say they must move the 400 tons of spent fuel rods right away.
Spent fuel rod transfers occur on a fairly regular basis, but always under the most secure and controlled setting due to the potential nuclear catastrophe that would happen if just one spent rod is mishandled. In the case of Fukushima’s Reactor 4, officials will attempt to remove 1,300 spent fuel rods from a structurally unsafe building in a highly contaminated environment.
The problems and dangers
One nuclear fallout expert, Christina Consolo, spoke to RT News to answer the outlet’s questions regarding the situation in Fukushima. She detailed a list of potential problems authorities might encounter when they attempt to move the spent rods. Those potentially catastrophic hurdles include (from RT News):
- The racks inside the pool that contain this fuel were damaged by the explosion in the early days of the accident.
- Zirconium cladding which encased the rods burned when water levels dropped, but to what extent the rods have been damaged is not known, and probably won’t be until removal is attempted.
- Saltwater cooling has caused corrosion of the pool walls, and probably the fuel rods and racks.
- The building is sinking.
- The cranes that normally lift the fuel were destroyed.
- Computer-guided removal will not be possible; everything will have to be done manually.
- TEPCO cannot attempt this process without humans, which will manage this enormous task while being bombarded with radiation during the extraction and casking.
- The process of removing each rod will have to be repeated over 1,300 times without incident.
- Moving damaged nuclear fuel under such complex conditions could result in a criticality if the rods come into close proximity to one another, which would then set off a chain reaction that cannot be stopped.
What is most likely to go wrong?
When asked what the biggest potential dangers are in removing the damaged spent fuel rods, Christina Consolo replied, “The most serious complication would be anything that leads to a nuclear chain reaction. And as outlined above, there are many different ways this could occur. In a fuel pool containing damaged rods and racks, it could potentially start up on its own at anytime. TEPCO has been incredibly lucky that this hasn’t happened so far.”
She also expressed concern for the human workers that will have to submerse themselves into a highly radioactive environment and then perform extremely precise movements. Not only might their senses and thinking be affected, but their protective gear will make the entire operation somewhat clumsy.
“My second biggest concern would be the physical and mental fitness of the workers that will be in such close proximity to exposed fuel during this extraction process,” Consolo told RT News, “They will be the ones guiding this operation and will need to be in the highest state of alertness to have any chance at all of executing this plan manually and successfully. Many of their senses, most importantly eyesight, will be hindered by the apparatus that will need to be worn during their exposure to prevent immediate death from lifting compromised fuel rods out of the pool.” http://www.whiteoutpress.com/articles/q32013/japanese-gamble-armageddon-in-last-ditch-fukushima-effort/
The most absurd of Japan’s pro nuclear ppropaganda
Watch the Japanese propaganda video that promises radiation won’t harm you if you just “laugh” http://www.naturalnews.com/041720_Fukushima_radiation_Japanese_government_propaganda_brainwashing.html#ixzz2cjArWiTe It is a video of Dr. Shunichi Yamashita — now known as “Dr. Brainwasher” — giving a propaganda lecture on March 21, 2011 in Fukushima City.
Watch Dr. Brainwasher utter some of these outrageous lies in the following video:
Unbelievable Comment by Mr. Yamashita
This blogspot website has located and translated several key brainwashing phrases uttered by Dr. Yamashita as part of the Japanese government’s propaganda campaign. The following statements span several online videos featuring “Dr. Brainwasher.” Each of these statements is a total propaganda fabrication. The comments in ALL CAPS are my own: Continue reading
Mark Willacy, in Tokyo, on the farce that is TEPCO’s Fukushima script
I have learned through my many dealings with TEPCO that this is a company rooted deep in denial. It is a firm that has apparently put public relations before disaster planning.
In the first act we are confronted with outright denial. The Fukushima plant is stable, the reactors are under control. There is no problem. In the second act a problem is exposed in all its radioactive glory – it could be a nuclear water leak, or contaminated groundwater leeching into the Pacific, or a power failure to pools cooling thousands of toxic fuel rods, or mysterious steam oozing from a shattered reactor building (all have happened). In the final act, a line of sober-faced TEPCO officials fills the stage. They choreograph their bows, and the dialogue begins.
“We apologise again for causing anxiety among the public.”
At the start of this crisis, it was keeping water out of the Fukushima plant that was TEPCO’s major failing. Now, it is keeping water in. What next in this endless loop of black farce?
Sorry, sorry, sorry: As the nuclear radiation crisis at Fukushima deepens, at least TEPCO know the script http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/sorry-sorry-sorry-as-the-nuclear-radiation-crisis-at-fukushima-deepens-at-least-tepco-know-the-script-8778017.html MARK WILLACY Wednesday 21 August 2013
This latest leak comes after years of farcical mismanagement It was a stunning contortion of logic, performed with such a straight face that at first I thought Junichi Matsumoto was having me on.
“Yes, taking extra safety measures [at Fukushima] would have been interpreted as TEPCO being worried about a tsunami,” said the senior TEPCO official. “If we had built seawalls in front of the plant…it would’ve made [local residents] worry.” Continue reading
First hand witness tells of government brainwashing on Fukushima radiation
those big US corporations actually asked for their people who were within 80 km (even 100 km) to evacuate. The Fukushima government had possession of the forecast chart of radiation levels in the air, but they didn’t publish them. On the contrary, they held a speaking tour to advocate that there was no need to worry about radiation.
Natural News exclusive: Fukushima victim exposes Japanese government’s attempted bizarre brainwashing of radiation victims http://www.naturalnews.com/041720_Fukushima_radiation_Japanese_government_propaganda_brainwashing.html#ixzz2cjAxwtYH Wednesday, August 21, 2013 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com
The following is a first-person account of the attempt by the Japanese government to brainwash victims of Fukushima radiation poisoning into believing radiation would not harm them if they simply “smile.” Natural News is the first U.S. news source to publish this account in English. The name of the original author is Uwamae Masako, who now lives in Taiwan after escaping Fukushima and leaving behind many friends and family members.
As you’ll see below, the Japanese government’s Fukushima Radiation Health Risk Advisor uses a hypnotic, droning speech pattern to try to convince his audience of absolutely bizarre quack science beliefs like “people who drink aren’t affected by radiation” or that “laughter will remove your radiation phobia.”
What follows is a true, firsthand account.
I’m a mother who has two kids. I lived in Koriyama, Fukushima. When the earthquake happened, I heard from the radio that the nuclear plant exploded. “We can’t go back to Koriyama anymore,” was the first thought came to my mind. Sendai, where my husband worked, was not a safe place, either. Although the distance between the nuclear plant and Sendai is about 120 km, the wind direction made it not safe there. Continue reading
Grave new warning about Fukushima’s radioactive water leaks
Japan to issue gravest Fukushima nuclear warning in two years Toronto Sun, KENTARO HAMADA AND JAMES TOPHAM, REUTERS, AUGUST 21, 2013 03 TOKYO – Japan will dramatically raise its warning about the severity of a toxic water leak at the Fukushima nuclear plant, its nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday, its most serious action since the plant was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
The deepening crisis at the Fukushima plant will be upgraded from a level 1 “anomaly” to a level three “serious incident” on an international scale for radiological releases, a spokesman for Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said.
That will mark the first time Japan has issued a warning on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) since three reactor meltdowns after the massive quake in March 2011.
Water still leaking from the plant is so contaminated that a person standing close to it for an hour would receive five times the annual recommended limit for nuclear workers in a year…… The leak, which has not been plugged, is so contaminated that a person standing 50 cm (1.6 feet) away would, within an hour, receive a radiation dose five times the average annual global limit for nuclear workers.
After 10 hours, a worker in that proximity to the leak would develop radiation sickness with symptoms including nausea and a drop in white blood cells.
Each one-step INES increase represents a tenfold increase in severity, according to a factsheet on the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency. http://www.torontosun.com/2013/08/21/japan-to-issue-gravest-fukushima-nuclear-warning-in-two-years
Truth the first casualty in uncontrolled catastrophe at Fukushima
Radiation spreading
As detailed by two Whiteout Press articles, one in 2012 and one in 2013, the effects of the Fukushima meltdown are still being felt across the US. …..Americans getting sick
Quietly left out of most news headlines is the fact that 70,000 US military personnel and their families have been invited to join a class action lawsuit against the Fukushima utility company (TEPCO) that owned the power plants and reactors that broke-down after an earthquake struck Japan. The suit seeks $2 billion in damages, most especially for the thousands of US first responders who were stationed in Japan and South Korea at the time. On top of that, hundreds of Alaska Airlines flight attendants have file a complaint citing rampant and mysterious skin lesions and numerous cases of their hair falling out. There have been 280 documented cases of sickened attendants already.
Two of the more eye-opening revelations being disclosed lately include the accusation by environmental activists that independent measurements smuggled out of Fukushima have shown radiation levels ten-times higher than the numbers being released by the US and Japanese governments. Authorities are also hesitant to remind Americans that 100 million tons of radioactive debris continues to wash up on America’s shores. Most heartbreaking were the findings published in March 2013 by the Open Journal of Pediatrics. Test results showed a spike in hypothyroidism in newborns across the western United States……….
For complete details, read the Whiteout Press articles, ‘Fukushima Radiation Poisoning infecting US’ and ‘US Babies suffering Radiation Poisoning from Fukushima’. http://www.whiteoutpress.com/articles/q32013/japanese-gamble-armageddon-in-last-ditch-fukushima-effort/
BBC Radio shuts up Fukushima Diary author
“The expert” kept on talking. Said, “Fukushima is much much smaller than Chernobyl. You can’t compare.” then I heard the ending music. I was given 0 question to answer.
[Column] The reason why I published only one article today -Invited by BBC and given 0 sec to talk on the radio show http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/08/column-the-reason-why-i-
published-only-one-article-today-invited-by-bbc-and-given-0-second-to-talk-on-the-radio-show/ Iori Mochizuki August 21st, 2013 In the quiet morning of 8/21/2013, I was communicating with my readers on Twitter.
Suddenly a lady talked to me if I can be on BBC at 19:30 in JST. After nearly 2 years blank, BBC and some other international media are coming back to cover Fukushima. Since this morning, BBC has been featuring the latest leakage of 300m3 water.
I talked to her on the phone and we arranged the schedule. She was supposed to call me in 2 hours from that time.
She was nice and professional. She asked me what I think about the leakage. I answered this is only the beginning.When she asked me if I trust what government says, I laughed and said obviously no. She asked me why.
I was “Because the government has been saying no meltdown, no meltout was going on. There is no short term health effect etc. Then last year, the chief cabinet secretary of Japan said they didn’t announce Fukushima was having meltdown because he thought everyone was already aware of it.”.
She said, “Sure.”.
It was the radio show “World Have Your Say [URL]“.
We had 30 mins. Japanese commentators found each other on Twitter and we waited for them to call me.
I was supposed to talk on the phone.
I found the program relatively fair in the beginning except for the “coughing” on the background. (Is it normal to catch someone’s coughing on the radio show of BBC ?) and they started leaning to the “safer” side as it went toward the end. Continue reading
Chris Busby explains impact of radioactive water on Fukushima coast
| Nevertheless, the sea-to-land effect is real. And anyone living within 1km of the coast to at least 200km north or south of Fukushima should get out. They should evacuate inland. It is not eating the fish and shellfish that gets you – it’s breathing.
|
Fukushima’s highly radioactive puddles
Fukushima Now Surrounded By Extremely Radioactive Puddles http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/08/fukushimas-now-surrounded-by-extremely-radioactive-puddles/ ADAM CLARK ESTES 21 AUG 13 A water tank at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan apparently sprung a leak recently. The latest reports from the northern prefecture say that puddles have collected all around the plant, and the implication is clear. Fukushima has a whole new radioactive water problem.
The amount of radiation detected in the puddles is not insignificant. TEPCO measured the level at 100 millisieverts per hour, which the AFP describes as “extremely high radiation levels.” To put that into persecptive 100 millisieverts per year is enough to greatly increase the risk of cancer. While they clean up the mess, TEPCO denies that the water is leaking to the ocean. The specifics, however, are particularly unnerving since a Japanese official drank water from a puddle at Fukushima to prove that it was safe. That’s clearly no longer the case.
The extremely radioactive puddle problem does not appear to be linked to Fukushima’s radioactive groundwater situation. Radioactive water is leaking out of the facility at a troubling rate, enough for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the situation as an “urgent problem.” Officials are considering building a giant wall of ice to contain the contaminated groundwater, but as Monday’s leak makes clear, that won’t do anything against new leaks. It’s unclear what will. [AFP]
Fukushima nuclear plant springs yet another radioactive leak
New Leak Reported At Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Plant http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/20/213804646/new-leak-reported-at-japan-s-fukushima-nuclear-plant by GEOFF BRUMFIEL Operatorsare reporting a fresh leak of contaminated water from the grounds of the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Japan’s coast.In 2011, a tsunami sparked meltdowns at the plant, and authorities have had to pump in water ever since to keep the melted nuclear fuel cool. After passing through the reactors, the contaminated water is decontaminated and put into storage until it can be recirculated through the reactor cores.
But it keeps leaking out. In April, it seeped from a reservoir. And a few weeks ago, the Japanese government warned that the plant itself was leaking around 80,000 gallons of contaminated ground water every day into the Pacific Ocean.
This time, the Tokyo Electric Power Company says an additional 80,000 gallons of contaminated water have spewed from a metal holding tank.
NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster, reports says it’s the largest such leak at Fukushima since 2011. It adds that “Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has assessed the problem as a level 1 incident, the 2nd-lowest on an 8-point international scale.” The Fukushima accident as a whole has already been reported to international authorities as a level 7, or “major accident.”
The industry publication World Nuclear News says the leak was first spotted Monday morning local time, and that workers are removing earth around the tanks in an effort to prevent the contaminated water from pouring into the Pacific Ocean. The utility is also pumping the remaining water from the leaking tank into other tanks nearby.
To try and stop the worst of the Fukushima leaks, TEPCO is looking into building an underground wall of frozen earth around the plant.
“Decommissioning” -a pretty word for the nightmare that is Fukushima nuclear clean-up
the inevitable discourse manipulation – something that we have seen in the media ever since this disaster occurred. “Decommission the plant” suggests some calm and ordered scientific process akin to shutting down and defueling an old reactor which has reached the end of its design life. It sparks images of a wise nuclear engineer in a lab coat consulting a document, discussing some issue with a worker in brilliant white overalls with a Tepco logo, wearing a white hard-hat. The reality is that this is a nightmare disaster area where no one has the slightest idea what to do and which has always been out of control. All that they can do is continue to pump in the seawater to hope that the various lumps of molten fuel will not increase their rate of fissioning. And pray.
Pump and pray: Tepco might have to pour water on Fukushima wreckage forever Science Alert, CHRISTOPHER BUSBY 19 AUGUST 2013 Fukushima is a nightmare disaster area, and no one has the slightest idea what to do. The game is to prevent the crippled nuclear plant from turning into an “open-air super reactor spectacular” which would result in a hazardous, melted catastrophe…..
it is quite clear that the reactors are no longer containing the molten fuel – some proportion of which is now in the ground underneath them. Both this material and the remaining material in what was the containment are very hot and are fissioning. Tepco is quite aware – and so is everyone else in the know – that the only hope of preventing what could become an open-air super reactor spectacular is to cool the fuel, the lumps of fuel distributed throughout the system, mainly in the holed pressure vessels, and also in the spent fuel tanks and in the ground under the reactors.
That all this is fissioning away merrily (though at a low level) is clear from the occasional reports of short half life nuclides like the radioXenons. The game is to prevent it all turning into the open air super reactor located somewhere under the ground. To do this, they have to pump vast amounts of water into the reactors, the fuel pond and generally all over the area where they think the stuff is or might be. This means seawater since luckily they are near the sea. But they are also unluckily near the sea – since you cannot pump the sea onto the land without it wanting to flow back into the sea.
Now a good proportion of the radioactive elements, the radionuclides, are soluble in water. Continue reading
1 This Month
19 May – Webinar No To Nuclear: Why Nuclear Power Destroys Lives, Derails Climate Progress and Provokes War
1 June Webinar – The High Cost of Nuclear Power – Register
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
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